A calm reasonable voice, I kept reminding myself, even though my heart was rattling along, adrenaline fired, and a band seemed to be tightening round my chest. Just a few innocuous questions to get him talking.
“I’m sorry about your friend,” he whispered. “Look, man, I’m sorry about him, OK? But it has nothing to do with me. I’m just doing a job. You understand?”
I nodded that yes of course I understood, and I was going to step back from the window, give him room to come in where we’d talk a bit more. But then his phone rang again. He reached for it, and glanced down into the alleyway below, and a look went across his face. Fear – that was the look – and it was all over his face as he looked back at me, and he didn’t look anything at all like Adi then.
“I can’t talk to you! I can’t!”
He pulled out his phone, held it to his ear, and took two steps away from me, two steps along the walkway, then the rotten metal disintegrated under his feet and he fell, backwards and sideways and outwards, lurching against the guard rail, which snapped like a twig and he fell, screaming, into the air and down and out of my sight.
The screaming stopped with a dull thud. I stared, open-mouthed, at the hole in the walkway. Half its width had disappeared. I couldn’t see the alleyway below, so I climbed out of the window. Responding to some foolish urge to see, to be sure, to help.
The walkway creaked and swayed under my feet. Directly below me a body was crumpled up against a big industrial-sized wheelie bin. There was a small pool of dark fluid under the head, and the back was twisted at an awkward angle. The stick lay nearby.
I looked along the alleyway. Down by the back door of the Dreadnought, the big man in the leather jacket was standing, looking at the body.
Then he looked up and saw me, and we stared at each other.
CHAPTER 6
“What’s done is done. Move on. You can’t win by looking over your shoulder.”
Adi Varney, in an interview after losing a match
Under my feet, the metal walkway groaned and shifted. The outer edge suddenly dropped several inches. I lurched forward, grabbing on to the guard rail, which made a little “tink” noise but held fast. For the moment. Rust was flaking away under the pressure of my fingers.
Self-preservation overruled shock. I turned away from the edge, stepped back to the window. Had my hands on the sill when something snapped, a shock that I felt through my feet and then the entire walkway came clear of the building, swinging outwards under my weight.
Suddenly, I was hanging in mid-air. My hands still gripping the windowsill, my feet on the swaying walkway, and empty space in between.
Frantically, I tried to pull myself in. Managed to get an arm over the sill, then both arms. But I couldn’t get any higher. Every time I tried to push myself up, the walkway swung out again.
I didn’t have the strength to pull myself up. Too weak, too heavy.
Come on! You fat old fool, Deeson! Come… on…
Adrenaline and verbal abuse helped to get me a few inches higher. High enough so that my feet lost contact with the walkway and scrabbled ineffectually at the brickwork. Relieved of my weight, the walkway swung gently back in towards the wall, catching the back of my heels and holding them in place.
Every ounce of strength I could muster only succeeded in raising myself – and the walkway – a fraction of an inch. I twisted my feet to try to get clear, but the walkway just swung in closer. I scrabbled frantically at the brickwork with my toes, but there was no purchase there, and the pain in my arms and shoulders was becoming too much, too much to cope with. My chest felt tight as I gasped for breath and a little part of my mind reminded me of the stents, those tiny little metal tubes that were allowing the blood to circulate round my heart, and how much pressure there must be going through them now…
I slipped back again. The ancient woodwork was crumbling under my grip; I could feel it disintegrating.
“Help…” I tried to shout, but there was no breath in me; it came out as a gasp. “Help!” I tried again. Slipped further back. Thought how bitterly ironic it would be if I ended up dead next to Adi after all these years. Except it wasn’t Adi at all.
My hands were shaking with the strain. I thought of Sandy. I thought of Sam. I tried to pray.
“DAD!”
There were hands on me. Sam’s hands. He got a grip under my shoulders and with one heave he had me back up on the windowsill, clear of the walkway, then another pull brought me inside. On the floor. Safe.
“Dad… what happened? Are you OK? What were you doing out there? Are you all right? DAD!”
All I wanted to do at that moment was to enjoy the solid floor under me and get my breath back, but Sam was insistent. I held up my hand to stop the flow.
“OK,” I managed to get out. Out of breath, weak, shaking, and all too aware of how tight my chest felt. But OK. “Just – just give me… a moment.”
“Right.” He sat beside me, with a comforting hand on my shoulder. Role reversal or what? I thought.
My breathing slowed, and my chest eased as well. Not the stents failing, then, just adrenaline.
“I think I should get an ambulance, Dad. Have you checked over, at least.” He had his mobile out and was dialling.
I didn’t feel like arguing. I nodded. “Yes, ambulance. But not just for me.”
Sam didn’t catch that; he was already talking, giving details in a clear, concise voice that sounded like someone used to dealing with emergencies. I pulled on his sleeve and he broke the flow of questions and answers.
“Hold one moment, please… What’s up, Dad? How are you feeling?”
“OK. Better.” I was getting my breath back, but I didn’t have a lot to spare. “Tell them someone fell off the building.”
“What? Who?”
“Fake Adi.” I nodded to the open window. “Down there.”
“Right.” He crossed to the window and looked down, while relaying the information. “Yes, that’s right. I’m being told that someone fell from up here… it’s three floors… no, I can’t see anything, but my view’s restricted. Yes, I’ll do that as soon as I can, but my first concern is for my father…”
I managed to get myself upright, and went to look out of the window myself. The sight of the walkway swinging gently back and forth made my stomach churn. It looked as if the whole thing was about to drop into the alley below. But of more immediate significance was the fact that it completely blocked our view. I couldn’t see where Fake Adi had fallen, or if Leather Jacket was with him.
Sam was still talking. “Yes, I’ll stay on the line and keep you updated.” He turned to me, held the phone against his chest to block the sound. “Sit down, Dad. They’re on their way, but they said you shouldn’t move.”
“OK, but you need to get down there. Check on him. I don’t think he could have survived, but if he’s still alive…”
“I don’t want to leave you.”
“It’s all right. I am feeling a lot better now, I promise. But you really should go and check on Adi. Fake Adi, that is.”
He looked at me, doubtful, then glanced at the window. “OK then. I’ll be back as soon as I can. Just take it easy, Dad.”
“I will. Go out through the Dreadnought. There’s a back entrance. It’s quicker, it leads straight into the alley. He fell right below this window.”
He nodded, and headed towards the stairs.
I knew I should probably sit down again and wait for help, but it seemed a pity to waste the energy I’d already expended on standing up. Besides, I needed to know what had happened to Fake Adi. So I followed Sam, though much more slowly. My legs still felt weak, but I ignored them, concentrating on retracing my steps.
Before I reached the ground floor, Sam was coming back up to meet me.
“Dad! You were supposed to stay there!”
I shook my head. “Never mind me. What about Fake Adi?”
“He’s not there.” Sam put an arm round me and started to help me down the remaining s
teps. “I tried to do what you said, but someone had shut the back door. Wedged it shut. So I had to go the long way round, and there was no body.”
“No body?” I shook my head. “No Fake Adi? And what about Leather Jacket? I saw him down there as well.”
“No, no sign of him either.”
“No body and nobody?” I felt a ridiculous urge to giggle. Shock, I thought. Must have been. “Are you sure, Sam?”
“Certain. And Sharkey came round with me, to check the door. There was nothing.”
“But – there was blood.”
“Perhaps. But that alleyway is filthy, dirt and rubbish and who knows what… easy to overlook a bit of blood in that mess.”
“I would have thought they’d have heard something.”
“Sharkey’s got the radio on, there are people chatting and some weird noises coming out of the kitchen – nobody noticed anything.”
We’d reached the Dreadnought by now. Sam helped me into a chair and I slumped, head spinning. Sharkey was there as well.
“Graham – mate – you’re white as a sheet!”
“Terrible cliché,” I admonished him. “Never use it.”
“He’s in shock,” Sam said.
He was right, I was in shock. Of course I was. I’d just seen Adi die. Not Adi though, not my best friend ever. I reminded myself of that. But it was starting to come back now, vivid mental images swirling round in my head.
“Got just the thing for that. Back in a tick.” Sharkey disappeared.
“So what happened, Dad?” Sam asked gently.
I felt confused, the lights seemed very bright, much brighter than usual. I sat back and stared up at the wall. Faded photographs of battleships in Valletta harbour linked with the past. A very young-looking Sharkey Ward with a group of mates raised glasses to the camera outside the original Dreadnought bar. Superimposed over them I could still see Adi’s face, falling away from me. Only not Adi. I sat back and shut my eyes, trying to sort through the memories. Adi’s face stared at me, mouth open in a scream, water running from his hair…
“He nearly drowned,” I muttered.
Sam was looking at me, puzzled. “Nearly drowned? How did that happen?”
“There was a wave…” I began, then shook my head. “No, no of course there wasn’t. What am I talking about?” I rubbed my eyes, trying to force the images out of them. “Adi fell. No, not Adi. The pretend Adi. Fake Adi. He fell off the building. He was trying to get down the fire escape but it was rusted through and he fell. Then I went after him. You saw what happened then.”
Sharkey returned with a mug of tea. A thick, dark brown liquid. Strong enough to walk on. Stronger than the fire escape. Not my usual blend, but right then it was probably just what I needed. I tried to stir in some sugar but my hands had started shaking. Sam took the spoon off me and finished the job.
I sipped it gratefully, trying to get my head in order. “I found him up on the top floor. He was talking to someone on his mobile. I tried to explain, to ask him about Adi – the real one – but he just kept backing away… then the walkway fell apart… Sam, did you say the back door was wedged shut?”
“Yes. There’s a big wooden wedge that Sharkey uses to keep it open in hot weather – so he told me. Someone had shut the door and put the wedge in on the outside. Sharkey’s a bit mad about it; that’s supposed to be a fire escape.” He frowned at me. “He’s none too pleased with you either. He saw the walkway hanging up there, ready to fall at any moment, and he said something very nautical about it. He’s afraid that if the council sees it they’ll close the place down.”
“They probably would.”
“There’s a mate of his coming round to sort it out, but I think he’s expecting you to pay for it!”
I nodded. The tea was working wonders, and my thoughts were coming back into line. “Not unreasonable. Sam, what happened up the road, when I ran off after Fake Adi? I thought you’d be just behind me.”
“I saw you take off, and the big fellow in the leather jacket was going to go after you, but that van driver grabbed hold of him and pulled him back. Very nearly got decked for it. He was slammed up against his own van and then his mates were piling in and it started to go seriously pear-shaped. But that tall guy in the suit…”
“Lonza.”
“I suppose so. He got in there, stopped the van driver from getting thumped, and started telling everyone that he’d pay for everything… It calmed down a bit, so I started running after you, but you’d vanished. I got down to the end of the street, couldn’t see you there, so I came back to the Market entrance. When I saw the sign for the Dreadnought I went in and made enquiries. Sharkey told me where you’d gone so I went up as fast as I could.”
“And I’m very glad you did. What about Leather Jacket?”
He shook his head. “Didn’t see him. But I wouldn’t have, if he followed me down the street and went straight into the alley.”
“Fake Adi made a phone call, just before he fell. He was telling someone where he was. Leather Jacket must have been just outside the alley, because he saw Fake Adi fall.” I nodded at the back door. “We were looking at each other.”
“Ah. So you think he took the body?”
“They couldn’t afford to have some random person who looks exactly like Adi Varney turn up dead, could they? So, as soon as he saw what had happened, he closed the back door, put the wedge in it to stop anyone coming out. Called Lonza to send the car down, got it backed up to the alley, dumped Fake Adi in the boot, and was gone before you could get down there. Not many pedestrians walking along this street, and drivers going past are all looking at the traffic lights. Who’s going to see?”
“Right. Yes, I suppose that could happen. But why didn’t you say so before? We could have got the police down here, had them looking for that car.”
“Ah, yes. The police.” I sat back and thought about it. “We could still do that – but I’m not sure if it’s a good idea, Sam. I mean, just think about it. Once we start telling them part of the story, they’ll want to know all of it.”
Sam considered this. “They would want to know why you went chasing him up to the top floor in the first place.”
“An area that I wasn’t supposed to be in. Yes. And then I’d have to say that it was because he looked like Adi Varney.”
“So you say that this body which disappeared belonged to a man who looks like someone who went to the USA years ago…”
“Who is involved in a scheme to sell off the charity that was founded by the man he looks like.”
“And that’s all maybe, perhaps, and only your word for it. OK, Dad. Perhaps calling the police isn’t a good idea.”
“Especially as I was technically trespassing up there anyway.”
Sharkey, who had been not quite eavesdropping, but certainly hanging round close enough to pick up a few words, chose that moment to stick his oar in.
“Ah, about that matter of trespassing, Graham… obviously, I’m not going to say anything, mate, but it might be better if you didn’t either? I mean, apart from any trouble you might have, this place is on a bit of a shoestring. The owners have as good as told us that they want to evict us and pull the whole place down, sell off the land for redevelopment. Especially with all the money that’s supposed to be coming in to do up Delford Mills. They’d like to get some of that. Only thing that’s stopping them is the Victorian Heritage thing. You know, local historians and such. They’d kick up a bit if anyone tried to bulldoze the place.”
I nodded. “Not to worry, Sharkey. Nothing happened here. Except that I was walking by, saw something fall into the alleyway. Thought it might have been a person, but when I took a closer look, it was just a bit of the old fire escape. It’s falling apart up there, but it’s getting fixed – right?”
Sharkey nodded. “Mind you, that might be expensive.”
“Well, of course I can chip in a bit to help with that. Preserving a bit of our heritage, after all. But the important thing to
remember is that no one was up there and no one got hurt – right? I had a bit of a nasty shock, that’s all. Bit of rust nearly hit me.”
There were sirens in the distance. The ambulance was on its way.
Sharkey looked relieved. “Yeah, I think that must be what happened. Thanks, Graham. Anything else I can get you?”
“Another cup of tea? And a couple of your steak-and-egg sandwiches. I’ve been telling Sam how good they are.”
“Coming up!” He headed back towards the kitchen area.
Sam gave me a sideways look. “For someone who’s always believed in telling the truth, that’s a heck of a whopper you just put together.”
“I know. But sometimes the truth is too hard to believe. Or to explain.”
“I find it hard to believe that you still want a steak-and-egg sandwich after what just happened.”
“I don’t. But if I’m sitting here eating and drinking, then the paramedics are more likely to believe it’s a false alarm. I don’t want them dragging me off to hospital… and by the way, no mention of my heart problems! Not to them, and not to your mother when we get home, OK?”
He shook his head. “And I thought there was nothing more I could learn from you, Dad.”
That hurt. “Just learn to avoid my mistakes!”
The paramedics didn’t stay long. We assured them that no one had fallen off the building, which was their main concern. They checked my vitals, confirmed that everything was within acceptable parameters, and made me promise to go to my GP if I had any symptoms. Then they left in a hurry, with more urgent jobs to get to.
Sam returned to his sandwich with a thoughtful look. “I was thinking… perhaps we should mention it to someone unofficially? You know some coppers, don’t you? You could just run it past them. Maybe they could have a dig around, perhaps check out the car?”
I shook my head. “The police don’t have as much freedom as people think. Without a confirmed crime, they can’t go running searches or allocating resources. I did think of talking to David Macrae, perhaps asking him if Rocco Lonza had crossed his radar. But he’s too good a policeman to just let it go at that. He’d need the whole story – and the thing is, Sam, we don’t have the whole story. Just odd bits and a lot of suspicion.”
Local Legend Page 7