booksnew/source/darkvalley-source/C2.txt

  <h2>2</h2>

<p><em> March:</em></p> 
  <p> On the same cold spring day that Paul Degman  went into the river, on the same side of the harbour, though some three hundred yards upriver close to the weir at the bridge, Neil Hopkirk was watching  the commotion from his vantage point on the roof of some outhouses behind the buildings fronting River Street. </p> 
  <p> Neil was sixteen years old and had lank dark hair hanging down below his collar and dangling in a straight and somehow imbecilic fringe over the rims of his glasses. He had a dark, pear-shaped birthmark on his left cheek, which earned him the nickname of Mole, but which only his best friends, a handful of  idlers (including John Corcoran’s brother Phil, who couldn’t find his arse with both hands) could get away with,  chiefly because they were as big and tougher than Neil Hopkirk himself.  Neil had a vicious temper as many of the smaller kids could testify. He kept a bunch of keys on a long chain hooked to the belt-loop of his jeans, keys he had picked up here and there and which opened nothing, but they sounded good and important as they jangled on their chain, and to Neil they were the trophies that told the world that Neil Hopkirk was going to be the Best Cat Burglar in the History of Crime. </p> 
  </p> Whenever he daydreamed of his illustrious future, or occasionally confided to anybody who would listen, those words always had bold capital initials. Ever since he could remember, his hero had been Gentleman Johnny Ramensky, who had been a thief of heroic achievement, grace and style and whom the intelligence service had once sprung from Drumbain Jail to carry out a daring wartime raid behind the lines. Neil Hopkirk had seen that film in the old Regal Cinema four times, sneaking in without paying for three of those visits and demonstrating his uncanny ability (all of his abilities were uncanny, so Neil was convinced) to pass unseen, like an Indian tracker. In his fantasies he saw himself  abseiling into a darkened vault from such a height no-one believed it humanly possible, snatching the diamonds, the bag of gold, the trunk of cash, or the secret plans worth a fortune. In those dreams, even the cops hounding him across rooftops - where he would slow down just to give them a sporting chance or a cheeky, swashbucklers wave - had a grudging respect for him. The newspapers would be full of stories of the Black Shadow, a name derived from another of his comic-book heroes, the Black Sapper who would tunnel under the earth in his mechanical mole. They would wonder who he was and in the Regal Cinema he would sit in the back seat, surrounded by the classiest girls in town - Neil was strictly limited in this part of his imagination - smoking king-sized cigarettes and tipping the ice-cream girl a wad of notes, seeing her eyes light up with gratitude and hero worship. All of the guys would be with them,  Phil and Cammy and Pony McGill, basking in the warmth of his friendship while Tina Denny and Corrine Latta hung on his every word. </p> 
  <p> He would be the best, Neil knew. He’d boasted to the rest of the guys that he’d be a legend and while they’d laughed him down, he knew they’d  eat it when he became the Best Cat Burglar in the History of Crime. </p> 
  <p> And now he was up on top of the old outhouses, lounging on the slates, with one casual arm hooked across the galvanised ridging. </p> 
  <p> He’d been trying a locked window at the back of the ironmongers, sliding the blade of his knife between the sash frames to kick the catch back, tongue out between his teeth. Crawford’s Hardware sold fishing gear and hunting gear. In the front shop there was a glass case with expensive penknives including a horn-handled three-bladed beauty with Neil had been eyeing for some time. They had axes and glass-cutters, all part of the cat-burglar’s kit, but they also sold shotguns and cartridges which were always stored in the back of the shop. Old man Crawford,  who had a large white hearing-aid jammed up behind his ear and the milky, somehow mouldy beginnings of a cataract in his left eye  always kept the guns in a back store and while nobody ever got in to the back room, Neil was convinced that this window was where the gun cabinet had to be, where big shotguns were stacked on a rack, along with boxes of shells. Already his imagination had taken over and he saw himself with a black balaclava, a figure of imposing menace, while the bank manager (though he’d never actually been in a bank, never mind met a bank manager) pleaded with please don’t shoot. And the pretty cashier, she’d be eyeing up the tall, masked stranger, wishing he would take her away from this boring, humdrum job, to a life of luxury and hot adventure. </p> 
     <p> It was all within arms reach, Neil just knew. </p> 
     <p> Then, behind the bars, behind the frosted glass, a shape loomed up in front of him. </p> 
  <p><em> “Wah....!” </em>  The eloquence that came so naturally in Neil’s daydreams deserted him completely. </p> 
  <p> The shape leaned forward, right up against the pane. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” a voice roared from behind the pane, losing none of its force, making the glass itself rattle. </p> 
  <p> Instantly Neil recognised the bull-tones of Donal Crawford, the old man’s nephew who worked Saturdays. He was six  foot four and built like a brick shithouse and as tough as steel bolts too. </p> 
  <p> Big Donal reached for the catch and shoved the window up with a  ratchetting clatter. Fortunately the frame hit the safety lock when the window was only six inches open. Neil backed against the wall at the far side of the alley and hit his head a smart crack on the crumbly stonework, hard enough to hurt but not enough to damage.  Big Donal was yelling non stop,  all the phrases jammed up against each other and ever one of them promising lasting pain to whoever had tried to break into his uncle’s premises. </p> 
  <p> In the two seconds before Neil turned and scooted down the alley, he saw he had been mistaken in assuming the window led on to the storeroom where the shiny shotguns were stacked. Through the six-inch gap, quite clearly, he saw the hairy, spotty thighs of old man Crawford’s nephew and he realised that he’d tried to break into the outhouse where big Donal was having a crap. </p> 
  <p> Neil came skittering out of the alley. There was a broken down wall where the old boatshed had collapsed in the storm and beside it a straggle of weeds from last year. Neil went ploughing into the scrub, crashing through the dried heads of dockens and the wood-saw teeth of bramble runners. Behind him Donal was still bawling in fury and Neil knew it would only be a matter of seconds before the big fellow pulled up his trousers and came barging out the back door on the alleyway. </p> 
  <p> Somewhere downriver somebody screamed, high and glassy on the cold spring air. Neil came stumbling through the weed patch when without any warning at all, a big dark shape  loomed up. Neil whipped round and saw a policeman come running towards him. His heart stopped still and he felt the blood drain right out of his face. </p> 
  <p> It was big John Fallon. His black boots thumped on the cobbles and his hat went flying off to roll like a spare wheel along the flat. Neil’s first instinct was to run, but the sergeant was going full tilt. The boy measured the distance to the corner of Rope Vennel, the next alley which led up to River Street, and he knew he’d never make it and even if he did, he’d be caught before he was halfway up and the sergeant would give him an extra toe up the backside for making him run. </p> 
  <p> Neil turned, hands out in a gesture that said he gave in and was ready to come quietly. </p> 
  <p> Big John Fallon came powering towards him.  Neil stepped forward but the policeman simply leapt over the pile of bricks and crumbled mortar from the ruined boatshed. For an instant the boy thought the Sergeant was going to land on top of him, but Fallon’s eyes were fixed dead ahead of him. He didn’t even notice the cringing would-be burglar. </p> 
  <p> Amazed, Neil Hopkirk followed the thundering progress.  The sergeant was stripping off his tunic. Neil watched him throw it to the side and again his instinct almost took over. There would be a whistle and maybe a set of handcuffs. Certainly a police warrant card that would come in handy to an international jewel thief.  But just then he heard the slam of the service door at the hardware store and knew he shouldn’t hang around. </p> 
  <p> John Fallon was halfway down the quayside. A couple of boys came round the corner, pushing a cart heaped up with chopped firewood and they tried to take evasive action. The policeman’s foot sent it and all the bundles rolling across the cobbled walk. Neil  went up the alley for a few yards, then turned, jammed his hands in his pockets and came sauntering back  the way he’d come. </p> 
  <p> Big Donal stopped for a moment, his face red and so swollen with anger it looked as if it would burst.  Neil nodded as calmly as he could, while thinking to himself that for such a big fella, Donal wasn’t too gifted in the equipment department. In the hardware department, Neil thought, and started to giggle. Donal gave him a suspicious look before he turned to run down in the same direction as the policeman. Neil took a left up Fish Pend, the narrowest alley in town and which bore the powerful aroma of the fishmonger’s filleting and gutting slabs. Phil Corcoran and Campbell Galt, they’d been with a couple of girls, at least so they said and they swore blind that when they got wet, they smelled the same way. Neil, who had never got as much as a kiss playing postman’s knock, hoped that wasn’t the case, otherwise it would make him pretty sick for sure. </p> 
  <p> He held his breath until he got to Boat Pend which led to the arched walkway right under the old tenements. There was a narrow niche here and a downpipe on the wall out of sight of people passing by up on River Street. Without much hesitation, Neil jinked into the space, took hold of the pipe and went up the wall, hand over hand, bracing his feet against the rough sandstone. In a matter of seconds, he was up on a low, swaybacked slate roof. He went over the ridge and slid down the lee, still out of sight. There was an old skylight here, which let little light though to whatever was below. He wiped the glass with the heel of his hand and peered in. It was some old shed full of rusted machinery, though the shadows changed everything and gave them all interesting shapes. The skylight was shut but he could have broken a pane and slipped the catch. He decided to leave it for the moment, at least until he’d swiped a few flashlight batteries out of Woolworth’s. </p> 
  <p> Up on the roof,  despite the cold of the spring day, the slates were surprisingly warm.  Neil Hopkirk sat in the valley formed by the two slopes between the ridges, completely hidden from view. It was exactly his kind of place.  Further down the quayside, there were a couple of men in a rowing boat and people were shouting. From along near Barley Cobble, a woman was yammering something and Neil thought that maybe somebody had fallen into the river. It was too far away to make out. He sat for a while, enjoying the warmth of the old slates and then he turned to look at the building behind him. </p> 
  <p> The tenement was in shadow. It was tall and gaunt and the windows were darkened and for a moment Neil Hopkirk didn’t know which particular one it was. They all looked different from the back. Round on River Street, most of them had shops on ground level, Woolworth’s, Crawford’s the Ironmonger, Christie’s bakery, dozens of shops in a busy town’s main street. Round the back they didn’t look so good. It was as if the builders knew the only people who would come round here would be fish-gutters and draymen and van drivers. This was the town’s tradesman’s entrance, dirty and unfinished, the hidden backside of a bustling town. </p> 
  <p> Neil stood up and took his keys out. He was far enough out from the wall to be in the sunlight. He swing them around, letting the round metal  dog-tag glitter in the sun while he  checked out the windows. The sunlight sent a circle of white reflected light flashing as it tracked up the slates and then sparked out down the quayside. </p> 
  <p> The valley of the low roof still afforded cover. The boy followed the line of the gutter and got to the first low window. It  was only a foot square, probably a vent from a cellar and completely festooned with cobwebs. A roan pipe came down from the edge of the high roof, a slender tree of metal with chevrons of branch drains going left and right. Without hesitation, Neil scrambled up the pipe, followed the first branch out for five feet, straining to grasp the nearest window ledge. He reached it, hauled himself up to sit with his back to the window to check if anyone had seen. There were no shouts of alarm, at least  none other than the turbulence down there where the men were rowing and the urgent yelling of men and women mingled to create a  twist of tension on the air. </p> 
  <p> He felt behind him, got his fingers pressed up against the first panel of the six frame-panes and pushed hard. There was a soft squeal of protest, or dry wood on wood, and the window lifted just a little. Neil’s heart started to beat faster. He turned on the ledge to peer inside. For an instant, his own reflection moved, as if there was somebody else inside the dark room and Neil almost fell down onto the slates. He had to wait until his heart climbed down from his throat before he could get a hand over his eyes to cut out the reflection and peer inside.  The gloom had cleared and in that second he knew where he was. It was Doctor Green’s old surgery.  He’d moved out a couple of years ago and nobody had seen him since. There was some talk of abortions, but nobody knew why he had just upped and left.  He had lived and worked here, using most of the third floor of Cairn House.  From where he sat on the ledge, the boy could make out a table and chairs. Some cupboards. A bag which might contain a doctor’s medical kit, shiny and deadly scalpels, maybe a syringe, or even some chloroform to overpower guards. Neil Hopkirk’s imagination was off and running again. </p> 
  <p> He eased the window up, inch by inch, fearful that it might jam and he’d fail again this day.
  The window opened six inches, ten, a foot, a bit more. Enough to let Neil Hopkirk through.  He squirmed in, head and shoulders first, feeling the weight on his ribs then his belly. The flat plaque of metal on his key-chain, where he’d had his name engraved in the cobbler’s shop, caught the sun and flashed a sparkle of light over the roof and into the eyes of a boy who was watching a tragedy unfold down on the quayside. Neil wriggled some more, pushed forward. His legs were sticking outside when he got to the balance point of no return and started to slide forward.  Unable to stop, he put his hands out in front of him while he slid down. His shins scraped painfully on the edge of the window and he landed with a thump and clatter. </p> 
  <p><em> He was in. </em></p> 
  <p> It took a minute or so for his eyes to become accustomed to the gloom and for the hot abrasion-burn to fade from the skinny shin-bones. It was dusty in here, and there was a smell that was worse than the flat and slimy reek in Fish Pend. Neil wrinkled his nose in disgust. It was a sickly reek that reminded  Neil of the time he’d reached  into the  pigeon’s nest last summer when he was collecting eggs. He’d reached over the rim and put his hand into the flat twiggy saucer. His fingers had touched something cool and yielding and then they’d slipped inside the small mound. He’d felt the cold wetness and brought his hand back and he’d almost fallen off the wall under the railway bridge where the street-pigeons nested.  It had been an abandoned nest. The two chicks had been half grown and now both of them were now half rotted. Their innards had the texture of cold custard and their half-feathered skins were thin as wet paper. Neil had brought his hand down to eye level - to nose level - and the white maggots had been pulsing  in the viscid mess on his fingers and the smell had hit him so hard he had almost retched.  He’d flicked his hand to whip them away and some of the mess had splattered Cammy Galt’s cheek and he’d been far from pleased about that. Neil recalled Cammy waiting for him to gingerly descend and then he’d kicked Neil a smart one right up the crack of his arse with those winkle-picker teddy-boy boots he always wore and Neil’s backside had gone into a puckering spasm that made him feel as if the boot was still stuck up there a full hour later. </p> 
  <p> The smell inside the old surgery was almost - but not quite -  as bad as the foul reek from the dead squeakers in the nest. Neil supposed a pigeon had found its way in and not been able to get back out again. There was an overlying mustiness on the dusty air, a hint of dry rot, stale urine. This place hadn’t been used for a couple of years,  maybe more. There might not be anything worth stealing. </p> 
  <p> But he was inside, and that was a part of  it, almost the best of it. There was an excitement of just getting inside a building, coming in through a window or down from a skylight into an empty place. Trespassing. Breaking and entering. Gaining illegal access. Neil’s heart had speeded up and he could feel the delicious tension in the pit of his belly.  All of his senses were alert, though he wished his nose wasn’t quite so efficient.  The hairs on his forearms were standing up as his hands clenched into fists. He was aware of everything, the far-off noises of whatever was happening down at the quay. The muted piping of gulls.  The steamy crash of the jackhammer down at the shipyard next to the castle rock.  He waited, listening for a few moments. The back room was still in shadow, but the sun glanced off a window of  the yacht repairers across the river and sent a shaft of light straight in, cutting the darkness in an almost solid beam in which tiny dust-motes twirled and sparkled. Out on River Street, a big haulage wagon from the distillery rumbled past, shivering the foundations. The door of  the room was open, just an inch or two, not much more. Beyond it, the rest of the building beckoned. It tugged at Neil. Somewhere in the dark of the hallway, something small squeaked twice and then stopped. For a small instant, all sound was cut off and the silent ambience of the empty building was filled with hollow echoes. </p> 
  <p> Neil crossed from the window, keeping low.  There was a set of drawers which he opened one by one, instinctively doing it right, starting at the bottom so he couldn’t have to close the next. Inside, there were some brochures about pregnancy and the kinds of things mothers should eat. The bag on the shelf was oddly clean. Inside there was some clothing, not very clean, and a half bottle of whisky with little more than a mouthful left at the bottom. Neil twisted the top and drank the dregs, savouring the burn, and he shuddered at the strange taste. He slung the bottle back in the bag and crossed to the door. The whisky fumes were warm on his breath and he was feeling pretty good about this whole thing. </p> 
  <p> The door opened with a tiny creak, not much louder and just as high-pitched as the squeak made by the distant mouse or bat or whatever small creature had panicked. He slowly crossed the narrow hallway. Here, on the floor, somebody had smashed a pane of glass and the shards crackled under his feet like sharp gravel. Three doors led off and Neil knew one of them would lead down the stairs and out onto River Street. As far as he remembered the whole building was empty and if he’d read the Levenford Gazette he’d have known that a development company planned to convert the whole of it into apartments, but Neil Hopkirk had progressed none since getting the basics and struggled even  to read the shiny Superman and Fantastic Four comics from America. </p> 
  <p> The first room was the old surgery. It was not big, but laid out with a flat and mouldering trolley-bed with a thin plastic cover ripped in so many places that it looked as if it had been raked with machine gin fire. The stuffing puffed out like flak-bursts. The desk was plain wood and thick with dust. Neil opened a cupboard door and jumped back in fright as a white shape swung with it. It took a second for his brain to identify the floating ghost as a white overall. It took several seconds more for Neil to get his breath back. </p> 
  <p> There was nothing in the cabinet by the window where an old porcelain sink caught the light. It had two neat tap-handles that could be operated with an elbow. </p> 
  <p> There was nothing here worth stealing. On the wall, a couple of tracts, pages torn from a bible,  were white against the peeling green floral wallpaper. They held no interest for the Best Cat Burglar in the History of Crime. </p> 
  <p> He  turned away from the wall and sauntered back to the hallway. </p> 
  <p> Something froze him in his tracks. </p> 
  <p> Neil Hopkirk stopped still. The hair on his arms stuck out so high they formed gooseflesh. The hairs on the back of his neck began to crawl and the skin between his shoulder-blades puckered and tensed. </p> 
  <p> There was something else in the building.  He started to turn, got one hand up against the doorpost. His breath had backed up tight in his throat. </p> 
  <p> A harsh scraping noise came from behind him. In that split second Neil Hopkirk realised it was the sound of broken glass grinding into the floor. </p> 
  <p> Something, someone, had taken a step behind him, crushing the shards of window-glass.  Neil completed his turn. A white face came swooping out of the darkness of the corridor, fast, too fast to be anything more than a blur. A hand came up even faster and slammed into the side of his head, open handed and hard. Neil’s head whipped back in a bright flash of pain and cracked against the doorpost, gouging a gash into the skin of his scalp. </p> 
  <p> A blurt of panicked sound escaped him. He reeled, instinctively going with the blow in the same direction as his reflex had swung him in an attempt to dodge it. The pain flared bright for only a second and then he was moving. Feet crunched on the glass again and he saw a grey motion out of the corner of his eye. He twisted, squirming past the doorjamb, fright galvanising him into suddenly fluid motion. A hand reached for him, almost caught the back of his jerkin and merely slapped him forward towards the stairs. </p> 
  <p> He hit the first flight running like a startled rabbit, whimpering as he went. All he had seen was a blurred shape and the hand that had swung round to slam into his head. There had been no warning at all, only the sudden violence. </p> 
  <p> Footsteps thudded now behind him in the hall. He took the steps two at a time, grabbing onto the old banister for purchase, heading up into the darkness. He skittered to the landing, swung himself round and up again into the gloom. Here there were another three doors, one of them slanted, torn from its hinges. The other two gaped black. Behind him, he could hear the blundering progress of whoever had hit him. He dived to the left, out of sight of his pursuer, got through the broken door and swung right down a very narrow little lobby that smelled of pigeon shit and rotted paper. He reached a small room  with one window boarded with planks of wood. Over in the corner, there was a tall cupboard with no door. The backing plaster was punctured and rotten, and most of it had fallen to the floor in mouldering grains. The room was gloomy, but Neil Hopkirk’s eyes were wide with fright and with the burst of adrenaline now shunting down his veins. He crossed quickly to the cupboard, all of his senses straining for signs of pursuit.  He could hear the heavy footfalls of someone who did not care how much noise he made, and the harsh breathing. A meaty thud told him a hand was slapping on the smooth wood of the banister. He tried to slow his breathing to absolute stillness while he crossed the floor, silent now as a cat, to the open cupboard. He crouched, seeing no other avenue of escape, his glasses already dimming the poor light. He turned, pushed himself into the hole where the plaster had fallen away. It had looked deep, as if there was a passage that might lead into the thick wall itself. He pressed further and came to a sudden stop against the crumbling sandstone, jammed half in, half out. </p> 
  <p> The man’s breathing came harsh. He reached the top of the stairs, paused. Neil could envisage him wondering which room to try and he pressed himself further into the cavity, managing to get his legs out of sight, but unable to pull his head and hands back. He curled himself tight, trying to make his shape as small as possible. In this gloom, if he stayed still, maybe the man wouldn’t see him. <em>Maybe</em></p> 
  <p> A scrape of sound came from beyond the room, much like the first noise that had alerted him, then a motion in the doorway. </p> 
  <p> His heart thudded in two hard kicks. A man came in, walking very slowly. His whole shape seemed to fill the space, shoulders almost touching each side. He came in, stood there, just a fuzzed shape in the darkness, but scarily defined, solid. Neil heard him breathe, fast and slightly ragged, but other than that, he made no sound. He cocked his head to the side, as if listening, turned to go out again. </p> 
  <p> Mole coughed. </p> 
  <p> It was as simple as that, a little catch at the back of his throat and a cough that just jumped out unbidden. The man turned, came stalking back into the room with no hesitation at all, pinpointing the source exactly. He  reached, grabbed Neil  by the hair, hauled him right out so violently one of his shoes caught in the old plaster and went whirling off. The world spun as the boy was thrown across the room towards the doorway. He tried to get to his feet and almost made it, too scared to cry out, his whole scalp burning in pain. Behind him the man moved, caught him by the back of the neck, and drew him to his feet pulling him out through the doorway. He dragged him down the stairs to the lower level, slammed him through the first doorway, feet crunching once again on the glass shards. Neil’s  glasses went spinning off to the side. All the sharp shapes blurred. The boy went staggering backwards and the man’s other hand came up and  straight-armed into his nose. </p> 
  <p> Brilliant hurt blossomed in the middle of his face and in his eyes. Tears simply spurted, just like the blood which blurted from both nostrils. Neil let out a squawk of pain and dreadful fear. The massive shape that had come through the darkened doorway  slapped him again and sent him crashing against the desk. His thigh hit with almost enough force to break the bone and this time the hurt was so much that for an instant the room went completely dark, as if the power had somehow failed inside his brain. He went tumbling over the desk and his chin connected with the hard surface of the sink, thumping hard enough to clash his teeth together and strip a slice of skin from his tongue. </p> 
  <p> Neil was swimming in a sea of pain, shock now powering up so that his brain was unable to comprehend what had happened. Within the first seconds the shock began to overpower the pain, layering and lacquering it with a strange numbness. </p> 
  <p> A hand clamped on the back of his neck and lifted him straight upwards. The pressure was so great that Neil Hopkirk only felt himself hauled off the floor before everything faded away and a complete darkness swamped him. </p> 
  

Chapter 2. 




8
Twitchy Eyes.	Page 

INCUBUS

Joe Donnelly	Page 10