The Last 10 Seconds

But when I finally felt ready to get to my feet and try the door, I found it was stuck fast, and it wasn’t budging, however hard I pushed. So I sat back down and waited for Wolfe and Haddock to come back and finish off what they’d started, trying to recover as much as possible from the beating in the meantime so that I’d be ready to make a break when the opportunity arose. My injuries, though painful – especially the ribs, one of which was definitely fractured – were tolerable and wouldn’t stop me from making my move.

But it was hard being trapped in there, unarmed and waiting to die, trying to ignore a growing feeling of claustrophobia. I could hear occasional noises coming from downstairs – mainly banging about, no voices – and at some point I thought I heard the sound of a car driving away.

This was followed by silence, and I wondered whether the others had left the building. At first, the thought filled me with a delirious hope – if they’d left me here, it meant they weren’t going to kill me – but the realization quickly dawned that I was also imprisoned in an abandoned building miles from anywhere, and would almost certainly starve to death before I was discovered.

So I got back up and repeatedly shoulder-barged the door, no longer concerned about drawing attention to myself, until finally, my shoulder sore with trying, I gave up and sat back down again. Waiting. Although for what, I wasn’t sure.

I wondered if Kent was still here, if he was even still alive. More than that, though, I wondered why he’d been snatched in the first place. He’d claimed to know something, and Wolfe had been extremely keen to shut him up before he said any more. What could he have known that was so important that it was worthwhile for someone to pay for him to be broken out at gunpoint? And what did it have to do with the killings he’d been accused of ?

I was in the process of cursing myself for ever getting involved in such a terrible mess when something happened. All the lights in the building went out. I could tell this because even though I was in a tiny windowless room, there’d been a thin orange glow in the crack beneath the door. Now, suddenly, it was gone.

I got up and listened at the door.

For several minutes there was nothing, then I heard the sound of footsteps, quiet yet unmistakable, coming up the staircase, accompanied by the creaking of old wood.

I clenched my fists, took a deep breath, and waited.

The footsteps came closer, slow and cautious.

I could hear my heart beating. This was it.

‘Hello?’ The footsteps stopped. ‘Hello?’

The voice was female and heavily accented. It was Lee, Wolfe’s girlfriend, and she sounded worried.

Straight away I decided it couldn’t be a trick. ‘I’m in here,’ I called out, rapping on the door. ‘It’s bolted from the outside.’

I heard the bolt being pulled across, and stepped back as the door opened.

Lee stood in the doorway, only just visible in the gloom. ‘Are you OK?’ she asked, then, as she stepped forward to get a better look at me, she gasped as her question was answered. ‘You are hurt badly.’ She touched my face in a strangely erotic gesture, running her fingers along the bruising.

‘I’m OK,’ I said, removing the hand and stepping out into the darkened hallway. ‘But what’s going on?’

‘I don’t know. Ty had to go off and bury the guns somewhere.’

‘Do you know where?’ I asked, thinking once again about gathering evidence.

She shook her head. ‘No, but he promised he wouldn’t be long. He told Clarence to look after me, but Clarence . . . him and me, we’re not friends. He goes off to another room, leaves me in kitchen, and then, ten minutes ago, boom, all the lights go out. Now I can’t find Clarence anywhere. I call out his name, he doesn’t answer.’

‘What about Tommy? Where’s he?’

‘The other one? He was around earlier but I haven’t seen him for long time now.’

‘And has the client turned up?’

‘No. No one’s come here.’

I frowned. Had Haddock and Tommy abandoned the place while Wolfe was gone? From the silence in the house, I had to assume they had, but I couldn’t understand why, particularly if the client hadn’t arrived.

‘How long’s Wolfe been gone?’

‘Half an hour. Maybe longer.’

‘Was he on foot?’

She nodded. ‘Yes.’

So he was burying the guns somewhere near the building, which meant it probably wouldn’t be long until he got back.

‘What’s your name?’ she asked suddenly.

‘Sean.’

‘I’m Lee.’ She moved closer to me. ‘I’m scared, Sean.’

‘We need to get out of here.’

I moved past her in the direction of the stairs, listening for the sound of anyone else, but not hearing anything.

‘What about Ty?’ she asked, following.

‘You can do a lot better than Ty, Lee.’

‘He says he’ll kill me if I leave him.’