Breathless, I reached for the glass case. I think the torch gave a flicker, but I couldn’t have cared less. I’d actually lifted it from the seat when I suddenly knew I felt wrong. The place felt wrong too. Everybody can feel another’s presence. You don’t have to hear them or see them or be touched. You can tell. Just as you can tell if there’s one person in a crowd staring at you without you looking. You just feel it. And I felt it now.
‘Lovejoy.’ Such a soft voice, almost a whisper.
The word boomed softly and reverberated around the chamber. I yelped and dropped the torch. At least, it rolled and fell. I can’t remember. But a sudden thick dull splash put my light out and I was in there with nothing. Trembling, I replaced the case, with my scalp crawling, felt around where I was standing on the edge of the carriage. Nothing. I hadn’t even my jacket, with its matches and candles.
‘Lovejoy.’ Softly again, wheedling. They’d followed somehow. And now they were in the outer chamber through which I’d passed. It was my only way out.
It was a man’s voice. Brummie. Somebody laughed. My skin prickled. I would have fainted if I hadn’t been so frightened of falling into the bloody water deep down there and dying, alone but for two skeletons.
‘We’ve come to help you, Lovejoy.’
I thought of trying to explain, offer, bargain, promise, anything to stop them leaving me entombed down here. I couldn’t have got further from help if I’d tried. I swallowed, third go.
‘Time to pass it over, Lovejoy.’
Two voices chuckled, comfortably and at ease. They had a nasal quality. Hellfire. Both Brummies were in the outer chamber. They’d probably brought more weapons than the Tower of London. I felt the sweat start down from my armpits and sting my chin. They seemed to have no light, but they weren’t daft.
‘I’m stuck,’ I said. It seemed a voice from light years off. It whined feebly, a real cringing Tinker-type voice. I vowed never again to criticize Tinker, if ever I got out.
‘Balls, Lovejoy.’ One of them chuckled again. ‘They said you’d try all sorts. Just chuck the stuff out and we’ll call it quits.’
That was a laugh. They were going to do for me. I knew it. They knew it. All the rest was chitchat.
‘I’m stuck under this rail. You heard it go, you bastards.’
More muttering. There were only two. I couldn’t imagine Fergus doing any of his own dirty work, especially with his leg, and Jake always stays behind the army.
‘Under what, Lovejoy?’
‘A bloody railway line, you stupid berk.’
‘We’re not sorry.’
They seemed to be biting, though what good it would do me . . . I thought hard, seeing in my mind’s eye the interior of this chamber as it had looked from the aperture when I had a light. I hadn’t known there was a well. Surely they didn’t, either?
‘Look, lads. A deal, eh?’
‘That’s more like it, Lovejoy.’ Mutter, mutter. ‘No tricks, mind. We’ve heard you’re a leery bastard.’
There was only one way to handle this, I thought, fear tightening my throat and making it hard to breathe. If I showed anything less than absolute terror, even the slightest glimmer of hope, I’d give the show away. My only ally was a hole. But one from two equals one any way you look.
‘Don’t be stupid. How the hell can I?’ I muttered to myself, complaining loudly of their idiocy the way I knew was realistic. God knows, I was scared enough. ‘I’ve no light or anything.’
‘Careless lad.’
‘What do you want me to do?’
‘Hand the thing out.’
‘I can’t. I could see it. Before my light went.’
‘What is it?’
‘I don’t know,’ I lied. ‘Some sort of box. My lamp fell before I . . . before I got trapped. This bloody sleeper fell on me from the side.’ Well, it nearly had.
‘Stay there.’
Bloody fool. It just shows what sort of people are in antiques these days, doesn’t it? I was narked even though they were going to crawl through the hole and kill me, the burkes.
I whimpered, ‘If one of you just reached through you can take it. It’s on the floor.’
‘How far inside is it?’
‘About eight feet.’
‘Stay where you are.’ Mutter, mutter. ‘You go, Jim. Watch it,’ I heard. ‘He might have something.’
‘We found all his gear,’ the first voice said confidently.
A light blinded me for a second as a torch lit with a smart click. I glanced about swiftly. By standing balanced on the bent rail sagging its lunatic way across the deep well I could maybe create an impression of being on solid ground, though it would be difficult. Any time I could slip and fall . . .
‘I can’t move, you burke,’ I snapped with a mixture of a Tinkerish cringe and anger. It was the best I could do. One seemed doubtful, muttering cautions. The other was perky and belligerent.
The light was abruptly blocked. It came through in one or two darts, equally swiftly doused. Somebody was in the crawl-way’s aperture. I slid like I’d seen acrobats do on their rope, one foot before the other. My mouth was dry as a bone. I tried to blink but couldn’t even do that. I felt the rail dip fractionally under my weight. I crouched for a second, but what if he had a torch and shone it downwards to look at me? He would see the well gaping beneath me and guess I’d tried to mislead him. And I’d be a goner.
‘Pass it out, Lovejoy.’
The voice was so near I almost overbalanced and fell from fright.
‘How the hell can I?’ I snarled. ‘I’m under this girder. It’s my hand, trapped.’ I wanted him to concentrate on the roof, the walls, the fall behind me. Anything but down.
‘Stay there.’ The light came in and blinded me, shining straight into my face. I swayed, my hand outstretched as if stuck somewhere out of his direct line of vision.
‘I promise I won’t move,’ I quavered. It needed no acting skills. ‘But promise you’ll let me go if I pass it to you, eh, lads?’
‘I promise,’ his voice said again. I heard the second bloke chuckle.
His bulk blocked the light again. He called to his mate to shine his torch through. Small dashes of light struck into my chamber, but most was impeded by the first goon’s bulk.
‘Got you, Lovejoy.’ I heard him come wriggling nearer.
The beam traversed my face and the walls behind me. They roved the ceiling and the carriage. I was only three feet from him. He wriggled out like a woodworm, head first. He carefully kept his eyes on me as he gripped the edge of the aperture, just as I had done, and swung lightly downwards. He dropped down, letting go. There was one slight difference. He simply kept on going. He went down and down. It was like a slow-motion play. His expression changed, gradually turning from a domineering smile to one of horror. He simply sank without a sound, descending into the well. There came a ghastly wet thud. Something stirred sluggishly for a few seconds in the slime among the skeletons. I scrabbled back along the line babbling with terror and clung to the carriage. The image came of him rising covered with a terrifying macabre slime from the well’s filthy mud and embracing me in a horrifying grip. I imagined his smiling face upturned, still smiling, as I scrabbled for brick after brick and dropped them down the well. I finished up hurling them down with all the force I could manage, mentally screaming abuse and hatred. The other nerk in the outer chamber must have thought the world had gone mad.
‘Jim? Jim?’ he was shouting. ‘Are you okay?’
I paused, exhausted. ‘He says stop there,’ I bawled.
‘Jim? Answer, Jim.’
‘He says stop there.’
It was an inspired thing to say. I tried for utter weariness in my voice. Trying to say come on in would have tipped him off. He would go back for Jake or even Fergus. Or a hand-grenade. Or some foul thing to smoke me out. But telling him not to come in meant not only that Jim was boss in here, but was playing his mate off. Jim might have found something precious and was having it a
way. And leaving his mate with nothing
I waited almost smugly while the poison worked. Then I was more terrified than ever. A goon thinking himself whittled would come in full of aggro. If he had a shooter he would shoot before anything else. And I knew he had a torch. Jim’s lamp was down in the well with him; its light dying fast.
I cringed beside the bogie, chattering with fear. If he came in I could chuck a brick but the force would be too weak. And the angle wrong. And bricks have corners, to catch on the sides and lose their force. Anyway, he’d see me move.
‘Jim?’
‘He says stop there. I surrender, honest.’
‘Jim! Pass it out. The thing Fergie wants.’
‘I’m trapped. Honest.’ I sounded at the end of my tether, which was about right.
‘I’ll come through,’ he threatened. He was narked Jim was saying nothing. And concerned. ‘I have a shooter, Lovejoy.’
‘Jim says stay there,’ I told him desperately.
He called, ‘Watch out, Jim.’
There was a sudden flash. For an instant I was puzzled. Then I heard myself screaming and screaming. The bastard had shot through the aperture and my shoulder was burning and smarting.
I fell down, probably a reflex. The torchlight was jerking about. Either he was trying to see what was going on in here or he was already slithering his evil way in, the bastard.
‘Get the message, Lovejoy?’ he said through the mud-lined hole.
I thought of hiding, but where? I even thought of suicide, but the only place was the terrifying black well. The huge sleeper nearly overbalanced as I tried to shuffle away from the aperture. I lodged myself across the end near the carriage, and it held. I felt it with my palms, splinters ripping into my hands. It was a massive piece of wood balancing on the edge of a great hole. I pushed it gently. It rocked. It only needed the slightest extra weight on that far end for it to tilt downwards into the well. And maybe the whole chamber would go in with it.
‘Jim!’ He was becoming impatient. ‘You all right? What the hell you doing?’
‘He says I’m to wait here,’ I yelled, thinking like mad: a heavy piece of wood rocking. If one end falls sharply, the other rises. A lever? ‘He’s gone to find the other way out.’ I needed him to come through but not yet.
The goon was puzzled and suspicious. ‘The fiddle still there?’ He meant the casket. ‘Yes.’
‘Right, Lovejoy. I’m coming in.’ Christ.
The torch flickered again. I crouched on the carriage end of the sleeper and tore my trousers off. Sweat was pouring down me, tickling and irritating. My hair kept guiding rivulets into my eyes. I zipped the empty trousers up and tied the leather belt round their waist, making a bag with two holes.
I clawed every loose brick in reach and stuffed them into the trouser leg.
‘What’s going on?’
‘I’m trying to get free,’ I yelled. I was as terrified as I sounded. ‘I can’t. Jim left me here. There’s another tunnel, a way out.’
A shuffling began and the light blocked in fits and starts. He was coming. Oh, God. I ran out of bricks. The weight was crippling. My shaking hands managed to tie the trouser legs in a loop. I spread myself over the inward end of the sleeper and began pushing my ungainly bag along it until I ran out of distance. Frantically, I turned round and pushed it further with my feet. At one point my heart stopped. The bloody bag nearly tumbled over but I got it balanced again. A flicker of light came. I could just see the bag almost at the limit of the sleeper and I felt my end trying to lift under me as the bag of bricks weighted the other end of the wood. As soon as I rolled off, the weight of the bricks should swivel the sleeper. Its own immense weight would add to the speed and it would flip like a giant seesaw but with one horrible difference. It wouldn’t stop and rock back the other way. It would go on, down and down. It was a crude nonstop ballista.
I rose, shaking. So I had a pivoting wood sleeper, but now no missile. The exertion had been too great for my flabby body. My hands were uncontrollable. I retched a couple of times. I wobbled upright on my end of the home-made seesaw. Don’t lose your balance and step off, Lovejoy, I begged myself. Please. But the missile?
There were no bricks left. Even if there had been, in the frightened state I was in I’d have piled them up wrong. There was only one heavy, dense projectile available. It had to be. With a groan of utter misery I groped back, touched the chair. The casket lid was gritty with dust and dried mud, but it opened easily.
I lifted the heavy metal object out gently, still balancing. The thrill of feeling it made my fingers tingle and steady. The goon was breathing stertorously, snuffling towards me along the crawl-way. He’d had the wit to bundle a jacket. He was pushing it ahead of him, probably as a shield in case I chucked anything, suspicious sod. I felt my precious object’s contours. It was a silky model of an early engine. I didn’t look, in the faint glow now coming from the aperture, just crouched and placed the silver miracle at my feet on the sleeper. We waited, both of us. Me practically naked, like a springboard diver waiting his turn at the back end of a diving board, and the precious diminutive gleaming silver machine, throbbing with the life instilled in it so long ago, on the wood between my feet. Standing there I was the trigger of my vast and clumsy home-made weapon.
The torchlight touched my eyes. I raised both hands, squinting towards the aperture.
‘Don’t shoot, don’t shoot!’ I squawked. ‘Please, mate. Your pal’s gone through there.’ I pointed to my right. ‘I’m stuck.’
The bastard held me like that for what seemed an hour. Of course, he could only see my top half from his position along the crawl-way, but that didn’t make me feel any easier.
‘Stay like that.’ There was a pause. The swine was wondering whether it would be wiser to shoot me now.
‘Jim told me to show you the other exit.’ Pretty feeble, but it was the best lie I could invent to increase my paltry value.
‘He thought another minute. ‘Pass it out first, Lovejoy.’
‘How the hell can I? My leg’s stuck fast.’
‘You said it was your arm.’
‘Jim got that out.’
Another pause. ‘Just stand still, Lovejoy. I don’t trust you.’
He squirmed nearer, slower and more careful.
There was enough light now from the jerking torch for me to look at the sleeper. The gruesome sights in the deep well kept trying to drag my eyes past the wood and down to the horribly fascinating mess at the bottom. I made myself judge the distance from the well’s crumbly edge to my silver missile. The length that would lash upwards was about the same as the aperture’s exit was high, more or less. But any more or any less and the beautiful model would smash into the chamber wall. And he’d hear it go, and guess something was wrong. He’d see me move, anyway, and let fly. The torch went out. I had to remember the distances. Maybe the distance was too small? Maybe I’d misjudged . . . I almost bent down to move the silver piece back an inch. My mouth was dry as a rasp.
The torch came on suddenly, so near I felt I could have reached out and touched it. Too late. I stood with my trembling arms raised, blinded. I’d forgotten. How can you judge if a goon’s in position if you’re blinded? Oh, Christ. I closed my eyes. I’d have to listen. But if his head actually projected into the chamber he would be able to look down and see his mate Jim decomposing below. Then he’d kill me. Never mind then what happened to the silver or to the goon. I’d be gone. So I had to step off and let the sleeper tilt upwards when he was all but within reach.
‘Keep like that, Lovejoy.’ Shuffle, shuffle.
I opened my eyes. The torch blinded me. It looked near yet no nearer. I couldn’t gauge distances any more from dazzle. Then I heard a faint splash from the well below. A fragment of the aperture lip must have fallen. So it must have been pushed, by the goon framed in the aperture. Now. I simply stepped back off the huge wooden beam.
All hell seemed let loose. Wood tore my left shin with enormous for
ce. The well quivered and shook. A brick clattered on the carriage. All in a second, dust filled the chamber and a terrible rushing noise came from somewhere far below. A deep thud came instantaneously, and a thick sucking sound. The torch went out. I opened my eyes, squinting and terrified, and crouched clinging to the iron rail in case the whole bloody floor fell away from under me. My mind screeched, stay still, stay still. Maybe the silver had somehow missed him and crashed into the dried mud and he was just waiting me out. A standoff. I tried not to choke on the dust, but I had to breathe. That set me spluttering and coughing, giving myself away. Then I fell silent. The mud below stopped popping and sucking. The sleeper was probably sinking into it forever. I felt sick. There was no sound.
Silently, I inched my way along the rail. The gap beneath felt like outer space. If the swine was still there . . . I touched the mud wall ahead and used it to support my forward weight balancing on the rail. I wobbled up straight shakily and stretched out into the blackness. The lip of the aperture felt covered by a folded coat. My touch produced no movement. Nothing. I carefully pulled at the coat. It came free, and I let it fall, making sure no precious silver object went into the well with it. That left only a long hole with a goon in it. I could hear nothing breathing. I reached out.
My hand touched my luscious silver, the cold, beautiful metal. It was embedded in something sticky and running with warm slime. Relief and nausea made me momentarily dizzy. Hard warm splinters of shattered skull-bone pricked at me. I pulled the silver free with difficulty. Still balancing on the rail and leaning on the mud-wall I tore off my shirt and singlet to wrap the silver in. I slithered back and regained the carriage, cautiously clutching the bundle and sat exhausted, my hands sticky with congealing mess, on the carriage chair as the Right Honourable Jonathan Chase had so many years ago. I’m not sure, but I think I blacked out for a while, even though all I wanted was to get the hell out.
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