Tom Weaver - The Dead Tracks

Something had changed.

She looked around the room, spinning on her heel. Walls. Window. Table. Water. Her clothes on the floor. In the mirrors, the only thing she could see was the room and herself.

Then she realized: it wasn't something she could see.

It was something she could hear.

She looked up. The strip lights above her had stopped buzzing.

Suddenly, the first one blinked, like a flash of lightning, then cut out altogether. The walls lost their brightness. The floor lost its shine. She backed up a couple of steps, her eyes fixed on the only remaining working light, fear squeezing at her throat. There was a pregnant pause. A long, terrible moment where she silently begged it to stay on. Then it blinked once, mirroring the first strip light - and went out.

Dark.

She moved in the vague direction she remembered the door being, and when she couldn't find it, she started to panic. Breath shortened. Heart pumped harder.

'Please,' she said, tears forming in her eyes.

Crank .

A noise from her left. Then a line of light opened up in the darkness. The door. A shape filled the gap. Behind its shoulders was a white corridor, lit by a dull bulb.

'Please don't hurt me.'

A tremor passed through her voice as she backed away from the door. The shape, still in the corridor, stepped into the room. And then it pushed the door shut.

'Please,' she said again.

No response. No sound of movement.

Nothing until, about five seconds later, a crackling sound started to emerge from somewhere.

Static.

To her side: movement.

'Mark?'

'You won't feel a thing,' a voice said from somewhere inside the room.

And then a hand slipped around her face, clamping on her mouth, a tissue pressed against her nose and lips. And within a couple of seconds, she'd blacked out.

Chapter Forty-four

Healy and I walked up the path towards Alba, the block of flats in Mile End Daniel Markham had once occupied. The doors were open. Just inside, in the foyer, a woman was mopping floors, big puddles of water scattered around her. She didn't even look up as we moved behind her and into the ground-floor flats.

It was eight-thirty. Commuting hour. A couple of people left their apartments, dressed for work. At Markham's door we waited, listening to the sounds of the building. Televisions. A conversation next door. But no one about to exit their flat. I pushed at the door to number eight and it swung gently away from its frame. The piece of card I'd used to wedge it shut dropped to the floor. Healy stepped back and let me take in the flat — any changes, any suggestion Markham had been back. But it looked exactly the same.

Healy headed to the living room. I went back to the bathroom and flicked on the light. The bathroom cabinet remained open, the clasp still broken. Nothing else had been moved. I placed my hands either side of it and lifted the cabinet off the wall. The message emerged. Help me.

'Healy.'

He appeared a couple of seconds later, looking at me, then at the message on the wall. "You think Markham wrote that?'

'You don't?'

He studied the wall, shrugged. 'Why's he asking for help? And why bother hiding it where no one's going to find it?'

'I found it.'

'By accident.'

'But I found it.'

'So what's your point?'

'Maybe he wants to be stopped,' I said, looking at the message again. 'Or maybe he's caught up in something, he's scared, and he wants someone else to be stopped.'

'Who, Glass?'

'That's what we've got to find out.' Click.

A noise from behind me. From outside the bathroom.

As I moved to the door, a memory formed: standing outside the flat the first time I'd been around, my ear pressed against the door, listening to something click inside.

I walked out into the hallway and looked around. It was narrow and empty. One painting on the wall of a sunset, but nothing else. Healy passed me and went to the kitchen. I headed into the bedroom. Bed base, no mattress. Empty bedside cabinets. No lampshade. In the living room, Healy was opening and closing cupboards. I walked through and looked around. Exactly the same as everywhere else. Nothing had been moved. Nothing had changed inside the flat since I'd last been in. Healy closed a cupboard, noticed me and looked up.

'You all right?'

'Did you hear something?'

He stood up. 'Like what?'

There was no sound in the flat now. The only noise was from outside: cars passing on the street below; people next door; distant sirens. I scanned the room.

'Like what?' Healy asked again.

'Like some sort of click.'

' A click ?

Then I saw it above the doorway.

It was sitting on a small black shelf, obscured by shadows, a wire snaking out of it and up through a tiny hole drilled in the ceiling.

It was a video camera.

'Someone's watching us,' I said.

Before Healy had a chance to fall in alongside me, I redirected him back towards the living room and out of sight of the camera. I hadn't spotted it the first time I'd been in, but I saw it now. Small and compact, black, sitting on an equally black shelf in the darkest part of the room. It was easy to miss. If it hadn't been for the click of the zoom, I might never have thought to look up there. Through the corner of my eye, I followed the wire out of the back of the unit and into the ceiling.

It leads to the flat upstairs.

Healy disrupted my train of thought. He was moving across the living room to a stool in the corner of the room.

'What are you doing?'

He stopped and looked back at me like I'd asked the dumbest question he'd heard all day. 'What do you think I'm doing? I'm going to get that camera.'

'That's a bad idea.'

He let out a snort and rocked back on his heels, as if I'd just surprised him with my stupidity a second time. 'Yeah? And what's a good idea? Standing around here with our dicks in our hands?'

'We need to leave it where it is for the time being.'

'And why would we do that?'

'Because it feeds into the flat upstairs.'

His eyes drifted to the ceiling and then back to me, as if he thought I might be trying to trick him. 'Then what are we waiting for?'

'We need to play this right.'

'Right? He shook his head. Who the fuck do you think you're talking to? In case you hadn't noticed, I'm not your apprentice.'

'Healy,' I said gently, 'cool down.'

Fire flared in his eyes, and for a moment I wondered whether enlisting his help had been the right thing to do. He'd brought me details of the case I might have spent weeks trying to find. But he also brought a lack of control, and a need for vengeance. I'd sensed it in him the first time we'd met, and I saw it again. For a second, I caught a glimpse of the two of us hours and days from where we were now. And all I could see was me trying desperately to rein him in — and, eventually, not even able to do that.

'Look,' I said, keeping my voice down, 'if you go off like a rocket, you're going to mess this up for the both of us. I know how you feel, remember that. I know what it's like to lose. But you need to look calm for the camera. You need to turn around and start scouring the flat like you were before, understand? It has to look like we either can't see what's there — or we don't know what to make of it.'

'And what are you going to do?'

'I'm going to head upstairs.'

'You're going to go looking for him?'

'Yes.'

'I'm coming with you.'

I shook my head. 'One of us needs to stay.'

'Then you stay.'

'No,' I said, my voice raised for the first rime. You've lost focus. You need to stay here and calm down.' I stopped. 'We need to make it look like we're staying put.'