In Place of Death (41 page)

‘Seriously. It's a ground-floor and garden apartment. Built around 1870 in solid brick. Private rear garden. Four bedrooms.'

Her mouth opened wide. ‘What do we need with four bedrooms?'

‘Well I thought your dad could come to us a couple of days a week. It's big enough to hold all of us and we can—'

She moved forward and her mouth was on his before he could say another word. It was a while before she let him go. When she did it was to tell him to stop talking.

‘It's been a perfect pitch. Don't ruin it by saying anything else.'

‘That's a yes then?'

‘It's a yes. You do know it's not going to be easy having my dad live with us even for a couple of days and that it will only get more difficult?'

‘I know. But we'll manage.'

‘We'd need some help but there's a carer at the home. Jess. We could maybe ask her to come out parttime. Tony, I love you. But, hang on a second, how can we afford a
four-bedroom in Bellhaven Terrace when only one of us is working?'

He smiled. ‘Ah. That's my other bit of news. I've got a job.'

‘You've got a
what?'

‘Photo journalist with the
Scottish Standard.
I start in two weeks.'

‘But that's fantastic. I mean, how? What do you know about journalism? And how long have you known about this?'

‘Which question do you want me to answer first? I knew about it two days ago. Just in time to take the redundancy package. The timing couldn't have been better. The
Standard
liked what I did with Euan's piece on the Rosewood and they know I can take photographs. I'm a money-saver and seeing as newspapers are run by accountants just like everything else
these days, then it's a no-brainer for them. It's just a six-month contract but it's down to me to make a go of it. They also like the fact that I've got police contacts . .
.'

Her eyes widened.
‘What?
You mean
me?
No chance. Have you not got us into enough trouble? Have we not been through this? You can take your new notebook and pen and shove
it.'

He grabbed her by the waist and pulled her close. ‘Can I quote you on that?'

She smiled. ‘No comment.'

 

THE END

The nature of exploring abandoned buildings often means doing so in a limited window of opportunity before they are either demolished or refurbished. The same complication
applies to writing about them. For that reason, and for my own convenience, I have changed the dates that some of the buildings written about lay empty. For example, the Odeon Cinema was demolished
in 2013 rather than 2015 and the Central Hotel was temporarily closed in 2006 rather than 2009.

Given that I was writing about exploration, it is perhaps appropriate that I managed to get hopelessly lost halfway through the creation of this book. I owe a huge vote of thanks to those that
rescued me, most notably my agent Mark ‘Stan' Stanton, my editor at Simon & Schuster, Jo Dickinson, and my patient and brilliant partner Alexandra Sokoloff.

My greatest thanks go to those that went before: the urban explorers whose reports and photographs opened up a hidden world that cried out to be written about. In particular, I'd like to
express my gratitude for the time and knowledge of the only urbexer known to have walked the Molendinar Tunnel, Ben Cooper.