by Luke Walker
The sun broke free from the clouds and great shadows ran over the slabs in front of her. They span away as if pushed by the wind and she saw the man hurrying from Cross Street, aiming directly for the Hall. Black jacket. A big guy. Paper in his right hand.
‘Phil Paulson. Five minutes,’ Kirsty whispered.
She pushed herself from the wall and strode towards the square. She let Stu’s face fill her mind as she walked and moved her feet faster.
Thirty One
Will kept Karen close to his side and kept his eyes away from the buildings.
Not looking didn’t help. He was still aware of the damage that surrounded them. It was there in the smell of cold air, exposed brickwork and mould. It was there in the piles of rubble and broken glass they had to step over, and it was there in the occasional burned out car he saw from the corner of his eye. They’d come from Bishop’s Gate to Long Gate via a couple of side streets. He’d led them, Karen at his back, their hands linked and when Mick suggested they cut through Memorial Square, Will said there was no way they were doing that. The area was too open and exposed. At least on the side streets they were covered by shadows.
They’d heard nothing, seen nobody. Dalry was beyond a ghost town. It reminded Will of a documentary he’d seen once. Somewhere in remote Russia, some town used for nuclear weapon testing. It had been abandoned fifty or sixty years ago and nobody had been back since. The cameras had shown streets full of crumbling buildings, of misshaped objects that had once been cars. Nothing lived there and hadn’t done so in decades. That was what Dalry had become.
They drew level with the fire damaged museum, then older buildings used as restaurants, then the back of estate agents. All the windows were smashed and streaks of spray paint coated the frames and doors.
Will stopped and glanced at the others.
‘Which way do we want to go?’ he muttered.
‘Straight on.’ Stu pointed. ‘Across the road, down Cathedral Precincts and then across the park. We’ll come out at the back of St Mary’s, but it’s still the quickest way.’
Will pictured the park. Lush grass, a small play area, and healthy trees surrounding it. Overlooking it, St Mary’s Court.
They moved on in the same line, passed the damaged buildings and holes in the road and moved through Cathedral Precincts. Will glanced at the cathedral as they walked and looked away fast.
Fire damage stained the old stone and marble. White beams of moonlight coated walls and brick scorched by flame, and Will found himself sniffing the winter air, searching for the scent of a fresh fire. He smelled nothing but his own sweat, cold on his skin.
They reached the edge of the park and Will pointed, fully aware he didn’t need to but desperate to speak.
‘St Mary’s Court.’
Eight floors tall and as ugly here as he remembered it.
At least we only have to go up one floor.
‘Flat nineteen, wasn’t it?’ Mick said.
Will nodded.
‘Then let’s go.’
They walked across the park and nobody commented on the crunch of grass crumbling below them. The park ended at a narrow path which in turn opened to the rear of the building. The road and paths that encircled the building were full of car wrecks and piles of broken glass. Mick kicked a loose pile of glass with the toe of his boot.
‘All looks about the same,’ he whispered and Stu giggled, the little laugh full of nerves.
‘Call out chav and see if anyone appears,’ he muttered.
Will glanced at them, silently telling them to shut up and fully aware their words and little jokes were nothing but a cover for their shared fear.
He tightened his hold on Karen’s hand. The group stepped over the broken glass and stopped at the front doors.
The doors were nothing more than smashed wood, shoved open from the inside. The little moonlight that shone on the opening didn’t extend far into the building.
‘Flat nineteen,’ Karen said and Will lurched forward a second before his wife could. They grouped in the entrance; Will gestured to the vague outline of the steps. In silence, they went up.
Thirty Two
Stu pressed his hand against the door; it opened without a sound and the smell struck them a moment before sight.
A rich, meaty smell that made him instinctively recoil, and a sight that sent cold creeping over his flesh.
The lower half of a man’s legs were visible at the end of the hallway. And the stink had to be blood.
He glanced back at the others. The little streaks of daylight coming through the holes in the wood over the windows showed the fear on their faces.
Stu faced the interior of the flat again. ‘Andy?’ he whispered.
Nothing replied.
‘Andy? You in there, dude?’
Nothing but his fear.
Stu pushed the door open fully. The aroma of blood grew stronger as did the smell of decay and dirt. Stu held a hand over his mouth with no self-consciousness. The others did the same and they entered the flat. After a few steps, the dead man in the living room was fully visible. Blood coated his face and chest. Behind Stu, Karen made an odd noise. Time slowed for Stu. He felt his body turning; the movement passing in stages. Legs, waist, chest, all moving as if through water as his mouth opened to ask what was wrong, and Mick’s hand clamped down on his arm, a hiss of hurt blowing between Mick’s lips.
Andy lay on the kitchen floor, hands on the knife jutting from his stomach.
‘Andy?’ Stu whispered.
Karen let out a scream and dashed to Andy’s corpse. She fell at his side and her hands landed on his bloody stomach. She screamed again and the stink of blood crashed into Stu’s nose. He gagged, coughed and managed not to vomit. For a few seconds, in which he felt removed from his body, he closed his eyes and tried to think past the bellow of outrage echoing in his head.
No thoughts managed to remain solid. Just a rolling wave of grief.
He slid down beside Karen; Mick and Will pulled Karen upright.
‘Andy. Jesus Christ,’ Stu whispered.
The tears wouldn’t come. He felt them behind his eyes, it seemed, but they wouldn’t come. He touched Andy’s cheek with a fingertip and winced. The flesh of Andy’s cheek went beyond cold. It was like touching the inside of a freezer.
Karen sobbed against Will, and Stu stood. A tremor ran up his legs and Mick took his arm, supporting him.
‘We need a blanket or something,’ Stu said. His words were thick, his tongue much too big.
Mick crossed to the curtains in the living room and yanked on one. It fell in a cloud of dust. Mick waved at it in front of his face and wordlessly offered an end of the curtain to Stu. Together, they placed it gently over Andy’s body.
Sorry, mate.
The thought was nothing. Worse, it was all he had.
Close by, someone stepped softly, the movement sly in the gloom.
All conscious thought fell out of Stu’s head. He yanked Mick’s bat from his hand and ran to the hallway, then to the corridor, swinging the bat and raging.
Thirty Three
Kirsty stopped a few steps from him and kept her eyes on his.
‘Thanks for coming,’ he said.
His voice was soft, calm. He had the look of a manager about him, she decided. She could picture him as the sort of boss his staff liked and found him easy to talk to. His hair was thinning as he’d said and despite the paleness in his face and the slight bags under his eyes, he looked a few years younger than the mid-forties or so he had to be.
‘Five minutes,’ she replied, grateful her voice remained steady.
‘What happens in five minutes?’
‘That’s how long you’ve got before I call the police to report my husband missing. No matter about your sister. I’m sorry, but I have to focus on my husband.’
‘Of course.’
Kirsty gestured behind him. ‘Over there,’ she said and saw his question. She nodded towards to the record shop on the ot
her side of the Square. ‘Stu works there. I don’t want anyone there to see me.’
‘Of course,’ he said again and walked towards the side of the Hall. Kirsty took a few deep breaths and followed. Once they were out of sight of the shop, she felt a little better. Not enough to move any closer to Phil, though.
‘I really appreciate you coming,’ he said and appeared to consider. ‘Nobody else let me get as far as you did.’
She waited.
‘Geri, she …’ He ran a hand through his hair. ‘She was never happy, you know? Always something up. But we just took that as her being like some people are. Some people are always upbeat no matter what. She was the opposite. All the time. So when she …when she …’
‘She killed herself,’ Kirsty said. The words were ugly but she’d told him the truth: her focus had to be on Stu.
‘Yes. She killed herself and my family sort of fell apart. My other sister, Leigh, she died years ago. A car crash. My parents couldn’t handle living here after Geri died, as well. I moved away; my parents did the same and I’ve barely spoken to them in years. Then a couple of weeks ago, I saw her.’
‘Geri?’
‘Geri.’ He seemed more relaxed and Kirsty wondered if that was down to talking about it or having someone to listen.
‘I was at work. I’m a teacher. It was right at the end of the day. She was at the end of the corridor and at first, I thought she was just one of the students. She was too far away for me to see her face clearly, but then she started coming closer and I saw her. My dead sister.’
He laughed and ran his hand through his hair again.
‘My dead sister. Bonkers. She came towards me and I couldn’t speak. Couldn’t make a sound. Couldn’t even move.’ He paused and glanced at a few women passing them. Kirsty let him wait. It was mad enough hearing this story in daylight only a few hundred feet from her husband’s workplace. Nothing would be helped if she forced Phil to rush through his story.
‘You see ghosts and stuff in films,’ he said abruptly. ‘And they have a message for people; they try to communicate. Geri didn’t. She just kept coming towards me down that corridor.’ Kirsty stared at his eyes. They were far away. She shivered and Phil went on with a flat finality.
‘She vanished just before she reached me. Just disappeared. I’ve seen her four more times since then. She comes towards me and I can’t move. The last time was two nights ago. I woke up in the middle of the night and she was in my bedroom.’
‘Jesus,’ Kirsty whispered and Phil’s eyes focused on her.
‘Can I ask what Stu told you about her last night?’ he said and she struggled to marshal her thoughts.
‘Not a lot to be honest. I don’t think he knew what to say even if he’d had more to tell me. It was mainly that he’d heard her calling his name like she was shouting it. Then he phoned Will who had a drawing of her. Will’s an illustrator. Kids’ books. This drawing just appeared in his house. Karen saw her, too. Then it turned out Mick and Andy had their own things. They all went out last night to talk about it. And I haven’t been able to get hold of Stu since.’
She rubbed at her eyes, angry with herself.
‘All right,’ Phil said. ‘It’s okay.’
She barked tired laughter. ‘Is it?’
He managed a smile. ‘Not really.’ He slid his paper into a bin and stood with his arms loose by his sides, looking like an awkward teenager. ‘Can I ask you to do one more thing for me? I know you want to call the police about Stu and that makes sense. I just want you to do one more thing. It’ll take ten minutes. Fifteen at most.’
‘What?’ Kirsty said. She’d been seconds away from telling Phil she hoped whatever Geri wanted could be dealt with soon but she had to call the police. Maybe he’d seen that on her face.
‘Come to the cemetery with me,’ he said.
Seconds span out between them. More people passed and Kirsty shivered in the bite of cold to the wind.
Autumn’s here, she thought and nausea rolled in her stomach.
‘Her grave?’ she said.
‘Her grave,’ Phil echoed. ‘I know how it sounds, but it doesn’t matter. I think we should go and see Geri.’
Thirty Four
Mick squatted in front of the girl and leaned in close to her face. She wouldn’t look at him. He lifted his bat and jabbed it towards her.
‘You best tell us what the fuck happened here,’ he said.
She didn’t move.
‘Tell us,’ Mick roared and hands gripped his shoulders, pulling him back. He overbalanced and his bat dropped. Will kicked it away and, at his back, Karen spun him around.
‘Leave her alone. She’s not to blame for this, Mick.’
He leaped to his feet.
‘How the fuck do we know that?’ he said and Will pushed himself between them. Beside the petrol stained wall and carpet, Stu pressed his head against the tattered wallpaper. He hadn’t spoken in minutes. His scream from the corridor, the thud of his bat striking the wall and the girl’s cries chased each other around Mick’s head. And Andy lay on the floor in the kitchen, utterly dead.
‘Does she look like she could have done it?’ Karen said and Mick strode to the window. He faced the dirty glass and wished he still had his bat. How satisfying it would be to put it through the glass. Doing his best to calm himself, he faced Karen and Will. Stu didn’t move.
‘What happened here?’ he said.
Karen moved closer to the girl and squatted. The girl pulled her knees up to her chest, shielding herself. Standing back a few feet from her, Mick knew Karen was right. Despite her ill-fitting clothes of dirty coat and torn jeans which made it difficult to be sure, but the girl was plainly no older than eighteen. Andy hadn’t been a big bloke at all but he would have towered over her and outweighed her by a couple of stone. Unless she’d come at him in the dark and without making a sound, she hadn’t stabbed him.
‘What’s your name?’ Karen murmured.
Stu shuffled across the carpet to stand beside Mick. Will joined them, leaving only Karen close to the girl.
‘It’s all right. We’re not going to hurt you. We just need to talk to you,’ Karen said.
The only sound in the flat was the girl’s breathing.
‘I’m Karen. That’s Will, Mick and Stu.’
Nothing.
‘Can you tell us about our friend?’ Karen’s voice hitched but she kept speaking. ‘His name was Andy.’
The girl’s breathing changed. Mick strained to hear and realised it was a quickening to her breath.
‘His name was Andy Pateman,’ Karen said. ‘He was our friend. We need to know what happened to him.’
The girl’s eyes moved to land on Karen’s and Mick forced himself to stay where he was, to not run across to the girl and scream at her to talk.
The girl whispered and the breath didn’t reach Mick. He glanced at Will and Stu who both shook their heads. Karen leaned in closer to the girl.
‘What was that?’ she said and the girl answered.
‘He saved me.’
Thirty Five
Karen drew back from the girl and watched her follow the movement. Hoping the others wouldn’t speak and scare the girl back into silence, she said:
‘He saved you from that man?’ She pointed to the corpse with the broken face.
‘Yes.’
‘Can you tell us what happened after that?’
‘There was another man. In the kitchen.’
The girl’s whispers were barely audible. Grief, fear and a terrible anger swam inside Karen’s stomach. There was nothing upon which she could focus her anger. Her hands clenched, relaxed and clenched again. Andy, dead; this girl whispering like a frightened child and horrible, filthy events here in Andy’s flat. Her anger pulsed and she closed her eyes, struggling to think. Just as Andy had described, just as he’d seen. His old flat, a rapist, a girl and another guy in the kitchen.
‘He was hiding in a cupboard. He had two knives.’ The girl lifted a sha
king hand and pointed at Andy. ‘He stabbed him. The other man. But then he stabbed him back.’
‘Motherfucker.’ Mick kicked the wall. Plaster cracked and fell to the carpet with a sigh.
The girl flinched and tried to draw herself into a smaller ball.
‘It’s okay. He’s just upset about our friend, not at you,’ Karen said.
‘Too fucking right I’m upset.’
Stu grabbed Mick. ‘Quiet, man. This isn’t the place.’
Karen watched the men, the murky light shining on them.
Mick spoke and Karen had never heard his tone before. It went beyond resigned. It was dead.
‘I loved Geri but this is too much to ask. Andy’s dead. We’re stuck in the middle of a fucking nightmare and Andy’s dead. It’s too much to ask.’
‘We’ll make it right,’ Stu said and Mick replied in the same dead way.
‘How?’
Stu remained silent.
Eventually, Mick relaxed and Stu let him go. Karen faced the girl. She’d shifted position a little and some of the moonlight shone on her face. Karen frowned. The girl moved again and the brief impression Karen felt was gone.
‘Can you tell me your name?’ she said.
‘I don’t know.’
Karen spoke as carefully as she could. ‘You don’t know your name?’
The girl shook her head.
‘Do you know how old you are?’
‘Nineteen.’ The reply was immediate.
‘And do you know the name of this town?’
She shook her head.
‘This building?’
‘No.’
‘The date?’
‘No.’
She gave each negative reply in the same flat tone. There was no deceit in the answers. In her teaching career, Karen had heard kids lie for years. This wasn’t the same.
‘Do you live here in this building?’
‘No.’
‘Where do you live?’
The girl gestured vaguely to her left. Karen pictured the street outside, the road. If the girl did live in that direction, there were only a few square miles of streets that way before Dalry reached fields and farmland.
‘What were you doing here last night?’ Karen said. The girl shook but managed to speak.
‘I was out. They found me. Took me here.’ She pointed to the dead man. ‘He hurt me. Said he’d burn my face if I didn’t do what he wanted. Then the other man, your friend, he came in.’