There you go: it was under a pile of slithery bin bags.
The thing was solid and heavy in my hand. OK, so trying to batter my way out wasn’t going to work, but that thick wooden shaft would hold my weight.
It got lashed to the end of the rope, at right angles to my walking stick. A clawless grappling hook.
Four percent battery left. Turning the torch off plunged the pit into darkness so thick you could almost taste it.
Last chance, Ash. Don’t cock this one up.
I hurled the grappling end up and over the lip, where two of the walls met. Pulled back on the rope, slow and steady.
Come on, come on...
Oh, thank Christ — the sledgehammer wedged into the corner. Probably wasn’t very stable, but it was this or admit defeat, call the cops, and wave goodbye to seeing the outside world again before my sixtieth birthday.
Deep breath.
I reached up as far as I could and took hold with my good hand. Wrapped the injured one around the rope below it — only gripping with the thumb and bottom two fingers — and pulled myself up, bent my knees, clamped my feet together above one of the many, many knots, and used my legs to push. Inching closer to the lip. The sledgehammer shifted a couple of inches, but not too much. Pull, push. Pull, push.
Closer and closer.
Please let this work.
Pull, push. Pull, push.
Come on.
Sweat trickling into my eyes, more between my shoulder blades.
Pull, push. Pull, push.
Nearly there...
Come on, come on, come on...
And finally I got my left arm over the lip of the pit, three working fingers scrabbling at the dusty concrete barn floor.
DO NOT FALL!
One more push with my legs and both arms were out, the sledgehammer’s shaft pressing against my chest as I did my best to push it further into the corner.
Oh God, it was slipping.
The bloody thing was slipping sideways as I struggled to get out. Any minute now one end was going over the lip and I’d be right back where I started.
No, no, no, no, no...
39
A final push, clambering over the sledgehammer, legs kicking out over empty air as it spiralled away into the darkness below, crashing into the brick walls, then the whooooomph of it hitting part-filled bin bags.
I heaved... and at last my top half was out on the concrete. Far enough that I could swing my left leg up and roll onto the surface.
Lay there, on my back, blinking up at the vast expanse of corrugated roofing as it faded to black. Breath heaving in and out in huge broken-glass lungfuls. Sweat cooling on my face, clammy on my back and chest.
Free...
Oh, thank God.
Pfff...
Took a while, but finally my heart stopped doing its belt-fed mortar impersonation, the breaths less like I was being suffocated. Throat still ached like a bastard, though. That throbbing razor-wire feeling pulsing up and down my left arm.
But I was out and I was alive. Which was one step closer to getting my now imperfect hands on Gordon Smith and his vile protégée.
The floor lurched as I struggled to my feet, so I moved away from the inspection pit — wouldn’t do to go plummeting down there again — and pulled out Helen’s phone.
Still nothing from Alice.
I called her anyway. Listened to it ring through to voicemail.
‘Alice, it’s Ash. Call me back!’
END.
So much for that.
Took a while, what with my walking stick being at the bottom of the pit, tied to the sledgehammer, but I limped out of the barn and into the courtyard.
Darkness filled the hollow, turning the mist into an almost solid thing, but up above, the sky was fading to a rich deep purple, fringed with neon-pink clouds, a crescent moon hanging low in the sky — tainted, yellow, and septic.
No sign of my pool car. The bastards had taken it.
So all that effort and I was still stuck.
Somewhere off in the distance, a fox screamed.
Could take Helen’s rusty blue Renault, I suppose, but I’d have to get back to the Lecht first...
Oh, bloody hell.
Curled up, good hand clasped to my face. Muffling the scream.
Her car keys were back in the pit with her body.
‘BASTARD!’ Bellowing it out didn’t help any, all it achieved was making my throat hurt even more.
Well, what were you going to do, leave her down there to rot? Sooner or later someone would come back here and find the corpse, with my DNA and fingerprints all over it. Ash Henderson, I’m arresting you on suspicion of murdering Helen MacNeil...
And how was I supposed to get about without my walking stick? Plus, I needed those car keys.
Fine.
I limped back to the cattle byre and through into the pigeon-smeared feed room. Took that long, shit-speckled ladder off the wall, and hobbled back to the barn. It clanged and rattled into the pit and I winced my way down into the dark again. Doing my best to keep the severed stump of my missing finger away from the bird crap as I climbed.
The phone’s torch was barely bright enough to make Helen out by. Battery: three percent.
I grabbed my improvised grappling hook and hurled it out of the pit.
Then bent and took hold of her jacket. Heaved her up into a sitting position, hunkered down and wrestled her over my left shoulder in a half-arsed fireman’s lift. Struggled upright again, hissing breaths out between gritted teeth.
‘Why’d you have to be so damn... heavy?’
The ladder’s rungs creaked beneath my trainers as I wobbled my way out of there.
OK, decision time: put her down, untie my walking stick, and get her back over my shoulder; or keep going. Should’ve got that bloody wheelbarrow when I took the ladder. Even a knackered wheelbarrow would be better than no wheelbarrow at all.
Too late for that now, though.
Keep going it was, because, honestly, if I put Helen down, no way I’d be able to pick her up again. Out into the cold night air, hobbling towards the farmhouse. Getting slower and slower. Every other step sending frozen needles slamming through my right foot. Breathing like the little train who couldn’t.
This was a stupid idea.
Shut up.
Should’ve left her at the bottom of that bloody pit.
No.
I shouldered the farmhouse door open and paused on the threshold — letting the doorframe take some of Helen’s weight while I huffed and puffed and my foot and hand screamed at me.
Come on. Nearly there.
At least the stairs had a handrail I could lean on.
Up into the gloom.
Ducking to get her through the doorway and into one of the bedrooms. Dumped her on the ancient bed, sending up a huge whumph of dust, the springs and mildewed mattress sagging under her. Some people looked peaceful in death — that cliché about ‘not dead, only sleeping’ existed for a reason — but Helen MacNeil wasn’t one of them. She looked like what she was: a woman in her mid-fifties who’d been stabbed to death.
I untied my jacket from her middle — no point leaving it there, wasn’t doing her any good now — then went through her pockets again. Car keys and sugar-free chewing gum; the wallet had twenty quid and some credit cards in it; a lighter tucked into the half-empty crumpled pack of Embassy Regals; and there, in her back pocket, the business card with ‘J&F ~ FREELANCE CONSULTANTS’ on it. That dark smear of dried blood had been joined by fresh red.
Stood there, staring at it for a bit.
Then unfolded my jacket. It crackled, shedding flakes of brown-black as I hauled it on, gathered up Helen’s things and stuffed them into my jacket pockets. Got her straightened up, hands crossed over her chest again.