Ellen Datlow - The Best Horror of the Year. Volume 6

“Jump off?”

“Well, Fisk jumped and dragged the kid with him. Even left a suicide note for the ex, saying if he couldn’t have his son, no one would.”

Cowan swallowed and glanced away from the scrutiny of the older man’s gaze. He watched the Asian woman browsing a magazine, licking her fingers as she turned the pages.

“I remember it in the news, actually,” said Jimenez. “There was a public outcry. Front-page shit.”

Cowan nodded noncommittally.

“But here’s the best part — although the kid died, Fisk survived . Just snapped his fucking legs. The kid broke his fall.”

Cowan looked out of the window. Mid-morning traffic crawled past, glistening in the rain. Pensioners shuffled along the pavement laden with carrier bags. He shook his head. “What a bastard.”

“Bastard indeed.” Jimenez pursed his lips. “He was charged with murder but the judge let him off — diminished responsibility. He got five years in a nuthouse. The ex-wife killed herself a few months later. Overdose.”

Cowan watched the older man remove a cigarette and light it, taking a deep drag and blowing the smoke out almost provocatively, his eyes narrowing. “The judge said Fisk was remorseful afterwards — he’d just cracked under the pressure of the divorce, that’s all.”

“So he’s — what? Locked up still?”

Jimenez shook his head. “Got released after four years. Since last summer he’s been living here under the name Peter Feltham.” He opened the envelope and took out a folded sheet of A4 paper. His fingers hesitated on it for a second before he slid it across the table.

Cowan unfolded the paper and looked at the address. “Leeds?”

“Yeah. As part of the rehabilitation process he was given a new identity. That’s why I asked why you were looking for him.” Jimenez paused. “This info can’t be traced back to my contact — it’s now a matter of public record anyway, if you can be arsed to wade through enough paperwork — but I wanted to make sure you’d be … discreet with it.”

Cowan forced himself to maintain eye contact. “So you think — what? That I’ll grass to the papers?”

“I don’t know, son.” His hand gripped Cowan’s wrist. “But if you go through with what I think you’re planning, I’d urge you to be careful.”

Cowan released his hand, on the pretence of scratching his nose. “Mr. Jimenez, I just wanted to see him — to talk. I won’t mention it to anyone else.”

Jimenez shrugged. “Look, I couldn’t give a shit. Just don’t bring my name into it if he gets itchy feet and scarpers. The authorities’ll have your arse for an ashtray.” His laughter sounded ugly and coarse.

“I just want to say hello — that’s all. Maybe he’ll be pleased to see an old face.” Cowan slipped the address into his pocket.

Jimenez smiled wanly and began packing the envelope away. “Aye, Mr. Campbell — or whatever your real name is — maybe he will.”

The rain hadn’t let up all week. Cowan tried to concentrate as he peered through the windscreen, the wipers doing their best to distract him. Rows of sagging shops blurred into one continuous line as he negotiated the ceaselessly spiralling roads. Leeds appeared to be a labyrinth of narrow streets choked by parked cars. The bricks of the buildings were a strange shade of ochre. It was quite unlike anything he’d seen before, certainly different to the houses in Sheffield.

He’d stumbled across a Tesco on the ring road. He’d been queuing at the checkout, clutching a Leeds A-Z, when the enormity of what he was about to do engulfed him. He quickly paid and rushed to the toilet, his legs almost buckling with nerves.

Outside, the cool air helped revive him. He waited in the car and browsed the A-Z, taking time to familiarise himself with his destination. He took a carrier bag from the glove box, gauging its weight in his hand. He drew back the plastic opening and admired the pistol inside, careful not to touch it with his fingers. The two-inch barrel looked deceptively harmless. It had been originally manufactured in Brazil; standard issue for the Singapore Police Force. The serial number had been filed down. This particular model — the Taurus 85—had an ornate pearl handgrip. He’d paid £600 for it from a man in his local, a transaction that had come with unspoken conditions attached: the weapon was untraceable — there would be no incriminating trail— but Cowan better keep his mouth shut if things went wrong . He swallowed and wrapped it back up.

Soon Cowan was back on the road, Fisk’s address seared indelibly into his mind. He was headed for a tower-block in Gipton called Coldcote Heights. He pushed other thoughts away and tried to concentrate on driving.

Eventually he spotted an ugly, brooding building on the corner of Beech Lane — the Church of the Epiphany — and realised his destination was close by. He parked on the roadside and switched off the ignition, listening to the patter of rain on the roof as it synchronised with the ticks of the cooling engine. The wipers — frozen in the act of clearing the windscreen — helped to divert him as the raindrops obliterated his view.

He removed the carrier bag from the glove box and tucked it into his jacket pocket. Then he paused for a few moments to gather his nerves before climbing out of the car and locking it.

A row of shops slouched to his left, rendered almost identical by the metal grilles obscuring their windows. Two elderly women in headscarves stood chatting outside the off-licence. An Asian man was talking loudly on his mobile phone, glaring through the window of the bookies. Cowan drew up his hood and set off across the grassy incline towards the kids’ playground.

The squat, redbrick council houses surrounding the muddy expanse seemed to stare at him reproachfully. The play area was in a poor state. Cowan stepped between used condoms and rusting syringes. The rungs of the slide’s ladder were blackened with fire. Spray-painted obscenities adorned the side of the toddlers’ climbing frame. Nearby, a heavily-muscled skinhead waited patiently as his Staffordshire Bull Terrier shivered a pale turd onto the grass. Cowan glanced away.

Ahead, his destination loomed like a beacon for the destitute. He hurried up the slope. Coldcote Heights towered broodingly above the roofs of the surrounding houses, seeming to watch over Gipton like a guardian. The cold impassive building almost made him shudder.

A chain-link fence at the top of the grassy square had been breached, its posts skewed by force. Empty cigarette packets and McDonald’s cartons wilted in the rain. The sign on the Bangladeshi community centre had been vandalised, clearly by someone lacking the use of a spell-check. Youths loitered around the industrial bins at the rear.

Soon he had negotiated the warren of faceless tenements and found himself approaching the tower-block. He crossed the quadrangle of concrete, suddenly feeling exposed by the countless windows that watched his progress. A burnt-out car stood in the centre, rusting on four flat tyres. From somewhere nearby came the frantic barking of a dog. He pushed open the door of the building and entered the dark foyer.

The smell of piss was overpowering. To the left, a flight of concrete steps rose out of sight. A CCTV camera was positioned at a weird angle — possibly made ineffective by some wrong-doer. Signs on the walls promised direction but did nothing more than bewilder him. He scanned for the address that Jimenez had supplied, seeing that he needed to trek to the ninth floor.

The steel door of the lift was so scratched it looked as if ancient runes had been etched into its surface. Someone had smeared a foul-smelling substance over the call button. Wrinkling his nose, Cowan glanced down and spotted the neck of a broken beer bottle discarded in the corner. He picked it up and used the lip of the glass to press the button. The noise of the lift’s approach sounded ominous, as if the action had tripped some unseen signal.