Lewis Waite knew that he had to find somewhere better than this to hide. It was far too cold; the sea wind blew through all the gaps in the rotting wooden planks covering the facade of the building. It had once been a bingo hall at the end of the pier but now it was a boarded-up wreck. The ‘No Trespassing’ sign did very little to keep out the local youths, drug users and homeless people who needed somewhere to stay as a last resort. Tonight he was the only person in here, as far as he could tell – he wasn’t going to go looking to see if there was anyone else because he didn’t give a shit if there was.

He was trembling and needed something, but he didn’t have a phone. The bastards had taken it from him at the station. In fact, he had nothing except the stolen clothes he was wearing, which were far too big for him. He felt in the front pockets, then the back pockets. His fingers caressed the edges of a small rectangle of plastic and he smiled for the first time in hours. Please, please be contactless. He pulled out the bankcard and gave a sigh of relief at the sight of the white logo in the corner. He could go to Asda and get some food, see if there were some cheap clothes and a bottle of whisky. It would get him through until tomorrow.

He peered through a crack between the planks; the sky was dusky. It was dark enough now. He climbed through a window whose board had fallen off and walked as fast as he could in the direction of Asda. Keeping his head lowered, he maintained a tight grip on the waistband of the trousers to stop them from falling down. His stomach was grumbling so loud that he could hear it despite the noise of the traffic. He couldn’t remember when he’d last eaten a proper meal. It must have been yesterday.

He saw the noticeboard outside the newsagent’s – the headlines screamed at him. ‘Woman Found Murdered in Backstreet’. Stacey was dead. His eyes filled with tears. He’d been too scared and worried about his own situation to give her a second thought earlier. Not that he didn’t care, because he did. Out of all the women he’d ever had a relationship with, she’d been the one he thought he could stay with forever. Until he’d started back on the gear, that is, and it had taken over his life. He felt a hot tear leak from his eye and he lifted his sleeve to wipe it away. Stacey had been the only person from his old life who still had time for him, and he’d been so horrible to her because she wouldn’t give him any money. He’d hurt her, then left her, and now she was dead. Murdered in the backstreet outside the rear gate of her flat while he slept on her sofa in a drug-induced haze.

If he ever got his hands on the sick bastard who had touched her, he’d rip them apart limb from limb. He knew that he had to find the killer before the coppers found him, otherwise they’d pin it all on him and he’d spend the rest of his life inside for a crime he didn’t commit. How many times had he seen it happen on the news or read the same story in a paper? There was no way he was going to spend fifteen years in prison for not killing someone. It wasn’t fair. He wasn’t a bad person – just a completely fucked-up one.

He kept his head down whilst getting what he needed; the supermarket was busy but luckily for him no one gave him a second glance. He picked up a copy of the local paper. The headlines in bold black type made his stomach churn. He felt a rush of bile and had to fold the paper over so he couldn’t see the headline. The article had been written before he’d done his vanishing act from the hospital. Tomorrow he knew his face would be plastered all over the same front page. The thought of it made him clench his fists; he hadn’t done it. There was no way he was taking the blame for it.

As he passed the men’s sale rail there was a smartly dressed man leaning on his shopping trolley, reading the front page of the same paper. He twisted away, trying to keep the burning rage of injustice from taking over. He picked up a pair of jogging trousers, a t-shirt and a hooded sweatshirt, stuffing them into his basket. As he turned back, he slammed into the trolley of the man, who lifted his head and looked directly at Lewis.

‘Sorry, mate.’

For a moment they both stared at each other, a flash of recognition sparking inside their memories. Lewis couldn’t figure out where he knew him from and, judging by the confused expression on the bloke’s face, he felt the same. Lewis sloped off, eager to get away in case he was one of the coppers from this morning. God, it felt as if that were a lifetime ago. He made his way to the discounted food cabinet, where he was in luck. The shelf stacker was throwing in packs of sandwiches with bright-yellow ‘Reduced’ stickers on. Lewis scraped as many of them into his basket as he could; for a couple of quid these would see him through for a couple of days. He picked up some chocolate bars that were also on offer, then went to find a cheap bottle of whisky.

Lewis saw the man again in the alcohol aisle. He obviously had much more money than he did, judging by the bottle of expensive champagne he was holding and the big bouquet of flowers in his trolley. It was driving him mad; where did he know him from? He can’t have been a copper or he’d have arrested him there and then; even when they were off duty they still had to arrest criminals. Lewis went to the self-serve till and paid for his items, pocketing the debit card after tapping it against the reader. He picked up his carrier bag and, still keeping his head down, left the store, grateful that no shoplifter had decided to try their luck and ended up getting themselves arrested.

He walked across to the trolley bay and scanned the car park. Considering the pricey contents of that man’s shopping trolley, he would no doubt have a tidy car. There were lots of vehicles he might own; he picked out two BMWs, a top-of-the-range Land Rover, a brand-new VW Golf and a nice Mercedes E-Class in white. Intrigued now, he had to know which car the man owned. He had a feeling it might come in useful.

He spotted the man coming out of the sliding doors and almost colliding with a woman. He apologised, and as she walked off he turned around and watched her for a couple of seconds. Then he turned and headed towards the Golf. Lewis didn’t have a pen to write down the number plate so he started repeating the last three digits over and over again. At one time he’d had an excellent memory; not now, though, after years of substance abuse. He watched the guy put his carrier bags in the boot of his car and drive away.

Lewis began the walk back to the pier – he needed the food and whisky. Then he would huddle under the pieces of discarded cardboard that he’d stacked up back at the bingo hall and sleep. Maybe when he woke up this would all have been a nightmare.

A police car shot past him at speed, the sirens blaring, and he pulled himself further into the shadows. They’d be busy searching all his mates’ flats and bedsits; they would think he was hiding out at one of them. He doubted very much that they would credit him with more intelligence than doing something so obvious. He would show them he wasn’t your average addict. That he had a better survival instinct than most men and he would use it to keep his head above water. They could search all they wanted for him, but there was no way he would give himself up to them until he’d found the man who’d killed Stacey.

* * *

The Golf stopped near the main exit to the car park and its lights and engine were turned off. He knew that man; he just couldn’t place him. He looked like a down-and-out, the way he was dressed in clothes that were too big for him. He had an idea – it just came to him out of nowhere. The best ones always did. If he followed him home, he’d have his next victim lined up. He had a feeling that whoever he was, he had very little money. It was quite obvious from his appearance that he was very good friends with china white; it wouldn’t be too hard to tempt him out of wherever he was living.

The man passed the car, his hood up, keeping to the shadows. In a flash of clarity, he realised where he knew him from. The ragged-looking man was the same individual who’d been in the club arguing with the girl he’d followed home and murdered. This was a great idea; he was killing two birds with one stone because the police would be searching for him. He would be doing them a favour by killing the junkie and delivering him to their door. He waited until the man was a good distance away and got out of the car. Grabbing his baseball cap from the passenger seat and pulling it down over his eyes, he zipped his jacket up and followed him, needing to see where he was going, yet not wanting to get caught. He was heading towards the promenade, and he wondered if he was sleeping rough in one of the old buildings. Along that stretch of the town, there were plenty of them. If he had to guess, he would have said the Winter Gardens, which had once been Brooklyn Bay’s finest theatre, or the bingo hall on the pier. When they reached the main road, the man scurried across it and glanced around before slipping through a gap in the metal fencing which closed the derelict pier off from the public. He nodded his head: the bingo hall it was. He had so much to do. There was the family to dispose of first, and then he could take care of him.