He puts the lid down on the toilet. He clambers onto it and then onto the cistern. He reaches up to the window and nudges it fully open. Cold, invigorating air streams in. Drawing on some deep reserve of energy, he pulls himself up and wriggles through the opening. When he’s more than halfway out, and facing the wall of the next warehouse along, he realises there isn’t going to be anything to grab on to for leverage and that he’s going to have to drop the six feet or so to the ground.
Which, a second before he’s ready to do, he does.
And as much energy as it’s taken him to get out here to this dark alleyway, it takes him as much again, if not more, to absorb the pain of the fall and not to scream…
He rolls over on the cold, wet concrete, clutching his left arm, which he may have broken, and gags into his chest.
After a few moments, he raises his head.
Twenty yards in front of him, at the end of the alleyway, there is a tall coruscating monolith of orange light, and as Mark gazes at it, something flickers past… a figure.
He recoils, slams his head back against the wall.
Jesus, who was that?
And how many of them are there?
Is he going to be able to get away from here? He needs to get to that phone box out on the main road. That’s where he needs to get to, at the very least.
If not as far as…
He tries to move – his right arm, his legs, all of him at once – but he can’t, each option a new route back to the same place, to the same blinding core of pain.
Very slowly, he turns his neck, directing his eyes back towards the light.
But his head is spinning now… he’s seeing double, treble… tracers…
Who was that?
And then, as his head slumps forward, and he slides back helplessly into the abyss of darkness, the horrifying thought occurs to him that maybe it was Gina.
The taxi approaches the Cherryvale roundabout, and a few minutes after that they’re approaching the industrial estate. Gina considers asking the driver to hang on, but she decides against it.
She’s assuming Griffin has a car.
They stop at the entrance, which is wide open and not very clearly marked. Gina pays and gets out. The taxi turns and leaves.
She looks around. The place is desolate, cold and windswept, with everything washed in an unreal orange glow from the floodlights positioned at various points along the perimeter.
Gina goes in, turns right and walks to the third row of buildings. At the far end she can see a wall covered in graffiti. There are two vans and a large truck parked in front of the first unit. Other than that the yard is practically empty, with only a few cars dotted around the place. One of these is parked in front of what she takes to be Unit 46.
Walking towards it, hugging the buildings on the left, all of which are in complete darkness, she starts to feel nervous.
What is she doing?
High in the sky the moon is shimmering. Little scraps of cloud race by. The wind is whistling in the narrow alleyways between the warehouses. As she approaches Unit 46, she sees from a row of frosted-glass windows along the top that there are lights on inside.
The car, a Saab, is parked directly in front of a steel shutter. Next to this is a black metal door with a bell and an intercom.
How prepared is she?
The truth is, not very. What’s driving her forward is this sense of responsibility she’s feeling. In addition to which, if she’s honest about it, she liked Mark Griffin when they met the other day. He was nice. He was interesting. He was good-looking. OK, unstable and possibly dangerous, too – but that’s actually not a state Gina herself feels terribly removed from right now.
She presses the bell.
At least ten seconds pass before she hears anything. Then there is a click and the door opens. At first she doesn’t see anyone. It’s as if the door has opened automatically, and maybe it has. She is about to call out Mark’s name when someone else appears from behind the door, holding it open.
Her heart jumps.
It’s a short, stocky man in his late forties.
‘Er…’
‘Are you Gina, are you?’
The man is wearing black jeans and a zipped-up leather jacket – not unlike the one Gina herself is wearing. He has a round, plump face.
Gina doesn’t move, or utter a word.
‘Because Mark asked me to wait for you,’ the man says. ‘He had to be taken off to hospital, to St Felim’s.’
‘Oh no.’ Gina puts a hand up to her mouth. ‘Is he OK?’
‘Well, I hope so,’ the man says, sighing. ‘He called me in a state. I don’t live that far from here.’ He extends an arm and says, ‘Come in for a second and let me explain.’
Gina steps forward, the word hospital still resounding in her ears, but she’s barely inside the door when it occurs to her… Mark had her mobile number, why didn’t he just get this guy to phone her, or…
She turns.
The man has already closed the door and is leaning back against it.
‘Listen,’ Gina says, holding a hand up, ‘I think I should -’
‘No, no, you’re grand.’ He winks at her. ‘But I need to have a word with you.’
Gina doesn’t say anything, doesn’t react, because there’s something quite creepy about this guy. The silence between them thickens, and eventually, in a calm, controlled voice, she says, ‘Where’s Mark?’
‘Well, he’s not in the hospital, I can tell you that. Yet. He fucking will be though if he doesn’t watch it.’
There is a beat, and then Gina deflates.
She walked right into this. How could she have been so stupid? Jesus. All of her speculation, all of her doubts, her neurotic need to be circumspect, her fear that she might be deluded.
And now this?
She shakes her head. It’s her own fault.
‘Where is he?’ she repeats.
‘Look, don’t…’ The guy pauses, a smirk rising on his face. ‘Don’t be worrying that pretty head of yours, not over the likes of him.’
Gina groans. Who is this vile little person?
She turns and takes a couple of steps across the floor, but then an even more urgent question occurs to her – are they alone? Is there anyone else here? She doesn’t see anyone. She sees an office partition in the corner, and rows of stacked pallets on raised wooden platforms to her right. A small forklift truck. Loose stuff lying around on the floor. A wooden crate. The place is brightly lit, fluorescent units dangling on chains from the ceiling.
No sign of anyone else, though. No sign of Mark.
She turns back and looks at the man again, studies him. He’s doing the same, eyeing her up and down.
He has a round face, with a florid, unhealthy complexion. His features are small and mean – his mouth hardly more than a slit, his eyes tiny and dark.
He has the face of an overfed rat.
Ratface.
He is still leaning back against the door.
Gina realises that she’s actually quite nervous now. But she’s also determined not to show it.
‘And who the hell are you?’ she asks.
‘I’m… I’ve been asked to deliver a message,’ he says.
‘Well. Let’s hear it then, and I’ll be on my way.’
‘Not so quick, love.’ He steps forward, away from the door. ‘I mean, what’s your hurry?’
Gina swallows.
Maybe to deflect attention from herself, maybe because it’s the one thing she actually wants to hear, she repeats her question from earlier. ‘Is Mark OK?’
Ratface cracks a smile. ‘Well,you know how it is with the old post-traumatic stress. It’s never easy.’
Gina stares at him in disbelief. He was listening in on Mark’s phone? He overheard their conversation? Well, of course. Isn’t it obvious? That’s why he’s here.