Nine Elms (Kate Marshall #1)(30)

“Yeah. We would sound crazy.”

He took a picture with his phone camera, and they studied the photo, zooming in on the image.

“It looks like it’s tied on with something,” said Kate. “There could be DNA on it. If it’s been out in the elements, it’s a very slim chance, but still. An opportunity. Are you good at climbing?”

“No. I’m really scared of heights.” He looked at her and gave a feeble smile. “Like, shit-my-pants scared.”

Kate paced around the tower of cars. They were four cars high, and they had their doors and windows missing. She could use them like steps. She thought back to her years in the police and how many times she had scaled scaffolding, trees, and high walls. It had been a while since she had been physically fit. Sure, she swam, but it was a different kind of fitness, and she never did great distances, just a ten-to-fifteen-minute dip each morning.

“Should we call the old man?” asked Tristan.

“Did he look nimble enough to scale a tower of cars?”

“No. Shit, I’m sorry,” he said. He appeared agitated just at the thought of climbing.

“It’s okay. Have you got any plastic, an old plastic bag?”

Tristan rummaged in his pocket and pulled out a carrier bag, handing it to her.

Kate and Tristan moved to the pile of cars, and she grabbed the first one. A large green Rover. She shook it. It felt solid, and the glass in the window was missing.

“Here,” said Tristan, grabbing a couple of old tires from the mud. He heaved them over and stacked them by the car door. “A step.”

Kate stood on the tires—they boosted her up a few feet—and she was able to hook one foot up on the sill of the open window.

“Careful in those wellies,” said Tristan, wincing.

“Don’t pull that face. I’m only on the first car,” said Kate.

“Sorry.”

Kate saw the second car was a minivan, and the gap between its passenger window and the Rover’s window below was large.

“Tristan. Can you give me a boost?”

“Sure, um . . .”

With a lot of inelegant heaving, where Tristan had to put both hands on her butt and push her up, she made it so she was standing on the windowsill of the second car. It seemed a helluva long way down to the mud and twisted metal below, and there were still two more cars to go. She was glad of her thick leather gloves, as the window of the second car still had shards of glass from where it was broken.

“You okay?” he said, wincing again.

“Yeah, just getting my breath back.”

The third car was a low sports car, whose hood had been crushed and obliterated on impact. As she pulled herself up, she avoided looking at its interior. The white leather was grubby with dirt, bird droppings, and a spatter of blood across the headrest.

“Okay?” Tristan called up. He now had his eyes closed.

“Yes!” she lied. He looked so small. It reminded her of when she’d climbed a high diving board on holiday once. Her brother, Steve, had jumped off it with no problem, but she had taken one look at the treacherous drop and the tiny square of blue water below, and she’d gone back down the ladder. “Come on, you can do this,” she said. She gripped the sill of the passenger door in the fourth car, a MINI that had suffered a rear impact, crushing the back up like a concertina. As her feet left the sports car and she pulled herself up, the door of the MINI creaked and swung open. Kate was caught unaware, and she swung out with it, her feet suddenly dangling in the air.

“Shit!” she cried. “Shit!”

“Oh my god!” shouted Tristan. He rushed to the bottom car, jumped up on the tires, and started to climb. Kate’s gloves slipped a little on her sweaty hands, and she felt her grip loosen.

“Tristan, get out of the way! I could fall on you!” The MINI didn’t have another car on top to keep it steady, and it started to rock, and the door began to bend on its hinges. Kate managed to get both arms hooked through the window of the door, and she swung her legs to try and get them to hook up through the window. “Oh fuck,” she squealed, feeling drool in the corner of her mouth and her arms start to shake. It had happened so fast, and here she was dangling in midair with a seven-meter drop between her feet and the thick mud. After all that had happened in her life, was she going to die in a scrapyard?

“Are there any blankets in your car? To break your fall?” Tristan was saying, his voice shaking. He was now rummaging in the boot of her car. She swung her legs, feeling her underused stomach muscles burning, and she managed to get her left foot into the window of the MINI.

“I’m okay!” she said. She managed to pull herself up inside the car. She scooted around so she was sitting on the passenger seat, and she peered out.

“I’m okay,” she repeated, feeling her muscles able to relax as she got her balance.

“You sure?” he asked, looking up at her.

She took some more deep breaths and nodded, thinking how unfit she was and how her puny arms had struggled under the extra weight of her body. She took a final breath and stood up in the footwell with her head sticking out of the car, shuffling and twisting around so that she had her back to the drop. It meant that her heels poked out over the edge of the footwell, and more mud rained down off her boots. Luckily there was a roof rack on the car, and she tested it with one hand while holding on with the other. Feeling it was firm, she gripped it with one hand, and she was able to get a good look at the crow.