There was now no sign of them. He stopped, turned off the engine and lights. For a moment all he heard was distant street noise. The helmet didn’t help. A flicker of light and the sudden echoing amplification of a scooter engine’s whine from below and to the left. Of course, the underpass. Sorbie restarted the engine and rode fast along the snaking, dipping path, avoiding drifts of broken glass and sodden, slippery takeaway cartons.
Before the entrance of the tunnel he braked hard. Its square mouth gaped darkly. Around it huge spray-paint tags like heathen warnings, red, blue, black. Sorbie directed the headlight into the opening and flicked to full beam. The uneven concrete floor was puddled and strewn with litter, the grey tiled walls glistened with damp and the spray of mud. Halfway along the tunnel’s length sat a nest of sagging bin-liners spilling rubbish, beyond it lay the frame of a child’s bicycle.
Sorbie suddenly felt cold. Shouldn’t be going in there without back-up, not even on a bike. It’s what he would be telling any constable. But they had come through here and were getting away. Inhaling deeply Sorbie thought he could smell the sweet rotting fumes escaping from the rubbish bags. He shrugged off a shiver: what the hell. As he twisted the throttle the bike leapt forward eagerly. Just a few seconds and he’d be through it. Eyes fixed on the exit. The cavernous space boomed to the sound of his engine, amplifying it. Halfway through now. A headlight appeared just beyond the exit and halted. Black scooter, black-clad rider and pillion. He checked his mirror knowing what he would see: another headlight in the darkness behind. He braked too suddenly, the back wheel stepped out, but he caught it and came to a skewed halt in the centre of the tunnel.
Behind him the other scooter crept nearer. Gunning engines echoed as they sized each other up. Now much depended on how tooled up they were. There was no point in waiting until they both managed to get close to him. He had to joust with the one facing him. Sorbie moved the handlebars to direct his headlight and to line up the bike. The scooter’s lights were on full beam, making it hard for him to see. Engine fumes fogged the beams of light.
Then it began. Both scooters started their race towards him but he concentrated on the one ahead. The pillion was swinging something, a stick, no, too straight, a length of piping. ‘Ah, fuck. Fun and games.’ Sorbie closed his visor and revved up his engine. ‘Let’s do it then, you wankers.’
With the door pulled shut behind her the darkness was complete. While most of the lock-ups had a narrow slit of window on the wall opposite their entrance, usually covered with galvanized wire on the inside, not even a glimmer of the streetlight reached inside this place. Fairfield turned on her pen light. Its beam was woefully inadequate in this darkness. A big darkness. It was too feeble to reach the end of the lock-up but she knew that the window had been painted blind and partially blocked. There was a light switch on the wall yet she preferred to rely on the torch. One chink of light escaping outside might be enough to advertise her presence.
She knew she didn’t have much time. One or two of the lock-ups were in use at night. Someone might pass and notice the absence of the padlock on the hasp outside and decide to investigate. Or worse, call the police. As she let the beam of her torch travel over the high double row of shelving that ran along the centre of the cavern some of her determination evaporated. The place hadn’t changed much since the official search; if anything it was piled even higher with junk. A lot of this stuff had to have fallen off the back of various lorries but Mitchell’s paperwork had been quite convincing. And of course according to him whatever he couldn’t account for came from car boot sales.
Yet that was over sixty muggings and countless burglaries ago. Mitchell had had plenty of time to get careless and the bastard had complacency written all over him. She remembered it well. Fairfield opened a box at random. It contained a lava lamp with a Continental two-pin plug. The next was tightly packed with vinyl records, Abide With Me — Fifty Favourite Hymns, Christmas with Des O’Connor … The next box contained a jumble of cables and several clock radios. This could go on all night. There was no system here, it would take Mitchell hours to find a specific item unless he had a photographic memory. Most of it was junk too, he’d never afford the flat in Clifton and a Jaguar, however naff, on selling old tea kettles.
A rustling sound near her feet made her flash her light that way. A cockroach scuttled under the shelf. She moved on, glad she was wearing trainers. Towards the end of the space against the right-hand wall stood a large metal locker with double doors. She turned the black iron door knob and pulled. It opened quietly on well-oiled hinges yet the two shelves inside displayed nothing but oily rags, a few computer magazines and a chain of outdoor Christmas lights. A sudden eddy of cold air around her calves made her shiver and she closed the door.
Against the damp back wall stood a warped table supporting a grimy electric kettle, plastic bottles of water, a carton of tea bags and a tower of polystyrene cups. The plastic bin next to it was heaped high with used tea bags and cups. Fairfield examined a pint of semi-skimmed for freshness. It was well within its use-by date. A lot of tea was being drunk in these less than salubrious surroundings, half a stone’s throw from the cafe. It didn’t constitute a punishable crime but seemed a strange economy measure. Unless a lot of tea was being drunk outside cafe opening hours.
Fairfield prodded a few more boxes in the centre aisle. Strictly speaking it was she who was committing a crime here. This is where her stupid obsession with one unimportant lowlife had got her: standing in a mouldering lock-up with nothing but cockroaches for company. It was time to get out of here. It was definitely time to get a life. Perhaps she would go and take those lads up on their offer and have a quick drink in the pub. Or have a lot of quick drinks in the pub and leave the car. And should anyone ask, she could be an aromatherapist or a postie or something else people didn’t have issues with.
The sound of the neighbouring lock-up being opened up seemed unnaturally loud. Time to go. Fortunately, because the entrances alternated end to end, the neighbour would be unaware of the missing padlock on Ady Mitchell’s door.
Despite the thick walls Fairfield felt compelled to tiptoe along the shelves. Yet she was wholly unprepared for the sudden movement right by her side when the entire locker she had examined earlier swung inwards with a metallic groan. Light from the lock-up next door flooded in. Fairfield dropped on to the dusty cement and lay still. No wonder they’d never found anything in here. The two lock-ups connected.
Fairfield lay on the floor listening to the footsteps moving to the end of the lock-up. Water was being poured and the kettle began to hum. So far Mitchell had not turned on the strip lights, making do with what illumination fell through the hole in the wall from the lock-up next door. The increasing noise of the kettle gave Fairfield the confidence to retreat backwards, in a crouch, to the furthest aisle where it was practically dark. Reminding herself that she was on the right side of the law made no difference: she knew that if she was discovered it would jeopardize any chances of convicting Mitchell and put the brakes on her career forever. But she had to get a better view. Slowly she advanced up the aisle until she found herself opposite the open metal locker on the other side. Through a chink between boxes she could just make out a van parked in the lock-up next door. A greengrocer’s van. So that’s how it was done, it had to be. The scooters were launched from the van and, after the muggings, disappeared into the back of it. Greengrocer’s van … you wouldn’t even register it if what you were looking for was a couple of scooters.