Peter James: You Are Dead

It rose from a deep shaft the freezer was concealing.

He switched on his torch and pointed the beam down; but all it revealed, flaring into the darkness, was the raw earth shaft and metal rungs disappearing into the void of darkness. He couldn’t see the bottom, or guess how deep it was.

He stood back to enable Glenn Branson and Guy Batchelor to take a look, warning them to be careful. They both stepped forward.

‘Bloody hell!’ Batchelor said. ‘Bloody hell! The man’s a total lunatic.’

‘Unfortunately a very clever one,’ Grace replied.

‘What is it?’ Branson said.

‘Crisp’s escape route. No surprise the Surveillance Team missed him.’

‘We’ll go down and check it, sir,’ the LST inspector said.

Grace shook his head and, swallowing his fear of heights, said, ‘I’m going first, this is personal.’ He gripped his torch between his teeth, climbed into the freezer and lowered his right foot to the first rung.

‘Keep three limbs on the rungs at all times, sir,’ the inspector cautioned. ‘We’ll follow you.’

Grace began to descend, followed by an LST officer, Gregory Martis, then Glenn Branson. The others remained at the top, waiting for instructions. He descended as fast as he dared, doing what the inspector advised — which was what he had learned himself some years ago on a training course in working at heights. He kept on going for what seemed an eternity, his arms getting increasingly tired.

‘Any sign of the bottom, boss?’ Guy Batchelor called down.

‘Not yet.’

‘Ever see that movie, Journey to the Centre of the Earth ?’ shouted Glenn Branson.

‘I think we’re going to come out in sodding Australia!’ Grace retorted. As he did so his right foot touched something solid. The bottom. He lowered his left foot, checking, warily, with the torch. He was standing on a concrete floor in a confined space. He turned, shining the beam around, and saw that directly behind him was a tunnel, with primitive timber supports the size and thickness of railway sleepers, lower than the one that ran from the wine cellar in Crisp’s house to where the three limbless men had been kept. But instead of hessian matting, the floor of this one was concrete.

Grace called up to the others at the top. ‘We’re on the bottom and entering a small tunnel.’

He knelt and began crawling along it, followed by the other two. After several moments he saw faint streaks of light ahead. They grew slightly brighter the further along he went. He looked dubiously at the railway sleeper struts supporting the tunnel. One on the left had a big split, and another on the right was a good six inches shorter. Some of the cross-beams looked like several wooden planks nailed together. These beams, every few yards, were all that was holding up the roof. The whole damned tunnel, like the last one, did not look professionally made, and it very definitely did not inspire confidence.

This was crazy, he should not be down here, he knew. And he should not have let anyone follow him. But if there was a chance of finding Crisp down here, however remote, that was all he cared about at this moment.

A short distance along the tunnel, he came to a trapdoor in the floor, with light shining faintly around the edges. Perspiring heavily, he turned and signalled the two officers to be quiet. Then he began raising the wooden trapdoor, inch by inch, peering down.

And felt an adrenaline rush.

Just below him, at the bottom of a free-standing steel ladder, was a small, well-lit room, hollowed out of the earth. It looked cosily furnished with cushions, a television, fridge, microwave oven and a sink. Reclining on the cushions, with a glass tumbler in his hand, dressed in a shirt, cardigan, jeans and loafers, and wearing a set of large headphones, was Dr Edward Crisp. He was nodding cheerfully, waving his free hand as if conducting the orchestra, and looking oblivious to all else. He was clearly not expecting visitors.

Grace’s nerves were jangling. He could scarcely believe his eyes, or his luck. Got you! he thought. Got you, you bastard, you murdering little shit. He lowered the door silently, with shaking hands. Was this Crisp’s cunning plan, to make them believe he had escaped, but meanwhile to lie doggo, waiting until the heat was over, before quietly slipping away?

Years back, when he had been a probationary uniformed constable before joining the CID, he attended break-ins frequently. He learned it was a common ploy of burglars, who had fled from premises they had just targeted, to then stroll nonchalantly back towards them, thinking that the police would be looking for someone running in the opposite direction. Was that why Crisp was still here, he wondered, thinking the police would never suspect, having searched the properties thoroughly, that he was holed up beneath their very noses?

Was there an entrance to another tunnel he might try to escape along the moment they descended the ladder? Let him try, he thought, he wouldn’t have a hope in hell against his trained team.

Talking urgently, as quietly as he could, he informed Glenn Branson and Gregory Martis what he had seen.

‘I’ll go down first, sir,’ Martis said.

Grace shook his head. ‘No, I want that pleasure.’

‘I’ve got body armour — he may be armed.’

‘Didn’t look like it,’ Grace said. ‘I’ll go first, you two stay up here.’

Reluctantly, Martis agreed and asked, ‘Do you have any gloves, sir?’

‘Only forensic ones.’

Martis handed him his own pair of leather gloves. ‘Put these on, you don’t want to burn your hands sliding down the ladder.’

‘Won’t you need them?’

‘My hands are like leather.’

Gratefully, Grace donned them. Then looked at each of his colleagues in turn, taking a couple of deep breaths. ‘Rock and roll?’

They both nodded.

He hesitated, took another deep breath and flung back the hatch.

Then as his feet touched the first rung Crisp’s voice rang out.

‘Detective Superintendent Grace, what a very pleasant surprise. Pleasant for me, indeed!’

‘Sir!’ Martis yelled in warning.

Roy Grace looked down and saw both barrels of an under-and-over shotgun aimed straight at him. A chill ripped through him. Shit, shit, shit — where the hell had—?

Suddenly, he felt himself being jerked sharply and painfully upwards, by his armpits. He heard two deafening explosions in quick succession that made his ears pop, and felt an instant, searing pain in his right leg.

As he fell face down on the floor, earth thudded down on top of him.

‘Fucking bastard!’ he heard Martis shout out.

‘Roy, you OK, man? Roy?’ Glenn Branson was kneeling beside him.

He nodded, his leg in agony, then heard a splintering crack. He saw the LST officer pulling one of the railways sleepers supporting a beam over the hatch. He realized what the man was doing, he was trying to stop Crisp coming up through the hatch with his gun.

Almost in slow motion the dislodged beam fell down the shaft, accompanied by a shower of earth and, an instant later, by the massive railway sleeper.

Grace heard a cry of disbelief below, followed by a scream of pain.

There was a shower of earth on his face and he had to close his eyes against it. Then he heard another shout — that was more a scream of terror — from Crisp.

‘Get me out of here! Please! Get me out of here! Help me! I can’t move!’

Grace crawled to the opening and very cautiously looked down. He felt more earth thudding against the back of his head. His right leg felt like it had been stung by a thousand wasps, but he ignored the pain. Below him he saw Crisp flat on his back, pinned to the bed of cushions by the falling debris.