28

I WAS OUT OF THE CAR. STILL NO ONE IN SIGHT.

‘Emma!’ I’d intended to shout, but not much sound came out. I leaned back in through the driver door, hating the moment my back was to the street, and pulled out the hand-held radio. Shoving it into my pocket and holding my mobile tightly, I stepped away from the car.

Help would be here any second and I certainly wasn’t going far. I just needed to look. I half ran down the street until the massive and elaborate red-brick building soared above me. Plenty of shadows. I reached the steps that led to the front door.

‘Emma,’ I tried again. I climbed the steps, looking round continually, telling myself my car was close. I could be safely locked inside it in minutes.

Geraldine Jones’s killer hadn’t needed minutes.

At the top of the steps I found the front door locked. Where the hell was everyone? Conscious that minutes had past since Emma’s last message, I ran back down to the street.

The Ripper hadn’t needed minutes.

At the side of the building, I remembered an old metal fire escape led up to the first floor. It was still there. What I didn’t remember from my last visit was the pair of sunglasses, their frames wrapped around the metal rail. They looked a lot like Emma’s.

‘DC Flint to Control.’

A moment’s pause while I listened to static. And something loud and steady that I thought might be my own heartbeat. Then, ‘Go ahead, DC Flint.’

‘DC Flint requesting immediate back-up,’ I said. ‘Serious injuries, maybe fatalities, suspected.’

I backed away from the metal steps and looked up. At the top a window had been broken and the door wasn’t quite closed. Someone was inside.

Tulloch didn’t want another woman’s death on her conscience. Shit, neither did I. And I was a whole lot closer to the action.

On the first two steps up my legs were shaking, the way legs do when you’ve spent too much time on the treadmill. By the fifth step they were on autopilot, taking me steadily upwards, and the stairs creaked with every step.

I reached the top and risked taking my eyes off the building for a second to scan the street. I was going to kill Anderson. I would knock Joesbury to the ground and stamp on his head. Where the hell were they?

Knowing I was taking a risk, but unable to do nothing, I took my mobile from my pocket and speed-dialled Emma’s number. Then I pressed my face close to the broken window and listened. On the street, cars went by. Somewhere in the sky there was a helicopter. Hardly a second of silence. Then one came and I could hear the ringing. Faint but clear. Emma’s phone was somewhere inside this building.

Then the ringing was completely drowned out by a loud and terrified scream. When it stopped I was on the other side of the door.

There is something so unnerving, even at the best of times, about buildings out of context. A school at night will be spooky. A department store, once the customers have gone home, even more so. This place, that I remembered so well from years ago, seemed unable to leave its past behind. As I peered forward into the darkness I could almost hear the squeals and splashes of children playing, and those strange rhythmic echoes that you only hear in buildings with large spaces and water.

I swear I could still smell the chlorine.

A few feet away a streetlamp was shining in through a window. In its soft, orange glow lay a shoe. On tiptoe, I walked up to it and bent down. There was no dust on it. This shoe hadn’t been here long. It was Emma’s. I knew it.

Breadcrumbs, yelled the voice of common sense. This is a trail of breadcrumbs. He’s leading you in.

Common sense won. I was out of there. I took a step back towards the door just as I heard the fire escape creak. Outside, someone had stepped on it.

Not a trail then, a trap.