yet still she could feel its awful shadow at her back.
She was now nearing the centre of the estate, where the Needle was located. She’d bypassed the shopping arcade, where the worst trouble-makers tended to gather like a herd of bored animals, and was now approaching the middle of the set of concentric streets that made up the main body of the Grove. A number of the flats and houses around this central area were empty, their doors and windows boarded. Others were occupied either by the kind of people you didn’t want to meet or tenants who rarely stepped outdoors before nightfall. It was a creepy place, even in broad daylight, yet she was often drawn here by its sense of emptiness.
A border of old timber hoardings and security fencing surrounded the derelict tower block, but everybody knew a way in. Hailey’s point of access was through a shallow channel someone had once dug under the fence close to the old red-brick electricity sub-station at the front of the building. She couldn’t remember who’d shown her this route inside the perimeter, only that it had been pointed out to her late one Sunday evening, when dusk was falling and the sound of motorbike engines churning up and down the surrounding streets had filled the air.
Hailey got down on her belly and wriggled through the gap, trying her best not to ladder her thick black tights on any hanging wire or splinters. Her mother would kill her if she ruined another pair; the tiny clothes budget for this month was long gone.
The sky seemed to darken around her as she slid under the barrier, as if her entrance had triggered a dimmer switch in the heavens. She knew this was a silly thought, that it was too early in the afternoon to grow so dark, but there was something nice about pretending to be so important that the sky would create an atmosphere just for her.
Somewhere in the depths of the estate a dog began to bark; a burglar alarm went off, the wailing tone bound to be ignored and left to peter out of its own accord. A police helicopter hummed through the sky above her, so she stayed where she was, belly pressed into the dirt, until it passed by. But this was just another game. Nobody cared that Hailey was here; nobody was concerned about her whereabouts. Not even her mother.
After several seconds had passed, and sensing that she would not be seen, Hailey jerked upright and scurried across the cracked and stained concrete forecourt towards the waiting Needle. She stared at the empty building as she approached, peering at its boarded upper windows and security-shuttered doorways. Several of the caged windows on the ground floor had been partially exposed by vandals tearing off the timber and paint-daubed metal sheets and breaking the glass beneath. These openings bled darkness; they provided small, square glimpses of something black, unhealthy and rotten. If she allowed herself, Hailey could imagine things moving in there. Strange things. Dark things. Things that lived in such forgotten places.
What was she doing here? Why did the decrepit building have such a hold on her? She always came to the same place when she was feeling uneasy or simply craved solitude. Despite its central location on the estate, and the fact that there were so many ways in, children rarely played here. The place, Hailey’s few friends had often told her, was haunted; and once, a long time ago, a bunch of children had even been harmed by the spirits who dwelled within its crumbling concrete walls. Depending on who she spoke to, these children had either been scarred for life or murdered. The story changed with each telling, the way a fairytale might.
Hailey kept walking. The Needle ignored her, just like everyone else.
She stopped, confused. Why was she thinking of the old building in terms of a personality?
Hailey stared at the grubby concrete, trying to understand her feelings towards the place. She should be too afraid to set foot here, especially alone, but for some reason the resolutely upright Needle seemed to offer her some kind of solace.
Yes, that was the word: solace. She’d encountered it in English class. It meant comfort or consolation. That, she thought, sounded just about right.
She started to move again, towards the tower block. Broken glass crunched underfoot; her left ankle twisted slightly as she stepped into a shallow depression in the ground; her right foot kicked something hard