Michael Robotham - Lost

“What did he say?”

“I don't know. I can't remember. Wait!”

I look down at my clothes. “He wanted me to take my shoes off, but I didn't do it. I figured he couldn't be watching me—not all this time. He told me to walk straight ahead, past the freezer.”

I'm moving as I talk. Ahead of us is a wire fence and beyond that the Bakerloo line. “I heard a young girl crying on the phone.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, in the background.”

The glow of the headlights is fainter now as we move farther from Joe's car. My eyes grow accustomed to the dark but my mind plays tricks. I keep seeing figures in the shadows, crouching in hollows and hiding behind trees.

The purple sky has no stars. That's one of the things I miss about living in the country—the stars and the silence and the frost on winter mornings like a freshly laundered sheet.

“There is a chain-link fence up ahead. I turned left and followed it until I reached the footbridge. He was giving me instructions on the phone.”

“You didn't recognize his voice?”

“No.”

The fence appears, dividing the darkness into black diamonds with silver frames. We turn and follow it to an arched footbridge above the railway line. A generator rumbles and repair crews are working beneath spotlights.

In the middle of the footbridge, I peer over the side at the silver ribbons curving to the north. “I can't remember what happened next.”

“Did you drop the ransom off the bridge?”

“No. This is where the phone rang again. I was traveling too slowly. They were tracking me. The cell phone must have had a GPS device. Someone was sitting in front of a computer screen plotting my exact position.”

We both peer down at the tracks as though looking for the answer. The breeze carries the smell of burning coal and detergent. I can't hear the voice in my head anymore.

“Give it time,” says Joe.

“No. I can't give it any more. I have to remember.”

He takes out his cell phone and punches a number. My pocket vibrates. I flip it open and he turns away from me.

“Why have you stopped? KEEP MOVING! I told you where to go.”

The knowledge rises up and breaks soundlessly through the surface. Joe has done it again—helped me to go back.

“Will Mickey be there?” I yell into the phone.

“Shut up and keep moving!”

Where? It's close by. The parking lot on the far side of the station! Move!

Running now, I quickly descend the stairs. Joe has trouble keeping up. I can barely see where I'm going but I remember the path. It curves alongside the railway line, above the cutting. Rigid steel gantries flank the tracks carrying the overhead wires.

A wind has sprung up, rattling fences and sending rubbish swirling past my legs. There are lights along the path, making it easier to see. Abruptly, the footpath opens into a deserted parking lot. A solitary lamppost at the center paints a dome of yellow on the tarmac. I remember a traffic cone sitting under the light. I ran toward it, holding the pizza box under one arm. It seemed an odd place to bring me. It was too open.

Joe has caught up with me. We're standing beneath the lamppost. At my feet is a barred metal grate.

“He wanted me to push the packages into the drain.”

“What did you do?”

“I told him I wanted to see Mickey. He threatened to hang up again. His voice was very calm. He said she was close.”

“Where?”

I turn my head. Thirty yards away is the dark outline of a storm-water drain. “He said she was waiting for me . . . down there.”

Walking to the edge, we peer over the side. The steep concrete walls are sprayed with graffiti.

“I couldn't see her. It was too dark. I shouted her name. ‘ Mickey! Can you hear me? ' I was yelling into the phone. ‘I can't see her. Where is she?' ‘She's in the pipe,' he said. ‘ Where? ' I shouted: ‘ Mickey. Are you in there? '”

Joe has hold of me now. He's frightened I might fall over the edge. At the same time he wants me to go on. “Show me,” he says.

Set into the wall of the drain is a steel ladder. The rungs feel cold against my fingers. Joe is following me down. I couldn't hold the Glock and carry the pizza box at the same time. I left the gun in its holster and tucked the pizza box under my arm.

“‘ Mickey! Can you hear me? ' ”

My feet touch the bottom. Against the nearside wall I can just make out the deeper shadow of an access pipe.

She must have been in the pipe. It was the only place to hide.

“‘ Michaela? '”

There was a muffled rumble, like distant thunder. I could feel it through my shoes. I reached for my gun but left it there.

“‘ Mickey? '”

Wind ruffled my hair and I heard a rushing sound, like a train in a tunnel or the thunder of hooves on a loading ramp. My head jerked left and right, looking for her. The sound grew louder. It was coming toward me, coming out of the darkness . . . a wave.

Again the door opens and the world dissolves into noise and movement. Gravity is no more. I am flying, tumbling over and over, as an ocean roars past my ears. Head up, half a breath and I'm underwater, plunging into blackness.

Totally disoriented, I can't find the surface. I'm dragged sideways by the current and carried down a pipe or tunnel. My fingernails are torn and broken as they claw at the slick sides.

Seconds later I tumble into another vertical shaft. Snatching half a breath, I suck in silt and shit and detritus. I'm in a flooded sewer, full of reeking gases and decomposing turds. I'm going to die down here.

There are flashes of light above me. Iron grates. I reach out and my fingers close around the metal bars. The pressure of the water surges against my chest and neck, filling my mouth with foulness.

Holding my mouth and nose above the water, I try to push the grate upward. It won't budge. The force of the water pulls me horizontally.

Through the grate I see lights. Moving shapes. Pedestrians. Traffic. I try to scream something. They can't hear me. Someone steps off the pavement and tosses a cigarette into the gutter. Red sparks shower into my eyes.

“Help me! Help me!”

Something is crawling on my shoulder. A rat digs its claws into my shirt, dragging its sodden body from the current. I can smell wet fur and see sharp teeth, reflected in the square of light. My whole body shudders. Rats are all around me clinging to crevices.

Finger by finger, my hands surrender. I can't hold on much longer. The current is too strong. I think of Luke. He had such great lungs; air-sucking bags. He could hold his breath for much longer than I could, but not beneath the ice.

He was a stubborn little tyke. I used to give him Chinese burns. “Give up?” I'd say.

Tears would be welling in his eyes. “Never!”

“You just have to give up and I won't hurt you anymore.”

“No.”

In awe of him I'd offer a truce, but he'd refuse.

“OK, OK, you win,” I'd say, sick of the game and embarrassed at hurting him.

My last finger surrenders. I roll faceup in the current and take a deep sulfurous breath. Washed into darkness, I tumble over a waterfall and get dragged into a larger pipe.

I don't know where the ransom has gone. Washed away, along with my shoes. And what of Mickey—is she drowning somewhere ahead of me or behind me? I heard a soft cry when I peered into the pipe. Perhaps it was the wind or the rats.

So this is how it ends! I am going to drown in stinking slime water, which is pretty much how I've lived—in a putrid soup of thieves, liars, murderers and victims. I'm a rat catcher and a sewer hunter, a bone grubber and a muck dredger. Poverty, ignorance and inequality create criminals, and I lock them away so that polite society doesn't have to smell them or fear them.