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?’
