Authors: JOHN YORVIK
I stripped off my jacket and shoved it in my backpack. I fastened the backpack to my foot, so I could drag it through the hole after me. Then I slid my arms into the vent and used my feet against the tunnel wall to propel me forward. Once inside, I immediately felt my shoulders contorted by the pressure of the bricks, the vent walls scraping against my sides as I tried to manoeuvre.
When I managed to get hold of the grate with both hands, I gave it a push. Old and rusted, it creaked under the strain but didn’t move. I felt trapped and fought to catch my breath. My feet, still outside the vent, found the tunnel wall again and pushed me towards the grate. But this only served to wedge me further into the grip of the vent. I was in a cold panic so, like a parasite trying to fight its way out of a stone dead host, I pushed and thrashed and wrenched until the old grate couldn’t contain me any longer and fell to the ground with a loud clank.
I waited for a minute until the aftershock of the noise had died down and then poked my head out. It was some kind of public washroom with strip-lights and white enamel sinks. I looked down and saw that I was directly above a toilet cubicle.
I wriggled and pushed and did everything I could to get out of that vent. But as I slid out, the bag attached to my foot somehow wedged in the hole and I was stuck half hanging out and upside down. I caught hold of the toilet fitting and pulled and yanked at my foot until the bag was freed and I promptly dropped three feet to the ground, landing on my head. After letting out a string of curses. I picked myself up, sat on the toilet seat and closed the door.
I unfastened the backpack from my right foot and opened it up. I pulled out the padded envelope that had been in locker 778 and ripped it open. I delved into it and pulled out a gorilla mask. I put my hand back into the envelope hoping to find a letter of explanation but instead felt something cold and metallic. I took it between my fingers and pulled it out. It was another key. What was it with all the keys? Why not just tell me what’s going on?
The door to the washrooms opened and I heard two female voices deep in conversation. They occupied the two cubicles next to mine:
“He’s still on the loose.”
“He killed that Polish girl. Murdered her in her own bed.”
“That’s two people he’s killed. Do you think he’s the Pentonville Strangler?”
“PC Sanderson says they don’t know who he is. Just what he looks like. Some kids saw him. He said not to approach him.”
“They say he disappeared into thin air.”
“I reckon they’ll find his body mixed in with the other guy when they clean the tracks.”
“Oh don’t, Jules.”
I had to get out of there before they finished and noticed the occupied cubicle with men’s shoes in it. I pulled the gorilla mask on over my head. Then I flushed the toilet and left the cubicle. On the sink, next to a handbag, there was a luminous vest belonging to one of the women. I put it on.
I looked in the mirror and saw a railwayman with a gorilla’s head. I pulled off the mask and smoothed down my hair. The toilet flushed and a hand slid the bolt. I ran out of the washrooms and found myself in a nondescript carpeted corridor. I followed the exit signs which led me through a string of deserted offices to an entrance hall where people in hi-viz tabards were queuing to get through the turnstile. I smiled as I walked past the security guard. He wished me a good evening as I left the building, but I didn’t reply. I was out in the open, safe in the knowledge that the police didn’t know who I was. And if the Polish didn’t know where I lived, maybe it was safe to go home.
* * *
“I came on the off-chance,” she said, breaking off and allowing me to walk in.
“Dani, I was only trying to protect you, given your...”
“No need to explain. But you must understand, I only wanted to help you. I know the risks and I’m still here for you, Lishman.”
“Dani, I...”
Suddenly the day’s events caught up with me and I felt myself spinning. Dani ran over to catch me before I fell and helped me to the sofa. It was like that footage of 1920s marathon runners who would almost collapse in sight of the finishing line and be helped on by the crowd the thirty yards or so they were short.
Dani rushed to the kitchen and came back and handed me a glass of water. I drank half and then emptied the rest over the back of my neck. That worked. I felt myself return to the land of the living.
“What happened?” exclaimed Dani. “Why are you in such a state? You really need to let me help you.”
I lit a cigarette and thought about it. That day I had arguably just added a Polish man to my death count. I’d also taken part in a manhunt. And not in a good way. And even though the police had no leads, there was a chance they had video surveillance footage of me at Euston station, which they could broadcast nationwide. I had no alibi. The police hadn’t disclosed the time of death so getting an alibi was impossible. I had no evidence that would clear my name in my pockets. No matchbook with the name of a hotel on it.
I was about to start explaining my story to Dani when I noticed something awry.
“Dani, what have you done to the place?”
The floor was several inches high in papers, ripped up books, torn upholstery and broken glass.
“They, whoever they are, have been here looking for it, whatever it is. The thing you’ve been hiding from them I suppose.”
I motioned towards my bag. She passed it over. I rifled inside and pulled out the envelope containing the photos and handed them to her.
“I don’t suppose
they
left some brandy,” I said, getting up and leaving Dani to discover the corpse photos by herself.
“I brought you some, and some cigarettes. They’re in a bag in the kitchen. There’s beer in the fridge.”
“How did you know I would be coming back here,” I said, standing at the door to the living room and feeling another wave of doubt and paranoia subsume me.
“I’ve been coming here every day since you left. I knew you’d come home eventually.”
“And when did the break in happen?”
“It was like this on Wednesday night.”
“Weren’t you scared to come here after that?”
“Petrified.”
“But you came anyway.”
She nodded. I went into the kitchen to get a beer and left her to look at the photos. The creaking of the fridge door alerted the cat, which came padding out of its hiding place and rubbed its moustachioed snout against my leg, meowing for food.
“Oh Jesus,” I heard Dani exclaim from the living room. “It’s her.”
“Commit those photos to memory, Dani. ‘Cos tomorrow I’m going to post them.”
“Who to?”
“To someone who will never ever see them,” I said, taking a deep drag on a cigarette.
“How did you get hold of these?” said Dani.
“They were pushed under my door on Bank Holiday Monday and you brought them to me after you came here on Tuesday. Someone, I’m not sure who, also made sure I got this key.” I held up the key so that Dani could see. “And this mask. Still want to help me?”
She nodded as if she were unable to form words. I went into the kitchen and poured out two brandies. I handed one to Dani and told her to drink up.
“Here’s what we’ll do...” I said, and explained my plan.
I checked my watch. It was nine pm. If everything was going according to plan, then Dani would be turning up at the tower block armed with her camera and press card. Her job was to distract the street raptors with promise of broadsheet glorification, giving me enough time to enter the tower block unseen.
At five past nine I set off, there was no-one at the entrance. I could see the pale yellow light shining out from the lobby. I entered the building and walked straight through to the fire stairs. Then I walked up fourteen flights to the top floor. Reaching the top, I felt older than my 30 years – the ravages of fighting, drinking and smoking. My ribs and back ached and I had developed a slight wheeze. There was a sheen of unhealthy sweat on my brow.
I entered the landing. The first thing I saw was Natasha’s door, covered in crime-scene tape. I took out my Stanley knife and sliced through it. Then I took out the key that was delivered with the gorilla mask and tried it in the lock. It fit perfectly, I turned the key and pushed open the door.
Dani had been against me coming to the flat. She said it was a trap.
“Expect the police to swoop as soon as you get in there,” she’d said.
“I can’t just sit around doing nothing. I want to take an active part in my own downfall,” I told her, after the benefit of a few beers. So here I was.
Crouched down in the hallway, I opened my backpack and took out a torch and a small digital camera. As the curtains were already drawn, I switched the torch on and looked around the living room. There was no mess, no broken glass or upset furniture. As far as I could tell, everything had been put back to normal. Was it police policy to allow a clean up so quickly after a murder? And where were the evidence tags? I walked over to the sideboard where I’d picked up Natasha’s contact card a week earlier and saw that it was clean. I lay on the floor and checked under the sideboard. I crawled around the floor looking under the rest of the furniture. Nothing. I heard the thud of the lift shaft engine up on the roof. It meant someone was on their way up. My heart thumped against my rib cage. I checked my mobile for a warning text message from Dani. Nothing. Was she even watching? Maybe she was still at the skate park photographing the raptors. But we’d made it clear: no text meant no trouble.
After two minutes of lying still, I resumed the search. There was a large bookshelf hung on the wall above the sofa. I started to take out the books one by one and flick through them to see if there was anything hidden between their pages. Most of the books were about art. Some of them were in Polish. I pulled out the last book on the shelf, which had a swastika on the cover. The title was
Szukaj Sztuki Zagrabionych
. I took a photo of the cover and of some of the inside pages, which seemed to catalogue paintings and sculptures. Next to various artworks there were notes scribbled in a language I found indecipherable. I took photos of every page with notes. I placed the book back on the shelf then took photos of all the book spines.
I peered through the living room curtains and saw a small balcony full of the usual things that people living in small flats usually keep outside: mops, buckets, empty plant pots and rusty bicycles. I tried the sliding door but couldn’t open it. It needed a key. I looked around on the floor and on top of a picture frame and in the drawer but couldn’t find one.
Moving on I tried the door of the first room in the corridor, which I assumed was a cupboard and found a utility room with a washing machine and drier. There was a long plank of wood, laid over the top of the machines. On top of it were three or four plastic trays about four inches deep stacked on top of each other. At the far end of the room, beside the drier was a book shelf. On the top shelf was a stack of paper. On the next shelf down was a small basket full of clothes pegs and on the bottom shelf, which had the height of two normal shelves, were various bottles of detergent. I was about to leave the room, but my mind couldn’t get over the out-of-place stack of paper so I returned to look at it. There were about fifty square sheets of thick paper. It didn’t make any sense. Then I had an idea. I pulled down the blind above the thin slat window and switched on the light, bathing the room in a soft red haze.
The utility room doubled as a dark room. The paper must be photographic. I switched the light off and pulled up the blind. I crouched down to look at the bottles on the shelf and found two bottles of developing fluid in among the detergent. I also found a small plastic cylinder about the size of a roll of film. I pocketed the cylinder with a few sheets of photographic paper.
I heard shouting and froze. Two men. They were either in the flat below or outside on the landing. It was impossible to tell. Then I heard some mood music. It was just a TV movie turned up loud. I put my hand to my chest and felt my heart pounding away inside.
I crept along to the bathroom. As I entered the first thing I noticed was the smell of plaster and sealant. The old bath had been removed and a brand new one put in its place. I checked the mirror. It was also new. All traces of the swastikas had been removed. I was about to open the medicine cabinet when I felt my mobile vibrate. I checked the message: ‘caru chi’. Someone was on their way. I quickly checked that I’d left nothing behind. Then I put on the gorilla mask, the last thing I wanted was for a neighbour to recognise me. I was just about to leave the flat when I heard voices approaching and the sound of a police radio coming from the other side of the door. Then there was the familiar clicking sound of a key being inserted into a lock.
I ran through into the bathroom, slid open the glazed window and stepped up on to the toilet seat and out onto the windowsill. I crouched sideways and slid the window shut behind me. The sill was a good foot in size and felt safe but I didn’t dare look down. It was a fourteen-floor drop to the ground and the wind was whipping across from the west. I leant into the window as much as possible. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the lights go on in the living room, which was the next window along. I prayed they wouldn’t manage to get out onto the balcony.
I had to do something before they entered the bathroom and saw my silhouette through the window. I looked around. Above me was a ledge that jutted out and seemed to run around the outside of the building. Beside the window were various drainpipes. If I could use the drainpipes, I might be able to reach the ledge and then haul myself up onto the roof.
I heard the talking get louder from within the flat. They were coming my way. Without another thought, I moved to the edge of the windowsill and took hold of a drainpipe, which was cold and enamelled. I placed my left foot on the u-bend that entered the flat and then hoisted myself up and took hold of the overhanging ledge with my right hand. My right foot searched frantically for a foothold and managed to reach the copper stopcock coming through the wall at mid height of the bathroom window. I used that to push me high enough up to get first my left then my right arm over the ledge and hold on to the lip at the other side, my legs swinging below me. I hung there for about twenty seconds unable to do anything. Then I tried to pull myself up onto the ledge but couldn’t summon the strength, fear was sapping my energy. All I could manage to do was edge along until I was directly above the balcony and there I stayed, aware that my legs were dangling down in front of the living room window like fish bait.
After two minutes, I allowed myself to drop and I crashed down onto the balcony, my fall broken by a bag of compost and some plastic plant pots. The living room curtains were still closed and there were no lights on. Lying on the floor of the balcony, experiencing the adrenalin high of a lifetime, I pulled up the gorilla mask onto the top of my head and looked down through the balcony railings to see the panda car below.
Two minutes later, my phone vibrated in my pocket. I took it out and read the message: ‘ddiogel.’
This was the safe word. I peered over the edge again and saw that the panda car had gone. I opened my backpack and found the toolkit I’d rolled up inside a blanket earlier. I took out a hammer and a screwdriver and placed the point of the screwdriver in the centre of the glass pane and struck it hard with the hammer. The glass door shattered without breaking. I quickly hammered a hole in it big enough to squeeze through and hurried out of the flat and down the fire stairs.
Before entering the lobby, I pulled down the gorilla mask to cover my face. It was just as well, because leaving the lobby I ran into the four street raptors, who on seeing me spread out across the pavement to block my way.
“Hey, it’s a fucking gorilla,” said one of the raptors, causing an eruption of monkey noises and curses from the others.
Playing their game, I beat my chest, gave out a roar and then ran straight into the middle of them. To my surprise they dispersed laughing, so I doubled back and chased them again.
“I think the gorilla fancies me,” said one.
“It’s a gay-rilla,” shouted another.
I did one more run through and then continued out onto the walkway between the lock-ups and the tower and didn’t stop running till I was out of their sight, then I removed the gorilla mask and looked for the nearest Underground station.
* * *
She had blacked out the window of the basement flat and screwed in a red light bulb. She was developing the roll of film I’d found in Natasha’s flat. There were already twenty photos pegged onto a string line drying from her previous shoot. On them were assorted photos of the raptors in urban action shots.
“Those raptors make for very striking models,” I said, admiring Dani’s handiwork.
“They’re good kids when you give them a chance,” said Dani, picking up on my use of the word ‘raptor’. “A lot of what you see is just an act to ward off danger.”
After an hour, Dani called me over to look at the photos from Natasha’s flat. The first five showed pictures of a man in various poses in someone’s apartment, perhaps his own. But you never saw his face. It was always in silhouette or from behind. The style was artistic black and white. He was wearing his dressing gown. It looked like a typical hungover Sunday spent reading the newspaper. The next shots were of Primrose Hill and Regent’s Park. Shots catching shadows and trees. Shots of squirrels and ducks. The last photo was what Dani called a double exposure: Natasha’s face on the left side of the photo. Marty’s on the right.