Free In the Flesh by Clive Barker

suit.

     

     

      The pair shook hands.

     

     

      'It's good to see you, Mr Garvey.'

     

      The man nodded, but returned no pleasantry. Jerry, eager to be out of the cold, opened the front door and led the way inside.

     

     

      'I've only got ten minutes,' Garvey said.

     

     

      'Fine,' Jerry replied. 'I just wanted to show you the lay-out.'

     

      'You've surveyed the place?'

     

     

    'Of course.'

     

      This was a lie. Jerry had been over the building the previous August, courtesy of a contact in the Architects' Department, and had, since that time, looked at the place from the outside several times. But it had been five months since he'd actually stepped into the building; he hoped accelerating decay had not taken an unshakeable hold since then. They stepped into the vestibule. It smelled damp, but not overpoweringly so.

     

      'There's no electricity on,' he explained. 'We have to go by torchlight.' He fished the heavy-duty torch from his pocket and trained the beam on the inner door. It was padlocked. He stared at the lock, dumbfounded. If this door had been locked last time he was here, he didn't remember. He tried the single key he'd been given, knowing before he put it to the lock that the two were hopelessly mismatched. He cursed under his breath, quickly skipping through the options available. Either he and Garvey

    about-turned, and left the Pools to its secrets - if mildew, creeping rot and a roof that was within an ace of surrender could be classed as secrets - or else he made an attempt to break in. He glanced at Garvey, who had taken a prodigious cigar from his inside pocket and was stroking the end with a flame; velvet smoke billowed.

     

     

      'I'm sorry about the delay,' he said.

     

     

      'It happens,' Garvey returned, clearly unperturbed.

     

      'I think strong-arm tactics may be called for,' Jerry said, feeling out the other man's response to a break in.

     

     

    'Suits me.'

     

      Jerry quickly rooted about the darkened vestibule for an implement. In the ticket booth he found a metal-legged stool. Hoisting it out of the booth he crossed back to the door - aware of Garvey's amused but benign gaze upon him - and, using one of the legs as a lever, broke a shackle of the padlock. The lock clattered to the tiled floor.

     

     

      'Open sesame,' he murmured with some satisfaction, and pushed the door open for Garvey.

     

      The sound of the falling lock seemed still to linger in the deserted corridors when they stepped through, its din receding towards a sigh as it diminished. The interior looked more inhospitable than Jerry had remembered. The fitful daylight that fell through the mildewed panes of the skylights along the corridor was blue-grey - the light and that which it fell upon vying in dreariness. Once, no doubt, the Leopold Road Pools had been a showcase of Deco design - of shining tiles and cunning mosaics worked into floor and wall. But not in Jerry's adult life, certainly. The tiles underfoot had long since lifted with the

    damp; along the walls they had fallen in their hundreds, leaving patterns of white ceramic and dark plaster like some vast and clueless crossword puzzle. The air of destitution was so profound that Jerry had half a mind to give up his attempt at selling the project to Garvey on the spot. Surely there was no hope of a sale here, even at the ludicrously low asking price. But Garvey seemed more engaged than Jerry had allowed. He was already stalking down the corridor, puffing on his cigar and grunting to himself as he went. It could be no more than morbid curiosity, Jerry felt, that took the developer deeper into this echoing mausoleum. And yet:

     

     

      'It's atmospheric. The place has possibilities,' Garvey said. 'I don't have much of a reputation as a

     

    philanthropist, Coloqhoun - you must know that - but I've got a taste for some of the finer things.' He had paused in front of a mosaic