Blood Substitute (26 page)

‘Yes, of course, where the trap door in the stage would have been accessed from,' Patrick commented, his voice sounding oddly dead and muffled. He shone the torch around and the reason for this became evident.

The room, only about sixteen feet square, was practically filled with boxes. He took hold of one of them and was surprised to find it empty. We examined more: they were all empty. There were newspapers in piles too and on the floor near my feet I found three new boxes of firelighters.

‘Miss Dean was right,' I said, holding one up for Patrick to see. ‘It's a recipe for an inferno.'

‘A
re they really that stupid they think fire brigade arson investigators wouldn't be able to discover what had caused the fire?' Patrick said wonderingly. ‘This is probably how they started the one in Bristol.' He ploughed off through the boxes, tossing them this way and that, stooped to grab something and came back with a plastic container that proved to be full of petrol.

Nothing else was said as we again returned to the stage, hurried down a corridor behind one side of the auditorium, pushed through a door and found ourselves back in the foyer. There was no sign of Sydney Hellier, and, I at least feeling relieved that he was not kicking his heels waiting for us, we went up one of the carpeted staircases that led to the circle. There was nothing to see up here but the stairs carried on up and shortly we emerged on to a landing with two doors off, both shut, dim daylight coming through a small, filthy window in the sloping ceiling.

‘Be careful,' I whispered, my cats' whiskers giving me hell.

Patrick drew his gun. ‘Too right. Finding that lot changes everything.' He turned the handle on the door nearest to him slowly and then kicked it so that it flew back and hit the wall. A few seconds elapsed during which we remained motionless and then Patrick flashed the torch within. It was a large cupboard lined with shelves that were bare but for a few round cans of the kind that contain film and yet more rubbish; old papers mostly.

The other door had to be to the projection box. It was locked.

‘I'll go and find Syd,' said Patrick. He gave the door a glance. ‘Thinking about it, I can't see that anyone dodgy would lock themselves in and risk being cornered.'

‘We
have
just decided they're stupid,' I quibbled.

‘Smith, Wesson and you should be able to handle it,' he said, and went back down the stairs.

Thinking how strange it is that men are wildly over-protective one minute and abandon you to the wolves the next, I took the gun from my bag and stared at the door, daring it to do anything. There was no sound from within, not the slightest whisper of movement. No sound came from down the stairs either, my writer's imagination kicking in with a description of it; a sullen, clammy silence.

Five minutes went by.

Why the hell
did
anyone want to save this place?

Perhaps they, or rather he – Hellier – didn't.

I was trying to analyse what had caused this odd thought when, deep in the building, a door slammed. This was followed half a minute or so later by the sound of hurrying footsteps and Patrick came into view.

‘Plan B,' he announced slightly breathlessly, coming into sight on the stairs. ‘I can't find Syd because he's done a runner and appears to have locked us in. He made his getaway though the stage door and got to it just before I did. And I have to tell you that there's a strong smell of petrol with a hint of smoke.' He did not wait for any reaction on my part but, having arrived, aimed two shots at the locked door – the sounds booming down the stairs and echoing below – and when the lock was shattered, barged straight in.

For some reason my heart leaped into my mouth when we encountered two ancient projectors that had been removed from their floor fixings and were standing like dead aliens just inside the door. Patrick shut it behind us and rammed one of them against it.

‘We'll be trapped!' I protested.

He merely gave me a big smile on the way by.

Yes, light, I thought, fighting down panic, there was a window in here.

Somewhere below us there was a huge roaring sound and I actually felt the floor beneath my feet quiver. I tried to shut my mind to it and followed Patrick into what looked as though it had been an office. He wrenched open all the cupboards, some quite large, but other than an avalanche of yet more old papers and film magazines they were empty.

‘Oh, dial 999, would you?' he requested calmly, opening and looking out of a large window. ‘And, Ingrid?'

‘Yes?' I stuttered.

‘Cinemas and theatres always have fire escapes.'

With a sense of complete unreality I called the fire brigade.

The projection box itself was actually quite large and it occurred to me that it might have been built on to the back of the roof of the theatre afterwards. There were two other doors on the far side of the room, both also proving to be locked.

‘Stand clear,' Patrick said and again, shot off the locks on the one nearest to us.

As though the sound had triggered something there was a huge bang beneath us. The floor jumped and I staggered and must have hit my head on the wall because the next thing I remember was Patrick bending over me, urgently calling my name.

‘Thank God for that,' he said when he saw that my eyes were open. ‘You've been out cold for a couple of minutes. Get up! They must have planted explosives.'

He was still having trouble with the door but finally barged it open.

It was pitch dark inside and stank like a lavatory. It
was
a lavatory, complete with a basin and a small cupboard on one wall together with a window that had been boarded up. Slumped on the floor, his head under the back of the toilet bowl, was a man. Patrick gave me the torch and hauled him out by his feet. It was Robert Kennedy, unconscious and barely recognizible, filthy, blood dried on his face and with several days' growth of beard.

‘He's still alive,' Patrick said urgently, fingers on one limp wrist. ‘And the water's turned off,' he went on, wringing the tops of the taps to no avail with the other hand. ‘Which means the poor devil's dying of thirst. Add an ambulance to the 999 list, would you? Meanwhile, let's see where the other door goes.'

The staircases would act like chimneys, I knew, and as soon as we opened any windows or door to the outside would suck the flames and smoke up to where we were. I could already smell and see black smoke billowing past the one window of the main room.

The second door yielded, opening into empty space but for a small balcony with railings around it. Patrick was correct in that there was a fire escape but it consisted merely of iron rungs set directly into the wall, going down to quite a large flat roof seemingly a hundred feet below. He lay on his stomach and, leaning down, pulled on the top few to test them.

‘It's not too good,' he said soberly. ‘The cement's cracking and they're loose. You'll need to go down as fast as you can.'

‘But you must save Robert first!' I exclaimed, deciding it was my damned writer's imagination again and the floor beneath my feet wasn't really getting warm.

‘No, you first. You're lighter and stand more chance of not pulling the rungs from the wall.' Going back and struggling in the confined space he got Kennedy in a fireman's lift. ‘Go on, go!' he yelled at me. ‘This place will—'

Directly below us there was another explosion. After a vague period of time had elapsed I discovered that I was lying in a corner, it was very hot and there was smoke emanating from a large hole in the floor that, dizzily and stupidly, I told myself had not been there just now. As I watched, one of the projectors toppled and disappeared into it. I could not see Patrick.

‘Are you still there?' he suddenly shouted as though not for the first time from somewhere in the smoke before succumbing to a bout of coughing.

‘Yes!' I called, my voice sounding strange.

‘Then go!' he yelled hoarsely.

Acrid fumes now tearing at my throat and wondering if I had been knocked out again I crawled to where most of the smoke was exiting, a lighter rectangle in the dimness, for some reason first remembering to ram the gun back in my bag and looping the strap of it around my neck. I could still hear Patrick coughing. Then I was outside, my hands on the cold metal of the grating floor of the fire escape balcony. It was fresher here and I paused before realizing that I was holding everything up by staying where I was.

Could I hear sirens or was it my bloody imagination again?

Although not particularly afraid of heights I was determined not to look down. Standing and holding on to the railings at the top I felt for and found the first rung with my right foot. Testing my weight on it I gingerly lowered myself and found another. It all held and I wasn't even thinking what I would do if anything gave way. Everything would have been much easier if the world wasn't going round and round and if I didn't feel so nauseous.

A huge gust of scorching air then belched through the open doorway to hit my face and I ducked down. My head was now on a level with the grating floor and again I paused, trying to probe the murk for a sign of Patrick. I could see nothing.

Numbly, I went down, feeling the rungs literally moving under my weight. One slowly bent a short way but stayed in the wall. Then, when I had hardly touched it, the next tore right out and I heard it land on the roof below with a thud. My foot groped lower for another one while the cement around the fixings of the one I was gripping in my right hand slowly crumbled before my eyes.

I was going far too slowly. Looking up I could see that I had only descended by about fifteen feet. I risked a look down: it seemed I was almost at the top of a cliff face. Quicker it had to be. The realization that Patrick would wait until I was nearly at the bottom before coming down with his burden then hit me. Otherwise if he fell he would take me out too and the three of us would probably die.

I hurried, treating the rungs as gently as possible and using them for as short a duration as I could. Another three either sank under my weight or broke away from the wall altogether but I was getting into a rhythm, making sure I was holding on with both hands to different ones before I reached down with a foot for the next. Another quick glance below gave me a shock; I was almost there, the height had been an illusion. The sound of sirens had not been illusory though; they were approaching fast.

From within the building there was a thundering crash as of floors and ceilings collapsing and, as I looked up, flames burst out up above the roof. I could not see if Patrick was on his way down or not because of the smoke wreathing around. Then two of the rungs I was on fell out and I nearly went with them. Another twisted as I grabbed it in a panic but I hung on, somehow resisting the urge to drop the last bit and risk broken ankles.

Then my foot touched firm ground and I sank down, muscles like jelly. Crawling again after two failed efforts to stand – uppermost in my mind was the thought that I had to attract someone's attention – I headed for the edge of the flat roof and, still on all fours, looked over. Predictably, I was only one or two storeys up now – it was impossible to tell exactly how high from here – but the street below appeared to be a cul-de-sac and no one was in sight. When I looked round I saw that there was a small square hut sort of structure on the end of the roof nearest the cinema. It had a door in it.

I went back to the bottom of the fire escape and used to it to pull myself to my feet, dully wondering why I was having such trouble with balance. Concentrating hard I made my way over to the little building, realizing belatedly that it existed to provide access to the roof from within. I tried the handle. Yet another locked door in a world of dead-ends.

I was trying not to think of the chances of Patrick succeeding in carrying down what was probably a twelve-stone man without the pair falling. He has never really recovered full bodily strength since being thrashed with studded belts by a gang of bikers when he was working undercover some years ago. He has no sensation in his right foot, for however clever prosthetic limbs are there is still no feeling. Peering upwards into the smoke I tried to see if there was any movement. Should I shout? No, that would not achieve anything. I felt ashamed when my sense of self-preservation caused me to move away from the bottom of the fire escape in case they fell on me.

Now, surely, the fire would be spreading to the building next door, which I guessed was an old warehouse. Unsteadily, I went back to the edge of the roof. Access here only appeared to be provided by the one no-through-road, actually a lane, but as I was walking around the perimeter looking for a way down I saw a group of people emerge from a Portakabin on a bare patch of land nearby and quickly begin to walk away. They were obviously being evacuated from the area.

Langleys can really shout if they have to and this one did.

They all looked up and someone, a man, waved and ran off. I saw a girl reach in her bag for her mobile. I supposed I could have done that too but had assumed that the road below would be filled with emergency vehicles by now. There was then a gust of wind bringing with it a huge billow of smoke, obliterating the view below. I turned and saw that there was a huge cloud of it belching out of the rear of the cinema, probably through the top doorway. Within it was the redness of flames.

Somewhere in the murk there were two heavy and separate thumps. Once again crawling because of the fear that I would lose my way in the swirling smoke, the roof now warm beneath my hands, I went towards where I had heard the sounds. It was farther than I had thought and it was only when I almost went over the edge of the roof that I realized I had lost my sense of direction in the smoke. The blustery wind cleared it away for a few seconds and suddenly I could see where I was.

Patrick and Kennedy were lying on the roof at the bottom of the fire escape, some ten yards from me, not moving. The smoke closed in again but I had got my bearings now and found them quickly. Kennedy appeared to be the same, deeply unconscious. I could not rouse Patrick, and could not find a pulse, so all I could do for the moment was kneel by him, murmuring his name in his ear, rubbing his face. To no avail. The smoke was horribly thick now, setting me coughing again.