A hand gripped her arm, just above the elbow.
‘Hey!’ She half-turned, ready to lash out, then let out a little scream of surprise.
‘I haven’t seen you in a few days,’ he said.
‘I’ve been sick,’ she replied, fear rising like vomit in her gullet.
‘I’d be really upset if I thought you’d been avoiding me.’
‘No, no . . . I’ve been really bad.’
He held her at arms’ length, and she winced at the pressure of his thumb digging into the flesh of her inner arm. ‘You do look a bit peaky,’ he said. ‘I’m willing to give you the benefit of the doubt, providing—’
Adèle glanced past him at the shoppers and office workers making their way home.
‘Look at me,’ he ordered, and although he spoke quietly and calmly, Adèle flinched.
She felt helpless. When he looked at her, it was as if she was nothing, nobody, and in her state of terror it seemed as though she had become invisible. He gave her a shake and she whimpered.
‘Like I say, I’ll let you off, providing you compensate me for all that wasted time.’
He rummaged through her pockets with his free hand and came out with the coins she had worked all day to earn.
‘Is that it?’
Adèle nodded wordlessly. She became aware that people were avoiding them, giving them a wide berth, but she daren’t look away from him until he gave her permission.
He let go of her arm and she felt it throbbing as blood began to return, then he was behind her, his mouth next to her ear, his breath warm on her neck.
He handed back three pounds. ‘That’ll pay for tomorrow’s magazines,’ he said. ‘I’m not out to ruin you.’
She thanked him, her lips numb with fear.
‘You’re doing the right thing,’ he told her. ‘Best to pay up and stay on the right side of the Taxman.’
She nodded, fighting back tears. He had her money, why wouldn’t he let her go? He carried on, talking in a low, almost intimate tone.
‘I know a bloke said he wanted to keep his cash. After all, he’d earned it . . . Taxman bit his ear clean off. Got it in his teeth and worried it like a terrier with a rag. Took some of the flesh over his left eye, an’ all. Bloke wears his hair long, now.’ He snapped his teeth together and Adèle darted forward with a yelp. He laughed, and she recognized him in an instant of terrible clarity: a dark alleyway, a spurt of flame dripping gold, the nauseating stench of burnt flesh and hair, and the dreadful screams of a rat.
She jostled though the crowds, dropping her last two magazines in her urgency. She ran and ran, up the hill, away from the awful sound of his laughter. Heedless of the traffic, she blundered into the road. A car horn blared, and she leapt like a startled cat, then bolted blindly into the night.
* * *
Nick was in a rush — people to see before work — somebody who could get him a mint-condition Triumph insignia for the petrol tank. The bike renovations were nearing completion.
He still hadn’t forgiven Geri for flushing the hash down the toilet, and the nearest she got to a greeting was a scowl, then he grabbed his jacket and ran, slamming the front door, leaving a silence that was all the more intense for having been preceded by so much activity.
Still holding her briefcase, Geri stared at the door feeling abandoned, bereft. She set down her briefcase and took off her coat, then went to each room, peering in as if hoping to find companionship within.
‘Almost identical,’ Vince had said. Frank’s body had been found in almost identical circumstances as Ryan.
The police had interviewed children all day, and the fevered excitement their presence caused had been hard to contain. She was exhausted and depressed.
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake — stop it!’ Geri said aloud. She wouldn’t allow herself to think about it. Not while she was alone, not while she had no one else to share in the horror of it.
She checked the time — five thirty — enough time for a light meal before going to the youth club. She busied herself in the kitchen, preparing something to eat. Tuna, rice, fried vegetables. She spooned them onto a plate and poured herself a glass of wine, then left the food to go cold while she wondered how Frank had come to be in that awful place. He had told Siân that he had to get away. Why, then had he stayed? Stayed and died?
She got up and scraped the remains of her dinner into the bin, washed up and wiped down, moving spice jars and utensils, cleaning with a ferocity that banished thought.
An hour and a half later, the cupboards had been cleaned and tidied, old tins, past their sell-by date, thrown out, mail sorted, and the kitchen floor washed. She looked at her handiwork and thought, what good did that do?
It was time to leave; Joe would expect her at the youth club, but she put it off. Another evening trying to explain to the children something she couldn’t understand herself — trying to tell them why people their age died. And so horribly . . . She couldn’t face it. She went to the sitting room and picked up her address book. Twice she dialled and hung up before the connection was made. On the third attempt, she let it ring.
She could hear music and lively conversation as the phone was picked up.
‘Turn that thing down!’ Coral commanded. ‘I can’t hear myself think!’ Her accent seemed more decidedly Caribbean; her voice more richly musical than it sounded at school.
‘Hold on a second,’ she said. ‘I’ll take it in the hall.’ There was a pause, then the voices and music were abruptly cut off. ‘Better,’ Coral said. ‘You know, I love my sons, and I’m flattered they want to live at home at their age, but you never get a minute’s peace!’
Geri didn’t know what to say, so she remained silent.
‘Are you all right, love?’
‘I can’t settle, Coral. I still can’t believe . . .’
‘I know, I know. I spoke to his mother earlier. She kept asking “Why?”’ She sighed. ‘What could I tell her? There is no reason, no logic to all this.’
‘He should never have been in that place. He was leaving the city. Siân said.’
‘He must have changed his mind. Didn’t Vince say he had camping gear?’
‘They found his body near a pile of rubbish. That doesn’t mean it was his.’
‘Sleeping bag, plastic sheeting, rucksack, billy cans, a gas canister. Who else’s? He was lying low, Geri, waiting for all the fuss to die down.’
‘I suppose . . .’ A tiny alarm bell started chiming, not loud enough to make her stop and think what was causing her disquiet, but enough to make her feel uneasy, dissatisfied with the police explanation.
‘I suppose . . .’ she repeated, almost decided that she would tell Coral about the drugs she had found in the lining of her coat. ‘Coral, d’you think Barry—’
‘Look nuh,’ Coral interrupted, her West Indian accent more pronounced as she lost patience. ‘The police know of our concerns about that young man. They’re not stupid. Leave them to get on with their job.’
‘I would, if they’d do it,’ Geri said tartly.
‘What you saying?’
‘If they think Frank died alone—’
‘We don’t know what they think.’
‘No,’ Geri said. ‘We don’t.’ She heard the irritation in Coral’s voice. She liked Coral and valued her good opinion. Where some staff viewed Geri’s vigilance as a form tutor as excessive, her defence of her pastoral charges irksome and naive, Coral encouraged her commitment. But even Coral had her limits, it seemed.
‘So, you’ll let it be?’ Coral said.
‘It’s a police matter, right?’
‘Right . . .’ Coral didn’t sound convinced, but she let it go, and they agreed to talk about it again on Friday.
* * *
Geri went into the hall and dragged on her coat, snagging the lining and tearing the hole wider — after her argument with Nick, she hadn’t felt like completing the repair. ‘Shit!’ she hissed.
A sound from the kitchen startled he
r; she hadn’t heard anyone come in.
‘Lauren?’ she called. There was no reply.
Geri crept down the hallway. Her heart thudding dully, she trod carefully on the boards nearest the skirting, unconsciously holding her breath. The kitchen light was on. She pushed the door open and saw Lauren sitting at the table.
‘Lauren?’ she said. ‘Are you all right?’
‘Fine.’ Lauren wiped her eyes and picked up a bundle of papers and books from the tables and walked out.
‘Is there anything I can—’
The door closed behind her.
‘—do?’ Geri finished. ‘What the hell is the matter with everyone?’ she asked the empty room.
In her own room, Lauren spread the newspaper out on her bed. The front-page headline of The Tribune read, SENSELESS, and beneath it was a picture of Frank with the caption, Second tragic death in glue-sniffing craze.
* * *
Adèle concentrated on the interlocking diamonds of the wire-mesh base of the bunk bed above her. She didn’t owe Frank Traynor a thing. She didn’t even remember him from school. But every time she closed her eyes, she saw a thin stream of liquid flame, heard the screams of the rat and the horrible cruel laughter. It had haunted her dreams and echoed in every alleyway since that night, just over a week ago, when she had first heard it. She couldn’t even go in to suss out a new doss anymore — didn’t have the courage. She hated the shelter, but the Taxman had made her too afraid to live on the streets.
The night it had happened, she’d returned to her doss buoyant, after the thaw, glad to be free of the shelter at last. The drizzle that had fallen earlier in the day had exhausted itself leaving a misty pall that threatened to turn to fog, creeping up, it seemed, from the dirty gutters. The rain had melted the last remnants of snow, and with mixed feelings of relief and apprehension, she had quit the emergency shelter for the last time, moving her gear back to the warehouse that afternoon, stopping to buy a new gas canister for the primus stove, grateful to leave the fetid air of the shelter but not entirely thrilled with the prospect of rebuilding her bivvy.
She had postponed the rebuilding, deciding it made more sense to try to sell a few magazines before the shops shut and get down to the hard work later. Now, in the mist and the dark, she wondered if she had made the right decision.
The mist was denser in the deep shadows of the warehouses. It lay in milky pools in the hollows at ground level, and in the windowless upper storeys it drifted like spiders’ webs, floating out on the breeze. Its cover made her feel secret, invisible, and she began to relax a little. She could still hear the whizzes and bangs of the Chinese New Year celebrations, but the sounds were muffled by the gathering mist, and the flashes were muted, distant, like sheet lightning.
She stopped outside her warehouse. The downpipes had been ripped out long ago for scrap and what was left of them spattered dirty water onto her head. She ducked and shivered as an icy drop found its way down the back of her neck. Nobody ever came this way anymore, but she always approached the building with the same caution. She listened, but there was only the rush and boom of the fireworks a mile away in the city, and the gurgle and splash of water in the drains.
She picked her way through the rubbish in the side passage; the carpet, which had been moulded into a fantastic sculpture by the frost, lay flattened, sodden on the ground. Her heart missed a beat. Flattened . . . She fumbled in her pocket for her torch. Yes, it was definitely there: a boot print, trampled into the pile. Had it been there that afternoon? She didn’t think so, and anyway, wouldn’t the rain have washed it away?
Her heart pounded and she felt a tingling in her scalp. She leaned against the wall for support and tried to decide what to do. Everything she owned was in there: sleeping bag, change of clothes, the lot. Even the refill for the primus stove, hidden it with the rest of her gear under the display boards.
Adèle forced herself to breathe normally. Whoever it was, likely he’d come down the side passage and maybe had a squint through the door. The ground floor was under half an inch of muddy water after the thaw. He’d probably seen the state of the place and buggered off.
She stood upright, still feeling a little light-headed, but now able to go on.
A flash of light, and she flinched, her heart racing, until she realized it was her own torch. She thrust it into her pocket, flicking the switch: if there was someone inside, she didn’t want to alert them to her presence. She waited until her eyes were fully adjusted to the dark before going in through the narrow gap in the doorway. It was wider. She had been unable to shift the metal door on the occasions she had tried, which meant someone bigger and stronger had been through here, and recently.
Inside the building, the mist was thicker. Wisps swirled and danced on the surface of the water, filling her nose with the reek of damp brickwork and moss . . . and something else. Something elusive, which sparked emotion: excitement and fear. She knew that smell, but as the air currents changed, she lost it, and focused instead on the steady splash of water, like the click of a scolding tongue. She listened. Below it, the intestinal gurgle of broken water pipes. Then, a rustle. A movement. She held her breath.
A high squeak, almost out of her range of hearing, then another, answering call — rats. She let the air out of her lungs gently and moved to the staircase, placing her feet with slow care, to avoid splashing.
On the steps she paused, angling her head to catch any sound. Nothing. For ten seconds, twenty, thirty . . . Nothing. She took one step at a time, and as she peered over the last, she kept low, lying almost full-length on the staircase.
Her gear was a formless hump in the darkness at the far side of the floor, fading in and out of focus in the thickening vapour that penetrated the building.
She froze. A shape stepped out from behind one of the pillars and she flattened herself against the steps. He gasped; for a moment she thought he had seen her, and she tensed herself ready to run. Then he repeated the sound and she thought it was like a sob, or a wordless exclamation.
He turned and disappeared into the darkness, then she heard a heavy dragging, and he was back again. He dumped his burden on top of her gear.
My, God, she thought. My God, what’s he doing?
She heard a familiar rattle, then a flash of flame, and Adèle got another whiff of that elusive smell. Solvent. With his back to her, he flicked the match and a sheet of flame exploded. He stepped back, cursing, and she saw, horrified, the outline of a body on the bonfire.
She covered her mouth with both hands to stifle a whimper that threatened to become a scream. Go, no! Please, God, no . . . she prayed inarticulately as she backed away down the steps, trying not to make a noise. Halfway across the uneven concrete of the ground floor she stumbled and fell with a splash. The man shouted and she leapt to her feet, running for the door.
He would expect her to run for the street. If she did, he would catch her. She dived right instead and ran into the gloom at the far end of the passageway. It was a dead end. She hid behind a sheet of corrugated iron and hoped he wouldn’t come and investigate.
She heard him splashing about in the water inside the building, then saw the flash of a powerful torchlight in the passage, shining in her direction. The mist had thickened to a fog, and he cursed as the saturated air reflected the light back at him, then the torch went out. Adèle closed her eyes. Her heart pounded so loudly in her throat she thought it would give her away. She heard the man’s boot crunch on the grit underfoot. He was waiting. She pressed herself against the wall, shifting one foot carefully, and came in contact with something soft. It squealed and shot out from under her — a rat as big as a cat.
She couldn’t see the man in the milky air, but she heard the snick of a cigarette lighter, and then a narrow shaft of flame shot towards her, dripping fire. Then the rat was screaming, splashing in the puddles of black water, leaping and squirming. Coming towards her.
His aim was good; he kept the flame-thrower on the creature no m
atter how it leapt and twisted. And all the time he was laughing. Laughing like he thought it was really funny. Laughing as the animal flailed and screamed, its fur blackening and its skin sizzling, and when it stopped struggling, not dead, but too shocked to offer any resistance, he stood in the dark and watched it twitch and shiver for a full five minutes. Adèle tried to keep her breathing even and silent. Would he come and check there was nothing, no one, else in the alley?
A huge crash overhead made the man shout. The gas refill! It had exploded.
She heard him mutter, ‘What the fuck?’ then the crunch of his boots as he turned to go back inside. She waited until she heard him splashing across the floor towards the staircase before making her escape.
Adèle felt a sudden icy chill — did he know? Had he seen her running away that night? Was that why he was hounding her? She forced herself to slow her breathing, made it keep time with the light snore of the woman in the upper bunk. Gradually she became calmer, more able to think. If he knew, I’d be dead already. Small consolation. Then the chilling thought: And if he finds out, he’ll do me for certain. He knows street people. He knows the places to hide, the dosshouses, the shelters, squats, hostels . . .
Her stomach gave a sickening lurch. Her choice was a stark one: stay at the shelter and wait for him to come for her or leave and face the terrors of the street once more. Less than a fortnight ago she wouldn’t have hesitated: the shelters were full of the crazies and druggies she had spent the last six months trying to avoid. But now she would rather face a crack addict than the Taxman, with his quiet voice and his terrifying laugh. The Taxman didn’t hurt people because he was mad or desperate or stoned — he did it because he liked doing it. And he knew how to get away with it.
31
Vince arrived back at the station after lunch time on Friday. He had spent the morning finishing the interviews at St Michael’s. The uniformed officers on his team had returned to normal duties, and the CID members had been reassigned other tasks. Garvey looked up from his desk as two DCs came into the incident room.
DYING EMBERS an unputdownable psychological thriller full of breathtaking twists Page 23