Page 57 of The Dead Come to Stay
An apparent Hammersmith standard, they were double glass panes, steel handles. If locked, he wouldn’t be getting them open, but they weren’t locked. They weren’t evenclosed. One door had been propped open with a stray brick. What did that suggest?
MacAdams craned his neck but had lost sight of the torches at this angle. Someone was on the third floor; he could tell this, at least.
Were they stealing something? What could you steal from an empty building? If he waited till morning and a search-and-seizure warrant—he’d never find out.
MacAdams turned on the penlight and let it play over the first floor. Not just complete,finished. Shiny, complete with an open lobby and what looked like glassed-in shop spaces beyond. And yet, the top floor was a skeleton of spikes and concrete and cables. It made him think, suddenly, of Nagamaki Plaza, though he wished his mind hadnotchosen that particular American classic as a reference point. For one thing, MacAdams was about a stone too heavy to be climbing in the ventilation.
He found the stairwell on the east wall; no lights and no windows. MacAdams followed the penlight’s tiny circle up the firstflight; by the time he reached the landing, he could hear noises above: a grating noise, like a trolley, heavily loaded. Then sounds of muffled effort, occasional indistinct voices. MacAdams passed by the second floor, heart hammering, and waited on the landing before the third. Two voices, male, one Cockney.
“Be careful with that—fuck’s sake!”
“Wot? You fink I wan’ be here all nigh’? C’mon. These boxes are bloody ’eavy.”
“Fair. All right. Let’s get these down.”
MacAdams ducked back down the stairs to the second-floor door, begging it not to be locked. The handle turned, and he darted into the black space; he’d gone somewhere windowless and shut off his light.
“Mate, shoulda figured no lift—we’re daft getting these down apples and pears.”
“You’ve a trolley, for Christ’s sake, lean it on your hip as you go.”
MacAdams watched light flicker through the door crack and heard them wrestle their burdens down the flight. Neither voice was familiar, certainly not the kid who sold him crisps from the butty van—nor was either a Geordie, nor Yorkshire bred.
These voices were from out-of-towners. Property workers? Hired hands? If so, hired by whom?
The light vanished and the thuds grew distant. The silence of the building now felt pregnant; he could hear something. Or imagine that he did. Breathing.
A flutter of second thoughts assaulted MacAdams, but he pushed them away.Get it together; he needed to see the third floor before they came back. And theywerecoming back.
The third floor offered a large open space. Faint light came through the window wall onto a long central table. It was presently clear, just a metal surface from which a lot of things had no doubt been swept away.
MacAdams dared turn on the minitorch and played the beam along the walls. There were boxes stacked along a makeshift shelving system, all of them taped shut. He stuck the penlight in his mouth to free his hands, then used his serrated door key as a knife and worked through the heavy layers.
A moment later, McAdams was sweating. Beads ran down his forehead as he pried the box apart. He gripped a heavy plastic bag and lifted, shining the penlight on its contents with his other hand, bracing himself to find stacks of cash or drugs or—
Pottery?
Broken pottery, at that. MacAdams lifted a shard; in the dim light he could see complex designs painted on the glazed side. He tore open the next box. Tile, this time, pictographic. Even in pieces, it was possible to make out the semblance of broad-leaf plants.
Footsteps.They’re coming back. But he hadn’t made sense of anything yet; he couldn’t back away now. He wrestled with a third box; this one made a whisper of displaced contents as it moved. He set the light down this time, hurrying to pull away the tape. When he shone it back inside again, the beam reflected golden. MacAdams couldn’t help but stare: before him was a box of earrings, pendants, bracelets, rings—all of it delicate, intricate and almost exactly like the photo he’d just sent to Jo.Open work,Struthers said.Arabesque designs.
MacAdams shone the light once more on the tile, only now he understood what he was looking at: a mosaic, probably ancient, absolutely black market. He’d just stumbled into a trade, not of illicit drugs or the usual suspects, but—stolen artifacts.
This realization was followed by a whisper of displaced air. The sounds of atoms scattering out of the way as an object went slicing through empty space. MacAdams didn’t have time to guess its heft or its shape. It connected solidly with the back of his head and the stars exploded.
He crashed to both knees as his vision turned to gray mist. Through it, he could just make out a shape—a man above him—swinging something heavy.
“Stop! Police!”A light suddenly shone in the dark. The figure froze, the arm didn’t swing.
“Drop your weapon!”
He didn’t drop the weapon. He threw it at the source of light—then bolted. There was noise, commotion, except MacAdams wasn’t sure if it was coming from inside or outside his brain. He groped his hands toward the ground, hoping to find it solid.
“Omigod, omigod—are you all right?”
MacAdams raised his throbbing head. But there were no police. There was just Jo Jones.
“James,thatwas the guy!”
