by M. T Hill
‘Sorry,’ the clerk interrupts, ‘but why did you come all this way on your own?’
‘To explore,’ Shep insists.
‘In the middle of the night? Bit weird, isn’t it?’
‘To you, maybe.’
‘Cold, grim hole like that,’ the clerk says. ‘Condemned as well. What were you thinking?’
‘I wasn’t thinking about getting banged up afterwards,’ Shep says. ‘Can I sit down?’
The clerk takes the old phone out of its cradle. ‘Let’s make our call first, eh? I’ll do the talking. Pop some digits in here. I’m not having this can’t-remember-numbers rubbish.’
Shep hesitates, then slowly pecks out a number. For better or worse, it’s one of the only numbers he knows whose owner might be available right now.
The dialler burrs. A click. Garbling as the call rebounds. A simultaneous intake of breath—
Then, clear as anything, a voice through the speaker.
‘Mallory.’
The clerk winces. ‘Good morning, sir. I’m calling on behalf of a young man I have here with me… Yes, sir, I appreciate it’s late. Yes, I know it’s Sunday… no. He’s called Shepherd. Shepherd, that’s right.’
Shep can feel the ranger’s eyes on him.
‘Sir,’ the clerk continues, ‘he’s been caught trespassing – yes – and he’s given us your details. Can you confirm you’re his next of kin?’
Mallory Junior’s going ballistic at the other end.
‘I know,’ the clerk keeps saying. ‘Okay, okay, then how long has he worked for you?’
‘Two years,’ Shep whispers.
‘You aren’t sure,’ the clerk says, and she grimaces at Shep. ‘If that’s the case, he’s releasable for a fee… No, no, not bail. It’s more like a donation. We invest in the wetlands up here.’
Shep can guess what’s being said.
‘Sorry, the Lakes. I’m calling from Whitehaven. Whitehaven… that one.’
Shep exhales. It is Whitehaven. If nothing else, his work van is nearby. He’d run for it now if his legs felt attached. If the ranger wasn’t right behind him.
‘I completely agree, sir,’ the clerk continues. ‘I do know it’s Sunday.’ She covers the mouthpiece and snaps her fingers at Shep. ‘He’s asking if you’re in tomorrow… no, today.’
‘Meant to be,’ Shep says.
‘He is,’ the clerk repeats. ‘First thing,’ she relays to Shep. Another pause. Then, to Mallory Junior: ‘I get where you’re coming from. I do…’ She puts her hand back over the mic. ‘He’s saying something about a yard.’
The predictable bastard.
‘Sorry, say again? Disciplinary for what?’
The ranger clears his throat irritably.
‘The fee comes out just shy of three thousand pounds. Two-nine-nine-five.’
Shep tenses again. Does the sums.
‘Two, yes. And we can take that by flash right now.’
Assuming Shep keeps his job, that’s the best part of six weeks’ salary. Even more if he’s stuck in the yard. Plus fines and the retraining that the Health and Safety Executive will slap on him. Plus costs if Gunny decides to take civil action over Clemens. He’d have been better off walking into a police station himself. Shep closes his eyes. Gunny’s hand is right there, dripping.
‘Course,’ the clerk says. ‘I’ll tell him. And you’ll put all that through now?’
A machine chirps on the clerk’s desk.
‘Oh, great, it’s here already. Thank you so much. I’ll make sure we get…’ The clerk stares at the phone. ‘He hung up.’
‘How did he sound?’ Shep asks.
‘Pained,’ she says. ‘You’ve got some music to face. Now, I need you to sign this.’ Cooler in tone. She taps the desktop with her biro. ‘And we need to record your visit,’ she adds, producing a sample kit. ‘As part of Devo action, we can take swabs.’
‘Unless you want to donate a tooth,’ the ranger says.
Shep’s jaw twinges. But consequences aside, you can still prepare for being caught. He sets his teeth and tongues fifteen beats on the roof of his mouth. A silky film peels away from his palate and dissolves. His mouth fills with the brackish taste of artificial saliva. All he has to do now is hold the liquid in the gullies of his mouth without retching.
The clerk unpacks the tester kit. ‘Say ahh,’ she says. In goes the swab, woollen and tickling. Shep keeps his tongue wedged back, just like he’s practised. He looks at the vial, slime on glass, and knows there’s no way they’ll identify him.
Then he thinks of a dead bird, shuddering across the floor. A starved-looking badger, pinned to a wall. The taste of petrol. The stench of rot. An insane metallic structure, singing in the wind.
‘All done,’ the clerk says to him. And the ranger snips the cable ties on Shep’s wrists and escorts him back outside.
‘Before you go,’ the ranger says.
The ranger offers his hand.
Shep takes it, shivering. Before he knows it, he’s off balance and the ranger has him up on his tiptoes, face right in his, one fist tight round his little finger. A huge, dark vein snakes across the contractor’s forehead. The deepest crimson.
‘You don’t come here again,’ the ranger says. Under harsh security lights, his nostril hair reminds Shep of beetle legs.
‘Get off,’ Shep says.
‘And you don’t fiddle about with our animals. Right?’
‘I never touched it.’
The ranger takes Shep by the throat. Squeezes under his jaw.
‘Say it again,’ the ranger says.
‘Get off me.’
‘One more time and I’ll throttle you.’
‘Get fuc—’
The ranger wrenches Shep’s finger at the first knuckle. Butts him, hard, on the bridge of his nose. Shep’s vision explodes. His nose instantly floods. The ranger takes Shep by the scruff of the neck, the seat of his climbing pants, and tosses him to the road.
‘These Lakes are ours,’ the ranger tells Shep. ‘You’re pissing about with stuff way bigger than you.’
And the ranger goes inside.
* * *
The work van is where Shep left it. In his seat, face ballooning, he smashes his startcard against the reader. Slumps back as the retinal does its cycle, shrieking in pain as he winds climbing tape round his damaged finger, already bruising. When he’s caught his breath and cleared the blood from his nose, he has enough sense to check the hackbar in the dash console still works. Before he left Salford, he’d deleted a hundred miles from the odometer – more than enough to cover the journey back, plus a couple of service stops just in case. Mallory Junior might know Shep is here, but headquarters won’t know he’s in their vehicle.
Shep starts the van to a message from a public toilet asking to rate his recent visit out of ten. He tells it to fuck off.
A good-looking couple. A bird and a badger—
Shep inspects his finger. Swelling and tender. The same deep colour as Gunny’s went on the deck. He cradles it. How was he not the first to explore the bunker? How has he missed it? The clock says 3.35 a.m. About two hours till work. He slams the van into gear and drives out to the motorway. The sky has started to lighten, recovering itself by increments. There are things that need sorting out. The scrambler could be returned by courier, at an inflated impound charge. Job or no job, he’ll be too skint this month, but the option’s there. The helmet he’ll lose for sure – which in many ways is harder to take. When he’s home he’ll be able to activate the helmet’s kill switch, hardwipe it, but it’s a custom job, if not a prototype, and that’ll still give the police plenty to play with.
At least he’d already chucked his phone. And the ranger definitely overlooked the memory card in his camera.
* * *
The M6 southbound is lonely at this time. Dawn expands and slides right out across the carriageway. Shep drives in a daze, well past tired. The van’s headlights on the glassy road return him to the bunker, its shiver
ing walls. Except now the bunker is more like a fantasy. Does he remember breaking in, or the parts he scavenged? Even his memory of the splitting box feels unreliable with the sun coming up. What if it was all some stress- or light-induced distortion? Mixed-up visual messages, natural phenomena – tricks of the light? But the memory of that petrol smell is still so tangible, so fixed as to be part of him, it can’t be explained away so easily. He tries to isolate it, conjure a hint of it. Express it from his pores.
These circles tighten as he travels south. He goes over the breach compulsively – the wall hop, the fragmented equipment, the hanging badger, the panic, the box. Stare into oncoming headlights and he can almost make out the splintering hive. Every strut and convergence. Every detail, infinitely rendered. Then he swings to work, his other life an almost comedic counterpoint. The music he has to face, as the clerk put it. What will Mallory Junior have him doing in the yard? Sweeping, litter picking, checking harnesses for damage?
And back once more: the mission – the thought it was all for nothing – becoming an albatross. The disappointment of missing another report. Even if the report was hidden on a different board, he has alerts running, and loads of people cross-post their content on the biggest sites. So when did those other bastards get in there?
Someone beeps at him. Shep drops out of blacktop dreams, shocked to realise he’s been following the road unconsciously for miles, and the van is straddling two lanes. He checks his mirrors. No other vehicles. Heart on a hair trigger. The beep was the fuel gauge. When signs appear for the services, he leaves the motorway and parks under the petrol station canopy. His hands carry a faint scent of vinegar. His mouth full with old iron. Before he gets out, he tethers the van to the forecourt Wi-Fi and brings up the contact details for the Pea and Ham.
‘Call it,’ he says.
After a few rings, a woman answers groggily. ‘Hello?’
‘Is he there?’ Shep asks. ‘Sorry?’
‘Is he there?’
‘What? Is who here? It’s five o’clock in the bloody morning!’
‘Is he, though?’
‘What? Who the hell’s this?’
‘Is he there?’
‘Who! It’s five o’clock on a blasted Sunday morning!’
‘That bastard did me over,’ Shep says.
‘If you don’t tell me who you are—’
‘Just tell that big twat, that drone-man at your bar, tell him I know. Tell him I’m never buying his shite again.’
‘Andy, Andy – wake up! Some nutter’s on the phone—’ Shep hangs up and gets out of the van.
* * *
It’s the kind of service station you can visit for a coffee and leave with a kitchen. An entire out-of-town shopping centre hanging off the back of it. Through its doors, the interior is kaleidoscopic: sleek messaging crawling every edge-lit surface, and people bumbling past, morning-vacant, but smiling. On a panel to Shep’s side, an androgynous face materialises and crows special offers at him. This disembodied thing, crawled straight from the uncanny valley, makes Shep feel ill, and the enduring taste of the DNA strip isn’t helping.
Shep pays up front for fuel with cash. In the queue, flashes of the bunker still with him, no less alarming under these bright lights. The word sepsis like a warning. He’s paid up, and he’s burning through again. He’s back at the pump, with the petrol dispenser nozzle deliberately angled right through the driver-side window. He squeezes the trigger gently, ignoring the sharp pulses from his injured finger, enjoying the sound of the fuel splashing on his seat.
Several people stand and watch him.
Shep smiles. ‘I don’t smoke,’ he tells them. ‘No worries.’ He takes the nozzle out of the window and slides it into the van’s fuel inlet. When the tank’s full, he hangs up the dispenser and gets in. ‘Mallory Limited,’ he tells the mapper. ‘You drive.’
By now the sun has fully emerged, shimmering behind a dragging westerly rain. Shep closes his eyes and concentrates on the sensation of petrol soaking through his trousers and underwear, alcohol-cold on his thighs. The heavy fumes as they rise from between his legs, from the footwell carpet.
The Journalist
Big Walls climbing centre occupies an old textile mill near central Manchester, its brickwork varicose with tatty rope and fire service training gear. Freya sits in the car park, geeing herself up to go inside, unsure about her choice of clothing.
The forums say weekdays are busiest at Big Walls, so on this Saturday morning she hopes fewer people will present more opportunities to chat, ask questions. Ideally, she’ll recognise one of Stephen’s climbing friends from the funeral, though it’s unlikely she’ll try her luck – asking questions can make people edgy when you’re still so close to the fact. That, and it’s not a death-knock if you’re there on their terms.
Always saw Ste down at Big Walls on Thursdays, someone had posted in Stephen’s eulogy thread. Fingerboard magician that lad.
Freya has no idea what a fingerboard involves, but everything else on the forums, especially on the RIP thread, points to Stephen being a regular here. Drawing closer, she imagined him cycling along the same roads. Come the weekend, hitting real rock over the tops. Dovestones, Stanage Edge, the Woolpacks on Kinder – all these mystical-sounding places she’s been reading about.
Freya pushes hard on the mill door, and the smell comes first: sweat, rubber, hot minerals. There’s a wiry, sullen woman on reception. To the rear of the building is a run of slabs – short walls knobbled with painful-looking shapes. Then the taller walls, folded into themselves like half-constructed nets of vast packaging boxes. Watching a climber leap effortlessly between two slivers of neon, Freya wonders how many parts of the body you can tense. Just the sound of exertion makes her palms clammy. In any case, she’d been right to question her clothing. Her ex’s board shorts should really be yoga leggings, her oversized T-shirt a regulation sports bra and crop-top.
Freya approaches the staffer and explains she’s new, has never done this. In return she receives a withering look and a photocopy of Things to know before you climb at Big Walls.
‘On your tod?’ the staffer asks coolly. ‘That’s brave.’
Freya squeezes her forearm. She nods.
‘Won’t get your money’s worth, is all. And, like, I have to give you an induction.’
Freya takes a pen, sits down on a scruffy settee to read the paperwork. Plenty of warnings to get neuroses about. Too many points of weakness on a single limb. Why doesn’t she tell the staffer she’s a reporter? If only it were easier to say she’s here to get info on Stephen.
Professional detachment.
Except this isn’t just about getting a story any more. Freya knows herself better than that. Not least because rooting through Stephen’s life has put her own inertia in sharp relief.
The staffer has Freya wait on the crash mats while she logs the application. Freya surveys the angular walls, surfaces patterned in garish paint, smeared with chalk and moisture and fainter streaks of what might be skin.
‘Need a quid for your locker,’ the staffer says when she’s done. ‘You’ll want to grab yourself a pair of shoes from the bucket.’
‘Ta,’ Freya says.
‘No danger,’ the staffer says. ‘But keep your socks on, yeah? We’re growing potatoes in some of them.’
* * *
Freya climbs like a spider in a bathtub. It’s a gangly, frantic technique that the staffer tactfully ignores. Through sheer belligerence, though, Freya completes a few easy routes; by her sixth or seventh, she begins to appreciate where stronger muscles might be useful. Going up and down the wall, palms stinging from the holds’ rough handles, hands clawed owing to the lactic build-up in her forearms, she senses how it might feel to be good at it. What Stephen must have loved so much.
‘See what I mean?’ the staffer asks.
Freya hasn’t listened. The surroundings keep drawing her focus. Into the roof travel all these different bodies, each with staggering fluidity. Li
ke the topless young guy making his way up a high wall, completely by himself.
‘Okay with that?’ the staffer asks.
Freya nods tentatively. Holding her breath.
‘So have fun, yeah? Maybe try the traversing walls, if you want to get your extremities used to it. Your toes will suffer tonight.’
Freya motions across the matting. ‘The sideways ones?’
‘Sure,’ the staffer nods. ‘Get a bit, like, fingery, but they’re rad for warming up.’
‘Cool.’
Then the staffer is gone.
Alone, Freya listens. Noises both angry and sexual: grunting, self-willing groans; the odd surprised shout when a hold fails, gear slips, or a hand misses. A painful-sounding bang as one girl comes off the wall and swings hip-first into a slab. She watches the half-naked climber with fascination, some inner sense of matronly disapproval. It’s hot in here, but the man’s body is more of a statement, a diary of investment. He climbs up, slaps the top of the wall, and descends on a pulley system that emits a distinct keening. Then he starts again.
Next time he’s down on the matting, Freya goes over to him.
‘Shouldn’t you have a partner?’ she asks.
The man turns to face her, dazed. Stringier up close, his waist improbably narrow. ‘Say again?’
‘For belay.’ Freya gestures behind her. ‘Is that the word? Everyone else is paired up.’
The man tilts the compact device on his climbing harness. ‘Belaying. This is an autobelayer.’
‘Oh,’ she says. ‘I didn’t know you—’
‘You can. Miles better on your own.’
‘Right,’ she says.
The man grins sheepishly and looks away. Freya stares at his nipples. The perfect handprint chalked on his stomach. The little finger of his left hand is strapped to the finger next to it.
He glances back, catches her looking. Her eyes snap to his, and she can’t tell if he saw. ‘Do this a lot, do you?’
The man wobbles his head. ‘I try to.’
‘How long’s it take to get good?’
He chuckles. ‘Depends how hard you go at it.’ He looks Freya up and down. ‘You’re a decent build for it.’ He grins again. ‘Lanky.’