The meanest Flood

they thought he’d be far away by now. ‘Down by the docks,’ the cop in the courtyard was saying. ‘We should be watching the ships.’
    He could hear them ransacking the flat, collecting the things he’d left behind, one of his shirts and a couple of books that Geordie had left by his bed. A photograph of Janet and Echo.
    Two of them carried the loot down the stairs to their car, while one of the others shouted a racist joke after them that was not made funnier by the change of language. But the fourth one came back to the balcony. He lit a cigarette and Sam watched the tiny clouds of smoke rise above the level of the roof. The man’s shoes scuffed on the floor as he paced back and forth.
    When he was joined by his friend the first man said something that Sam couldn’t understand. There was a period of quiet which was unnerving. Sam wanted to lift his head and look over the coping, see what the two of them were up to. But he didn’t move. He held his breath and kept low.
    There was a scraping sound followed by a release of breath which was far too close and as Sam watched a man’s face came over the coping like a rising moon. It was less than a metre away. A large square face with a square jaw. Brown eyes and even teeth. He had the dark blue jowls of a man who shaved more than once a day. He looked at Sam and smiled and then turned back to his friend on the balcony. ‘Bjorn,’ he said. ‘I think we’ve earned ourselves some promotion.’
    Sam scrambled to his feet and moved away along the rooftop as the cop heaved his considerable bulk over the coping. Sam moved on to the tiles, slowly ascending towards the peak of the pitch. It was slow going until he learned to use the edge of his shoes to stop himself slipping back. The cop behind him was gaining ground, all the time talking in a low guttural mutter, something like a shepherd might use on a frightened animal. It was a reassuring sound, intended to slow the heartbeat, keep panic at bay. Sam shut it out.
    He concentrated on picking his way, testing the reliability of each tile before transferring his weight. He knew that back on the balcony the other cops would be radioing for reinforcements, making sure they had the building surrounded. The time he had available to make his escape was strictly limited.
    As he continued to ascend the pitch Sam could see the outline of a metal cage on the end of the roof, way over to his left. Looked like an exterior fire-escape and represented his only chance of evading capture. He glanced back at his pursuer, who was still too low on the pitch to see Sam’s escape route, though the guy was now little more than a metre below him, still gaining ground.
    Sam changed direction, picking his way crab-like over towards the left. The cop did the same, though not entirely abandoning the incline, so that he remained underneath Sam on the pitch but continued to come closer to his feet.
    They travelled another ten or fifteen feet in this way before the cop felt able to make a grab for Sam’s shoe. He kicked out, but at the same time he lost his grip on the tiles and felt himself begin to slide down the pitch of the roof. The cop let out a yell as one of Sam’s feet collided with his neck and the two of them clattered down the pitch, bringing several of the tiles with them.
    The cop went over the coping and disappeared and Sam banged his head and felt himself trapped in the area between the coping and the beginning of the pitch. He was nauseous and couldn’t work out if it was because of the blow to his head or the fact that he’d just watched a man fall to his certain death.
    He got to his knees and peered over the coping. The cop was still there, hanging in space. He was clinging to the guttering with both hands, the toes of his shoes bearing some of his weight by digging into the mortar between two bricks. And underneath him there was nothing for three storeys until the hard cobblestones of the courtyard.
    Sam looked down at the man and did some unconscious calculations. He could lean over the coping and reach the cop’s hand, somehow try to convince the man that he could let go of the guttering and make a wrist-to-wrist link with Sam.
    But then what?
    The cop was too heavy to lift back on to the roof. After a while Sam would have to let him go or the two of them would be dragged over. He looked down and engaged the man’s eyes. He shook his head and the cop looked away. Sam didn’t have to spell it out.
    Down in the