He hauled himself to his feet, and fell over, as if the gyroscope inside his body hadn’t stopped spinning yet. He got up again and staggered across the road, dodging a car then a bus, and reached the pavement on the promenade side. Saw the bright lights of Brighton’s Palace Pier over to his left. A cyclist clattered past, furiously ringing his bell. He turned and looked behind him. A police officer was sprinting towards him.
He turned right and ran.
Ran.
Seized with panic.
The tower of the i360 was right ahead of him. Rising to the heavens, disappearing into the mist. Ahead was a wall of glass with the BRITISH AIRWAYS i360 logo above it.
Two people, a young man and woman in British Airways uniforms, stood at the ticket gate. He ran between them, pushing them both out of the way, yelling, ‘Police!’
He found himself on smart decking. A few groups of people were standing around, under umbrellas. The massive tubular structure rose up in front of him. The huge, illuminated glass pod, like a spaceship, was slowly descending with its load of passengers.
He looked over his shoulder. A police officer was talking to the two uniformed BA staff at the gate.
A round glass fence ringed off the space where the doughnut was about to arrive. Suddenly, a door opened at the bottom of the tower and a workman in a yellow hard hat came out.
Batchelor vaulted the glass fence and fell with an agonizing, jarring thump on the ground fifteen feet below. His left leg hurt but he ignored it, ran stumbling past the workman, ignoring his shouts.
‘Police!’ he yelled back at the man, and ran in through the door.
It felt like he had entered a vertical tunnel.
There was a metal ladder directly in front of him, with cables clipped to the core of the tubular structure on either side. He began to climb up.
‘Oi!’ a voice shouted. ‘Oi! What do you think you’re doing?’
‘Police!’ he shouted back. ‘Police!’
He carried on climbing.
Climbing.
Looking down. Another man in a hard hat was at the bottom, looking up at him.
He climbed on. Shit. He was already starting to feel exhausted. Looked up, and the ladder continued, way up into the shadows and out of sight.
He climbed on, then finally came to a small gridded platform, with railings around it. He stepped onto it, leaned back against the railings, and gulped down hot, oily-smelling air.
What am I doing here?
He looked down again. It must be a good hundred feet. He could just step off the platform and fall. It was high enough.
Then he saw someone run in. A man with fair hair, in a dark suit, looking up at him.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
‘Guy! Guy! What the hell are you doing?’ Roy Grace called up at him.
The Detective Superintendent began to scale the ladder like a creature possessed.
Batchelor started climbing again.
‘Guy!’ Grace shouted. ‘Guy, stop! For Christ’s sake stop!
109
Saturday 30 April
Ignoring him, Batchelor climbed on. His arms were so tired he could barely grip each rung above him. But he kept going. Driven by grim determination. Desperation. He just had to keep climbing. Higher. Higher.
‘Guy!’
The voice was a distant echo below him, but getting louder with every shout.
‘Guy!’
With every rung he climbed, Roy Grace seemed to climb two. He was gaining on him. Rung by rung.
‘Guy. We need to talk.’
In front of his face, Batchelor saw a sign. It read 50 metres.
He was less than halfway up.
‘Screw you, Roy! Leave me alone!’ he yelled.
He climbed higher.
His chest was tight. His heart was hammering. His grip was getting weaker. Weaker.
Roy Grace was less than twenty feet below him now. Still scaling the ladder like a sodding rat up a drainpipe.
There was another platform just above him. And a door, with a handle on it.
Using the last of his strength, he reached the platform and hauled himself onto it. Grace, below him, was still climbing strongly. Batchelor lashed out with his shiny boot, a warning. ‘Don’t try it, Roy. I’ll kick you off, I promise you, I will!’
Grace stopped. ‘Guy, come on, whatever it is, we can sort it out. OK?’
‘No fucking way.’
Finding some strength from somewhere inside him, Batchelor threw himself at the ladder and climbed on. On.
Past the 100 METRES sign.
On.
He looked down.
Roy Grace had stopped, some distance below him, for breath; he was having to grip the ladder tightly, his hands dangerously slippery with perspiration.
‘How did you do in the “beep” test, eh, Roy?’ he chided. ‘Not so well?’
He climbed on.
‘Guy! Guy, what’s wrong with you?’
Grace’s strength was sapping as he climbed on up, also passing the 100 METRES sign. He did not dare look down. All his life he had been bad with heights. He just kept staring at the rungs in front of his face. Trying to convince himself that he was only a few feet above the ground. His hands were running out of feeling, out of grip. But he had to keep going. His chest was pounding, his breath rasping and he was feeling giddy.
Batchelor’s feet were just inches above him now. He could have reached up and grabbed one of them. But he had no strength for a struggle. He just had to keep clinging on. Keep climbing. He had no idea what was going to happen, all he knew was to keep going.
Now above him he saw the 150 METRES sign. Batchelor was standing, stooped, gasping, on the platform beside it. A torch beam shot up around him, but he ignored it.
‘Guy!’ he grunted. ‘Guy, just tell me?’
‘Tell you what?’
‘What the hell’s happening?’
‘Leave me alone. Just leave, Roy, it’s too late for me.’
Batchelor began climbing again.
Grace reached the platform and stepped onto it, gripping the rails, gulping down air. He saw his colleague’s boots disappearing above him. Saw the flickering torch beam from below him, and made the mistake of glancing down.
Into the void.
He swayed, vertigo drawing him down.
Shit.
‘Guy!’ he yelled. ‘Guy!’
Jesus.
He felt scared now. Out of his depth. But he had to keep going. Had to reach him, had to find out just what was going on inside this man’s mind.
Then suddenly he saw Batchelor, some rungs above him, push open a flap — an inspection hatch — and haul himself up and out, through it.
‘Guy!’ he yelled. ‘Guy, no, no!’
Frantically he scrambled up more rungs until he was level with the flap. A strong blast of cooling wet wind blew on his face. He was grateful for it. Guy Batchelor, sodden, was standing on some form of platform, outside, misty darkness beyond him, the wind flapping his coat.
‘Stay where you are, Roy,’ he said, his voice threatening. ‘I mean it.’
‘Guy, for God’s sake, man, let’s talk.’
‘You want to talk? Talk!’
Grace was gripping the rung for all he was worth. He was remembering some health and safety advice he’d been given on a training day. Always keep three limbs on a ladder at any time. Right now he had all four. ‘Let me onto the platform with you, Guy, we can talk. I can’t hang on here, I’m sodding exhausted.’
‘Stay where you are, I’m going to have a fag. A last cigarette. Did you know, some execution chambers don’t let you have that any more? In this ridiculous world they actually have no smoking execution chambers. What do you think about that?’