MID-MAY 1981, RUBERY, SOUTH BIRMINGHAM
When everything was drenched in sleep, Ava knew it was time. She eased out of bed, and when her feet touched the floor she became still. She glanced at the other bed: no stirring from Veronica, her younger sister—only soft snores. The trick at night was to banish all thoughts and let instincts govern. She must be stealthy and quick: the Small Hours were called small with good reason—especially as dawn approached. The dark was not absolute, only monochrome, though the night was her ally, and never harmed her.
Her pupils were matte black and massive in the gloom. She cocked her head to one side and listened. Only the tick tock of the clock. Her mother was sound asleep in her room at the end of the hall. Ava was the only thing awake.
She padded to the front door. She reached for her coat but did not put it on: the polyester lining rustled too much. No shoes: shoes were inflexible, rowdy. She tucked her pajama trousers into her sock tops. Thick socks lent silence to movement. After thumbing the latch off, she gradually pulled open the door.
Cold air nuzzled without bite as she stepped out onto the communal gallery. She tucked a wad of tissue paper between the door and the frame. Although the latch was on, Ava couldn’t risk either being discovered or being locked out. No moon, no mist: the ground dry as burned bone. Somewhere far away, a dog barked its warning to an unseen intruder. Ava’s nose twitched—petrol, earth, stone. Her skin prickled and her belly quivered with anticipation and the excitement of being out alone in the dark.
The apartment block hunkered in its trench, and faced the looming bulk of the Quarry. She scurried along to the central stairwell, which stank of ciggies and chip fat as concrete steps ascended and descended into blackness. She didn’t consider the noisy elevator.
Ava swung her coat on, felt in her pocket for her blue pencil sharpened at both ends, retrieved her Red Book from behind the huge metal bin, and exited the open foyer. She swept into the laburnum bushes that hugged the low wall of the property then stepped forward into the gap with a view of the street, silent as an abandoned film set. The streetlights tipped everything in a pallid glow, and a strange peace wavered in it.
Ava surveyed the realm: no people, no animals. She straddled the wall, crouched, then ran for the sanctuary of the red telephone box on the corner of the next street. She pulled her hood over her face. She was darkness against darkness, therefore invisible.
Ava scampered to the dun maisonettes, to the last building in the row, which was a burned-out shell after a major fire the year before. It was supposed to be demolished, but it still stood, its scorched walls buttressed by scaffolding, its immediate perimeter protected by a high wooden fence. Kids avoided it because they thought it was haunted and grown-ups avoided it because it was unsafe. There was a gap in the fence closest to where the communal front door used to be, and Ava squeezed through.
She dashed through its hollow bulk to the backyard, which smelled of mulch and a milder version of the stink that had been permeating the district over the last week. There was a tiny patch of balding lawn framed by untidy heaps of rubble and swept ash. The orange lights from the A38 meters away illuminated the garden in sepia tones.
