OK. You win, get another search team up here - half a dozen uniforms, couple of dogs, and the IB - we'll go through the place from scratch, but if this is all a sodding waste of time you can tell the ACC why we pissed away a dozen man-days.'
'Heather? Heather, are you awake?' Darkness. Stench. Cold. She groaned and slapped both hands over her eyes. 'Heather?' 'Go back to sleep, Mr New.' 'Don't call me that - my name's Tom, I told you three times already.' Pause. 'It stinks in here ...' 'Well, whose fault is that?' 'I'm thirsty.' She let her hands fall away and stared up into the void. Mr New was always bloody thirsty. 'Is there anything to drink on that side?' Heather felt the water bottle, lying next to her on the smelly mattress. 'He'll be back soon.' A shuffling sound, then Mr New was whispering to her through the bars. 'We have to get out of here.' 'The Dark won't let us.' 'We have to try! What have you got on that side? Anything we can use as a weapon?' 'You can't--' 'I'M NOT DYING IN HERE!' He hammered on the bars, making them boom and rattle. 'I'm not ...' Later. She could hear him feeling his way around on the other side of their cold, dark prison. 'It's a container ...' he said at last. 'Like the ones they send offshore. It has to be. I can feel the locking bar on the door ...' He fumbled with something, grunted, swore, then tried again. 'Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!' More fumbling, then what sounded like a man's belt being unfastened and removed. 'Go on you bastard ...' Clicking noises, and then a rusty creak. 'Come on, come on ...' Another creak. 'Yes, yes, come on ...' CLANG. More swearing. And then a loud metallic groan. 'You fucking beauty!' A thin shaft of light streaked into the darkness. Heather could just make out Mr New's face - he was grinning. Duncan placed a hand on Heather's shoulder. 'This isn't a good idea.'
