STARSHINE, THE OCEAN AND THE UNICORN
Chapter Two                                                                                                     Part Seven



                 Joe moved quietly with the shadows.  The warehouse was a place of ghosts.  A wide open space stilled and trapped in acres of roof and walls, denied the movements of the wind and and the changes of the sky.  The rain hammered outside and the rays of paling dawn showed through the small square windows , high up where the walls joined the roof.  But there was still darkness below where Joe stood, near an old entrance  closed off with weathered planks nailed up.  He felt the slow Thames moving by, watching him through the gaps, waiting to witness his crime before carrying his dark secret down river.
                Far away at the end of the warehouse Joe could see the tiny head of a torch wavering with the movement of its bearer's footsteps, as the security guard began to walk down the corridor of freight, on his last tour of inspection before his shift came to an end.  The dark shape of stacked crates began to show in the first light that filtered down from the windows.  Joe found a gap between the crates and squeezed in.  They were empty and moved easily.  One almost toppled, Joe steadied it and shifted it quietly back into position, then he crouched and waited.  Chill rain still ran from his hair and through his clothes.  But the cold over his body did not register to an already cold mind.  Too many changes, too many forced adaptions had overlooked his thoughts and left a daze he now had to shun in order to concentrate and prepare for his second precise and skillful act of murder.  He visualised the the photograph Jason had given him. Joe's imagination shut down.  There was no life, no family, no daily routine for a photograph, just an exit from nothing.
                 The footsteps came into earshot.  Joe slowly rose from his crouching position.  The torch moved from left to right over the walls of boxed freight.  Joe squinted through the dim light and checked the identity of the security guard, then he sank like a slow shadow back to the crouch.  More footsteps, then shiny boots and perfectly creased uniform trousers stopped and stood inches in front of Joe.  The torch's beam, weakened by the morning light, swang in an arc from the left, across the floor and up to the right.  The boots scuffed on the concrete floor and began to move on as Joe made his smooth and accurate move and his gloved fingers tightened the wire loop.  Joe saw the whites of his victim's eyes as he squeezed life from the man's throat.
                   Joe finished nailing up he crate.  The memory of the guard's hat falling to the ground, exposing a smooth shaven head, sent a fear that screamed through Joe's brain but could not penetrate his dazed reasoning.  He looked for a way out.  It was time to get clear.
                  Outside the air was fresh after the rain.  It cleared away immediate memories.  Joe walked across the waterlogged wasteland.  Behind him a panda car raced  passed the scene of his undiscovered crime, its blue light flashing through a pink dawn.  He squatted down beside a puddle that reflected clouds tinged with the colours of morning.  The reflections were disturbed as Joe dropped the ferryman's black pennies into the shallow water and then carefully washed their sour smell from his hands.