The monolithic high flats stood gray and black across a dusty lawn of wasteground. Not a single car was parked outside. Eighteen stories up three empty window sockets had black smoke smeared above the lintels. The same bossy blue signs that had pitted the front of Sheila's block were here too, ordering residents to do this, stop that and get your bloody hand out of there.
Number fifty-four had a security door and they couldn't get in. Kilty pressed the buzzer for the concierge but got no answer. They were standing about for a couple of minutes, trying to think of something to do, when a small man behind them pressed his key to a pad and the door buzzed open. They stood back, thinking it would be rude just to push in after him, but the man held the door open for them.
"We could be desperate robbers, ye know," said Kilty, once they were safely inside.
"Aye, ye look like right villains." He smiled and walked away to a stairwell.
The lobby was in good nick – no graffiti, no burn marks anywhere, and the lifts appeared to be working. The floor was covered in large black rubberized tiles that would have been trendy in a loft. A janitor sat behind a glass wall in a small room to the side, watching television under a sign that read "Concierge." Maureen found the lift that stopped at the even-numbered floors and pressed the button. The doors opened and they stepped into a smog of piss and detergent. Maureen used the hem of her T-shirt to press the button for Ella's floor.
"God, fuck," said Kilty, choking and covering her mouth. "Why? Why piss everywhere?"
Maureen held her nose and tried not to breathe in. The lift stopped and they staggered out onto the landing. On either side of the lift shaft, flights of stairs led up and down, the reinforced glass on the outside wall filling the stairwell with a pissy yellow light. Maureen and Kilty looked up and down the corridor at the rows of gray doors. The place was deserted. Buzzing strip-lights flickered at the far end. A sudden brutal clang behind their heads made them jump. The noise continued, falling away from them. The bag of rubbish finished its journey down the chute and Kilty grinned at her. "I'm not tense," she said, opening her eyes manic-wide.
Maureen found Ella's flat three down from the lift. The door frame was covered in a sheet of raw plywood, nailed into place. It looked so final, as if everything about Ella was being blocked up because she was dead.
"Did someone kick the door in?" asked Kilty.
"I dunno," said Maureen. "They wouldn't do that because she's dead, would they?"
"No, doors still lock after you're dead. It looks as if the door's been kicked in. Can't have been her son who attacked her, then. She'd've let him in, surely."
"He didn't look the sort to kick a door in anyway. Let's ask the neighbors. You ask up there" – Maureen pointed to the next door and swiveled on her heels – "and I'll ask down here."
Kilty walked away, trying to effect a Robert Mitchum swagger but looking as if she'd pissed herself and sprained both ankles. Maureen knocked on a nearby door. No one answered but she could hear a television inside. She banged again. Still no answer. Kilty wasn't having any more luck. They moved across the corridor and tried the doors opposite Ella's but still couldn't get an answer.
"No one's in," said Kilty.
The noise of a lock cracking open made them turn to the end of the corridor. An old woman stepped out into the silence. She locked her door carefully, picked up the plastic bag at her feet and walked towards them, looking past them, pretending they weren't there. Her footsteps echoed around the corridor. She was wearing a bandage around her calf under thick support tights. As she approached Maureen and Kilty, the old woman's path veered steeply to the opposite wall and she kept her eyes down.
"Excuse me?" said Maureen, stepping towards her.
The woman looked skittish and twitched to a stop, glancing at Maureen's shoes.
"I've been up seeing Ella McGee at the hospital," said Maureen, hoping to attract her attention with the promise of gossip.
The woman looked up at her. "She okay?"
"She died, I'm afraid," said Maureen. "What happened to her door?"
The woman seemed startled and glanced at the wooden slab. "It got broke," she said.
"Did someone break in?"
The woman looked uneasy and dropped her voice. "From the inside," she said. "It was all smashed out the way."
"Gee-so," said Kilty.
Apparently offended by the use of a bowdlerism, the woman stumbled back a step and stared at them dumbly.
"Do ye know her son? Si McGee?" asked Maureen.
The old woman shook her head and looked at Kilty.
"Sorry," muttered Kilty, and Maureen stepped back against the wall to let the nervous woman pass.
She scuttled off down the corridor, pressed the button for the lift, looked back at them again and hobbled off down the stairs.
"Look at that granny go," muttered Kilty. "I don't think anyone here'll talk to us."
"I think you're right," said Maureen.
They heard the whine of the lift approaching and went over to it. The doors opened on a bare knee, a naked thigh, a smoking cigarette. A very drunk man was loitering in the lift, propped up against the side, smoking casually. He was naked, his tired little belly sagging in perfect semicircles, like Gothic drapery. He raised his cigarette, opening his mouth wide, as if he were going to bite an apple, and let his lips slowly alight on the filter. "What are you doing?" said Kilty indignantly, jamming the doors open with her foot.
"Eh?"
"What are ye doing in there? There might be children getting in that lift."
The man's gaze slid around the floor then bounced over to Kilty. He shut his eyes and pointed at her with his smoking hand. "You don't even live here," he drawled, his lips sliding freestyle across his teeth.
"Children might get into this lift and you're naked. And you've got half a hard-on."
The man felt his stomach. He clearly didn't know he was naked until Kilty told him. From his mild discomfort Maureen guessed that things like this happened to him quite often. "No one takes the lift," he said.
"You shouldn't take the lift and then maybe someone else could."
Maureen stepped in front of Kilty. "Hey, did you hear about the lady on this floor who was attacked?"
He shook his head, and kept his eyes shut. "Ella the Flash. Are you the polis?"
"No."
"Well, tell her hello from me."
"Does she know ye?"
"Ever'b'dy around here knows me." He opened an eye but the other one seemed to be stuck shut. "I'm famous."
"What for?" asked Kilty, and Maureen looked at her incredulously as the door slid shut.
It was ten o'clock and still as bright as noon. Traffic lights ordered ghostly legions around the empty roads.
"What does Ella the Flash mean?" said Kilty.
"Dunno," said Maureen.
As they walked across the deserted car park Kilty flapped her T-shirt to disperse the memory of the smell from the lift. She was completely unperturbed by the naked man. As a social worker she saw things Maureen couldn't conceive of. She was never shocked at horror stories of deprivation and seemed to know all the names of the big men in the city.
"Have you ever heard of Si McGee?"
Kilty shrugged. "I know the name."
"How much force would it take to smash a door from the inside?"
"The other doors looked pretty sturdy. I don't think Benny Lynch Court would be the most sensible place for the council to make big savings on front doors."
"Why could he possibly be that angry with her?" Maureen mused.
"Maybe it was bringing the small-claims case."
"Naw," said Maureen. "Whatever went on in there happened on Thursday night and he couldn't have received the letter about the small claims until Saturday morning at the earliest."