Leave Her Hanging: A Noir Thriller

Chapter Twenty-Five

I got to the abandoned building site near Basque Park by 8:30 in the evening. I was early to meet Alex, but I wanted to check the place out first, make sure everything was on the level. I found a couple of vantage points and scoped the place out from a distance. The only people I saw outside were a couple of teenagers cutting through the park and a middle-aged woman taking her dog for a walk. It was a warm evening. The building site itself was just two storeys high with an open front that faced out onto the park. Graffiti on the walls, some optimistic netting around the property aiming to keep people out. I found a tree on the other side of the park with branches low enough for me to climb into and I waited for Alex to show up.

I’d finally stopped shaking a couple of hours ago. I’d got home without waking Dad, took a shower that made my scraped knuckles feel like I’d poured petrol on them, and tried to get my head straight. This whole damn thing was going deeper than I ever expected. I figured Ella’s murder would be something simple, straightforward, some arsehole like Malcolm Barker getting stupid or jealous and deciding he needed to take it out on her. But this….

I didn’t even know what “this” was. I couldn’t get that drugged-up girl’s blank face out of my head. What would’ve happened to her if I hadn’t stuck my nose in? And how the hell did Ella fit into all this?

You know how she fits into it, a voice in my head taunted me. You suspect. You just don’t want to face it.

I put my hands to my head and tried to squeeze the voice out. No. I wouldn’t think about it. Not yet. Not until I knew more.

I looked up. A small figure was pulling aside a loose area of netting around the building site. Alex. I checked my phone. She was early. I watched a couple more minutes, eyes straining against the fading light. I couldn’t see anyone else around, but that didn’t mean they weren’t there. What if Jo had tipped someone off about what I’d done? Or what if Alex was setting me up? I still didn’t know her angle, and it was gnawing at my gut. I couldn’t trust her. But I needed information. I just had to pray I was fast enough to get loose if the net closed in around me.

I swung down from the tree, put my hands in my pockets, and slipped around the edge of the park, using trees and shadows for cover where I could. Alex had gone up to the second floor of the abandoned building site. I could make out her silhouette leaning against the railing. I ducked under another bit of the netting, climbed up the hill at the back of the site, and went inside. My footsteps echoed off the concrete walls. She didn’t turn when I came alongside her. The tiny orange ember of a cigarette glowed near her lips.

“You smoke?” I said as I leaned on the railing beside her.

“Does that bother you?” She held the cigarette between her index and middle fingers and blew smoke at me.

I wrinkled my nose. “Who the hell smokes anymore?”

She shrugged and put the cigarette back to her lips. Her nose piercing caught the glow of the orange tip. She was wearing the same thick, black jacket she’d been wearing when I followed her down K Road the other night. The weather wasn’t cool enough to deserve it. Standing next to her like this I realised just how small Alex was. She looked like a determined butterfly could knock her over. The bruises on my side from the two by four reminded me that perceptions could be deceiving.

How much could I tell her? She was involved. She was one of them. I couldn’t afford to get played and have someone take me out of the game, not yet. But I was up against a wall, and she was the best lead I had. Something had brought her here to talk to me. I just had to hope that something wasn’t going to end up with me dangling from a doorknob with a belt around my neck.

“I had an interesting day,” I finally said.

“Oh?” She sounded bored. “Do tell.”

“Picked up a lead on some guys planning to exchange a package. I decided maybe I wanted to get myself an invite to their meeting. Only when I got there the package was a pretty little twelve-year-old girl so high she was in orbit.”