The Devil's Breath (17 page)

Hugging the shadows, McVeigh edged carefully round a litter of abandoned cardboard boxes piled haphazardly outside the restaurant’s back door. Beside them was the biggest of the drain-pipes he’d seen earlier. He tested it, leaning back on the balls of his feet, feeling the brackets moving uneasily in the crumbling brickwork. Then he was up, climbing quickly, his feet moving left and right, looking for support, finding it, the edge of a window-sill, a brick laid out of true. McVeigh climbed higher, 15 to 20 feet, up to the level of the third floor. To his left was a window, with wooden shutters folded back against the wall. Dimly, through the window, he could see the outlines of a sink and a kitchen range. He began to move again, inching upwards, the foot of the drain-pipe a pool of darkness beneath him. The going was harder here, fewer places to find a foothold. The brickwork, too, was rough and he began to worry about the drain-pipe. The last bracket his hand had found had been completely detached at one end, the pipe moving laterally between his knees. Only the tightest of fingertip-holds in cracks between the brickwork kept him anchored to the wall.

Abruptly, beneath him, a door opened in the darkness. Looking down, he saw two figures emerge. They stood beside the pile of cardboard boxes, both smoking. He could smell the burning tobacco. They began to talk softly in Hebrew, chuckling at some private joke. McVeigh closed his eyes for a moment, knowing that a single movement, a single mistake, could give him away. The men might be there for several minutes. Their conversation might go on and on. And his fingers, already, were numb with the weight of his body.

He looked down again. A third man had appeared. He kicked one of the cardboard boxes and then another, as if looking for something. The other men bent into the light from the open door, rummaging in the pile, helping him. McVeigh knew he had to move. Very soon, his fingers would give way. If he
should fall, the job would be over. It would be hospital, and the near-certainty of police proceedings. On the time-sheets he was keeping for Friedland, it would look less than impressive.

McVeigh eased his head around. To his left, protruding from the brickwork above the kitchen window, was a ventilation louvre. It was square. It was about the size of a cake tin. It was made of metal. It looked solid. Judging by the smells, and the whirr of a nearby fan, it ducted stale air from the kitchen. McVeigh eyed it for a moment longer. A simple traverse left, a single movement, would put his feet on the window-sill beneath the louvre. The louvre itself would give him ample anchorage. On a rock-face, the manoeuvre would be child’s-play. Tight against the wall, he could stay up there all night.

McVeigh looked down again. One of the men was up to his waist in cardboard boxes. The others were laughing at him. He closed his eyes for a moment, concentrating, then he eased his hands away from the finger-holds. For a second or two he hung on the drain-pipe, letting his knees take his weight, flexing his fingers, trying to get some feeling back. Then, as the drain-pipe began to pull away from the wall, he stepped quickly sideways, his left hand reaching for the louvre, his left foot finding the window-sill. For a second, his hand still numb, he couldn’t quite place the sensation. Then, as the pain burned through, he realized what he’d done. The louvre was connected directly to the kitchen range. The hot sheet metal had only just begun to cool.

McVeigh clamped his teeth shut, biting his tongue, forcing the instinctive scream back down his throat. Flexing his knees, he crouched against the glass of the window, fanning his hand in the warm night air. Dizzy with the pain, he began to lose his balance, his body tipping out towards the darkness, and he closed his eyes again, knowing that the choice now was all too simple. Either the long drop to the concrete below, or the louvre again, and more flesh shredding from the palm of his hand. He reached up, swallowing hard, tasting the blood in his mouth, knowing in reality that there was no choice, that hot metal was a better friend than gravity.

McVeigh caught hold of the louvre and hung on, both hands,
first one then the other, trying somehow to lessen the pain, telling his mind to ignore it, a simple act of will. Images came flooding back, a decade and a half of serious mountaineering, moments he’d thought he’d long buried. A winter night on a glacier in northern Norway, way up beyond the Arctic Circle, the wind katabatic, the bivvy in shreds. It was worse then, he told himself. Far, far worse. He’d regained consciousness at daybreak, his partner three hours dead, the eyes frozen in his face, the wild stare of terminal exposure. That had been horrible. Ugly, too. This? Now? He opened his eyes and looked down. The men had gone. The door was shut. The light had disappeared. He could hear footsteps receding in the darkness, the sound of a car door, the cough of an engine. He shook his head, hardly believing it, fanning his hands again, trying to relax, leaning back against the window. The worst of the pain had gone now, replaced by a steady throbbing. He held a palm against his cheek. It felt like hamburger, hot and coarse. He swallowed again, fighting the urge to vomit. His only way out now, he knew, was through the window.

The window was metal-framed. One side opened. He could see the catch inside. Leaning against it, he steadied himself and then jabbed hard, backwards, with his elbow. Nothing happened. He moved slightly and tried again, feeling the glass crack, pushing harder, hearing the big shards shatter on a surface inside. Carefully, he reached backwards, feeling for the handle. He found it. Mercifully, the window – designed for exterior shutters – opened inwards. He balanced on the edge of the window-sill for a moment longer, then eased slowly backwards, tiny half-steps, on to a draining-board. He could hear the steady drip-drip of water. He could smell the end of a busy evening, part disinfectant, part stale fat. Lowering himself from the draining-board, he pulled the window closed behind him. In the darkness, he felt for the tap. He turned it on, crying with relief as the cold water sluiced over the raw flesh on his hands.

Ten minutes later, his hands thick with lamb fat from a basting tray and bandaged with strips of rag he’d torn from a washing-up cloth, he was out on the roof of the restaurant. Two flights of stairs and a hatch in the ceiling had given him
access. The roof was flat, latticed with pipes from the air-conditioning unit. One end adjoined Yakov’s apartment block. The drop to the neighbouring roof was less than 8 feet. Under normal circumstances, it would have taken McVeigh perhaps five seconds. Tonight, it was the work of a full minute, levering himself backwards off the taller roof, using his elbows and his toes, risking his hands as little as possible.

The second drop was trickier. Yakov’s roof was also flat. At the front, overlooking the street, there was a raised ledge. From the ledge, McVeigh would be forced to lower himself a full 6 feet, the weight of his body back on his hands, his feet still a 2-metre drop from the floor of Yakov’s balcony. Lying full-length on the roof, peering down, McVeigh weighed the odds. His hands, he knew, he could no longer rely on. There had to be a better way.

Behind the air-conditioning unit and the big water tanks, he found an access door to the apartment block. The door was unlocked. Inside, there was a single flight of concrete steps and another door. McVeigh opened it slowly, a single inch. He could see pictures on a wall, plants in big glazed pots, a stretch of hallway. There were doors leading off the hall. The closest, as it happened, was number seven.

McVeigh slipped into the hall, closing the door behind him. His hands had ballooned on the ends of his arms. They no longer felt part of him, gross white bundles of pain, a steady throb–throb that wouldn’t go away. So far, he knew, he’d been unlucky. What should have been routine had turned into near-disaster. Now, it had to get better. That god he’d first found in the mountains, that spirit he’d relied on ever since, would surely see him through.

The lock on Yakov’s door was old, a three-lever design, and he knew at once that it had been forced before. There were scuff-marks in the wood surround, too deep to be accidental, and when he inserted the thin blade of the knife, feeling for the tongue of the lock, easing it gently backwards, wincing at the pain, he could see the deep gouge inside the jamb. The damage looked recent, thin whiskers of wood still intact. McVeigh gave
the knife a final nudge, grunting when the lock gave and the door opened. He was inside the flat in seconds, closing the door behind him, securing the double bolt. In the darkness, his back to the wall, he closed his eyes, letting the air out of his lungs in one long sigh, feeling the sweat beginning to bead on his face. Air-conditioning, he thought. Still on.

He relaxed for a full minute, letting his eyes readjust to the dark. Slowly, the flat began to make sense. At the end of the hall was a half-open door, a carpet oblonged with light from the street, a pile of clothes at the foot of a bed, the quiet ticking of a clock. There was also a powerful smell of perfume, unnaturally strong. McVeigh hesitated for a moment, thinking of Yakov, how little he’d really known about the man, how strange it was to be in his flat, then he dismissed the thought and moved slowly down the hall towards the half-open door. Bedrooms, in his experience, were where you started. Bedrooms were where people kept their closest secrets.

At the door, McVeigh again hesitated for a moment. Then he was inside and across the room, picking his way between piles of clothes, pulling the curtains, shutting out the light from the street. Turning back into the room, he peered into the darkness. The shapes were what he expected: a big double bed, some kind of dressing-table, a long, narrow mirror in one corner. But he sensed something else about the room that didn’t quite fit. There was glass underfoot. The smell of perfume was even stronger. That, and something far earthier. McVeigh crossed the room again and felt for the wall switch. Only when the light was on did he realize what had disturbed him. The room, systematically, had been wrecked.

He stood by the open door, staring at it. There were clothes strewn everywhere, sheets ripped from the bed. A built-in wardrobe had been emptied, the contents scattered across the floor. McVeigh knelt amongst them, sifting through layers of blouses, jeans, sweat-shirts, formal suits, realizing that the clothes were all female, all Cela’s. The stuff had been torn apart, slashed with a knife, huge rents, nothing left intact. Near by, beneath an upturned drawer, he found underwear – knickers,
bras, a beautiful lace petticoat. He examined them one by one, numbed by the careful knifework, unerring, always the same place, the crotch, the cup of the breast, the belly of the petticoat.

McVeigh looked round. The dressing-table had been swept clean, bottles of perfume and toilet water lying on the floor beside it, the glass smashed, liquid blotching the carpet. McVeigh knelt again, fingering the pools of perfume, trying to determine exactly when the room had been wrecked. Perfume evaporated quickly. This stuff was still damp to the touch.

Back on his feet, McVeigh turned to the bed. The mattress, like the clothes, had been slashed, the knife working left and right, an ugly cross-hatching, diagonal wounds. He gazed at it, chilled. He’d seen dozens of wrecked rooms in his time, most recently his own, but there was something intensely personal about this particular tableau. It was a piece of raw violence, murder without a body. There was a smell of shit, too, and he peered more closely at the mattress, wondering about the exact chain of events. Then he looked up and saw the mirror. The mirror was long and slender. Cela must have used it regularly, every morning probably, checking herself out, readying herself for another day at the office. Now, half-ripped from the wall, it was smeared with excrement, a phrase in Hebrew, words he couldn’t understand. He looked at it for a long time, committing it to memory, the shape of each letter, turning away from a moment, fixing them in his mind, then checking back, making sure he’d got them right.
it went,
.

Picking his way carefully over the debris, McVeigh left the bedroom. The other rooms in the apartment were untouched. A small lounge. A clean, bright kitchen. A tiny bathroom with a pedestal lavatory beside the hand-basin. In each room, taking his time, McVeigh looked for evidence of Yakov – a photo, perhaps, or a sheaf of old letters, anything that might take him a little further than this flat of theirs, a little closer to the truth. But wherever he looked, he found nothing. No clothes, no correspondence, little sign, even, of Cela. She must be away somewhere, he thought, a posting perhaps, or compassionate leave. And whoever had wrecked the bedroom had probably
known it, taking a little trouble in his work, a little pride, making sure that the message was properly understood.