by Chris Simms
The pressure in her head was increasing. Growing more intense. Had been for days now. Ever since—
‘Hello, there. Everything OK?’
She kept her head bowed. Didn’t want to look at where the voice was coming from. See those concerned eyes directed at her. The questions that were certain to follow.
‘Yeah. Fine.’
‘Well ... we haven’t seen you in here before. I wanted to make sure you’re feeling welcome.’
The TV presenter was now going on about the visitors’ arrival in the city centre. Then she heard her father’s voice. No. Please, no. Those well-regulated tones, with a gritty touch of the north. He never sounded like that at home. The prick was the only person she knew who coarsened his accent whenever he spotted a camera.
She opened her eyes and lifted her chin, but the woman was blocking her view. ‘I can’t see?’
The woman glanced behind her. ‘Oh, sorry. Yes. The news.’
There he was, filling the screen. Some crap about the long history of support and cooperation that stretched back between America and the city of Manchester. Oily words designed to get only one thing moving: money.
‘Mind if I sit down?’ the woman asked, starting to move a chair back.
She half-nodded. Her tea was almost finished. For all she cared, the woman could have the whole bloody table to herself. She watched as the gaggle of smartly dressed people on the screen were ushered into a building.
‘So ... are you living here in Manchester?’
As she swigged the last of her tea down, the baby let out a little mewl. Fuck, she thought. The little sprout sleeps for hours and then, of all places ...
The woman’s eyes had widened. She’d heard. Her gaze was moving downwards. ‘Have you ... is that a ...?’
She needed to be out of this place. Another little mewl, longer this time. Christ, this couldn’t be happening! Now she’d stood, the little lump beneath her coat was more obvious.
The woman’s mouth was open. Her hand was half-raised. ‘Please, there’s no need for you to—’
But she was already hurrying out of the room.
Chapter 10
The glow in the western sky was starting to fade. Streetlights had come on about twenty minutes ago. Time, he thought, I left for work.
He’d prepared his holdall earlier, carefully placing his pair of wings in at the top. Jogging down the flight of stairs, he spotted the stoutly built woman somewhere in her late twenties who lived in the flat below. She was standing outside her front door, struggling with the zip of a cheap-looking coat.
There was a shopping bag beside each foot. From his position higher up, he could see each bag was full of white cartons. Long-life milk, by the looks of it. He guessed there must have been ten in each.
She heard his footsteps and turned round. From beneath a low fringe he suspected she’d trimmed herself, she glanced up. Eye contact was made for a second before she guiltily glanced down at her bags. He knew that, the previous month, the landlord had discovered she’d been keeping cats in her flat. It turned out they were strays. She’d been forced to ring a rescue centre and have them all collected.
He’d seen her a few times since and had recognised the look of desolation on her face. He knew what it was like to lose the things you loved. The problem was, she’d recognised it in him, too.
‘You won’t tell, will you?’ she asked, sounding like a naughty schoolchild searching for an ally.
‘What’s that, then?’ He came to a reluctant halt on the landing.
‘About this,’ she whispered, pointing discreetly at her shopping, even though no one else was about.
‘Have you been getting more cats?’ He realised he was whispering, too.
She tried to suppress a smile but failed. Deliberately, he suspected. ‘Maybe—’
‘Well, I haven’t seen a thing.’ He went to carry on, but she addressed him again.
‘Do you want to?’ She was holding up a key. It was attached to a lanyard which went round her neck. ‘You can if you want.’
He hesitated. The woman clearly had some issues. And the last thing she should be doing was inviting some bloke she’d never even spoken to into her flat.
‘Quickly,’ she said. ‘Before someone comes.’ She got the door open and beckoned to him.
Before someone comes? He didn’t think there was much chance of that; the people in the only other flat on this floor had been evicted the previous month. His neighbours on the floor above had sold up and moved out to Cheshire in the early days of the pandemic.
She grabbed both bags and dragged them inside. ‘Close the door behind you!’
The flat was the mirror image of his: a short hall with a door immediately on the right that gave access to a storage cupboard. At the end of the corridor, another door into the living area. Unlike his hall, hers was filled with stuff. Shopping bags bulging with magazines. Flattened cereal boxes. Piles of coats and shoes. Boxes with cups, bowls and saucers stacked inside. Charity shop treasure, he guessed. With dainty little steps, she walked quickly to the far door and clicked the fingernails of one hand against the frame. ‘I’m home!’
She looked back at him, eyes shining with delight. He smiled uncertainly as she opened the door.
He was waiting for a sea of starving cats to rush out, but nothing happened.
‘Hello, my little lovelies, I’ve brought someone to see you!’ She walked into the room, making little kissing sounds.
He followed her in, eyes sweeping the room as he searched for movement. Whatever she was keeping in here, it was staying hidden behind the piles of crap she’d collected.
‘Dinky, what’s happened to you, my poor love?’ She picked her way towards a sofa laden with cushions, pausing to pick a soft toy off the floor. Placing it carefully on the arm of the sofa, she said, ‘That’s better. Can’t have you lying on the cold carpet, can we?’
He realised Dinky was the toy. A furry ginger cat with glass eyes and a tuft of white in the middle of its chest. The rest of the sofa wasn’t piled with cushions, it was covered in toy cats. Same as the windowsills, the shelf units, the top of the telly. Cats of all shapes and sizes. Some lifelike, others with over-sized eyes and unnatural colours. Pinks and purples and luminous greens.
She was smiling at him now. The smile was a proud one, but there was a slight wariness in her eyes. Like she knew the situation was, to anyone else, bizarre. ‘These are my little darlings.’
‘Right.’ He nodded, looking around the room as he tried to think of something to say. ‘You’ve got quite a few, haven’t you?’
Seeing her proud smile, he thought: how come people are always so happy to chat with me? To open up. Is it how I look? What I say? He couldn’t fathom it.
‘Don’t ask me for all their names!’ She laughed. ‘I sometimes get the odd one wrong. But they all get on, don’t you?’ She turned her head from left to right. ‘They are all so well behaved.’
He saw the line of bowls on the floor of the kitchenette. Six or seven, all half full of milk. She must be tipping it all away and replacing it with fresh stuff each day. You, he thought, are barking. Absolutely barking. ‘Well ... um, I don’t know your name.’
‘It’s Miriam. They are the best company you could ask for,’ she added, blushing slightly, but with just a trace of defiance in her voice.
In that instant, he understood her. You’re just lonely, aren’t you? Another lonely, lost soul. ‘I bet they are, Miriam. And thanks for introducing me to them all.’
She looked relieved at his answer. ‘Oh – I don’t know your name, either!’
‘Gavin.’ He took a step back towards the door. ‘I live on the next floor up.’
‘I know. Flat nine.’
‘Right. Flat nine. So ... I really should get to work.’
‘OK, Gavin. Call round any time you like. I’m usually in.’
Chapter 11
Jon could hear Wiper through the front door. The dog would have heard his footstep
s outside and was now waiting in the hallway, its wagging tail striking the wall or radiator. ‘You’ll snap that in half one of these days,’ he announced, searching for his key. The name had been Holly’s idea: Punch, their previous boxer, had a docked tail and when Wiper arrived with a long thing that switched back and forth with excitement, Holly had laughingly said he had a windscreen wiper stuck to his bum. All previous names on the shortlist were immediately cancelled: Wiper, it was.
The moment the door opened, the dog was like a wriggling seal, excitedly worming its way around his shins, between his ankles and across his shoes. Jon leaned down to scratch behind the animal’s ears. ‘Hello, pea-brain.’
He found Alice in the front room watching telly. ‘Hi there. How’s things?’
She hit the mute button. ‘Not so bad. You?’
‘Yeah, good. Spent most of the day on my arse in a car.’
‘How come?’
‘Escorting this group over from the States. They’re here about pouring cash into the airport.’
Alice looked confused. ‘The proposed new runway?’
He nodded.
‘That’s meant to still be at the consultation stage.’
‘Is it?’ He sighed. ‘You know how these things work. It will probably have been already decided behind closed doors.’
‘I bloody hope not,’ she murmured. ‘We don’t need more planes passing overhead and we certainly don’t need the motorways to be any busier.’
He noticed the fire was on full and turned it down a notch before removing his top. ‘How are the little monsters?’
‘Asleep. Holly wasn’t herself, again. You know, it occurred to me today: I wonder if anyone’s picking on her?’
‘Holly?’ Jon found it hard to believe. She had her mother’s fiery temper. He remembered how they’d first met. Someone in the rowdy group he’d been part of had bumped into Alice’s table, spilling all their drinks. She hadn’t hesitated to confront them. Immediately drawn to her feistiness, Jon had rushed to the bar to buy replacements, knowing it would be an opportunity to get chatting.
‘You never know,’ she said. ‘Girls that age can be such little bitches. And with social media, they can all pile in on someone. Be really cruel.’
Jon glanced at the sideboard where Holly had to leave her phone each night before going to bed. ‘Have you checked it?’
‘No. I want to ask her first.’
Jon was still looking at the device. Bloody things. ‘I’ll nip up and look in on them.’
Duggy was in his usual position – on his back with arms and legs stretched out. The duvet was a crumpled dune of pale blue at the end of the bed. Jon couldn’t help smiling as he pulled his son’s pyjama top down over his fat little belly. A brief wriggle, and then the boy’s deep breathing resumed.
Holly was also in her customary position – she consisted of a minor disturbance in the corner of the bed, covers neatly across her, pillow barely dented by her cheek. He gazed down at her, acutely aware that seeing her caused waves of concern to swirl about his skull. He could barely hear her breathing, it was so light. What’s up with you, little mouse? Whatever it was, he hoped it would soon go away. Stories of kids with eating disorders and anxiety – once issues that were barely on his radar – now seemed to catch his eye with disturbing regularity.
‘So, what was this free food that meant you didn’t need tea?’ Alice asked as he slumped down on the sofa beside her.
‘This group. There was a flashy function for them in a grand old building on Deansgate. It’s where parts of the council have been relocated while the Town Hall’s shut. They’re inside shovelling canapés down their throats. We’re outside, sitting in a car, sniffing each other’s farts—’
‘Who are you with?’
‘Kieran.’
Alice wrinkled her nose. ‘Ugh. I can imagine.’
‘This delivery guy arrives with a massive platter of sarnies and it’s been sent by the Americans. Well, actually, by Alicia Lloyd, the daughter of that senator, Bill Lloyd? She’d arranged it.’
‘She’s with this group?’
‘I think she’s in charge. She’s got some senior position in a big corporation who are offering to stump up the cash needed for the expansion, in return for prime positions for their aircraft. That’s the score, apparently.’
‘And part of this schmoozing is an armed escort?’
‘Yup.’
‘How does she seem?’
‘Only seen her from a distance. A bit too perfect. You know that way American politicians appear?’ He didn’t say anything about the way she’d looked across at him in Lincoln Square. Like someone who’d spotted their next meal.
Alice lifted a forefinger. ‘Wasn’t it Hilary Clinton who can remember the first name of everyone she’s met? Probably teach them all that stuff in college over there. How long is the job for?’
‘A few days. I think they fly back next Sunday.’ He noticed how Wiper was skulking around in the hallway. ‘Did you manage to walk the mutt?’
‘Afraid not.’
‘No problem. I’ll take him for a quick leg stretch.’
Out on the street, Jon contemplated which way to go. A short one round the surrounding streets, or the longer one across Cringle Fields Park, where they sometimes went with the kids for a Sunday afternoon stroll and a play in the woods.
The direction Wiper was pulling decided it for him. The longer one. At the end of the road was a short row of shops. A newsagent’s, laundrette, Chinese takeaway place, bookies and, more recently, a Tesco Metro in what had been a branch of Barclays.
As he neared its sliding doors, he saw a figure hunched down on the pavement. A bloke, with his feet and legs swathed in a blanket. Propped in its folds was a paper cup. Wondering how they managed to sit on the freezing pavements for so long, Jon automatically started to drift to the far side of the pavement.
‘Spare some change, please?’
Jon was about to continue on by when he remembered sitting in the doorway of the building in Stevenson Square; the way the passers-by pretended not to have noticed him had been a shock. It had been made him feel dirty, somehow. He patted his pocket, but realised it was empty. ‘I’m sorry, pal.’
The man half-smiled. ‘You have a good evening, sir.’
‘And you.’ As Jon carried on, he recalled how Wayne’s emotions had veered so quickly from gratitude to hostility. The drugs would have worn off by now, he thought, hoping the man’s head was now in a better place.
He strolled along an empty corridor, shoes crackling slightly as they made contact with the protective sheeting laid over the intricately tiled floors.
The walls in this section of the Town Hall consisted of wooden panels, and these had also been covered over with a layer of plastic. Coils of cabling were stacked in a recess that, once, had been home to a bust of some prominent civic figure.
When the building had closed for its refurbishment programme, the first thing workmen did was start preparing all the statues and paintings for going into storage.
He’d got the job as a nightwatchman within two months of leaving the army. It was the sort of work that – for people like him – was easy to pick up. Most treated it as a stop-gap while planning something more permanent. But he quickly realised that he liked the solitude. And he knew that the contract for this particular building wasn’t ending anytime soon.
A three-man team did the night shift. They were meant to alternate between roles: one based in the CCTV room, one keeping a check on radio communications and the door-lock circuits, one patrolling the building itself. But Gavin always volunteered to do the patrols and the other two were more than happy to have a radio playing on low with smartphones within reach. That gave Gavin the opportunity to explore the less-visited parts of the building and, if necessary, leave it completely.
He poked his head into the Council Chamber. Like every other room in the building, it was partway through the process of being stripped bare. The carpet had bee
n rolled up, as had the underlay. Both now looked like a pair of long sausages stretching across the middle of the floor. At some point, the floorboards would be taken up and the cables and pipes beneath it replaced. He made a cursory check of the smoke detector then proceeded to the stairs, where he checked his watch. Almost one in the morning. Bhav and Jamie – his co-workers for the night – wouldn’t be expecting him to reappear for another hour or so.
He trotted up successive flights of stairs until he reached the sixth floor. Most of the doorways here led into rooms where council employees used to work. But halfway along was a smaller door set deep into the wall. Unlike the flimsy white panelling of its neighbours, this was made of solid, varnished wood. It had a small sign in its centre that simply read: ‘Fire Door. Keep Shut.’
Gavin wondered if any of the people who used to pass it every day realised where it led. He removed a key from the inside pocket of his jacket and inserted it into the brass keyhole. The door opened on well-oiled hinges to reveal a steep set of stone steps that curled sharply round a central pillar. Anyone who climbed all the way to the top would emerge on to a narrow balcony directly above the faces of the building’s clock tower.
Even though he knew no one else was up here, he checked left and right before stepping through, swinging the door shut and locking it behind him.
As he scaled the stone steps, he wondered how soon Wayne was going to call. It was now the small hours of the morning; the time when people who were at their lowest often reached out, needing someone – anyone – to break their sense of desolation.
The construction work didn’t include the main tower. Some work had been done on the roof at the very beginning, but the rest of the edifice was being left. After all, there was no need to upgrade any heating or plumbing as none had been laid. No lighting or Internet network. He trailed his fingertips across the cold stone, thighs beginning to ache slightly with the exertion of climbing. A narrow window to his side let him glimpse how high he’d come. A few minutes’ later, he reached the first landing.