“May I ask what will happen to me?”
Umpleby pointed out the window. “That’s where you’re going – you and your chatty friend. Up there.” He gestured to the ten-storey-high steel skeleton. “You’re going midnight bungee jumping. Without a rope.”
24: Cliffhanger
Before they left the site office for the long climb, Umpleby knelt down in front of Swanson.
“Wakey wakey,” he said and slapped the man’s face. Swanson’s eyes were startled back into focus, his hand going instinctively to his reddening and stinging cheek; Umpleby held the tape up, directly in front of his eyes. “Any more at home like this?”
Swanson shook his head.
“You sure about that?” Grice asked.
Swanson nodded. “Yes.” His voice was scratchy, as if speech were unfamiliar to him. “It’s the only one. I couldn’t copy it myself and I … I didn’t know who to trust with it.”
Umpleby nodded; that was the right answer. He motioned to Grice who took the videotape and laid it on the table before bringing the handle of his automatic down on it hard, shattering the case. He unspooled the tape from the casing, tore it up and dropped it together with the casing into a metal wastebin. Then he chucked the surveillance tape after it. He pulled a small can of lighter fluid from his jacket. After dousing the contents of the bin with the fluid and throwing the tin in for good measure, he struck a match, tossed it in, and stood back.
The whoosh of flame made everybody flinch. The excess fluid burnt off quickly and the bin’s contents settled down to be consumed, to the accompaniment of acrid smoke and a stench that penetrated deep into the nose and lungs.
Once the tapes had reduced themselves to an unsalvageable, molten mess, Grice got a kettle of water from the sink in the office and doused the flames.
“Of course,” said Umpleby, “we could have burnt this place down, left you inside — ”
“But you’ve done that once before,” interrupted Larkin, “and you’d hate to repeat yourself.”
“Something like that,” Umpleby replied. He wasn’t in the mood for repartee. “Now get going. I don’t want this to take longer than it has to.”
At first the climb was relatively easy: metal and concrete flights of stairs in a half-finished stairwell made for a brisk walk. Even the constant prodding of Grice’s gun in Larkin’s back – and Umpleby’s in Swanson’s – wasn’t too disconcerting. The worst thing was looking down; you were suddenly hit by a feeling of exposure, of isolation. However, halfway-up the stairwell ended abruptly and was replaced by a more temporary, flimsy arrangement: a set of wooden ladders leading to a platform consisting of heavy-duty planking secured onto tubular scaffolding bars. Another ladder on that platform led up to the next one. And so on, right to the top. If the feeling of emptiness and vulnerability on the stairwell was bad, on the ladders it was absolutely chilling.
Larkin began by keeping count of the floors as he made his way up, but exhaustion soon prevented him from keeping a tally. The fronts of his thighs and the backs of his calves were aching; his new suit and shirt were soaked through. The constant rapid upwards movement and the extreme height conspired to make him dizzy and lightheaded; his chest heaved. As his palms turned slick with sweat, his grip on the rungs became white-knuckled.
After reaching the top of one set of ladders, he stumbled onto his knees, sprawling over the wooden platform. Grice was right behind him.
“Get up, you lazy cunt,” he said, shoving the toe of his boot into Larkin’s ribs.
“Just a minute …” Larkin replied, glancing over to where Swanson and Umpleby were emerging onto the platform. They both looked as bad as Larkin felt.
“I said, get up.” Grice prodded Larkin a second time, harder. “Or — ”
“Or what?” said Larkin. “You’ll kill me?”
“I’m gonna kill you anyway,” Grice replied, “when we get to the top.”
“And you couldn’t throw me off halfway up, could you?” Larkin got to his feet, defiant. “That would be like premature ejaculation.”
Grice’s eyes turned to steel and his finger tightened on the trigger.
“Save it!” shouted Umpleby. “We do this properly. No fuck-ups!”
Grice reluctantly lowered his gun. Larkin grabbed the ladder, ready to resume his climb. “Let’s get it over with,” he said.
Larkin put his hands and feet on the rungs and climbed, going onto automatic pilot. As he reached the top of the ladder and began to lever himself onto the next platform, he saw in front of him, just within his grasp, a full-length, steel spirit level.
Working on pure instinct, he pulled himself clear of the ladder, reached for the level with his left hand and swung it round blindly.
Larkin’s arm was jarred to a sudden standstill by a dull thud. He looked round, down, as a harsh scream issued from Grice’s lips. The spirit level had made contact just above his left eyebrow, the steel edge embedded in the skin. Blood was beginning to bubble down his face. Larkin took another swing, knocking him off balance.
Grice frantically stuck out an arm, managing to grab the ladder as he fell backwards, landing hard on the platform below rather than sailing past to the ground. Larkin wasted no time. He threw the spirit level at Grice’s prone body on the floor below, and ran.
The planking to his right looked the safest bet, so off he went, as fast as he could; aware that if he took one wrong step he would plunge to his death. The boarding faded out after a while, leaving individual planks straddling odd sections of scaffolding. Larkin could hear voices behind him; he had no choice but to keep going forward.
He edged his way along a plank, conscious of the wind whipping his body, trying not to look down. No good: the more he tried not to, the more he wanted to. He did so, and immediately wished he hadn’t. It was a long, long way to the ground. To his mind, he might as well be walking on a tightrope, without a safety-net.
Suddenly, his feet lost their grip; looking down had made him lose his balance. Quickly he sidled to the end of the plank, arms flailing wildly, desperate to keep himself from falling. He jumped the last couple of steps, landing on scaffolding and gripping the supporting upright so fiercely his fingers seemed in danger of gouging the metal.
Breathing hard, but refusing to give in, he swiftly worked out the odds. The scaffolding itself began to peter out in only a few metres; clearly, he couldn’t go back. The only alternative was the building itself. At this level, it seemed nothing but a tower of oxidised girders riveted together. No steel reinforcement, no poured concrete, no glass, nothing. Still, he had to take his chance.
His deliberations were interrupted by a couple of popping sounds in quick succession, and two corresponding zings from the scaff bars behind him. That made up his mind for him. Kicking the plank he’d walked along away from the building to slow his pursuer, he immediately set out along the first girder.
Determined not to look down this time, he glanced over his shoulder, and saw a dark figure edging its slow and painstaking way along an outer girder towards him, its progress hindered by a leg injury and the fact that Larkin had disposed of the connecting plank. Larkin thought of shouting at Umpleby, trying to put him off balance, but the surprise might have had the opposite effect: focusing the policeman’s mind, providing him with a target to shoot at.
Opting for caution, Larkin successfully negotiated the next girder, gratefully grabbing the upright that greeted him. But looking ahead he found he was out of girder and he faced nothing but a huge tunnel down to the ground. Lift shaft? Courtyard? He didn’t know. He didn’t care. There was no place to go but down.
Staying in the corner, where the upright met the horizontal beam, he lowered himself tentatively to a crouching position, and swung his legs over the side of the beam. Immediately, vertiginous pins and needles attacked his feet. Trying to concentrate on nothing but the task in hand, he forced his heavy breathing under control. He grasped the beam he was sitting on and slowly lowered his whole body down.
Curling his arms around the horizontal beam, he slowly swung his legs backwards to gain momentum, then brought them quickly forward, wrapping them tightly round the upright girder. Once in position, he shuffled his arms along until he was able to grab the upright with first one arm then the other, clinging on for dear life.
Muscles screaming, palms slippery with sweat, he inched his way down. Once on the girder below, he chanced a glance upwards; Umpleby was edging his way round the side of the building, too busy balancing to be waving his gun around. Good, thought Larkin. With any luck, the night and the shadows of the building would cover him. He looked round again. Of Grice there was no sign. Taking short deep breaths, he prepared himself for the next descent.
It wasn’t quite so painful this time; he managed to establish a rhythm. Even so, it still wasn’t something he would do from choice. Landing on the next level down, he looked around, checking he hadn’t been followed. But he was still alone.
He realised that this method of descent was too tiring and painful for him to make it all the way to the ground. His best bet would be to slide along to the ladders at the side of the building. Taking a few seconds to collect himself, to focus, he set off.
It was slow, agonising going. He made the first support, then the second. Then the third. One more, and he would have reached his target. He looked upwards. No one, nothing. That was beyond luck. That was unsettling. Still, he set out for the ladders.
He reached them without incident, grabbing the scaffolding and pulling himself onto the relative safety of the boards. He looked down. Nothing. He looked up. As if on cue, he saw a body being thrown, feet first, from a platform above. Even from this distance he could make out the figure of Swanson.
Larkin’s heart seemed to stop as he watched, waiting for the fall, knowing there would be nothing he could do to catch the body. But Swanson didn’t fall. He jerked to a sudden halt, arms stretched above him. It didn’t take Larkin long to work out that the politician had been tied to a scaffolding bar and left to hang there. Frantically thrashing, Swanson’s struggles showed Larkin that he was still alive.
Larkin knew he couldn’t leave him there. Even if he went to get help, Swanson would be dead when he returned. He was being used as bait, to entice Larkin upwards. Knowing he was walking into an ambush – but knowing also that there was nothing else he could do – he made his way grimly back up the ladders.
The nearer Larkin came to Swanson’s hanging platform, the slower his progress became. He was listening, trying to work out where the attack would come from. He heard nothing.
Larkin reached the platform, where Swanson was hanging over the side, secured to a scaff bar by a pair of regulation handcuffs. Larkin could see that the force of the throw had dislocated both his arms. He was moaning quietly, his rational mind hiding somewhere beyond pain.
Larkin crossed to him, wrapping his arms round Swanson’s body, hauling him back onto the platform. Swanson’s legs came up easily enough, and Larkin tenderly laid the man out on the planking, leaving his useless arms still handcuffed to the bar. He cradled the man’s head. Swanson’s eyes were wide, glassy and completely empty.
“Hey! Fuckhead!”
Larkin turned at the voice, just in time to see Grice’s face peering through the hole leading to the platform above. In his hand he held his automatic, the barrel pointing towards Larkin, his finger squeezing tightly on the trigger —
Larkin quickly hurled his body out of the line of fire, rolling over, saved from toppling over the edge by a judiciously-placed scaffolding bar. There was a loud crack, and the side of Larkin’s head was hit with warmth and wetness. The air smelt of offal. But there was no pain, so … He looked round. Half of Swanson’s head was missing; he’d taken the bullet, full on. And Larkin was covered with Swanson’s blood and brains. He threw up over the side of the platform.
“Missed you!” the laughter was loud, uncontrolled.
Larkin pulled himself to his knees. Grice, his face a red mask from the earlier injury, was making his way down from above, grinning from ear to ear.
“Just like in the fuckin’ films! Fuckin’ great!” Grice was wired; the killing had given him an all-time high. Larkin knew he would be hungry for more, so he swallowed his anger and fear, trying to calm himself down before he spoke, so he would choose the right words.
“You’ve got me now, Grice.” Larkin held his arms up. “You gonna shoot me too?”
Grice pointed his gun at Larkin, but stopped just short of pulling the trigger. “Naw,” he said, as a new thought struck him, “we’ve got unfinished business. Get climbing.”
Larkin saw he had no option. He cast a long, sad look at what was once Swanson, and started to climb.
It soon settled into the same pattern as before: Larkin climbing, Grice’s gun sticking painfully into his spine at almost every step. They were nearing the top: one more set of ladders and they’d be there. Larkin resisted the temptation to look down.
“Where’s Umpleby?” asked Larkin, attempting to take the madness out of Grice with rational conversation.
“He’ll be here when he’s needed,” was Grice’s curt reply.
They climbed in silence until Larkin, hoping to make a last-ditch appeal to Grice’s conscience, spoke again. “So what about the children?”
“What children?”
“The ones whose photos you took out of Noble’s place. The abused ones. The missing ones. You ever wonder what happened to them?”
“Not really,” said Grice, disinterested. “Way I see it, they’re all little bastards anyway. Crooks in the making. Nothing you could do to them would make them any worse. McMahon said some of them ended up in Amsterdam – bloody good riddance, if you ask me.”
They carried on to the top platform. The view was magnificent, but Larkin wasn’t inclined to admire it. He’d never liked heights at the best of times, and this was far from the best of times. His heart pounding, he grabbed a girder for support and held on as tightly as he could. Grice emerged from the ladder and stood facing him, grinning.
“Now all you have to do,” Grice said with obvious glee, “is take three steps back. And then you’ll be gone. Or would you rather turn round and see where you’re goin’?”
Larkin remained silent, staring at Grice solemnly.
“You want my face to be the last thing you see?” Grice sounded like he hadn’t had so much fun in ages. “Fine by me. No last words? Nothin’ to be remembered by?”
Larkin kept staring. Suddenly, as he watched, a liquid shadow seemed to flow through the opening onto the platform behind Grice. It pulled itself up to its full height and Larkin was filled with unbelievable, wholly unexpected joy. Ezz. Larkin forced himself not to smile.
“I said,” Grice shouted, “have you got any last words?”
“Yeah,” said Larkin. “Look behind you.”
Grice emitted a short snort of a laugh. “Pathetic! Can’t you come up with someth — ”
The words were choked off in his throat as Ezz placed Grice’s neck in an armlock. His other hand effortlessly relieved Grice of his gun.
“Do you have any last words?” he calmly asked Grice.
All Grice could manage were a few strangled expletives.
“Thought not,” said Ezz, and snapped his neck. The lifeless body crumpled to a heap on the platform as Ezz let go.
“Here,” said Ezz, throwing Grice’s gun to Larkin, “let’s make a quick exit.”
Larkin stood still, shaking. “Is he dead?” he heard his voice ask, like a child.
“Yeah.”
“You killed him!”
Ezz shrugged. “He killed that bloke downstairs. He killed Houchen an’ all. An’ Noble.”
“I thought that was you.”
“I know,” Ezz replied. “An’ it could have been me, I was all set to do it, but then they turned up an’ saved me the trouble. Don’t lose sleep over it. He was goin’ to kill you if I hadn’t got to him first.”
“What a
re you doing here, anyway?” Larkin asked. “You just happened to be passing and you thought you’d drop in?”
“I’ve been followin’ you all day. I was waiting for the right moment to make an appearance.” Ezz almost smiled. “I can’t leave you alone for five minutes, can I?”
Larkin laughed, more to release tension than anything else. “That was almost a joke. I never thought I’d hear you make a joke, Ezz.”
“Yeah, well,” said Ezz, his usual icy detachment returning, “we’ll have to move. There’s another one still around somewhere.”
“Yeah. And we want him alive. He’s the only one who can prove McMahon murdered Jason Winship.”
“That policeman?” asked Ezz.
“Yeah. Come on – let’s get the hell out of here.”
They decided not to go straight down in case Umpleby was waiting for them; instead they made their tortuous way round the top of the building, searching for another set of ladders. As they were edging their way round, Larkin noticed the adjoining building. The two were due to be interconnected at some time during construction, and the space between them, at this point, was only about seven or eight feet.
“What d’you reckon, Ezz?” asked Larkin. “Put a plank across here and make it down the next one?”
Ezz stared at it, brow furrowed in concentration. “Might work. If we can find a plank long enough.”
“Let’s have a look.”
They scrutinised the planking. It all seemed to be of uniform length; two inches thick with metal-tipped ends. They pulled one up and, taking the weight on either side, brought it down to cover the gap. It made a reverberating, slapping sound as it connected with a scaff bar on the other side. But it held.
“Done it!” said Larkin. “I reckon we’ve got two inches at either side. I’ll hold it, you get across – you hold it, I’ll come. OK?”
Ezz nodded. Larkin held the plank firmly in place and Ezz stepped onto it.
Suddenly there was a zinging sound next to Larkin’s left ear, accompanied by a raising of dust and chips from the scaff pole. Larkin turned his head. Umpleby was making his way to where they were. He was throwing out his injured leg awkwardly as he walked, but there was no mistaking the gun held firmly in his hand.
Little Triggers Page 21