There were several more pictures hanging on the walls but I couldn’t bring myself to examine them. I was looking out of the window at the two copper-coloured gasholders on the other side of the canal. They were both full as well.
I heard footsteps behind me and dropped the bottle. It didn’t smash, just rolled on the boards, tipping out beer. I could feel Jaz’s breath on the back of my neck.
‘Brother,’ he said in a thick, insinuating whisper, ‘who the fuck did you think dropped the map in the street for you to find in the first place?’
I turned around slowly to face him. He wasn’t alone. Annie Risk was standing next to him. And they were holding hands.
I called out and opened my eyes. I was lying in Annie’s bed, my T-shirt soaked in sweat. The quilt was on the floor and Annie’s side of the bed was empty.
The telephone was ringing in the hallway.
‘Annie,’ I called.
Apart from the strident tone of the ringing telephone, the flat was silent.
I crawled out of bed, tearing my T-shirt off over my head. I grabbed Annie’s bathrobe and went to answer the phone.
‘Hello?’ I said. ‘Hello?’
There was no one there. Just the barely perceptible metallic scrape of a missed connection.
I hung up.
I shivered and pulled the bath robe tighter around my shoulders.
And then came the knock on the door.
END
Acknowledgements
The author would like to thank Kate Ryan, Florence Secret Rousselle, Jonathan Rees, Sarah Llewellyn-Jones, Chloë Bryan-Brown, Bill Starling (formerly of British Gas), Ian Cunningham.
Thanks to Paul J McAuley and Kim Newman, who published the short story ‘Night Shift Sister’, which formed the basis of this novel, in their anthology ‘In Dreams’ (Victor Gollancz).
Special thanks to all former members of the Passage, especially Richard Witts, Andy Wilson and Joe McKechnie. And to James Nice of LTM, who made the Passage back catalogue available on CD.