'Underground' by Paul Francis

Under Ground

You’d never guess. Beneath the contoured slopes,
green folds descending to the valley floor,
a catacomb of filth. Two shafts drove down,

one each side of the river, then across
below the bed. A tunnel bridged the gap
from Highley here to Alveley, the two

bolted together by a subterranean link.
A hundred years of grubbing, chipping, graft
are covered over by oblivious clay.

The railway which had started off a boom
is cloaked in cobwebs, dusted off, revived
at weekends, puffing out nostalgic steam.

Five years after the final pit lamp died
a girl at home was kidnapped from her bed
and driven off, to sixty miles away.

Not any girl. ‘Heiress’ the paper said.
Her dad’s coach business going well,
so when he died she got the legacy.

You’d never guess. An ordinary bloke
who’d had a go at building, doing odd jobs.
His name – you’ll like this bit – was Nappey.

Read it, once. But then imagine, count
how many times the kids at school would laugh.
When his daughter’s born he has it changed.

So it’s Neilson that reads the article.
How Lesley Whittle, seventeen, is worth
eighty-two thousand quid. He waits three years.

How does that work? What surface reasoning
can sift the ore, or analyse the mix
of grievance with entitlement?

He plans, he moves, he drives her in the dark.
Her brother gets the note, prepares to trade:
just fifty thousand for his sister’s life.

He’s late. “Look for a flashing torch” it said.
There’s not a glimmer. It looks desolate.
A hoax maybe, the police announce.

There’s door to door, there’s sniffer dogs.
Enquiries proceed in fog for weeks
until they find her, hanging in a drain.

Two hundred yards away, she is, from where
her brother came to ransom her. Just why
they’ve not searched there is anybody’s guess.

Detectives deal in hunches. Not a science
- but it’s still possible to get it wrong.
Later, the Chief is put back on the beat.

Neilson’s caught by chance. Just questioning,
a sawn-off shotgun, then a hi-jacked car.
Locals dive in. He’s lucky to survive.

At intervals, Home Secretaries confirm
he won’t come out. Motor Neurone disease
will intervene to settle any doubts.

He goes to the High Court, aged 72.
His hands and legs are useless, so he asks
to have his term cut down to thirty years.

But terror stalks us all. Judges don’t see
a frail old man. BLACK PANTHER, still, in bold,
in capitals, stalking their memories.

Any day now, discreetly, with a spade,
we’ll put him where the pit is, out of mind,
where she is buried in oblivious clay.