‘Look… it’s setting round my feet, my legs—’
‘Nuts! It’s too goddam liquid to set yet.’
‘I’m down here, you aren’t!’ Shaw’s voice was hoarse, the voice of a man at his last pitch of endurance. His eyes blazed upward, almost madly now, red-raw. ‘I tell you, it’s setting! You told me, you’d get me out of here if I talked. If I’m going to die like this just the same… I’m not talking. You can take your choice, Willoughby.’
Willoughby breathed hard down his nose. ‘Okay,’ he rapped. ‘I’ll get you out. If you don’t talk then, you go right back and I quit. Understand?’ He put a key into the padlocks holding the grating, slipped them out of the holes one by one and then kicked the frame away. It slithered across the floor and Willoughby reached down, He said, ‘Come on, gimme your hands…’
Shaw stretched his arms upward. Willoughby grasped his hands and heaved. There was a sucking noise, an agonizing drag on Shaw’s legs and hips, and he was raised a little way. Willoughby snapped, ‘I’m going to let go of your right hand. When I do — grab the edge of the hole. Then we’ll fix the left. After that, it’s up to you.’
A little later, after a word of warning, he let go. Shaw grabbed for the lip of the pit, and hung by his right hand. When he had both hands over the top, Willoughby stepped back and brought out his gun. He said, ‘One funny move and you get it in the guts, though not enough to finish you off. So watch it.’
Shaw nodded, dragged on his arms, heaving his body clear of the clinging muck, making heavy weather of it… rather heavier than in fact he needed to. He gasped, ‘You’ll have to… to give me a hand. I’m about all in.’
He let himself slide back a little and Willoughby, cursing reached out and grabbed the back of his collar. He heaved, and Shaw came up again, scrabbling with his hands until he had got his stomach over. There he lay for a moment before swinging his legs over, to lie panting, seemingly exhausted, against the wall, in a filthy, concrete-covered, helpless heap.
‘Start talking, Commander.’ Willoughby was getting impatient already.
‘Soon… you’ll have to give me time.’
‘I haven’t got all goddam night!’
‘Sorry about that…’ Shaw tucked his legs beneath his body, heels back against the wall. ‘You’ll have to…’ he broke off, looked up as though in sudden horror at the trap above. His eyes took on a glassy look, a fixed stare. ‘Look out!’ he yelled. ‘The whole ceiling — it’s…’
Willoughby started, leapt backward involuntarily. He followed Shaw’s upward gaze — and in that split second Shaw went into action, sheer desperation giving him the strength and co-ordination to carry it off successfully. His heels hard back against the wall and acting as a spring lever, he sent his body hurtling through the air. Willoughby gave a startled shout, and fired blind. The slug zinged close to Shaw’s head, smacked against the concrete wall, sent chips flying, and ricocheted across the room. Willoughby lashed out wildly with the butt, missed, and then Shaw hit him in the stomach. Willoughby lost his balance and crashed with Shaw on top of him, winded badly. Panting, he smashed a fist towards Shaw’s face. Shaw jerked his head aside just in time, flung his arms around Willoughby’s bulky figure and rolled with him for the gun, which the American had dropped — but before he could get there, Willoughby had torn free and was scrambling to his feet. Shaw glimpsed the boot coming for him, a vicious kick in the face — had it landed. It didn’t. Shaw grabbed, got his hands round the foot, and yanked hard. Willoughby fell heavily, struck his head hard on the edge of the pit. It was a vicious enough blow on jagged concrete to have cracked the skull like an egg, but Willoughby staggered upright unseeingly. Blood spurted from his head and, weaving about drunkenly, he suddenly collapsed and fell… head first into the hole. Shaw was vaguely aware of the weight of the body dragging the legs down into the greedy, sucking concrete and then he blacked out.
When he came to again Willoughby had disappeared.
Shaw struggled to a sitting position, feeling sick and giddy, and stiff with the clinging cement though a lot of it had flaked off during the struggle. He managed to stand up. He stood there shakily and then he saw the flat leather, the soles of the shoes upside down in the pit. He felt a thrill of real horror and knelt down by the hole, reached in towards those soles. He could just touch one, and he got his fingers round it and pulled.
There was a foot in it. It wouldn’t move.
Then he saw the blood and hair and skin sticking to the edge of the hole and he remembered… the man had very likely been dead by the time he went in. He glanced at his watch, as he had done just before Willoughby had come in answer to his call. He had been out for nearly twenty minutes.
There was nothing he could do now.
He rested for five minutes, dusting as much of the setting cement off his clothes as he could. After that he picked up the American’s gun, drew back the firing-pin, and moved quietly to the door.
Chapter Thirteen
When he entered the passage the first person he saw was the girl, coming along from the bathroom, swinging a towel, and with nothing on. When she saw him she gave a small scream and held the towel in front of her.
She was dead scared. She asked in a high voice, ‘Who in heck are you?’
Shaw said grimly, ‘Never mind who I am. I’ve risen from the dead, kind of! And now I’ve got a thing or two to do.’ He advanced along the corridor, keeping Willoughby’s gun lined up on the towel. ‘Mind telling me where Fleck is?’
‘I–I don’t know where he is,’ she answered, her eyes wide and fearful as she looked at his concrete-crusted body. ‘He’s left here, that’s all I know.’
‘With everyone else?’
The girl said, ‘There’s no one else here, no. Only Harry Willoughby…’ she broke off, biting her lip.
‘Right,’ Shaw said. ‘Now, you and I are going to have a little talk. I think we’ll use Fleck’s office.’
She said, ‘All right. Mind if I go and put some clothes on?’
‘Sorry, but I do mind. I’m in a hurry, for one thing, and for another I’m not chancing you out of my sight. What’s your name?’
After a pause she said in a low voice, ‘Myra Yarrow.’
‘And your function?’
She shrugged. ‘I don’t know if you’ll follow me, but this place is kind of self-contained and self-supporting. Fleck spends quite a lot of time down here, aimed to spend longer maybe.’
‘I get it… you’re part of the home comforts.’ His gaze swept over her, critically. ‘The boys too?’
She said, ‘Ha, ha. No, only Fleck. He’d half-kill anyone who made a real pass at me.’
‘I see.’ He jerked the gun. ‘Into his office, then, Miss Myra Yarrow… you can dress later. Meanwhile that towel’s good enough and just now I’ve got other things on my mind anyway.’
She turned away and walked ahead of him into Fleck’s private office, flicking on a light inside the door from the passage. Shaw took the seat behind the desk and motioned the girl to one of the easy chairs. He said, ‘I’ll use this gun if I have to, so don’t try anything.’
She peered forward, holding on to the towel. ‘Why,’ she said in a tight, scared voice, ‘that’s Harry’s gun! Harry Willoughby’s.’ A hand flew to her mouth. ‘What you done to Harry?’
Shaw smiled thinly. ‘What he was going to do to me, that’s all,’ he said deliberately. ‘Buried him in concrete. The same can happen to you. I’m in no mood to be particular about women, and I’ve plenty of reason to think there’s something going on here that is somewhat bigger than chivalry.’
She began shaking and said, ‘If there is, I don’t know what, and that’s honest. Fleck never told me.’