Neverwhere

An unnamed woman has been running for her life for the past four days. She is “more tired than a body could stand” (16), and she finds what she hopes is a safe place to sleep. 

Meanwhile, two men, Mr. Croup and Mr. Vandemar, are discussing Mr. Ross. They have hired him to act as their metaphorical canary, in the same way that a canary was traditionally sent into a mine shaft ahead of workers to determine if dangerous gases had leeched into the air below ground. Mr. Croup and Mr. Vandemar like Mr. Ross for his willingness to act as their canary, even though he doesn’t know it, as well as for his willingness to kill.

The narrative returns to Richard. It has been three years since he moved to London, and while he found the city overwhelming at first, he has gotten so used to it that it has faded into the background for him. He has a fiancé, a young woman named Jessica. They met at the Louvre two years ago, and Jessica saw a lot of potential in him. She began to instruct him on how to live his life―what to wear, what to read, what events to attend. After a year, she told him to propose, so he did. 

On this day, Richard is supposed to have dinner with Jessica and her boss, Mr. Stockton. Jessica is very adamant about Richard impressing her boss, so she asked him to get a reservation at a fancy restaurant. However, when he calls to confirm, he’s dismayed to find he never actually made the reservation, and that a table for three is unavailable.

Door, the young woman who had been running at the beginning of the chapter, is dreaming about her family. In the dream, her mother tells her that she’s in immediate danger, so Door wakes up. That’s when Mr. Ross attacks, stabbing her in the shoulder. She knows she must kill him to be safe, so she calls upon her family’s power to open magic doors: “Until that moment, she had never thought she could do it. […] But she reached up one hand to his chest, and she opened…” (27). Unfortunately, she is not safe; Mr. Croup and Mr. Vandemar were watching the whole thing. Door knees Croup in the groin and runs. Croup and Vandemar follow her at a leisurely pace because the trail of blood she’s leaving makes it easy to track her.

It’s the end of the day, and Richard’s rushing from his office because he lost track of time and must make it home to meet Jessica before the dinner with Mr. Stockton. His coworker Garry is upset because they were supposed to get drinks to discuss work but agrees to get drinks with Richard on Monday. As he exits the building, he says “Doors” (28). 

Richard makes it back to his apartment to change just as Jessica arrives. He thinks about how Jessica does not like his apartment, so they often spend the night at hers. He thinks about how they say they love each other, but he does not believe it’s true. 

Door finds herself at a dead end, feeling too weak to open another door. Croup and Vandemar close in, so Door summons the remainder of her strength to open a door―but instead of thinking of a location, she thinks of finding someone safe.

As Richard and Jessica head to the restaurant, Jessica is frustrated that he was only able to secure the table by offering extra money to the restaurant. Suddenly, Door stumbles out of a wall and falls at their feet. Jessica tries to simply pass by, more concerned about being late to dinner, but Richard stops. Eager to move along, Jessica suggests calling an ambulance, but Door begs Richard not to take her to a hospital. He picks up Door, intent on bringing her to his flat, and Jessica threatens to end their engagement if he doesn’t come to dinner. Richard turns and carries Door home, where she falls asleep.

Richard dreams that he is in a sewer, fighting a massive beast that gores him. As his dream-self perishes in the sewer water, Door wakes him. She asks, “Whose barony is this? Whose fiefdom?”; when Richard gives his address, she looks out the window and says, “I’m in London Above” (40-41). 

Richard helps her bandage her arm in the bathroom. When someone comes to his front door, Richard assumes that it is Jessica and asks Door to stay behind in the bathroom. However, upon opening the front door, he finds two men dressed in slightly off-putting suits—Mr. Croup and Mr. Vandemar. They introduce themselves as brothers, but Richard doesn’t believe this because they have different surnames. They claim to be searching for their sister and hand him a leaflet with a picture of Door; her name is listed as Doreen. Richard insists that he hasn’t seen her, but Mr. Vandemar bursts into the apartment and begins searching. Distressed, Richard follows him to the bathroom where Door is hiding, but when Mr. Vandemar enters, Door is gone and the room is perfectly clean. 

Mr. Vandemar continues searching the apartment amidst Richard’s threats to call the police. Croup and Vandemar leave, but they don’t believe Richard hasn’t seen Door; Vandemar could smell Door’s scent. In the apartment, Richard’s answering machine picks up a call from Jessica, and Richard tries to talk to her, but his phone line has been cut by Mr. Croup. She leaves a message saying that she is breaking up with him, just as Door reappears.

Door summons a pigeon to Richard’s window with breadcrumbs and catches it. She asks the pigeon to locate the Marquis de Carabas, and after it leaves, she pulls Mansfield Park from Richard’s shelf―a book he wasn’t aware he owned―and sits down to read. A rat soon arrives with a reply from the Marquis attached to its side; the message contains directions to the Marquis’s location. Richard goes in Door’s stead, as it isn’t safe for her to travel alone, and he meets the Marquis, a dark-skinned man in all black. He tells Richard that Door’s family was killed and then asks what Door wants from him. Richard says that Door wants the Marquis to escort her back to her home and find her a bodyguard, and she promises a large favor in return. The Marquis leads Richard underground, talking to himself about how he must get Door to the Floating Market that is two days away. Whenever Richard asks a question, the Marquis tells him, “You are in enough trouble already” (58) and refuses to answer. The Marquis leads them up a rusty set of iron rungs, and suddenly Richard finds himself climbing the side of a tall building.

At the top of the building, they meet a feather-coated man named Old Bailey. The Marquis and Old Bailey don’t seem to get along, but the former demands that, as a favor owed, the latter keep a small box safe for him. After the transaction is completed, the Marquis and Richard go through a door and down a long staircase and come out in a broom closet in Richard’s apartment building. When Richard looks behind them, he can’t see any stairs or doors in the closet. Inside his apartment, Door thanks Richard for his help and apologizes for getting him involved. Then she and the Marquis disappear.

Richard fantasizes about making up with Jessica and even tries to call her after he replaces the phone Mr. Croup damaged, but her phone is turned off. He thinks about how her parents never liked him and thought she could find someone better to marry, and about how his own parents are dead. 

On Monday morning, he oversleeps because his alarm doesn’t go off, and he rushes out the door to go to work. He tries to hail a cab but two ignore him, the second just barely missing him when he runs into the road to flag it down. Richard decides to take the subway, but when he tries to buy a ticket, the ticket machines fail to react. He goes to the service desk, but the man behind the desk is on the phone and doesn’t pay any attention to him. Richard jumps over the barrier without paying, and no one stops him. He almost makes it onto the train, but because of the crowd constantly pushing him backward, only his arm manages to get inside the doors before they close. The train pulls him along the platform until his sleeve rips and he falls, skinning his hand and knee. 

He finally walks to work, arriving at about 10:30 am. He apologizes for being late, but no one responds. When he gets to his desk, all his things are gone and his desk is being removed. When he tries to find out what’s going on, his colleague Sylvia doesn’t seem to know who he is; she seems to quickly forget he’s even in the room. Richard finds Garry, who seems to not see him at first, and asks if he’s been fired, but when the man introduces himself as though they’ve never met, Richard becomes angry and leaves the office.

He goes up the street to Jessica’s office, but the receptionist there seems not to see him. He bypasses her and goes straight to Jessica’s office, but when he gets there and explains what kind of morning he’s had, Jessica doesn’t recognize him. 

Frustrated, Richard goes home, draws a bath, and climbs in. That’s when he hears people enter his apartment; someone is showing the place to potential new tenants. As Richard tries to cover himself with only a washcloth, three people walk right into the bathroom, talking as if they can’t see him in the tub. The visitors decide to take the apartment, even though he’s standing there protesting that it’s his home. 

After they leave, Richard’s phone rings; it’s Mr. Croup. He tells Richard that he and Mr. Vandemar suspect Door was at his apartment. He then says they’re going to kill him. When Richard says he’ll call the police to report their threat. Mr. Croup says, “You can call anyone you wish. But I’d hate you to think we were making a threat. Neither myself nor Mr. Vandemar make threats […] We’re making a promise” (76). He hangs up the phone. When Richard immediately calls the police, the dispatcher can’t hear him.

He packs a bag and leaves, thinking that Door knew this was what would happen to Richard. After trying and failing to retrieve money from his bank account, Richard manages to catch the attention of an unhoused man. Shocked someone can see him, Richard asks if the man knows about Door or the Floating Market. Without answering, the man tells Richard to follow him into some abandoned basement apartments. There, they meet a man covered in fur, whom the unhoused man addresses as Lord Rat-speaker. When the unhoused man tells Lord Rat-speaker that Richard is from “the Upside” (79) and is asking about Door, Lord Rat-speaker puts a blade to Richard’s throat.

It’s the night of the Floating Market, and Mr. Croup and Mr. Vandemar are milling about in the abandoned hospital where they live. The phone rings, and Mr. Croup answers, appearing unhappy about who’s on the other end. He promises to kill Door after the market, but the voice on the other end of the phone—their employer—tells him that their assignment is no longer to kill Door because the employer needs her for an unspecified purpose. The speaker tells Mr. Croup that Door is planning to hire a bodyguard, and Mr. Croup tells Mr. Vandemar that they’ll do the same―intending to hire someone who can become Door’s bodyguard and bring her to them.

Meanwhile, Lord Rat-speaker accuses Richard of being a spy as a young woman steals his bag and begins picking through his belongings. Richard notices that people throughout the basement room are bowing and that a small shape is making its way toward him. It’s a rat. It winks at Richard and squeaks to Lord Rat-speaker, who picks it up and listens as the rat continues to chitter. The rat, named Master Longtail, is the same one that bore a message from the Marquis de Carabas to Door. He tells Lord Rat-speaker to spare Richard and lead him to the Floating Market. Lord Rat-speaker assigns this task to another rat-speaker named Anaesthesia, the young woman who had taken Richard’s bag. 

On the way to the market, Richard learns that Anaesthesia is originally from London Above, but she left because of a bad home life and was taken in by the rats. Richard asks if she’s ever thought of going back to the real world, and she tells him that one can exist either in London Above or London Below but not in both. This is why no one from London Above can see him; he no longer exists there. Anaesthesia also tells Richard that Door comes from the House of Arch, an important family. When Richard asks about the Floating Market, Anaesthesia says she’s afraid of crossing the Knightsbridge, which they must take to reach the market.

Meanwhile, Door and the Marquis de Carabas go through a door in an old alleyway that will lead to her home, the House Without Doors. The house was originally created by her grandfather, and the rooms exist in various locations, all linked by pictures on the walls of the entrance hall. Door remembers going through that door a few days before and finding her whole family dead. She and the Marquis are there to find her father’s journal. Her father, Lord Portico, kept a video journal, and Door hopes there are clues in it about who ordered her family’s murder. As they step through different doors, they experience Door’s memory of finding her brother dead, as well as her mother and sister gardening right before they are killed. These memories cause physical pain to both her and the Marquis.

Door and the Marquis find the journal in a secret cabinet drawer; Door is unsure how she missed it when she was last in the room. The last journal entry is from the day Door’s family was killed. In the beginning, Lord Portico talks about how he believes the Underside should no longer be divided into factions. Door fast forwards until she reaches her father’s final message. He tells Door to go to Islington—someone or something she can trust—and avenge her family. At the end, her father walks off screen because of a loud bang, and the last shot is blood splashing across the wall. Door tells the Marquis that she thought Islington was just a legend, but the Marquis tells her that’s not the case and that they have to hurry to the market to find her a bodyguard.

Mr. Croup and Mr. Vandemar go to visit a weapons enthusiast named Varney. With Mr. Vandemar holding him at knifepoint, they ask if he plans to audition to be Door’s bodyguard. They tell him to become her guard at all costs, and when the time comes, he will hand her over. If he doesn’t do as they say, they’ll hurt and kill him, so he agrees.

Richard and Anaesthesia are nearly at the market, and her anxiety about crossing the bridge is growing. Richard asks why she’s scared if she’s been to the Floating Market before, and she tells him the market is always in a different location. The last one she attended was inside Big Ben; she traded some items for the quartz bead necklace she wears. They reach the bridge, which appears to span a black void, and Richard begins to share Anaesthesia’s fear. Varney comes up behind them and pushes Richard to the ground so he can cross. Anaesthesia reveals that the best way to cross the bridge is in groups, for safety, and a beautiful, leather-clad woman walking up offers to cross with them. The three make their way over the bridge as darkness and nightmares envelop them; Richard hallucinates a number of things, including his death at the hands of the sewer beast that he dreamed of the night he found Door. He and the other woman reach the opposite side of the bridge but Anaesthesia does not; the darkness has taken her. Beads from her necklace roll out of the darkness, and Richard picks one up. The woman tells him there’s nothing they can do, so he follows her into the market.