In Place of Death

He lowered the torch over the edge and sent a beam down the walls towards the bottom of the well. The circle of light began to lose its shape as it went but it still picked out the pale brick and then, finally, lit up the floor. There was a dark shape down there that was separate from the bits of rubbish he’d seen previously. Was it even the same shaft that he’d looked down before? He traced the outline of the object with the torchlight. It was square. Not body-shaped. He followed the outline again to be sure that it wasn’t just wishful thinking but no, it was a table top or a suitcase or a box. It was something, anything, that wasn’t a body. He breathed out hard and ran his free hand through his hair.

That’s when he felt the pain in his lower back. Air rushed out of him and he buckled at the knees, the torch dropping from his hand. The realization that he had been struck hard with something extremely solid dawned on him only as he was falling. The pain became a fire that spread across his back and he had no breath with which to douse it. His legs had gone too, turned into useless rubbery things that couldn’t hold him up.

He became aware, through the soup that clogged his brain, that someone was standing over him. Remy? Surely not. He saw the toe of a black boot just inches from his eyes and, beside it, something metallic scraped the ground. He’d got as far as working out that the metal object had been responsible for putting him on the ground when the thing disappeared from sight. Something inside told him to move and he curled and rolled, throwing an arm up for protection.

A split second later that arm caught a glancing blow that still managed to send pain shooting through him. It had probably saved him though and he rolled again, away from the black boots and the metal pole. There was a clang against the concrete that rang in his ears, missing him by inches. He could hear heavy breathing above him and a muttered ‘Fuck’ as his assailant regretted his failure.

Winter rolled as fast as he could, desperately trying to save himself. It wasn’t quite fast enough as another dull blow caught him on the side, pain flooding his bones and electrifying his senses. He rolled again and heard another miss. To his right he saw the top of the stairwell just a few feet away and made for it - no time to calculate whether it was a good idea or not. He spun across the floor until it fell away beneath him and the spiral of concrete steps took over. He dropped fast and awkwardly, painfully, every edge of step chastising him.

Footsteps sounded as the world tumbled, the noise coming at him as if filtered through a washing machine; it was impossible to tell if they were gaining on him or not. He worried more about tucking his head in and not bashing his brains out.

His initial spill had more or less run its own course but he forced it on, half falling, half jumping, further down the stairs until he hit the landing below. He immediately sprawled in the direction of some half-bricks that were strewn there and began hurling them one after the other at the foot of the stairwell. Not with any real hope of hitting anyone but more as a signal of intent, buying himself time to recover.

It seemed to have worked as no one appeared round the corner after him. Maybe the guy was less keen on a fight when Winter could see him coming. He stood there on shaking legs with an enormous pain in his lower back, his eyes at once on the stairs but also scouring the landing for a weapon. He saw a plank of wood and grabbed that in one hand and a fist of brick in the other.

He held firm, trying to shut out the pain, listening and waiting, ready to fight. Nothing came. No sound from above, none below. All he could hear was the background music of the motorway and the rush of blood in his ears. He waited and waited but his attacker, whoever he was, had either gone or was standing as still as Winter.

It was time to move. Down the stairs and out. The ache in his back was excruciating, dull and debilitating, but he had to get out of there.

He took the steps two at a time, reaching ground level to see the courtyard completely swallowed up by the dark. The walls loomed above and crowded in on him like prison guards. He stopped to listen, for screams, for movement, for sounds of metal. Still nothing.

He went to the middle of the courtyard, his feet stumbling on stone and wood. Then, abruptly, on something softer but still solid. He stopped immediately. Not daring to move. He cautiously put down the wood and the brick and wished that he still had the torch he’d dropped when he was hit. He reached into his back pocket, thankful to see that his mobile phone was still intact, and switched on the flashlight.

The beam of light was thin but strong and yet it trembled as he swung it round to his feet. At once he saw a hand, an arm, blood. He stepped back quickly, tripping over a brick and following it to the ground. The phone slipped from his grasp and he scrambled to pick it up.

On his knees, he could see the body stretched out unmoving. He shone the flashlight on it again and saw it was a man lying on his back, something long and thin driven through his chest. Winter’s mouth was hanging open and he could only stare, hardly believing the horror of what he was seeing. He got to his feet and inched closer, seeing the iron spike spearing the man just below the ribcage, seeing his eyes wide open, his head slumped to the side. He was so pale and ski

Remy. Remy Feeks.

Chapter 46

Something stirred in Winter’s stomach and made a beeline for his throat and he had to cover his mouth and gag it down. He wanted to vomit, to cry, to scream, to run. He was the veteran of a couple of hundred dead bodies but this was different. Somehow, this was his fault.

He stared and saw the young guy, speared most probably with the same kind of railing that someone had used to strike Winter on the back. The aborted scream he’d heard earlier: that had been Remy. He’d been murdered and Winter was to have been next. All he could do was stare.

Stare and think. He saw Remy but thought of Euan Hepburn’s decaying corpse in the Molendinar. It was his fault that Euan had been there on his own, his fault that Remy was lying dead. Winter was drowning in a pool of shock and guilt.

Maybe that’s why he didn’t hear the sirens at first. By the time he was aware of them, he knew they’d been in earshot for longer. His head came up and he took it in slowly, his feet still glued to the spot he stood on. Police cars. Coming closer.

He ran to the lower back building. Lower but still maybe thirty feet high. The words ACOS! And ALEK! were sprayed in large white lettering near the top and he knew someone had managed to get up there to do it. Past the wall there was a pile of scrap and above it a second wall that might just let him scramble to the top of the first. He leaped onto a long piece of wood propped against the wall, falling back and trying again, driven on by the now deafening sirens. Succeeding this time, and from there onto a mess of loose metal that just about bore his weight. He stretched and jumped and clawed to the top of the wall, hauling himself up.

He picked his way over the flat roof, then a corrugated ridge behind. There was only a wide grass verge and a drop into the dark separating him from the motorway, cars still streaming along it. The only way out was straight down but in this light he had no idea how far it was. He’d no option. He turned briefly to face the biscuit factory before kneeling on top of the wall and slipping over the side where he held on with both hands. Do it. He let go and fell, the side of his face just avoiding the brick wall as he dropped. Falling until landing on soft grass and rolling head over heels towards the sounds of cars.