The Last 10 Seconds

Our progress up the staircase was slow and comparatively noisy, each step creaking precariously underfoot. Wolfe stopped at the top and looked both ways. To our right were two doors, both closed. To our left, a long corridor stretched the length of the building with a number of doors, all closed, on either side – including the one that had been used to imprison me – and a large window at the end.

Wolfe started to turn right. Then he stopped. He’d heard something. Coming from down the corridor to the left.

I’d heard it too. A terrible rasping sound that sounded like someone trying desperately to breathe while their mouth, nose and throat steadily filled up with liquid.

Wolfe looked at me, the fear in his eyes obvious, because he knew, just like I knew, that it was the sound of a person dying.

Thirty-seven

Wolfe ran down the corridor, shouting Lee’s name, losing all sense of danger as he tried to locate her.

‘For Christ’s sake, stop!’ I called after him, but he wasn’t listening.

He paused by a door about halfway along and, without hesitation, flung it open.

‘Oh God! Lee, baby!’ His words came out in a tortured wail as he ran inside.

I was five yards behind him, moving far more cautiously, but as he disappeared from view, I ran forward, knowing I needed to cover his back. Knowing too that if Lee was the victim then it was almost certain the killer was still up here because he wouldn’t have had a chance to leave.

My fears were confirmed before I reached the door. Wolfe let out a sharp grunt of pain, then stumbled backwards into view, putting out his free hand to support himself on the opposite door, the hilt of a knife jutting out of his ribcage, a thick dark stain already visible against the blue of the boiler suit. He stared at me, his eyes wide with fear and confusion, as if he couldn’t accept what was happening to him, and the Sig fell from his hand and clattered on to the floor. He took another step back, trying in vain to steady himself, before falling slowly to one knee, his eyes still locked on mine, mouth silently opening and closing as if he was trying desperately to say something.

He was two yards away from me. The gun was lying on the floor just outside the room from where that terrible rasping sound, much louder now, was coming.

Instinctively I went for it, reaching down to pull it up from the floor.

But I never made it. A shadow appeared in the doorway and a hand shot out and grabbed me by the material of the boiler suit, yanking me upwards with worrying strength. At the same time, out of the corner of my eye I saw a figure beyond my attacker, lying with its head propped up against the far wall. I couldn’t see the face because it was a black mask of blood, but the pink butterfly on the singlet told me immediately it was Lee.

I was still holding the knife and I lashed out with it, but my attacker was already pulling me away from the gun and with the momentum I already had I went flying forward without making contact. I tripped over Wolfe and went down on my side, rolling over several times and losing my grip on the knife. Ignoring the pain in my ribs, I scrambled to my feet, unable to resist a glance back.

My attacker was standing facing me in the corridor, while Wolfe lay sprawled on his back at his feet. He had a claw hammer in one hand and Wolfe’s Sig in the other. The hammer was stained dark with blood, and as I watched, a drop formed on one edge of the claw before dripping on to the floor. Even in the dim light, I could see who it was. He might have had cuts to his face and head, including what looked like a deep gash in his cheek, but there was still no doubt that it was Andrew Kent. Except this time he no longer looked like the baby-faced young man we’d taken earlier, who’d pleaded his innocence in the back of the van. Now he struck a confident pose, legs apart, the gun pointed towards me, the bloodstained hammer tapping idly against one of his legs, an expression of cold indifference in his eyes.

He pulled the trigger before I had a chance to move, and the corridor exploded with noise. But he was also a little too casual and misjudged the gun’s recoil, so that when it kicked in his hand, the bullet went wide.

This was my cue. I ran straight at the nearest door and, keeping as low as possible, yanked the handle before diving inside as a second bullet whistled past close to my head.

My ears rang from the noise but I could still hear his footfalls behind me. I was back up in an instant, racing across the empty room in the direction of a newish-looking double-glazed window with a handle-opening system, praying it wasn’t locked, because there was no sign of a key. But when I pulled the handle, it didn’t budge. I was trapped.

Desperate times call for desperate measures, but only if you’ve got the nerve, and thankfully I had. I turned and charged back at the door as he came into view, keeping low and bellowing like a bull, hoping to catch him off guard.