Sudden Death. Phil Kurthausen
around. The roof of the bar had been turned into a terrace, no doubt trying to mimic some New York hotel but in the dark, cold of a Merseyside winter it was deserted and had all the charm of a northern seaside town out of season. Incongruous sun loungers lay in a regimented pattern around a frozen shallow pool that in the summer was blue and fresh but in the winter was left cold and empty.
The one benefit of the roof terrace was the view of the city that it afforded. From here he could look down Water Street and to the riverfront. The tall stone walls of two of The Three Graces, the Cunard building and the Liver building, framed the dark, broiling Mersey. It was chillingly beautiful.
He took a breath and started forward looking for Dave. He tried the microphone.
‘Dave, are you there?’
He shouted the same question.
His replies were static and silence.
Erasmus hurried around the side of the pool and towards the bar area at the far end of the roof. If Dave wasn’t behind it, lying unconscious or worse, than there was nowhere else he could be up here.
The bar was maybe thirty feet long and behind it was an open storage area for beer and wine crates. Erasmus jumped on the bar and slid across it. There was nothing there save for a few bottle tops and a soggy dead firework. The storage area was blocked off from his view by a ten feet high sign that ran the length of the rear of the bar and which depicted striking dockworkers holding a girl in a forties polka dot bikini aloft on their shoulders. An image that summed up the bar, and in many ways Liverpool: an awkward history, socialism and faded glory.
Erasmus ran to the end of the bar and into the storage area. This was just a piece of roof, maybe two metres long, and empty save for two aluminium beer barrels that Erasmus guessed some minimum wage student barman had neglected to bring down at the end of summer.
Of Dave and his client there was no sign.
‘Erasmus!’
He looked around but he couldn’t see anyone yet he had definitely heard his name being called. Erasmus walked to the edge of the building. He made the mistake of looking down. The side of the Blood House building fell away into a narrow dark slit, the alleyway that separated it from the adjacent building, which was slightly lower. From the alley far below came the sound of clattering cans and debris swirling around in eddies caused by the strong, grit-filled wind.
It was dark but not too dark for him to register how far the drop was to the concrete below and for some primal part of his brain to rebel and, without even realising what he was doing, step back from the precipice.
His stomach twisted and sent a rush of adrenaline through his system. Christ, he hated heights. A parachute jump, sure, that was no problem at all. He could step out of the plane and barely increase his heart rate, but when he could see the ground it set him reeling.
‘Erasmus, here!’
This time the voice was louder and it was unmistakably coming from the roof of the building next door.
He took a hesitant half step forward towards the edge and then halted.
The roof on the building opposite was of a similar size to the Blood House roof. Its surface lay mostly in darkness and with very little moonlight Erasmus couldn’t make much out in the shadows save for a large, rusty looking satellite dish.
He looked away from the roof and turned his head at an angle so he wasn’t looking directly at it. Using his peripheral vision, which was less sensitive to lack of light, he blinked every few seconds so his vision didn’t adjust to the lack of light and lose its sensitivity. It was an old army trick. He scanned the roof area without looking directly at it. And then there, on a part of the roof that was darker than the rest, was something that looked like a figure.
Erasmus cupped his heads together and shouted. ‘Dave, is that you? Are you OK?’
The figure moved slightly and then began to speak, repeating the same phrase over and over. Erasmus leaned forward trying to make out the words, trying to convince himself that what he thought he had heard wasn’t correct.
The wind dropped for a second and Erasmus heard him clearly now. He froze.
‘Dave’s dead, help me,’ said the figure.
Erasmus recognised the voice of his client. Something was very wrong.
From behind him there was the clang as the steel door that led out onto the roof hit the concrete doorframe. He stole a quick glance from behind the bar. It was the two bouncers. They had followed him up here. Erasmus noticed that the smaller and older of the two was carrying something in his right hand. Erasmus started to duck back behind the sign but he was too late, he caught the eyes of the older bouncer.
‘There. Go get him, Craig!’
The younger man began to walk forward quickly. He looked excited, always a bad sign, thought Erasmus.
He would have to move quickly. He had two options: give himself up to the bouncers, explain the situation, wait for the police to arrive and then, maybe, finally, take a tour of the building next door so the police could see if his story checked out, by which time it may be too late for his client; or jump.
Erasmus looked at the gap. It was probably less than six feet wide. An easy jump if it was between two marks on the floor. But with a drop of one hundred and fifty feet it became a different prospect all together. Bile rose in his stomach. Maybe the bouncers would listen?
He put his head around the sign again. Craig was standing right in front of him. He was so wide that Erasmus couldn’t see the other bouncer hidden behind his bulk.
Erasmus held his arms up palms open.
‘Listen, I haven’t got time. My client is in danger, he’s over there on the other building and – ’
Erasmus was cut off mid-sentence by the swinging right arm of Craig. Instinctively, he ducked and the sledgehammer fist went sailing over his head: Negotiations were over.
He didn’t have time for finesse. From the crouching position he had adopted, Erasmus jumped up and swung his right foot hard into Craig’s steroid shrunken testicles. Craig’s cheeks hollowed as he sucked in air and then almost immediately expelled it in a shriek. He collapsed to the floor. As he did so, two silvery jets, shot towards Erasmus. He swerved to his left and the shiny projectiles impacted against the wooden sign behind him. They were attached by trailing wires that led back to the Taser in Jeff’s chubby hand.
Jeff spat on the floor and his eyes flashed with anger.
Erasmus blew out a relieved sigh. If the Taser’s barbs had hit him he would now be enjoying the pleasures of 50,000 volts of electricity running through his nervous system.
Jeff hit a button on the Taser’s body and the projectiles whirred backwards. He started to reload the gun with an air cartridge.
Erasmus contemplated charging him. He could easily get to him before he could reload but the Taser had a drive stun mode, meaning that the bouncer would only have to touch the gun’s electrodes against Erasmus to incapacitate him instantly.
No, in the time it would take the bouncer to reload, Erasmus would have to move.
He ran around the rear of the sign and began sprinting at a perpendicular angle to the low parapet wall. An image of a theatre with high walls and velvet curtains from a long, long time ago filled his mind, and then he changed course and headed for the wall.
Behind him there was a shout of ‘No!’
Erasmus’s right foot pushed hard against the top of the parapet just as he realised that he was about to die.
Rebecca was in love. She was sure of it. It was the feeling she had only thought possible in an Austen or Meyer novel, not something destined for her. And it was true, you only knew what it could be – how consuming, demanding