Page 28 of Pure Killers

He watches me for another beat. “You alright?”

“I’m fine, I’m just not tired,” I lie.

He hesitates, then shrugs. “Alright. Suit yourself.”

***

I have to go. I tell myself that. Not knowing is going to kill me.

There's only one light on in the old mill grounds, high up in the scaffolding of a gantry crane. A network of rusting metal skeletons which make little sense to me further surround the crane. The light is bright and white, shining against the dark, overcast sky. I caught a taxi here this time, not wanting to risk Dirk or anyone else hearing about my car camping out in Crennick during the night again. With luck, this won't take long.

The taxi dropped me around the corner. "You sure this is where you meant, Miss?" The driver had asked me as I paid, eyeing me in the rear-vision mirror. I wore a hood pulled close over my hair, but I suppose I still didn't look the type to be hanging out in Crennick late into the night.

I thanked him and slipped out down the first dark street on my right, waiting for the taillights of the car to recede before I came back out.

Now, walking into the mill, I have to find a way up to that light. Large vat walls twice as tall as me are sunken and forgotten among the other apparatus left to die here. A handful of small red lights still blink dimly, connected to some kind of leftover power, a battery, or even solar panels probably, though now too faint to see from any distance. It’s these that indicate the metal stairs which zigzag up through the gantry.

Tilting my head up, I see a long climb on harsh metal steps above me, and none too secure looking either, with no walls but mere bare scaffolding to surround them. With one last deep breath, I start climbing.

I don't know what I expected at the top, after five flights of rattling stairs, and a wind that came from nowhere to get progressively more intense the higher up I went, to the point where I was no longer imagining the sway of the structure. Maybe I expected nothing, that this was just a wild goose chase, courtesy of Needler.

I didn't expect him to already be there, standing on the grated platform, arms resting on the pipe fence. The spotlight behind him makes me squint, hitting his back and casting his front in intense shadow. The platform is high enough to see over most of the rest of Crennick Row, and all the way southwards to the living part of the city, to the moving lights and skyscrapers that feel like a different world to this ruin.

"We're lucky it’s not raining tonight. Perfect weather," that altered voice speaks to me.

I ignore it. I'm not here for small talk. "You said you'd tell me something I wanted to know."

He doesn't answer. I step forward, my hand lifting to block out the intensity of the spotlight as it hits the side of my face. It’s mounted on a tall wire fence, one of those chain-link ones that wobbles and rattles in every breeze, the same flexibility making it almost impenetrable as well as impossible to climb. "Did my husband find Cocooner?" Finally, Needler's face lifts and the glint of his mask turns towards me within the hood. “Did Caleb kill him?”

“We see what we want to see," Needler intones, and when I'm to press again, he adds so simply and suddenly, “Your husband knew who the Cocooner was, yes."

My mouth opens and closes. I catch myself believing him without question and stop. "Then that charred body… he was Cocooner? Was it Tristan?"

His face turns away again, tilting down towards the mill grounds hidden from me. "I can't spell out every answer for you, Little Shadow."

My teeth grate together. "So that’s it? Why did I need to come out here for that?"

"Oh, I’ll show you what you're really here for."

To that ominous statement, I take a step back. But then he's holding something out to me. Binoculars. I put my back to the light enough so as not to need to squint as Needler points down towards the vats. "Take a look."

Eying his mask and his blackened mouth suspiciously, I step up to the low pipe fence. When this place was operational, workers probably had to wear harnesses, strapped every step of their way to the framework. Not now the fence feels too low, Needler, too close. I edge back along the fence, out of his reach, before I bring the binoculars to my eyes. At first, I see nothing, just a vat crusted with long-dried cement. Then I move to the other, larger one, further back from the crane.

There's movement, caught over the edge of the lip. I halt and backtrack, see the flicker of movement again. I wait, adjusting the sights, and a beat later I'm shocked to see an old man in the vat, his hair white, balding on top. He's wearing one of those white plastic gowns, walking further into the centre and so into my field of view. I trace his trajectory, getting to a gurney before he does. The gurney has a blue sheet, and someone under it.

Reflexively, I lower the binoculars, reaching for my gun, but it’s not there.

Needler is in front of me, arms spread to either fence, blocking me in as I turn for the stairs. “I haven’t suddenly become an asset. Stay. Look.”

"Who is he?" I ask.

"Look again. You'll see."

With no choice, I turn back, lifting the binoculars. The first thing I look for is the gurney, and the person on it. But now, fixing the focus on it this time, I see it’s no person. Just a mannequin in a hospital cap. I let air out through my lips. No victim, no real one anyway. But still. The old man has a tool kit which he opens to a glint of metal. He moves slowly, joltingly, showing his age.

"He used to be known as Carver. One of the original psychopaths that cropped up after the Crennick explosion. He'd been in prison thirty years. Released last week on compassionate grounds. He's dying."

"It’s just a mannequin," I say, still watching. He's pulled back the sheet from the mannequin’s leg.

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