Stuart Pawson - The Mushroom Man

The rain had started again.

Attlee Towers is on the mean side of town. Once, rows of terraced houses stood there; two-up, two-down and back-to-back. No hot water, shared closets, and washing strung like bunting across the cobbled streets. But now people remembered them with affection, for there had been a sense of community that vanished when the bulldozers moved in.

They'd been replaced by vertical warrens with unlit stairwells and cardboard walls.

There are four blocks on the estate, all named after giants of the Labour movement. It was a lot worse than I remembered: Attlee Towers was in its death throes.

It reminded me of some eccentric art gallery, with all the paintings on the outside, like a forerunner of the Pompidou Centre. Most of the windows and doors were covered by sheets of plywood, on which the graffiti artists had demonstrated their talents with enough stolen aerosols of paint to give Heckley its own private hole in the ozone layer. The wooden sheets were portrait-style over the doors, landscape on the windows, and the artists had worked with a flair and urgency that showed in the results. Some of them were bloody good, but I'd never admit it in front of the Super. Here and there dingy curtains indicated an occupied flat.

Forty-nine is on the fourth floor, but it was a coincidence, not good planning. Four floors is about the limit of my endurance these days, but I didn't trust the lift. The stairway was narrow and dark, and stank of urine. An empty drinks can clattered away from under my feet, the noise echoing unnaturally loudly as it rattled down the concrete steps.

Huddled on the landing of the third floor were two youths. They stared at me with blank expressions on their spotty faces. The air was pungent with the smell of solvent and one of them was trying to hide a plastic bag.

Tut that where I can see it," I told him.

He made no effort to do so. I fished my ID from my pocket and held it in front of his nose. "Now!" I yelled. He placed the bag on the floor, alongside where he was sitting.

"OK, now let's see what you're using."

He produced a tube of glue big enough to make a full-scale replica of the Spruce Goose. Half of it was gone.

"Now you," I told the other one.

"I 'aven't got anyfing, mister," he said.

"No? So open your jacket."

He reluctantly unzipped his bomber jacket. I put my hand in the inside pocket and found a cylinder of lighter fuel.

"How old are you?" I demanded.

"Fifteen," they replied, not quite in unison.

"Well, if you keep on using this stuff you won't make sixteen. Now get out of it."

They sidled off down the stairs, backs to the wall as they looked up at me. As they vanished round the landing below, I shouted: "Stick together," after them, and immediately hated myself for it.

They inhale the lighter fluid butane by operating the valve against their teeth. It is under pressure in the cylinder and injects straight into the lungs, reaching the brain in seconds. It's an act of desperation, with no safety margin between a good trip and an OD. I pressed the cylinder against the metal banister until it was empty, the tube growing icy in my hand as the pressure inside dropped and the smell of the gas nearly knocking me over. Then I squeezed the rest of the glue out. Neither container had a price ticket indicating which shop had supplied it.

The fourth floor. External corridors radiate out from the main structure, each with three flats along it. I chose the wrong one first: 44, 45 and 46.

Forty-seven, this was more like it. All the windows were boarded up and defaced. Forty-eight, just the same. Window, door, window, all covered and spray-painted; but the design on the last sheet of plywood stopped me in my tracks.

It was a skull, done in red on a white background and edged in black.

It was the artist's tour de force, the prize exhibit in the gallery.

He'd captured that grin that mocks the living surprisingly well, for the teeth were comprised of four letters. They spelt: AIDS.

Rhoda Flannery would have to pass that skull every time she went out, every time she came home. I edged by it, and found myself outside number 49.

All the curtains were closed. I knocked on the door. Something told me that nobody was in, the same mysterious sense that tells you that nobody will pick up a telephone. It can be wrong, though. I hammered, again and again, but I couldn't conjure her up.

Fictional detectives carry little bundles of bent wires that enable them to bypass the most sophisticated products of the lock maker craft.

Or if it's a Yale lock they just slip a credit card in and hey presto!

But this wasn't a Yale. My own preferred method is to borrow a key.

It's common knowledge that there are only about ten different keys for all the locks on these flats. An old customer of mine, called George Dunphy, lived in one of the other blocks. He was also an old-style cat burglar; no bricks through windows for him. I radioed control and asked for his address. It took a couple of attempts as the radio was on the blink.

He was in. "Hello, George. Remember me, Charlie Priest?" I said when he answered the door.

"Mr. Priest? Well, blow me down. What can we do for you?"

"Well, you could invite me in."

He lived in Bevan Towers, and the council had elected that this block should house the more responsible tenants. Attlee Towers was reserved for rent defaulters, immobilised travelling people and re housed single-parent families. George led me through into a cosily cluttered living room. The gas fire and telly were at full blast, and Mrs.

Dunphy did not look pleased to see me.

"I need to break into a flat, George, over in the Attlee block. I was wondering if you could help me."

It wasn't the most tactful way of putting it. "No, he can't," stated Mrs. Dunphy. "AH that's behind him."

George gave me a look that said he'd love to, but his wife held more terror for him than any judge had ever done. "Well, Mr. Priest, it's like the missus sez. I ain't done nothing like that for years."

"I know that, George. What I mean is: can I borrow your key? Or can you tell me how to get in?"

"Oh, we can do that. Wait a minute, let's see what we 'ave." He went to the sideboard and took an ancient biscuit tin from the cupboard.

There was a picture of George VI and Queen Elizabeth on it, in their coronation finery. He tipped the contents on to the table.

It was a treasure chest. Hundreds, possibly thousands of buttons spilled out, in every design and material imaginable. Other items were mixed in with them, like marbles and foreign coins and campaign medals.

I fingered a couple of medals.

"Are these yours?" I asked, with genuine interest.

He was rummaging through the pile. "Them? Yeah, they're mine."

"Where did you get them?"

"An 'ouse in "Eckley," he said, throwing his head back and roaring with laughter. I had to join in.

"I was in the army nine years," he explained, wiping his eyes, 'when they was needing 'em, not feeding 'em. This is what we're looking for."

He'd found a master key. The end was a simple T-shape. Soon he produced another two of slightly different designs. "One of them'll get you in," he stated.

"Great, thanks." I couldn't resist asking: "Do you, er, want them back?"

"Not me, Mr. Priest. Been straight ten years now. You keep 'em." He nodded towards his wife. "But I'd love to come with you."

I thanked him and left. Five minutes later I was trying the keys in the door of 49, Attlee Towers.

None was a perfect fit, so I tried them all again, using more force.

One felt as if it was doing something, so I shook the key about in the lock and twisted harder. It worked, I was in.

I closed the door behind me, slid the bolt across and switched on the light. "Anybody home?" I shouted, although I was certain the place was deserted.