was totally on his own here. There were lights on in some of the flat windows overhead. He even fancied he could hear music. And if he could hear them, they could surely hear him if he cried out for help.
Not that he would be crying out, for all the reasons he’d just underlined to himself.
Of course, it wasn’t comforting that this guy – the Creep – supposedly came armed.
Keith shook the thought from his head as the object of his search at last slid into view. About thirty yards ahead, on the left, the bright green square of a cashpoint VDU revealed itself. He veered over there, turning his head and checking behind him as he did.
It was in the close vicinity of cashpoints, always late at night, where this nutball was supposed to hang around. Essentially, he was a mugger. He would stop folk in the street, produce his blade, and it was quite some blade, by all accounts, and demand the cash they’d just drawn from the telling machine – though apparently it was never quite as simple as that, or at least it hadn’t been so far.
Keith’s rain-greasy fingers fumbled at the buttons as he tried to bash in his pin number. For an absurd moment, he miskeyed and got a refusal notice. He hesitated before giving it another go, glancing around first. Pulses of heavy rain drove along the deserted street in a kind of choreographed procession. But he was still alone.
Unsure how many attempts he’d be allowed before it locked him out, Keith tried his number again, much more carefully this time. With relief, the transaction was completed and a wad of crisp twenty-pound notes scrolled from the slot. He crammed them into his pocket as he lurched back along the shopfronts.
It was about three and a half miles to his digs. That would be no problem normally, but though he wasn’t exactly leaden-footed, his energy reserves felt as if they were dwindling – that was probably as much to do with the cold and wet as it was the booze. Again, he thought about trying to hail a taxi, except that, typically, there were none in sight at present.
It didn’t matter too much. He was sure that he could make good time on foot if he got away from the town centre. That was all he needed to do, in truth. All the attacks had occurred in that inner zone, the areas around New Street and the Bullring; nothing had happened as far out as Edgbaston. As he walked down Paradise Street, and crossed Suffolk Street Queensway, his confidence grew that all would be well. The guy hadn’t always struck as soon as the victims had drawn out their cash; apparently, he’d shadowed a couple for a few streets, until they’d hit more secluded spots. But there’d been absolutely nothing out in the residential districts.
Keith felt mildly critical of himself. It had been folly – drunken folly, needless to say – to have got himself into this predicament in the first place, but the reality was that he’d probably not been in any real danger. There’d only been three or four of these attacks, as far as he knew, and Birmingham city centre was covered by CCTV, so it couldn’t be long before the lunatic was caught. Perhaps ‘the Creep’ had realised that himself and had already gone to ground. That was surely what any sensible criminal would do.
As he headed down Holliday Street, Keith casually glanced over his shoulder. And had to blink twice – as what looked like a dark figure about fifty yards behind stepped out of sight.
Keith halted and pivoted around to look properly, his heart suddenly jolting in his chest.
Seconds passed. There was no sign of anyone there now.
He walked quickly on, throwing more glances over his shoulder, but seeing nothing through the gauze of rain. Before he reached the canal, he cut left down a ginnel, unsure if this was the quickest route but determined now to keep heading southwest.
Could what he’d just seen have been a figment of his imagination?
He hurried down a covered walk, and emerged onto another main road, Commercial Street. From here, glancing left, he could see all the way to the point where it intersected with Severn Street. It was at least a hundred yards off, but a dark, upright shape seemingly waited at that junction. It was impossible to tell what it was from this distance – it could easily have been some kind of permanent fixture there, but on the other hand it might be someone loitering.
Keith hurried the other way along Commercial Street until he reached Granville Street. From here he had good vantage both to the left and right. Not too far away, a set of traffic lights sat on green; there were no cars to obey them, just more curtains of rain swishing over the empty crossing. He glanced back once to see if the figure at the intersection was still there, but it was impossible to be sure; again, the rain obscured all detail.
Low-key night lights were still on in various shops, he noted as he walked on. Funny how, when you were out alone at night that didn’t really bring you any comfort, somehow enforcing the message that there was no one else here but you.
He turned onto Bath Row, lurching sharp right. The deluge still hammered down. Keith wondered if it was going to slacken off at all before he got back to the flat, not that it would make much difference now, saturated as he already was.
For what seemed like the umpteenth time, he turned and glanced behind.
And this time saw a figure about forty yards away and on the other side of the road, but heading roughly in the same direction that he was. As before, Keith felt as if he’d been struck. But then he had a couple of reassuring thoughts: firstly, although the figure was wearing heavy waterproof clothing, with the hood pulled up, concealing the face was hardly sinister on a night like this; secondly, he’d made no effort to duck out of sight again.
It must be someone else on their way home. Nothing to be worried about.
Even so, Keith increased his pace, jamming his hands into his anorak pockets, and more out of instinct than logic, on the spur of the moment, taking a detour down another alley, this one leading around the back of the Shell garage. Technically, he was heading northward again – not where he wanted to go, but he had to admit, he hadn’t liked the way that other homeward-bound pedestrian had suddenly appeared from nowhere.
He peered backward as he trudged down the alley, its junction with Bath Row falling steadily behind. But no waterproof-clad figure strode past it as he’d expected. When the junction was a hundred yards distant, Keith still hadn’t seen anyone.
And that felt wrong.
He pressed on urgently, and almost collided with the steel post of a street sign, which he must have made a blind beeline for without realising. He skipped aside, but in so doing, slipped on a greasy flagstone, and landed heavily on his back.
A great video for someone to post on YouTube, he thought as he scrambled back to his feet, insulated from the pain by his growing sense of unease. In actual fact, he hoped that somebody was filming. It might help them catch this Creep nutter.
When he stepped out onto a narrow, largely residential thoroughfare which he recognised as Roseland Way, it was a relief. He wasn’t far from home now.
Within a few minutes, he’d worked his way down to the A4540, or the Middleway as it was known, a large inner-urban dual carriageway, which formed part of the Birmingham ring road.
On the other side of that lay Edgbaston.
He crossed the Middleway via an underpass, descending a flight of stone steps and heading quickly along the square cement passage, which led some thirty yards to the other side. The usual graffiti was there in abundance – ‘Blues’ and ‘AVFC’ – along with other vastly more profane slogans. Keith might consider himself
