In Place of Death (36 page)

She was sure she had a handle on many of the forum user names. Euan Hepburn was CardboardCowboy, Remy Feeks had been Magellan93 and Tony – bloody Tony – was Metinides. Others –
PencilPusher, NightLight, Gopher, Spook, Astronut, Vixxxen and Crow – she was able to tick off thanks to the Botanics trip, assuming anyone was telling the truth about who they were. She
didn't know who JohnDivney was but desperately wanted to. He, or possibly she, had interacted with Hepburn just before he was murdered. Narey's nose was bothered each time she looked at
the name.

There was also a strong possibility that the person she was looking for wasn't among those names at all. She knew why Hepburn and Feeks had been in a recognized urbexing site when they
were killed but Narey just couldn't picture Jennifer Cairns making a habit of breaking nails or getting covered in cobwebs. Much more likely that someone had taken her there. What about her
husband? Could Douglas Cairns have been one of these people? There were far too many questions and not enough answers.

She'd secreted herself away in a small, underused office in the depths of the station seeking some peace in which to think. She had only one small lamp switched on over the desk in the
hope that no one would realize she was there.

She'd uploaded the photographs from the Botanics to her iPad and sighed at the prospect of going over them a third time. If there had been some magic button, some glamorous short cut, then
she'd have pressed it or taken it long before then.

Tony had taken a bunch of scene-setting photos, graffiti on walls, rubbish and foliage where the old track had been, huge girders overhead, moonlight and the odd spot of rain making their way
through the ventilation shafts from the park above. Then, increasingly, people appeared in the shots. They were there in ones and twos, occasionally in larger numbers, but always seemingly unaware
that they were being photographed.

There weren't many of these, which was frustrating but understandable. Too much of it and Tony would have become obvious. They would have had to wonder about this guy in their midst who
was intent on recording them all.

Remy Feeks was seen staring at the group, his eyes keen but his body language tight and nervy. His friend Gabby was there, a little blonde bundle of energy, flitting from one person to another.
The tall, athletic-looking guy who Tony had said was Finlay Miller, Astronut, was frequently by Gabby's side. Some of them were photographed while they were using their own cameras. He
watching them watching him.

He hadn't managed to get all the group into clear shots but there was something of each of them even if they were partially obscured by the others or seen from behind. She worked her way
through them, ticking them off, mentally trying to stitch together the various angles and half-images that there were.

Wait.

She had to look again. There. Half-hidden behind one of the others. And there. Just turning away from the camera. And there. Just half a face but enough. Was it? If it was, then a few things
would make sense, pieces of the puzzle would slot into place. Don't do wishful thinking, she told herself, wait and see.

She enlarged the photographs as much as she could but lost the focus and had to step away from them again. There, that was the best she was going to get. And it was good enough.

Without taking her eyes off the screen, she picked up the phone.

Sunday evening

Winter sat staring at his laptop for an age, his fingers almost arthritic, tight with anger. The last time he'd sat looking at this screen, this very site, it had ended
with Remy Feeks dying - no, not dying, being murdered - while he was just yards away. He knew he was boiling up a seething, simmering rage but he couldn't put a stop to it even if he'd
wanted to.

There was a thing called survivor guilt. He'd once lived next door to a guy named Colin Hurst who was a passenger in a car crash. Colin and a colleague carshared to get to work and this
day it was the other man's turn. The guy's Mazda was mown down by a lorry that had lost control. Colin suffered broken ribs and whiplash. The driver was crushed to death by his side.
Inches more and Colin would have joined him. Not in any way his fault but he didn't drive for over two years, which was probably just as well as he hit the bottle hard. He became anxious,
depressed and guilty. He didn't like himself much and seemingly set out to make sure other people didn't like him either. It was no way to live your life.

The driver hadn't deserved what happened to him but neither had Colin Hurst. Neither had Remy Feeks nor Euan Hepburn. It wasn't about whether you deserved it. It was about how you
dealt with it.

The home page of OtherWorld stared back, daring him, telling him to just do it, to go for it.

There was a series of photographs at the top of the page which switched every thirty seconds or so, each one calling out to him, challenging him. They reached into that central core that made
all explores irresistible to those with the bug. Each one screamed climb me, enter me, photograph me, save me for posterity.

The longer he looked at the page, the more common sense crumbled. He knew what he was proposing to do was a very bad idea but he also knew that he was going to give in to it. The voice of
reason, the conscience sitting on his shoulder, was there on the orders of Rachel. It chirped away at him, telling him to keep safe, to leave it to the cops, to hide nothing from her, to do nothing
that would threaten what they had together. However, the other voice came from deep inside him. It told him to remember Euan and Remy.

There was no contest. Bad idea it definitely was but he was going to do it anyway.

He played with the wording, changing it and deleting it, making sure he got it just right. He had to get the response he wanted. The message had to spook him, challenge him,
flush him out once and for all.

It wasn't quite right though. It sounded too obviously like blackmail and not enough like he actually knew what he was talking about. Try again.

Too vague. Too much I know what you did last summer. The guy had to know that he was serious. Maybe the photograph would be worth a thousand words.

He attached it. The shot of the man clambering down from the Odeon. Euan's snapshot that cost him his life. Winter couldn't know if the man was aware that Euan had photographed him
at the site but he must have feared that it was a possibility. Winter needed to tap into that fear.

That should get his attention but he also needed to make the arrangements. That, as much as anything, was what was scaring him.

He gave it one last look-over and shook his head at the craziness of it. Before he could change his mind, he clicked post and it was done.

Monday evening

The next day seemed to have lasted for ever. Twenty-four little hours, the song said. It had seemed so much longer than that.

Winter had watched the weather turn, seeing clouds roll in and gather over the city as if they were lying in wait. Big and dark, full of rain above the grey, just killing time until it was the
right moment to unleash everything they had.

He'd seen the light come and go, seen day turn to night and night to something even darker. The moon was hidden by a wall of cloud and the sky over the Clyde was a murky, murderous black,
like a raven's wing or a killer's soul.

No matter how much quicker he'd wanted the clock to tick, the hours had dragged as if weighed down by everything that had happened and everything still to come. At last, at long and weary
last, it was time for him to be there.

It was an hour earlier than he'd said in his message. He had said midnight but wanted to be there by eleven, content to wait and desperate to get there first. He stood in the shadow of the
tower, hidden in a city full of shadow, and wondered just what the hell he was doing.

It had come to this though and there was no going back. Maybe it had always been leading to this from the day he and Euan Hepburn had climbed this bloody tower and he'd nearly killed
himself in the process. Maybe it had been inevitable from the moment Euan had been found in the Molendinar. Whatever, it was finishing tonight. That much he was sure of.

His heart was beating fast and he could feel the nerves bubbling, coming slowly to the boil. He'd done some stupid things in his time but this was right up there with the best of them.
Right up there with the last time he climbed this.

As if on cue, the rain started. He looked up and saw it falling in big, heavy drops from the black. It came thick and fast, like the clouds had been unzipped and the whole lot couldn't get
to ground quick enough.

He pulled a black woollen balaclava from his pocket and dragged it over his head and face, put on gloves and finally zipped his waterproof jacket to the neck. There was nothing to be gained from
waiting as it wasn't going to stop raining any time soon. He began to climb.

He moved slowly and deliberately, feeling the pain in his leg from the injury he'd acquired fleeing the factory, and trying to ignore the hammering in his chest and the memories that were
pulling at his mind. He made sure every hand on every rung was secure before he moved a foot from the rung below. At this rate, it was going to take most of the hour that he'd given himself
just to get up there but the alternative was a quick and bumpy return to earth.

The rain was constant, lashing down as if defending the tower. In no time, his clothes were heavy and sodden, his jacket slick and soaked through. Juicy raindrops sat on each rung, waiting to be
squashed by his hands or sent slipping and spiralling. He clung on, skin through wool to water to metal.

There was no sound of other feet on the metal rungs and he couldn't hear another person's laboured breath from the exertion of the climb, but he felt the presence. Someone else was
climbing as he climbed, matching him step for step and hiding it by keeping in time with him. He slowed and stopped, tried to fox them, but all he could hear were his own feet and the howl of the
wind. He knew though the other man was there. He shut the thought out and climbed.

With every step up, his head got heavier and lighter. More memories and less sense. He tried to look straight ahead, see only the rungs, focus only on the rungs. Don't look down,
don't think about anything else. Don't think about falling. Don't think about the last time. Don't think about when you fell.

His pulse was a drum roll. The more he tried to shut it out, the louder it got. He squeezed his eyes shut hard and it was a mistake. A flare of phosphene danced behind his eyelids. Bursts of
yellow and white made him dizzy as the pressure worked on the cells of his retinae and created a light show that he really didn't need. He gripped tighter on the rungs and hugged his face
against the ladder, the metal cold and wet against his skin.

He knew the world was spinning around him: he didn't need to open his eyes to see that. He tried to stay as still as he could and let it settle back into place. Blowing out a long, steady
stream of breath seemed to help. Taking in a big lungful to replace it definitely did.

When his eyes did open, Glasgow shimmied before him. A million lights waved hello through the rain and not one of them seemed capable of staying in the same place even for a second. He took his
right hand away from the ladder briefly and waved back - drowning not waving - then clung on once more.

His right leg was the first to find the courage to move again. It climbed to the rung above and shoved the rest of him into action. He had to get up there. There was no other way.

He pulled with his arms and pushed with his feet, onwards and upwards. He could still feel the other climber although he couldn't tell if he was above him or below. He tried to look both
up and down but, between the rain and his own fear, he could make out only shapes and blurs. Was that the sound of someone laughing? Or coughing maybe? He was there, no doubt about that, just far
enough out of sight and hearing to taunt him, to watch him.

The rain was getting heavier and the city was almost impossible to see through the veil. He could just make out the nearby neon-lit outlines of the BBC studios, the Armadillo and the Hydro, the
big beasts of the new Clydeside. The rest was a flickering blur of yellows and reds without much shape or sense. He climbed higher.

The observation deck had only been a shadow in the rain but now it began to loom real and reachable, though looking up caused his head to spin again. The deck was there in the clouds, waiting to
be boarded like a ghost pirate ship sailing in a sea of dirges.

What had made him think this could possibly have been a good idea? His head was full of Euan Hepburn. Full of guilt and fear, of falling and consequences. His head was full of Remy Feeks and
Rachel. Rachel. His promise to her echoed between his ears. Don't lie. Don't mess it up. Don't keep it from her. Don't do your own thing.

Of course he shouldn't have looked down again but he couldn't help himself. He strained to see through the murk but there was no sign of anyone else, just the vertical drop
he'd once taken without the aid of parachute or safety net. It spiralled through the night and the rain to the small, firm circle of grey concrete that he'd started from. His hands were
strangling the rung of the ladder somewhere just under his chin, clinging on in case it slipped through his fingers and disappeared.