She grabbed the chain with both hands, closed her eyes and pulled as hard as she could. There was a crack – something giving – and more dust showered on to the stone floor. She could hear footfalls on the floor above, but no voices.
Clenching her teeth, ignoring the nauseous feeling flowing through her, she kept pulling, leaning back so her whole body was behind it, knowing this could well be her last chance.
Another crack.
Movement near the cellar door – a shuffling of feet.
She was out of time.
And then suddenly she was falling back off the bed, landing painfully on the floor with the chain uncoiling on top of her.
She'd done it. The metal plate had come free.
Forty-six
Bolt was driving aimlessly down yet another grimy terraced back street when the call came. The clock on his dashboard said 8.07. Only nine minutes since he'd got off the phone to Tina.
So much of a person's life seemed to him to boil down to those single, long, terrifying moments of anticipation when you're given the hugely important news you've been waiting for: the results of medical tests; exam results; a jury's verdict; the location of the man who's holding your daughter.
'Tina,' he said, his voice hoarse, 'what have you got?'
'The phone's still on. The location's been triangulated to an area around a farm called Woodlands in Crews Hill.'
'Where the hell's that?'
'Just north of Enfield, south of the M25.'
She gave him the address and he fed it into the car's sat-nav system. The distance was just over six miles from where he was now. He swung the car round in a rapid three-point turn so that he was heading back towards the main road.
'Thanks, Tina.'
'What are you going to do?'
'I'm going to go and check it out. If it looks like it's a lead, I'll call in straight away.'
'This could put me in huge amounts of trouble, Mike. They're going to know the info's come from me, and you know as well as I do that it's totally illegal to get an unauthorized triangulation.'
'If it comes to nothing, there's no way it'll ever get back to you. You've got my word on that. And if it does lead somewhere, I'll come up with a reason why I found out about Ridgers' location without mentioning your name. I really appreciate this, Tina.'
'I talked to Mo. Christ, I can't believe she could be your daughter.'
There was a silence then, because Bolt didn't really know what to say. Tina ended it by wishing him good luck.
'Call us as soon as you've checked it out,' she added.
'Sure.'
He cut the connection, and accelerated on to the main road, ignoring the blast of the horn from the driver he'd just cut up. All that mattered to him was getting to Scott Ridgers.
Six miles and counting.
Forty-seven
Emma put the bed back in its original position so that it covered the hole in the wall and the brickdust on the floor, and waited in silence with the hood in her hands. Her elbow ached where she'd smacked it on the floor, and she felt sick and thirsty.
The movement upstairs had stopped a few minutes ago, and now she couldn't hear anything. She wondered what to do. The problem was, she might be mobile, but the fact remained that she was still handcuffed and locked in here, and the chain was still attached to her ankle, which was definitely going to slow her down if she did make a run for it. And the silence scared her, because silence was what she associated with the cruel one.
Back later, bitch.
Maybe he was sharpening his knife right now?
But she couldn't just sit there waiting for him to come and kill her. Otherwise all her efforts would be in vain. No, she had to do something. A plan formed in her mind. She'd hide at the top of the steps behind the door, and when he came inside she'd push him down them before he had a chance to spot her. Then she'd make a break for it. It was pretty lame as plans went, but it was the best she could think up at the moment.
She lifted up the ankle chain and started to get up from the bed. And then stopped as the key turned in the lock and the door opened.
