Wanting (19 page)

He tried to shut the ticking out of his mind, thinking of tomorrow and wondering how many rounds of tea he’d have to make. Today had been twenty-three, with two coffees thrown in for good measure, and Cheryl from reception had even had the cheek to ask him to nip to the local Tesco and get her a carton of orange juice. It had got him out of the office, but fucking hell, he wasn’t employed to stand in a queue behind several other people—mostly mothers with red-faced, yowling children in the trolley seats—wishing he was anywhere but there.

The tick of the clock faded away. Blackness crowded at the edges of his mind, growing as it crept towards the centre of the supermarket scene in his mind, and he knew sleep would embrace him soon.

“You didn’t find me.”

The male voice, such a
quiet
whisper, almost went unnoticed, but the hairs on the back of Oliver’s neck stood on end, goosebumps streaking from there to cover his skin. The air chilled. He snapped his eyes open, seeing Langham’s silhouette as the man slept on his side, and the top half of the alarm clock face, green numbers and the tips of the hands glowing. He pushed up on one elbow, peering over Langham to see the time was eleven o’clock. He’d been lying there an hour, then, waiting for sleep to come. It hadn’t seemed that long. Had he drifted off without realising it, the voice coming to him in a dream?

“Hello?”

No, it hadn’t. The voice was louder this time, still a whisper but one full of urgency and pleading. The harshness of it brought more goosebumps, chilled the air some more, and he had the horrible thought that this spirit might not be a good one. Oliver sat up carefully, not wanting to wake Langham unless he had to.

Someone spoke inside his head.

“Are you there?”

Yes, he was there, but he had the unnerving question of whether the voice was from someone alive or dead. Since he’d been able to communicate with Adam, he now didn’t have any clue—they sounded the same.

“Can you hear me?”

Oliver nodded—stupid, really, if it was a living person, because they wouldn’t be able to see him. He got out of bed, making sure the mattress didn’t spring up and disturb Langham, and left the room, closing the door behind him. He went into the living room, heading for the kitchen on the other side.

“Yep, I hear you.” He picked up the kettle to check how much water was inside. There was enough for him to have a cuppa, so he switched it on. “Who are you?” He took a cup off the mug tree and spooned coffee and sugar into it.

“Simon. I’m Simon.”

“Alive or dead?” Blunt, but Oliver was tired, and he needed to know.

“Um, dead?”

“Shit. Okay, where are you? I don’t mean whether you’re here with me, either. Where is your body?”

“In this warehouse
.”

“Aww, fuck. That case is closed. All the men involved were arrested months ago. Is that you, Jason? Thomas?”

“Who are they? And I know the case is closed. But you didn’t find me. I’ve been…waiting. But after the foxes found me, bit my feet and legs… There isn’t much of me left, and while there’s still a bit, I want my parents to have something to bury. You can still see it’s me. Kind of.”

“Oh, Jesus. All right, uh…” The images he conjured in his mind weren’t pretty. He saw a man with the skin gnawed off his body, bones protruding, a rope of intestines dangling from a lower belly that had been sliced open with a knife. Unsure whether he’d thought that up himself or whether he was being shown, he swiped the visuals away. Took milk from the fridge and made his coffee. “What’s left of you?”

“Hair. Skin. Stuff poured out of me after a while, you know? Like, I watched myself bloating then shrinking, and the amount of shit inside me. Fuck, it all came out.”

“Fucking hell.” He swallowed down bile. “Right. I get the picture. So, do you know which warehouse it is?”

“No, but I know what it looks like.”

Oliver sighed inwardly and took a sip of coffee. Burnt his tongue. Not knowing where the warehouse was would prove a pain in the arse if this bloke didn’t give him some decent landmarks to go on. He could only hope he would.

“It’s bright orange.”

Oliver knew the location immediately. The warehouse, an oblong metal behemoth, sat on top of a hill behind the retail park off Gainsborough Avenue. It had been used in the past as a place for people to store their shit, for a price, but the company had gone bust several months ago. It now stood empty, a huge, white hanging tarpaulin ‘FOR SALE’ sign on the front, red letters visible from the road when he waited at the lights—those bloody, seemingly never-changing lights—to turn into the retail park.

“I know it. We’ll be there soon.”

“You will? Really?”

“Yep, we will.”

“I couldn’t get through before. I tried, but it was too hard, and then the others came, and they said you were the one to speak to and I tried again. Every day I tried, and tonight was going to be my last time and, well, here we are.”

“Don’t worry. You’ll be able to move on now, right?”

“Yes, but…God, I can’t even tell you what’s bothering me. You’ll see when you get there.”

“What? What’s bothering you?”

“It doesn’t matter. It’s vanity. Shouldn’t be letting it affect me now, not when it isn’t important. I’m not there, am I? I’m…here. Somewhere else. That body isn’t…me.”

Oliver waited for more, blowing on his coffee then drinking, making one for Langham one-handed at the same time. There was hardly a rush if Simon had been there a while, was there. Still, a sense of urgency gripped him suddenly, and he quickly finished making Langham’s brew. He took it into the bedroom and sat on his lover’s side of the bed.

“Langham?” He shook him gently. “Langham?”

The detective rolled onto his back and peered at him in the gloom. Faint light from the open door cast a murky blade on the bed beside him, and his eyes looked unfocused, the lids heavy.

“Huh? Morning already?”

“No. Here, I’ve brought you coffee.” Oliver waited for Langham to sit up and take the cup. “Someone spoke to me.”

“Aww, shit. Fuck’s sake!” He rubbed his eyes with the knuckles of one hand at the same time as bringing the cup to his lips.

“Someone from Queer Rites.”

“What!” Langham was wide awake then, sitting more upright, eyes bright, coffee sloshing over the cup rim and dripping onto the quilt.

“Not a new one. Don’t worry, they haven’t got a second group doing that shit.” Oliver stood and went to the wardrobe, getting some clothes out for both of them—jeans, T-shirts, sweaters.

“Thank fuck,” Langham said. “Who is it? Where?”

Oliver dumped the clothes on the bed and began dressing. “Some bloke called Simon. He’s in that orange place off Gainsborough.”

“The old storage warehouse? Fucking hell, they were pushing their luck using that.”

“Doesn’t look like they did, does it? Simon hasn’t been found—if he was, we’d have known about it.”

“True, but you’d have thought… I know the place went bust, but you’d think people would have visited it to buy it, you know? Prime place for business, that.”

“Obviously not.” Dressed now, Oliver strode towards the bathroom. “Are you going to shift your arse from the bed so we can get out there?”

“Yeah, yeah, give me five more minutes. I need to call it in, anyway. Besides, it’s not like we don’t know who put him there, is it?”

* * * *

Those bastard lights refused to change again. No one in front of them waiting to turn into the retail park, and no one behind. Yet the red light remained, staring down at them like a strange, knowing eye. Oliver sighed, trying to hold in his irritation. He knew there was no rush this time, but a sense of getting there fast for the spirit’s sake had got hold of him. What if them finding Simon was the only way he could move on? What if, now the killers had been apprehended, this was the last link for Simon, the last thin thread keeping him here? Oliver wanted to help the man let go.

The light switched to amber, seeming to stay that way for endless moments before it gave in and went green. Langham turned onto Gainsborough, ignoring the turn-off to the left for the retail park, and climbed the steep hill road where the orange warehouse sat. Oliver stared at the monstrosity, its colour rendered a dull, rusty red with the moonlight shining behind it. The rear of the flat roof had treetops peeking over, although Oliver sensed them to be some distance away. A car park stood at the back, he knew that as though he’d been up here before, enough space for a hundred or so cars. A forest spread out from its far edge, where the foxes lived, no doubt.

As they drew closer, Oliver made out the blue streaks of light from the roofs of other officers’ cars, cutting intermittent swatches in the darkness, bringing the bright orange of the warehouse front into view. There was a second or two where it seemed as though the whole world had held its breath before sighing, a signal that everyone could proceed. Langham steered left and parked beside two police cars there, switching off the engine and taking a deep inhalation.

“Ready?” he asked, tapping his fingers on the steering wheel.

“Not really. Never am, but not to worry.” Oliver got out, his legs feeling heavy, his body weary but his mind fully alert. He closed the door, the sound like a slam in the eerie quiet. He followed Langham to four uniformed officers standing outside, one set of their car headlights casting them in a white glow.

“We waited for you, sir,” one of them said, a blond, six-foot-or-so man with a thin moustache that looked like it couldn’t quite make up its mind whether to grow thicker or not.

“Right.” Langham went to a set of glass doors. “Anyone find out who owns this place?” he called back.

“Yes,” a black-haired officer said, “but they’re on holiday.”

“You checked for other entrances?” he asked.

“Yes, sir. One at the back. Padlocked roller door. Some windows up top, too high to get to without a ladder.”

“Anyone got a rammer in their boot?”

“Yes, sir,” Officer Blond said.

“On you go, then.” Langham nodded to him. “Break the glass.” He walked back to Oliver. “How the fuck did they get in if the back’s padlocked?”

Oliver shrugged. “Maybe they broke it then put another on there?”

“But what about an alarm?” Langham toyed with his chin.

“Might not have one. I’d say it’s empty. Nothing to steal.”

“Yeah, but still. There’s an opportunity for vandalism. Squatters. The owner isn’t bothered about that?” He shook his head. “Makes you wonder, doesn’t it. Owner supposedly goes bust, is skint, then fucks off on holiday?”

“You think the owner could be involved?”

“No idea. Needs looking into, though.”

Two stout barks of sound made Oliver jump, then the shattering of glass further twanged his nerves. No alarm went off—that answered one question—and Officer Blond propped the rammer against the wall then reached inside to open the door. It must have been kept secure with a simple knob mechanism that turned and clicked the lock into place, because the door opened when the officer pushed it inwards. Maybe the owner locked those doors from the inside and left the building via the rear roller. There was no keyhole here.

Langham went to his car and opened the boot, returning to Oliver with two torches. He handed one over to him. “Just in case the electricity’s been switched off.”

As it happened, it hadn’t. Officer Blond was inside and had switched on the lights.

“Right,” Langham said, motioning for Officer Blond to come out. “This is just a search for a body, nothing else. You find it, you call out. Don’t touch. Watch where you step for scene contamination purposes.”

The four officers nodded and disappeared inside. Langham and Oliver followed. The reception area was maybe fifteen foot square, cream-painted walls and a plain teak desk with one ratty grey chair behind it. A dirty, white-painted door to the rear probably led to a staff room or toilet.

“We’ll check through there later,” Langham said. “May as well search the main part first.”

Through double opaque plastic doors, the kind that swung and slapped shut in hospitals, was a long corridor with separate storage rooms to their right. Each space was divided by a wall, every one of the doors open, suspended like knobbly metal rolls of carpet at the top. The rooms didn’t reach the ceiling, which made Oliver shake his head at the waste of space. They walked along, peering inside each one. At the end, another hallway stretched to the rear of the warehouse, and more rows of rooms and aisles in between started to their right. Oliver imagined that from above it would resemble a supermarket, except here the goods weren’t on show. Glancing down the second aisle, Oliver saw the four officers going in and out of the rooms.

“May as well make a start on the third row,” he said.

Langham nodded, shouting for the officers to take row four next, and every even row after that while Oliver and he took the odds.

It wasn’t until aisle nine that Oliver felt weird. The hairs on his arms rose, those on the back of his neck quickly following, and his mouth went dry. His skin prickled painfully, as though someone stabbed him with a million pins at once. “Down here,” he said, tugging Langham’s arm.

He led him three doorways down and saw, in his mind, the image of a young man standing at the rear of a room, twenty or so naked men in front of him, preventing any escape. Jam packed, they were, only the bodies of the first row visible, the rest just a sea of shiny heads. The men hummed, the sound of their unified noise filling the small space, an angry swarm of wasps ousted from their nest. The visual gave Oliver the creeps. He had the sense Simon had been forced to give oral sex. All those men versus one… Even if Simon hadn’t been blindfolded with his wrists tied, he hadn’t stood a chance.

“They forced him to give the blow jobs in here,” Oliver said, jerking his head at the room beside them.

“So where the hell is he?” Langham stared into the room a while before going in.

Oliver remained in the doorway. “I don’t know. I saw him in my head, in this room, with them doing that humming shit, but after that…”