He spun on his heel to take the opposite direction, knowing there had to be another exit, another stairwell at the end of the walkway, and he bolted headlong towards it.
Isaiah came to the doorway.
‘What the fuck are you doing letting him out?’ said Gabriel in a hush, indicating the man was to go back inside. He looked about him but no one stirred. He imagined this place wasn’t a stranger to weird noises during the night, and it paid not to investigate. ‘Do what you have to do,’ he told a contrite Isaiah. ‘I’ll take care of Billy.’ With that he went chasing after the young man, who’d already ducked rabbit-like down the black hole of the exit.
Body pumped through with adrenaline, Billy took the stairs quickly, holding onto the rail as he cleared them two at a time. Behind him he heard the machine gun clatter of Gabriel’s heels ripping his nerves to a bloody pulp. He stumbled, regained his footing, knowing now that if he were caught he’d be as cold and as dead as Beth. He wanted to scream out in alarm, scream for help, but he simply didn’t have the breath.
He emerged from the exit on the ground floor, raced across the muddy square, allowing himself a quick flick of the head to check where Gabriel was. He wished he hadn’t. He wasn’t far behind and he was closing fast. The sight of his indistinct but lean form lurching mechanically after him injected another much-needed shot of strength into his fast-failing legs.
Billy had hated sports at school. He’d since avoided any kind of physical exercise. The many hours flopped in front of the TV, or laid prone on his bed as he played on his games came back to haunt him as his flaming lungs turned against him, his legs, sucking in the last dregs of energy, were gradually being converted to rubber. His mind yelled ‘run!’ and his body yelled back ‘I can’t!’
He heard, through the fog of his fear, a car racing down the road. It drew alongside him as he ran. ‘Get in! Get in!’ he heard a man shout through the wound-down window.
A mind in panic does strange things, was his first thought. This entire night was madness and the car was part of it. The car stopped just in front of him.
‘Inside, now!’ yelled the driver.
And this time Billy didn’t hesitate, he flung open the passenger door and threw himself breathlessly inside the car. Gabriel came pounding alongside, made a hasty grab at the door as the car sped quickly away and Billy slammed the door shut. He leapt up and was relieved to see Gabriel’s form shrinking into the distance.
‘Oh, Jesus! he bawled. ‘Oh, Jesus Christ!’
‘What was happening back there?’ asked the driver. ‘Who was that guy coming after you?’
‘We’ve got to get to the police,’ Billy stammered. ‘Now, straight away. God, they’ve killed her!’
‘What? Who have they killed?’
For the first time Billy looked directly at his saviour. A hard-faced man, aged about forty maybe, thick hair, narrow eyes ‘Beth, for fuck’s sake! They killed her, that crazy Isaiah dashed her head in with a freaky mace-thing.’ He put his head into his hands and began to blubber.
‘Beth? Beth who?’
‘Heaney.’ The word was muffled by his hand.
‘The girl from the supermarket?’
Billy nodded. Then he looked up questioningly. ‘How’d you know she worked at the supermarket?’
‘Never mind that, Billy,’ he said. ‘Are you sure it was this Beth Heaney woman?’
‘You know my name? Are you the police or something?’
‘You sure it was her, Billy?’ He sounded pissed off.
‘You’re American. You’ve got an American accent. Who the hell are you?’
‘I’m Canadian, but I’ll forgive you. I’m a friend, Billy, that’s who I am.’
‘How’d you know my name?’ Panic began to sink its razor claws into his chest. ‘Let me out, I’ve got to get to the police.’
‘Yeah, sure, we’ll go to the police. Give me the number of her flat, Billy, and then we’ll head right on to the nearest station.’
‘Number 349, now stop fucking about! This is serious!’
‘Listen, you’d be dead if it wasn’t for me,’ he said. ‘Like I said, I’m your friend; you can trust me.’
Billy closed his eyes. The world had gone crazy. He began to cry, great globs of tears streaming down his cheeks. ‘I want to go home!’ he wailed, his body shaking.
‘Sure you do. I’ll take you there. But you gotta answer me a few questions first. Understand?’ Questions first, home second. You got that? Billy, listen up, this is important! You got that?’
‘Yeah, I got it,’ he snivelled, wiping his nose on his sleeve.
‘I’m your friend, Billy. Didn’t I just save your arse back there? So you gotta trust me. You got that? Trust me.’
Billy swallowed, nodded dumbly. The car sped down the deserted streets into the night.
15
These sorts of places were hell during the day, but at night they were something else. A stinking maze full of rats, he thought, eking out a dull, hand to mouth existence with little to relieve the tedium or the squalor. Most of the occupants unemployed, most doing drugs or something worse. A foetid pit where they threw society’s leftovers. At least, that’s what he thought, and once he thought something there was very little chance of shifting it. Helped him do his job. You needed to get things straight in your head, not mess them about. That way you knew where you were.
And where he was at this moment was outside flat number 349. And the door was unlocked.
He checked again down the walkway and then peered over the edge of the concrete wall and down onto the empty courtyard below. There were voices, in the distance, the hum of car tyres, the sound of a TV playing too loud a few doors down. But, from all appearances, flat number 349 had not attracted any attention. For the moment.
He’d been back at midday to check, and though a number of people came and went, going about whatever business people around these parts needed to take care of, no one even suspected what had happened in flat number 349 the previous night. No police, no drama, nothing. A narrow window of opportunity offered itself before the law and media were crawling all over the place. He knew he might not have long. Billy had told him that Beth Heaney had been murdered, but he couldn’t rely on the word of that snivelling little runt of a weasel. He had to check this out for himself.
He pushed the door open. The metallic smell of blood confirmed something had happened, and it was strong, enough to tell him plenty of it had been spilled in the process. He was careful to close the door quietly behind him before flicking on the torch, shining it at his feet. As he suspected, an inordinately large patch of blood had soaked through the carpet almost to the place where he stood. He must not tread in any of this, he thought, sliding the beam over to the centre of the room.
He’d seen many a body in his time — cut up, shot up, beat up — and had contributed to the list himself over the years, and he knew what state this one would probably be in, but all the same the sight of the inhuman lump of flesh, covered over with a fine grey-white powder, took his breath away for a second.
He made out a torso, beside it its dismembered limbs arranged like so many logs beside a fire, and atop these was what looked to be the severed head. The whole sat in a black lake of blood.
He bent to his haunches, aiming the torch at the head, the mouth, open and bloodied, gaping wide in a final silent scream, was visible through the mound of lime that had been poured over it.
Difficult to tell who she was, he thought. But not a nice way to go, whoever. Fucking barbarians. He’d hoped to get to her before they did, to prevent this.