Chase the Morning

The Wolves were battering at the lift doors. One huge lout with a bristly shaven head was struggling to force what looked like a crowbar between them, bracing his huge boots against the frame and slamming his heavy shoulders against the door. I goggled, and ducked back. They weren’t even looking up or down the stairs. Daft as it seemed, they couldn’t have the faintest idea what a lift was. They must think I was still shut in that little room there, behind the metal doors.

There was a sudden screech of metal, and then an even louder howl that seemed to echo away into the distance. Then, out of that same distance, an equally echoing crash cut it short. I had to cram the back of my hand in my mouth to stifle a whoop of hysterical laughter. The Wolves had valiantly forced the doors, and at least one of them, the crowbar boy probably, had fallen a full four storeys down the shaft. Behind me the lift alarm clanged into sudden life, with enough volume to bring the whole building running. For good measure I smashed the glass of the fire alarm – I’d always wanted to use that little hammer – and thumbed it too. From the floors below came the sound of doors slamming. I turned, to see the switchboard girl from this office peering nervously out through the doors.

‘What – what’s all’a noise?’

I grabbed her and ducked back in. ‘Have you called the police yet? No? Christ, didn’t you hear –’ I heard the tinny jangle from the headphones of the walkman on the desk. ‘Never mind!’ I dived for the switchboard. ‘Are you the only one up here?’

She made a face. ‘Aye. They’re all off early wi’ the weather. I’ve gotta wait f’ me boyfriend t’pick me up’.

‘Worse luck for you! The back door – locked? Then find somewhere you can shut yourself in, the ladies’ maybe – Operator? Police, please – fast!’

And fast they were. There must have been a patrol car nearby; it was only a minute after I’d put down the phone, and I was still fighting the temptation to go and lock myself in the ladies’ as well, when I heard the approaching siren. It gave me enough nerve to snatch up a weighted ashtray stand and go cautiously back out. There was no one visible on this landing or ours, nothing to hear above the row except a rising hubbub from the street, where the fire alarm had decanted the lower floors. I sidled down the stairs, wishing my heart would steady up a little; still nothing. I reached our landing, dithered momentarily whether to go in, but showed some sense and fled hell-for-leather down the stairs. When I came back up a minute later it was with two policemen at my back, one huge, and three rugby forwards from the insurance brokerage below.

I don’t know what I expected to find. I dreaded the thought. But to my great relief the first thing we came on was Barry, blood all down his expensive shirtfront, ministering to Judy from the switchboard. She was stretched out on the visitor’s seating, with a black eye, and, by the looks of it, a broken arm; but at least they were both alive.

‘Steve!’ he said, rising and grabbing me. His nose started bleeding again, but he didn’t seem to notice. ‘They didn’t get you? It was you set off the alarms? Christ, that was timely thinking! You saved our bloody bacon! Those bastards! Kicking us round like footballs one minute, then one ring, and off like bloody bunny rabbits! Should’ve seen ’em run! Bloody cowardly maniac punks –’ I gave him my handkerchief. He dabbed gently at his swelling nose, and I saw it shift slightly, it was broken. ‘She tried to call,’ he mumbled. ‘Knocked her flat an’ tipped her desk over on her … Bastards! Utter frigging bastards …’

He ran down into shaky swearing, and I helped him to a seat by Judy. The police and the others hadn’t hung around; they’d charged swiftly through the offices, and I heard them shouting that the bastards had got out the back. Other police were arriving now, and the office staff were beginning to appear. By the looks of it they were all walking wounded, nobody actually dead or crippled, but they still made a hell of a sorry sight – a limping parade of black eyes, bloody shins, split mouths, lacerated ears and blossoming purple bruises everywhere. Some had scalp wounds, bleeding like pigs, others streaks of vomit over their clothes. It looked as if the Wolves had roughed everyone up just as a matter of course, men and women alike, especially about the head. I’d heard of muggers doing that, to disorientate their victims. Most of the typists and younger secretaries had had their clothes ripped half off, too – by the looks of it, more to humiliate than harm. Even Gemma’s PA, five years off retirement, was clutching her elegant blouse closed as she helped one of her secretaries along, green with shock.