his shoulder. And had to blink twice – as what looked like a dark figure about fifty yards behind stepped out of sight.
Keith halted and pivoted around to look properly, his heart suddenly jolting in his chest.
Seconds passed. There was no sign of anyone there now.
He walked quickly on, throwing more glances over his shoulder, but seeing nothing through the gauze of rain. Before he reached the canal, he cut left down a ginnel, unsure if this was the quickest route but determined now to keep heading southwest.
Could what he’d just seen have been a figment of his imagination?
He hurried down a covered walk, and emerged onto another main road, Commercial Street. From here, glancing left, he could see all the way to the point where it intersected with Severn Street. It was at least a hundred yards off, but a dark, upright shape seemingly waited at that junction. It was impossible to tell what it was from this distance – it could easily have been some kind of permanent fixture there, but on the other hand it might be someone loitering.
Keith hurried the other way along Commercial Street until he reached Granville Street. From here he had good vantage both to the left and right. Not too far away, a set of traffic lights sat on green; there were no cars to obey them, just more curtains of rain swishing over the empty crossing. He glanced back once to see if the figure at the intersection was still there, but it was impossible to be sure; again, the rain obscured all detail.
Low-key night lights were still on in various shops, he noted as he walked on. Funny how, when you were out alone at night that didn’t really bring you any comfort, somehow enforcing the message that there was no one else here but you.
He turned onto Bath Row, lurching sharp right. The deluge still hammered down. Keith wondered if it was going to slacken off at all before he got back to the flat, not that it would make much difference now, saturated as he already was.
For what seemed like the umpteenth time, he turned and glanced behind.
And this time saw a figure about forty yards away and on the other side of the road, but heading roughly in the same direction that he was. As before, Keith felt as if he’d been struck. But then he had a couple of reassuring thoughts: firstly, although the figure was wearing heavy waterproof clothing, with the hood pulled up, concealing the face was hardly sinister on a night like this; secondly, he’d made no effort to duck out of sight again.
It must be someone else on their way home. Nothing to be worried about.
Even so, Keith increased his pace, jamming his hands into his anorak pockets, and more out of instinct than logic, on the spur of the moment, taking a detour down another alley, this one leading around the back of the Shell garage. Technically, he was heading northward again – not where he wanted to go, but he had to admit, he hadn’t liked the way that other homeward-bound pedestrian had suddenly appeared from nowhere.
He peered backward as he trudged down the alley, its junction with Bath Row falling steadily behind. But no waterproof-clad figure strode past it as he’d expected. When the junction was a hundred yards distant, Keith still hadn’t seen anyone.
And that felt wrong.
He pressed on urgently, and almost collided with the steel post of a street sign, which he must have made a blind beeline for without realising. He skipped aside, but in so doing, slipped on a greasy flagstone, and landed heavily on his back.
A great video for someone to post on YouTube, he thought as he scrambled back to his feet, insulated from the pain by his growing sense of unease. In actual fact, he hoped that somebody was filming. It might help them catch this Creep nutter.
When he stepped out onto a narrow, largely residential thoroughfare which he recognised as Roseland Way, it was a relief. He wasn’t far from home now.
Within a few minutes, he’d worked his way down to the A4540, or the Middleway as it was known, a large inner-urban dual carriageway, which formed part of the Birmingham ring road.
On the other side of that lay Edgbaston.
He crossed the Middleway via an underpass, descending a flight of stone steps and heading quickly along the square cement passage, which led some thirty yards to the other side. The usual graffiti was there in abundance – ‘Blues’ and ‘AVFC’ – along with other vastly more profane slogans. Keith might consider himself a lad-about-town, but he didn’t particularly like using these subways at night, especially not alone – they were damp, desolate and echoey. But tonight was an exception. He just wanted to get home, get showered and get to bed. Not long now.
He was perhaps ten yards from the end when a figure descended the steps in front of him.
By its height and shape it was male, but there was no real certainty of that because it was covered by a heavy black rain-slicker with the hood pulled down over the face.
It came straight along the passage, head bowed, hands buried in its pockets.
Keith continued forward too, didn’t even falter in his stride. Partly this was due to surprise – it basically stupefied him; his brain, for all that he thought he’d sobered up, was still too sluggish to transfer immediate messages to his limbs. It was also, he supposed – somewhat fatalistically – because there was no turning back now.
He lowered his own head as he advanced, burrowing his hands deeper into his pockets, and at the same time moving slightly to the right. Drunk or not, he was still an athlete. He could still dodge and run. But the guy – who was quite clearly the same person Keith had seen before – now veered straight into his path.
They were about two yards apart when he looked up and met Keith face to face.
Keith couldn’t speak. He was too mesmerised by the waxy-pale features and the deranged grin imprinted on them. In fact, he was only able to move when the figure drew something metallic and gleaming from inside its right-hand pocket – which clearly wasn’t a pocket at all, because this thing came out inch after curved and glittering inch.
It wasn’t as much a knife as an old-fashioned cavalry sabre.
Keith jerked himself backward – and slipped on some waste paper. For the second time that night, he landed hard on his spine. For the second time, he barely felt it as he attempted to crab-scuttle backward. The grinning figure followed with a slow, deliberate tread, raising the sword as though for a massive downward chop.
‘Alright!’ Keith shrieked, scrabbling frantically to his feet but at the same time yanking the wad of cash from his jeans pocket and waving it at the advancing shape.
Sword still hovering, the Creep – whose maniacal expression never changed – reached out a gloved hand, and snatched the cash away. Keith could only peer up at the gleaming steel. In part because he couldn’t bear to lock gazes with those small and weirdly shimmery eyes – he’d read something in the paper about the Creep always wearing a demented expression and having a penetrating, glint-eyed stare – but also because he knew, he just knew, that awful blade would not be staying overhead. Even so, he never expected it to sweep down in a blur of speed, to deliver a murderous blow to the joint between his neck and shoulder, to bury itself deep in muscle and bone. Keith sagged to his knees, stunned by pain and horror.
But it was only when the blade was wrenched free that the blood fountained out of him, and he fell face-first to the concrete.
Detective Constable Lucy Clayburn headed north along the M60, and at the Wardley interchange swerved west along the M61. It was just after ten o’clock at night, so even Greater Manchester’s famously crowded motorway network was relatively quiet, enabling her blood-red liveried Ducati M900 ‘Monster’ to hit a cruising speed of 80mph as she passed the turn-offs to Farnworth, Lostock and Westhoughton. She only slowed as she reached Junction 6, where she swung a right, entering the complexity of roundabouts