Double Vision by Pat Barker Read Free Book Online Page A

took a deep breath, dragging cold into his lungs, and was about to step down into the road when he heard a sound behind him and turned round to see Ben Frobisher come out of the swing doors behind him.
    ‘Do you mind if I tag along?’
    Stephen did mind, but it was too late to say so. The armoured car had gone, and there was no other way of getting back to the hotel. He was secretly furious: the whole point of this walk was that he should do it alone.
    They stepped out into a world so dark their faces and hands seemed to give off the only light. Far away on the horizon the flickering artillery rumbled. A flare went up, and, for one trembling second, the roofs were edged in blue, then darkness fell again, deeper than before.
    Despite the cold, he started to sweat, raising his gloved hand to wipe his upper lip. The flak jacket and the body armour encumbered his movements, and he was aware of Ben walking in the same robotic way. They passed graffitied walls whose scribblings they couldn’t read, and then a block of flats with all its windows shattered, shards of glass lying in the slush around the chained gates. Despite the chains, people still lived here. He was aware of eyes all round them, of ears straining to listen as their feet slithered through the slush. In places the snow covered pieces of rubble. He was intensely aware of Ben, of the gleam of his eyes and teeth, of his body as a source of heat in the cold dark, almost as if the brain, deprived of vision, developed a kind of thermal-imaging technique. Far away to the right, in the darkness, snipers waited for somebody desperate enough for heating, or water, or food, to break cover and step out into the road.
    As they approached the crossroads, he turned in his lumbering moon walk to Ben and pointed him deeper into the shadow of the building. Scuffing their shoulders, they scaled along the wall, then stopped for breath, side by side now, leaning against a door while they nerved themselves to face the dash across the open road. For two or three seconds they would be dark shapes against the glimmering whiteness.
    ‘Well?’ Ben whispered.
    Stephen nodded, and braced himself against the door, which gave way under his weight so that he staggered back into the stairwell of the building. Ben followed,stopping when he was safely inside to examine the lock that had been smashed.
    A flight of stairs led up into the dark. A scuffle from above, a sense of pricked ears and eyes watching. Ben produced a torch from his pocket, cupped his hand around the light, and shone it over the walls, so that they saw the dank passage and threadbare carpet veiled in his blood. His fingers were dark shadows in the ruby skin, like an X-ray, Stephen thought, and that red glow spread over the walls. Splinters of glass lying on the stairs had been crunched to a fine powder in the centre of the treads. Upstairs, the scuffling started again.
    ‘Up there,’ Ben whispered, pointing. He started to move towards the stairs.
    Stephen caught his arm. ‘No, come on, leave it.’
    Ben pressed on, not shaking him off, just quietly disengaging himself. Reluctantly, Stephen followed.
    A smell of mould met them at the top of the first flight, and the red torchlight revealed fungus growing on a damp patch of plaster. Then other smells took over: the musty smell of old carpets covered in dog hairs, the burnt toast smell of dried urine on mattresses, and finally a smell Stephen fought against recognizing.
    In a corner of the landing, away from the danger of flying glass, a girl huddled on a mattress. She didn’t speak or cry out or try to get away. Ben swung the beam along the wall until it found her face. Eyes wide open, skirt bunched up around her waist, her splayed thighs enclosing a blackness of blood and pain.
    Stephen fell on his knees beside her and pulled downher skirt. A voice in his head said, Don’t touch anything. This is a crime scene. And then he thought, Bugger it. The whole fucking city is a crime