by Lari Don
I flicked the torch beam up. How did workmen get onto the roof?
There was a small metal-framed hatch, above the access panel we’d come in.
We tottered back on the beams.
The hatch was held shut by a metal bar. Which I couldn’t reach.
I didn’t want to balance the stepladder from the stairwell on these narrow beams. So I searched the attic with the torchlight. There were lots of fragile cardboard boxes and flimsy rucksacks. Then I saw a pile of solid metallic suitcases. We pulled them over and made a set of steps, high enough that we could reach up and climb out without help.
Before I could clamber up, Lucy stood on the top case and pushed at the metal bar. It screeched rustily, then opened.
“Wait, Lucy! Let me go first. I need to see how steep and slippery it is out there.”
“Yeah, then go off and leave me behind in this creepy attic.”
“I’m not going to leave you behind. As you keep reminding me, you’ve got the address.”
She didn’t argue, she just slid through the hatch then scrambled out.
I held my breath. Worried that I’d hear a scrabble and a scream and her sliding off the roof. Worried that I’d sense her terror and…
No. Satisfaction. Security. She was fine.
I climbed up the cases, slithered through the gap and onto the tiles.
Lucy was perched above the hatch, her heels jammed onto the top of the frame. She was delighted with herself.
I looked round at the map of streetlights, the slabs of tower block lights, the streams of moving headlights.
I laughed.
“What?” Lucy whispered.
“Look at the size of the outside world. And look at me, on top of it all. I wonder if I can do it?”
“You wonder if you can do what?”
“Maybe I can survive out here, on my own!”
“You’re not on your own. I’m here.”
“Even better. You’re here and you’re mindblind. I’ve spent my life terrified of spending time away from my family, out among the mindblind, and here I am. Coping with it all.”
“I’m mindblind, am I? Thanks. And you’re coping, are you? You’ve spent most of the last couple of hours rolling about on carpets moaning. And you had to wipe your eyes and blow your nose in Grampa’s living room.”
“True. But that wasn’t so different from how I looked last night when my family had finished with me. So maybe I do have a choice.”
“A choice?”
“Yeah. I can live with my family and live with… what they do. Or I can leave and live out here. On my own. If I can survive more than a few hours…” I looked down. “And if we can get off this roof and out of this city.”
CHAPTER 20
Ciaran Bain, 30th October
Roofs aren’t that scary. Anyone who’s spent time on a climbing wall or a cliff face won’t find a sloping roof with moulded tiles much of a challenge.
“Lucy, have you done any rock climbing?”
“No. I prefer my sports at ground level.”
Someone who hasn’t been on a wall or a cliff should find a roof this height, at night, quite scary. But she wasn’t scared. She was enjoying the view, enjoying the excitement. I sensed her confidence and trust.
She was trusting me to get her down from here.
She really shouldn’t trust me. No one should trust me. Especially not her.
I was responsible for her sister’s death. She knew it and she’d seen my face, so she could describe me to the police. Really, she should be very scared of me, because I had every reason to pitch her off this roof.
But she trusted me.
And I was keeping her alive.
“Right, Lucy. We’ll climb along the lower part of the roof.”
“Why?” She might trust me, but that wouldn’t stop her arguing every single bloody point with me. “Shouldn’t we be higher up, so we’ve more time to stop ourselves if we fall?”
“No. If you slip, it’s better to hit the gutter slowly so it stops your fall. If you’ve slid a long way and built up speed, you might knock the gutter off and fall down with it. So clamber along low down.”
I took my gloves off and showed her how to move over the tiles. “Like a crab, slowly and carefully.”
I moved to our right, heading for the flats round the corner, where the front door wasn’t visible to anyone watching Reginald Shaw’s door.
I leant my weight into the roof, bare fingers grasping the edges and ridges of the tiles. I slid along slowly, letting Lucy keep pace with me, so I could grab her if she started to fall.
But really, it would be hard to fall off this roof. We might slip, but we weren’t going to fall, so long as we didn’t lean back and flail our arms about.
I could sense Lucy’s concentration. She was doing fine.
Then we got to the corner, where the next block met this one at right angles.
“Good news and bad news,” I muttered.
“Mmhm?”
“Good news: we’re halfway to the hatch we want. Bad news: this corner looks tricky.”
The join was a wide strip of lead, to keep the corner weatherproof. But it was softer and slippier than the tiles − we wouldn’t be able to get any grip on it. And we were on the back of the building, inside the right angle of the corner. So to reach the safe tiles on the other side of the lead strip, we wouldn’t be able to keep our bodies in close contact with the roof, we’d have to bend round and grab the tiles to the side and behind us.
Basically, we’d have to lean back and flail about. Prime falling-off conditions.
I sighed. How was I going to get Lucy round this?
“I’ll go first, then shine a torch to show you where to put your hands.”
“What about the policeman down there?” she whispered. “Isn’t the light too much of a risk?”
“Not as much of a risk as you falling. Anyway, he’s watching the lane and the back door, not looking up at the roof.”
“Are you sure?”
“Hey, I’m a mindreader.” To be honest, I wasn’t sure. But I did know he was relaxed. If he was stretching up to look at the roof all the time, that would make him irritable. I was fairly sure it was ok.
I traversed the join slowly, sliding my body across the lead, feeling carefully for every handhold.
Then I pulled out my torch and lit a route for Lucy, guiding her hands and feet past the broad lead strip. “Don’t lean back too much. Keep curled in. Hand up to the right. Yes. There.”
I could sense her fear, her desire to grab and leap, but also her trust in my instructions and her determination to do this properly.
“Just a bit more. Up to your right. Perfect.”
She was across.
We kept moving along the roof to the hatch. We crawled up and rested above it, our feet on the frame.
We both sat there, staring at it. It was the same as the hatch we’d climbed out.
Locked by a bar on the inside.
We couldn’t open it from the outside.
I whispered, “I have no ideas. Do you have any ideas?”
She shook her head, carefully not blaming me. We were high on a roof, after all.
I shook my head too. “I messed up. Sorry. Let me think…”
“I don’t want to go back,” she said quietly. “Not round that corner again.”
“Ok.”
“But I don’t mind going on. This block goes right along the whole street, so we could get further away from the policeman down there, then climb down or abseil or something.”
“Oh good! Abseiling is a great plan! You brought a rope, did you? And some harnesses?”
“No!”
“We’re five storeys up. There is no safe way down the outside.”
I sensed the spark of an idea in her head, like she’d worked out the answer to a riddle.
“Yes, there is! The local library is in the middle of this block. It’s the old town hall, with balconies at the front. We cou
ld drop off the roof onto the top balcony. Then we could either climb in a window, or jump down from balcony to balcony.”
She waited, impatient.
I grinned. “Great plan! Much better than my stupid locked-hatch plan. How far along is the library?”
“Another three or four buildings.”
We crawled along the roof, under three more useless hatches. Then I whispered, “Far enough. Up we go, over to the street side. You first, just to the ridge.”
“Why me first?”
“So I can block you if you start to slide.”
But she didn’t slide. She’d had no training, but she did have natural flexibility and balance, and she was a fast learner. If she wasn’t mindblind, she might be quite useful in a team.
She reached the top and waited for me.
I caught up with her and said, “Lie flat on the top, so you don’t make an obvious shape on the skyline, then slither over. Like this.”
I pulled myself up so I was lying along the cold ridge of rounded tiles. Then as I let my legs slip down, I felt my phone vibrate in my pocket. A text, at 3 a.m.?
I watched Lucy slither safely over, then I took an angled route down the roof.
The streetlights didn’t reach this high. I didn’t think anyone on the road, or looking out a window on the other side of the street, could see us. So when I got to the lowest tiles, I balanced my foot on the gutter and used my left hand to wiggle my phone out of my jeans. Lucy couldn’t see me. She was above me, still making her way down.
The text was from Roy’s phone.
Where the hell r u? U mal on warpath.
Keep ur head down. Don’t reply.
Oh.
Shit.
Oh shit.
I concentrated on my breathing, on keeping calm, keeping my chest pressed to the tiles.
If my family were looking for me, they’d find me much faster than the mindblind police. And if Roy didn’t want me to reply, he must be worried Malcolm might confiscate or check his phone. I couldn’t communicate safely with him.
Oh shit.
All my brief confidence about surviving on my own collapsed. I might be able to cope with the mindblind for a while, but it would be much harder to cope in the outside world with my family after me.
I leant back to put the phone in my pocket and felt the gutter lurch under my foot. I suddenly remembered I was on a roof high above a London street.
I curled my fingers round the ridged tiles and pushed forward towards the roof. I had to concentrate on where I was, not what was chasing me.
Lucy was right beside me. I hadn’t even noticed. I am so useless.
“You ok?” she whispered.
“Fine. Where’s that bloody balcony?”
“Just there, past that lion.”
I glanced along the roof edge, to an elaborate stone carving five metres ahead. “Let’s crawl past the lion, then see if it’s safe to jump to your balcony.”
“What if it isn’t?”
I didn’t answer. My head was jangling with panic, frantically searching for any whisper of my family approaching.
We crab-crawled along until we were past the carving and on the roof of the library, which had older grainier tiles than the flats.
Lucy’s balcony was one floor below us. It ran the length of the building, but it was less than a couple of metres wide. It wasn’t an easy target from this height.
“The trick is to fall,” I said, “not to jump.”
“What?”
“If you jump, you push off, so you go outwards and miss the balcony. If you fall, you go straight down, so you’ll land nice and safe.” Probably. I kept my voice positive. “Just dangle your feet below the edge of the tiles and slip down off the roof.”
I could sense her doubts.
“I’ll go first,” I offered. “I’ll catch you if you want.”
“Won’t that hurt you?”
“Not as much as landing hard on the balcony will hurt you. See you down there!”
I lifted my feet off the tiles, gave a wee shove with my hands and slid off the roof. I fell for less than a heartbeat, then bent my knees, hit the balcony and rolled.
I called up, “I’m here. It’s easy.”
I put my gloves on, so I could catch her.
But she was radiating fear, reluctance, frustration. Three emotions adding up to one thought. She didn’t want to let go.
“Lucy?”
“Yeah, yeah. I’m just being a wimp. I’ve spent the last half hour getting good at not falling off a roof, so it’s hard to decide to fall deliberately. Give me a minute.”
I kept quiet. I sensed her get control over herself. Will over mind. Mind over body. Turning terror into determination, reluctance into decision.
Then she let go, so fast I almost missed it.
She slid off the edge of the roof, fell past the windows and crashed into my chest. I didn’t really catch her, just provided a softer landing than the stone of the balcony floor. We rolled away from each other immediately.
“We’re off the roof. Now what?” she asked.
Now what? I couldn’t think of anything apart from not getting caught by my family.
“Now what?” she repeated.
I didn’t have an answer. But we did have to get off this balcony, so that I could get further from anywhere my family might be searching for me. I had to show the same control Lucy just had. I had to stop flailing and get a grip.
I stood up and looked over the parapet. All the balconies below us were exactly the same width. To drop from the upper to the lower balconies, you’d have to swing inwards each time. It was possible, but not easy.
I turned to the door. It had one simple lock, which was probably alarmed, but we should be out within minutes of entering, so breaking in was less risky than an acrobatics display down the front of a public building.
“When I open the door, let’s assume I’ve set off an alarm, even if we can’t hear it, so we run downstairs and out the front door as fast as possible, without pauses for argument. Yeah?”
“Yeah.” She was getting pretty causal about this breaking in stuff.
“Ready?”
“Yeah!”
I picked the lock and shoved the door open.
Total silence. Total absence of klaxons, sirens, bells and whistles. But there might be a light flashing in the police station.
I leapt in. Lucy leapt past me. I jerked the door closed and flicked my torch on. We ran to the door at the other side of the room, which unlocked from the inside, then we battered down four flights of wide stairs to a round hall with a faded mosaic floor and a huge arched wooden front door.
I ran towards the door, hoping it wouldn’t have an ancient lock I’d never met before.
But it was the same kind of cheap lock you get on every council building. Not even screwed on right. There were a million ways to pick this. I had it open in seconds, and we stepped out together.
“Lead us towards the centre of London now,” I instructed, “but keep clear of the police station. And walk, don’t run.”
She turned right and walked down the street. I followed. But as soon as we heard the faint wail of a police siren, Lucy panicked and started to sprint.
“Turn a corner!” I said. “If you have to run, run somewhere less public!”
We veered into a dark alley. I sensed Lucy’s fear immediately, just like in the dark attic. I switched on the torch, and the narrow light gave her enough confidence to keep running.
She was a fast runner. An athlete at school, probably. A sprinter possibly, given her speed, but we’d see if she had my stamina. I let her lead, sensing nothing from her apart from the excitement of the chase, now her initial panic had died down.
We leapt over piles of cardboard and heaps of binbags at the back of shops, squeezed past parked vans, and kept running until the sirens died out behind us.
Lucy slowed to a trot. But she wasn’t tired, she was elated. “You’re right, it is more fun wh
en you’re being chased! What do we do now?”
I read the text again as we walked.
Where the hell r u? U mal on warpath.
Keep ur head down. Don’t reply.
It didn’t look any better on solid ground than it had on the roof.
Should I head home and tell them what I’d worked out, so that Malcolm could search for the copy? Or should I try to find the copy myself and return home as a hero? If I went back now, I’d probably suffer another Q&A; if I kept going, I’d probably get caught and thrashed by Daniel long before I got to Edinburgh. All for a flash drive which was still guesswork on my part.
I looked at the text again, then looked at Lucy. It wasn’t just me who might get hurt this time.
“Bad news,” I muttered.
“We got past the last bad news.”
“Really bad news. My family know I’ve gone. They’re hunting for me and once they discover I’ve been in the Shaw files, they’ll visit your family’s addresses.”
I realised what I had to do. “We have to split up, Lucy. I’ll go north if I can. You just get away. But don’t go home yet. Your family’s total ignorance of me should protect them, but you know too much and you wouldn’t be safe.
“Go to a friend’s or a distant relative’s. Somewhere my family won’t find you. But most important, Lucy, stay away from me. It’s me they’re looking for, not you, and they’ll find me more easily than you. If you don’t think about me, they may not realise you’ve talked to me or know any more about us than you did last week.”
It was a slim hope. We’d left an obvious trail. She was missing from home the same night as me, and there was evidence of break-ins at her grandfather’s block of flats and at the local library.
Also if Mum and Malcolm questioned me about tonight, no matter how hard I tried to hide her, they’d catch glimpses of Lucy. So if I returned home, or if they caught me, she was dead.
I’d probably killed her already.
But I couldn’t tell her that.
“Why will they find you more easily than me?” she asked. “With all your sneaky ninja skills, can’t you hide from anyone?”
“Not from my family. They can detect my mind from a distance. As soon as they get close enough, they’ll find me.”
