Dead Man's Footsteps (4 page)

OCTOBER 2007

Abby could not believe it – she needed to pee. She looked at her watch. One hour and ten minutes had passed since she had stepped into this bloody lift. Why? Why? Why had she been so bloody stupid?

Because of the fucking builders downstairs, that’s why.

Christ.  It took thirty seconds to go down via the staircase, and that was good exercise.  Why? Why? Why?

And now this sharp, biting urgency in her bladder. She had gone only minutes before leaving the flat, but it felt as if she had drunk ten pints of coffee and a gallon of water since.

No way, I am not peeing. I am not having the fire brigade turn up to find me lying in a puddle of urine. Not that indignity, thank you.

She clenched her insides, pressing her knees together, shaking, waiting for the moment to pass, then looked up at the roof of the lift again, at the gridded, opaque lighting panel. Listening. Listening for that footstep she was certain she had heard.

Or her imagination had heard …

In movies, people pulled the lift doors open or climbed out through the roof hatches. But in movies lifts did not sway like this.

The desire to urinate passed – it would be back, but for the moment she felt OK. She tried to get to her feet, but the lift swung wildly again, banging into one of the shaft walls and then another with that deep, echoing  boooommmmmm.  She held her breath, waiting for it to stop moving. Praying the cable was still holding. Then she knelt, picked her mobile phone off the floor and dialled again. Same sharp beep, same no-signal message.

She placed her hands on the doors, tried to force her fingers into the gap down the centre between them but they were not moving. She opened her handbag, rummaging inside for something she could ease into the tiny crack. There was nothing there other than a metal nail file. She slid it in, but after a couple of inches it hit something solid and would go no further. She tried moving it to the right, then sharply to the left. The file bent.

She pressed every button on the panel in turn, then slapped the wall of the lift in frustration with the flat of her hand.

This was just great.

How long did she have?

There was another ominous creak above her. She imagined the cable of twisted wires steadily uncoiling, getting thinner and thinner. The bolts fixed to the roof shearing, bit by bit. She remembered a conversation at a party some years ago about what to do if a lift cable snapped and the lift plunged downwards. Several people said to jump just before you hit the bottom. But how would you know when you were going to hit the bottom? And if the lift was plunging at maybe a hundred miles an hour, you would be plunging at the same speed. Other people suggested lying flat, then some wit said your best chance of survival was not to be in the lift in the first place.

She was with that wit right now.

Oh, Jesus, this was so ironic. Thinking back to all she had gone through to be here in Brighton. The risks she had taken, the precautions to leave no trail.

Now this had to happen.

She thought suddenly of the way it would be reported.  Unidentified woman killed in freak lift accident.

No. No way.

She stared up at the glass panel, stretched, prodded it with her finger. It did not move.

She pushed harder.

Nothing.

It  had  to move. She stretched as much as she could, just getting the fingertips of both hands against it, and pushed with all her strength. But her exertions only made the lift sway again. It bounced off the side of the shaft once more with the same dull  booommmmmmmm.

And then she heard a scrape above her. A very distinct, long scrape, as if someone was up there and had come to rescue her.

She listened again. Trying to tune out the hissing roar of her breathing and the drumbeat thump of her heart. She listened for what must have been a full two minutes, her ears popping like they did sometimes on an aeroplane, although then it was altitude pressure and now it was fear.

All she could hear was the steady creaking of the cable and the occasional cracking, rending sound of metal tearing.

11 SEPTEMBER 2001

Clutching the cordless handset and feeling a terrible swirl of darkness deep inside her, Lorraine threw herself out of the deck-chair. She ran across the decking, almost tripping over Alfie, and in through the patio doors, her feet sinking deep into the soft pile of the white carpet, her boobs and her gold ankle chain flapping.

‘That’s where he is,’ she said into the phone to her sister, her voice a trembling whisper. ‘That’s where Ronnie is right now.’

She grabbed the remote and hit the button. BBC One came on. She saw, through a jerky, hand-held camera, the instantly recognizable image of the tall silver twin towers of the World Trade Center. Thick black smoke belched from the top section of one tower, almost obliterating it, the black and white mast standing erect above it, rising into the cloudless cobalt sky.

Oh, Christ. Oh, Christ. Ronnie is there. Which tower is his meeting in? Which floor?

She barely heard the agitated voice of an American newscaster saying, ‘This is not a light aircraft, this was a large plane. Oh, God! Oh, my God!’

‘I’ll call you back, Mo,’ she said. ‘I’ll call you right back.’ She stabbed out Ronnie’s mobile phone number. Seconds later she got the busy tone. She tried again. Then again. And again.

Oh, God, Ronnie, please be OK. Please, my darling, please be OK.

She heard the wail of sirens on the TV. Saw people staring upwards. Everywhere, scores of people, men and women in smart clothes and in work clothes, all standing still, frozen in a bizarre tableau, some with their hand in front of their faces, some holding cameras. Then the Twin Towers again. One belching that black smoke, soiling that beautiful blue of the sky.

A shiver ripped through her. She stood still.

Sirens getting louder.

Almost nobody moving. Just a few people now sprinting towards the building. She saw a fire truck with a long ladder, heard sirens howling, whupping, grinding the air.

She tried Ronnie’s number again. The busy signal. Again. The busy signal. Always the busy signal.

She called her sister back. ‘I can’t reach him,’ she said, crying.

‘He’ll be OK, Lori. Ronnie’s a survivor, he’ll be OK.’

‘How – how could this happen?’ Lorraine asked. ‘How could a plane do this? I mean—’

‘I’m sure he’s OK. This is horrible, unbelievable. It’s like one of those – you know – those disasters – like a disaster movie.’

‘I’m going to hang up. He might be trying to get through. I’ll try him again.’

‘Call me when you get through to him?’

‘Yes.’

‘Promise?’

‘Yes.’

‘He’s OK, sweetie, I promise you.’

Lorraine hung up again, transfixed by the images on the television screen. She started punching out Ronnie’s number again. But she only got halfway.

OCTOBER 2007

‘Am I the love of your life?’ she asked him. ‘Am I, Grace? Am I?’

‘You are.’

Grinning. ‘You’re not lying to me, are you, Grace?’

They’d had a boozy lunch at La Coupole in St Germain, then ambled along the Seine on that glorious June afternoon before returning to their hotel.

It seemed that the weather was always fine when they were together. Like it was now. Sandy stood over him, in their pretty bedroom, blocking the sunlight that was streaming in through the shuttered windows. Her blonde tresses swung down on either side of her freckled face, brushing his cheeks. Then she flicked her hair across his face, as if dusting it.

‘Hey! I have to read – this CPS report – I—’

‘You’re so boring, Grace. You always have to read! We’re in Paris! Having a romantic weekend! Don’t you fancy me any more?’ She kissed his forehead. ‘Read, read, read! Work, work, work!’ She kissed his forehead again. ‘So boring, boring, boring!’

She danced back, away from his outstretched arms, taunting him. She was wearing a skimpy sundress, her breasts almost falling out of the top. He caught a glimpse of her long, tanned legs as the hem rode up her thighs and suddenly he felt very horny.

She stood over him, moving closer, taking him in her hand. ‘Is that all for me, Grace? I love it! That’s what I call a real  hard!’

The brilliance of sunlight was suddenly making her face difficult to see. Then all her features were gone completely and he was staring at a blank, black oval that was framed with flowing gold hair, like a moon eclipse of the sun. He felt a stab of panic, unable for a split second even to recall what she looked like.

Then he could see her clearly again.

He grinned. ‘I love you more than anything in—’

Then it felt as if the sun had gone behind a cloud. The temperature dropped. The colour faded from her face, as if she was sick, dying.

He threw his arms around her neck, holding her tightly to him. ‘Sandy!’ he said urgently. ‘Sandy, darling!’

She smelled strange. Her skin was hard, suddenly, not Sandy’s soft skin. She smelled rancid. Of decay and soil and bitter oranges.

Then the light went completely, as if someone had pulled out a plug.

Roy heard the echo of his voice in cold, empty air.

‘Sandy!’ he shouted, but the sound stayed trapped in his throat.

Then the light came back on. The stark light of the postmortem room. He stared into her eyes again. And screamed.

He was staring into the eyes of a skull. Holding a skeleton in his arms. A skull with perfect teeth that was grinning at him.

‘SANDY!’ he screamed. ‘SANDY!’

Then the light changed. Soft yellow. A bedspring creaked. He heard a voice.

‘Roy?’

Cleo’s voice.

‘Roy? You awake?’

He stared at the ceiling, confused, blinking, in a river of sweat.

‘Roy?’

He was shaking. ‘I – I—’

‘You were shouting so loudly.’

‘Sorry. I’m sorry.’

Cleo sat up, her long blonde hair tumbling all around her face, which was pale with sleep and shock. Leaning on one arm, she looked at him with a strange expression, as if he had hurt her. He knew what she was going to say even before she spoke again.

‘Sandy.’ Her voice full of reproach. ‘Again.’

He stared up at her. The same hair colouring as Sandy, the same eye colour – perhaps a touch more grey in the blue than Sandy. A touch more  steel. He’d read that people who were bereaved or divorced often fell in love with someone who looked like their wife. That thought had never struck him until now. But they didn’t look the same, not at all. Sandy was pretty but softer, not classically beautiful in the way that Cleo was.

He stared at the white ceiling and white walls of Cleo’s bedroom. Stared at the black lacquered-wood dressing table that was badly cracked. She didn’t like coming to his house, because she felt too much of Sandy’s presence there, preferring them to spend their time together here, in her place.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘Just a bad dream. A nightmare.’

She stroked his cheek tenderly. ‘Maybe you should go back to that shrink you used to see.’

He just nodded, and eventually fell back into an uneasy, restless sleep, scared that he might dream again.

OCTOBER 2007

The spasms were getting worse – more and more painful, and they were happening at increasingly frequent intervals. Every few minutes now. Maybe this was what giving birth was like.

Her watch said 3.08 a.m. Abby had been in this lift for nearly nine hours now. Maybe she would be here until Monday, if it didn’t break free and plunge to the ground first.

Oh, fucking great. How was your weekend? I spent mine in a lift. It was cool. It had a mirror and a panel of buttons and a dirty glass roof with light bulbs and a scratch on the wall that looked like someone had started out carving a swastika but changed their mind – and a printed sign by some dumb fuckwit who couldn’t spell – and clearly couldn’t maintain the fucking thing properly either.

WHEN BROKE DOWN

CALL 013 228 7828

OR DIAL 999

She was shaking with anger and her throat was parched, raw from shouting, her voice gone almost completely. After a rest she hauled herself to her feet once more. She was beyond caring about shaking the thing and dislodging it – she  had  to get out, rather than just wait for the cable to snap or the shackles to shear, or whatever else might cause her to plunge to her death.

‘I’m trying, you stupid bastards,’ she croaked, staring at the sign, feeling the walls closing in around her again, another panic attack coming on.

The lift’s phone was still dead. She held her mobile close to her face, breathing deeply, trying to calm herself down, willing a signal to appear, cursing her service provider, cursing everything. Her scalp was so tight around her skull it was blurring her vision and the damn urge to pee was coming again now. Coming like a train, hurtling through her insides.

Pressing her knees together, she sucked in air. Her thighs, locked against each other, were quivering. She felt an agonizing pain in her belly, as if a hot knife blade had been pushed deep inside her and was now being twisted. She whimpered, gulping down air, her whole body shaking, doubling up into a foetal ball against the wall. She wasn’t going to be able to hold out much longer, she knew.

But she persevered, clenching –  mind over matter  – fighting her own body, determined not to succumb to anything it wanted to do that her brain did not. She thought about her mother, who had been incontinent with multiple sclerosis from her late fifties.

‘I am not bloody incontinent. Just get me out of here, get me out of here, get me out of here.’  She hissed it under her breath like a mantra until the urge peaked and then slowly, so damned slowly, began to recede.

Finally, blissfully, it had passed and she slid back down on to the floor exhausted, wondering how long you could stop yourself from peeing before your bladder ruptured.

People survived in the desert sometimes by drinking their urine. Maybe she could urinate into one of her boots, she thought wildly. Use it as a container. Emergency drinking supply? How long could you last without water? She seemed to remember having read somewhere that a human could last weeks without food but only a few days without water.

Steadying herself on the swaying floor, she removed her right boot, then jumped up as high as she could, striking the roof panel with the Cuban heel. But it did no good. The lift just swayed crazily, banging and booming off the shaft again, throwing her sideways. She held her breath. This time – surely this time something was going to break. The last frayed strand of wire that stood between her and oblivion …

There were moments now when she actually wanted it to break. To drop however many floors were left. It would be a solution to everything. An inelegant one, sure, but a solution all the same. And how ironic would that be?

As if in answer to her question, the lights went out.