Pencil torch on: the beam revealed acres of crazy. It was a Health and Safety disaster zone. Washing machines disembowelled, parts strewn across the corridor. Strip lighting that hung from the ceiling, wires exposed. The heat from the fire had penetrated some areas. Plastic ducts and polystyrene ceiling tiles had melted and reformed into grotesque shapes. Water from the fire service hoses had deformed the walls; they were bellied and bowed. There was water underfoot still, in places up to a foot deep. A rat knifed through it, then darted into a metre-wide crack in the wall.
I wondered if this obstacle course had been designed as a primitive warning system, a way of alerting Tann to visitors, because it was impossible to advance without making any noise. If he’s here, a voice said. And I had to go over again all the reasons why he would be here, why he couldn’t fail to be here and—
So maybe he is here. But he could have watched you every step. It could have all been designed to get you to this spot, and even now he’s starting up the bulldozer to push a thousand tons of fuck you on to your own and only escape route.
It’s been a great emotional help to me, that fucking voice. I love how it’s generated from within and yet only ever provides shit information. A bit of cheerleading wouldn’t go amiss from time to time.
I waded through that evil-smelling water, slicked as it was with rainbows of oil and the contents of ruptured pipes. I thought I could hear music from up ahead but that could only be trickery. The beat of the rain on corrugated metal, the chuckle of water through the maze of shattered masonry. Mostly, though, I reckoned it was due to the exhausted lump of tissue at the top of my head. I was hungry and tired and, despite leaning heavily on what Danny Sweet had drummed into me, scared almost to a standstill.
But then I heard something different up ahead. It was less random than everything else. There was purpose in it: it sounded like the opening of a door – a door that no longer sat squarely in its frame and whose hinges were gritted and old. I heard it catch against a sodden, carpeted floor. The judder as it hit resistance and would swing no further. I heard footsteps, light and quick, splashing towards me.
I took out the gun and switched off the safety. It felt so tiny in my hand. I could have been holding a howitzer and I’d be convinced a shell from it would skid off Tann’s body with all the destructive power of a raindrop.
My light picked out movement. Someone rapidly approaching. Someone else carrying a torch. The beams met and slashed across each other, finally pooling between us. My heart loud enough for her to hear.
‘Joel,’ she said.
I wanted to raise the torch, to train the beam of light on her face. To touch it. To study it for hours. To make sure. But I didn’t have to. Not really. Because she had spoken my name and her voice was the same as it had been the last time I heard it, when she was thirteen. Strong, confident, amused. Just like her mum.
I opened my mouth to say something but my tongue and lips had stiffened with shock. I’d imagined this moment so often, albeit in different surroundings, the beautiful tributes and apologies I would deliver, the wisdoms I would impart. Hopes and promises. But now it was here, my voice, if I could only find it, would not have been worthy of her or the situation. There was nothing I could say.
She passed her torch to her other hand and swept her fingers through her long hair. ‘We’re just through here,’ she said, and turned and moved away.
I could smell the perfume in her wake, but although I recognised that, and her posture, and the playfulness and the edge in her voice, I was convincing myself that it was an astonishing imposter, that it was all a brilliant ruse to put me off guard. Up ahead was a trap, and she was complicit.
So, of course, I followed her through the doorway – how could I not? – my hand outstretched, aching to feel her warmth under my fingers once again, and her name trembled in my mouth.