Lost

“I can't smell gas anymore,” I say.

He doesn't respond.

We turn into the main corridor. There are three lifts at the far end. The middle one is propped open by a yellow maintenance sign. He picks up the pace and the wheelchair rattles and jumps over the linoleum.

“I didn't think it would be safe to use the lifts.”

He doesn't answer or slow down.

“Maybe we should take the stairs,” I repeat.

He accelerates, pushing me at a sprinter's pace toward the open doors. The blackness of the shaft yawns like an open throat.

At the last possible moment I raise the aluminum crutches. They brace across the doors and I slam into them. Air is forced out of my lungs and I feel my ribs bend. Bouncing backward, I twist sideways and roll away from the chair.

The fireman is doubled over where the handle of the wheelchair has punched into his groin. I scramble up and pull his arm through the wheel of the chair. Spinning it a half turn, I jam his wrist against the frame. Another quarter turn will snap it like a pencil.

He is flailing now, trying to reach me with his other fist. I keep twisting away from him, with the chair between us.

“Who are you? Why are you doing this?”

Cursing and struggling, his mask is nearly off. Suddenly, he changes his point of attack and sinks his fist into my damaged leg, grinding his knuckles into the bandaged flesh. The pain is unbelievable and white spots dance in front of my eyes. I spin the wheelchair sideways, trying to escape. At that same moment I hear the crack of his wrist breaking. He groans.

Both of us are on the floor. He launches a kick at my chest, sending me backward. My head slams against the wall. Up on his knees, he grips me by the back of my shirt with his good hand and tries to drag me toward the lift shaft. I kick at the floor with my one good leg and wrap my fingers around the harness on his jacket. I'm not letting go.

Exhaustion is slowing us down. He wants to kill me. I want to survive. He has strength and stamina. I have fear and bloody-mindedness.

“Listen, Tarzan, this isn't working,” I say, sucking in air between each word. “The only way I'm going down that hole is if you go with me.”

“Go to hell! You broke my fucking wrist!”

“And someone shot me in the leg. You see me crying?”

Somewhere below us an engine grinds into motion. The lifts are moving. He glances up at the numbers above the door. Scrambling to his feet, he stumbles down the corridor, carrying his busted wrist as though it's already in a sling. He is going to escape down the stairs. There is nothing I can do.

Reaching for my shirt pocket I feel for the small yellow tablet. My fingers are too large for such a delicate task. I have it now, squeezed between my thumb and forefinger . . . now it's on my tongue.

The adrenaline leaks away and my eyelids flutter like moth wings on wet glass. Someone wants me dead. Isn't that strange?

I listen to the lifts rise and the murmur of voices. Pointing down the corridor, I mumble, “Help Maggie.”

6

There are police patrolling the corridors, interviewing staff and taking photographs. I can hear Campbell berating some poor doctor about hampering a police investigation. He makes it sound like a hanging offense.

The morphine is wearing off and I'm shaking. Why would someone want to kill me? Maybe I witnessed a murder on the river. Maybe I shot someone. I don't remember.

Campbell opens the door and I get a sense of deja vu—not about the place but the conversation that's coming. He takes a seat and gives me one of his ultra-mild smiles. Before he can speak I ask about Maggie.

“She's in a room downstairs. Someone gave her a broken nose and two black eyes. Was it you?”

“No.”

He nods. “Yeah, that's what she said. You want to tell me what happened?”

I go through the whole story—telling him about “Fireman Sam” and the wheelchair sprint down the corridor. He seems happy enough with the details.

“What did the cameras pick up?”

“Sod all. He blacked out the lenses with spray paint. We got one image from the nursing station but no face behind the mask. You didn't recognize him?”

“No.”

He looks disgusted.

“I'm convinced this has something to do with Mickey Carlyle,” I tell him. “Someone sent a ransom demand. I think that's why I was on the river—”

“Mickey Carlyle is dead.”

“But what if we got it wrong?”

“Bullshit! We got it right.”

“There must have been proof of life.”

Campbell knows about this. He's known all along.

“IT'S A HOAX!” he rasps. “Nobody believed any of it except you and Mrs. Carlyle. A grieving mother I can understand—but you!” His fingers curl and uncurl. “You were the officer in charge of a successful murder prosecution yet you chose to believe a hoax that cast doubt on the outcome. First you ordered a DNA test and then you went off half-cocked like some maverick Hollywood vigilante and got yourself shot.”

Campbell is close now. I can see the dandruff in his eyebrows. “Howard Wavell murdered Mickey Carlyle. And if that sick, perverted, murdering son of a bitch walks free because of you, there won't be a police officer in the Met who will ever work with you again. You're finished.”

A deep continuous vibration has built up inside me, like the sound of a ship's engine deep within a hull.

“We have to investigate. People died on that boat.”

“Yeah! For all I know, you shot them!”

My resolve is disintegrating. I don't know enough details to argue with him. Whatever happened on the river was my fault. I stirred up something poisonous and nobody wants to help me.

Campbell is still talking. “I don't know what you did, Vincent, but you made some serious enemies. Stay away from Rachel Carlyle. Stay away from this. If you jeopardize Wavell's conviction—if I hear so much as a mouse fart from you—your career is finished. That's a cast-iron fucking guarantee.”

He's gone then, storming down the corridor. How long was I unconscious, eight days or eight years? Long enough for the world to change.

The Professor arrives, his cheeks red from the cold. He hovers in the doorway as though waiting for an invitation. Behind him I see Ali sitting on a chair. She is now officially my shadow.

There are metal detectors being installed in the lobby and my medical personnel are being screened. Maggie isn't among them. I am responsible.

Although I've been over it a dozen times with detectives, I don't mind talking to Joe about the attack because he asks different questions. He wants to know what I heard and smelled. Was the guy breathing heavily? Did he sound scared?

I take him on a guided tour, showing him where the fight took place. Ali stays two paces away from me, scanning the corridors and rooms.

Leaning on my crutches, I watch Joe do his mad professor routine, pacing out distances, crouching on the floor and studying angles.

“Tell me about the gas leak.”

“One of the delivery drivers noticed the smell first but they couldn't find the source. Someone opened up a valve on one of the feeder pipes from the gas tanks near the loading docks.”