by Tim Ellis
Ask stupid questions – get stupid answers.
‘Okay, so tell me about the copies.’
‘They’ve always been here, but you never really saw them before.’
‘Why are you seeing them now?’
‘It’s her.’
‘Her? Her who?’
‘I don’t know. The caretaker won’t name her. I’ve asked him, but he’s afraid.’
‘Afraid of what?’
‘He won’t say.’
‘Have you seen her?’
‘No.’
‘Can you tell me anything about her?’
‘No. I listen at the door sometimes. I hear the copies chanting, but they never say her name.’
Kline stood up. ‘Thanks for your help, Jenny.’
‘You’re going?’
‘I have to. Someone has to get rid of those copies.’
‘Yes. The caretaker said an angel would come.’
‘Believe me, I’m no fucking angel.’
‘Angels come in all shapes and sizes.’
‘Whatever.’ A fucking angel! Nobody in their right minds would ever think she was an angel. She made her way to the door. ‘Keep the door locked, and keep drinking the potion.’
‘I intend to.’
The door banged shut, and she heard Jenny putting the bolts and chains back on.
What now? Something had obviously happened to change the status quo. A woman – who everyone was afraid to call by name – had arrived and upset the applecart. The copies had come out of the woodwork and the shit had hit the fan. Now, there seemed to be a battle going on between the copies and the normals.
She put her hand up and realised she was still wearing the pointy tin foil hat. It wasn’t helping her – she was still having crazy fucking thoughts.
On her own, she couldn’t do anything. As much as she wanted to help Quigg – he was on his own now. She needed to get out of the building and call the Chief for back-up.
She made her way back to the access panel – it was open.
***
‘Quigg?’
Not again.
He pushed swathes of quilt into his ears, but it didn’t help.
‘Quigg?’
‘What now?’ he aimed at the barricaded door. ‘Can’t you leave me alone?’
‘Why does everything you touch turn to shit, Quigg?’
‘Hello, Chief.’
‘Let me in, Quigg. A senior officer shouldn’t have to shout at a subordinate through a closed door.’
‘I’m sleeping, Chief.’
‘You’re awake, Quigg. Otherwise we wouldn’t be having this conversation.’
‘But I am trying to sleep.’
‘You’ll be in deep shit if you don’t let me in, Quigg.’
‘If I let you in, will you give me the resources I need to solve this case.’
‘Whatever you want, Quigg. Just let me in.’
‘It’s not you, is it, Chief?’
‘Of course it’s me. Who else would it be?’
‘That’s a good question. If you were the Chief you wouldn’t give me any resources – no matter how much I begged.’
‘There’s somebody else here you should talk to.’
‘Let me in, Quigg.’
‘What are you doing here, Duffy?’
‘I have Máire with me.’
‘Really?’ He staggered to the door. His clothes were dripping in sweat, and his skin looked a ghostly white. He stuck his eye to the peephole. ‘Hold her up, so that I can see her.’
‘Are you going to deny your own daughter, Quigg? Let us in now, and then you can see her.’
‘You wouldn’t bring Máire here.’
‘If you don’t let us both in now, I swear you’ll never see your daughter again.’
‘If you’re not Duffy, who are you really?’
The door began shaking as if there was an earthquake, light poured through the gaps like water and a terrible shrieking sound hurt his ears.
He dragged himself back to the sofa and tunnelled under the quilt again. Nobody was coming into the flat until he’d had at least a hundred hours sleep. He didn’t care if God himself was rattling on the door – nobody was going to keep him awake, and that was his final decision.
Who were all these people? They definitely sounded like the people they said they were, and how did they know the little details about him? Something wasn’t quite right, but then something hadn’t been quite right since he and Kline had arrived at Apocalypse Heights. If only he had the strength to do something about it.
In the morning. He’d be his usual suave and jaunty self in the morning. If he could just get a few more hours sleep he’d be fine. He’d wake up early bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and find out what the hell was going on.
First though . . . he had to . . .
***
‘Hey, are you there?’ she hissed.
Lovelock’s head appeared at the opening. ‘We’re still here. Is it safe?’
‘Yes, there’s nobody here. Haul me up.’
They lowered a rope.
She climbed up the knots. Once she was kneeling in the cavity space, she slid the access panel back into place.
Then everything went black.
How long she was unconscious for she had no idea, but when she opened her eyes she was lying on her side with her hands and feet tied together behind her.
‘What the hell’s going on?’ Her head throbbed like a nuclear bomb.
‘Yeah, sorry about the head thing again.’
‘Fuck’s sake! I’m on your side.’
‘After you’d gone, we had a talk and decided that you were a threat to our safety.’
‘I was going to get help.’
‘Maybe we don’t need help.’
‘It’s going to get a lot worse, you know.’
‘Maybe, maybe not. No one knows we’re up here, and we’d like it to stay that way.’
‘So what? You’re just going to leave me tied up here without any food and water?’
‘Sorry. We talked about killing you, but none of us are murderers.’
‘I don’t believe this.’
‘Sorry.’
She heard people moving away. ‘You’re not fucking sorry, or you wouldn’t leave me like this.’
Soon, it was completely dark and quiet.
That was something she hadn’t expected.
What now?
Fuck’s sake!
She struggled against her bindings, but they’d done a good job – she wasn’t going to wriggle free. This was not the place or the manner in which she had imagined herself dying, but how was she going to get out of here?
They’d probably taken the rucksack with the knives in the side pocket with them, so they were no good. She had to find something to cut the rope.
Of course, she could just lie here and wait to die, but that wasn’t going to happen. She was far too young and beautiful to die in a dingy ceiling space. This was not going to be her coffin.
She began slithering across the rough concrete floor like a snake, and as she went she tried to feel for something that she might be able to use to free herself, but they had left her nothing useful.
How long she had been there she had no idea. Time seemed to stand still in the empty blackness. The more she moved, the more the concrete floor tore into the skin of her arms – she was tired, raw and bleeding.
Eventually, it came to her that she’d climbed through the tool that she needed to cut through the ropes. All around the access panel were the sharp edges of the concrete floor. She’d been careful not to cut herself on them. They were exactly what she needed. The trouble was, she’d moved so far away from the small square opening that she had no idea where it was anymore.
Not only that – she was tired, bleeding and losing any hope of ever getting out of the ceiling cavity alive. She was very close to giving up and letting fate have its way with her.
Instead, she cried.
Since those two me
n had raped her as a fifteen year-old, nobody had ever seen her cry, and nobody ever would. Alone in the darkness though, she indulged herself.
Afterwards, she had renewed energy and purpose. She chose a direction and began moving slowly across the floor. If it was the wrong direction . . . Well, nobody could accuse her of not trying, or giving up.
Of necessity, she took frequent rests, but it was slow and difficult progress.
Then her feet found the side wall of the building, and she could feel a cool breeze on her face, which she knew must be the maintenance shaft. The access panel was directly in line with the shaft.
Hope and energy flooded through her bruised and battered body.
She snaked towards the shaft, and then found the square access panel.
At last.
Now, she needed to rest.
She was so tired. What time was it? She was completely disoriented. Hours, days or weeks could have passed her by for all she knew. She had to sleep for a while – just a little while to re-charge her batteries.
Then, she was going to cut through the ropes and kick some fucking ass.
***
‘Quigg?’
The answer wasn’t to answer.
‘Quigg?’
Doo-de-doo-de-doo. Dah-de-dah-de-dah. He began reciting a nursery rhyme his mother used to sing to him when he’d suffered from the night tremors. He had no idea why she sang it to him, because she was a terrible singer and the rhyme wasn’t related in any way, shape or form to his fear of dead people. Maybe it was the only nursery rhyme she knew:
Row, row, row your boat,
Gently down the stream.
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily,
Life is but a dream.
In fact, it seemed more appropriate to what he was experiencing now than then. Was life a dream? Was he dreaming now? He had no idea. Did he still have a grip on reality? Maybe there was no reality anymore. If there was, he was struggling to find it.
‘Quigg?’
‘Go away, Ruth.’
‘Oh Quigg! You have to open the door and let me in.’
‘You know that under normal circumstances I’d be only too pleased to have you come and join me in here, but I’m trying to sleep, and you’re at least a hundred months pregnant with our baby and you also have swollen ankles. Why are you here? You know your water retention will only get worse if you don’t keep your feet elevated.’
‘It’s Máire, Quigg.’
‘What about her?’
‘Duffy has taken her to the hospital. You have to come. You’re the only one who can save her.’
What if it really was Ruth in the corridor. What if Máire really was in hospital. ‘What’s wrong with her?’
‘They don’t know, but you have to come. It might be the last time you ever see your daughter alive.’
He had no choice, he had to open the door. If Duffy had taken Máire to the hospital, if she was dying, if he could save her . . . how could he not go? He loved his children. All . . . how many did he have now? What type of father would he be if he let his child die when he could so easily have saved her?
‘All right, I’m coming.’ He dragged himself along the hallway, removed the barricade of the bookcase and the chair, and flung the door open.
It wasn’t Ruth standing there – it was a young woman with blonde-streaked hair tied back in an untidy bunch, a nice smile, and dimples.
He tried to force the door shut again, but she had her foot against the wood.
‘Who are you?’
‘Don’t you remember me, Quigg?’
‘No, should I?’
‘Magdalena Van Groesen. I was the receptionist at Grisly Park.’
‘I’m sure you have a very good reason for being here, Miss Van Groesen, but I’m in a bit of a hurry . . .’
‘We made love.’
‘I’m sorry, I don’t recall . . .’
‘You said it was special.’
He had a vague recollection of an earring left in his bed and admitting that he’d made love to her, but having no memory of actually doing it. ‘I’m sure at the time I might have meant it, but in all honesty, I don’t recall the event.’
She put a hand on his chest and pushed him backwards. ‘We’ll have to rectify that, Quigg. This time, you’ll remember everything.’
‘As much as I’d like to make love to you, I have to get to the hospital. My daughter . . .’
‘. . . Is fine – healthy as a baby elephant. It was all a ruse to get you to open the door.’
‘That’s a terrible thing to do, Magdalena.’
‘I know, but I am terrible. In fact, I’m evil.’
The straps of the long flowing dress slipped from her tanned shoulders to the floor. She kicked it to one side with her foot, the door slammed shut and her arms enveloped him.
He had no strength to stop her doing what she wanted with him, but she was so beautiful why would he want to stop her anyway? What he wanted to do was kiss her, to caress her all over and to make love to her until the world ended in a ball of flame.
‘You’re dying, Quigg.’
‘I did wonder.’
‘But I’m here to save you.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes, really.’
‘And how are you going to do that, Magdalena Van Groesen?’
She had removed his clothes and pushed him back onto the sofa. His trousers were round his ankles, and he had an erection that under other circumstances he would have been proud to own up to. How had that happened? He didn’t have the strength to lick his parched lips, never mind sprout an erection.
‘I’m going to kill you.’
‘Oh!’
***
She woke to find that she’d been slobbering from the corner of her mouth like an old-aged-pensioner. If she ever reached fifty, she’d pay someone to kill her.
Not only that, but she desperately needed to pee and she was still trussed up like a sow for spit-roasting.
Having no other choice, she got to work. Once she found a rhythm the rope soon began to fray on the edge of the concrete. It took – probably fifteen minutes – for her lacerated wrists to gain their freedom. She then quickly removed the rope from her ankles, shifted away from the access panel in the dark and squatted. It wasn’t very lady-like, but then who said she was a lady anyway?
Now what?
Lovelock and the others could be absolutely anywhere in the high-rise, and even though they were guilty of attempted murder they weren’t her main priority. It was also her word against theirs – she would have been a lone voice in the wilderness. Her first priority was to get out and get help. She had no idea what had happened to DI Quigg – maybe it was already too late for him. Even if it wasn’t, the best way she could help him was to get people into the building to find out what the fuck was going on.
She began climbing down the metal ladder. Twenty-seven floors was a long way. The wind whistled upwards like a twister and she was glad she hadn’t worn a skirt or a dress. Even so, occupying a wind-tunnel needed better attire than a pair of jeans and a tank top – her nipples were as hard as little acorns.
In the darkness, she had no idea how many floors she’d descended when a torchlight picked her out and blinded her.
‘You’re going the wrong way,’ a male voice said.
‘You’ll be going head-first before me if you don’t get that fucking light out of my eyes.’
The light went off.
‘My name’s Michael. Have you got a boyfriend?’
‘How old are you, Michael?’
‘Nineteen . . . nearly.’
‘How nearly?’
‘Eleven months.’
‘Happy birthday.’
‘Thanks.’
She crawled into the cavity space. ‘Which floor are we on?’
‘Seventeenth.’ He switched the torch back on so that the light highlighted his face from underneath. Michael was a slim black kid with a twist hairstyle and a mischievous smi
le in his eyes.
‘What makes you think I’m going in the wrong direction?’
‘The good guys are in the penthouse apartment.’
‘You live there?’
‘I wish. No, that’s where Ken Coxon is marshalling his army.’
She half-laughed. ‘Marshalling his army! Anybody would think you’re playing dungeons and dragons.’
‘Did you say you had a boyfriend?’
‘Look Michael, I’m sure you’re a nice guy, but there are three things you should know about me.’
‘You don’t like black guys?’
‘Number one – I’m a police detective; number two – I’m too old for you; and number three – I hate men.’
‘So, you don’t dislike black guys?’
‘No, but I think number three is a major stumbling block to your ambitions. So, who’s this Ken Coxon?’
‘An arse-licker. His dad owns all the high-rises on the estate. He lives in the penthouse apartment in the Heights and takes care of daddy’s investment.‘
‘And what’s this about him marshalling an army?’
‘Yeah – that’s what he said.’
‘And how many are in this army?’
‘Ten.’
‘Ten?’
‘Yeah. I’ve been sent out as a recruiter. Do you want to join the army?’
‘Ten is hardly an army, Michael.’
‘Armies have to start somewhere.’
‘I’m going down. I need to get out and call for back-up.’
‘You don’t want to do that – the bad guys are down there.’
‘I’ll find a way.’
‘You won’t.’
‘You seem pretty sure.’
‘I am. Have you seen the bad guys?’
‘No, but I’ve seen what they did to Mr Flowers in 27/3.’
‘That’s old news. They’ve killed at least a dozen others that I know about . . . They have an army, you know.’
‘Eleven?’
He grunted. ‘I wish. At least a hundred, but they had a head start on us.’
‘I’d say the bad guys are gonna wipe you out unless you get reinforcements, which is just what I’m going to do for you.’
‘I’ll come with you.’