Питер Мэй - A Silent Death

Cristina removed a torch from her belt and retrieved one from the glove compartment for Mackenzie. Their beams cut arrows of light through the darkness as they followed a rusted fence along the perimeter of the unmade road that ran below the inhabited urbanization above. As they rounded the curve of the street, white dust rose in the torchlight with every footfall. The construction behind the fence became more skeletal, like something assembled by children with plastic rods and buildings blocks. A shallow-pitched roof stood above the empty structure, supported only by brick walls and concrete columns. A labyrinth of stairways, empty lift shafts, corridors and apartment shells all stood open to the night. Beyond the fence, a ramp disappeared down into the darkness of what must have been intended as an underground car park.

Broken glass crunched underfoot in the still of the night. The smell of woodsmoke was stronger here, more pungent. Ahead, the security fence stretched across the dusty white road preventing further progress. But someone had cut a hole through it with wire cutters, and a well-worn path beyond it led through the undergrowth to an area laid out for covered parking on the ground floor.

Cristina stepped carefully through the hole in the fence and Mackenzie followed as she made her way to the top of the ramp they had seen from the other side. Their torches barely penetrated the darkness below. They stood for a moment, listening. But there was nothing to be heard above the racket of the cicadas. Mackenzie could see the torch trembling in Cristina’s hand. Her face was bloodless in its reflected light. She glanced at him briefly, before setting off down the ramp. He walked a metre or two behind.

The ridged concrete descended steeply, and curved away to their left. As they reached the bend, the car park opened up below them. A vast area delineating the footprint of the building itself and supported on rows of square columns. Its surface remained unfinished and strewn with debris. Black pools of stagnant water reflected the light of their torches. There was no sign of life or habitation, and it was almost with relief that they climbed back up into the night.

In a sky studded by stars, a three-quarters moon rose to cast its colourless light across the abandoned ambitions of the previous decade. Cristina and Mackenzie picked their way through the rubble and into the building. A staircase built around an empty elevator shaft climbed through two floors to the roof. They followed it up to the first level where it opened out into a square concrete hall. A graffitied corridor ran off into the dark heart of the building. Gaping doorways, left and right, led into skeleton apartments. White powdery efflorescence crept from unsealed brick walls, rusted steel reinforcement causing floors and columns to crumble from creeping concrete cancer.

Smoke hung now like mist in the beams of their torches. But the smell of it couldn’t mask the invasive stench of faeces and urine. Although it was still hot outside, it felt cold in here.

A long way ahead, at the far end of the passageway, a pale light flickered in the darkness. A sinister murmuring reached them on fetid air.

Cristina’s free hand rested on her holster. Although she was reluctant to draw her SIG, as a precaution she had unclipped the holster catch.

They drifted cautiously along the corridor, side by side, apprehension burgeoning as the light grew stronger and the murmur louder, until they turned at the end of it into a large open area where brick dividing walls had been crudely demolished leaving only their footings to denote the layout of a dozen or more apartments. Umpteen fires burned among the rubble, huddled groups of ragged people gathered around them for light and warmth.

The murmur of voices quickly faded as Cristina and Mackenzie raked the beams of their torches across the bizarre scene that unfolded before them. Only the crackle of dry wood on a dozen fires broke the echoing silence.

‘What the hell...?’ Mackenzie’s voice was barely a whisper.

Cristina glanced at him, then quickly refocused on the thirty or forty people grouped around the open fires. There were women with shawls and headscarves, hijabs and khimars , and men with beards and dark gaunt eyes. There were children who stared back at them from haunted faces, and babies that gurned for food. ‘Illegal immigrants,’ she said. ‘They arrive by the boatload from North Africa almost every day now. Washing up on the beaches, then hiding out in these abandoned developments. There are literally thousands of these places lying empty along the coast. Impossible to police.’

She fumbled in the breast pocket of her tunic to take out one of the crumpled photographs of Cleland that she carried and hand it to Mackenzie.

‘Better if it’s a man showing them this. I’ll check out the next level.’

She set off back along the way they had come and Mackenzie stood for a moment before making his way apprehensively through the rubble to wave the picture of this white-faced, blond-haired Scotsman in front of frightened Arab faces. Suspicious eyes fixed on his and barely glanced at the photograph. He knew it was a waste of time. If Cleland was to be found here at all, it would not be among these sad homeless people in search of a better life.

Not a word was exchanged as he moved from campfire to campfire holding his breath. He was met with blank faces, or the merest shake of the head, and he couldn’t help but wonder where these people would go from here. Who they had paid to bring them this far. Who was waiting somewhere in the shadows to take them on to the next stop of this hopeless quest. And the next. And the next. If there was one thing worse, he thought, than people who dealt in drugs, it was those who trafficked in people. Pedlars of misery and the cruellest of false dreams. And it was, he knew, only going to get worse. More and more criminal gangs were abandoning the lucrative but dangerous traffic in drugs in favour of people smuggling. People were a cheap, reliable and endless source of revenue, the authorities spent less time and effort in trying to prevent the flow of illegal immigrants, and the consequences of capture were far less punitive.

From somewhere far off in the building he heard a woman scream. He froze, listening intently, only to become aware of every eye in this hellish place turned in his direction. He hesitated for just a second before sprinting back through the rubble, and along the hallway which had brought them here. On the landing he stopped, gasping for air, and strained to hear above the sound of his own breath echoing back at him off cancerous concrete. He heard a clattering of footsteps from the next floor up and took the stairs two at a time. Only to have his heart very nearly stop. Two teenage boys came hurtling down and parted only at the last moment to stream either side of him. Like water around a rock. Then they vanished into the night.

Mackenzie stood breathing hard, trying to recover his composure. No point in going after them. If Cristina was anywhere, she was on the next floor up. And so he continued the climb, playing his torchlight on the stairs ahead of him.

On the next landing a mirror image of the hall downstairs opened off into a corridor mired in darkness. A crude door had been fixed to the hinges of the first apartment on his right. It stood ajar, and light fell into the dark. Grit and detritus crunched beneath his feet as he moved towards it, one careful step at a time. He reached out and pushed it open with the flat of his hand. Candles and an oil lamp burned in here on a table pushed up against the far wall. There were several chairs around it, one tipped on to its back. Several plates of unfinished food had been abandoned, and a cigarette still burned in an ashtray. Three old metal bedsteads stood side by side against the right-hand wall, makeshift mattresses thrown across rusted sprung frames, tortured sweat-stained sheets lying crumpled on each. But there was no one here.