Petyr had been reluctant to take up his cane again. He disliked feeling like an old man, tapping it on the sidewalk with every step. But the simple fact was that his knee still hurt. And more importantly, it was a weapon that the cops wouldn’t bother him for carrying openly. Hopefully, that fact would make up for it making him more distinctive at a distance.
He stuck to the gloom as much as he could, and with the poor maintenance of the city’s street lights it was for the most part relatively easy. But sometimes there was nothing for it and he simply had to stride about beneath glaring, artificial light.
It was strange. Generally it was the dark that put people on edge. And generally he wasn’t afraid of violence. But being threatened by an inebriated churl or a petty mugger was a bit different from being on a gang’s bad side. It was tempting to think of the encounter in the Long Light Diner himself as just a bit of general swagger, and that Petyr wasn’t a particular concern of theirs. Until he reminded himself that he’d broken a mug on Wolf’s head.
The potential consequences of the moment clashed with the satisfaction of it. However much reason told him he should have stayed silent and passive, hurting the bastards had simply felt right. No methodical struggle to get the truth out and just hope the public would be motivated to motivate leaders into actually doing something. Just a fight.
And of course now he was having to mind the aftermath.
“It’s a shame you’re not a glimmering knight on horseback, to reflect your pride,” he mumbled to himself.
As he rounded a corner he couldn’t help walking into more troublesome light. Petyr decided to just go up to the pole and rest his back up against it, beneath the faintly unpleasant hum of the large bulb.
Ideally for himself, the Hounds would consider him a secondary concern amidst their recent campaign of general extortion and thuggery. And ideally for the city itself the gang would be picked apart when and if the police got serious about fighting them... and perhaps dedicated and frank reporting could have a hand in that.
But there were plenty of big stories going on right now, and the most mysterious of the lot was now right in front of him. The Woodforth Building was a rather large three-storey of red brick, with its builder’s name written on the front in large metal letters.
Ordinarily it was rented out to various small businesses and one medium-sized accounting firm, all of whom had weathered this post-war misery better than most. Yet it was dark and abandoned, and two uniformed officers flanked the main door and two more guarded the back exit.
Suddenly abandoned in the night, with the various employees seemingly scattering to the winds. And yet, even in these times of high unemployment, there was no real noise about it. People gossiped, sure, when they weren’t busy talking about the Green Bomber or the homelessness crisis or the smog or the gangs or the infrastructure. But the people who had actually witnessed whatever had happened were notably absent from the discourse.
The fellow in the diner had only been his third find in two weeks, and the other two had been no more helpful. Both had claimed to simply be working in the same office on the ground floor when suddenly the police burst in and told them to evacuate.
No matter what had actually happened and whose fault it was, there was a big story here. One could tell, if only by the size of the tarp that had been thrown over it.
Petyr stepped away from the post and walked diagonally across the street. The two cops obviously knew he was coming; they’d surely taken notice of him the moment he rounded the corner, given the lack of other stimuli. They still didn’t react in any way until he stood before the door.
“Building’s closed,” the one on the left said. “Keep moving.”
“Good evening, Constable,” Petyr said calmly. “And yes, I know it’s closed.”
He looked at each of them. They were a bit of a distance away from the nearest street light, but he still felt reasonably sure these weren’t the same men as last time. It was genuinely hard to tell with these types sometimes. They seemed to be hired based on both sturdy bodies, rough faces and grim expressions. Not that Petyr himself would have been happy to be relegated to this duty.
“I also know you must be bored as all hell,” he went on. “My name is Petyr, and I write for The Morning Voice, in case you didn’t know. Are you sure you’re not up for a bit of chat? I can assure you that I have no issue at all keeping my sources anonymous.”
“The building is closed to the public,” his chosen target insisted stiffly, and seemed to want to leave it at that.
“I get that,” Petyr said, still keeping his tone positive and relaxed. “I get that there’s some problem and you can’t just have the masses stomping around, messing up a troublesome situation. But how about press access? Just one of you boys can give me a bit of a tour, and feel free to search my pockets once we’re outside. I’ll not touch anything at all, and I’ll simply attribute whatever I see to ‘a source’. People will assume I’ve talked with one of the people who worked here. A journalist who doesn’t guard his sources simply doesn’t last.”
“You don’t listen good, do you?” the officer said, annoyance being his first hint of emotion. “Keep walking.”
There was no point to doing anything else, and so Petyr touched his hat in a way he hoped wasn’t too sarcastic and continued on his way.
On the edge of the immediate light he turned around and said “Think about it, at least. Goodnight.”
He left, only mildly disappointed due to not really having expected results. The real point had been to sneak another glimpse at that particular second-storey window on the side of the building. His conclusion hadn’t changed: It really did look like he might be able to climb up to it by making use of the first-floor window below. And it was the sliding kind, so barring a lock it was a way in.
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
With a bit of luck, and by picking a time late in the night when the cops would be tired and inattentive, he might get in silently and see for himself what all the hushed-up fuss was about. The only question was whether he should. That childish inner push for heroics was in no doubt, but had to yield to the fact that his leg wasn’t up for it at the moment. So he had a bit of a postponement on having to make a decision. Once that little window was past... well, perhaps he would continue his string of right-feeling, regrettable decisions.
# # #
The elevator rattled a bit as it brought Petyr upwards at a somewhat frustrating pace. Patience was supposed to be an investigator’s prime virtue but he generally found himself lacking when it came to machinery. He shifted his weight and a little stab of pain from the knee reminded him to be grateful not to have to walk up five floors.
The contraption came to a shuddering halt and he pushed the folding gate aside before striding to the end of the hallway immediately before the opening.
Lowe, Landlord read the simple plaque on the door. Petyr rang the bell and waited as he heard movement within.
“Yes?” said a man’s voice. “What is it?”
“Good evening. My name is Petyr and I write for The Morning Voice. Might I trouble you for a few minutes?”
A lock was undone on the other side of the sturdy wood, then another one, before the door opened a crack and a pair of eyes within a stubbly face looked out at him.
“Right, I think I’ve heard about you,” Lowe said. “What are you doing here?”
“It’s about one of your tenants: Redda. I was hoping to speak with her.”
“She ain’t here. Ain’t been here for days. Only six days left on her rent, in fact.”
“I know she isn’t here,” Petyr told him. “She has not been answering her phone and her sister told me she has no idea where the woman is.”
“Then what do you want from me?” Lowe asked.
“Did you know she worked at the Woodforth Building?”
Some hesitation came into the man’s bearing.
“I did,” he admitted. “What of it?”
“After the building was evacuated, did she return home at all?”
“Yeah, she did,” Lowe said. He indicated down the hallway, towards Redda’s apartment. “Made a bit of a racket.”
“What kind of a racket?”
“Stomping her feet, bumping into things. I thought she was drunk and came out to give her an earful, but she just looked shaken.”
“Shaken, you say?”
“Shaken,” the man repeated. “I don’t know what else to tell you. I only heard about the Woodforth thing later.”
“Do you have any idea at all why she would vanish like this?”
The man shrugged indifferently.
“Underground work, maybe? Like I said, her rent’s coming up and I don’t do charity. But...”
“But what, Mr. Lowe?”
“Another tenant... said some people came looking for her. It was shortly after... whatever it was. I’d gone out for drinks, and he said he’d seen a group in the hallway, banging on her door.”
“And she’d already gone by that point?”
“That’s how I understood him.”
“Is this man at home right now?” Petyr asked.
“No. He works real late.”
“And he didn’t give you a description?”
“He just said ‘shady’,” Lowe told him.
Petyr really wanted to think this over, but didn’t want to start boring a man who seemed only half-interested in the conversation.
“This is all rather worrying,” he said instead. “I don’t suppose we could peek into her apartment together? Just to be certain all is as it should be?”
The man held him with his bored look for a couple of seconds.
“Sure,” Lowe then said. “Why not? Just don’t touch anything. I’m not a sweetheart but I hate thieves like ass worms.”
“I don’t steal,” Petyr assured him. “I’m just nosy.”
Lowe fetched a huge keychain and came out into the hallway. They walked over to the apartment under discussion and the man went through the chain to look for the right one.
“Hope there’s not a body in there,” Lowe said as he fiddled, looking hesitant. “That’s trouble I don’t need.”
He opened the door and a bad smell blew into their faces. It worried Petyr for a moment before he recognised it as mould rather than carrion.
“Oh Hell, this I don’t need either!” Lowe said as they entered.
Half a loaf of bread lay on top of a kitchen counter, as did a stick of butter. A couple of cabinets had been left open, but the place hadn’t been overturned in the manner of someone searching the place. It seemed the resident had simply left in a great hurry and never come back. More notably the wallpaper had been torn partially down in places.
Petyr approached the nearest dangling reams and noticed unmistakable fingermarks in the paper and glue. He measured his own fingers against them and believed it had indeed been a woman who did this.
There was nothing behind any of the damage save for plain wood panels. If there was a purpose or a pattern to any of this, then Petyr didn’t see it. Lower paced back and forth, grumbling under his breath as he found a bag to put the spoiled foodstuffs in and took in the general state of the apartment.
Petyr poked his head into the bedroom and found the wardrobe open and messy. The bathroom was more neat, but there was a toothpaste-encrusted shelf that was notably missing an actual toothbrush.
And that was it, as far as he could tell. No signs of violence, no notepad by the phone and no messages in an obvious spot. Just more mystery, and a feeling of intense frustration battling excitement at such a challenge.
“Well, that’s it,” Lowe said. “I’m kicking her out. I’ll give the sister a chance to pick up the belongings, but I’m not having this in my building.”
Petyr made a noncommittal sound and strolled over to the window. By an alley across the street stood a man. He wore a plain brown coat, but Petyr felt the collar of it stood out a little. As a clumsy addition might. There was also just something in his bearing; that combination of confidence and predatory alertness.
He’d had eyes on the man for maybe five seconds when he suddenly walked backwards out of the light and into the alley. His silhouette blended strangely with the shadows between the buildings, almost seeming to warp its shape somehow before vanishing from sight.
A trick of the shadows, Petyr told himself to quell his suddenly rattled nerves. Quit being a baby.
“Well, she’s not here and neither is her corpse,” Lowe said as he stopped his pacing. “So I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”
“That’s fair,” Petyr said, still gazing out the window. “You’re been very helpful Mr. Lowe. But do you mind if I use the telephone to call a taxi?”