8. Home and dry 

Senga looked up and was presented with the familiar bulky silhouette of Darrel, the Circle guard. He towered above her, Senga could not make out his features because of the light in the ceiling shining on his back but she recognized his outline from their earlier encounter.  

"Thank Christ it's you!" She climbed to her feet with his help.

"Why, who else were you expecting?" The miss-matched high-pitch voice.

"I was being chased. I went up to first by mistake. I saw a murder. Well, I heard a murder, in a room." She brushed herself down. Her white shirt was streaked with dirt from her contact with the corridor walls. She had moved into the light and, seeing his expression, realised that Darrel was not convinced.

"Look. I know what you're thinking. I a nut, right?" She needed Darrel to understand what had happened upstairs.  Thirty minutes ago she had thought that he was a child killer, it was clearly going to be difficult to convince him that she had just witnessed a murder.

"We need to get out of here. The people, the people who shot the man upstairs, they're after me. We need to hide."

"Look here. First you barge into my office and accuse me of abduction. Now you tell me that you have seen someone killed.  Its stretching it a bit don't you think?" He had a sympathetic edge to his voice but he was not convinced. "Tell you what. You come with me and we can review some CCV from around the Gem. I have a terminal that can access all the security cameras, Okay?"

He didn't believe her one bit, but rather than stand and argue he reasoned that the security footage would confirm everything.

"Fine, let's go." Senga had visions that the two men would come careering down the corridor at any second. Darrels office was better than standing here in the open corridor.

 

 

They went into one of the other rooms that were scattered around the lift shaft basement where she had barged in on Darrel and Tanya earlier. The room was narrow and long. One wall contained a long grey desk which had a number of chairs lined up underneath. Above the desk, attached to the wall were banks of monitors showing different areas around the Gemini. Darrel sat down on the nearest chair and indicated for Senga to take up the next one in the row. He reached out and pulled open what seemed like a draw. It was, in fact, a keyboard with a track ball built in to the top right hand corner. He looked at the screen in front of his eyes, fingered the keyboard and the screen changed from an exterior shot of the block to a list of text entries and time.

"Now, you say that you saw a murder on first, yes?"

She nodded. She had told him that she had only heard shots, she just wanted him to hurry up and find some convincing evidence.

He tapped a sequence out and hit an enter key. The screen scrolled the text at a speed that made it impossible to read. It stopped at a specific time entry, then the view changed to that of a corridor similar to the one that Senga had described.

"Now. If we track this forward to when you say it happened, say....ten minutes after you left us down here, yes?"

She nodded again.

The screen went black. It stayed black. In the corner of the screen a little digital read-out showed that the time was progressing but there was no image. Darrel slowly turned to Senga with a puzzled expression.

"See!" She said. "They even fritzed your cameras."

"Ok, okay, let's see if we can track these people down then. He punched out a series of commands on the keyboard. Senga was surprised at the mans dexterity with the keys. He had large, fat fingers but they moved swiftly and accurately.

"Here we go then." He had asked the security system to show any images from cameras positioned on the ground and first level where people could be seen. Images flicked across a number of the screens.

"Ok. Have a look if you can see your friends on any of these cameras."

Senga looked. Every screen showed an image that contained at least one person and each image had text stating which floor and the camera position..  She saw people milling around the lift area on first. A women walking along a corridor on first. A young couple engaging in some sort of sexual act in a back corridor at ground level.  Senga looked down at Darrel. He was making a note of the camera position that showed the couple, he would be dealing with them later she thought. There was a youngish man entering his flat on first, and then she spotted them. Two men, long dark raincoats. The readout said 'Ground East. Pos.6'.

They were about to enter the double doors that lead back up to the gun shot room.

"There. It's them." She pointed excitedly at the screen.

Darrel leaned across towards the monitor that showed the two men. He looked closely at the pair. He started to grin which unnerved her.

"So. They are the killers. Yes?"

"That's them, I'm telling you. They were carrying the body." Senga felt vindicated. Surly he would have to believe her now.

"Go on then, what more do you need. Phone the police."

"No need," Darrel turned back to Senga and he wasn't smiling now. "They are the Police, at least, the big one is. Your murderer is the head of Salford CID!"

 

 

Rosh had seen no sign of Senga and was now in a state of panic. He had entered the building where the old man had shown him. He had searched the main corridors on the ground floor of the tower. He had reached an area that housed the main block lifts.  There had been a few people milling around the shops that faced the lifts but no one had seen any sign of Senga or the guard. A women who was locking down the metal shutter of a shop had told him where the guard could usually be found at this time of night and he was heading that way now. The corridor that he was in was deserted. It reminded him of an old train station, cold, echo filled and deserted. The walls were lined with boarded shop fronts and doorways. He could see an exit sign up ahead. He had crossed the entire block and was heading for the exit on the other side. It was hopeless.

He heard a noise to his left. A doorway with double doors was moving. A sign above it read 'Municipal Circle Personnel Only!'. Someone was unlocking it from the inside and was about to come through.

A large figure stepped out of one side of the doorway. He was holding a woman by the arm, half dragging her. She was protesting verbally.

"But I'm telling you, If you go up there they will kill us." It was Senga.

"..And I'm telling you that enough is enough. I think I have wasted enough of my evening listening to your......" He stopped short as his left leg gave way beneath him.

His massive weight only serving to unbalance him. He released Senga's arm as he fell,

stretching his arms out to the side in the vain hope of softening his fall. As his hands thumped to the floor something connected with his jaw knocking him fully to the ground. The speed of the attack left him prone and stunned, he hadn't even had time to catch a glimpse of his assailant.

Rosh stood over the stricken guard. He stood, body coiled, fists raised ready to strike down should he try to stand. He didn't. He groaned as he rolled onto his side to clasp his shattered kneecap.

 

"You Okay Baby?" He didn't take his eyes from the guard as he questioned Senga. She moved to his side and threw her arms around his neck.

"Oh Rosh, what a night, what a fucking night.'" She struggled to keep herself from bursting into tears. The relief of seeing him had overwhelmed her. Darrel was crying in agony.

"You bastard, you smashed my fucking knee, bastard, bastard!" He looked up at Rosh for a second as he threw the insult but quickly returned his attention to his cradled knee.

Rosh relaxed. The sharp kick at the mans knee had achieved the desired effect. He knew that he would not be getting back up for a while, the kneecap would be somewhere around to the side of the leg. Senga let go of him and stepped back a pace.

"Rosh listen, we need to go, now!" She was breathing heavily to prevent the tears welling up.

"What about....." He half wanted the guard to get up. If he had hurt a hair on Senga's head he would…..

“NOW!” They ran.

 

"No car! I don't believe this. This has got to be the worst night of my life."

They had exited the block and were on the opposite side of the Gemini to the Kebab house. Rosh had just explained about the car being stolen.

"I must have left the door open when I chased after Darrel. Anyway, I lost my bag in there somewhere so I haven't got the keys."

They side stepped into a doorway to give them a break from the driving rain.

'"The police may have the car by now. It's been half an hour or so," Rosh was trying to find something positive to focus on. The car would have alerted the police the second that it had been hot-wired. Most modern cars had on-boards and tracers as standard. It would be showing as a flashing red light on a virtual grid somewhere on a police server. There was a public-terminal across the street at the base of the next block in the Circle. They could see its fluorescent green sign through the downpour. They crossed the empty street and hurriedly crammed into the booth. It steamed up in seconds but at least they were shielded from the elements. Senga had given Rosh a hurried account of what had happened. They should be calling the police now but Darrel had said that the black coated men 'were' police, at least one of them was. He didn't need to lie. Senga had believed him. They had decided to phone Max. He would

come and pick them up. Rosh dialed his neighbors' number.