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‘No,’ she said. ‘They didn’t let me go. Two more of them arrived.’

10
    T HE UNDERGROUND SPACE IS VAST AND DARK AND SMELLS of decay, like the cathedral of a city whose inhabitants are long since dead. The day outside was bright and clear, close to noon. Down here, the darkness is all consuming and time has become meaningless. The black-clad figure moves slowly and the huge structure amplifies sound like the inside of a great shell. The echo of each footstep seems to dance away into the distance, as though endlessly repeating itself somewhere out of earshot. The chamber feels like a crypt.
    â€˜Perfect,’ says a voice.
    The water, twenty feet below the searching eyes, looks black as moleskin in the light of the torch. It’s shining, giving off the peculiar odour of petrol and salt water that always seems to hover around a river when the tide is heading out. Except this water never moves. This water is still as death.
    A sudden sound above. Airborne creatures live in here, whether birds or bats or something new entirely, it’s impossible to tell. A stone or piece of brickwork falls into the water. The sound, like glass breaking, cuts through the silence so sharply the air seems to shimmer around it for a moment. Then all is still again.
    As the figure in black moves on, the smell seems to evolve. Humanity, street drugs and paraffin: echoes, all of them. It’s been years since anyone has been down here. Years, probably, since anyone has even remembered it was once a home.

    And yet there are traces, as the footsteps move on, of the people this vaulted space once knew. A lantern with a candle stub inside it, a small, upturned calor-gas stove. The people made dens for themselves with boxes, old curtains, even what looks like a hospital screen. They divided up the huge space to give themselves territory, erected walls for privacy, and most of their structures still exist. Along this long, suspended gallery are a dozen or more hiding places.
    A discarded sheet of polythene moves in a sudden breeze and it sounds like the rattle of old bones. The polythene marks the way. The figure reaches out and pushes it to one side. Then steps through.
    A smaller space. Still cold, damp and dark, but more containable. There is a mattress on the floor, even an old fold-up chair.
    â€˜Perfect,’ whispers the voice again. Then, softer still, ‘Lacey, I’m home.’

11
    I TALKED TO RONA FOR MORE THAN AN HOUR. WHEN WE WERE tired of watching the river, we got up and wandered down Bankside. At the bridge we turned back again and joined the crowds admiring the black and white, surprisingly tiny, circular theatre. Everything she told me was off the record. She wasn’t prepared to press charges, just wanted someone to talk to. She told me how two more boys had arrived, the older one she thought was seventeen, the younger, her age – fifteen. The five boys had stripped her naked and then the two new arrivals had taken turns to rape her. Then they’d forced her to kneel at the foot of the bed and perform fellatio on each of them. It was an act, she told me, known as a lineup. When that was over, the oldest of the boys had turned her face-down on the bed and raped her anally. Only when they saw how much she was bleeding did they let her go. Just before she half crawled out of the front door, Miles had given her the money for her bus fare home.
    We both knew this case was never coming to court. Rona knew other girls who’d suffered in the same way, she knew the form. If she brought charges against the boys, they’d either deny anything had happened or they’d claim she consented. The fact that she already had a sexual relationship with one of the boys and had gone willingly to his flat would be held against her. The boys had used condoms, again implying some level of consent. Even if they were charged, they were young and could well be released on bail and be
back in the