Shredder (21 page)

It took me ten minutes to crawl the thirty meters
up the bank, maybe more—I took a long detour round a vicious bramble bush. As I got closer I saw an old white van with a long wheelbase parked up with its nose against the fencing. Sloppy of them, I thought. Zoe and I had spotted one CCTV security camera on the street side of the building, and we presumed there were more. But with this van in the way no camera would spot an intruder cutting the fence, which is what I proceeded to do, lying facedown on the muddy bank, with wire cutters I'd lifted from Zoe's aunt's house. They were lightweight ones, designed for stuff like changing plugs, and they'd be ruined after this, but that didn't bother me very much. When I'd cut a gap in the fence about half a meter long I threw them away anyhow.

Pushing the severed fencing aside like a stiff curtain, I crawled through from the mud and thorns of the canal bank onto the greasy gravel of the car park, under the van's chassis. Its length gave me another four meters of cover; that left roughly another sixteen meters to cross before I reached the side of the unit itself. Moving as slowly as possible, I crawled as close I could to the edge of the shadow cast by the van's underside; with sodium lights to the right and left—in neighboring yards, not in this one—the pool
of shadow was not quite as wide as my body, but it would have to do.

I lay on my back and looked up towards the corner of the building ahead, where a CCTV camera slowly swiveled from left to right, and paused. As I watched, it slowly swiveled back again, and paused again, pointed straight towards me. I froze. Whoever was monitoring it, if they saw anything, would see a shadow in a shadow, but the slightest movement would give me away. At first I didn't even dare to blink, but thinking about blinking made it impossible not to. I blinked—and the camera started to move on again, to the left. I reached up, grabbed the bumper of the van, hauled myself out and dashed across the scarred and pitted car park, trying to keep low until I could flatten myself against the corner of the unit directly underneath the camera. Maybe the operator could tilt it down far enough to see me, but I doubted he would without good reason.

The redbrick corner of the building bit into my back. There was nothing to my right except the rear of the unit, a vast expanse of more red brick without so much as a window or an emergency exit. To my left, though, was what looked like a fire escape running up the side of the building. At its foot was an
annex jutting out, which meant the base of the stairs would only be seen by the camera above my head. I kept looking upwards until the camera swiveled to the right, then dashed for the stairs. Another bloody metal staircase—it was like climbing a ladder made of bells, and no matter how softly I trod, each step still resounded under my tread. But I made it to the top.

There I encountered a solid, smooth, wooden door that had once been painted yellow, or green or white—it was impossible to tell under the sodium lights. But the lock was brand-new, and when I put my shoulder to the door there was no give—because it opened outwards, towards me, which made it impossible to kick in. Even a police battering ram would have bounced off. I had no time to curse, and I couldn't retreat—I had to find a way in. Fumbling in my pocket, I found the only other tool I'd managed to find in Zoe's aunt's cottage: a cheap and nasty screwdriver of such soft metal the head had already twisted out of shape.

I forced it into the doorjamb by the lock, and pushed; the wood splintered on the surface, but the door itself didn't budge. I dug the blade in again, wrenching and twisting, but I could feel the shaft of
the screwdriver bending—it was going to snap clean off before I made an impression on this lock. There was no point having a go at the hinged side; that would take a crowbar and I didn't have one.

I heard the buzz of the CCTV camera swiveling towards me, flattened myself against the door and froze. The lens was tilted down to cover the car park, and there was a chance the operator wouldn't be looking for anyone up at this level, but I was still stuck there, with no way in and one way out—and I wasn't going to run, because then I'd be running for the rest of my life.

That annex at the foot of the stairs had a flimsy corrugated roof, and I'd fallen through one just like it a few weeks back…could I do that again? It wasn't exactly a stealthy way of gaining entry, and last time I'd nearly broken my neck. Maybe I could force a window? But the window nearest to me was a meter from the top of the stairs, and two meters above ground level. They glowed faintly, as if the interior was lit by a couple of strip lights kept on permanently for security. The panes were opaque wired glass, nearly impossible to break, and I couldn't see any sections that opened, assuming I could have reached them. So how was the place ventilated?
Were there louvers in the roof I could get through, or an air-conditioning unit I could unscrew? What a bloody stupid idea—as if this dump would have air-con.

Then I heard something. A scuffle, a footstep. Someone was moving about inside the building—by the sound of it, not far from this door. I checked the windows and caught a flicker on the glass, a shadow that was moving towards the exit where I stood. Were they on to me? If they put a few bullets through this door, the way they had done at the Turk's flat in Clapham, I'd have no way of dodging them—unless I went back down the stairs. But for some reason I didn't do that; I just stepped back to clear the door. Maybe it was the way the footsteps sounded as they approached—not urgent, not stealthy, just someone walking.

I heard one bolt inside pulled back, and held my breath. Then another. I wanted to brace myself to dive through the door as soon as it opened, but there was only enough room on the platform for the door to swing out, and I had to lean back against the railings to make room, praying it wouldn't fly open so hard it knocked me over. I perched there, completely off-balance and vulnerable, as the lock
clicked and the door started to open. The edge of it brushed against my jeans as it swung back.

The man inside was casually dressed and dark-skinned, with a short, neatly trimmed beard. He wasn't looking outwards to start with, but fiddling with something in his hand. In a second he'd registered my presence, but he was still too late. I lunged forward through the doorway, slamming my body into his before he could pull the door shut again. He grunted and swore in some language I didn't understand, and he ducked and writhed and wriggled free of my grasp and tried to dash back along the raised walkway, but I grabbed the hood of his sweatshirt and hauled him backwards.

He twisted, cursing, and something clicked and flashed in the dark, and I pulled back instinctively—that was a flick knife, with a sleek, razor-sharp blade. Now he crouched, leveling it in his hand, and by the way he held it I was pretty sure he'd done this before, and not just in training. The blade barely wavered in his hand and he kept his eyes locked on me in a way that suggested he was ready for any feint or dodge.

What was he waiting for? Why didn't he call out for help?
Because he's the only one here
. It took me a couple of heartbeats to realize that, and now I could
see why he was holding back—he was weighing up the risk. He wanted to go and raise the alarm, but that meant turning his back on me. He had to finish me off first, and though I was bigger and heavier, I was probably slower, and I wasn't trained in knife fighting.

I swallowed nervously and saw a smile flicker on his face, and knew he'd made his decision. I saw him step forward with his right foot but move his weight to the left, and I took a gamble too, and let him make his feint, and came in close. His arm twisted and the knife changed direction but I just managed to grab his wrist with my left, and hold it, the knife's lethal tip resting on the skin below my ribs. Straining every muscle in my left arm, I grabbed him under the chin with my right and I pushed him backwards. His right arm flailed and snatched at the rail but he was too late. For a few fractions of a second my eyes were inches from his—his pupils were a shining golden brown, the color of chestnuts—and I could smell his sour breath, and then gravity took over. His legs flipped up and he fell twisting in the darkness below, his yell of terror cut off as he hit the concrete floor, headfirst, with a muffled crunch. His knife skittered off into the shadows.

I stood there feeling my racing pulse calm down,
wondering what else I could have done. Taken him prisoner? Knocked him out? Pointless to worry about that now. I was standing on something, I realized. Lifting my foot, I looked down and saw a crushed packet of cigarettes—menthol, low tar. That's why he'd come to open the door in the first place; he'd been sneaking off for a smoke. But why the hell had he bothered? I could imagine the Turk was a scary employer, but I didn't think he'd enforce government regulations about smoking in the workplace.

At the end of the walkway was a cozy office with long windows facing out across the working floor; presumably it had once been used by a manager or foreman. Now it was a security station, where six flat-screen monitors relayed pictures from the CCTV cameras. The images were still moving, the cameras panning back and forth, even though there was no one at the controls. The control panel featured a little silver joystick and an array of backlit buttons, one of which was illuminated right now: the caption on it read
AUTO
. On the desk beside the control panel was a plastic tub holding a few crumbs of couscous, a cup of juice and a half-read paperback lying facedown. Its cover showed a solitary figure hitchhiking on an empty road leading nowhere. By the looks of
things, the bloke lying in a heap below the walkway had been on guard duty but had slacked off from sheer boredom.

At the far end of the little office another door led to a steel staircase down to the working floor. I descended as quietly as I could, though I was sure by now there was nobody else here. The unit appeared to be an old transport depot where vehicles had once been maintained; that bitter tang of engine oil takes a long time to die away. There were two troughs in the floor—inspection pits—between hydraulic vehicle lifts, but all the machinery I could see was caked with grease and dust and rust.

In the furthest bay was parked what looked like a small petrol tanker. Was that why matey had been reluctant to smoke inside? Unlike this building, the tanker was relatively new, with gleaming paintwork. Close up, however, I could see that the headlights were splattered with dried-out bugs; this truck had come on a long journey, quite recently—from the continent. It was left-hand drive, with EU license plates. When I pulled open the driver's door I saw the keys were still dangling in the ignition. There was no branding or logo on the tanker itself, just a series of colored labels, the sort all trucks carrying
chemicals were required to show in case they spilled their load in a collision. I didn't know what the letters signified, but even an illiterate like me could understand that icon at the end: a hand with a crater burned into it. Corrosive substance.

Against the far wall stood three oil drums, also plastered with chemical labels—though these were different to the ones on the tanker. Beside them was a long workbench, neatly laid out. At one end shallow trays held reels of colored wire and solder; at the other stood several crates of spring water in glass bottles, swaddled in polythene wrappers; beyond that, a neat stack of boxes that turned out to be cheap pay-as-you-go mobile phones—burners like the Guvnor and his crew used, all brand-new.

Beneath the workbench was a wheeled plastic crate. Pulling it out, I peered inside and found three cheap backpacks, like you'd pick up in a big supermarket—lots of chunky zippers and webbing straps and pouches, but not waterproof, so no good for serious hiking. This was the sort of budget kit that people took to rock festivals, then left behind. One was bright orange; I lifted it out and looked at it more closely. It smelled new, but it looked slightly scuffed, as if someone had kicked it about the place
to age it artificially. And there was something else about it, something familiar, that I couldn't quite place, something that gnawed at the edge of my mind like a rat.

From the street outside came a clink and a jingle. I froze, and listened…but now I heard only silence. Was I getting paranoid? It was probably just a jogger passing by with a pocketful of keys. But the longer I listened the twitchier I felt. No way the Turk would have left a place like this supervised by one man—not all the time. There must have been another guy, who'd slipped out to buy supplies, and was now coming back. But why so quietly? Did he know I was here? If he did, what was he waiting for? For all he knew I could be on the phone to the cops right now. Had he cut his losses and run? That's what I would have done.

There was one way I could find out.

I hurried back across the floor and climbed the stairs back to the supervisor's office, as quietly as I could when taking two at a time. At the bank of monitors I switched off the
AUTO
setting, grabbed the joystick and pushed it to the right, checking the screens to see which monitor I was controlling. The top left-hand camera panned across the entire length
of the road out in front of the factory. There was no one out there. The streets were silent and empty—no traffic, no pedestrians, no joggers, no bikes….

Nothing at all?
The hair prickled on my neck.
That's not right
.

The monitor on the rear of the building was labeled number 6. I punched the button marked 6 and pushed the joystick to the left. The camera responded. Nothing out back either: the white van still nestled its nose against the wire. Beyond the fence the butterfly bushes swayed…was that the night breeze? Light glinted from the direction of the canal and then vanished. But that hadn't been a reflection of a ripple on the water—the shape had been distinctive, very much like…light glinting off a pair of goggles. I paused the camera, and waited.