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Authors: Paul Finch

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BOOK: A Wanted Man
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Just ahead, a slim form leapt down, landing lithely on the balls of its feet.

It was the Spider for sure. The partial descriptions they’d had were a perfect match: he was slim but athletic, wearing black plimsolls, black gloves, some kind of opaque black body-stocking, with a black leotard over the top, and a full-head mask formed from black nylon.

Even though he’d been expecting it, Heck was briefly stunned by the get-up.

No doubt it was all for ease of movement; so the bastard could run, jump and climb, as well as blend into the night. But there was something sordid and sleazy about it too. As well as dehumanising him, it enhanced his twisted sexuality, turned him from man to fetishistic monster. It was also scarily practical; Heck caught a glint of press-studs at the Spider’s crotch, doubtless so he could open quickly and easily to perform his hideous business.

There was only about twenty yards between them, but now the masked figure eased down into a catlike crouch, the fingers of both hands spread on the gritty floor. For a moment, Heck thought the bastard was going to burst into a sprint and come straight at him. In response, he straightened up, resuming the combat stance.

‘You’re getting locked up, pal,’ Heck said, edging forward. ‘You can have it easy, or you can have it hard … it’s your call.’

The Spider held his position, invisible eyes clearly locked on his opponent. And then, with a whirl of speed, launching himself sideways across the alley, springing onto the top of another rickety shed and projecting himself upward again, clean over the top of the railway fence, dropping down the other side and vanishing from Heck’s torchlight.

‘Shit!’ Heck rushed forward. ‘1415 to Five,’ he gabbled into his radio. ‘I’m in one of the alleys at the rear of 18, Kersal Rise. Pursuing a suspect in the Spider attacks down onto the railway, over …’

Without waiting for orders from Murph that he must hang fire until support arrived, or from Don Crawford that he needed to provide a far more exact and precise assessment of the situation, he lurched to the fence and clambered up it. Half way to the top, his torch was caught on a wire, yanked from his belt and fell behind him. There was no time to go back for it. He swung his leg over the top, and commenced a frantic scramble down into the blackness beyond. The radio was now a frenzy of cross-cutting messages. At least one of them was addressed to Heck, but there was no chance to reply. He dropped the last few feet into a shoulder-deep jungle of rank, dying weeds, and stumbled as he sought a steady footing. The railway embankment was steep and comprised mainly of loose shingle, but he fought his way downhill, following the trail ploughed by his opponent.

Before he reached the bottom, his radio fizzled out; there was no reception in as deep a cutting as this. Its dimensions were only vaguely discernible, lit – if such a term could be used – by the dull yellow glow diffusing into the sky from the lights of the surrounding streets. The two sets of railway tracks were just about visible, tapering away in either direction. Ordinarily, Heck might have held back. Without the means to provide light or communicate with the outside world, the benefits of a close, fast pursuit were outweighed by the potential dangers, but even as he emerged from the matted scrub, he caught a fleeting glimpse of a lean shape, about forty yards away, loping northward along the railway line. A diminishing
crunch
of footfalls was just about audible.

Heck set off running too. But several times in the near-complete darkness, he tripped, eventually falling full length. When he jumped back to his feet, his target was no longer visible. The only sound now was a faint hum from the network of power-cables overhead.

‘Crap!’ he said under his breath.

At least his eyes were adjusting, which enabled him to distinguish that just ahead, the cutting became a canyon, the railway lines hemmed in by towering walls of black brick. In addition to that, structures were vaguely visible to either side of them – the relics of Meadowbank Station. This had still been in operation when Heck had first arrived here as a young probationer, though unmanned and desolate, and precious few commuters had used it. It had only been a matter of time before it finished up like this: disused, boarded off from Meadowbank Road, and thoroughly vandalised.

He slowed to a walk as the ruins drew closer. Soon he could see the station’s footbridge, a roofed timber structure lying across the cutting at a height of about fifty feet, well above the railway’s power lines. No lights showed from this of course. There hadn’t even been any when the station was operational. In winter, anyone coming home from work and disembarking at Meadowbank would have to cross that bridge in inky blackness. There’d been at least two muggings and one indecent assault up there that Heck knew of even during his relatively short service.

Meanwhile, the flat canopy roof above Platform One, the station’s only stone platform, was outlined against the sky on the cutting’s east side. Platform Two, also roofed by a flat, lightweight canopy – but built from timber, and thus hollow underneath and flimsy with age and rot – stood on the right, but was actually an island, because beyond that lay an abandoned track-bed deep in weeds and leading into a long-abandoned tunnel. Beyond the track-bed, a row of old maintenance sheds backed against the brickwork of the west canyon wall, and though many of these had been burned out by arsonists, they were sufficiently intact to provide concealment.

Heck halted, his breath twisting pale and wraith-like. It was tempting to expect the Spider, with his obvious agility and fitness, to keep on going, following the railway at speed, seeking nothing more than to put distance between himself and his pursuer, but the reality was that he wouldn’t expect to get very far wearing only a black body-stocking and plimsolls, even at this late hour. It was a big risk that some night owl might spot him and think it strange. So did he really plan to go all the way home on foot in such a costume? No … it was more likely he had a vehicle nearby. In which case, he wouldn’t want to leave this place, but would prefer to hide in the vicinity, and work his way back to it when the chance arose.

Heck was still pondering this, when he heard a shrilling of metal to his rear. He spun around.

The train, probably the first service of the day, had almost caught him unawares. It was about a hundred yards behind him, but advancing swiftly. Heck wasn’t on the track itself, but was perilously close. He darted sideways. Because he hadn’t had time to don his hi-vis jacket, the driver only spotted him when it was too late, sounding his siren as he hurtled through the station.

Heck ran up the ramp onto the platform. The train’s windows and the one or two pale faces therein shunted past in a blur. In fact, he had a better visual of Platform Two on the other side of them, as it danced with stroboscopic light. In fact, the whole canyon was briefly filled with thundering noise and flashing illumination. Heck even saw the empty apertures of the sheds beyond the derelict track-bed, and a split-second before the train had passed, he saw something else, something much closer: a black-clad figure emerging like some goblin from the crawlspace beneath Platform Two, and vaulting up on top of it. Then the train had gone, and the station was plunged into darkness again.

Heck jumped down onto the rails and scrambled over there. He tried his radio on the way, but still there was no response. When he swung himself up onto Platform Two, his target had vanished. He scanned every part of the platform he could actually see, which wasn’t much; a waist-high slatted fence ran down the centre of it, behind which it was possible a man could crouch. Heck slowed as he approached this, again with baton hefted.

The fence, which was about five yards in front of him, was an obvious point of concealment, but gloom lay on all sides – the attack could come from any direction. Heck’s eyes flirted left to right as he edged forward. It occurred to him that he might have made a classic error of judgement by willingly entering this ambush zone alone. But no, he told himself. For all that he was spry and athletic, the Spider was a typical sex-attacker, preying on the weak and vulnerable, and Heck was neither of those things … as the bastard would soon discover.

There was a scraping sound to his left, like a foot on woodwork.

Heck spun half way around, flinching back from an expected assault.

But nothing struck at him. Nothing came to view except the dank blackness under the rotted canopy. The fence was now a yard in front.
That
was where he’d be waiting, the Spider under his trapdoor – it was the only possible place.

Metal
clanged
loudly from behind.

Heck reacted instinctively. He knew it could be a diversion, a pebble thrown at the railway lines, but it was a natural reaction to twirl around – it was impossible not to – and perhaps inevitably, as he did, with only a foot between himself and the fence, the Spider sprung up on the other side and threw an arm around his neck.

The muscles in that arm were like iron cables. The crook of its elbow locked into Heck’s throat with such strength that his air supply was instantly extinguished.

Heck tried to throw himself forward and flip the guy over his shoulder, but his opponent was unyielding, as if he’d braced a knee against the fence running between them. He clamped Heck’s face with his gloved left hand, giving himself further leverage and blocking off Heck’s nose and mouth, wrenching his head backward. Heck gasped as his neck muscles were pulled taut, choked as he tasted sweat-sodden rubber. He rammed his elbows behind him, but found no target. The pointed tips of the fence slats dug agonisingly into his lower back, but just when he thought his spine was going to snap, the maniac’s hand released his face and snaked down the side of his body, locating his CS aerosol and ripping it from his webbing. Heck jerked his head back, crunching the rear of his skull on his opponent’s nose, inducing a grunt of pain, and then pulling free, at the same time pirouetting and whipping his baton around, smashing it across the hand clasping the canister, sending it flying over the platform.

Heck followed this with a backhand slash, only missing that nylon-swathed visage with millimetres to spare. If the Spider hadn’t immediately dodged backward, he’d have caught it full on the cheekbone. But he wasn’t quick enough to evade Heck’s other hand, which clutched a mass of flimsy material. There was a rending and tearing sound – just as the attacker lurched back into a ray of moonlight. The top of his clothing was rent away, exposing his naked torso: it was tightly-muscled and gleaming with sweat, but it was also riddled with jagged white scars as if some time in the past he’d suffered a brutal flogging.

‘Bastard!’ Heck snarled, attempting to straddle the fence. ‘You’ve had it, mate!’

Try as he may, he could never feel sympathy for those whose response to being hurt was to hurt others.

The Spider turned and grabbed something lying near his feet. Heck had just cleared the fence when he realised what this was – an enormous two-handed spanner, part of a railway man’s maintenance kit. The maniac swung it down and around like an executioner with his axe. Heck spun just in time, taking the blow across his back. The impact was sickening, the shudder passing clean through him as he toppled forward against the fence and fell back over it, hitting the platform with his face. At first he was too groggy to do anything. He tasted coppery fluid in his mouth, blood pooling there from a busted nose. Seconds seemed to pass before it struck him that the danger wasn’t over. His opponent was almost certain to come across the fence, to finish him off.

And yet that didn’t happen.

As Heck looked dazedly up, he glimpsed the ivory V-shape of the Spider’s upper torso dwindling into the darkness on the far side of the derelict track-bed. Heck swayed to his feet. He clambered the fence again, crossed the other side of the platform and dropped down. As before, his quarry had vanished, but Heck made a beeline for the nearest aperture in the wall of sheds. It led through into a cramped hole filled with clutter and stinking of damp and fungus. Inside, another door hung open on his left, this one shifting slightly, its hinges creaking – as if someone had just gone through it. Heck blundered through as well, barging into the next compartment, where he halted.

The facing door here was closed. But then a droplet of lukewarm fluid hit his left cheek. Heck looked up and saw his prey spread out across the ceiling, hands and feet jammed into corners to keep himself in place, every muscle tense in his bare, brutalised physique.

The Spider dropped.

He landed clean, wrapping his sinewy form around Heck’s head and shoulders, at the same time pummeling his face with a free fist. Again, Heck had lost the initiative. Though his opponent was smaller and lighter, his strength and wiriness were a real problem. Heck stumbled back and forth, before throwing himself shoulder-first at a grimy window overlooking the track-bed. The glass erupted outward as his opponent was dislodged through it, landing heavily on the weed-grown cinders outside. Heck grabbed at the nearest door and yanked it open. The jamb was rotten and the door came away in his hands, clouting his already wounded face. He tottered backward, peppery tears filling his eyes, only managing to glimpse the figure outside as it catapulted back to its feet and dashed out of sight.

Initially unable to do more than stagger, Heck thrust himself outside, and glanced right, spotting his prey as he disappeared into the black, semi-circular mouth of the abandoned tunnel. On one hand this was good, Heck thought, hobbling in pursuit. The tunnel was barricaded at its far end, so there was one entrance and one exit. On the other hand, if it was dark out here, it would be blacker than the pit of Hell in there.

It certainly
smelled
like Hell – more dampness, more decay. Heck ventured into it anyway, feet clumping on sodden, mossy rubble. A short distance in, he halted to listen – nothing. He proceeded again – ten yards, twenty, thirty. Now there was a
complete
absence of light.

He stopped, ears straining.

BOOK: A Wanted Man
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