Paul Finch - Stalkers

‘Uh-uh. This place has got “ambush” written all over it.’

‘Just remember, I’m in charge,’ he said, reiterating the terms she’d agreed to that morning if she was to accompany him today.

She nodded.

‘I mean it, Lauren … you don’t do a damn thing unless I say it’s alright.’

‘Got it.’

‘Good, because …’ He squinted towards one of the high galleries, where he imagined he’d spotted movement. There was nothing up there now, but had a figure just ducked out of sight? Again, he felt unconsciously at his pockets, where under normal circumstances he’d have a radio. He knew that he shouldn’t be here without support. The incident yesterday had been risky enough; in fact, this whole thing, which had started out as a simple plan to continue asking questions and perusing evidence until something — anything — came to light, had taken a turn for the extremely serious. That Lauren, a civilian, was involved was an even bigger concern, though there was no denying — it was fortunate she’d been there yesterday.

‘Once we’re out of here, you’re gone,’ he said quietly. ‘No questions this time. At present, you’re a concerned citizen helping an officer investigate a crime. But I can’t be responsible for your safety indefinitely. So when we’re done here, you’re off back to Yorkshire or London, or wherever you want to go.’

‘Heck, you need back-up-’

‘I’ll have plenty. As soon as I can speak to O’Hoorigan and get him to tell me everything he knows about Shane Klim … what plans he was making while he was inside, where he intended to hide when he broke out … I’m reporting it in.’

‘And suppose he knows nothing ? Like you said.’

Heck’s grimace suggested he didn’t want to consider that possibility. ‘I’m still reporting in. Something tells me I’m getting into this too deep to keep flying solo.’

Lauren didn’t bother to argue anymore. She could tell he was serious.

The nearest entrance lay about thirty yards to their left. It was tall and arched, and the numbers etched into its concrete lintel read: 20–80. Once inside, they lurched to an involuntary halt. A tall man in dark clothes, wearing a dark hoodie jacket with the hood pulled up, was standing against the far wall. His hands were in his pockets and his head was bowed forward so that the peak of his hood formed a goblin-like point. However, a second glance revealed that this was merely an optical illusion. Someone had once lit a fire against that wall, creating a human-shaped burn mark. Even so, it had given them both a shock from which they didn’t quickly recover.

The rest of the small lobby was bare. Dead leaves and used condoms littered the corners. Sometime in the past, a wheelie-bin had been dragged in and knocked over, vomiting a pile of foul refuse, which had now coagulated.

They ventured forward.

Beyond a row of bars, a stairway led up. The barred gate that allowed access to this hung from badly oxidised hinges. When Heck pushed the gate open, its protracted creak echoed in the passages above.

‘Think O’Hoorigan will have heard that?’ Lauren said. ‘If he really is in sixty-nine.’

‘I’d be amazed if O’Hoorigan was anywhere near this place,’ Heck replied. ‘Okay, he’s a scumbag, but who in their right mind would want to doss here … even rent-free?’

They ascended warily. On the first landing, on the facing wall, someone using blood-red spray paint had slashed the words:

All we have to sell is fear

‘They’re selling it well,’ Heck murmured, glancing to where a door to what might have been a store room or lock-up stood ajar. Dense cobwebs — the sort you’d expect a gigantic spider to weave — filled the darkened recess behind it, fluttering in a breeze that neither of them could feel. Straight passages led off in two opposing directions, lit only intermittently by patches of daylight, though this was sufficient to show strewn rubble. The doors to numerous flats hung open. The silence was palpable.

‘As a British copper, do you ever wish you were armed?’ Lauren asked.

‘I am armed. I’ve got you.’

But even Lauren, fearless and efficient as she’d proved to be in the bar fight, was visibly unnerved by this environment. As they proceeded up to the second floor, the front door felt as though it was falling further and further behind them.

‘I’m serious,’ Lauren said. ‘What if O’Hoorigan’s pals from the Dog amp; Butcher are waiting up here for round two?’

‘If there’re any of them fit to walk,’ he said.

But she’d made a good point — even if the men from the pub weren’t here, Deke had mentioned that O’Hoorigan had used this place to buy drugs, which could mean there’d be junkies around, and though junkies, as a rule, weren’t tough opposition, they might be carrying syringes. He fished about before picking up a heavy piece of wood; a ceiling lathe with cement caked around one end of it.

They continued. At the midway point where each flight of stairs switched back on itself, a tall, narrow aperture in the outer wall gave a restricted view into the courtyard below. Each time, more by instinct than logic, they peered down — as if to check that hostile forces weren’t gathering at their rear. They never saw anyone down there, though when they reached the stair between the fourth floor and the fifth, they thought they heard a harsh male voice shouting something.

They stood and listened for a while, but heard nothing else.

Again Heck wondered about this guy, Deke — what did he stand to gain by telling them where O’Hoorigan was hiding? If that was what he’d done. It didn’t compute that Deke was in cahoots with O’Hoorigan and trying to send them the wrong way, not after he’d just beaten the hell out of the burglar’s friends. But to have casually given them the location of O’Hoorigan’s hide-out, when others were prepared to lose teeth to protect it, suggested that his motives amounted to more than personal dislike. Deke, whoever he was, clearly wasn’t a Salford lad — that much was evident from his accent. But the role he was playing in this affair was still a mystery, and the more Heck thought about it, an increasingly ominous one.

When they reached the top floor, extensive weather damage was visible. The ceilings were decayed and, in many cases, dripping water. They moved through a fire door onto an outer gantry. It was good to get back into the fresh air — the fetid stench of the stairwell had been cloying — but again they now felt exposed to prying eyes. The courtyard, which looked a long way down, still lay empty.

They advanced, Heck checking off the door numbers as they passed, which wasn’t easy as most of the doors had either been kicked down or burned. The interiors beyond them were opaque with shadow. Halfway along, a metal plate hung over an entrance to their left; it bore the numbers: 60–70. They passed beneath it, entering another internal passage, though this one turned out to be a cul-de-sac and was about two inches deep in water. A grime-coated window occupied its far end. No doubt this looked down on the motorway, but the light it admitted was pitiful, seeming to dwindle as they advanced.

‘You smell something bad?’ Lauren whispered, wrinkling her nose.

‘You mean worse than everything else we’re smelling in here?’

She sniffed at the air, shaking her head. ‘I thought … it doesn’t matter.’

The next few doors were intact, though covered in paint. But then they came to number sixty-eight, which was missing entirely, and in the entrance to which three supermarket trolleys had been jammed together, creating a near-immovable obstruction that jutted out and half blocked the passage. The light was now so poor that they had to grope their way past this, though both were acutely aware that the next apartment was the one they wanted, and they moved with extreme stealth.