Chapter 29

THE RED ON THE DOOR

Hallam’s dad would’ve told him, “Don’t get involved.”

But then, Hallam’s dad kept himself to himself. He needed to—being gay on Barrowmore wasn’t something you advertised. Apart from in the beaten-up telephone kiosks where you pinned a scrap of paper with your number on it. Apart from the piss-smelling elevators where you graffitied an image of your cock with your contact details on the shaft. Apart from the shit-coated public toilet where you lurked in the cubicles, staring through the round hole at groin level in the wall . . . waiting.

His dad had come out fifteen years ago. His mum walked out.

Hallam was twenty-two, Mummy’s boy and Daddy’s punchbag.

And it didn’t change. His father started drinking heavily. He beat Hallam. He sneaked men back to the flat. Tough guys who’d say, “I’m not fucking queer, right, but . . . ”

Hallam listened to their sex and pined for his mother. He’d weep while his father fucked truckers and doormen. And after he was done, Dad would come into Hallam’s room and say, “Stop your fucking crying, you little queer—she’s gone. Women are no fucking good. You hear me? You hear me? You hear me, you little—”

Mummy’s boy and Daddy’s punchbag.

His dad died three years ago. He left Hallam with nothing.

The council let him stay in the flat. They’d never chuck him out. He was on benefits and couldn’t work because of his mental state. He’d be homeless and more doomed than he already was.

He still cried for his mum. Photos of her plastered the corkboard in the kitchen, covered the door of the fridge, and crammed the mantelpiece.

But she wasn’t coming back.

What would she have said?

Don’t get involved.

Too late. He followed the road around the tower blocks. It led him along streets of low rise housing. It took him to an area dominated by lock-ups.

The silence was heavy.

In the distance, you could hear Barrowmore’s voice—the traffic, the music, and the shouting.

But the sound was muffled, as if an invisible wall separated life on the estate from this other dimension.

He sneaked down the road, staying close to the red brick wall on his right. On the left lay the garages, lined up like coffins.

They were black with age, rotted and battered. They creaked in the wind.

Where had the lads gone?

He looked to his right. They might have scaled the wall. But it was twelve feet high. It would take some climbing. And security wire curled along the top of it. That would slice up your hands.

He dismissed that option and moved on.

Noises came from a lock-up. He flinched. It sounded like scuttling.

Rats, probably. He shuddered. They were everywhere. The flats were plagued by them. He’d had a Jack-Russell-sized one in his kitchen a few months ago.

He hurried past the garage, hearing a squealing behind him as he went.

He groaned.

What the hell was that? Maybe a cat caught a rat?

He stopped dead. Up ahead, a garage door sagged off its hinges. Red paint covered the corrugated steel. Hallam narrowed his eyes, trying to make out what the paint said.

He swallowed and moved nearer.

The door swayed. The hinges creaked. Hallam held his breath.

THIS IS HELL was daubed there.

The words glistened. The letters ran. It was freshly written. He smelled the paint. It wasn’t paint. It smelled different. He approached. The red was dark. The red smelled coppery.

The red was blood.

THIS IS HELL.

The hinges creaked. Hallam screamed. His balls went up into his belly. The door swung open. Paul Sharpley hung crucified on the back of it.