He sat opposite and leaned back against the tiles. He let out some long breaths before he chuckled to himself. ‘This is where you say that you can see your house from up here.’
Carrie tried to swear but the gag muffled it. She stamped down on a tile in frustration. It cracked.
Proctor leaned forward. ‘You need to stay quiet and calm,’ he said. ‘You don’t know how much I’ve looked out for you. I’ve seen you grow, Carrie, watched you from up here. But for one of us, it ends today.’
Carrie closed her eyes and sobbed. As Proctor watched, a thin trickle of piss tracked its way down the tiles, her jeans soaked.
‘Just let me go,’ she tried to say around the gag.
He turned away, disgusted.
It was never meant to work out this way. He was going to come for Carrie at some point, he’d always seen her as his finale, but it was meant to be in his time. He would come back into the family, be there for his poor bereaved sister as she tried to come to terms with her loss, the ripple to beat them all. It might be enough to satisfy whatever drove him so that it wasn’t there any more. But this was wrong, all too soon. All he could do now was hurt and take the blame.
He saw something and gasped.
Melissa and Joe Parker were running out of the front of her building. From the direction of their sprint, both of them looking up, they’d worked out where he was.
‘She’s coming for you,’ he said, and he grabbed her by the rope again, pulling her towards the edge.
Carrie wriggled against him, tried to scream, kicked against the roof tiles, but it was no use. Once Melissa was out of view, running along the side of the building, he hooked the rope that bound her wrists over a drainpipe that protruded above the lip of the roof.
‘What will always torture her is that she wasn’t quick enough,’ he said. ‘She’ll replay it, year after year, the time wasted on her bed, how she couldn’t get up here fast enough, or get past me, because your end is like sand in a timer.’
He grunted with effort as he pushed at her. She slid closer to the edge, her eyes wide, screeching through the gag. She tried to dig her heels into the slates but it was pointless. He strained with effort until her legs were hanging over the edge, her feet kicking uselessly in the air, nothing beneath them but a long fall. He gritted his teeth and gave her a final push.
Carrie’s body thudded against the side of the building. The rope around her wrists that he’d hooked around the drainpipe had worked.
He looked over.
She was hanging by her arms, only the bindings around her wrists supporting her. The ground was a long way below. She tried to dig her feet into the brickwork but there were no gaps to give her a toehold. She was like a worm on a hook. As she struggled, the drainpipe creaked, the long metal screws scraping in the mortar. One of her shoes came off and took an age before it bounced against the ground a long way below.
‘If she loves you, she’ll get past me,’ he said. ‘But she’ll need to be quick. Trying to cut through that rope must seem like a really bad idea now.’
And with that, he was shuffling back across the roof before dropping back into the roof space.
It was time to say hello to Melissa.
Sam and Gina were close to Ancoats. Gina was swallowing hard, still in pain from where Proctor had throttled her.
‘Why would Proctor set fire to his car if he knew how it looked?’ Sam said.
‘Was that as bad as leaving it in the police compound covered in blood traces?’ Gina said. ‘What would the police do when they found out his car had been nearby and it was in their compound, and they knew who’d been driving it?’
‘But it drew attention to himself. He could have gone back in the morning with his insurance and reclaimed it, got it cleaned of whatever needed removing.’
‘He was panicking. For all of his superiority, it was blind panic, because he wasn’t the one in control.’
Sam’s phone rang. He looked at the screen.
‘It’s Joe,’ he said.
Sam clicked the answer button. ‘We’re on our way,’ he said. ‘Sit tight.’
‘He’s here!’
‘Who?’
‘Proctor, he’s here.’
‘Joe, where are you?’
Gina looked at him, detecting something in Sam’s voice.
‘Outside Melissa’s apartment,’ Joe said, breathless.
‘What are you doing?’
‘No time,’ Joe said. ‘Just get here.’
‘Where, Joe, where?’
‘Some kind of abandoned warehouse in Ancoats, opposite Blake Mill, Melissa’s apartment block. An Irish bar nearby.’
‘We’re nearly there,’ Sam said.
‘Get everyone here!’
The line went dead.
‘Proctor?’ Gina said.
He’s in an old warehouse near Blake Mill.’ He tossed her his phone. ‘Call Brabham. He’s in the contacts list. Tell him where we’re going.’
Gina thumbed through his contacts as Sam accelerated along the main road towards Ancoats. He overtook other cars and made ones on the other side swerve to avoid him. The sound of Gina talking merged with the roar of his engine and the occasional blast of a horn.
‘Down there,’ Gina said, pointing to a narrow street.
Sam skidded into it, his back wheels swinging outwards until he corrected it, his engine loud between the brick walls on either side of the street.
The view ahead opened out, just the dark empty space of the canal basin ahead, dots of apartment windows further away.
‘It must be round here,’ Sam said, craning forward, Gina doing the same.
He turned left so that the canal was to his right. Large dark blocks of stone were ahead, turned into silhouettes by the brightness of the apartments further along.
‘There’s the Irish bar,’ Sam said, pointing, slowing down.
Gina gripped his arm. ‘Shit, there,’ she said, and pointed.
Sam slammed to a halt as he saw what Gina was pointing at.
There was a young girl high off the ground, her arms hooked around something, swinging against the wall of a warehouse, her hair wild in the breeze.
Gina made another call, 999, and barked instructions. They stared out of the windscreen for a few seconds in disbelief, praying that someone else had called the fire service and that a long ladder would arrive any moment.
No blue lights flickered nearby, no sirens wailed in the distance.
Neither of them said anything as they ran from the car.
Joe ran hard alongside the building, Melissa with him, looking for a way in.
‘Do you think she’s here?’ Melissa said, between gasps of breath.
‘Where else?’
It was a warehouse, last used for printing supplies. The bricks were dark and old, replaced in places, left to fall away in others, with grilles and boards over most of the windows. Two metal gangways joined the top two floors, visible only by their silhouettes against the night sky.
‘How do we get in?’ Melissa said, banging frantically at the bricked-up doorways.
Joe looked around, trying to see some kind of entrance, but then at one corner he saw a kink in the security fence that blocked off the yard.
‘There,’ he said, and ran over, Melissa behind.
The security fence was just a row of metal screens connected by overlapping brackets at each end. One of them had been pushed away so that it was only joined at the bottom, capable of being pushed to create a gap.
Joe put his shoulder against the screen to move it. It screeched on the cobbles on the other side. When there was enough of a gap, he held it so Melissa could get through. Once inside, the world beyond the yard seemed to be shut out. Everything was dark, the outline of the roofs the only thing visible.
Joe grabbed Melissa’s hand and they both edged forward as they tried to get their breath back, reaching out with their feet to sweep for hazards. There were loose stones, small metal brackets, discarded bottles. The ground was uneven, with cobbles breaking free from where they’d been fixed for over two hundred years.
Joe was looking for a way into the building.
‘There,’ Melissa said, and pointed to a darker shadow in the corner of the yard.
They both ran towards it, their feet skidding sometimes on loose stones, but they wanted to get inside. Any shreds of light were swallowed up as they went into the doorway. Their footsteps echoed.
Joe put out his hand. His eyes tried to adjust to the darkness but it was impossible. The windows were blocked off by metal screens so that there was not even the faintest glimmer of light to cling onto.
‘Mark, please!’ Melissa shouted.
They both listened out. Nothing came back.
Joe reached out with his feet, his arms out, stepping forwards, Melissa holding onto the back of his shirt. He was waiting for the sound of sudden movement, the blow, grimacing in the darkness, nerves making his insides churn, but he had to keep moving forward.
He jumped. Something against his face. He let out a breath. A cobweb, hanging from the ceiling.
‘Mark!’ Melissa shouted again. Still nothing.
Something fluttered, the sudden noise of wings loud, fast like whistles. A bat, probably, perhaps more than one. Melissa yelped. Joe’s heart thumped. Sweat dripped into his eye.
His foot hit something. A wall, or something else? He reached out. A wooden block, then another. Stairs.
‘Let’s go up,’ he said.
The steps creaked as they climbed slowly. Their hands trailed along the wall at one side, damp and dirty, coarse in places, slick with moisture in others. They felt the space around them open up and there were specks of light, some of the windows merely blacked out and with the street light showing through, creating faint outlines. The air was less damp than on the ground floor.
‘Carrie! Mark!’ Melissa shouted again, but still nothing.
‘Listen out,’ Joe said, and put his arm across Melissa.
There were no sounds.
‘They can’t be on this floor, we’d hear something.’
‘But how big is this place?’ Melissa said.
‘Big, but I still think it’s up.’
They crept through to the next floor. Still silent. The air felt colder. There was more light, like a fan across the floor.
‘There,’ Joe said.
There was a large opening, like a huge open door, and beyond it a metal bridge joining onto the next building, so that employees could carry cloth between the buildings without going down the stairs, from the days when they were locked in once the shifts started.
‘That must be the building overlooking my apartment,’ Melissa said.
‘Where we saw something,’ Joe said, and set off towards the bridge.
As they got to the doorway, Joe looked down. They were only three floors up but already it looked too high. Each floor had high ceilings so that the bridge was a long way from the ground, just a dark hole beneath them, the building opposite shutting out all light. The bridge was around twenty yards long, with another one above it, connecting the top floors of the buildings, but it seemed to stretch into the distance.
Joe stepped onto the bridge and it dipped. He gripped the rail as the air was filled with the sound of metal moving against stone. His feet clanged as he moved slowly, the bridge swaying with every step, bouncing as he got closer to the centre. The metal felt like it was flaking under his shoes. All he could do was look straight ahead and keep moving.
It seemed to take an age to get across, Melissa still on the other side, but the colossal shadow of the opposite building eventually swallowed him up.
There was no way in. The entrance doors were closed off. He pushed at them, frustrated, but they just banged against the frame.
He looked up. He’d have to try the gangway above.
‘We have to keep going up,’ he said.
Melissa turned, she wasn’t prepared to wait for him, so Joe ran back across, ignoring the sickening bounce of the bridge, until he was back inside the darkness of the building.
Melissa found more stairs and ran up them. Joe rushed to catch up, stumbling as he twisted his ankle on a piece of brick he hadn’t seen. When he joined her at the top of the stairs, he was looking across at an identical metal walkway, except this time there was an opening on the other side. He could see into the building and some of the streets beyond.
Joe pushed past her and went first.
‘I’m not the little woman, and I want my daughter back,’ Melissa said.
‘And if this bridge isn’t safe, there’s no kids to grieve for me,’ Joe said, and stepped forward. ‘Wait until I get across. If I make it, you know it’s all right for you too.’
It moved when he stepped onto it, as though the stone supporting it was crumbling. Joe’s stomach lurched and he gripped the rail, but he kept on moving forward. It was in a worse state than the bridge below. Some of the metal was cracked, as if it was rusting through, but Joe wasn’t going to stop. He stared forward and kept on marching, the night filled with the sound of metal grating against stone and the creaks as it bounced.
Joe paused at the doorway. The room was better lit, with the light coming in through a broken window and a large hole in the roof. He listened, tried to hear something over his own deep breaths. There was a noise, something banging on the roof.
He looked up and stepped forward.
Joe didn’t see the brick coming.
It smashed into his cheekbone, knocking him backwards onto the walkway. He banged his head on the rail. The weight of his falling body knocked out one of the metal panels in the side of the bridge. It seemed a long time before it clanged onto the ground.
His head tilted backwards, nothing to stop the fall of his body. He strained to lift himself but everything seemed to take too long. The stars were just swirling dots. The sound of his hands on the metal walkway seemed muffled, his heartbeat loud in his ears, but he grabbed the rail and slid back onto the bridge. He groaned as he rolled over. There were footsteps behind him, moving quickly.
Instinct kicked in. Joe rolled to one side and a brick smashed against the rail. Fragments peppered his face and grit went into his eye, the pain bringing him round. He looked up. There was someone standing over him, arms out from his body, tensed and angry. Mark Proctor.
Joe kicked upwards, the gasp of pain from Proctor loud and satisfying. Proctor bent over in agony so Joe lashed out again, his boot catching Proctor in the face, making him rock backwards.