Shaken, they splashed across the stream and regrouped on the bank, holding on to each other’s shoulders in a scrum. Archie circled their feet.
‘This isn’t working,’ Joel panted. ‘We’re never going to find him in this darkness. All we’re going to do is get ourselves caught.’
Maggie looked at the ground for a moment, thinking. ‘Well,’ she said, kicking a rock with her foot, ‘let’s make sure we do!’
‘What?’ said Joel.
‘Get caught. If we can somehow make them think one of us is Tom, we can divert them from hunting him and he might just get away.’
‘Brilliant,’ said Joel, nodding with mock seriousness. ‘An absolutely sure way to get caught by murderous criminals ourselves!’
‘I know, but what if . . . what if Tom never gets out of there? We’ll always live with the fact that we could have done more.’
Joel put his hands on his hips and let out a sigh. ‘We’ll need a plan if we do get caught.’
‘Let’s start speaking Chinese! They’ll think we’re tourists who have got lost. They’ll soon lose interest. Come on!’
The ground on this side of the stream was dry and firm and they made quick progress over the sheep-cropped grass. Just before they reached the track there was a roar and they dived to the ground as a Land Rover raced away from the farm, its headlights dancing on the rutted road.
Two of the search drones were visible now: one to their left combing the dale head, and another hovering over the farm, where two men with machine guns were looking at a map in the headlights of another Land Rover. Away to the east a buttery light was seeping into the sky.
They began to walk towards the farm. The yellow dump truck that they had seen in the farmyard from across the valley was now parked at a slant on the edge of the track some way from the farm. When they came level with it, Maggie stopped dead.
‘No way,’ she said. She climbed up to the open cockpit, and stepped back down smiling. ‘It has the ignition key in it. This will beat running.’
‘Maggie.’ Joel held his palms out, anticipating the argument. ‘It’s crazy. We’re going to get ourselves killed.’
‘I can do it, Joel. It’ll be like driving a car.’
‘But you’ve never driven a car. The only thing you’ve driven is the dodgems at Blackpool Pleasure Beach.’
‘And Snakey’s dirt bike!’
‘Look, they’re all running back inside the building. He must still be inside somewhere.’
‘Come on,’ said Maggie, clambering up to the driver’s seat. ‘We haven’t got a moment to lose. We need to draw them out again so Tom has a chance to escape.’
Shaking, Maggie adjusted the seat for her height, and quickly explained her idea. Joel lifted Archie into the huge tipping bucket where he stood on a layer of broken bricks, looking lost. Joel then headed off towards the farm weaving through the larches. Maggie turned the key and the engine growled awake.
A few moments later Joel reappeared on the track, holding a branch in one hand, which he began to use as a walking stick. His impersonation of Tom’s lopsided gait – the drag of his leg, the severe dip of the shoulder as he placed his weight on the stick – was unmistakable. He went up to the gate where there was now only one man on guard, still standing by the ice cream van, but with his back to the gates. Then Joel turned round and began to walk back to the truck. Maggie watched him brazenly limp towards the truck as the first rays of sun broke across the fell tops behind him.
Then Maggie started shouting, ‘Tom, Tom, there you are. Get in! Get in!’ repeating his name again and again. She blasted the horn loud and long.
From the driver’s seat the machine felt as high as a house and the vast bucket hid the road from view. She pressed the pedal and could feel the power of it through the soles of her feet. Despite the lumbering weight of the thing, she was surprised how light the steering was and she edged out into the track, facing away from the farm and pushed the enormous brake pedal with all her weight.
Suddenly the farmyard came to life. People were spilling out of the building and jumping into vehicles, pointing and yelling at Joel. The gates opened as Joel pulled himself on to the running board.
‘Fly, Maggie! Get your foot down. We won’t be able to outrun them in this thing, but let’s keep the chase going for as long as we can!’
Maggie pressed her foot hard on the accelerator and the beast jolted forward. It gathered speed and the engine began to whine.
‘You need to change gear!’ shouted Joel in her ear.
The clutch pedal was so stiff Maggie had to stand up to kick it down and the truck coasted for a few terrifying seconds while she wrenched the gear lever across. She lifted her foot from the pedal and the machine bolted away like a racehorse.
The track rose and fell as it followed the valley side. Maggie was rigid, clinging on to the wheel. She couldn’t look behind. In front Archie rode the floor of the bucket like a surfer.
‘There’s a bend coming up,’ said Joel.
She pressed the brake and changed gears again with a crunch of metal. She leant into the curve, tyres screaming. As they came out of the bend, Maggie shot a glance over her shoulder to see one of the Land Rovers a couple of car-lengths away, black smoke blowing from the exhausts, and behind it the ice cream van. The passenger in the Land Rover had his head out of the window, looking through the sight of a rifle.
As they hit the crest of a hill, she heard a shot from behind. Maggie and Joel exchanged shocked glances. In the dip after the crest, there was another burst of fire and a whooshing sound overhead.
‘What are we going to do?’ screamed Maggie in Joel’s ear. ‘They’re actually shooting at us!’
There was a clang as the bucket skimmed a stone wall, then they were into a grove of trees and, in the muffled darkness of the overhanging branches, more shots, and a deafening crack as the bullet hit some metal.
‘Just drive, Maggie!’
Maggie looked over her shoulder again to see the Land Rover on their tail, the gun pointing at one of the wheels of the truck. Joel was leaning over the dashboard, reaching into the bucket, pulling out bricks. Then he stood up, idiotically exposed, his teeth clenched. He began to throw bricks into the road, aiming at the wheels of the Land Rover. Maggie changed gear and pressed the accelerator to the floor. Trees and stone walls flashed past.
Suddenly she saw relief crumple Joel’s face and heard a screech of brakes and something popping behind. She looked round and the Land Rover was veering off the road, careening down a bank. The ice cream van was skidding behind it, its wheels locked.
‘Come on, Maggie,’ shouted Joel. ‘You can do it.’
They came to a hill, steeper than the last, and Maggie could see the main road where the track joined it between drystone walls. A minibus flashed past, heading down the hill. If only she could make it to the road, she might be able to get some traffic between them and their pursuers.
She looked back again and now the ice cream van was right behind, swaying as it rode the lumps of the road. The passenger, Mike McCain, was leaning out of the window, a gun in his hand, firing at them furiously. A shot ricocheted off the steering column. Another hit a tyre, and she felt the machine lurch to one side.
Then Joel’s hand was on the wheel, and he was screaming in her ear: ‘Watch out! The wall, Maggie! Brake! Brake! Brake!’
CHAPTER 37
Tom had no idea how long he had been in the room, staring at the hole. Perhaps five minutes. Perhaps an hour. He was disgusted with his failure. He knew that if he stayed here the lives of other people would be lost. And beyond tomorrow, countless more, as Rufus Clay sold his special brand of terror across the world. He knew, deep down, that it would be better to chance himself to the cold horrors of rock and water than the cruelty of human beings. But this fear couldn’t be argued away. There was nothing he could do to make himself enter that shaft.
Tom realized he was sweating and shuffled the freezer suit off, throwing it angrily aga
inst the wall. As he did so, a button flew out of his shirt pocket, dropped to the floor, landing on its edge, and started to spin like a penny. He watched it spinning for what seemed like a lifetime, a tiny blur, spinning and spinning with an energy all of its own. Ever so gradually the button slowed, the axis of its turning becoming less upright, its colour separating from the pale fusion, as if it were asserting its right to existence in a fading world. At last, with a final elliptical sweep, it came to rest, and there it lay, a tiny pixel of colour in the grey room.
He crouched over the button without touching it, and he was overcome by the sight of it, and the flood of memories that it brought – this powder-blue speck on the concrete floor.
He remembered Maggie picking it up from the floor when he had just been knocked over by Archie. He remembered how she’d laughed, and held out the button in her hand. How she had offered to sew it back on. And how cold and proud he must have seemed in her eyes. He remembered how she had stood up to Snakey. How she’d got the anaesthetic. How she’d risked her life on Benson Isle. How both Maggie and Joel took him as he was. How they’d believed him. Then he remembered Aunt Emily and her endless patience. Jim and his kindness and his steadfast belief that Tom might just be right: that out there his father might still be alive.
He looked at Maggie’s button now, and a light went on inside. There is, he found himself thinking as he put the button in his pocket, heaved the manhole cover open again, and began to lower himself into the shaft, something even more powerful than fear. He had friends. And he had hope.
But now there were voices outside the room, boots on the stairs, a radio crackle. They must have found his empty cell.
‘Flamin’ Houdini! How did he do it? That’s the first thing I’m gonna get out of that runt when I catch him!’ The unfit one from before. ‘Mike swears he left the key at the top of the steps. And there’s no way Mike would make a mistake like that.’
‘Someone inside must have helped him.’ It was the southern accent, the scuba diver. ‘But who would be so soft in the head to do that?’
‘Whoever it was, I wouldn’t want to be in their shoes by the time Mike finishes with them.’
There was a voice on the radio asking for an update.
‘We’re in level two. Just checking out the escape chamber.’
The footsteps were coming down the final set of stairs. Tom began to pull the heavy metal cover towards him, but he realized he had left his walking stick on the floor. He had to climb half out of the shaft again, lean over and reach it. He pulled it into the shaft and let it drop into the nothingness below. It would be no use to him in the water, and if he ever got out of this place alive, he could make a dozen more micro-drones.
Now he was exposed, half in and half out of the hole. He began to fumble manically with the lid, but it was too late. There was a hand on the door handle.
The voice on the radio suddenly came into the room as the door cracked open: ‘All units: abort search. All units: abort search and convene by muster point. Fugitive has been identified escaping south from base.’
‘Roger that,’ was the last he heard from the men as their footsteps receded back up the stairs and he heard the door click shut behind them.
Tom exhaled and felt a shudder work its way through his spine while he processed what had happened. He could not imagine how they could have made a mistake like that, but it had saved him. Somehow, he’d been given another chance.
The rungs were cold to the touch. With one hand on the ladder, he reached up to pull the cover over the hole and, once again, he found himself swallowed in the horror of utter darkness. He could hear his own breathing, echoing, as if there were someone else beside him. But he had never felt so alone. He switched the head-torch on and began to move down the ladder. After what must have been fifty or sixty rungs, he stopped and shone the beam of light up towards the hole. At the sight of that cone of rock disappearing above his head he closed his eyes and clung on, the longing to be out growing like a bubble in his brain. He could hear the steady sigh of water beneath him. After another dozen or so more rungs his shoes filled with water, and his feet were being pulled away from the ladder by the current.
Bracing his body for the shock of cold, Tom lowered himself into the water. It was up to his waist and there were still more rungs to go. He felt the breath squeezed from his lungs as the water came over his chest. Only when the water was lapping his shoulders, little wavelets stroking the bottom of his chin, was he able to shine the light along the tunnel itself. There were eight or maybe ten inches of clearance between the water and the roof – just enough for his head if he kept his chin underwater and breathed through his nose.
He let go of the ladder and the current grabbed him and plunged him under. He came up again, spluttering, and the torchlight cast wild circles on the water that bounced on to the roof. He was disorientated for a moment, drifting backwards. He pushed off the wall with a foot and tried to steady himself with his arms, the earthy-tasting water stinging the back of his nose. Once facing the right way he let himself go, pulled along with the current, his legs tucked up under him.
What was it Jim had said? Love is not a feeling, it’s a decision. He’d made his decision – to be swallowed by rock and water – and it felt like a slow death. As he drifted further into the deep earth he found himself fiercely longing to be sitting in the kitchen at Cedar Holme with Aunt Emily chatting away, pottering about, the washing machine swishing and whining in the background, the sound of the birds in the garden filtering in through the open door.
How many breaths had he taken in his life without a moment of thankfulness? He wanted to sit on Jim’s deck as a summer sun dropped behind the fells and talk about fishing. He wanted to take Maggie and Joel camping on Heron Holme, the little island at the quieter end of the lake that he had spitefully kept secret from them. He wanted to ask Maggie to sew that button back on.
Something was hanging from the ceiling up ahead. He shone the light in that direction, and felt the breath of wings on his scalp as a bat skimmed past. He was wondering where it could have come from when he saw the answer in the form of a pale patch of light rippling on the surface in front. As he approached, he noticed that the rough concrete lining of the tunnel there was covered in lichens and liverworts. He came level with the patch of light and looked up into a brick-lined opening twelve feet high. It must have been some kind of ventilation shaft but there was no ladder up. The metal grille at the top was framed by ferns and mosses and beyond it, the orange glow of dawn. It was like a summons from another world and he almost choked at the sight.
Tom tried to take deep breaths as he let himself drift off into darkness again. The tunnel was beginning to round a gradual bend to the right. When it straightened out, there was the sound of rushing water. It had to be the overflow pipe that ran down to the river that he had overheard the men talking about, a drop to the right after half a mile. The men in the escape room said it flowed into the river which drained into the north end of the lake. That was the Elleray. And Tom had a feeling he knew where it came out. If he was right, it was less than half a mile upstream from Cedar Holme!
If he missed it, it would be impossible to swim back against the current. He back-paddled with his hands against the flow to slow down. The sound of falling water was growing louder, a sheet of white noise.
Then he was level with the escape pipe. There was a metal sluice gate with a curtain of water rushing over. He grabbed hold of the gate and felt the force of the water pulling him away. He held on tight and shone the light over the gate. On the other side was a near-vertical fall. Without giving himself time to have second thoughts, he climbed over the gate and sat at the top of it, water rushing under and around him. The posture felt bizarrely familiar but it took him some time to think why. Then he remembered – he could have been at the top of a water chute on holiday years ago, screaming kids pushing and shoving behind him, butterflies in his stomach, then the bumps and bends and the triumphant s
plash, followed by the chlorine sting in his throat. But who knew what there would be at the end of this? All he knew was that there was nowhere else to go.
As soon as he let go of the gate the water enveloped him in its power. It slammed his head into the concrete lining of the pipe, then spun his body like a screw. The force and speed were impossible to comprehend. He was flotsam in a whirlpool. For a moment, as the pipe curved over like a death slide, he lost contact with the bottom, felt weightless for a split second, hit his head on the ceiling and then smashed back on the concrete bottom again, picking up even more speed, gasping for breath in the spray.
Then the gradient began to level off. Ahead there was a faint fluid light, but now the depth of the water was increasing in keeping with the angle of the pipe. This was it, the final triple horror: imprisoned, underground and now underwater.
Tom took a final gulp of air in the shrinking gap between the surface and the top of the pipe before he was completely submerged. The current pushed him on from behind, his head scraping the ceiling. When he opened his eyes underwater the green light was filtering into the tunnel from somewhere outside. He stretched out towards it, like a perch hungry for prey, and now he could make out the shimmering shape of an arch, the light coming through it forming a web on the walls as it shafted through a gate. The arch loomed into view, and then he was slamming up against the metal bars, grabbing them with both hands. With a sickening sense of panic, he felt their rigid strength barring the way out. He shook them, his sinuses stinging, pinpricks of light stabbing at the back of his eyes. He tried to stay calm but a terror was engulfing him. There had to be a way out. The men had said there would be a latch. He tore his hands free and moved them up and down the grille, searching the edges.
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