Silent Playgrounds by Danuta Reah Page B

your finals.’ Nod. That’s not enough. Say, ‘Yes.’ It was important to get it right in the centre. The pencil began to create a picture, fine lines, fine detail, unclear at first to anyone who can’t see the patterns that have always been so clear to Simon.
    ‘… catching up. This lab’s empty tonight, but Barry’s next door if you need anything. They’ll be locking up at nine.’ Their eyes meeting. Simon, looking away, nodding. Say, ‘OK. All right.’ Footsteps. Door. Gone. Simon looked at the clock, and returned to his drawing.
    Two hours. He added the contents of the third flask now, cool not cold. The solution turned a clear white, like milk, like paper.
    Hours to wait now. Leave, down the shiny corridors and the lights in the ceiling, and the chaos as the people walk here, there, and all the patterns disturbed. Say, ‘Goodnight.’ The security man, old, ‘Night.’ Looking down, not noticing, used to Simon’s comings and goings. Out of sight and back to the room with the shiny floor. Wait.
    Lights out. The security man, back soon. Wait, watch, sleep. Sleep. Dream …
    The torchlight wavering on the path ahead. Fading, as though the batteries were giving up. The rain spattering against them, and a puddle gleaming in the thin light. And on the path ahead … Staggering under the weight as she slumped against him. The stuff had been good, strong.
Quiet, be very quiet.
The path by the dam, now. The night, black beyond the circle of faint light on the ground. The torchlight catching the rain, shining and glittering. Shining and glittering like the mud in the dam, the thick, black mud and the sucking sounds drawing your feet in and releasing them. And the place where the mud was disturbed, the place where you could dig.
    Oh, no. Please not that.
And the gleam colder than the gleam of firelight, making the metal burn with ice.
    Not that!
And the soft, muffling sound of the mud in the darkness.
    Simon’s eyes snapped open. That dream again, and now there was another one, rushing along a shadowed path, looking for something that wasn’t there, feeling it hard on his heels, the chaos, the chaos, the chaos.
    He looked at the clock, its black hands on its white face calming him, steadying his breathing.
Just a dream, Si. Don’t worry about it.
Several hours had passed. It was midnight. The night watchman never came up here so late. Simon began heating the water bath.

5
    Dennis Allan’s home – once Emma’s home – was a maisonette on the estate overlooking Gleadless Valley. Tina Barraclough got lost on her first attempt to find the address, working her way through the confusing maze of two- and three-storey blocks that studded the valley side. From the distance, the estate gave a sense of openness, of green parkland dotted here and there with buildings whose fronts were multicoloured with fluttering curtains, washing hanging on the balconies, painted doors. From closer up, the decay was more apparent. There was rubbish on the grass, bare, muddy patches. The paintwork on the buildings was peeling. Nearby, the blocks were boarded up. Further down the hill, they were encased in scaffolding, surrounded by the mud and rubble of a building site, tarpaulins and polythene sheeting flapping in the summer breeze.
    The Allans’ block was one that was awaiting refurbishment. Police cars were parked in front of the row of garages that formed a basement to the building. Barraclough pulled up beside them. The doors of thegarages were uneven and chipped, decorated with tags and slogans and names: CASSIE B AND CLAIRE D WOZ ERE! BAZ FOR CLAIRE D! SLAGS LIVE HERE. The garages had once been painted in primary colours, red and blue and yellow. Traces of the paint could still be seen.
    Barraclough went up the concrete stairway to the first deck, to number twelve, the Allans’ maisonette. Though the rubbish chute seemed to be jammed, stuck open and overflowing, the stairway itself was swept clean, the front doors painted and