Robert Young - Gatecrasher

Not, he had explained, unless they wanted to while away yet more scared and stressful hours. This way, taking the correct precautions, they could speak to Samuel that night, maybe meet with him the following day. As frightened as she appeared to be, Campbell could see that she had no wish to drag this out any longer. The incident in Cornwall had shaken her badly. Of course it had, it had shaken him too. But after the episode in Gresham’s lock-up it had perhaps come as less of a surprise. For Sarah, who was just beginning to comprehend the scale of the situation, to be faced with such a brutal, terrifying demonstration of its reality must have been almost unbearable. The news that Gresham was unable to help them must have robbed her of the last scrap of hope that she had.

Now they approached the rear of Campbell’s flat through an alleyway. They would clamber over his garden wall and go in the back door since walking right up to the front door was obviously insane. They could of course be watching both entrances but this was the lesser of two evils and so essentially, was their only choice.

‘If any of the neighbours stick their head out the window, I’ll say I lost my front door key,’ Campbell said. ‘But at this hour, I doubt we’ll see anyone.’

Sarah nodded, too tense now to speak.

They stopped at the wall, where the brickwork reached Campbell’s chin. He watched the darkened windows all along the row of houses on either side. There were some lights on too but he could see no signs of movement. Sarah, several inches shorter and in flat shoes, could see little, even raised on her toes.

‘You’ll have to go first,’ he said.

She looked at him, open mouthed and panic in her eyes.

‘You’re smaller, so I’ll have to help you up.’

‘I’m not going in first,’ She told him and her tone was emphatic. He thought about arguing but realised that it was pointless. He had wasted long enough trying to make her stay at home or wait in the car earlier on. If this girl said it, she meant it.

‘Fine, you stay in the alleyway and wait on your own then,’ Campbell replied and hoisted himself up onto the wall.

As he swung a leg up and over he manoeuvred himself into a sitting position and then swivelled round to see if he could help pull her up. Sarah, however, had both feet planted on the brickwork and her hands clamped on the top of the wall. Campbell watched in silence as she scrambled up, hooked a leg over and swung herself onto the wall next to him.

Smiling, Campbell swung his other leg over and dropped onto the grass below. Sarah was standing next to him in a moment, close at his back, a hand gripped his arm gently.

Moving to the back door, Sarah in tow, Campbell resolved to get things done as fast as he could. There were no sounds or signs of life that he could detect and he had no wish to hang around here any longer than he needed to. Oddly enough, for all Sarah’s obvious nerves and fear, Campbell was finding that it was her strength that was keeping him going. For the hundred reasons she should have crumbled by now, the times that she might have just turned and fled, here she was, still at his side as they walked back into possible danger.

He opened the door and they stepped inside. It was cold but the heating would have been off at this time. Even so, as his breath clouded in front of his face, Campbell felt uneasy. They stood listening intently for a minute to the complete quiet in the flat.

As his eyes became accustomed to the darkness in the kitchen, Campbell moved to the fridge searching for the card. He found a phone bill, a supermarket discount voucher and a postcard that his parents had sent him several months before from Italy. No card.

‘Shit,’ he hissed.

She didn’t ask what was up. She didn’t need to.

For a second, the thought occurred to him that someone had been here and taken it but then he remembered suddenly that he had had it in his hand when last he was in the flat after having given Slater the slip at Liverpool Street. He had sat on his bed staring at it, trying to decide whether to call or not but deciding quickly against it before packing his bag and leaving. It would be on the bedside unit in his bedroom.

‘Wait here a sec,’ Campbell told her and moved through into the lit hallway — the light here left on by them on their return as a marker for Gresham to come and find the note that they had left. In his bedroom he dared not flick on the light, mindful that they might be sitting outside waiting for some sign. He found the card where he had left it and turned quickly, suddenly filled with an urgency to get away from the flat now they had what they had come for. Just then, more light spilled in through the doorway from the hall and it hit him almost physically. He froze. That must be the kitchen.

Sarah and Slater faced each other across the space of the room, his bulk filling the doorframe. The light had startled her but she had seen, in the split second before it flicked on, that the huge, broad shape looming in the doorway was not the one she had expected. He was tall, thick-necked and fierce looking and he stared at her with a mixture of anger and confusion. She was obviously not who he had expected to see.

Come to think of it, where was Daniel? It was less than a minute that he had been gone, tip-toeing through the door.

Slater nodded at her. ‘Now this is interesting isn’t it?’

She didn’t reply because she had no idea what he meant, except perhaps to scare her, and also because he was already scaring her. There was a spark behind his narrowed eyes that was as unsettling as the sight of him.

‘And who might you be?’ Slater asked. ‘Creeping around in the dark? Don’t you ring the bell like normal people?’

Sarah paused for a minute, unsure what to say. It struck her suddenly, crazily, that this man might actually live here, that Campbell had somehow tricked her. Slater took a step forward.

‘She got fucking invited in.’

Campbell was not actually visible, obscured by the size of the big man in the doorway, but she could just make out a flash of movement rushing across the hallway as Slater turned, and a huge ceramic plant pot came crashing down against his temple.

The massive frame of Slater came sprawling back across the kitchen toward her, his legs buckling immediately as he lost consciousness. He fell and his back crunched heavily into the sideboard before he slumped the floor, knocking plates from the side as he went. Sarah had jumped backwards to avoid him and she stood shocked at the sight of him on the floor, an enormous red gash running from his temple across his cheek.

Campbell stepped over the prone figure and grabbed Sarah’s hand. ‘I really hate that prick.’

‘Daniel,’ she said, pointing to the wound which was now bleeding freely. ‘What…?’

He shrugged and dragged her quickly through the back door again. ‘Owed him that.’

He almost walked into the man that was standing there waiting for him.

Tuesday. 12.35am.

The air outside was bitingly cold and Drennan and Tyler both had their overcoats buttoned to the neck. Tyler pulled a pair of gloves from his pocket and slipped them on after they had been sitting for an hour.

The leafy tree-lined street looked peaceful in the still evening and the lights burning softly behind drawn curtains gave it a safe, suburban feel. Drennan eyed the expensive cars along either side of the road, the litter free pavements, the well tended hedges.

They sat in silence for a spell, shifting occasionally in their seats and trying not to allow themselves to become distracted from watching Campbell’s flat or the street around them for signs of his return.

Soon Tyler was fighting off sleep as he sat and waited in the cold. His eyes grew tired and heavy and his head began to sag against his shoulder. Occasionally he had to blink his eyes open as he felt himself dropping off.