Harvest (12 page)

“
You haven’t miscarried
this time.” Gary’s hand joined hers affectionately over her
stomach.

Deborah sighed with hurt.
“What do you mean,
‘this
time’
?” She snatched her hands free of his in
protest.

“
Darlin’!” he placated as
he retook her hand in a tight reassuring grip. Before he could
explain himself the door to the cluttered white room sprung
open.

The young oriental nurse
returned, stretching latex gloves onto her hands and pinching bangs
of black hair behind her ears. “I got the gel...” She waved a hefty
tube before them and rolled her eyes. “Wish people would replace
this stuff when they use it.” The nurse came close and squeezed the
tube hard. “This’ll be cold;
but I’m sure you know
that by now.”
The clear gel oozed onto her stomach in
a glistening lump.

Pulling the screen around to
face her, the nurse pulled the scanner probe from the trolley and
trailed the thick coiled wire over her shoulder to avoid dragging
it across her patient. She pushed the bulbous lens of the probe
into the gel and spread it out firmly in a circling motion. “You
might feel a little discomfort. It won’t hurt the baby though.”

The nurse looked to her monitor
and frowned as she worked. She pushed the probe harder, more
determinedly. “Okay...” she announced, distracted, her dark narrow
eyes transfixed on the screen. “I’m just going to get someone to
come and take a look...”

“
What’s wrong?” Deborah
shifted on the bed. Raising herself forward over her bump as far as
she could. “Is the baby okay?” she yelped.

The nurse looked awkwardly from
Deborah to the monitor, unsure what to say but trying to look
reassuring despite her ochre skin going blotchy pink on her cheeks.
“Probably just a problem with the machine...” the nurse explained
as she backed out of the room.

“
What
do you think it is?
I knew there was something
wrong.
It just feels wrong...
All
wrong,”
Deborah’s speech raced, tears forming in her
eyes while her voice struggled for clarity.
“I’m so
sorry, Gary.”

Gary put his arm round her and
pulled her head to his. “Babe, don’t worry, it’s never been your
fault. Come on, don’t cry – things will be okay, it might be the
machine.”

Deborah stared at the back of
the monitor, the screen ominously hidden from them. The fear
climbed up inside her chest in crushing handholds. Half of her
resolve wanted to turn the screen round, while the other half
restrained her anxious curiosity, fearful of what she might
see.

The nurse came in with a male
Asian doctor, who seemed anxious to deal with the problem and be
gone, only giving Deborah a cursory acknowledgement. The nurse
picked up the probe and repeated the procedure to demonstrate for
the doctor.

The doctor groaned impatiently,
obviously wanting to return to whatever he had been dragged from,
and snatched the probe from her. He ran it roughly over Deborah,
seemingly with a mentality of if it is not working then be forceful
with it until it does.

Puzzled, he sighed and flicked a few
switches on the monitor and re-applied the probe more diligently,
with even less respect for comfort. His face wrinkled then smoothed
out into blankness. He looked Deborah in the face warily and
applied his stethoscope to her stomach and then re-applied it, and
then again. The doctor looked from the probe to the screen that
held the grainy black and white view of her pulsing insides and the
dark cavernous space where the baby boy should have been.

Rachel hesitated on the path to
the Heights main entrance as David stopped. He put the two large
cases of technical equipment on the ground and lit up another
roll-up. He had had six cigarettes on their way to the tower. He
had the ability to roll one one-handed whilst driving that caused
Rachel to sink her fingernails into the upholstery, terrified.

She watched him brush his wild
mop of dark hair from his eyes as he scanned the drab body of the
towering flats. He turned to her and shoved his thick bifocals back
onto the bridge of his nose. “Are you sure this isn’t some
elaborate scheme for them to get satellite TV installed? There are
a distinct lack of satellite dishes here,” he wondered dryly,
rubbing the thick stubble of his neck.

“
Is that snobbery I
hear?” Rachel raised a warning eyebrow at him and grinned. David
shrugged his body in a half-laugh before dragging from his
painfully thin roll-up cigarette pinched between his nicotine
stained finger and thumb. He smoked them down to a stub that he had
to hold with precision.

“
Actually, this building
is being considered for preservation by the National
Heritage.”

“
Prince Charles is at it
again.”

Rachel dismissed his mutterings
with a humouring grin. “I think we might actually stand a chance of
catching something on film this time.” Rachel looked about them as
they got closer to the entrance. “Apparently they had two unusual
activities yesterday, one just after I left, and another in the
evening. A door slamming in an empty room and then later, a flash
of green light in the lounge. Claire rang me last night,
terrified.”

“
Even if we do catch
anything on camera, will anyone ever believe it?” David replied
cynically. David flicked the remainder of his cigarette sparking
onto the path and he hefted the boxes back up into his arms and
they resumed the short journey to the main entrance.

Rachel operated the intercom to
Claire’s flat. She looked through the glass door and her eyes
settled upon Catherine’s letter box. On her previous visit Rachel
had managed to resist the strong urge to hunt Cat down. She hoped
that her visits would result in a chance meeting, she fantasised of
it leading to a reunion. “You weren’t a believer. You haven’t seen
or heard anything that couldn’t be explained rationally, yet you
have done a lot of these stakeouts now.” She smiled smugly. “Now
look at you, you’re a spook junky! Maybe all it needs is a
willingness to believe, and then if we do find something you will
accept it.”

Claire’s voice crackled out of
the intercom over David’s chuckle. “I’ll buzz you up, Rachel.”

Perhaps no word from Cat meant
she really didn’t need Rachel after all, just like Cat had told her
so spitefully the last time they had spoken. The rejection didn’t
alleviate the overbearing weight of her unfulfilled responsibility.
She didn’t dwell on that, it was too painful. The door buzzed
loudly and Rachel took the cue and pushed it. It rattled in its
place but remained firmly closed. She tried again before the buzzer
cut out, but it refused. Rachel sagged and rolled her eyes and she
languidly stabbed the intercom once more. “Claire, it’s not working
again...”

Maggie Riley headed toward the
lift from her flat on the fifth floor. Squeezing past the pram she
prodded the buttons to summon the lift then bobbed her head down
into the hood of the pram. “Hullo, baby boy!” she cooed. She looked
above the lift doors to see where the lifts were. One was on the
twelfth floor while the other was on the fourteenth. Neither of
them seemed to be moving. Maggie looked back to the baby. “Nana’s
gonna take you shopping!” She pressed the call buttons again but
frowned as she noticed they didn’t light up. She stabbed them
repeatedly just to make sure. She smiled broadly down at her
grandson but spoke through gritted teeth. “Nanna’s got to take you
down the bloody stairs. Won’t that be fun?” she cooed
sarcastically. “This is where Nanna gets her hip
replacement...”

She pushed the pram down the
corridor, leaned on the heavy fire door to open it onto the stairs
and stepped backwards onto the concrete landing. There were no
lights within the stairwell in the day as the large windows that
ran the height of the building were meant to provide all the
required light. However, the morning sun was the other side of the
building, which left the stairs overcast and the corners of the
landings blanketed with hazy webs of cloying grey shadow. Stepping
back further to pull the pram through the door, she met the
banister with her back and caught a view of the sheer vertical drop
over the side into the echoing depths. Her instinctual fear of
heights made demands on her danger sense, but she quickly and
strictly dismissed them.

Her bones and weak muscles
groaned and stretched inside her as she struggled awkwardly with
the weight of the fire door with one hand, sacrificing her balance
to keep a steadying grip on the pram as she dragged it through the
gap.

A blaze of light streamed
screaming past her, leaving a green stain on her retina. Something
rushed through the light and the pram was slammed from her grip.
The force of it yanked her from her feet and she smashed into the
floor. Her jaw impacted on the concrete sending hot blood spurting
from between her lips as the blow jarred her teeth loose. The arm
that had trailed after the pram failed to break her fall and the
cartilage in her socket made a sickening grinding sound. Maggie’s
fear overrode the physical pain at the sound of the heart-stopping
clatter of the pram crashing down the flight of stairs ahead of
her. She screamed for God’s help and dragged her head up in time to
see the pram upturn scattering the blankets and stuffed toys on the
landing below.

With her numb arm Maggie pushed
herself upright and dragged her legs round onto the stairs, then
pulled painfully on the banister until she stood on her shaking
withered pin legs. She hobbled down the steps as quickly as she
could, leaning heavily on the banister rail, more sliding and
stumbling than actually running. She dropped awkwardly to the
floor, diving into the bundle of covers, praying she wouldn’t find
the warmth and wet of spilt blood.

“
Jamie... Oh, my God;
Jamie!” she sobbed as she searched. Blood from her broken nose ran
from her face, patting onto the concrete and the pram, blotting
into the fibres of the soft pastel blankets. She pulled at the
covers frantically but found nothing. She stopped her search
abruptly; fear washed over her like an icy plunge, the hairs
bristled on the back of her neck in a tingling wave of realisation
that chased up onto her scalp. She twisted on her seat to the
banisters beside her and the killer drop beyond. Her body gave up
on her.

The fire door closed gently on
her plight, carried home by the automatic hydraulic arm. Before it
closed, the sound of the lift arriving echoed tauntingly down the
corridor into the stairwell.

Chapter
Nine

Claire pressed the door buzzer
and pulled the door open for Rachel and David. Claire appeared
beyond pale with the lack of sleep and worry, looking almost
translucent with faint blue veins below the surface of her skin
giving her the appearance of fragile marble. A strained smile
chiselled and cracked her face into lines she shouldn’t have.

“
I’m starting to think
this door doesn’t like you.”

Rachel stepped through, closely
followed by David struggling up the steps with his load. Rachel
noticed Claire studying David; the new addition. Rachel knew that
his unshaven appearance with his unkempt locks, scruffy black jeans
and tee-shirt with its gaudy zombie thrashing at a Stratocaster,
presented him more like a middle-aged heavy metal fan than the
professional boffin he was. He added the final touch to his first
impression by setting his load down and roughly thumbing his faded
jeans up over his partly bared underwear and beer belly. Rachel
smiled as encouragingly as she could manage in Claire’s direction
whilst making a mental note to buy David a belt.

The second lift at the back of
the lobby opened and Craig strolled out. “Not late, am I?”

“
Just in time!” Rachel
hurried through the introductions then addressed Craig. “Just in
time to take these boxes up for David, Dave can start dragging the
rest of his equipment up while Claire and I get the kettle
on.”

Dave dumped the boxes
into Craig’s arms in a deadpan gesture of “welcome to my world”.
Rachel stood, her attention once again caught by the mosaic on the
lobby wall. She ignored the twisting maze of colours, and the
sweeping curls and spirals that lured her away from its secret
image and tried to search for the shape again. Her eyes strained to
blink free of the stare, but she focussed all her willpower into
ignoring the uncomfortable tingling of her eyes drying so that she
could continue to try and unlock its visual encryption. She locked
onto a subtle change of shade and followed it. The picture suddenly
opened itself up under her study and she quickly allowed herself to
blink and lubricate her eyes. The shape she had found was
immediately lost again, but she already recognised the large
trident-like symbol. It was a Runic letter. The rune of
“Algiz”.

Now she knew what she was
looking for it was easy to find the symbol again. Rachel discretely
caught David’s arm before he could leave to collect more equipment
and pointed out her discovery. “Look, that’s odd, seems the person
who did this mural had a bit of the spiritual about them. That’s a
runic symbol. Thought to be a symbol of protection.”

“
If you
say so,” he shrugged and waited for Craig to waddle past with his
inherited load, then leaned in close to Rachel.
“Not
really working so well though, is it?”

Rachel took four mugs from the
mug tree and dragged the tea caddy towards her while Claire filled
the kettle. Rachel stopped herself, suddenly conscious of making
herself comfortable in someone else’s home, she said, “I hope you
don’t mind... It’s just I’m used to playing mum.”