A biting north wind whistled round the straight edge of Loch View, which stood with three other high-rise blocks on the edge of town. The low pressure which had brought rain and sleet had moved off slowly into the North Sea and behind it, a ridge of clear high pressure dragged the freezing air down from the edge of Greenland, frosting the night sky as temperatures plummeted. The wind made the wires of the gantry moan as it plucked the steel braids with icy fingers and rocked the platform slowly back and forth half-way up the sheer side of the building.
Under normal circumstances, Jock Toner would have been mightily peeved that he was still up in the rig on a dark and freezing night. But the circumstances had changed. He'd been one of the team of bricklayers repairing the worn concrete on the side of the building which had weathered away like hard peeling scabs under the weight of the winds. The gantry was suspended from a winch on rails on the flat top of the block which allowed the men to be lowered and raised at the touch of a button on the winding motor.
It had been cold work all day. The wind hadn't stopped and even in the clear air, tiny ice crystals had whipped around the corner of the building, whirling in the turbulence, to sting the men's ears raw.
Ordinarily, Jock would have been home by now, probably dozing in front of the television, or maybe down in the County Bar for a couple of straight whiskies. He'd been last man to leave the hut, and was just about to start up his old battered Ford when the council's clerk of works had shown up unexpectedly. He'd pointed out that the gantry had been lowered to the ground.
"What do you want me to do about it?" Jock had asked truculently.
"Basically, I want you to get it right back up the top again, where nobody can mess about with it."
"My shift finished half an hour ago," Jock argued.
"Well, you've got a choice. You can go home now and I can call the works manager and get him out in the middle of the night," the fellow had responded easily.
"It's six of one to me. I'll let him know you insisted he got a call out. Either way, there's no way that thing can sit out for the rest of the night. Any kid could climb on and start the motor."
He looked at Jock levelly, with a small smile.
"So, should I call the boss out?"
Jock let out a sigh of annoyance.
"No. I'll get the bloody thing," he grated. To himself he swore he'd get Des Coleman, the rigger who should have stowed the gear.
The management man waited by his van until Jock was half-way up the side of the building before he walked to his car. Over the whistling wind, he could hear the whine of the motor as it reeled in the braided cables and the gantry slowly hoisted up and out of site on the dark face of the blocks. Jock saw the headlamps stab out and waited until the red tail lights had disappeared round the corner. The ice crystals, condensed out of the frozen air, were needling into his left ear and he cursed aloud. The gantry rose up slowly and steadily.
He was nine floors up, just rising past a lighted window when the wind swung the platform to the right, and a movement inside the room caught his eye.
He had risen another nine feet before the image really registered and he hit the stop switch with a stab of his finger, then, with another jab, he thumbed the green button which reversed the gantry. He lowered it the nine feet, hoping the wind would hide the noise, then stood for a moment, holding on tight to the safety bars.
The rig swung gently away from the lit window then back again and Jock was able to confirm what he'd seen. His face broke into a wide grin. It took three swings of the galley to identify the woman on the floor as he hung out as far as he could, one hand gripping the hawser, then about ten seconds to figure out why she was doing what she was doing with such obvious vigour.
Isobel McIntyre was spreadeagled under the collector from the Housemarket Supply Company. Both of them were exhibiting great enthusiasm. The rep was fat and balding. Sweat was glistening between his shoulderblades and he had the hairiest arse Jock Toner had ever seen. His head was down on her shoulder and he was thrusting away as if his life depended on it. Isobel's eyes were screwed tight shut and her mouth was drawn back in a rictus of concentration. Even through the double glazing and above the whistling of the wind in the wires, Jock could hear the man's base grunt and the woman's high, animal snarl. He'd worked on the outside of buildings long enough to know that even if they had looked, the reflection of the light on the glass would hide him from the people inside the room.
He grinned again. Isobel was a distant relative of Jock's wife. She'd be shocked if she knew her second cousin's wife was doing it to a fine tune on the floor of her living-room with the man from the HSC. Jock wondered just how much the woman owed on her weekly payments, for the supply company interest was extortionate. He also wondered just how many other women were paying their bills on their backs. As that thought struck him, he made a mental note to find out when the fat and hairy little man made his regular visits to his own house.
It was an hour after he clerk of works had disappeared in his van and Jock was still up on the gantry, halfway between the top of the building and the ground, enjoying every vicarious moment from his vantage point.
The wind had dropped and the spindrift crystals were no longer needling his ear. Up above the sky was velvet dark. There was no moon to light the thin snow-clouds that had built up to hide the stars.
Inside the room, the woman and the man had rolled on the floor for a while then he had pulled her up onto the couch and after that he'd even tried to lean her over the ironing table, though their combined weight rocked it to much they gave up quickly. Jock was surprised the spindly board had taken the weight and he thought to himself, one hand now working slowly deep in the crotch of his baggy overalls, that even if she was paying off debt, she was thoroughly enjoying the instalment terms. The grunting noises continued from the room as the rig swung silently, like a weighty pendulum, back and forth on the long cables, while Jack held on with his free hand.
The action changed and Isobel McIntyre crawled round to face in the opposite direction. Her fair hair was lank with perspiration and her whole body glistened. Jock knew she'd always been a looker, and now he could see that the reality was even better than he'd imagined. She had a long, slim body and pert little breasts that were lacquered with sweat. He watched her head bob up and down and his own hand started to move quickly. He couldn't remember ever being so turned on before. It was almost better, he told himself, than the real thing. He heard his own breath coming faster and faster as the woman worked away on the man, taking her own pleasure as she did, and in the cold night air, Jock's heavy breath fogged the window.
He leaned out, taking a risk by letting go his anchor hand for a moment, to rub the window with his elbow, when the gantry gave a sudden, violent jolt at the apex of its swing.
Jock Toner's heart lurched just as violently as he was thrown out over the railing.
"Oh Chri...." he squawked, in that instant not caring if the people inside the house heard him or not. By pure reflex, his hand shot out and hooked the cable just as his balance reached the point of no return, and hauled him back. The rig shook with the sudden movement. One edge scraped on the concrete facade with a metallic grinding noise. Jock's breath swooped in and he felt the blood drain from his face.
"What in the name..." he blurted aloud. For a moment he'd completely lost interest in the action through the pane. He held on tight to the railings while his heartbeat knocked on his ribs. His belly was quaking with the surge of adrenalin and his knees were jittering out of synch with each other. The gantry swung again, still oscillating back and forth, but now slowing down. Jock took several breaths to clear his head. He'd almost fallen straight off the edge, and he was still stunned by how close, how instantaneous it had been. His knuckles stood out white on the railing top.
The scene in the house momentarily forgotten, he leaned over the edge, peering down into the darkness below. A thin, ice-laden fog was swirling around the building, punctuated here and there by the dim lights behind curtained windows. Below the gantry, the braided nylon guide rope dropped away out of sight. There was nothing there, though Jock knew something had hit the rope. He checked at his feet, where the braid was wound onto the plastic spindle. One end trailed away down into the mist and then looped back up again to where it was draped over the balustrade. At this height, Jock knew it couldn't reach to the ground, so that ruled out mischievous kids down there. He pondered the possibility that someone had opened a window and tugged at the guide, but it was hanging down from the far edge. Somebody would have to have long arms to reach that far.
The wind tugged the hawser again and made it sing a weird. mournful note. Jock leaned over again, peering downwards to see if there was anything that could have jolted the platform so heavily, but there was nothing at all. The cold mist was getting thicker. Down in the distance, away to the left, the orange street-lamps were getting dimmer, haloed by fuzzy rings of luminescence.
He turned back and touched the wall to stop the to-and-fro motion of the gantry and then shifted his weight outwards, careful to keep a grip on the bar. The fright was gone, and his heart was already was steadying down to a normal beat. The danger over, Jock Toner remembered the scene in the house. He leaned out as far as he could until his head was just beyond the window edge. Isobel McIntyre was facing in the opposite direction, astraddle the hirsute debt collector. She had a small tattoo on the right cheek, just above what Jock estimated would be the panty line. He watched the pink curves move slowly and felt the pressure rise again. Isobel had a superior way about her. He knew she would die if she thought she'd been watched doing it to a band playing with the man from HSC. His hand stole back inside his overalls again and the mist swirled thicker around him. His attention was nailed on the scene beyond the window.
Then something dripped on his shoulder just at the same time as he heard the scraping noise a little way above his head.
At first he thought it was a bird-dropping. Sometimes the starlings would flock in their thousands on winter nights, roosting on the high edges of the tall buildings. It was an occupational hazard for anyone who worked at a height, but Jock knew there were no starlings flying in the winter mist. He'd have heard their chattering, and up here, the night was silent apart from the moaning of the wind in the wires and the muffled, guttural noises emanating from Isobel McIntyre's living room. He looked up into the darkness overhead. The pulley wires were taut parallel lines which soared upwards but disappeared from view only a few yards higher than the level where he stood.
Something spattered again, catching him on the side of his head and dripping down his cheek.
At once he smelled the thick scent and his nose wrinkled in disgust.
"What the..." he grunted, again failing to finish a sentence.
Then something hit the wires with such force that it sounded like a base-string plucked hard. The gantry jumped about a foot into the air and bounced. Jock felt himself thrown against the balustrade again, but this time he was holding tight with his free hand.
He swung back while the platform was still moving and peered up again. A misty shape moved overhead, close in to the building, though the movement was obscured by the thickening mist.
Jock moved away from the window.
"Who's there?" he called up softly, not wishing to disturb the man and woman inside the house.
The scraping noise came again. It sounded like stone on stone, muffled by the night.
He was about to call out again when something white flickered wanly in the darkness. Beyond it, a black shadow elongated. Jock pulled himself up to his full height, eyes trying to make it out when the shadow came suddenly racing down the side of the wall. It happened so fast that Jock Toner never had the chance to even open him mouth.
The shape, blacker than night, moved with astonishing speed. It came lunging with a liquid, pistoning motion, the white thing flapping alongside it. He got a glimpse of a jointed arm. Two huge orange eyes flicked open, and then something hit him so hard on the side of the neck he heard the harsh rip of muscles tearing above his shoulder. His grip was torn from the railing and he flopped against the outer edge.
The shadow came looming right at him. The eyes blazed again. Something cold and hard gripped him by the head. He could feel the clench of massive fingers on each temple and the bones felt as if they were simply caving in under the pressure. His arms shot out to ward the thing off. His knuckle hit blindly against the electric motor housing and accidentally jammed the yellow button. The engine whined into life as the gantry took a lurch and started to climb.
Even then, Jack Toner was aware of the foul stench which suddenly assaulted his nostrils. It smelled like rotting flesh.
Then he was falling. There was an abrupt twist and a searing pain as he was lifted in one jerking heave and thrown over the railing.
He screamed then, very loud and very clear as he plummeted through the mist. The force of the throw had sent him out from the building, much further than a man could have jumped. In that supercharged moment, jumbled thoughts and pictures flashed and fizzed in the man's brain. He was falling and he was going to die. He saw himself swoop down to the concrete flagstones below and saw himself splatter and bounce.
Then the nylon guide rope which had snagged around his calf as he went over the edge snapped him to a halt in mid-air as he reached the end of its drop. The force of the stall snatched his thigh-bone out of his hip socket and pain exploded inside him in a white flare. There was no time, or breath for a sigh of relief, but in that instant Jock Toner realised what had happened. The pain was washed away in the realisation that he was not falling any longer, that he was not going to splatter and bounce wetly on the concrete below. Relief swamped him.
If Jock Toner had not been thrown out twenty feet from the side of Lock View, then he would have probably survived. But when he hit the end of the rope and felt his leg wrench out of its socket, he bounced like a weight on the end of a piece of string and came hurtling back in towards the building. He was spinning wildly as he tumbled back from the far end of the pendulum arc, yelling all the while, unable to control his position. The gantry was still making its automatic ascent of the building. Jock came flying inwards and spun just at the moment his head was below the top edge of Isobel McIntyre's window. The upward pull on the hawsers coupled with his swing ensured that his forehead connected with the sharp concrete edge with a muted crunching sound. A huge flash of white light seared through his mind as the circuits sparked and fizzled instantaneously in his brain just at the moment the concrete edge smashed a deep chiselled line into his forehead. Isobel McIntyre's window went red and opaque. A piece of Jock's skull lifted like a flap and went spiralling down through the mist to land with a crack on the concrete.
High up on the edge of the building, Jock Toner's body twitched and danced as it was drawn upwards, spraying his blood. The whole forefront of his brain was completely gone, but the brain stem just carried on as if nothing had happened. His heart still pumped and his nerves shook and shivered as he was hauled slowly skywards into the night. From the gaping hole in the front of his head, the blood came gouting out in a series of pulses.
Finally the engine reached the top and the automatic cut-out kicked in. The gantry whined to a stop. Thirty feet below it, Jock Toner's body quivered and spasmed, unseen by any human eye while his blood ran in rivers down the rough edge of the building where it froze in long, dribbling streaks. Down below, on the concrete on the north edge of the building, it formed a thin slick which iced over in less than an hour.
Inside the house where he'd watched the two people grunting on the floor, Isobel McIntyre sat up.
"Did you hear something?" she asked.
"What?" the man asked, out of breath.
"I thought I heard a noise."
"Probably me," the hairy man said. He reached over to the seat where his clothes were crumpled in a heap and dragged his shirt across to wipe the sweat from his brow.
"What time is it?"
"Getting late. You'd better get out of here before my Kenny gets in." Isobel got to her feet, and came acros to the window. She could see nothing out there. The was no light outside to show her the red coating on the window. She'd see it in the morning, along with the congealing scrap of flesh stuck to the roughcast edge just above her window and she would flee to the bathroom where she would be immediately and violently sick. The sickness would come upon her again one morning before the week was out, but there was another reason for that and it's another story.
Jock Toner's frozen and bloodless cadaver was not found until late the following morning by the team who came back to work to finish off the concreting. In fact, it was Neil Gunn, an eighteen-year-old apprentice who noticed the shape dangling from the gantry an hour after he'd started work. He got such a fright that all he could do was hang on to the safety rail on the top of the block and scream for help from the foreman who was down in the hut. The ganger called the police and the fire brigade who had to take one of the clattering lifts up to the roof and manually wind the gantry down to ground level where Jack Toner's body hit the ground like a log, frozen stiff.
At that time, everybody believed it had been an accident. All except one person who knew it was not.