The Tower (3 page)

Troy nodded. Despite the flavour-saver, the guy looked capable enough. Also, he didn't seem the type to make a fuss. Depending on the state they found McIver in, that could be important.

They clattered down the steel stairway and walked across the concrete floor towards the lifts—though only the two goods lifts were in use, according to Randall.

Troy said, ‘Do you need a pass for the stairwells?'

It turned out that you didn't; in fact at the moment you didn't need a pass to get from a stairwell onto any of the floors. Randall went into a little speech about how security had to be a compromise between ideal standards and the requirements of construction. Troy found himself paying attention, despite the irrelevance of most of this. Randall was a natural talker, and it wasn't just the accent. He told Troy there were CCTV cameras trained on the lifts and the stair exits on the ground floor, which was how they knew the killer hadn't come down that way. ‘If there is a killer,' he added.

‘Is there a digital record of lift movements?'

‘No,' said Randall, his amiability dropping a few notches. ‘I wish there was. The system doesn't do that. It can do a lot. Turn a lift on and off. Make a pass inactive with the hit of a button. But there is no historical record.'

‘So we don't know how the victim got up there?'

‘No. But someone was watching the CCTV monitors here all the time from the moment we knew she'd fallen. So we're sure no one has come out of the lifts or the stairwells since she fell. There was no time. And this is the only way out.'

‘Apart from the vehicle exit,' Troy said.

‘Sure. But that's well guarded too, and we've checked the CCTV. Nothing.'

‘We'll need the discs.'

‘Harmer has them already.'

He continued to walk towards the lifts, but Troy stopped and pulled out his notebook to record the information he'd just been given. He'd always assumed construction sites were fairly simple places, but this didn't sound simple. While he was writing, Inspector Harmer left the group of uniforms nearby and came over to him.

‘I don't want anyone up there until we've cleared the building,' she said.

She was very short. Whatever the lower height limit had been when she'd joined the force, she must have only just scraped in.

Troy said, ‘I won't get in the way of your operation.'

‘I believe your colleague's already up there?'

He nodded, and sensed from the look in her eyes that she knew it was McIver, knew something about him, and was not entirely happy. He often saw that look in the eyes of older cops.

‘I can't spare anyone to go up with you at the moment,' she said. ‘Give us half an hour, I'd appreciate it.'

The cop with the clipboard called out to Harmer, waving a mobile phone. She frowned at Troy and looked as though she was about to say more, but then the man called her again, urgency in his voice, and she walked away. Troy gave her a few seconds and then continued on his way to the lifts. If you were in McIver's team, you had to play by his logic. Fuzzy logic. If Harmer did know him, she'd realise this.

‘Everything okay?' said Randall.

‘Fine.'

The lift doors opened and they got in. The lift was big, with posters on the battered metal walls advertising safety regulations and a union finance company. As they ascended, Randall was quiet, staring at the flashing numbers above the door, biting his lip. He was wearing a bulky orange jacket now, and holding two hard hats. He handed one to Troy, and told him he had to put it on.

‘OH and S,' he said.

Troy put it on, and thought about what he'd learned so far.

‘It's Bazzi, isn't it?'

The Irishman's face was blank. ‘What's Bazzi?'

‘You record the name of everyone who comes onto the site?'

‘If they're walking. And if it's a van, we check the driver's ID and record the rego number. Make sure it's supposed to be here.'

‘Well,' Troy said, ‘for a woman to be on the site with no record, the shift manager must be involved. It would take some arranging. I don't see how it could be done otherwise.'

Randall said nothing, his eyes still fixed on the flashing numbers. Then, as the lift stopped at level thirty: ‘Until tonight, I had every reason to trust the fellow.'

The first thing Troy noticed when the doors opened was the wind. Randall had been zipping up his jacket in the lift, and now Troy knew why. Thirty storeys above the ground, no windows, the wind came straight at you, right through your clothes like you were being snapfrozen. The two men stepped out of the lift and the doors closed behind them. Apart from a light next to a stairwell nearby, the floor was in darkness. The temperature seemed to drop another few degrees.

Troy shivered. ‘Sarge?' he called.

There was no answer, and the wind was so loud it was unlikely he'd be heard anyway. Taking out his mobile, he turned his back to the wind and dialled McIver's number. He put the phone to his ear but there was so much noise he could hardly make out the dial tone.

Randall had produced a powerful torch from somewhere. He turned it on and they walked around the floor, bare concrete with occasional piles of pipes and cable. They moved cautiously because of the darkness. Randall talked as they went. Maybe it was nerves, but he seemed to feel a compulsive need to explain everything they saw, yelling to make himself heard above the noise of the wind. Troy resisted the urge to tell him to shut up.

When they got to the edge of the floor Troy saw it was ringed with an impressive-looking steel fence broken at one point by a gap. This led onto the landing platform, which protruded a few metres from the side of the building. The wind was coming more strongly through the gap, and he felt it as he walked out and looked over the side. Far below he could see the enclosure that had been placed around the police car, illuminated by the lights inside so that it resembled a lampshade. He stepped back, the rain on his face, and looked around the desolate platform. Its base was made of iron plates, slick with water, and it would be easy to climb over the metal walls. Or be thrown. There were no shoes here, no coat or handbag. With some relief he went back onto the solid concrete, and they continued their search.

After they'd been around half the floor, with Randall yelling out comments, Troy suggested they split up. He wanted to send him back to the part they'd already covered, just to get the sound of him out of the way. But Randall said he thought they should stick together. He put out an arm as he said it, as though wanting to stop Troy from leaving him.

Troy called McIver's number again, and this time held it to his ear until it rang out. Bloody McIver, he thought. Should never have let him out of my sight. Then he heard something else—a cracking sound.

‘That was a fucking gun!' said Randall.

Troy felt anxiety start to form in his stomach. ‘Do you think the noise came from above or below?' he said, hurrying towards the stairwell.

‘Below.' Randall sounded panicky.

Troy thought it had come from above, although with the wind you couldn't be sure. He wondered what McIver would have done, whether he would have gone up towards one group of searchers or down towards the other.

‘Let's go up,' he decided.

Troy stepped into the stairwell cautiously. Randall almost pushed him inside and shut the door behind them. It was very bright.

‘You keep the lights on all the time?'

Randall nodded jerkily. ‘OH and S,' he muttered, as though this explained everything.

Troy stood for a few moments listening. There was no noise. He reached beneath his coat and pulled out his gun.

‘Have you ever shot anyone with that?' Randall asked, looking at the pistol.

‘I've never drawn it in my current position,' Troy said. ‘Homicide's a safe job. Usually.'

‘It's a Glock, isn't it?'

‘It's a Glock.'

They climbed the stairs to the next level and he steeled himself and opened the door and stepped out. This floor was dark too, and at first glance seemed identical to the floor below, but Troy sensed a difference in the atmosphere. Reminding himself to breathe, trying not to hold his weapon too tightly, he whispered to Randall to turn off his torch and stay back. Instinctively, he began to walk towards the goods lifts. Just before he reached the corner, a figure came stumbling around it towards him. Troy raised his gun, but dropped his arm when he saw it was McIver, clasping his left shoulder and clearly on the point of collapse.

‘Two of them at the lifts,' he gasped, opening his arms to Troy. ‘One armed with a pistol. Mine.' For a moment the expression of pain on the sergeant's face was replaced by a scowl. Troy reached out and grabbed him beneath his leather jacket, taking his weight, seeing there was blood on his face. He could smell the alcohol on McIver's breath, and the stink of his sweat.

McIver sagged and put his good arm around Troy, and the two men clung to each other in an awkward embrace, the Glock in Troy's right hand now under the sergeant's left armpit, caught beneath his jacket. Troy was about to lower the sergeant to the ground when a man appeared.

The man took a step forwards and Troy saw that he was waving a gun.

‘Give me your pass to the lifts,' he demanded.

An accent, possibly Indian. Troy peered at his face. Maybe Afghan or Pakistani.

‘We're police officers. Let me put Sergeant McIver down, he's been shot,' Troy said, trying to keep his voice calm and level.

This seemed to upset the man. ‘Just give me the pass,' he said, ‘or I will shoot you.' He sounded agitated, and the hand holding the gun was shaking.

‘Why don't you put the gun down?' Troy said. ‘This man's a police officer and—'

‘Is he dead?' the man cried.

‘No, he's not dead.'

Despite his racing pulse, Troy found he was thinking quite clearly. The man sounded terrified. If he had killed the woman who'd come off the building, he might do anything to get away.

‘I'll just put this man down so I can reach for the pass,' Troy said loudly and slowly. He wondered where Randall was, if he could hear. ‘I can't reach it at the moment.'

As he spoke he felt McIver gathering himself, taking his own weight on the left side. Troy was able to adjust his right hand slightly.

‘Throw me the pass right away or I'm going to shoot.' As the man brought his other arm up to steady his grip on the gun, Troy was certain the man was about to shoot them. He pulled the trigger of his own weapon, firing through the back of McIver's leather jacket.

The shot struck the man in the chest. He looked surprised but didn't fall. Troy fired again, and the man collapsed.

The wind was louder now, blowing across the floor, blowing right through him. Just like that, he thought. Just like that, I have killed a man. Never done that before. He wondered why he felt so calm. Slowly, he lowered McIver to the ground. He looked around but, as he'd expected, Randall was nowhere to be seen.

When he looked back at the man he'd shot, he saw that another man had darted from the shadows. He was kneeling on the ground next to the dead man, shaking him and calling out in evident distress. Troy sprang to his feet and pointed his gun at the newcomer. ‘Police,' he yelled. ‘Stand up and put your hands in the air.'

In the semi-darkness he could not see what had happened to the dead man's gun. On the ground, McIver groaned.

The kneeling man stood up slowly. There was something in one of his hands, but it looked too bulky to be a gun. Troy kept his own weapon trained on the man, telling himself not to press the trigger by mistake.

‘Move slowly away from the body,' he yelled. ‘Place any items in your hands on the ground, place your hands on your head.'

He knew he was making the right moves. They trained you for this, and now the training was kicking in.

But the man must have been to a different course. He took a few steps and then bolted into the shadows. Troy just stood there, trying to make out his footsteps. Then there was the sound of a door banging shut nearby; the man had doubled back around the core of the building. Now there were muffled shouts in the stairwell. Randall must have taken refuge there, and the man had run into him.

Then there was nothing except the noise of the wind. Dropping to one knee next to McIver, he took his coat off and rolled it up, putting it beneath the sergeant's head, fumbling in the gloom. McIver's eyes were closed and he appeared to have lost consciousness. He heard the stairwell door slam again, and just as he was rolling McIver onto his side a torch beam illuminated the sergeant's body. It was wavering and Troy yelled for Randall to keep it still.

‘He took my pass,' Randall said. ‘He hit me.'

He sounded distressed but Troy didn't look up. He used the light to examine McIver, wondering why he was unconscious when he'd been shot in the upper arm. There was a lot of blood on his head too—the hair at the back was warm and sticky—yet there was no sign of a gunshot wound there.

Randall pulled off his padded jacket and laid it over McIver's lower body to keep him warm. Now he was speaking into his radio, asking for Bazzi, talking to someone else, then to Harmer, reporting that McIver had been shot. Randall's teeth were chattering as he spoke, and Troy was shivering himself. The wind had picked up.

‘Tell her he might have McIver's weapon, and tell her about your pass,' Troy called out. ‘And get the torch over here.'

He needed to look at the man he'd shot, see if McIver's gun was gone, but at the moment it was more important to stay here, keep pressure on McIver's arm and make sure he didn't choke.

He felt angry. Not angry that McIver had got himself shot, or even angry at the man who had shot him, but angry that the sergeant was unconscious, that there might be something seriously wrong with him and that he didn't know what it was. That he was helpless to fix it.