by Neil Cross
She nods. ‘Garden, basement, garage, outbuildings. There’s nothing. No sign the ground was disturbed. He’s lying, Guv.’
Reed checks his watch.
Lally says, ‘How long has she got?’
Reed can’t answer. He paces the floodlit garden, follows his own shadow. Thumbs out a text. searched house again!! No sign. Are you SURE??
Luther strides across the concrete. Madsen a flitting shadow before him.
He texts as he walks.
LOOK AGAIN
Henry sprints down a ruined tiled corridor.
It ends in a metal stairwell leading to a steel walkway above.
It’s go up, or go back.
And he can’t go back.
He scans the dark corners for what predators may lurk there. He sees nothing. There’s just the sound of dripping water, his own harsh breath.
Until.
A footstep.
Somewhere out there. In the shadows.
Henry bolts up the ladder.
Reed runs outside, finds Teller examining the picture of Mia Dalton.
She looks up. Can’t hide a flare of hope in her eyes.
‘Nothing,’ Reed says.
Teller grits her teeth and looks away.
Henry takes a retreating step. And another. Moving backwards as the echoing footsteps in the vastness of this terrible place grow closer and closer.
He scrambles up the second rusty ladder, runs along the raised iron walkway.
The walkway ends in a third ladder. It takes him to a fourth level. Then a fifth.
When he’s high up, moonlight filters through dirty pitched-roof windows, revealing the iron walkway runs adjacent to a steel framework that once suspended the brewery’s colossal fermenting tanks. Where the tanks once stood are now vast circular holes. The last of the holes is spanned by a very basic bridge.
The bridge leads to a steel door.
The steel door is the only way out.
Henry examines the bridge and the chasm it crosses. It swan-dives into a void.
He turns from it.
He won’t cross that corroded bridge over that monstrous drop.
Breathing heavily, he casts round, seeking an alternative way out.
And hears that noise in the silence.
Luther, coming closer.
Henry waits.
Luther reaches the upper walkway. He advances on Henry.
Henry crosses the bridge, towards the door. The structure groans under his weight.
He’s halfway across when something falls, a sheared bolt. It plunges, reverberating, into the void.
Henry ignores it.
He reaches the far side, the riveted steel door.
It’s locked.
He casts round on his hands and knees. He scrabbles in the clinker until his hand settles on a length of iron piping. It’s heavy.
He heaves and strains, then rips the piping from the crumbling wall. He turns, gripping the pipe in two hands, meaning to batter at the door handle with it.
Then he sees Luther.
He’s standing at the other side of the bridge, watching him.
Luther and Madsen stand at either end of the span, eyes locked.
Luther bares his teeth like a dog.
Henry raises the length of pipe. He’s killed people with less.
They advance, slowly at first, advancing towards the centre of the bridge.
Luther snarls.
Henry raises the pipe, bellows in hatred and rage.
They run.
The bridge jolts under their weight. Then it gives way beneath Henry’s feet.
Henry falls.
He drops the iron pipe. It tumbles end on end into nothing.
Henry grabs the pendulous edge of walkway with one hand.
He hangs there, scrabbling. He tries to climb.
But he can’t. Shifting his weight makes the structure groan in complaint, threatening to collapse altogether.
Luther edges as close as he can to the rent in the floor. He braces himself.
‘You’re going to fall, Henry.’
Madsen tries to clamber up.
He can’t.
The bridge jolts, gives way a few more centimetres.
Madsen is jarred. But hangs on.
There’s a weird shriek and pop as support wires give way.
Luther leans over as far as he dares. ‘Where is she? Where’s Mia?’
Madsen’s feet kick and flail, seeking a toehold that isn’t there.
‘In the living room! For God’s sake, she’s in the living room. There’s a panel behind the plasterboard.’
Luther digs out his phone. ‘Be exact.’
Reed’s phone rings. It’s Luther.
He snatches it up. ‘John?’
‘You said they were renovating the house?’
‘Yeah, the place is a mess, mate.’
‘He lied. She’s not in the ground. She’s behind the plasterboard in the living room. There’s a panel.’
Reed swears, hangs up. Runs into the house, into the cluttered and bustling living room.
Luther waits.
Henry dangles. His hand is bloodless from gripping the greasy, powdery iron. He says, ‘Please!’
Luther kneels.
‘Thing is,’ he says, ‘what if you’re lying? Because you’ve done that before, haven’t you? You lied and lied and lied.’
‘I’m not lying! Please!’
Reed races to the tiny, cluttered living room.
He’s followed by Teller and six uniformed members of the search team.
Together, they heave aside an old walnut dresser. Doing so exposes a large, freshly plastered square of gypsum board.
Reed grabs a crowbar and levers at the wet edge of gypsum board.
The others join him. They hammer and rip at the plasterboard wall, rip it down section by section.
Luther watches Madsen struggle. He listens to him beg and plead.
He checks his watch.
12.04.
Behind the plasterboard, behind a layer of pink fibreglass wall insulation, they find an upright, coffin-sized container. It’s been wrapped in mineral wool lagging, obtained from the hot water cylinder.
The coffin is attached to a small oxygen cylinder. The needle on the cylinder gauge reads empty.
Reed picks up his phone. The line still connected. ‘John, I think she’s here!’
Luther looks down into Madsen’s eye. Speaks into the phone. ‘Is she alive?’
The coffin is a large weapons case, made airtight with duct tape and sealed with six throw-latches.
Four officers, Reed included, heave it from the cavity inside the wall and lay it flat.
Reed digs out his thumb knife, cuts along the duct tape, then throws the latches one by one.
He lifts the lid of the case.
Inside is Mia Dalton. Eyes closed. Arms crossed over her chest. They’ve been taped, to stop her pounding and scratching at the walls of her casket. Seeing that brings it home.
Reed stands up and back.
Suddenly, he’s frozen.
Teller steps up. She hauls Mia from the coffin; a skinny little dark-haired girl. She lays her out on the filthy floor. Puts an ear to her chest.
Shit.
She turns Mia’s head, clears her airway. Then tilts back her head. Pinches her nose. Covers Mia’s mouth with hers, and gently forces air into her lungs.
Mia’s chest rises.
Luther watches Madsen. There’s silence, except for the reverberations of Madsen’s begging.
Reed keeps the phone to his ear as Teller continues to administer CPR.
Down the line, he can hear echoing screaming.
He lowers the phone and watches Teller.
Until Mia Dalton takes in a great whoop of air and sits up — blinking, bewildered, terror-stricken.
Teller cries out and embraces the child. ‘Oh, good girl,’ she says. ‘Good girl. Good girl.’
Reed’s legs go weak. He brac
es himself against the wall, lifts the phone. ‘We’ve got her!’
‘Good,’ says Luther.
Reed listens to the screams.
Please. Please. I’m falling. I’m going to fall.
He thinks for a moment. Then he hangs up, pockets his phone.
He steps aside to make way for the incoming paramedics.
Teller is hugging Mia tight. Rocking her, calling her a good girl, a good girl.
The paramedics have to ask three times before she’ll let Mia go.
Luther stares at Madsen, hanging pendent.
‘Please,’ says Madsen. ‘I can’t hold on.’
Luther considers it. ‘Tell me about the others, Henry.’
‘PLEASE,’ says Madsen.
‘How many more were there?’
‘None!’
‘HOW MANY MORE? There was Adrian, wasn’t there? There was baby Emma. I dug her out of the ground myself. But I was too late. SO HOW MANY MORE?’
No answer comes.
But Madsen’s terror slips away. Control passes to him.
He stares up at Luther. In agony. And in defiance.
Luther surges with hate. It rises from in his feet. It spreads in his chest and shoulders like wings unfurling.
He reaches out a foot.
He hesitates.
He meets Madsen’s eyes.
Then he places his foot on Madsen’s fingers.
Madsen screams.
Luther presses down. He brings all his weight to bear.
And then he steps back.
Madsen’s hand slips.
There’s an insane flurry as he scrabbles for purchase.
Then falls into blackness.
Down he falls. Down and down.
Luther doesn’t see him hit the ground, but he hears it: a wet crunch; a long, chiming reverberation.
The strength leaves him. He staggers back to the walkway and sits. He dangles his feet over the edge.
He looks down. He can’t see Madsen’s body. But he looks down anyway.
He tries to think.
He’s still there, trying to think, when the police arrive.
FB2 document info
Document ID: fbd-345e00-a9f1-134c-e081-cac8-47b2-eaa60c
Document version: 1
Document creation date: 22.04.2012
Created using: Fiction Book Designer, FictionBook Editor Release 2.6.3 software
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