Last Act (27 page)

“It
is
awkward,” she agreed. “But it's a bad workman blames his tools.”

“Job's comforter, aren't you?”

She could hear the fret of blade against rope as she sat back on her heels, glad to rest for a moment and feel the waves of pain begin to settle. “Michael?”

“Yes?”

“Before we die, I wish you'd explain.”

“Explain?”

“About yourself—about what's been going on. How could I help suspecting you when nobody would explain, nobody would answer my questions?”

“They weren't allowed to,” he told her. “And, to tell you the truth, I said no, too. Much safer for you not to know.”

She surprised herself with a little ghost of a laugh. “Safer? I don't feel just that right now. Except for being with you.”

“I'm glad you feel that way too. Ah!” He gave a gasp of triumph as the rope finally snapped. His hand groped to find hers in the darkness. “Anne, I've not dared before; it was too
dangerous for you. But you do know, don't you, how much I love you?”

“Do I, Michael? You're such a mystery.”

“Oh, that!” Impatiently. “Time enough for that when we
have
some time.” His other hand had travelled up to stroke her cheek, very gently. “Dear Anne, don't torment me. If you can, just say you love me.”

“I can't help it!”

He laughed and pulled her closer. “Resisting every inch of the way! Then, my darling, give an inch more and say you'll marry me?”

“But, Michael …” Now, at last, tears streamed down her face. She ought to tell him … she must tell him she was dying.

“No buts.” His gentle hands held her as his lips found hers. Ecstasy. Despair. But they were doomed anyway; what did it matter?
Gather ye rosebuds while ye may
…

“Rose petals,” she said at last. “Red and white. Your idea.”

“Naturally. There were some unpaid bills, too, but the chances seemed good no one would notice.”

“Oh, Michael, I do love you.”

“Then that's settled.” He was taking off his jacket. “You're freezing, my poor darling. We must get you out of here. That fetching costume of yours was not designed for ancestral dungeons. There.” He helped her into the jacket, his hands lingering for a moment at the back of her tunic where the blood had clotted. “You're a brave girl,” he said.

“Oh, brave … But, Michael, you keep talking as if we could get out.”

“Well, of course we can. Do you think I'd have put you to all that trouble for nothing?” He stood up, slowly, shakily, and she realised he had needed the time of that ecstatic kiss to get the circulation moving again in his legs. Should that make her angry? In fact, it warmed her heart.

“Highly programmed, aren't you?” she said.

“I aim to be.” His laugh was almost back to normal. “I need to be, if we're to get out of here. It's a long time since I last went this way.” He gave the hand he was still holding a little, loving shake, let it go and moved away from her, apparently feeling his
way along the wall, away from the door near which he had been so ruthlessly dumped.

“A long time?”

“I used to play here when I was a boy. Foolish of Frensham not to think of that, but then, I don't suppose for a moment that he knows … By the way—”

“Yes?”

“Who attacked you? Brought you here?”

“Police!” She shivered at the memory. “Michael, it was horrible. I thought I was safe. I'd got away—thought I'd got away—from the opera house, up to the castle. The way you took me. And then, in the lobby, two of the Italian policemen …”

“Not policemen,” he told her. “Frensham's men. Some kind of Mafia, for a bet. It took me too long to realise. I just hope Winkler has by now. If not …” His voice came from further away as he went on exploring the cell.

“If not?”

“It won't be only the opera house,” he said grimly. “Frensham has plans for Lissenberg. You did say, didn't you, back a while, that one of his people called him ‘Your Highness?'”

“Yes. He was angry. Frensham.”

“Too soon,” said Michael. “But it shows what he's planning. We must get moving.”

“Moving! But, Michael, how?”

“Ever heard of an
oubliette?
I wish I could remember.” And then, moving back towards her. “Of course, stupid of me. Come and help me?” She could hear him shifting the pile of junk in its corner.

“
Oubliette?
Why, yes.” She felt her way over and joined him. “
Dove in the Eagle's Nest.
You fell down it.”

“Right. Lissenberg had its own line in robber barons in the middle ages. Their castle was above here; handy for the pass and the old ford. There used to be a straight drop from the
oubliette
into the river. Handy if anyone came enquiring too solicitously for one of your guests. I just wish I knew what the opera house architect did about it when he changed the course of the river.”

“Did he know it was there?”

“That's another of the things I don't know,” he told her
cheerfully. “Probably not, or Frensham might have heard of it. He took a great interest in the building of the opera house.”

“We're behind the scenes somewhere, aren't we?”

“Yes. Oh, we'd go up with the explosion all right, if we stayed around. There; feel.” He took her hand and guided it through the diminished pile of rubbish to what felt like a wooden bit of the floor. “There's a terrible lot of stuff on top still. Careful, now, just the same. The catch that held it shut wasn't all that strong when I was a boy. I don't want you going through before we're ready. Feel the shape of it, there's a good girl, and work from the other side.”

It was possible, now, to feel the curve of the trap-door, and she moved obediently away, and went on dragging increasingly heavy pieces of wood and metal off the wooden surface. It was surprising how one forgot pain and cold thus occupied.

“There, I thought so.” His voice was triumphant. “Someone else wasn't too sure about the catch. The bottom bits of metal run clear across the trap-door. They've been holding the rest up. They're heavy, too. Leave the rest to me. You deserve a breather. Relax.”

“I'd rather be working.”

“I know. And I know what you
can
be doing. Find the bits of rope we got off me, and see if you can unknot them. They might come in useful.”

Obeying him, she found the rope where he had been lying by the door. “There's quite a lot of it,” she said, surprised.

“They hung me up by it for a while,” he told her. “That's why I was in rather poor shape when I arrived. There was something they wanted to know.”

“Oh, Michael. Did you tell them?”

“A very convincing lie. But to make it so I had to hold out as long as possible. I rather hoped they hadn't bothered to cut away the rope. There!” She heard his strenuous breathing and the grating of metal on rock. “That's the last piece. I wonder what on earth it was. Bit of an iron maiden, perhaps. It's heavy enough for anything. And spiky! Now, let's see. Stay still, I don't like the feel of these hinges.” And then, “God Almighty!” A tearing sound; a great gust of air; and then, far below, a series of
reverberating crashes. “That was the
oubliette,
that was,” said Michael. “I am so glad neither of us was on top of it at the time.”

“Yes.” She was trembling with more than cold now. “Michael, do you think anyone will have heard?”

“I doubt it. But we won't hang around to find out. Pity,” he said regretfully. “I'd meant to try and get the lid back on, just in case anyone comes looking for us, but we'll just have to hope they don't. Now, let's see. That was the hinge side, so … Would you say it was any lighter in here?”

“No.”

“That's what I thought. Never mind. Bring me the rope and we'd best get going.”

“Michael! But how?”

“There's a way.” As she crept towards him, a comforting hand reached out and found her shoulder. “I don't know why. In case they dropped someone through too impuslively with his valuables still on him, perhaps. The main thing is, there
is
a way.”

“Was a way,” she said. “How do you know …”

“Defeatist thinking never got you anywhere. We've a job to do, remember. A warning to give. So, like it or not, we have to get out of here.”

“Yes,” she said meekly. “Besides. I've an opera to sing in.” And then, on a desperate, indrawn breath. “Michael!”

“Yes?”

“I've just remembered. When I was changing into my costume yesterday … I suppose it was yesterday? Michael, I wound my watch. I do it sometimes when I'm nervous.”

“Wound it full?”

“Yes. I remember …”

“And that was yesterday afternoon. Saturday.”

“About four. When I took it off. Oh, Michael, I'm sorry.”

“Not to worry. It could happen to anyone. But it does leave us maybe a little short of time. So, pass me that rope.” She could feel him measuring its length. “Not enough to rope us together,” he said regretfully, “but I'll take it along, just for luck. Round my waist. Then I think I'd better have my jacket back; it might hamper you, going down. It's an easy climb, I promise; I used to
do it all the time when I was a boy. Hand and footholds cut in the rock all the way.”

“But we don't know what's happened to it since!”

“We're going to find out, aren't we? With an opera house and a peace conference at stake. Not to mention Lissenberg and our lives. Kiss me, my darling, before we go, and don't forget we're going to be married just as soon as we can find a priest.”

“Priest?” She
could
not tell him, now about her overriding date with death.

“Family custom. D'you mind?” His lips, finding hers, made answer impossible and she was glad to let it go. They might so easily die, together, on the way down. Why trouble him with talk of another death?

The kiss was long, shaking, demanding, reassuring. “There's a conversation for you,” he said, letting her go at last. “And now, having discussed everything that's important, let's go. You'll do precisely what I tell you, when I tell you?”

“Yes.”

“Good.” She felt him sit up and swing his legs over the edge of that gaping, sinister hole. “Then, here we go. There. The first foothold. Thank God the rock here is sound. Now, the hand-hold.” She felt him moving away from her, downwards. “Right. Now it's your turn. Turn round, get a grasp on the ridge at the edge of the hole, put your right foot over, and I'll guide it. What a good thing Mrs Riley kept your tunic short.” A loving hand found her right foot and placed it in a niche in the rock. “Now the left foot. It'll be a bit of a stretch for you, I'm afraid. It was for Alix, and she's taller than you.”

“Alix?”

“We used to play together.” His hand was guiding her left foot. “As kids.”

Jealousy. Absurd. But, “I can't.” He was still guiding her left foot downwards, but her hands were stretched almost beyond bearing where they clung to the rim of the hole.

“You must.” The pull on her foot slackened. “Let go with your left hand, then, and hang on for dear life with your right. It will only be for a moment.”

The moment seemed endless, and so did the downward climb
that followed, but it was, as Michael had promised, fairly straightforward, a mere matter of putting hands and feet obediently where he guided them, hanging on for dear life, and not thinking about the drop below, and the unknown ahead. In a way, Anne thought, the darkness actually helped. And so did an increasing freshness in the air.

“There's a draft from somewhere.” Michael's low voice confirmed this. “We're going to get out, I think, but God knows just where. Or what into. I think we'd best keep pretty quiet from now on. Don't drop anything, for God's sake.”

“Nothing to drop,” she whispered back. And followed in obedient silence, as his hands guided her, movement by movement, still downwards.

“It was always a long way.” And then, “Shhh …”

Below and to the left had come an unbelievable, unmistakable sound. The revving of a car's engine. “I thought so.” It was only a thread of a whisper. “The underground car park. Ah. We're down. Quiet as you come.” Instead of a foothold, her reaching right foot found solid rock. No, not rock. Concrete? Standing, she swayed, and his arms went round her, steadying. “Look,” he breathed, but she had just seen that in one direction the darkness became less absolute. And now, from that way, came the sound of another car starting up.

“If we only knew what time it was.” His hand touched hers. “Stay here, stay very quiet, while I take a look.”

“You'll be careful.”

“I always am.” He lowered her gently to the hard ground, her back against the wall down which they had come. “Don't stir from there,” he whispered. “Not an inch.”

“I won't.” She sat where he had placed her, letting exhaustion have its way with her, refusing to think about that bomb, far above them now, ticking its way towards midnight. The car park that served the whole complex was underneath the opera house, dug deep into the head of the valley. She did not know much about blast, but it seemed grimly logical that in this enclosed end of the valley the force of the explosion would be as violent downwards as upwards. The cheerful ticking of her watch maddened her. Ticking towards what? And how long had
Michael been gone? She heard another car start up, then another. So—argue from that. If cars were driving away, it could mean that it was late at night, the opening reception of the peace conference already over. Coming up towards midnight?

A whisper of movement beside her. Michael's voice, a thread. “This way, quiet as you can. We've not much time, I think.”