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
‘This is bloody disgraceful,’ said Frank Reed, angrily.
He got to his feet, gripping the back of the wooden seat he’d been sitting on.
Apart from the small table, it
was the only piece of furniture in the interview room at Theobald’s Road Police Station.
The room was no more than twelve feet square and the presence of both Reed and the single uniformed man in there with him made the place look overcrowded.
‘I’ve been here over an hour now,’ Reed snapped. ‘I haven’t been charged, I haven’t even been allowed to call my solicitor. What the hell is going on?’
‘If you’d just sit down, sir,’ said the constable quietly, motioning towards the chair with his eyes.
Reed still gripped the back of it as if threatening to use it as a weapon against the policeman but, after a moment or two, he sat down heavily.
He could smell the acrid odour of perspiration and realised that it was his own.
What are you afraid of?
He’d drunk two cups of coffee since being escorted into the room, his breath smelled of the brown liquid which was now going cold in the cup before him.
What the hell was going on?
His mind was reeling, words tumbling through it like collapsing building bricks. And each of those bricks carried a different word on it: ASSAULT
CHARGES
COMPLAINT
INVESTIGATION
Jesus Christ!
He wanted to scream it.
WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON?
It was like some kind of bizarre nightmare from which he felt he must wake at any second. What did
they call them? Lucid dreams? The ability to be aware of what you’re dreaming while it happens.
Then wake yourself up. Get out of here.
But there was no waking.
No respite.
No end to it.
Whatever it was.
They said he’d assaulted his own daughter.
Sexually assaulted.
One of them had actually used that word when he’d arrived at the police station.
Sexual assault.
Dear God, even the words made him feel sick.
