Take Two

CHAPTER 62

Richards raced down the stairs, figuring that would be quicker than the lumbering lift. He hadn’t picked up the handset, he’d just grabbed his keys and run out of the flat. His heart was pounding and it wasn’t from the physical exertion of running down the stairs. Carolyn? How could Carolyn be at his front door when she was in a trunk at the bottom of the North Sea?

He reached the second floor, grabbed the metal rail that ran the full length of the onside wall and swung himself around. There was a fire door at the very bottom of the stairwell that led into a small tiled lobby. The front door was to the left and he fumbled with the lock before yanking it open. It was pouring with rain and, as he stepped outside, there was a menacing roll of thunder off in the distance. The pavement was deserted. A black cab drove by with its yellow FOR HIRE light on.

He whirled around but there was no sign of her. A young couple sheltering under an umbrella walked by him. ‘He’s got no shoes on, did you see that?’ he heard the woman say in a strangled Essex accent. ‘What sort of idiot goes out at night in the rain without shoes?’

Richards looked across the road. The rain was blinding him and he put his hands up to shield his eyes. There was a man holding a newspaper over his head and a teenage girl with a Spaniel on a leash sheltering in a doorway. Richards did a slow three-sixty as the rain drenched him. There was no sign of her.

He ran his hands through his soaking wet hair, wondering if he was going crazy. Had he imagined it? Was it the booze? Or was his guilty conscience playing tricks on him? He turned and went back into the building.