by Chris Simms
‘It’s not a shift. Until the issue’s resolved.’
‘You look like a vagrant. Is that the intention?’
‘Listen, I should be ...’ He took a step away.
‘Where are you sleeping?’
‘Somewhere close.’
She closed the gap again. ‘You couldn’t use a hot shower? A nice glass of brandy?’
You have no idea how good that sounds. ‘Thanks. I really should be going, though.’
‘You know where I am.’ Her eyes flicked to the side. ‘Two minutes to my hotel. You still have my number?’
He wasn’t sure what he’d done with her card. ‘No.’
‘Just mention my name at reception. They know which suite I’m in.’ She swivelled on one high heel, smooth calf muscles flexing as she sashayed towards the Range Rover’s open door.
He remained where he was until the vehicle was out of sight. Then he stepped back out onto Deansgate and continued towards the Northern Quarter.
He was soon standing in Stevenson Square, wondering what to do. The prospect of sitting in the doorway attracting the odd donation from passers-by didn’t appeal. An image of Alicia’s hotel room appeared in his mind. Soft lights and towelling robes. Like something from a film. It occurred to him that he hadn’t actually visited the places where the others had died: the NCP on Tib Street; the abandoned building on Bendix Street; the viaduct near Piccadilly station. What, he asked himself, are the chances of finding anything useful? About zero. But anything’s better than this.
A streetlight up on the road threw a triangle of light into the shadowy ledge beneath the bridge where she lay with her baby. It was bright enough for her to read by. Sometimes she flicked through a copy of the free newspaper that was available throughout the city. The stories about flooded communities, here and in other parts of the world. The droughts that were making swathes of Africa and Australia uninhabitable. The unusually violent storms wreaking havoc in the Caribbean and along America’s coast.
The articles were usually interspersed with advertisements for wellness products. Drinks to support the immune system. Powdered organic supplements to increase focus or decrease stress. Online yoga courses to promote inner peace. Anything to help people avoid facing up to what the real problem was.
She found a report about how countries were already squabbling over the mining rights to parts of the Arctic that were being made accessible by the shrinking ice cap.
Was no one else joining the dots? Why couldn’t people see what was happening? The planet was being wrecked and no one cared. She should have never had this baby. What hope did her daughter have in such a place?
She threaded the line of cotton through the shaft of the last pigeon feather then knotted it at the other end to form a loop. Lifting it up, she admired the necklace she’d made. Smallest feathers at the top, larger ones at the bottom. As she draped it round her neck, the filaments caressed her face. They felt nice. Why didn’t Amy like the feel of them? She’d run the tip of one back and forth across her daughter’s cheek earlier, trying to wake her. But it got no response. All the little thing did was sleep. Olivia had come to believe that her daughter didn’t really want to enter this world. It was like she could sense the place had been ruined. An instinct only a person with a totally pure heart could possess.
Her own stomach rumbled loudly. She wasn’t sure when she’d last eaten. She shook the carton of UHT milk that stood by the back wall. Empty. Sighing, she lifted herself to a kneeling position. Her movement caused a quickening of the pigeons’ low chorus above her. Bunched forms shifted in the shadows. But they now knew she was no threat. Should she find food? She probably should. But it was such an effort to get up. Staying here was so much nicer. And more peaceful. The city, with its bright lights and loud noises, gave her a headache.
The long thin blanket was still wrapped round her torso in a rough papoose. Popping Amy into it and zipping her coat up would only take seconds. She visualised walking the concrete canyons with their walls of glass. The echo of voices and the stares of people she passed. Perhaps the two of them could just snuggle down here, drift off to sleep with the soft cooing of the pigeons above and never wake up.
Chapter 28
The door at the top of the car park’s stairwell scraped loudly as Jon shoved against it with his shoulder. No one would leave their vehicle up here. Not at this time of night. He replayed Wayne’s account of when Jim Barlow had fallen to his death. Wayne said he’d been lying on his side while Jim and another man had been talking off to his left. That man – with wings mounted on his back – had crossed his field of vision en route to the stairwell. Jon looked around. Tell-tale flattened cardboard boxes lay there. Plus a few empty cans and a bottle of a brand of vodka he’d never heard of before. An abandoned coat, too. That could be the spot people favoured when they came up here.
He wandered across. A few bits of graffiti scratched into the waist-high wall. A love heart encircling the words ‘Adam and Steve’. Jon turned his back to the writing. To his left was the side of the building that overlooked Thomas Street. He made his way along it while peering over the side. There, some fifty feet below, were the benches Wayne mentioned the emergency vehicles had been parked alongside. So this was it. The spot where Jim Barlow dropped to his death. Jon ran his hands lightly along the tip of the wall, rough concrete snagging against his palms. Did Jim climb up onto the edge? That would be hard, especially if the man had been taking Spice. Had he been thrown off? Wayne hadn’t heard any sound of a struggle.
Jon tried to imagine how he would scale the wall if he was looking to jump. One hand on the top, then swing one foot over. That meant he’d be straddling it. After that, he just had to swing his other foot over. Once perched there with the top of the wall digging into his buttocks, a quick shuffle forward would be enough ...
A grating noise caused him to glance over his shoulder. The stairwell door was slowly opening. Jon turned properly, his heart now beating faster. A male form in dark clothing began to step out. A bit under six feet tall. Average build. There was a bulky black holdall hanging from one hand and a hood was covering his head. The person hadn’t spotted him as he began to turn to the corner where Wayne had been lying. Jon wished he had a baton, or at least a pair of cuffs.
More movement at the door. Another figure appeared, this one smaller. Jon realised it was a woman just as she started to speak.
‘Fuck’s sake, Darryl. Wait for us, will you?’
‘This is it,’ he grunted back. ‘We’re here.’
Her head turned and she spotted Jon standing on the far side. ‘Darryl! Someone else is up here.’
The man shuffled unsteadily through one hundred and eighty degrees. He was somewhere in his forties, Jon guessed. White.
The all looked at each other in silence.
‘I’m not doing anything with him here,’ the woman announced.
The man jabbed a thumb towards the door. ‘Do us a favour, pal.’
Jon started to approach them. ‘What’s in your bag?’
The man gave a tired sigh. ‘Get fucked.’
‘Yeah – fuck off,’ the woman added.
Jon regarded her for a second. She was staring at him with a mixture of fear and hostility. The man plonked the holdall down, bent forward and pulled the zip open. Then he extracted a loosely rolled sleeping bag, followed by a couple of blankets. Next, a large plastic bottle of nasty-looking cider appeared. The woman shifted the shopping bag she was holding to her other hand. Glass clinked.
A romantic night for two, Jon realised.
‘You still here?’ the man asked, folding the empty holdall over and throwing it to the side.
No wings in that, Jon thought. He glanced at the woman who was still in the doorway watching him. ‘You want this place to yourselves?’ he asked. ‘Then you’ll need to let me past.’
The doors to the building on Bendix Street were firmly locked. That meant no assessment of the stairwell Ryan Gardner fell down. Jon walk
ed round the back of Piccadilly Station towards Temperance Street and the railway bridge Luke McClennan had plunged to his death from. The streets in this part of town were flanked by industrial units and work yards with chain-link fences topped by rolls of razor wire. Behind them were piled a variety of materials. Old fridges and ovens. Tyres and car doors. Planks of wood.
He reached the stretch of road where McClennan had died. It was the same stretch made famous by footage from Google Earth. When the camera-car had passed by, it had captured a wasted-looking man leaning with his back to the wall in a narrow recess. Kneeling before him, face level with his flies, was a prostitute. A still of the image had done the rounds on social media before something else popped up to distract everyone.
The railway arches were about thirty feet high. How did anyone get up there? He looked left and right, but could see no obvious place to climb. Perhaps there was an access point closer to Piccadilly Station itself. Or further down the line at Ardwick. Either way this was an isolated spot. How, he wondered, did the Dark Angel ... Jon’s chain of thought ground to a halt.
I’m using that name now. Christ. Stick to calling him the killer, he told himself.
How did the killer locate McClennan? How did he know the man was out here? Or did they approach this spot together? Was that it? Maybe, all the victims knew the killer and had been lulled into a false sense of security by him. His thoughts settled on Greg once more. He knew Luke and Wayne. Was he working with the killer? Persuading victims to come with him to these lonely spots where the killer waited?
It didn’t quite fit. He was overlooking something. It was like the feeling he sometimes had on leaving the house in the morning. A nagging sense of things being ... not right. Then he’d get to work and realise he’d left his phone on the table. Or his lunch in the fridge. That feeling.
He looked about in frustration then set off for the building where Frank Kilby’s life had come to an abrupt end. Work had continued on it during the intervening months. Now, the scaffolding had disappeared. New windows had been put in place; the glass panes criss-crossed with white tape. Jon contemplated climbing over the perimeter fence for a closer look. What was the point? Without the scaffolding, he couldn’t get a sense of what had actually happened.
To his surprise, a man came wandering round the corner of the building, torch in hand. The beam of light occasionally swung about, settling momentarily on a row of Portaloos, an orange skip. Eventually, it reached Jon as he peered through the entrance gates.
‘Can I help you?’
Jon lifted a hand in an attempt to show he wasn’t up to anything. ‘Were you working around the time Frank Kilby died?’
The man, who Jon could now see was about fifty, with a large gut, ambled closer on slightly bowed legs. He was wearing a bomber jacket with the words ‘Sharp’s Security’ embroidered on the left breast. There was a look of casual curiosity on his face. ‘Who?’
‘The bloke who died when he went off the scaffolding?’
‘Oh, him.’ The man paused. ‘The homeless one found in the car park. Why, did you know him or something?’
Jon nodded. ‘Actually, I did. But I only just heard.’
The nightwatchman now looked a little embarrassed. ‘The contract to patrol this place happened after he died. Something the insurance company insisted on. Can’t help you, mate. Sorry.’
‘OK.’ Jon took a last look at the converted warehouse. Seven rows of windows. It was a long way down from the top. He scanned the freshly laid asphalt of the car park. Immaculate lines awaited the ranks of residents’ vehicles. Somewhere, at the base of the building, Frank Kilby had connected with that hard surface. Had it been suicide or something else?
The walk to the Star and Garter didn’t take long. He crossed the empty yard at the rear of the derelict pub and paused at the base of the fire escape stairs. People had been here since his last visit; the wooden pallet Wayne had landed on was now a mass of splintered wood. The wheelie bin in the corner was on its side. His eyes climbed the fire escape stairs. The door at the top still hadn’t been secured. Or maybe it had, only to be forced again. Either way, there could be people up there. He listened for a while, but heard nothing.
Watching where he placed each foot, he climbed the flight of metal stairs. On the landing, he stopped again. The door was half open. Was that the sound of movement in the darkness beyond? He half-closed his eyes and turned his ear to the doorway. Definitely movement. A faint rustle followed by ... what was it? The noise was soft. Was someone asleep in there? ‘Hello? Someone in there?’
Silence for a few seconds, then he heard it again; it was almost like someone trying to clear their throat as quietly as possible. The noise repeated and, suddenly, Jon knew.
It was the gentle coo of a bloody pigeon. Maybe several, roosting in there for the night. He contemplated opening the door, but didn’t want a load of panicked birds to come flapping out around his head. Instead, he pushed it almost shut then turned his attention to asphalt below. He tapped a forefinger on the thin metal handrail. Like the NCP car park, it wouldn’t be easy to climb up without losing your balance. Wayne had landed on his back, partly on the pallet. Which meant he had almost completed a somersault on the way down. Holding on with both hands, Jon leaned his upper body out into the darkness.
Another faint noise from the room behind him. This one sounded more like a scratch. Probably a bird jostling with its neighbour for a better perch.
The metal rail was now pressing deep into his stomach. If he relaxed his grip on it, he would definitely topple over. It wasn’t that far to the ground. Far enough to turn through almost one revolution? Jon thought it wasn’t – not unless you’d been propelled over by someone else.
He remembered a time with his brother Dave, when they were younger. A family holiday in North Wales, forced to visit crumbling castles by their mum and dad. The two of them had ended up at the top of a watchtower. He’d been leaning on the low wall, gazing out across the sea, when Dave had crept up behind him, grabbed both his legs at the knees and lifted them up.
Jon could still remember the terror of finding himself being upended: head, shoulders and chest poking out over the edge. The shimmering grass far, far below. There was absolutely nothing he could do to prevent it happening; his terrified bellow had been loud enough to turn heads all along the lower battlements.
Dave had swiftly let go of his legs. Feet back on the ground, he’d whirled round to find his brother doubled over with laughter. It had been one of the few times he’d punched him in anger. A crack to his temple, not his face. But still enough to send him crashing to the cold stone flags.
Nodding to himself, he stepped away from the railing. That’s how Wayne died. Someone grabbed his legs and flipped him. He trotted down the steps, more certain than ever someone was out here killing people.
It was almost one in the morning when he got back to the Stevenson Square. It was nice to be somewhere that was properly lit. Music thudded up from the Tiki Bar. There were a lot of people still flitting about. A sell-by-the-slice pizza place further along looked especially busy; folk grabbing something to eat before looking for a way of getting home.
Jon made his way to the shadowy doorway. He was surprised by how much he wanted to see Greg’s form nestled there. But, apart from the stuff he’d left there earlier, the recess was empty.
He found himself looking off in the direction of Deansgate. The Lowry Hotel was on the other side of it. Barely a five-minute walk. He shook the thought from his head.
So this is it, Jon said to himself. Your first taste of sleeping rough.
Conscious of people walking past behind him, he laid out the flattened cardboard boxes edge-to-edge. The last couple he opened out completely to form an upper layer that, he hoped, would keep the arrangement below in place. Next, he laid the blanket down. Finally, he unrolled the sleeping bag. For a place to crash, it didn’t look too bad. He removed his walking boots and placed them at the foot of the bed. Then he h
alf unzipped the sleeping bag and climbed in. As soon as he’d zipped it back up he realised he hadn’t got a pillow. Damn. Reaching forward, he picked up the boots and positioned them next to each other where his head would be. Then he laid his empty rucksack across them to provide a bit more padding and lay down.
The cardboard formed a very effective insulating layer with just a bit of give. Probably not enough to stop my back from aching, he thought, but a lot better than sleeping direct on freezing concrete. He nestled his head into the folds of the sleeping bag. Immediately, he knew that the light encroaching from the nearby streetlamps would keep him awake. That and the constant ebb and flow of noise. Engines revving, vehicle doors slamming, footsteps passing, peoples’ voices, the intermittent beep of a pedestrian crossing. How am I supposed to sleep with all this?
Bit-by-bit, the noises seemed to merge. Eventually, they became a relaxing drone. He realised his mind had stopped trying to process what people were actually saying as they walked by. Voices were growing indistinct. Blurred. Fainter. Everything was fainter now.
A siren brought him round.
He opened his eyes. Did I just fall asleep there? He suspected he had. For how long, he wasn’t sure. There was definitely much less noise coming from the square. The syrupy presence of sleep hadn’t fully receded. He turned his head towards the wall and let it slowly envelop him again.
Next thing he knew, something was pressing down on his head. He felt the soft flesh of his lips being stretched and pulled. His mind struggled to work out what was happening, where he was, if it was a dream. He came fully awake: I am lying in a doorway and someone’s hooking their fingers inside my lips. His reflex was to gag. To try and spit them back out. A growling noise rose from the back of his throat as he struggled to free his arms.
The pressure on the side of his head increased and he began to make sense of what was occurring: there was a man leaning over him. One of the person’s hands was pinning his head down. He could hear stifled giggling as fingers probed roughly at his gums and against his teeth. More laughter: this from someone else standing slightly further back.
