The lock turned with a loud click. He pushed the door open.
As he had expected, the place smelled bad. Strike could make out very little in what looked like a dilapidated and unfurnished room. He needed to close the curtains before turning on the lights. Turning left, he immediately knocked into what felt like a box. Something heavy fell off the top and landed with a crash on the floor.
Fuck.
“Oi!” shouted a voice audible through the flimsy dividing wall. “That you, Donnie?”
Strike hastened back to the door, felt frantically up and down the wall beside the doorjamb and found the light switch. Flooded suddenly with light, the room proved to contain nothing except an old, stained double mattress and an orange box on which an iPod dock had clearly been standing, because it now lay on the ground where it had fallen.
“Donnie?” said the voice, now coming from the balcony outside.
Strike pulled out the propane canister, discharged it and shoved it underneath the orange box. Footsteps from the balcony outside were followed by a knock on the door. Strike opened it.
A spotty, greasy-haired man looked hazily at him. He appeared extremely stoned and was holding a can of John Smith’s.
“Jesus,” he said blearily, sniffing. “’S’that fucking smell?”
“Gas,” said Strike in his fluorescent jacket, stern representative of the National Grid. “We’ve had a report from upstairs. Looks like this is where it’s coming from.”
“Bloody hell,” said the neighbor, looking sick. “Not going to blow up, are we?”
“That’s what I’m here to find out,” Strike said sententiously. “You haven’t got any naked flames next door? Not smoking, are you?”
“I’ll go make sure,” said the neighbor, looking suddenly terrified.
“All right. I might be in to check your place when I’ve finished here,” said Strike. “I’m waiting for back-up.”
He regretted that phrase as soon as it had escaped him, but his new acquaintance did not seem to find such language odd from a gas man. As he turned away, Strike asked:
“Owner’s name’s Donnie, is it?”
“Donnie Laing,” said the jittery neighbor, clearly desperate to go and hide his stash and extinguish all naked flames. “He owes me forty quid.”
“Ah,” said Strike. “Can’t help with that.”
The man scuttled off and Strike closed the door thanking his lucky stars that he’d had the forethought to provide himself with a cover. All he needed was for the police to be tipped off now, before he could prove anything…
He lifted up the orange box, shut off the hissing propane and then replaced the iPod in its dock on top of the box. About to move deeper into the flat, he had a sudden thought and turned back to the iPod. One delicate poke of his latex-covered forefinger and the tiny screen lit up. “Hot Rails to Hell” by—as Strike knew only too well—Blue ?yster Cult.
60
Vengeance (The Pact)
The club was heaving with people. It had been constructed in two railway arches, just like those opposite his flat, and had a subterranean feel enhanced by the curved corrugated iron roof. A projector was throwing psychedelic lights across the ridges of metal. The music was deafening.
They had not been overly keen on letting him in. He’d had a bit of attitude from the bouncers: he had experienced a fleeting fear that they would pat him down, in his jacket with the knives concealed inside it.
He looked older than anybody else he could see and he resented it. That was what the psoriatic arthritis had done to him, leaving him pockmarked and blown up with steroids. His muscle had run to fat since his boxing days; he had pulled with ease back in Cyprus, but not anymore. He knew he’d have no chance with any of these hundreds of giddy little bitches crammed together beneath the glitter ball. Hardly any of them were dressed the way he expected of a club. Many of them were in jeans and T-shirts, like a bunch of lesbians.
Where was Strike’s temp, with her gorgeous arse and her delicious distractibility? There weren’t that many tall black women here; she ought to be easy to spot, yet he had combed bar and dance floor and seen no sign of her. It had seemed like providence, her mentioning this club so very close to his flat; he had thought it meant a return of his godlike status, the universe arranging itself once more for his benefit, but that feeling of invincibility had been fleeting and almost entirely dispelled by the argument with It.
The music thumped inside his head. He would rather have been back at home, listening to Blue ?yster Cult, masturbating over his relics, but he had heard her planning to be here… fuck, it was so crowded that he might be able to press up against her and stab her without anyone noticing or hearing her scream… Where was the bitch?