Sean ran forwards, roaring words that he’d stored inside for years. Names filled his mouth and spilt out.
‘You fucking tosser! You bastard! You filthy fucking bastard!’
He slammed into his father, pushed him over, shocked at how light he was. It was like felling a feather pillow. Jack landed, gasping, on the pile of dirty clothes on the hall floor. Sean glanced back into the living room where his own clothes and shoes were strewn between the beer cans, but Jack was already getting back on his feet, the broken bottle still firmly in his hand. Sean ran, in underpants and socks, to the front door, clutching the sleeping bag. He threw himself out onto the landing and the bottle arced up and flew past him, shattering in front of the lift. He yanked open the door to the staircase and headed down to the exit.
At the bottom of the stairs he stopped. There was a pain in the heel of his left foot. When he looked back, he saw he’d left a trail of smeary blood marks. He must have stood on a piece of glass. Balancing on one leg, his back against the outer door, he peeled back his sock. There was a neat cut on the heel. He pressed it carefully to check there was no glass still in it, but it felt clean. Covering it again, he pressed it hard to staunch the bleeding. He couldn’t believe the irony. Assault on a disabled man in Eagle Mount One, forensic trail leads to suspended police constable. Maybe he should call it in himself. At least he’d get a ride back into town.
He stood there, naked except for his socks and pants, with only a sleeping bag for cover. His wallet and keys were in his jeans. All he had was his phone, his precious phone, loaded with evidence against Terry Starkey, safely at the bottom of the sleeping bag. He let his head fall back against the cool metal door. Evidence of what though? He couldn’t remember Terry telling him anything that made any sense. Maybe he should just wipe it all and go back up to his dad, talk him round, at least get his clothes back. As he slid his hand into the bottom of the sleeping bag and fished out the phone, he heard the mechanism of the lift, ascending from the ground floor. Prising open the door to the street, he glanced out. There was a man standing, hands on hips, on the edge of the pavement, with his back to the building. Jeans, bomber jacket and a thick neck under a bald head. Gary MacDonald. A passing car had covered the sound of the door opening and Gary hadn’t turned round, but there was no chance of Sean getting past him.
He let the door close. The lift had stopped. It had only gone up one floor. He couldn’t go out on the street, so he’d have to go up and he’d be trapped if he couldn’t get past the first floor landing. He held his phone tight in one hand and grabbed the banister to launch himself back up the stairs, trying to keep the weight off his bleeding heel.
At the first floor he could hear voices. It sounded like Terry Starkey and Jack. He thanked God that the access door had no window and took the stairs two at a time. He passed the second floor, pausing to catch his breath at the third. He listened again. Nothing. He risked another floor and almost didn’t make it. A door was opening onto the stairwell beneath him and he had a fraction of a second to duck into the doorway of the fourth floor landing, bracing himself as flat as he could manage.
‘Here, Terry! Look at this!’ He heard Gary’s voice and heavy feet on the concrete. ‘He’s dropped his sleeping bag.’
‘I told you to stay out there, he could have got past you when you came inside.’
‘He won’t have gone far.’
Sean gambled on the fact that Terry would be looking down, not up, and hooked his hand behind his back to grab the handle of the door. It was fire safety standard, with stiff sprung hinges. Silently and slowly, Sean prised it open.
‘He’s bleeding, look! The old bugger’s cut him up.’
The sound of their mirthless laugh covered any sound Sean made as he slipped through and closed the door softly behind him. He reorientated himself on the fourth floor. Same layout, same smell. He had to keep off the stairs now so he pressed the lift button and felt a surge of relief as it rattled up towards him. He stood to one side, ready to run, as the metal doors slid apart, but it was empty. Once inside he selected the top floor. He didn’t know what he was going to do when he got there, but he couldn’t keep running, leaving a trail of blood for them to follow.
He was passing the fifth floor, straining to hear any sounds outside the lift. A door banged, but he couldn’t tell if it was above or below him. The sixth floor went by and he realised he had to do something to stop the bleeding. He stood on one leg, leaning against the cool steel wall of the lift and held his foot in his hand. There was nowhere to put his phone, and he needed both hands, so he placed it carefully on the floor. He pressed hard on his heel, hoping the pressure would help. At the seventh floor his phone lit up, the dog-bark ringtone resonating inside the metal box. Of course, it wasn’t a dog he’d heard in his sleep, it had been ringing when he woke up and he hadn’t answered it. He’d been mucking around with his ringtones last night, half cut on cheap beer and trying to bond with Terry Starkey.
The caller ID on his phone read Gav. He picked it up and answered.
‘Mate!’ Sean said. ‘Am I glad to hear you!’
‘Where are you? I tried earlier …’
‘I need some help, urgently,’ Sean’s voice was low. ‘I’m at my dad’s, I was … shit man, I’m in a lot of trouble, where are you?’
‘Doing house-to-house on the bloody Chasebridge estate. That’s why I called, to see if you fancied picking up your badge and doing some work for a change. You’re off the hook, by the way. Khan’s pulled his complaint.’
‘That’s great.’ He was passing the ninth floor. ‘Can you do me a favour? Probably a life-saving favour as it happens. Can you get to Eagle Mount One with a car? Now? I need you to get me out of here. Can you? Oh, Christ … Gav, Gavin, can you hear me? Oh fuck, fuck, fuck …’
The lift juddered towards the tenth floor, but the phone was dead, the battery empty. The lift stopped but the number ten didn’t light up and the doors remained closed. He was stuck between floors.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Doncaster
DCI Khan had turned his chair round and was sitting with his elbows leaning on the seat-back, his head resting in the cup of his hands as if his neck was too tired to support it. Another briefing was due to start in ten minutes and Lizzie wanted to make sure the AV equipment was working so she could share last night’s discoveries from the lab. Khan’s eyes were closed, so she crept past him, assuming he was as tired as she was. They’d both left late last night and somehow ended up wandering into the Taj Mahal restaurant. He hadn’t talked about the case or asked her very much about herself, but he’d opened up a bit about his own life, and she’d ended up feeling guilty about how she’d behaved towards him at the crime scene.
‘Oh, it’s you.’ His voice startled her.
‘Yes, it’s me. Who were you expecting?’
‘I have very low expectations, Lizzie, and they’re getting lower by the day.’
‘I’ll take that as an insult, I think.’
She turned on the laptop, but nothing happened to the projector, which was attached to the ceiling.
‘Do it in a different order. Try turning the projector on first.’
‘You’re wasted as a detective, Sam,’ she smiled. ‘You’d be better off in technical support.’
But he didn’t return her smile. He looked beyond her to the two boards where mirror images of Mohammad Asaf and Taheera Ahmed faced each other.