The Enigma of Apocalypse Heights: (Quigg #7)
The Enigma of Apocalypse Heights
(Quigg #7)
Previously:
The Twelve Murders of Christmas (Novella)
Body 13
The Graves at Angel Brook
The Skulls Beneath Eternity Wharf
The Terror at Grisly Park
The Haunting of Bleeding Heart Yard
Tim Ellis
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Kindle Edition
Copyright 2014 Timothy Stephen Ellis
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Kindle Edition, License Notes
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Books written by Tim Ellis can be obtained either through the author’s official website: http://timellis.weebly.com/ at Smashwords.com or through online book retailers.
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To Pam, with love as always
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A big thank you to proofreader James Godber
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Tuesday, August 20
It didn’t take them long to reach the Cannon Green housing estate, which was rife with all manner of problems from drugs to murder.
He’d never heard of Apocalypse Heights, but it was probably an apt name for a high-rise in this part of Hammersmith. There were seven concrete monstrosities in the shape of a cross. Apocalypse Heights was the central block. Above it was Tenaron House, to the left – Acheron Point, to the right – Stull Tower, and below – Curtius Refuge, Avernus Citadel and Hekla Ridge.
Kline did a hand-brake turn into a gap between a burnt-out Jaguar XFR-S and an old vomit-green Citroen C2. He was going to miss her when she left to go to Israel next week.
‘I’m not optimistic that this is a good place to park a car,’ she said.
‘We should have hailed a taxi.’
‘You’ll be able to claim on your insurance.’
‘Maybe we should pay someone to look after it for us.’
‘We?’
‘I thought possession . . .’
‘Except where any payments are required, and then the vehicle reverts back to the original owner – don’t you know anything?’
‘Obviously not.’
They climbed out of the Mercedes.
The new forensic truck had been parked up against the building, and the tattooed driver was drinking a can of beer, listening to ‘Another Brick in the Wall’ by Pink Floyd and had his bare feet on the dashboard.
Quigg spotted a boy who looked as though he still had some decency left in him, and held out a twenty pound note.
The boy laughed. ‘What do you want me to do with that, shitface?’
‘Look after my car.’
‘The going rate is a pony.’
‘FIVE HUNDRED POUNDS!’ He knew about cockney rhyming slang. Christ! He could buy another car for a pony. ‘Well . . . just save what you can.’
The twenty pound note disappeared and the urchin grinned like a magician’s assistant. ‘Maybe a wing mirror, but the paintwork will probably need a touch-up.’
Another group of boys shuffled towards them licking their lips.
‘Hey babe,’ one of them said to Kline. He looked all of ten years old. ‘I’ve got it, if you want it. Whad’ya say?’
Kline laughed. ‘Use it or lose it is what I say, but I’ll need to inspect the goods more closely before I agree to anything.’ She gnashed her teeth together. ‘Know what I mean?’
The corner of the boy’s mouth went up. ‘Yeah, right. You show me yours first and we might have a deal.’
She jerked her body towards them and they scattered like rabbits.
Out of nowhere, a brick hurtled through the air towards Quigg’s head.
He ducked.
The brick bounced off the roof of his car.
‘Bastards!’ he shouted after them.
A five-man team of uniformed officers in riot gear carrying shields, batons and tasers stood on guard at the door.
‘Been any trouble yet?’ he asked.
‘No,’ a Sergeant replied. ‘The natives have been surprisingly subdued. I expect they’re stocking up on Molotov cocktails and bricks as we speak.’
‘Let’s hope not.’
They went inside the graffiti-daubed entrance.
‘What floor?’ Kline asked.
‘Haven’t got a clue.’
He pulled out his phone and called Perkins.
‘Hello?’
Perkins’ voice sounded as though it was being percolated through a coffee filter.
‘Is that you, Perkins?’
‘Yes. Who’s that?’
‘Quigg.’
‘You sound a bit strange, Sir.’
‘Me? You’re the one that sounds strange. Where the hell are you?’
‘Twenty-seventh floor.’
He moved the phone away from his mouth and said to Kline, ‘How many floors are there in this place?’
She shrugged. Walked over to one of the two lifts, pressed the button, and when the doors opened looked at the number of buttons on the control panel. ‘Forty,’ she said. ‘With two basement levels.’
He spoke into the phone again. ‘The Chief was a bit unclear on what’s been going on here, what exactly have you got up there?’
‘Evidence.’
‘That’s not like you, Perkins.’
‘Yes, well. Normally we have a body with no evidence. This time we’ve got evidence without a body.’
‘And it’s evidence of a murder I can hang my hat on?’
‘I would say so. Lots of blood, a heart and a bucket full of small intestines.’
‘Okay. Twenty-seventh floor, you say?’
‘Yes.’
‘Kline and I are on our way up.’
‘See you soon.’
They shuffled into the lift.
Kline pressed the button for the twenty-seventh floor and the doors sighed shut.
Quigg didn’t feel as though the lift was moving. He glanced at the buttons on the control panel, but the light wasn’t shifting beyond “G”.
‘We’re not moving, Kline.’
‘You saw me press the button.’ She pressed it again, but still nothing happened.
He grunted. ‘It clearly isn’t working. Open the doors.’
She pressed the button.
The doors opened. They stepped back into the entrance hall. A light had begun to flicker in a recess above the residents’ metal post-boxes, and the uniformed officers had moved away from the doorway.
‘Let’s try the other lift,’ he said.
He pressed the button to call the second lift, but it appeared to be stuck on the thirty-fifth floor.
‘We could go up the stairs,’ Kline suggested.
He gave a laugh. ‘Twenty-seven floors? Do I look like I’ve got twenty-seven floors in me?’
‘Now you come to mention it.’
‘I could . . .’
‘I don’t think so. It would still leave me down here unable to investigate the murder I’ve come to investigate. We need to call a lift engineer. Is there a telephone number to ring in case of emergencies?’
Kline stepped into the first lift again. ‘Here it is: Trojan Lifts – 07901 872098.’
He called the number and paced around the lobby.
‘Apollyon Lifts?’
‘Detect
ive Inspector Quigg from Hammersmith.’
‘Yes?’
‘I’m at Apocalypse Heights on the Cannon Green estate. There’s been a murder on the twenty-seventh floor, but the lifts don’t seem to be working properly.’
‘Have you tried pressing the button?’
‘What’s your name?’
‘You don’t know?’
‘No.’
‘I’ll send an engineer.’
‘When . . . ?’
The line went dead.
He opened his mouth to speak to Kline, but the lobby was empty and the lift doors had closed.
He pressed the button, and then noticed that the first lift was just passing the sixteenth floor on its way up, and the second lift had reached the twenty-first floor on its way down.
What the hell was going on?
Why had Kline left him standing in the lobby?
He rang her?
‘Yep?’
She sounded a million miles away, and he was reminded of the conversation he’d just had with Perkins.
‘Why did you leave me down here?’
‘I came back in the lift to see if it was working again. I pressed a few buttons, and the doors closed while I had my back turned. The next thing I knew I was travelling up.’
‘The second lift is on its way down now.’
‘You catch that one and follow me up.’
‘Thank you. I was wondering what to do next.’
‘Hey, ring me anytime if you’d like me to tell you what to do or where to go.’
The call ended.
Kline’s lift had stopped on the twenty-seventh floor.
The second lift arrived and the doors opened. Inside was a pale-looking mother with a toddler asleep in a buggy; a black man with plaited dreadlocks wearing an overcoat and listening to Bob Marley’s ‘Buffalo Soldier’ on an iPod; and a middle-aged bald-headed man with a briefcase handcuffed to his wrist.
He stood to one side to let the passengers exit the lift. As they passed him the child in the buggy opened its bloodshot eyes and said, ‘Don’t go up there.’
His mouth dropped open, and then he called after the mother, ‘What did your child just say?’
She stopped.
They both stared at the sleeping boy.
The mother looked at him as if he was crazy and carried on walking towards the front door.
Shaking his head, he stepped inside the lift and pressed for the twenty-seventh floor. The doors began to close, but just before they did – a hand appeared.
The doors opened again.
An unshaven man with a crew cut and a square jaw stood there smiling. ‘Just in time,’ he said and stepped into the lift.
He pressed for the thirty-fifth floor.
The lift began to ascend.
What was that all about? Did he really see what he thought he saw? Surely not, but if he didn’t, what was it – an optical illusion? A trick of the light? The effects of last night’s blue cheese and crackers? The boy specifically referred to his journey upwards. In fact, he repeated what Aryana had said to him when he spoke to her on the phone last week. No – his brain must have been playing games with his eyesight.
He watched the light on the control panel flicker through the numbers, but it didn’t stop when it reached twenty-seven – and neither did the lift.
He glanced at the other passenger, but the man ignored him. Exasperation was beginning to winkle its way into his grey matter.
The lift shuddered to a stop on the thirty-fifth floor. When the doors opened, the man stepped out and disappeared to the right.
Quigg pressed the button on the control panel for the twenty-seventh floor, but nothing happened. He tried the buttons for the floors directly above and below twenty-seven – still nothing. He tried “G” – nothing. He stepped out of the lift.
The doors closed and the lift started moving down.
‘Shit!’
He was seven floors above where he wanted to be. At least he could walk down the stairs. Walking down stairs was far easier than walking up them. He decided that’s what he’d do. The lifts appeared to have minds of their own. If he got into a lift again – God knows where he’d end up. The twenty-seventh floor was reachable from where he was.
His phone vibrated.
‘Are you lost?’ Kline asked.
He told her what had happened and what he was planning to do about it. ‘What’s happening there?’
‘Nothing. I haven’t found Perkins yet.’
‘That’s ridiculous. Have you tried ringing him?’
‘No answer.’
‘How many flats are there on each floor?’
‘Seven.’
‘Well, you probably need to start knocking on a few doors.’
‘And you think I’ve been standing here sucking my thumb?’
‘Have you?’
‘I’ve knocked on every door – nothing. There were people in four of them, but no answer from the other three.’
‘Maybe he’s in one of them.’
‘And maybe you should get your arse down here before I come up there and kill you.’
‘Good idea. We’ll sort it out when I get there.’
He ended the call.
There were no signs indicating the location of the stairs, so he turned left and headed along the corridor in the opposite direction to the unshaven man he’d travelled up with.
What the hell was going on? Where was Perkins? He’d be hard to miss. Christ! He had a team of forensic people with him. How could she not find him? He phoned Perkins.
‘Yes?’
‘Where are you, Perkins?’
‘Still here.’
‘Still where?’
‘On the twenty-seventh floor.’
‘Where about? Kline is on that floor and she can’t find you.’
‘I find that hard to believe. My people are all over the place. We’re in the corridor, and in and out of Flat 27/3.’
‘Okay, I’ll let her know. The lift dumped me on the thirty-fifth floor, so I’m going to walk down the stairs to you.’
‘Interesting.’
‘What’s interesting?’
‘Nothing. See you soon.’
The call ended.
He rang Kline, but she didn’t answer.
A wall appeared before him. Out of a choice of two – he always chose the wrong one. He turned round and headed in the opposite direction.
The lights began to flicker.
A bulb exploded with a loud crack behind him and made him jump, but then the lights stopped flickering.
He reached the wall at the opposite end of the corridor.
Where the hell were the stairs? There had to be stairs. The law required stairs. Health and safety regulations stipulated that there should be stairs. So, where were they? He must have missed them. He must have assumed the door for the stairs was a door to a flat – they must be similar.
As he retraced his steps he tried every door. The trouble was, there were brass numbers between 35/1 and 35/7 screwed on each door, together with a name plate containing a slip-in card with a name on it:
35/1 – Mr & Mrs Henry Dempster
35/2 – Mr Lincoln Newhart
35/3 – Ms Wendy Elliott & Ms Lauren Harper
35/4 – Mrs Mara Ingatestone
35/5 – Jo and Jim Tiptree
35/6 – Mr Ted Finnegan
35/7 – Mr & Mrs Stanley Field
He passed the lift, and pressed the button just to see if it was working, but it wasn’t. Then he reached the wall again. There was no door with STAIRS on it.
Where were the stairs? If there were no stairs, how the hell was he going to get out of here? He went back to the lift. There was no light on the call button, and none on the floor indicator above the lift. He put his ear to the metal and listened. There were noises, but he didn’t think they were the workings of the lift. There were no cog teeth grinding into synchronicity, no pulleys straining and stretching and no lift grunting
and groaning under the weight of obese people. The sounds were more like . . . voices . . . whispering. He was imagining things.
The people in white coats would be sure to arrive soon and carry him off to the happy farm – ha, ha!
What the hell was going on?
He tried ringing Kline, Perkins and then Duffy, but got nothing – not even a dialling tone. His phone was on, there was an excellent signal strength, but it was as dead as a doornail.
What now?
He knocked on 35/4 – Mrs Mara Ingatestone.
The door opened.
An attractive woman in her early thirties wearing a long summer dress and not much else filled the opening. ‘Yes?’
‘Detective Inspector Quigg from Hammersmith Police Station.’ He brandished his warrant card. ‘You’re going to think I’m really stupid, but I can’t find the stairs.’
‘No,’ she mumbled, as if she knew exactly what the problem was and how to rectify it.
He waited, but she wasn’t forthcoming with an explanation or a solution.
‘Would you like to come in for a drink or something?’ she asked.
All the stress had made him thirsty. He wondered what the “or something” she was offering might be. There seemed to be no point in pacing up and down in the corridor – it didn’t appear as though he was going anywhere anytime soon.
‘A drink would be most welcome.’
She led him into the living room and then left him there.
He stood in front of the large window looking out on the world. The view from the thirty-fifth floor was magnificent. He could see for miles and miles.
‘You’re here about the murder in 27/3, aren’t you?’ she shouted through from the kitchen.
He sat down on the black leather sofa and was nearly swallowed whole. ‘Yes. What do you know about it?’
‘Only what people are saying.’
‘What are people saying?’
She came in with a tray containing two mugs of coffee, milk and sugar, and put it on the occasional table in front of the sofa.