Dead Man's Footsteps Read Online Free PDF Page A

tiny patches of desiccated skin.
    He squelched towards it, being careful not to slip on the mulch base. Twin pinpricks of red appeared for an instant and were gone. A rat. He swung the beam back on to the skull, its inane rictus grin chilling him.
    And something else about it chilled him too.
    The hair. Even though the lustre had long gone, it was the same length and had the same winter-wheat colouring as the hair of his long-vanished wife, Sandy.
    Trying to dismiss the thought from his mind, he turned to the constable and asked, ‘Have you searched the whole length?’
    ‘No, sir, I thought we should wait for the SOCOs.’
    ‘Good.’
    Grace was relieved, glad that the young man had had the sense not to risk disturbing or destroying any evidence that might still be in here. Then he realized his hand was shaking. He shone the beam back on the skull.
    On the fronds of hair.
    On his thirtieth birthday, a little over nine years ago now, Sandy, the wife he adored, had vanished off the face of the earth. He had been searching for her ever since. Wondering every day, and every night, what had happened to her. Had she been kidnapped and imprisoned somewhere? Run off with a secret lover? Been murdered? Committed suicide? Was she still alive or dead? He’d even resorted to mediums, clairvoyants and just about every other kind of psychic he could find.
    Most recently he had been to Munich, where there had been a possible sighting. That made some sense, as she had relatives, on her mother’s side, from near there. But none of them had heard from her, and all his enquiries, as usual, had drawn a blank. Every time he encountered an unidentified dead woman who was remotely in Sandy’s age bracket, he wondered if perhaps this time it was her.
    And the skeleton in front of him now, in this buried storm drain in the city where he had been born, grown up and fallen in love, seemed to be taunting him, as if to say,  You took your time getting here!
    6
    OCTOBER 2007
    Abby, on the hard carpeted floor, stared at the small sign beside the panel of buttons on the grey wall. In red capital letters on a white background it read:
    WHEN BROKE DOWN
    CALL 013 228 7828
    OR DIAL 999
    The grammar did not exactly fill her with confidence. Below the button panel was a narrow, cracked glass door. Slowly, one inch at a time, she crawled across the floor. It was only a few feet away but, with the lift rocking wildly at every movement, it might as well have been on the far side of the world.
    Finally she reached it, prised it open and removed the handset, which was attached to a coiled wire.
    It was dead.
    She tapped the cradle and the lift swayed wildly again, but there was no sound from the handset. She dialled the numbers, just in case. Still nothing.
    Great, she thought. Terrific. Then she eased her mobile from her handbag and dialled 999.
    The phone beeped sharply at her. On the display the message appeared:
    No network coverage.
    ‘Jesus, no, don’t do this to me.’
    Breathing fast, she switched the phone off, then a few seconds later switched it back on again, watching, waiting for just one signal blob to appear. But none did.
    She dialled 999 again and got the same sharp beep and message. She tried again, then again, jabbing the buttons harder each time.
    ‘Come on, come on. Please, please.’
    She stared at the display again. Sometimes signal strength came and went. Maybe if she waited …
    Then she called out, tentatively at first, ‘Hello? Help me!’
    Her voice sound small, bottled.
    Taking a deep lungful of air, she bellowed at the top of her voice, ‘HELLO? HELP ME PLEASE! HELP ME! I’M TRAPPED IN THE LIFT!’
    She waited. Silence.
    Silence so loud she could hear it. The hum of one of the lights in the panel above her. The thudding of her own heart. The sound of her blood coursing through her veins. The rapid hiss-puff of her own breathing.
    She could see the walls shrinking in around her.
    She breathed in slowly, then out. She stared at