Karl flicked his eyes around: at the rusty old shutter, at the high windows and a doorless office at the back where there was a ground-floor window. His brain threw up escape scenarios, but they all depended on his being out of this chair which didn’t look likely. And he didn’t know where he was. He had been in the dark in the back of a van, unconscious for most of the journey, and they could have driven him anywhere. There might not be a soul around for miles. He might not even be in London.
He realised he’d been wasting time when Mick said: ‘Three, two, one,’ and stepped forward with the pliers held up.
Karl leaned back, and screamed for help.
A ringing phone froze everyone. Karl raised his hopes as the detective pulled out his mobile and looked at it with a worried frown.
‘You get another sixty seconds, Karl. Dave, with me.’
The detective and the black man went into the office. Karl saw him pull out a seat from the table and sit just out of view. He could see the man’s feet up on the table. His phone flew into shot and was clumsily caught by the black man.
Karl looked at Varsity, who looked uncomfortable. He knew his eyes were pleading.
‘You should just tell the guy what he wants,’ Brad said.
‘You should tell your boss that you can’t get away with this. The police will know everything because my wife will tell them.’ A threat, of sorts, but he had the feeling that hurting him was the detective’s domain alone. This guy wouldn’t lay a finger on him without permission.
Varsity held Karl’s look for a moment, then looked at the office, and then at the entrance, the glorious daylight and freedom beyond.
He went to a button on the wall and pressed it, then jogged over to the office. The metal shutter started to lower. It rumbled and rattled and moved slowly, and the square of daylight began to shrink, and with it Karl’s hopes of freedom.
Varsity walked into the office and said: ‘Hey, we still need to work on a plan to—’
Sixty-Four
Mick
Mick’s raised finger and a sneer cut him off. Brad looked on in puzzlement. Mick was watching Dave, and Dave was pacing with Mick’s phone to his ear.
Then Dave said: ‘Listen carefully. I’ve got your man’s phone. Which means I’ve got your man. He tried to stick his nose into our business. If you don’t want him cut to pieces just like Grafton, then you get fifty grand and leave it at Nelson’s Column in one hour.’ He hung up.
Brad shut the door and said: ‘What the fuck was that?’
‘That was some kind of weird twisted shit he got me to do,’ Dave said, tossing Mick back his phone.
‘My people will suspect I’m involved,’ Mick said. ‘My detective sergeant just left me a voicemail. Very distraught. Knows I was set to meet Seabury, and then the shit hit the fan. They’ll soon suspect I’m involved in the kidnapping. But they’re not certain of anything yet, so this will muddy the waters. Maybe now it looks like I was going to bring Seabury in, but the bad guys turned up and took us all hostage. It gives us time. Time to get the bitch, and time to sterilise our houses and run for the hills.’
‘Run?’ Dave said. ‘And burn down a house I just bought? You’re joking, right?’
Brad said: ‘But what about the plan to get the cops off my back? How can that work now?’
‘It can’t any more.’
‘Jesus. Because you’re burned.’
‘Wouldn’t work even if I wasn’t. Because you are.’ Mick explained all about the About.me webpage, and the dead dealer, Rapid. ‘They don’t yet know about your alibi for the night Rapid was killed, but that’s just a matter of time. Alerts are going out for you even now. The police are probably talking to your boyfriend right this minute. You are burned, just like me. So, there’s no interview, and there’s no going home.’
In the shocked silence that followed, Dave said: ‘Er, but not me, right? They’ve got nothing on me.’
‘Oh, thanks,’ Brad said, which made Mick laugh. But he stopped a moment later when they heard a monstrous crash out in the warehouse.
Sixty-Five
Karl
The shutter’s downward rumble increased. It was two feet from clanging shut when Karl realised he was hearing something else.
Engine, he thought.
The shutter burst inward as if a bomb had exploded just outside. With a screeching bang it tore free from its runners and flew into the warehouse, and behind it was a vehicle.
At first he thought it was the van that had smashed into the police car, but it was a different colour. Sky blue, literally. It roared into the warehouse with the shutter folded over its front, held there by force. And it was racing right at him.
He jerked his whole body to the left and tipped the chair, hoping to God that he cleared the vehicle’s path. He landed hard on his side and felt the rush of air as the van blew past him, mere feet away. He got a half second glance at the driver: a guy he didn’t know but whose face was a mask of joy. Karl knew then this was no bizarre accident.
The van did not slow as it bore down on the office just ten feet away. Beyond the powering vehicle, he saw the door open and Mick standing there, locked in shock. A nanosecond later the van hit the wall right where the office door was and stopped dead with a massive clang from the shutter. The driver had blocked the doorway.
The passenger door crashed open, and Liz leaped out. Karl didn’t believe she was real until she bent over him and started yanking at his shoulder to make him stand.
‘Tied to it,’ he yelled.
She knelt behind him and found the handcuffs.
‘Don’t back up!’ he heard Liz yell to the driver – she had obviously realised that the shutter, pressed against the doorway, was keeping the animals inside.
From this position Karl could see right under the van. He saw a sliver of the doorway. No more than eight inches right at the bottom, but enough to allow the passage of a man. And that was what he saw now: Varsity, down on his front, feeding himself out of the office.
‘Back up when I say,’ Liz screamed.
‘Where’s my wife?’ Karl asked, feeling his shoulders jerk as she tried to break the chair to free him.
She didn’t answer. She stood, and for a moment he thought she was going to give up. Leave him here and flee.
Instead, she raised a bare foot and stomped. Right onto his wrist; it hurt like hell as he heard a snap. A snap like wood. He had been straining to lean forward, and now felt the resistance evaporate. The slat holding him right in place had snapped, and he was free – as free as you could be while still handcuffed and in the presence of killers.
Sixty-Six
Mick
At that moment Mick was in the upstairs office, having rushed for the stairs while Brad dropped to his front to crawl under the shutter.
He had heard the initial crash, figured some vehicle had rushed the shutter, and had got as far as the doorway when the shutter slammed the walls either side, forced there hard by the vehicle. The impact was strong enough to crack the doorframe and send a spiderweb of cracks along one wall; dirt and paint flecks from the shutter rained all over him and the booming clang rattled his ears. He knew this was a rescue attempt.
He had rushed up the stairs: the door was locked. Three hard shoulder blows killed the lock. At the far end of the upstairs office was a window that he rushed to. It was simply a sheet of clear plastic, no handle, not designed to open. Mick dislodged a corner with a heavy kick, grabbed the edge and pushed. The whole sheet peeled away like the top of a tin can, nice and neat. He watched it fall and hit the top of the van, eight feet below.
Like something from a cartoon, he stuck his head out in time to see the final inches of a leg slipping inside the open back doors. Then hands reach out to slam the doors. A moment after that, Brad rolled out from underneath. He was halfway to his feet when the van shifted backwards, knocking him over again. Brad rolled aside, barely avoiding the wheels as the van reversed towards the exit. It was halfway there by the time the shutter, with nothing to hold it up, toppled away from the office door with a noise like thunder.