it, which wound off towards the company car park. That alley, a routine cut-through during the day, now looked as dark and sinister as any passage he’d seen. The mist hung in its entrance in twisting, silvery strands. He gazed at it. It was impossible to imagine there wasn’t somebody there, just out of sight, gazing back at him.
He wasn’t sure how long he remained in this mesmerised state before he was distracted by the sight of a black cab trawling along with its green light showing. He signalled for it, and it pulled up in front of him.
‘Hampstead,’ he said, jumping in and closing the door.
‘Ohhh …’ the cabbie replied doubtfully. ‘Long way for me, guv, at this time of night.’
‘I’ll pay you triple the fare.’
‘Triple?’ The cabbie sounded amazed, but quickly put the car in gear. ‘Didn’t want to go to bed yet, anyway.’
Blenkinsop glanced out through the window. A figure had emerged in the misty entrance to the alleyway; a man. It was difficult to make out who he was, let alone identify him as the man with the newspaper. But as the cab pulled slowly away, the figure stared after it intently.
Lauren gazed dully at the dashboard clock. It wasn’t yet six in the morning, but the Manchester traffic was already swarming around them.
‘Dana won’t be pleased that you left without saying goodbye,’ she said.
‘She won’t be surprised, either,’ Heck grunted.
‘You guys really don’t see eye to eye, uh?’
‘We see eye to eye as much as we need to.’
He was preoccupied with driving, so she said no more on the subject. It was nothing to do with her. And it wasn’t as if they didn’t have other things to think about. Her eyes flicked again to the Manchester A-Z in her lap; they’d almost reached their destination.
If there was any part of Salford that twenty-first-century modernisation still hadn’t reached, Gallows Hill was surely it. Lauren immediately saw what Heck had meant when he’d described it as looking like a prison. It sat with its back to the deep cutting through which the noisy M602 motorway ran, and was basically a giant horseshoe, consisting of five U-shaped, six-storey tenement blocks, all built from drab grey concrete. To make matters worse, they were now derelict. The vast majority of their windows had been boarded over, though many of these boards had been removed to allow what was presumably nighttime access for vagrants and drug users.
When they pulled off the motorway and approached it from the front, first having to thread through a network of terraced but equally depressed streets, they saw that the entire plot had been surrounded by a corrugated steel fence, which suggested that everything on the inside was earmarked for demolition. Parking about two hundred yards outside this perimeter, in a narrow alley behind a shop with caged windows, they made their way back on foot. Slipping through one of several gaps broken in the fence, they followed an overgrown footpath, which wound its way around the exterior of the abandoned project, before finally joining an access road leading into the heart of it. Regina Court was down at the farthest end of this road, and they felt increasingly exposed as they walked towards it, having to pass the entries to Hascombe Court, Goodwood Court, Merlin Court and Windermere Court.
Like Lady Luck Crescent, all of these places belied their attractive sounding names. They were gaunt, empty edifices, covered with filth and graffiti. Regina Court itself lay under a sea of rubbish; and not just household rubbish, real rubbish – as if people had been fly-tipping here. Once in the middle of it, they regarded the high galleries encircling them, the many doorways smashed and gaping like entrances to caves.
‘Take you back a bit?’ Heck wondered. ‘To Leeds, I mean?’
Lauren didn’t reply. She was too tense, and she could tell from his tone that even Heck was feeling subdued by the eeriness of these surroundings.
‘No offence intended,’ he added. ‘Just my attempt at levity. Would it be cowardly of me to suggest we stick together while we’re here?’
‘Uh-uh. This place has got “ambush” written all over it.’
‘Just remember, I’m in charge,’ he said, reiterating the terms she’d agreed to that morning if she was to accompany him today.
She nodded.
‘I mean it, Lauren … you don’t do a damn thing unless I say it’s alright.’
‘Got it.’
‘Good, because …’ He squinted towards one of the high galleries, where he imagined he’d spotted movement. There was nothing up there now, but had a figure just ducked out of sight? Again, he felt unconsciously at his pockets, where under normal circumstances he’d have a radio. He knew that he shouldn’t be here without support. The incident yesterday had been risky enough; in fact, this whole thing, which had started out as a simple plan to continue asking questions and perusing evidence until something – anything – came to light, had taken a turn for the extremely serious. That Lauren, a civilian, was involved was an even bigger concern, though there was no denying – it was fortunate she’d been there yesterday.
‘Once we’re out of here, you’re gone,’ he said quietly. ‘No questions this time. At present, you’re a concerned citizen helping an officer investigate a crime. But I can’t be responsible for your safety indefinitely. So when we’re done here, you’re off back to Yorkshire or London, or wherever you want to go.’
‘Heck, you need back-up—’
‘I’ll have plenty. As soon as I can speak to O’Hoorigan and get him to tell me everything he knows about Shane Klim … what plans he was making while he was inside, where he intended to hide when he broke out … I’m reporting it in.’
‘And suppose he knows nothing? Like you said.’
Heck’s grimace suggested he didn’t want to consider that possibility. ‘I’m still reporting in. Something tells me I’m getting into this too deep to keep flying solo.’
Lauren didn’t bother to argue anymore. She could tell he was serious.
The nearest entrance lay about thirty yards to their left. It was tall and arched, and the numbers etched into its concrete lintel read: 20-80. Once inside, they lurched to an involuntary halt. A tall man in dark clothes, wearing a dark hoodie jacket with the hood pulled up, was standing against the far wall. His hands were in his pockets and his head was bowed forward so that the peak of his hood formed a goblin-like point. However, a second glance revealed that this was merely an optical illusion. Someone had once lit a fire against that wall, creating a human-shaped burn mark. Even so, it had given them both a shock from which they didn’t quickly recover.
The rest of the small lobby was bare. Dead leaves and used condoms littered the corners. Sometime in the past, a wheelie-bin had been dragged in and knocked over, vomiting a pile of foul refuse, which had now coagulated.
They ventured forward.
Beyond a row of bars, a stairway led up. The barred gate that allowed access to this
