The Unquiet Dead. Gay Longworth

       Prologue

      Jessie sensed the impact before she heard it. It was the smell. The smell of hot steel, of friction, of fear. Or was it even before the smell, before she’d seen the train’s headlights emerge from the gloom or heard its lugubrious rattle? She was deep underground at Oxford Circus, waiting for the Bakerloo line that would take her to Paddington and the 11.15 train to Heathrow. As she made her way to the point of impact, she knew from the look on the passengers’ faces that she wasn’t going to make that train and she wasn’t going to be there to welcome her brother home from Africa.

      A young woman, about Jessie’s age, was lying on the track facing up; her eyes were open and a thin trickle of blood seeped out of the corner of her mouth. She was alive. Jessie sent for the paramedics, cleared the shocked onlookers and summoned the underground staff to shut down the power and form a barrier before she jumped down on to the track. It wasn’t until she was on the filthy cement floor that she saw what she could not have seen from the height of the platform. The woman stared up at her, but the lower portion of her body was facing down. As the train had rolled her along the track, she’d been twisted around like dough.

      ‘It’s okay,’ said the woman. ‘I’m okay. It doesn’t hurt.’

      Jessie couldn’t move for a moment. Was it a miracle or diabolical that the woman was still alive?

      ‘The doctors are coming,’ said Jessie finally, knowing it was futile. There was nothing anyone could do.

      ‘I’m okay,’ the woman said again. ‘It doesn’t hurt.’

      ‘My name is Jessie Driver, I’m a detective with the CID. Can you tell me your name?’

      ‘Harriet.’ A blood bubble burst on her lips. Jessie wiped it away.

      ‘Harriet, I’m not a doctor, but I think you are in serious trouble. Is there anyone I can call for you, anyone you’d like to talk to?’

      Harriet closed her eyes.

      ‘Stay with me,’ said Jessie. ‘The paramedics are here.’

      It didn’t take very long for the paramedic team to confirm what Jessie already knew. The woman lying misshapen at her feet was living on borrowed time. Her spine had twisted around itself, snapping in two. That was why there was no pain; she had no feeling at all. Her midriff had been wrung out, her insides with it.

      ‘The weight of the train is keeping her alive, containing the damage,’ said the paramedic. ‘As soon as we move the train, the sudden haemorrhage from her ruptured organs will cause a massive heart attack. She is going to die. She should be dead already. She’s a jumper, right?’

      ‘I don’t know,’ said Jessie.

      The paramedic glanced down at the tracks. ‘Well, tell her to make her peace, she hasn’t got very long.’

      Harriet had long dark hair and startling blue eyes, but the pressure was building inside her and the whites of her eyes were now flecked with blood. Jessie stroked her hair as she delivered the paramedic’s message. Jessie didn’t know what response she was expecting, but it certainly wasn’t a smile.

      ‘I feel so calm.’

      It’s shock, Jessie wanted to say, but all she could do was smile back.

      ‘I’m sorry to have caused so much trouble.’

      ‘Let me call someone – your parents?’

      ‘No.’

      Something terrible had happened to this woman, something that made jettisoning herself off a platform into the path of a train easier than stepping back. Something, or someone.

      ‘I