FALLEN IDOLS. Neil White

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      She was strumming her fingers on the steering wheel as she entered Manchester, drumrolling to the thoughts racing through her head, the images of Dumas as he died, of the two people in the flat. She had stayed in a motel, some chain place just off the motorway, but her sleep had been broken, angry, woken by jolts whenever she fell asleep. She had asked to view the flat alone. They had insisted.

      She closed her eyes for a moment, tried to focus, muttered to herself, took some deep breaths and tried to calm herself down. She talked to herself some more, and when she spoke, she felt the panic retreat.

      She leant back in the car seat, stuck at a red light by the Manchester Arena, the railway bridge coming out of Victoria the shadow on her horizon, red and gold, the Victorian north. She could see the shadows of Deansgate gathering in front of her, cars bunching, getting busier, with the new steel and glass of Manchester ahead, the rebuilding after the bomb, modern and dynamic, sharp angles shining light behind the dark stone of the cathedral. In her mirror, she could see Strangeways, the Manchester prison.

      She moved on when she got the green and then the sun disappeared as she drove between the tight buildings of Deansgate. It went out altogether as she pulled into a car park below an apartment building. The wind was no longer in her ears, no more of the city sounds. Now it was dark and full of echoes, with the sound of her warm tyres screeching on the dry concrete.

      She pulled into a parking bay, her stomach taking a roll when she saw the Porsche, his mid-life crisis. She thought she heard someone laugh. She gritted her teeth, knew not to look behind.

      She did a slow count to ten, then stepped out of the car, her bag swinging, playing the part, and took the lift into the lobby.

      As she stepped out, the security guard gave her a nod, a look of recognition.

      She made it to the lift that led to the apartments, not wanting to talk, the silence almost crushing her, her breaths bouncing around the walls. Ten floors up, almost as high as she could go, she stepped out and paused outside his door. She took another deep breath and screwed up her eyes to keep the voices away.

      She went into the apartment slowly, using the spare key she’d coaxed out of him, peering round, working out where he was. She could hear the shower running.

      She saw The Times on a chair. She turned away. She’d read all she could about the shooting. No one had mentioned the chain yet. Not even on the television. Maybe she had pushed it too far in? Maybe they didn’t understand it? She would have to do something about that.

      She walked quietly into the bedroom. She could hear singing coming out of the bathroom just off to its right, out-of-tune opera, and through the steam she could see him, a middle-aged divorced accountant happy to believe that she was interested in him.

      She tried to slow down her breathing. She had been waiting for this moment, ever since that first time, when she had met him in a bar near the courts, when he had bragged to her where he lived, in the plush new high-rise with a central location and a view right into the city bustle. She had been trying to find a location for part of her plan when she realised that the answer was in front of her, bragging to her, chatting her up. She had smiled back, her eyes full of promise, and when she had seen the СКАЧАТЬ