The Haunting of Bleeding Heart Yard (Quigg)

by Tim Ellis

  ‘The second lift is on its way down now.’

  ‘You catch that one and follow me up.’

  ‘Thank you. I was wondering what to do next.’

  ‘Hey, ring me anytime if you’d like me to tell you what to do or where to go.’

  The call ended.

  Kline’s lift had stopped on the twenty-seventh floor.

  The second lift arrived and the doors opened. Inside was a pale-looking mother with a toddler asleep in a buggy; a black man with plaited dreadlocks wearing an overcoat and listening to Bob Marley’s ‘Buffalo Soldier’ on an iPod; and a middle-aged bald-headed man with a briefcase handcuffed to his wrist.

  He stood to one side to let the passengers exit the lift. As they passed him the child in the buggy opened its bloodshot eyes and said, ‘Don’t go up there.’

  His mouth dropped open, and then he called after the mother, ‘What did your child just say?’

  She stopped.

  They both stared at the sleeping boy.

  The mother looked at him as if he was crazy and carried on walking towards the front door.

  Shaking his head, he stepped inside the lift and pressed for the twenty-seventh floor. The doors began to close, but just before they did – a hand appeared.

  The doors opened again.

  An unshaven man with a crew cut and a square jaw stood there smiling. ‘Just in time,’ he said and stepped into the lift.

  He pressed for the thirty-fifth floor.

  The lift began to ascend.

  What was that all about? Did he really see what he thought he saw? Surely not, but if he didn’t, what was it – an optical illusion? A trick of the light? The effects of last night’s blue cheese and crackers? The boy specifically referred to his journey upwards. In fact, he repeated what Aryana had said to him when he spoke to her on the phone last week. No – his brain must have been playing games with his eyesight.

  He watched the light on the control panel flicker through the numbers, but it didn’t stop when it reached twenty-seven – and neither did the lift.

  He glanced at the other passenger, but the man ignored him. Exasperation was beginning to winkle its way into his grey matter.

  The lift shuddered to a stop on the thirty-fifth floor. When the doors opened, the man stepped out and disappeared to the right.

  Quigg pressed the button on the control panel for the twenty-seventh floor, but nothing happened. He tried the buttons for the floors directly above and below twenty-seven – still nothing. He tried “G” – nothing. He stepped out of the lift.

  The doors closed and the lift started moving down.

  ‘Shit!’

  He was seven floors above where he wanted to be. At least he could walk down the stairs. Walking down stairs was far easier than walking up them. He decided that’s what he’d do. The lifts appeared to have minds of their own. If he got into a lift again – God knows where he’d end up. The twenty-seventh floor was reachable from where he was.

  His phone vibrated.

  ‘Are you lost?’ Kline asked.

  He told her what had happened and what he was planning to do about it. ‘What’s happening there?’

  ‘Nothing. I haven’t found Perkins yet.’

  ‘That’s ridiculous. Have you tried ringing him?’

  ‘No answer.’

  ‘How many flats are there on each floor?’

  ‘Seven.’

  ‘Well, you probably need to start knocking on a few doors.’

  ‘And you think I’ve been standing here sucking my thumb?’

  ‘Have you?’

  ‘I’ve knocked on every door – nothing. There were people in four of them, but no answer from the other three.’

  ‘Maybe he’s in one of them.’

  ‘And maybe you should get your arse down here before I come up there and kill you.’

  ‘Good idea. We’ll sort it out when I get there.’

  He ended the call.

  There were no signs indicating the location of the stairs, so he turned left and headed along the corridor in the opposite direction to the unshaven man he’d travelled up with.

  What the hell was going on? Where was Perkins? He’d be hard to miss. Christ! He had a team of forensic people with him. How could she not find him? He phoned Perkins.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Where are you, Perkins?’

  ‘Still here.’

  ‘Still where?’

  ‘On the twenty-seventh floor.’

  ‘Where about? Kline is on that floor and she can’t find you.’

  ‘I find that hard to believe. My people are all over the place. We’re in the corridor, and in and out of Flat 27/3.’

  ‘Okay, I’ll let her know. The lift dumped me on the thirty-fifth floor, so I’m going to walk down the stairs to you.’

  ‘Interesting.’

  ‘What’s interesting?’

  ‘Nothing. See you soon.’

  The call ended.

  He rang Kline, but she didn’t answer.

  A wall appeared before him. Out of a choice of two – he always chose the wrong one. He turned round and headed in the opposite direction.

  The lights began to flicker.

  A bulb exploded with a loud crack behind him and made him jump, but then the lights stopped flickering.

  He reached the wall at the opposite end of the corridor.

  Where the hell were the stairs? There had to be stairs. The law required stairs. Health and safety regulations stipulated that there should be stairs. So, where were they? He must have missed them. He must have assumed the door for the stairs was a door to a flat – they must be similar.

  As he retraced his steps he tried every door. The trouble was, there were brass numbers between 35/1 and 35/7 screwed on each door, together with a name plate containing a slip-in card with a name on it:

  35/1 – Mr & Mrs Henry Dempster

  35/2 – Mr Lincoln Newhart

  35/3 – Ms Wendy Elliott & Ms Lauren Harper

  35/4 – Mrs Mara Ingatestone

  35/5 – Jo and Jim Tiptree

  35/6 – Mr Ted Finnegan

  35/7 – Mr & Mrs Stanley Field

  He passed the lift, and pressed the button just to see if it was working, but it wasn’t. Then he reached the wall again. There was no door with STAIRS on it.

  Where were the stairs? If there were no stairs, how the hell was he going to get out of here? He went back to the lift. There was no light on the call button, and none on the floor indicator above the lift. He put his ear to the metal and listened. There were noises, but he didn’t think they were the workings of the lift. There were no cog teeth grinding into synchronicity, no pulleys straining and stretching and no lift grunting and groaning under the weight of obese people. The sounds were more like . . . voices . . . whispering. He was imagining things.

  The people in white coats would be sure to arrive soon and carry him off to the happy farm – ha, ha!

  What the hell was going on?

  He tried ringing Kline, Perkins and then Duffy, but got nothing – not even a dialling tone. His phone was on, there was an excellent signal strength, but it was as dead as a doornail.

  What now?

  He knocked on 35/4 – Mrs Mara Ingatestone.

  The door opened.

  An attractive woman in her early thirties wearing a long summer dress and not much else filled the opening. ‘Yes?’

  ‘Detective Inspector Quigg from Hammersmith Police Station.’ He brandished his warrant card. ‘You’re going to think I’m really stupid, but I can’t find the stairs.’

  ‘No,’ she mumbled, as if she knew exactly what the problem was and how to rectify it.

  He waited, but she wasn’t forthcoming with an explanation or a solution.

  ‘Would you like to come in for a drink or something?’ she asked.

  All the stress had made him thirsty. He wondered what the “or something” she was offering might be. There seemed to be no point in pacing up and d
own in the corridor – it didn’t appear as though he was going anywhere anytime soon.

  ‘A drink would be most welcome.’

  She led him into the living room and then left him there.

  He stood in front of the large window looking out on the world. The view from the thirty-fifth floor was magnificent. He could see for miles and miles.

  ‘You’re here about the murder in 27/3, aren’t you?’ she shouted through from the kitchen.

  He sat down on the black leather sofa and was nearly swallowed whole. ‘Yes. What do you know about it?’

  ‘Only what people are saying.’

  ‘What are people saying?’

  She came in with a tray containing two mugs of coffee, milk and sugar, and put it on the occasional table in front of the sofa.

  He shuffled forward, perched on the edge of the sofa and put milk and sugar in the mug.

  She sat down sideways on the sofa next to him.

  ‘Thanks,’ he said, taking a sip of the steaming liquid. It was the worst coffee he had ever tasted bar none, and left a deposit on his tongue.

  Her perfume was making him feel light-headed.

  ‘People are saying he deserved it.’

  ‘He?’

  ‘Lance Flowers from 27/3.’

  ‘Why?’

  She shrugged. ‘I don’t know. It’s just what people are saying.’

  ‘And you didn’t ask why?’

  ‘It’s none of my business.’

  His brow furrowed. ‘A man’s been murdered a couple of floors beneath the high-rise you live in – surely that’s everyone’s business?’

  ‘You learn to keep your nose out of the things that don’t concern you when you live here.’

  He could certainly understand that.

  ‘Is your husband at work?’

  ‘We don’t have much time.’ She took his mug and put it down on the tray. ‘Follow me.’

  She glided out of the room.

  Much time for what? Follow her! Follow her where?

  The only way he was going to get an answer to that or any other question was if he did follow her.

  She led him into the bedroom.

  Her summer dress fell in a crumpled heap at her feet and he gazed at her nakedness. There was no evidence that she’d had any children, but her hips were wide enough to accommodate such a course of action. She reminded him of ‘Andromeda’ by Peter Paul Rubens.

  He should have spun on his heel and ran for the hills, but he didn’t. ‘I’m sorry, but I think you have the wrong idea . . .’

  She began pawing at his clothes.

  He tried to stop her, but she wouldn’t be denied.

  Drool glistened on her lips, her eyes flashed red as a spear of sunlight pierced through a gap in the window drapes, and there was a strange burning smell tickling his nostrils.

  ‘Hurry – time is running out.’

  He had no idea what she was talking about.

  As he fell backwards onto the waterbed, she sat astride him and guided him into her. The temperature plummeted, and he felt the frozen caress of a Siberian winter.

  Was her husband due home? That’s all he needed – to be caught in flagrante with another man’s wife.

  What the hell was going on? How many times had he asked himself that question in the last couple of hours?

  ‘I have a partner, children . . .’

  ‘And I have needs.’ She grabbed his hands and forced him to knead her breasts – the nipples were as hard as nearly-ripe cherries.

  She was breathing heavy. Guttural sounds escaped through her barely-parted lips.

  Denying her seemed futile and petty now. He began moving to the rhythm of life. As she pushed down, he thrust up. They were like two parts of a well-oiled machine – in-out, in-out, in . . .’

  They erupted in a cataclysmic mingling of lava.

  Maybe the machine had been too well-oiled, he thought.

  Sweating like a mountain goat, she flopped on top of him. ‘Just in time,’ she said.

  The strange burning smell was stronger now, and he was sure he could hear mocking laughter.

  ***

  He was sprawled in the corridor outside the lift when he woke up. How had he got there? The last thing he remembered was sailing the seven seas on a waterbed with Mara Ingatestone. Had she dressed him, dragged him through her flat and dumped him in the corridor? Or had it been someone else? If he’d fallen asleep in the bed, why hadn’t he woken up when he’d been moved? It all seemed very strange.

  Before he stood up, he checked that he was decent, and that he had all his possessions – his wallet and the fifty pounds inside it were still there, so he hadn’t been robbed, but his mobile was missing. It must have dropped out of his pocket during the voyage.

  He could hear the lift clunking and whirring like a lift. Had the engineer arrived and repaired it?

  Fixed on the wall was a small plastic sign of a little green man running down some stairs and a green hand pointing to the right. There was no way he had missed the sign before – it simply wasn’t there. Someone was obviously playing stupid mind games with him – but who?

  His phone was a priority. He couldn’t do his job effectively without a phone. He returned to Flat 35/4 and banged on the wood.

  A dishevelled bleary-eyed man in striped pyjamas and a hairy dressing gown opened the door. ‘Is there a fire?’

  ‘Not that I’m aware of?’

  ‘So why the fuck are you trying to break my door down?’

  ‘Sorry. And you are?’

  ‘Leonard Ingatestone.’

  ‘Could I see the lady of the house, please?’

  The man laughed. ‘The lady of the house?’ he repeated. ‘Yeah, Mara would love that one. Mara’s certainly no lady, and she won’t be home until about six tonight.’

  ‘Where is she?’

  ‘At work.’

  ‘She’s just left?’

  ‘Works in a florists near Whitechapel tube station from nine to five. Who the hell are you, anyway?’

  He showed Ingatestone his warrant card.

  ‘You’re here about the murder in 27/3?’

  ‘Yes. And your wife is at work today?’

  ‘I’ve just said that, haven’t I?’

  ‘How long have you been here?’

  ‘Haven’t left the flat at all today. I was made redundant two weeks ago, so I’m in-between jobs.’

  He was struggling to wrap his head around what the man was telling him. Mara Ingatestone had just taken advantage of him, and yet she hadn’t been here. How was that possible? As far as he was aware, there had been no man in the flat. And yet, here was her husband. It must be a scam of some sort. ‘Could I come in and take a look around?’

  ‘Sure,’ Ingatestone said. ‘I’d like to know why you’re interested in Mara though, and what you think you’ll find in my flat.’

  He pushed past the man and went into the bedroom – the bedding had been changed, but that was hardly surprising considering what they’d been doing. He poked the bed with his index finger just to check it was a waterbed – it rippled.

  ‘Did I wake you up?’

  ‘No, I’ve been up for a while. I was checking for jobs online.’

  He couldn’t ask Ingatestone if he’d found his phone. The man would want to know how Quigg’s phone had found its way into his bed – two and two would obviously equal four.

  ‘Can I use your phone?’

  ‘You’re not calling Australia, are you?’

  ‘No, a local call.’

  They went into the living room.

  Mr Ingatestone pointed to the phone.

  It was the same black leather suite, the same coffee table and the same magnificent view through the window – it was the same room, but it wasn’t the same room.

  He picked up the phone, perched on the edge of the sofa and surreptitiously checked down the side and back of the seat where he’d previously been sitting – there was no sign of his phone. Next, he dialled his ow
n number hoping that it wouldn’t ring to embarrass him – it didn’t. He walked through into the bedroom, along the hallway and out into the corridor with Ingatestone’s phone against his ear – nothing. Where the hell was his phone? Maybe they’d switched it off. But why?

  The coffee! Of course – the coffee had been drugged. It was the only explanation. That’s why he’d lost consciousness, why he’d had sex willingly when he didn’t want to, why he hadn’t woken up when Ingatestone had dragged him out of the flat and dumped him in the corridor. But the coffee didn’t explain the lift, the missing sign and stairs, or the lack of contact with Perkins, Kline and Duffy.

  ‘Thanks for letting me use your phone,’ he said, passing the handset back to Ingatestone.

  ‘No problem. Can I get back to my job-hunting now?’

  ‘Yes, of course. Sorry to have bothered you.’

  The door shut.

  It had to be a scam. Maybe they were going to blackmail him. Maybe digitally-enhanced photographs of him enjoying the delights of Mara Ingatestone had already gone viral on the internet. Maybe the Chief would ring him soon and ask what the hell he was playing at – or he might have done if Quigg hadn’t lost his damned phone. He was meant to be here solving a murder and all he’d been doing was having sex. Crap – he hadn’t even seen the body yet.

  Considering the problems he’d had with the lift the last time he climbed aboard, he decided to walk down the stairs. He checked his watch, but it seemed to have stopped. No phone, and now no watch. He was like a blind man wandering in the wilderness searching for the seeds of understanding.

  Talking of which – sex always made him thirsty and hungry. He was hoping Perkins might have brought sandwiches and a flask with him. Under the pretext of inspecting the evidence he’d snaffle a butty and a drink. He hoped Perkins had something decent in his sandwiches like cheese and onion, egg mayonnaise or some such fayre.

  He shouldered his way through the swing doors and began descending the concrete steps. Eight floors – that was a lot of steps. He peered over the handrail and looked into the gap – it was a long way down. He felt sick and dizzy – he hated heights. In fact, he was beginning to hate Apocalypse Heights. Aryana’s words came back to him: “If you go in, you might never come out,” which made him think of the song by the Eagles – ‘Hotel California’, and then there was that creepy vision of the sleeping child telling him not to come up here. He shivered at the thought – two warnings not to come up here, which he had ignored with resulting consequences.