It wasn’t quite right though. It sounded too obviously like blackmail and not enough like he actually knew what he was talking about. Try again.

I know who you are. I know what you did.

Too vague. Too much I know what you did last summer. The guy had to know that he was serious. Maybe the photograph would be worth a thousand words.

He attached it. The shot of the man clambering down from the Odeon. Euan’s snapshot that cost him his life. Winter couldn’t know if the man was aware that Euan had photographed him at the site but he must have feared that it was a possibility. Winter needed to tap into that fear.

I have this. And I have more. Much more.

That should get his attention but he also needed to make the arrangements. That, as much as anything, was what was scaring him.

Meet me at the Glasgow Tower. Not at the bottom. At the observation deck. Tomorrow at midnight.

He gave it one last look-over and shook his head at the craziness of it. Before he could change his mind, he clicked post and it was done.

Chapter 54

Monday evening

The next day seemed to have lasted for ever. Twenty-four little hours, the song said. It had seemed so much longer than that.

Winter had watched the weather turn, seeing clouds roll in and gather over the city as if they were lying in wait. Big and dark, full of rain above the grey, just killing time until it was the right moment to unleash everything they had.

He’d seen the light come and go, seen day turn to night and night to something even darker. The moon was hidden by a wall of cloud and the sky over the Clyde was a murky, murderous black, like a raven’s wing or a killer’s soul.

No matter how much quicker he’d wanted the clock to tick, the hours had dragged as if weighed down by everything that had happened and everything still to come. At last, at long and weary last, it was time for him to be there.

It was an hour earlier than he’d said in his message. He had said midnight but wanted to be there by eleven, content to wait and desperate to get there first. He stood in the shadow of the tower, hidden in a city full of shadow, and wondered just what the hell he was doing.

It had come to this though and there was no going back. Maybe it had always been leading to this from the day he and Euan Hepburn had climbed this bloody tower and he’d nearly killed himself in the process. Maybe it had been inevitable from the moment Euan had been found in the Molendinar. Whatever, it was finishing tonight. That much he was sure of.

His heart was beating fast and he could feel the nerves bubbling, coming slowly to the boil. He’d done some stupid things in his time but this was right up there with the best of them. Right up there with the last time he climbed this.

As if on cue, the rain started. He looked up and saw it falling in big, heavy drops from the black. It came thick and fast, like the clouds had been unzipped and the whole lot couldn’t get to ground quick enough.

He pulled a black woollen balaclava from his pocket and dragged it over his head and face, put on gloves and finally zipped his waterproof jacket to the neck. There was nothing to be gained from waiting as it wasn’t going to stop raining any time soon. He began to climb.

He moved slowly and deliberately, feeling the pain in his leg from the injury he’d acquired fleeing the factory, and trying to ignore the hammering in his chest and the memories that were pulling at his mind. He made sure every hand on every rung was secure before he moved a foot from the rung below. At this rate, it was going to take most of the hour that he’d given himself just to get up there but the alternative was a quick and bumpy return to earth.

The rain was constant, lashing down as if defending the tower. In no time, his clothes were heavy and sodden, his jacket slick and soaked through. Juicy raindrops sat on each rung, waiting to be squashed by his hands or sent slipping and spiralling. He clung on, skin through wool to water to metal.

There was no sound of other feet on the metal rungs and he couldn’t hear another person’s laboured breath from the exertion of the climb, but he felt the presence. Someone else was climbing as he climbed, matching him step for step and hiding it by keeping in time with him. He slowed and stopped, tried to fox them, but all he could hear were his own feet and the howl of the wind. He knew though the other man was there. He shut the thought out and climbed.

With every step up, his head got heavier and lighter. More memories and less sense. He tried to look straight ahead, see only the rungs, focus only on the rungs. Don’t look down, don’t think about anything else. Don’t think about falling. Don’t think about the last time. Don’t think about when you fell.

His pulse was a drum roll. The more he tried to shut it out, the louder it got. He squeezed his eyes shut hard and it was a mistake. A flare of phosphene danced behind his eyelids. Bursts of yellow and white made him dizzy as the pressure worked on the cells of his retinae and created a light show that he really didn’t need. He gripped tighter on the rungs and hugged his face against the ladder, the metal cold and wet against his skin.

He knew the world was spinning around him: he didn’t need to open his eyes to see that. He tried to stay as still as he could and let it settle back into place. Blowing out a long, steady stream of breath seemed to help. Taking in a big lungful to replace it definitely did.

When his eyes did open, Glasgow shimmied before him. A million lights waved hello through the rain and not one of them seemed capable of staying in the same place even for a second. He took his right hand away from the ladder briefly and waved back - drowning not waving - then clung on once more.

His right leg was the first to find the courage to move again. It climbed to the rung above and shoved the rest of him into action. He had to get up there. There was no other way.

He pulled with his arms and pushed with his feet, onwards and upwards. He could still feel the other climber although he couldn’t tell if he was above him or below. He tried to look both up and down but, between the rain and his own fear, he could make out only shapes and blurs. Was that the sound of someone laughing? Or coughing maybe? He was there, no doubt about that, just far enough out of sight and hearing to taunt him, to watch him.

The rain was getting heavier and the city was almost impossible to see through the veil. He could just make out the nearby neon-lit outlines of the BBC studios, the Armadillo and the Hydro, the big beasts of the new Clydeside. The rest was a flickering blur of yellows and reds without much shape or sense. He climbed higher.

The observation deck had only been a shadow in the rain but now it began to loom real and reachable, though looking up caused his head to spin again. The deck was there in the clouds, waiting to be boarded like a ghost pirate ship sailing in a sea of dirges.

What had made him think this could possibly have been a good idea? His head was full of Euan Hepburn. Full of guilt and fear, of falling and consequences. His head was full of Remy Feeks and Rachel. Rachel. His promise to her echoed between his ears. Don’t lie. Don’t mess it up. Don’t keep it from her. Don’t do your own thing.