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Eleven short stories inspired by the Tube, presented by the Evening Standard and Borough Press.

This collection of short stories distils the sweat and tears of the daily commute, along with the occasional magic of a Tube journey.

Underground: Tales for London features original short stories by London-loving authors from across the world.

Each story will be available to Evening Standard readers as a free excerpt at standard.co.uk. We kicked off with The Piccadilly Predicament by Lionel Shriver and a new story will be available to download each week.

Read an extract from the fourth story below...

It’s a Friday halfway through December, my day off from my shit job.

I’ve got a cold, and would have languished in my lumpy, scratchy bed, but Paul Fildes has summoned me to Amersham.

He wants to have a discussion about Christmas, but not over the phone, because he finds our phone calls impossible. When I fall silent, it’s like I’m howling in pain, and he can’t reach me.

I take ages getting dressed, ie, even longer than usual. I have finally gone for my black velvet dress with the flouncy skirt, bottle-green tights and my lace-up boots. Amethyst lipstick. My strange curly hair in spikes.

My Napoleon coat, black beret, black leather gloves. My green carpet bag, yes, the same green as my tights.

Paul Fildes says I wear “dressing-up” clothes, that it’s a sign of my arrested development. He has offered to take me shopping, for a suit, blouses, interview clothes. It would be fun to try things on in classy boutiques instead of charity shops, but I’m trying to disentangle myself from Paul Fildes.

Leaving my room in disarray, I creep out of the house that I share with around five other humans. (As they’re mainly invisible, I can’t be more precise.) It’s biting cold, with a rose-gold sun throwing long black shadows. I pick up my wages from Mingles, and head for Aldgate.

Outside the station, a man in a gold paper crown is holding out a white paper cup. He has decorated his dog with tinsel, and the dog is all agitated, shaking and pawing himself, trying to get the stuff off. I drop a 20p piece into the man’s paper cup. He frowns.

‘Is that all you can afford, love?’

Totally thrown, I dig in my bag for the brown envelope I’ve just been given, which I know contains 10 £20 notes, which I’m planning to hand over to Paul Fildes, and two tenners, which need to last me a whole week.

“Joking!” He’s laughing, putting his hand over mine, to stop me opening the envelope. I flee into the station.

The Metropolitan Line is a maroon colour, and Paul Fildes and I are marooned on either end of it. The train is waiting, silent and stately. I’m the first one on, and it feels like I’m spying on a secret world.

Each way, the walk-through carriages, on and on, repeating themselves, the yellow poles, the yellow nooses, and the black strips saying AMERSHAM, AMERSHAM, AMERSHAM.

Amersham is the resting place of Ruth Ellis, the last woman in Britain to be hanged. I know this because the last time I went to Amersham, Paul Fildes took me to see Ruth’s grave.

I cringe, and sit down, putting my bag on the seat next to me, and as I pull off my hat and gloves I remember the cup man’s raw, chapped fingers, and cringe again. I kind of hate him, and hate myself for hating someone who’s slipped through the cracks and hung on to his sense of humour.

The train starts moving, and I gaze up at the yellow nooses, rehearsing my speech to Paul Fildes.

“You have been so kind ...”

“You are a wonderful, generous person, and I know that...”

“Paul, I need to be straight with you...”

Underground: Tales for London is available from Borough Press