Just as he's finishing off, he sees this little pinch of dust come down in the beam of his torch.  He shines it on the underside of the stairs.  Another little trickle comes down between the boards.  Then right above his head the stair creaks.

His head goes up and he gives himself a nasty crack.  He's lost it by this time, thinking it must be kids mucking about, and he goes to the bottom of the stairs and he shouts "I know you're up there!  I can hear you creeping about!" 

His listens if anyone's going to come down, but it's all quiet.  For a minute he nearly loses his nerve, looking at them stairs, but he knows he's got no choice.  So up he goes. 

At the turn of the stairs there's a landing with two doors.  He opens the one to the front bedroom.  Half the ceiling's down and he can see blue sky through the hole.   They used to do that, knock holes in the roof, to stop the squatters.  Nothing else in there but bare boards and peeling wallpaper.  The last of the sun's coming in through the window and the empty houses opposite is in shadow.  'LEB off' in red paint on all the doors.  At the far end of the road there's one of the new tower blocks going to replace it all.  And he hears the ice cream van again, far away in the distance, like it's coming from a different world.

Mick goes back onto the landing and opens the other door.  The back bedroom's darker, in spite of the hole in the ceiling.  The smell of damp's stronger, too.  He puts his head round the door.   Bird flutters up through the roof and nearly scares him out of his wits. 

There's some sticks of broken furniture on the floor and a pile of old rags in the corner opposite the window.  Mickey goes and looks out over the scullery roof at the backs of the houses, but he can't see no-one that shouldn't have been there.  And as he's looking down, there must've been a cloud go in front of the sun, he says, because all of a sudden the pressure - that was the word he used - the pressure seems to go out of the day.  The song come into his head again, but not like it was his voice, more like a woman's, singing a
lullaby:

                                You had your way,
                                Now you must pay,
                                I'm glad that you're sorry now.

A faint disturbance makes him turn round.  Down in the corner the rags is moving, slowly lifting and falling back.  Lifting and falling back.  Like something's trying to come out.  Looked to be about the size of a cat, Mickey said.  But no cat ever moved like that.   He's trying to make up his mind to uncover it, but he knows it's something he ain't going to want to see.  Then out the corner of his eye the door's moving.  It's swinging slowly shut, like someone's been standing there and just gone out.

Well Mickey has to decide fast and he picks the door.  Says it was the best decision of his life.  He runs out on the landing, grabs the newel post and sticks his head over the bannister.  Empty.  He can see right down into the hall.  And as he looks - and I swear this is what he said - he sees the floorboards at the bottom where he's been sitting have changed colour.  He goes down a couple of steps, thinking at first it's where he's trodden in the ash from his fag.  Then he sees.

It was blood, he said.  Fresh blood.  As thick and red as what the liver sits in at the butchers.  And the stain's spreading.  Like it's welling up between the boards.  Pooling at the bottom of the stairs.

That's enough for Mickey.  He runs the rest of the way down, takes a flying leap over the blood and he's out the front door faster than you can say knife.  He doesn't stop until he's a couple of streets away, and he sees the Saracen's there on the corner.

You won't have been in the Saracen's Head.  I sometimes used to drop in for a quick one if I was over that way, but it was nothing special, just your ordinary little boozer.  It was due to be demolished along with the houses, but they was still moving people out and they hadn't got round to closing it yet.  Pub's gone now, along with everything else.

Anyway, when Mick gets there the place is almost empty what with it being so early.  He orders himself a large whisky and a pint of best, downs the short as soon as it's put in front of him and lights another fag.

Landlady serves him.  Vi. Big brassy woman she was.  Didn't take any nonsense from anyone, but she was a good sort.  So Mickey downs his whisky and she says "you must've been thirsty".  Mickey doesn't say nothing, just sits there.  Then she sees the bump on his head and realises he's in a state.  She says he looks as if he's had a bit of a time and asks him if he wants to talk about it.  A trouble shared and all that.  Salt of the earth, Vi.  

Well the drink's got to work on Mickey by this time and he says he's seen something he didn't like in this house in Lister Road.  That makes Vi go a bit thoughtful, but before she can say anything she has to serve one of the regulars and there's a bit of chit chat before she comes back to Mickey sitting there at the bar.

So Mickey starts on again about Lister Road, getting it out of his system, and when she sees he ain't going to shut up about it, she leans in close over the bar and tells him to keep it down 'cause she don't want the regulars upset.  Something did happen in one of them houses, she says, about fifteen years back.  Suicide.  And she just moves her lips, like she don't want to say the word out loud.  Tragic business.  That sort of thing puts a taint on a house, she says, so it's no wonder he's out of sorts. 

'Course this sets Mickey off asking questions, but Vi's made up her mind she's not saying any more and tells him flat she doesn't want it all stirred up again.  Mickey's finished his pint by this time and she makes it pretty clear that he ain't going to be having another, so there's nothing for it but he has to leave. 

Now I didn't find out about any of this until the Friday.  I'm standing in the Feathers as usual when Mick comes in looking like a wet weekend.  He asks if Lisa's in, and Harry says no but she's due in later.   I ask Mickey why the long face and he says he's been given his cards.  So I say what for and then it all comes out, just like I've told you.  'Course, I don't believe him at first.  He'd had us thinking he was Charlie George's half-brother the week before and I wasn't going to get caught like that again.  Besides, it was all a bit rich, even for Mickey.  But he swears he's telling the truth this time.    

He says he's told his supervisor the whole story, blood an' all.  I knew that was a mistake straight off.  Supervisor wasn't having any of it - what did he expect? - 'specially when it come out Mickey'd been drinking in the Saracens.  They'd had to send someone round to Lister Road to get the van because he wouldn't go back and that counted against him, too.  So he didn't leave them much choice, did he?

The bloke they sent out had a good look round before he come away.  He said he didn't know about blood but there was plenty of red paint - it was spilt all over the hall.  Reckoned Mick must've caught the pot with his foot when he run off.  They stopped it out of his wages too.  I thought that was mean.  The bloke did find a pile of rags in the back bedroom, but when he shifted them there was nothing underneath but a dead pigeon.  Said it must've found its way in through the hole in the roof and got tangled up. 

Anyway, Mick's in the middle of telling me all this when Dave walks in.  Big bloke, ex-copper.  At the mention of Lister Road, Dave's ears prick up, and then Mickey's telling him about what's happened.

I thought Dave'd take the piss like he usually did, but instead he asks Mick to tell him what number.   Twenty-seven, says Mick.  Dave's face gets a sort of set look about it, and he asks Mick a couple of sharp questions, making sure he's not up to his usual tricks.

It was about fifteen years ago, Dave said.   He was at Newman Street nick then and Lister Road was on his beat.  When he was off duty he used to drink in the Saracen's.  Proper local Bobbies they was in them days, not like now.  

Anyway, Dave says this young couple moved into Lister Road.  Billy and Kath.  They'd be in for a drink most Friday nights at first.  Pub was busier then and there'd often be a bit of a sing song, especially when there was afters, which Dave'd turn a blind eye to.  This Billy was a cocky sort, a bit of a jack the lad, but not an out an' out villain.   But Kath seemed a nice quiet girl.  After a while she fell pregnant and stopped coming.  

That's when Billy started playing the field, says Dave, and he gives Mick a look.  Billy was out most nights and he'd often be the worse for wear by chucking out time.  Towards the end there'd be nights when he wouldn't go home at all.  Kath had had the baby by this time, and she was stuck in the house, trying to look after it on her own.  It was a sickly little thing, Dave said.  It was probably the worry caused that.  There was never any money in the house, thanks to Billy.  And after a while Kath got this watchful look, withdrawn, like.  Wouldn't talk to no-one.  People stopped seeing her on the street, but they'd sometimes hear the kiddie crying.

Then one day Dave's on duty at Newman Street and the news come in that Billy's been pulled out of the canal, dead.  He'd not been seen for a couple of days but nobody'd thought much of it, knowing what he was like.  Anyhow, it looked as if he'd had a few and taken the wrong turning.  It wasn't his usual way home, so Gawd knows where he'd been or who with. 
It falls to Dave to go round to Lister Road and break the news to Kath.  She doesn't answer when he knocks.  The neighbours say they haven't seen her, so he decides to force the door.  Body's at the foot of the stairs.   She's cut her throat with Billy's razor.  Blood everywhere.  Reckoned she did it there deliberate, so it'd be the first thing he'd see when he come home.

Then someone says what about the baby.  Dave goes upstairs and finds it in the back bedroom.  That was the worst thing, he said.  She must've tucked it up, kissed it goodbye and gone downstairs to do the deed.  Maybe she was thinking Billy'd have to look after it when she was gone and serve him right.  Who knows what was going on in her mind by that time?  But of course Billy never come home for a couple of days, and the baby was up in the bedroom getting weaker and weaker and Kath lying there dead all that time.  Awful.  And it must've been, 'cause Dave'd never talked about it before.  Said there's always one you try not to think about too much. 

Dave kind of shakes himself and goes to get another round in, not that Mickey needs one.  He's not touched his drink since Dave started talking.  And just then Lisa comes in.   She sees Mickey and gives him a little wave.  She smiles to herself, goes over to the juke box and starts feeding her money in. 

I turn round and Mickey's already out the door.  Left his pint on the bar and went straight home to Pauline.  Never set foot in the Feathers again, and never saw Lisa again, neither.  Just as well he went when he did, considering the tune she put on.