‘Felt great. Being in there but also being in there because they’d told me I couldn’t. I got a buzz out of that. They’re always telling us we can’t go places or can’t do things. They treat us like kids, man. Beware of this, danger of that, don’t even think of going there. Load of crap. If I get hurt then it’s my own fault. I’m not going to sue anyone. Tell me I can’t and I want it all the more. You know?’

Winter knew all right. Every word that Hepburn spoke felt like it had come from his own mouth. It was oddly reassuring to find someone of the same mindset. Maybe he wasn’t as strange as he’d thought.

It seemed Hepburn was thinking the same thing. ‘Do you ever want to do some explores but don’t because it’s a bit dangerous or too bloody stupid to do them on your own?’

He considered the implication of the question. ‘Yeah. What are you suggesting?’

A shrug of the shoulders. ‘Sometimes it might make sense to keep an eye out for each other. Places where you’d want someone to be there if you got stuck or fell.’

‘Don’t know. I’m used to doing this on my own.’

‘Christ, I’m not suggesting we get married or anything. Just when it suited.’

‘Could give it a go, I guess.’

They clinked their pints together and the deal was sealed.

That’s how it started. They climbed all the cranes on the Clyde, they explored most of the buildings that tried to keep them out and they photographed wherever they went. Both of them had a feel for historic buildings and made a vow to get into as many as they could of the ones that were marked for demolition. It was their small rebellion against the gentrification that was cleaning up by tearing down. Schools, offices, factories, libraries, banks. Anywhere that couldn’t be turned into a pub or converted into overpriced flats ran the risk of being obliterated so that the land could host some throw-me-up new build.

It helped that they both worked weird hours and they forged a bond by being up and about when most of the city was asleep. If it was three in the morning and you were in the darkness in a former mental asylum then you needed to be able to trust the person you were with.

For three years it was great. Then it stopped. Euan packed up and moved to London.

He and Winter had already stopped urbexing together by then but that was a different story, one that he didn’t like to think about.

Chapter 18

Tuesday evening

Remy Feeks could only stare at his laptop screen. The Odeon. A woman’s body. The news report hadn’t said much more but then it didn’t need to. Not for him.

It couldn’t have been anything else. Not after the Molendinar. It was just too much of a coincidence. The Odeon meant urbexing. It had to.

He sat for an age, looking at it open-mouthed and with the feeling that something was crawling over his skin. He’d barely left the house, refusing Gabby’s pleas and threats to meet up, instead just sitting there obsessively poring over every bit of news he could find online. Then he’d found this. The Odeon.

He’d been scared before but now he was terrified. For him and for Gabby. More for her. He was hiding away at home and she was out there, exploring places like the Sentinel Works without him there to look out for her. It couldn’t be safe. He grabbed his phone and texted her, urging her to be careful, asking her not to go out. She got back ten minutes later to say she already had a mother and didn’t need another one.

He had to do something and while he didn’t know what that was, at least he thought he knew where to look.

OtherWorld was the main UK urbexing forum. He’d used it for about five years, almost as long as he’d known that exploring old places even had a name. People would gather online, post their photographs, chat and get ideas for places to explore or share leads for new locations.

He didn’t think anyone would urbex in Glasgow without knowing of OtherWorld. Most probably, although you just couldn’t know, every urbexer would use it.

It was a community of sorts. People who largely didn’t know each other but knew enough to say hello in the passing online. Not so different from the real world these days. There were those quick to congratulate someone on a good explore but there were also those quick to criticize and find fault, keyboard warriors who took what pleasure they could in being a pain in the arse to others.

Most people were cool though. They just loved what they did and wanted to share. Photography was a huge part of it, not just proof that you’d done what you’d said but to let others see what was out there. Often it was a case of capturing it before it disappeared. In a city like Glasgow which was doing pretty well, places tended to be abandoned for less time. They’d either be quickly demolished or tarted up into something else and pressed back into service. Their job, and lots of them saw it that way, was to get photos for posterity while they could.

It was all pretty much anonymous and that was the way it had to be. What they were doing was basically illegal, even if it was just common trespass, and that was the first reason not to put your real name to it. But also, it was just the nature of the beast. You got in, got out, no need to shout about it. They all liked the fact that it was a bit cloak and dagger. They were evening explorers. Night Ninjas.

At least that was the way it had seemed until now.

Secret identities had seemed cool and exciting. Now though it looked like the forum was hiding something. It was hiding everyone and everything and he didn’t like it. The forum was full of names that he knew by sight, but he could brush past these people in the street and wouldn’t know who they were. But maybe they’d know him.

Tubz. Digger9. BigTomDog. Ultrabex. DrJohn. SkeletonBob. Jonesy78.

All these stupid names. Did they hide witnesses or victims? Did they hide a killer?

His own user name was Magellan93. It had seemed like a good idea at the time but now it just sounded a bit wanky. He wasn’t a real explorer. He collected trolleys, he didn’t circumnavigate the earth.

He had to figure out what he wanted, what he hoped for. Help, reassurance, friends, answers. All of those. Maybe most of all he wanted to be told that everything would be all right. It was something that he’d doubted even before he read about the Odeon. From the moment he did, he knew there was something seriously bad going on.

The forum had a search facility and he put Glasgow into the keyword field and combed through the results. He went through every post and jotted down the name of every user who had replied on it in the past few years and their location. It was a long and laborious process, maybe a pointless one, but he had to feel he was doing something.

There was seven years’ worth of reports and a long list of people who’d either posted them or commented on them. All those made-up names, all those masks. The only one he knew in real life was Vixxxen, who was Gabby. He divided the others up into three separate lists. Glasgow. Rest of Scotland. Outside Scotland. He counted how often they’d posted and when. After an hour, he was confident he had the names of all the regular Glasgow urbexers. He had his list.

Tunnel Man was probably among them. In fact, Remy was sure he was. The person that killed Tunnel Man? It scared him silly that he - or she - might be in there too.

There were just fifteen names, a manageable number for what he had in mind. He sent all of them the same private message. If he was right, then at least one of them would be unable to reply. And maybe one of them would be unable to resist replying.