‘Not until you tell me what the hell is going on’ Reed said, his anxiety rapidly turning to annoyance. ‘Is my daughter hurt?’
‘No, sir,’ said the red-haired man.
‘Then what are you going on about?’
‘As I said, we need to ask you some questions. If you’d just get in your car it would save a lot of time and aggravation.’
Reed held up both hands.
‘I still don’t know what you’re talking about,’ he said, wearily.
‘A complaint has been filed against you, Mr Reed. There may be charges.’
‘For what?’ he said, angrily.
‘Assaulting your daughter.’
Sixty-nine
In the dull half-light of the warehouse, Talbot had no doubt what the marks in the thick dust were.
He moved forward a foot or so, the carpet of grime so thick it deadened his footfalls.
Finally he kneeled, motes of dust spinning all around him in the dimly lit silence.
Footprints.
Some five-toed, indicating bare feet. Others from shoes of various sizes.
The carpet of dust was old. These footprints were not.
In places, the dust had been disturbed so badly that the dirty floor beneath the filth was visible.
Elsewhere, the footprints seemed to lead deeper into the cavernous building, towards the rear of it.
Talbot moved on, glancing around him.
There were high metal shelves on either side of him, some rising up to ten or fifteen feet into the air. What had once been stacked on them he could only guess. To his right lay several dust-sheathed wooden pallets, broken and splintered.
He saw what appeared to be a toolbox on one of the shelves. Like everything else inside the building it was covered by the same noxious blanket of grime.
Talbot flipped open the lid.
There was an old screwdriver inside.
He moved on, glancing down at the footprints.
The DI could only guess at how many feet had made these marks and over what period of time but, as he stopped again and kneeled over a particularly well-defined print, he saw that the covering of dust on what would have been the sole was very thin. This print looked no more than a week old.
He straightened up, scanning the area ahead of him.
The shelves continued practically to the back of the warehouse: beyond them he saw a door.
The only sound inside the warehouse was the rushing of the blood in his ears.
The silence seemed to crush him, closing around him like an invisible fist which tightened by the second.
He reached the office door and twisted the handle.
Locked.
Talbot took a step back and thought about kicking it open, but then realised that he might destroy any fingerprints or other physical signs which might be on the partition. He spun round and headed back to where he’d seen the discarded toolbox.
He scooped out the screwdriver and returned to the door, cupping a hand over his eyes, trying to see through the small window in the centre of the door.
Whatever lay inside was in pitch blackness.
No windows to give him even the kind of paltry light currently battling through the thick grime of the skylight openings.
The DI steadied himself and slid the top of the screwdriver into the grooved head of a screw which secured the handle to the door.
He twisted, surprised at how stiff the screw was.
Again he tried, cursing when the implement slipped and gouged a lump from the door.
‘Shit,’ the DI hissed, even his low exhalation echoing in the thunderous stillness around him.
The sound seemed to bounce back off the walls, echoing like some brief sibilant rattle before dying, smothered by the carpet of dust.
He jammed all his weight behind the screwdriver this time, pushing hard against it with the heel of one hand, turning with the other.
The screw started to give.
Talbot grinned triumphantly and removed it, dropping it into his pocket.
He set to work on the second one immediately.
DS William Rafferty stood close to the guard rail which ran around the inside of the warehouse and looked over.
He held the lighter above him but the yellow flame could barely penetrate the gloom. Even with the sickly light coming through the filthy skylight windows he could barely see the floor of the warehouse from his high vantage point.
The DS flicked off his lighter, realising that it was doing little good, but also because it was growing uncomfortably hot in his hand. He dropped it into his pocket and walked along the raised parapet, glancing to his right and left.
The walkway along which he moved seemed to stop at each corner of the warehouse, terminating in a door. It was towards the nearest of these doors that Rafferty now headed.
The walkway creaked beneath him and, as with the metal stairs he’d climbed, the policeman wondered briefly if the entire structure might give way beneath him, but he pushed the thought aside and kept walking.
The first door he met was wooden and he pressed against it with his fingertips, surprised when it opened, swinging back on rusted hinges.
The room beyond was large: he guessed twenty feet square.
It was completely empty but for a metal filing cabinet in one corner, now dust-shrouded like the rest of the building.
Rafferty crossed to the cabinet and slid open the top drawer.
Nothing.
The second one was a little more recalcitrant and it let out a loud grating sound as he pulled it open.
Empty.
The third one slid out easily.
The spider inside it looked as large as a child’s fist.
‘Jesus’ the DS hissed, stepping back, his heart thudding.
It took him a second to realise that the creature was dead.
Probably choked on the dust, he thought, shaking his head, annoyed by his own reaction.
He peered into the drawer again.
It was indeed empty but for the dead spider.
Rafferty turned towards the door at his rear.
It would, he reasoned, lead out onto the gangway which hugged the rear wall of the warehouse.
The DS crossed to it and tried the handle.
To his surprise it opened.
He set off along the next walkway.
The third screw came free and Talbot dropped it into his pocket along with the others.
One more to go and he’d be able to remove the entire door handle. That would give him access to the room beyond.
He eased the head of the screwdriver into the groove of the screw and began to turn it, pieces of rust flaking off as he exerted more force.
‘Come on, you bastard,’ he muttered, using all his strength, pausing a moment when the screw remained stuck fast.
He sucked in a deep breath, coughing as the dust filled his lungs.
A bead of sweat formed on his forehead, welled up then ran down the side of his face as he resumed his exertions, determined to free the last screw.
It was rusty like the others, but this one seemed to have been welded to the rotten metal by the decay.
The screwdriver slipped again.
‘Fuck,’ snapped Talbot.
He was about to start again when he heard a sound from behind him.
A grating, tortured sound like rusted hinges.
Rusted hinges.
Someone had entered the warehouse through the main door which he himself had penetrated.
Talbot waited a moment, thought about calling out to Rafferty, shouting to him to come and help, but then he turned, squinted through the dull light of the dust-blanketed building.
He heard footsteps.
Slow, tentative.
Muffled by the dust but still hesitant.
Talbot saw a shape move in the gloom.
A shape which was moving slowly towards him.
And, in that split second, he knew it wasn’t Rafferty.
Seventy