‘But now, does it fit with the guy you knew?’

He nodded. ‘Yes, it’s definitely him.’

‘Did he have family? I need to contact relatives.’

‘He had a sister who lived up north somewhere, near Aberdeen. They weren’t close. His parents were both dead.’

‘Tony, what the hell would he have been doing in that tunnel?’

He was ready for the question and didn’t hesitate. ‘I’ve no idea. Sorry.’

Another extended stare before she nodded. ‘Are you sure you’re okay?’

‘I’m fine.’

‘Okay then. I’m going to have a shower. Wash some of this day off me. Dinner once I get out?’

‘Sounds good.’

They moved together and he hugged her, staring over her shoulder and through the window to the street-lit sky beyond. There was a ghost out there somewhere in the darkness.

Euan Hepburn. Euan fucking Hepburn.

Chapter 17

August 2006

Winter turned a corner and saw the corridor stretch out endlessly before him, the patterned carpet an eyesore, garish pink walls flocked with flaking paint and closed doors off left and right. The place was infested with asbestos and word was it was basically falling to bits. Hard to believe it was once the most prestigious hotel in Glasgow.

The Central Hotel. Frank Sinatra had stayed here when he was in town. Winston Churchill and John F. Kennedy too. It was the place for all the Hollywood stars when they visited. Mae West, Gene Kelly, Judy Garland, Cary Grant, you name it. Roy Rogers even booked a room for his horse, Trigger. It had been on the way down for years though and now it had come to this. A shithole.

Some said it was a shithole with ghosts. The haunted spirit of a scullery maid who fell to her death down a lift shaft from the seventh floor. Or of the guest who hanged himself in his room. Just bollocks, obviously. Winter didn’t have time for that kind of stuff. The place was creepy though, no doubt about that.

It ran the whole length of the railway station along Gordon Street and a fair way down the Hope Street side too. All the rooms were massive, twice maybe three times the size of modern hotel rooms. The word was that a new company was going to take the hotel over and spend a packet on refurbishing it. For him, that meant going in while he could and seeing it for what it was.

It had been easy enough to find his way in through an unboarded, unbarred window. Laurel and Hardy, Bob Hope, Edward G. Robinson and the Queen: they’d all come in past the doorman at the front.

He stopped at one bedroom window, through which faint morning light was streaming, and looked down onto the station below. It spread out like a vast greenhouse under its glass roof, only a few trains rumbling in and out because of the early hour. One hundred and thirty years trains had been coming and going from down there, the hotel just four years younger. Beyond the station, Glasgow yawned into the distance, its rooftops stretching to begin its day. He had to move before the city arrived with the milk.

He pushed open other doors as he paced along the corridor. Some had curtains and tables, some looked as if they were waiting to be made up for the next guest. In the half-light of a Glasgow dawn, they all gave the impression they had someone sleeping or standing in the shadows.

When he finally got to the end of the passageway, Winter turned and climbed an uncarpeted staircase, a beautiful piece of Victorian craftsmanship that creaked and groaned beneath his feet. He paused for a moment to catch the view outside and instead caught his breath as he heard other footsteps on the floor above him. Or were they below? He stopped and they did too. It must have been an echo. Or maybe just the ghost of the suicidal guest, the man who’d topped himself because of the lurid wallpaper.

He climbed three flights and explored each floor, his footsteps resonating on the stairs in search of friends. Enough noise to wake the dead. A couple of hours slid by as he found empty rooms and rooms littered with cabling, packaging boxes and general rubbish. In two rooms, he lifted the corner of a brash patterned carpet and found that it covered a beautiful Italian marble floor.

He knew that the top three floors used to be used for the staff; waiters and chambermaids and the like; plus servants of the rich and famous who stayed there. These floors were noisier, creaking more than the others and with a constant, unsettling hum as gusts of wind blew through from some unseen hole. The top of the building seemed to be alive, noisily breathing in and out. From somewhere close there was a rustle and a scurry as creatures made themselves scarce at his arrival and he thought he heard a sudden beating of wings from around a corner. The startled cooing of a pigeon confirmed it.

One dark brown door, stencilled Ladies’ Toilet & Bathroom, was pushed back to reveal intricate green-and-white tiles that must have dated back to the 1920s, a broken mosaic floor and large ceramic baths that held a million bacteria. Large washbasins and exposed wiring also conspired to ruin what it had once been.

Something moved behind him. He turned to see two pigeons fly past the open door, heading along the corridor in the direction he’d come from. Winter strode over and popped his head out but they’d already disappeared from sight. All that was left was their shadows.

The distant sound of the birds and their flapping wings began to merge with the groan of the wind and with floorboards that continued to screech long after he’d stepped upon them. The building was talking to him, complaining about its condition like an old man left in a corner to cough and wheeze.

Breathing deeply, Winter opened the next door and then another, seeing just the same faded normality that he’d seen before. The next, a small attic room, was dressed in dust and a dark colour scheme that could have been brown or grey or just old. What caught his eye was a metal door on the far wall. It gleamed darkly and begged him to come closer for a look.

It was only about five foot high and seemed newer than the rest of the room. An addition. Yet it still gave off a vibe of age, a rustiness that was maybe by design. The metal handle, the same dark brown colour as the door, begged him to turn it. Shaking his head in wonder, he grabbed and pulled.

The door came towards him with a grunt, revealing not another room but a closet, painted a creamy white inside. It was a narrow recess into the wall, maybe five foot high, the same as the door and three or four feet deep. Tall enough for a child to stand up in, big enough to hold an adult if they ducked. His eyes widened and his jaw dropped. The three walls of the closet were lined with razor blades.

He stood on the threshold, crouching and dipping his head, seeing that the blades were indeed razor sharp and had been carefully and firmly pushed into the walls. Behind him another floorboard creaked and the wind sang. There must have been . . . he counted . . . Jesus, there were maybe two hundred blades.

The final floorboard creaked just as he felt a shove in the middle of his back and he was propelled forward into the closet. He didn’t dare put his hands out to stop himself for fear of the blades and instead had to brake with his feet as best he could. The door closed firmly behind him and the closet was plunged into darkness.

The urge to move was huge but he had to fight it. He was wary of even turning to face the door to try to open it. The blades were maybe just an inch or two from his face, his chest, his wrists. And he couldn’t see a thing.