DROPS

Drops of blood on the floor of the quadrant.
Through the door to the vestibule blood through the door to the stairwell drops on the stairs from above and on those going down.
Heard a door open and close below and then footsteps. A few floors and I’d caught up with a man wearing a long black overcoat unbuttoned and followed him down.
‘You live here?’ he said.
‘Yes. You?’
‘No.’
Bloody tissue in a corner of a landing.
‘You seen the blood?’ I said.
‘Yeh, maybe it was a fight or something.’
‘With syringes, you think?’
‘At dawn...well, at whatever time it was.’
Two blood smears on the wall.
‘Must keep you fit going up and down these stairs,’ he said.
‘I only walk down, I get the lift up, six is about my limit.’
‘When I was in the army we used to climb up and down stairs.’
‘As a punishment?’
‘No, to get fit. After a week of doing that you wouldn’t recognise me.’
‘I’ve not seen you before.’