‘Evelyn!’ I called as I got to the door. It was on a slow spring, creaking as it swung back. I stepped inside the house. ‘Evelyn?’
It was warm. A floorboard creaked to my right. She was disappearing upstairs. I went after her, taking two steps at a time, and heard a series of creaks on the landing, then more movement. At the top, there were three doors. One of them was closed. I knocked on it.
‘Evelyn?’
No response.
‘Evelyn?’
I placed a hand on the door.
‘Evelyn — it’s me, David.’ No response. ‘David — from Angel’s.’
The sound of a window sliding along its runners.
I opened the door in time to see her leaning half out of the window, one foot on the bedroom floor. She looked at me once, then swung her leg over the windowsill and disappeared. I ran over to the window. A flat corrugated-iron roof stretched for ten feet below, a narrow alleyway below that running parallel to the street I’d parked on.
I watched her on the roof, taking small steps, careful not to lose her footing on the ice. When she got to the end, she looked back, hesitated, then jumped down. I could see the pain in her face as she landed, but she didn’t make any noise. Instead she got to her feet, kicking up gravel, and ran.
I headed downstairs. The front door was now closed. The house reminded me of the flat in Brixton: the walls were plain, probably painted once, and there was no carpet on the floor, only the original boards. Along the hall I could see a kitchen, some bay windows and another closed door. No furniture in any of them except for the kitchen units and a microwave. I stepped out on to the front porch.
Then from inside the house: ‘Uuhhh…’
A voice.
I stopped. Listened.
Nothing.
I went back down the hallway, into the kitchen. The house smelt of something. It became stronger the deeper into it I got.
There were two doors off the kitchen. The first led to a small patch of back garden, strewn with weeds and rubble. The other led into a living room. No furniture, no TV, just a few books scattered across the floor and a blanket in the corner. There was one window, the curtains pulled, and a small archway leading to an adjacent room. From where I was standing, I could see through the archway to the edge of a sofa. Small wooden arms, big leather cushions.
And, poking out, resting on one of the arms, a head.
I edged forward. The head. The chest. An arm locked in place, hanging off the side of the sofa, the knuckles brushing the floorboards. Inches from the fingers was a needle. It had rolled away, out of reach. Some of the liquid had escaped, pooling on the floorboards next to an ashtray over-run with cigarettes. It was a man. A boy, really. His trousers were wet, a dark patch crawling from his groin down the inside of one leg. And at the end of the sofa was a bucket.
It was full of vomit.
The stench was immense. Totally overpowering. I turned away, covering my face with my sleeve.
He couldn’t have been older than eighteen, but his arms were dotted with track marks. His veins were puffy and enlarged, clearly visible through the skin. He was as white as the snow outside, his eyes half-closed, dull yellow marks smeared below his eyelashes like badly applied make-up. I couldn’t get any closer. The smell was absolutely horrible.
Then a door opening and closing somewhere.
I looked up.
The door into the kitchen was still open. The one closer to me, leading back out to the hallway, was closed. On the other side of the hallway door, I heard footsteps. A shadow passed below the door, footsteps moving along the hall. I looked down at the kid sprawled on the sofa, and saw something else: a glass vial, empty, the film at its neck punctured by a needle. On the side it said KETAMINE.
A sound from the kitchen.
I went to the hallway door and slowly opened it. I waited. I could hear someone moving around in the kitchen. Drawers opening. To my right, the front door was still closed, but now there was snow on the mat in front of it. To my left I could see the black guy who had shouted after me in the street. He was probably in his early thirties, no taller than five-ten, but wide: muscles moved beneath the skin of his neck and shoulders, and a vein wormed its way out from the corner of one eye, up on to his shaved head. He was looking out through the kitchen door at the garden.
I looked back at the kid. His eyes were closed, but his mouth was open. His tongue came out, slapping against his lips like it was too big for his mouth. His gums were bleeding. Then, as his tongue moved again, I saw something else: he had no teeth.
They were all gone.
He coughed, a sound muffled by saliva and vomit, but loud enough to carry through the house. In the kitchen, the man turned around and looked along the hallway at me.
And he smiled.
I went for the front door, but as I got there it opened in at me. Evelyn stepped in, her cheeks flushed, anger streaked across her face. A split second later, she brought her hand up from her side. She was holding a gun. The barrel drifted across my face and I instinctively stumbled back, my hands coming up to protect me. The muzzle flashed, and plaster and dust spat out of the wall above me and to my left. Then another shot, louder this time.
I held up both hands.
‘Evelyn, wait a minute…’
She walked towards me, the gun out in front of her. It was new, in beautiful condition. A gun that had probably never been fired until today.
She stopped about two feet from me. She was going to shoot me in the head. The gun was level with one of my eyes, held incredibly still. Her fingers were pressed so tightly against the grip, perspiration was running out from under her hand.
‘What are you doing, David?’
I didn’t speak. I had a horrible feeling she would fire as soon as I did, even though she’d asked me in a gentle, almost admiring way. Even though I’d known her before Derryn died, talked with her and laughed with her.
‘What are you doing?’ she said again.
There was the smell of gunfire in the air now, burnt and nauseating. A smell that reminded me of driving through the townships before the sun was up. Behind me, I could hear the man coming along the hallway. I didn’t move. Any movement might be enough of an excuse for her to pull the trigger.
‘You should have left us alone,’ she said.
She moved towards me. My body tensed and I lowered my head, angling it away from the gun. She was behind me now, and the next thing I felt was the gun at the back of my neck.
‘Do you hear me, David? You should have left us alone.’
‘I don’t want you, Evelyn. I don’t want this.’
She didn’t say anything.
I turned slightly and could see her standing behind the black guy. He had the gun now, pointed right at me.
‘I don’t want either of you. I just want Alex.’
‘Alex doesn’t—’
‘That’s enough, Vee,’ the man said.
He stepped forward. Swapped the gun from one hand to another. Turned it. And — before I’d even had a chance to react — smashed it into my face.
I blacked out.
26
I opened my eyes. The first thing I saw was a red brick building. It was the factory I had seen earlier. It stood empty and derelict: its windows smashed, its walls decorated in graffiti, its doors torn from their hinges. In front of me was a vast expanse of concrete, weeds crawling through the cracks, snow in patches.
They’d gagged me. When I moved, I could feel my hands had been bound, and I’d lost most of the sensation in my feet. I had my jeans, T-shirt and zip-up top on, but my coat had been removed, and they’d taken my shoes and socks. I was sitting barefoot, my soles flat to the ground. The cold was making my bones ache. There were just a few tinges of daylight still staining the sky. Night was creeping in.