Like False Money

by Penny Grubb

  The jigsaw grew, piece by piece. Not quite a complete picture yet but surely close, very close. All the time, this kid had been a goldmine, and there might be more to get out of him so she’d keep him on side.

  ‘Oh yeah,’ he told her, his sulks left behind in the face of her close-to-speechless astonishment and taking advantage of a fresh audience to boast to. ‘Yeah. It’s for real. Look at this lot. They gotta shift it quick, it’s real mint stuff. Don’t want to lose it. An’ whoever’s here, they need time, see? Door like that’ll give ’em long enough.’

  ‘But where would they go?’ The reinforced door, after all, was the flat’s only exit.

  ‘Oh, they’ve a kick-through to the next flat, and a way down from there. An’ they could always go up and get the lift off the roof.’

  ‘Up? How?’

  His face now wore the self-satisfied look of one about to impress his public. ‘Come and see this.’

  She followed him to a space behind the kitchen and through a door to the veranda. She recognized the layout from Mrs Earle’s. The small tarmacked rectangle was empty but for a metal contraption lying on the swept floor. As she stepped out, the air changed, the whistle of the wind zipped round the apex of the building. At this height it became a different world.

  The balconies didn’t protrude far from the face of the building so when she stepped to the railing and looked down it was on to a sheer drop to a world in miniature that made her gasp and step back.

  Maz smiled a superior smile and made a flashy approach to the edge which he peered over with swaggering indifference. Annie ignored this, annoyed with herself for showing weakness in front of him, but then couldn’t hold back a gasp as he lifted the metal contraption and hoisted himself up so he straddled the inadequate balcony rail.

  His turn to ignore her as he lifted the thing over his head pushing it up beyond the top of the gap. Annie clapped her hand to her mouth, couldn’t stop herself. He stood up now, balancing on the rail, one arm against the ceiling as though that would save him if a sudden gust whipped stability from under him. Impulsively, she leapt forward and grasped a handful of material near his waist ready to haul him in if he lost balance.

  He threw her a casual, ‘Cheers.’

  But it wasn’t his safety in her mind at all. She’d grabbed hold to save herself the horror of his falling in front of her, plummeting down to splat on the concrete below. This close to an unguarded edge it was too easy to imagine herself slipping over. How would it feel at the instant of realization, the point of toppling too far to get back again? She shuddered and shifted her weight further back from the direction of the drop.

  ‘There. That’s it, see?’ He twitched suddenly loosening her grasp and she saw his feet fly free of the rail out into midair.

  Her instinct was to leap back. Then she was ashamed as she saw him peer down at her from where he hung apparently secure from some handhold out of her sight. She stepped forward again and peered upwards. The metal contraption was now a robust-looking ladder that hooked on to something up above. It took his swinging weight without trouble though she saw a look of alarm cross his features as a gust of wind buffeted him. His feet scrabbled for purchase on the rail as he lowered himself down. She grabbed a handful of denim at his thigh and pulled him in.

  ‘Ta.’ He tried for nonchalance but couldn’t disguise his breathlessness. ‘It’s a piece of piss getting up, but it’s a bit tricky getting back in.’

  She could believe it. ‘And they’ve actually used that as a route out?’

  ‘Nah, but they could. They did that ladder thing to get up to do the aerials first off when they didn’t have a key to the lift.’

  ‘What’s holding it?’

  ‘It fits on the maint’nance rail.’

  ‘Maintenance rail?’

  ‘Fer repairs and that. Holds the cradle.’

  They were dedicated for sure. It would have to be life and death to get her outside on to that makeshift ladder. No way would she risk her neck at this height for an aerial.

  The boy cleared his throat and glanced back. ‘I’ll get that back in a bit.’ To get the ladder back, he’d have to straddle the railing again. Not so reckless and devil-may-care as he’d have her believe.

  Fine. His problem. ‘The guys who do the radio, the gophers I mean, not the names. They deal drugs twice a week.’

  He looked vaguely surprised. ‘Is that why you been watching?’

  She nodded. ‘Why do they do it? It’s high-risk. They’ll be caught.’

  A look of contempt crossed his features. ‘They’re pissheads.’

  It was roughly the conclusion she’d found herself heading towards. She looked at Maz. She wanted more from him but it was time to let something flow the other way. Keep him on side. ‘OK. What is it you want from me? Quid pro quo.’

  The quid pro quo clearly puzzled him, but he caught the sense and asked, ‘You’ll do it then?’

  ‘I don’t know what it is yet.’

  ‘Yeah, but I’ve showed you the setup, haven’t I?’

  ‘OK, if I can, I’ll do it. What is it?’

  He went for an inner jacket pocket and pulled out two envelopes. He looked at one of them as if he’d never seen it before but then gave an irritated huff of recognition and put it on one side. The other he cradled in his hands.

  ‘We never used it. Never once.’ His tone was earnest, almost pleading. ‘Listen, you can do forensics an’ all that, that’ll prove it. We never used it. But like as not if the cops get hold of it they’ll fit us up. Fit me up. They’ll not touch the posh kids. And I’m not taking the rap for that out there. I ’ad nowt to do with any of it.’

  Annie fought bafflement as she looked at the odd-shaped metal rod he passed to her. Her gaze rested for a moment on the other envelope he’d set aside. The words ‘Annie Raymond’ were printed on it in neat script.

  ‘That’s nowt,’ he said impatiently. ‘That’s just some crap letter she wrote you. It’s that you’ve to deal with.’ As he spoke, he picked up the other envelope and held it out to her. She would quiz him on it in a moment. For now, she put it into her pocket and looked again at the object he wanted her to take away.

  It looked like half a key. A large oddly shaped one. She turned it over in her hand then gave up. ‘What is it?’

  He spoke with a hint of exasperation. ‘It’s a key to that place. I only did it cos they wanted me to. No one’s used it. I told you. By the time I’d got it done, they got all screechy and said they didn’t want it. I was going to chuck it in the drain but what if they found out I’d had it done? If you have those forensics done on it you can prove I never used it. But if the cops get hold, they’ll fit me up. They said you was OK over that stuff with the body.’

  Annie pieced it together. The three girls considered her a safe pair of hands because she’d gone to meet them without telling anyone the night they’d found the body in Balham’s shed. It hadn’t occurred to them it was only because she couldn’t find anyone to tell. And they’d got Maz to do something … what? Oh hell! Of course. ‘That’s a key to the building on the cliff, isn’t it? How did you get it? Why did they want it?’

  ‘They used to follow him, see. But he always kept it locked. So I said it’d be a piece of piss to get in and we give it a go. Tried to open it up but it’s a better lock than you’d think. He’s had it done special. So I says I’d get a key made up and I followed him. This right big fancy key it was, then I just nipped into the house later on when he was down the yard doing stuff and I got the shape of it.’

  ‘Like an impression in a bar of soap?’ Annie was amazed.

  ‘Soap’s no good. You can get this stuff like Blu-Tack and you oil it so it don’t stick. Got some off me uncle and he made the key up for me.’

  ‘Didn’t he ask what it was for?’

  ‘I told him it were a lock-up. He thought it were just for ornery robbing.’

  Ordinary robbing? That was OK, was it? She took another incredulous look at the device
then put it into her pocket with the envelope.

  ‘You never used it?’

  ‘Never. On me mam’s life. I only got it done ’cos o’ them. They …’ She didn’t doubt his sincerity and she could probably put words to the motives that now baffled him. He’d have had those girls hanging on his words in horrified admiration at the thought he could steal an impression of a key and get a copy made. But what should she do with it? Keep it like he asked? Hand it over to the police? He had a point, they wouldn’t give him an easy time if they knew its provenance.

  ‘Oh shit!’ He was on his feet, the colour gone from his face.

  ‘What? What is it?’

  ‘Someone’s coming. You gotta hide. You gotta get out.’

  She heard it, too, now. Footsteps from outside. He hadn’t secured the reinforced door. There was no time to be bought that way. Clearly he knew who it was. The wave of fear that radiated from him had her on her feet. She dived for the kitchen area where she eased herself out on to the small veranda and held the door open a crack to listen through.

  ‘What the fuck are you doing here?’

  Her heart plummeted to her feet. She knew that voice.

  ‘I just come to clean up, Mr Sleeman. I didn’t get it all done last night.’ She heard him rattling the pizza boxes.

  ‘The fucking door was open, you cretin. What are you playing at?’

  ‘I only jus’ got here, Mr Sleeman. I were just gonna shut it.’

  ‘You lying little git. I saw the light from down below. You’ve been here a good while. And not done much cleaning to show for it. What have you been doing? Robbing stuff, I suppose. Empty your pockets!’

  ‘Nah, I ’aven’t, Mr Sleeman. Honest. There’s nowt in me pockets. I were just ’aving a sit down. I were tired is all.’

  ‘I told you to empty your pockets. And when I’ve done with you I’m going to check this place over so you may as well help yourself out and come clean.’

  Annie froze from the inside out as she listened to Maz’s whiny voice plead with Vince. There was nothing in his pockets. Anything he wanted to be rid of he’d already passed on to her. He was stalling Vince deliberately to give her time to get away.

  She gulped. Time to get away …

  Where was this kick-through to the adjacent flat? Was it anywhere she could reach? Of course not. And the very term, kick-through, implied noise not a clandestine escape.

  Anyway, so what if Vince found her here? Wasn’t she on a job for his agency? She fought to win the argument with herself. A job for his agency. A job he’d had cancelled. Pat and that giant plaster cast.

  When Sleeman’s mate legged her down the stairs …

  If Annie were pushed right now, she didn’t have the safety net of a concrete staircase. She had a sheer drop to assured death. But he wouldn’t push her. Why should he? Why was he here? What was his role in it all? Another piece in a jigsaw she suddenly had no interest in completing.

  Maz’s voice whined on. He wouldn’t divert Vince for ever. She had to do it. Now. Don’t think. Just do it. She’d seen him swinging there quite secure.

  She tried to swallow, but her mouth had dried.

  Clinging to the rail, she eased one leg up on to it, then the other. Felt the awful instability of clinging to too thin a handhold. She had to get her hands off the rail, up above her head, on to the ladder. She couldn’t do it.

  She moved nearer the side wall. Maybe with that to balance her … Holding her breath, looking anywhere but down, she managed to stand up on the rail, one hand now pushed up on the ceiling of the small veranda. Weight leaning inwards. Daren’t look out, not even upwards, but she must if she were to grab the lower rung of the ladder.

  Quick glance up, smothering the gasp of a snatched breath. She inched along, hand pressed to the rough surface of the ceiling.

  About there now, just the right point to reach out into the air …

  She crawled one of her hands along the stippled concrete … felt at the changing texture as it neared the outer edge. Her jaw began to shake, the chattering of her teeth was involuntary. Either she got down now and faced Vince, or she must make one bold grab for that rung.

  She tried to tell herself that whatever Vince chose to do, it had to be less risky than hanging over a sheer drop at this height. But this intimacy with her own mortality didn’t allow her to kid herself. No way could she trust Vince to save her from an ‘accidental’ fall. Here she was at the heart of something he’d worked to keep hidden. Tiny memories flashed by … his cold eyes … his lack of interest in her as a person. Scott and the way he’d said, ‘You don’t have to work for Sleeman.’ The only witness was Maz and Vince would have no worries about keeping him quiet.

  Her chest constricted, the deep breaths she tried to take stalled themselves. She counted anyway. One … two … three … Praying it wasn’t her last moment on earth, Annie loosed her hand from the security of the concrete surface, reached up and round the corner, above where she could see. Her weight had to move with it, to tip towards the emptiness.

  Her fingers felt cold metal, closed on it, grasped it tight. Without stopping to think out the next move, knowing that she could use the momentum, she let her other hand follow. Her hands gripped tight. Her feet barely danced on the rail. She was outside the shelter of the building, buffeted by the wind, helpless. No way back.

  Maz with his longer legs could have used the rail to boost himself up. She had nothing, just the strength in her arms to rely on. She hauled up, felt the sting of blood in her mouth as she clenched her teeth too hard. Another gasping breath, a quick look up to locate her target and she let go with one hand and grabbed for the next rung up.

  Got it. A bit of leeway now to rest on one elbow and let the pounding in her chest slow. But she mustn’t let herself stop. Other hand up to the next rung … and the next … and at last her feet found purchase on the bottom of the ladder and she could breathe freely into the buffeting wind.

  Now she’d stopped to catch her breath she could see exactly where she was. On the short makeshift ladder that was hooked … barely … over the steel rail at the roof’s edge. A horrible vision came to her that one more move and it would slip free and send her plummeting down.

  She must get right up on to the roof as quickly as possible. Up there it was safe.

  After one more attempt at a deep breath, a flexing of muscles, she turned her head sideways and glanced down.

  The whole world swam around her. There was nothing … nothing between her and the tiny patchwork estate far below. Tiny figures scurried about their business, never looking up. She fought back an urge to scream, but the breath had rushed out of her body. Clutching at the ladder, eyes squeezed tight shut, she couldn’t suppress a whimper as a gust hit her and the metal swayed.

  For a moment she curled in on the certainty that she couldn’t move … that she must stay still and cling to this flimsy support. If Vince saw her … A vision flooded her mind. Vince appearing above her, reaching out to loosen the ladder …

  There was one way to go. She didn’t stop even to try for the deep breath that should signal decisive action. She moved one hand up to the top rung. One foot up. Other hand. A heart-stopping pause at the edge of the roof, at the perimeter of safety. In this pummelling wind, how to make the critical move needed to get from the side of the building to the top. No handholds. She must let go and throw her body weight forwards and over, but what if a circling eddy of wind chose that moment to tip her back again, out beyond the reach of the thin metal frame?

  She knew if she didn’t get over the edge immediately, she’d freeze and never move again. The tightness in her chest rose to her throat. She pushed up with her feet and hurled herself forwards and over with a force that sent her headfirst into something hard and unyielding. Instinctively she flattened herself to the surface and lay still as the sharp pain in her head subsided.

  After a moment when the surface beneath her remained solid, slowly and very cautiously, she sat up and looked
round.

  It was flat. The top of a box. She’d expected a wall round the edge, but there was just the maintenance rail the boy had told her about, a steel girder round the edge to hold the cables for maintenance cradles. She’d imagined a forest of tiny buildings holding the machinery that kept the whole tower alive, but there was just one unevenly shaped protuberance to house the tops of the two lifts and whatever else the building needed up here. Body firmly pressed to the surface of the roof, she eased herself round. And there right in front of her was the aerial she’d seen them bring that first night.

  One thing she could be certain of; she would stay up here and starve before even considering going back down the way she’d come up.

  CHAPTER 21

  ANNIE CLOSED HER eyes and let her head fall forward until her face rested against the rough surface. What had she done? A tremor took hold of her that had nothing to do with the chill of the breeze. Scott’s words burnt across her mind. A single look and the great detective surmises … What had the great detective surmised this time? A single snarl in Vince’s tone and she’d assumed what – that he’d kill her? She tried to recreate her sudden fear. Unexpectedly, a sliver of it remained.

  She lifted her head. The promise of a storm that she’d seen out over the sea in Withernsea swirled high in the sky. It gave her a sudden boost of energy.

  Within a hair’s breadth of death, but she was alive.

  Would Vince really have pushed her from the high balcony? She’d hidden from him and she’d found what he’d wanted hidden from her. She’d crossed a line, shown what she could do when she had to. She’d never forget how it felt to hang over that drop. Every detail would stay with her, every nuance. It might be the start of a nightmare or a source of inspiration. She was too hyped up to tell.