The Concrete Ceiling

by Peter Rowlands

  Until now I’d felt Sam was coping with the situation better than I was, but now she was talking herself into despair. To distract her I said, “Have you ever seen anything in Nick’s behaviour to suggest he would do something like this?”

  “Nope.” She pondered. “He can be quick to take offence, and he’s impulsive. I suppose all this is just an extreme example of that kind of thing. But I’ve never seen anything to indicate that he would actually murder anyone. This is truly something else.”

  There was a long period of silence. Then Sam said in a soft voice, “I’m sorry you’re in here like this, Mike, but I hope you know I’m really glad to have you back in my life.”

  “I don’t think I’m up for deathbed confessions just yet.”

  She rapped me on the arm. “Don’t joke about this. It’s not funny.”

  “Sorry.” I breathed in. “You must know I’m glad you’re back in my life as well.”

  “It hadn’t escaped my attention, as it happens.”

  There it was – our sad little mutual declaration. It wasn’t accompanied by a sudden embrace, nor indeed by any movement at all. We just sat there in silent contemplation, no doubt both wondering how the hell we were going to get out.

  Chapter 76

  “What’s that? Over there!” Sam clutched at my arm.

  Struggling to focus my eyes through the blackness, I worked out where she was looking. Across the room was a minute splash of yellow. At first my brain couldn’t interpret it, but gradually it resolved itself into a rectangular swatch of light.

  It now struck me for the first time that the cellar was not entirely dark. All along I’d had a sense of this, but it was a terribly subtle thing; I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face, yet I had an almost subliminal awareness of movement.

  I stood up and walked towards the little splash of light, fearing it was some kind of mirage, but it held firm. I said, “It’s sunlight!” I looked around, then upwards, trying to identify the source. There it was – a tiny crack in the ceiling, with a hint of daylight visible through it. You could only see it from an acute angle; I had to stand several feet away before it was visible.

  I could hear Sam standing up behind me. She said, “How can it be daylight? What about the building upstairs?”

  “There is no building. It was demolished years ago. There’s just a floor and a few bits of wall.”

  “But why didn’t we see any light before?”

  “The weather was dull and overcast when Nick brought me in here. It was like early evening. There can’t have been enough light for us to notice it. Now the sun must have come out.”

  I reached up to the crack and poked at it with my fingers. Concrete dust sprinkled down into my eyes. “I thought this ceiling would be metres thick, but maybe it’s not – or not all of it. I think it’s quite thin here.”

  “Can we make a hole in it? Can we get out?”

  I continued jabbing at the crack. More dust sprayed down, but the crack didn’t get any wider. I said, “We need some sort of tool.”

  I continued probing at the crack, and amazingly, it provided its own answer. My fingers fastened on something metallic – the twisted stem of a concrete reinforcing rod running directly across the crack. It should have been buried in the concrete, but somehow it was almost detached, clinging horizontally to the underside. It was partially embedded, but I was able to get my fingers right round it, so I heaved it downwards with all my might. I felt a faint hint of movement.

  I explained to Sam what I was doing. “I don’t know if we can shift this thing, but at the moment it’s our best hope.”

  “Won’t it be too long? How can we get the whole of it loose?”

  “It seems pretty rusted to me. It might break off.”

  I heaved it again, and felt another tiny tremor of movement. I was practically hanging from it. I let it go, then tried again, and again. I attempted to work it up and down. The movement was very small, but it was real.

  After a while Sam volunteered to help. It was harder for her to reach it, but while she worked at it I rested. For long minutes we took turns, and gradually the tiny movement grew larger.

  “I’ve got to take a break,” I said eventually. We both flopped down on the ground under the crack, which now looked slightly larger.

  Sam said, “Can we do this?”

  “Maybe.”

  “If we don’t, we’ll have no energy left for anything else.”

  “So let’s make it work.”

  When we resumed, the movement in the steel bar felt greater, which in turn increased our enthusiasm. My shoulders and arms were aching from the effort of reaching upwards, but adrenaline kept me going. The bar had come detached at one end and was pivoting at the other. We kept on at it.

  In the end it came away abruptly, falling at our feet with an alarming thump. We jumped back in surprise, then I stooped down and groped for it. I said, “It’s brought a bloody great chunk of concrete down with it.”

  I peered up at the opening. It was now several inches wide, but still far too narrow for anyone to climb through. I said, “How about shouting again? There’s more chance that the sound will travel now.”

  We made as much noise as we could, then stopped to listen. Distantly we could hear the sound of a diesel engine – a generator, perhaps. I said, “I think we’re being drowned out by that bloody machine.”

  “Can we use that metal bar to make the hole wider?”

  I reached for it. One end was embedded in the chunk of concrete it had brought down from the ceiling.

  I said, “It’s stuck in this lump of concrete.” Then I had another idea. “Maybe we could use it to batter the door down?”

  It felt well over a foot square, and was immensely heavy. Sam groped her way to the door and kept talking to guide me, and I grabbed the free end of the bar and dragged the thing laboriously across the floor. Once I’d got it to the door I lifted it and managed to swing it back a little way. I smashed it against the door.

  I heard loose shards of concrete scatter, but there was no other obvious effect. I did it again. And again. The door sounded solid and resistant. Reaching down, I found that the concrete lump had shrunk, though not much.

  With an effort I resumed, then after two more blows it suddenly felt lighter. I could feel that the lump had split in two, and only part of it was now clinging to the bar. The next blow detached the bar altogether, leaving just some residual scraps of concrete adhering to it.

  I said, “The bar has come off. We’re not going to break the door down with this.”

  “So let’s try the ceiling again.”

  We made our way over to the crack in the ceiling and I poked the bar up into the opening. I tried levering it sideways to prise more concrete away, and more shards fell on me, along with a lot more dust. The hole was looking wider.

  Sam took over, jabbing the bar up against the concrete that surrounded the opening. More of it broke away and slowly the hole increased in size. When I resumed I followed her example, simply thrusting the bar upwards with all my might. I was drenched in sweat and I could feel my hands bleeding from chafing on the rusty steel, but there was no pain. More and more concrete was falling down on us, and that was compensation enough.

  It might have taken ten minutes, it might have taken hours, but eventually we paused, panting, and I said, “I reckon there’s room to climb through there. What do you think?”

  “Got to be worth a try!”

  Sam went first. She reached her arms up through the gap and I lifted her as far as I could. It worked. She scrambled awkwardly through the hole. She was free.

  I shouted, “Go and get help!”

  She leaned down. “No – you’re coming too. It’s wide enough.”

  I thrust my arms through the gap, but there was no way I could summon the energy or find the leverage to pull myself up through it, even with Sam’s help. Then an idea occurred to me. I shouted, “Hang on!”

  I felt my way over to the wall
where I’d smashed the lump of concrete. One of the chunks was still quite sizeable. I shuffled it across to the gap in the ceiling, then put a foot on it and launched myself up into the gap. Sam grabbed an arm, and somehow I managed to wrangle my elbows and upper body over the lip. I hung there panting for a moment, then scrambled the rest of the way out.

  Chapter 77

  I struggled to my feet and we looked at each other in wonder. I said, “Fucking brilliant, Ms Adams!”

  She lifted an arm to give me a high five, then collapsed into me instead. We clung together for a moment, then pulled apart. Her face was streaked with blood and tears and her hair was sprinkled with dust.

  The feeling of liberation was almost overwhelming. Escaping from that dungeon was quite simply the best thing that had ever happened to me in my entire life. We stood for a while without speaking. Words were inadequate to the occasion.

  Finally I said, “We’d better get going.”

  We were in the middle of the site – two specks in an expanse of rough concrete, surrounded by scattered weeds and the remnants of long-vanished walls. We peered around to get our bearings, and fastened on a group of assorted vehicles at one end. Sam said, “Let’s go that way.”

  As we started walking a vehicle detached itself from the rest – a black SUV. It was heading out towards us across the concrete.

  I turned to Sam. “That might be Nick.”

  She shrugged. “Good luck to him if it is.”

  We stopped walking and watched as the vehicle progressed. What the hell was he doing? Putting on a show of rescuing us? I wondered how he would explain our presence here.

  The SUV accelerated, weaving its way round the various obstacles on the site, then braked abruptly about thirty feet away from us, slewing round sideways and blocking our view of the other vehicles beyond. The driver’s window slid down and Nick leaned out.

  “I think I can suggest a way out of this,” he called.

  Sam shouted, “Forget it!”

  “Anything you want. Both of you. I have access to a lot of money – more than you’d ever think. Name your price.”

  “Money couldn’t pay for this.” Sam stood her ground with her hands on her hips. “You fucking murdering bastard!”

  “Everyone has a price.”

  I called out, “Leave us alone, Nick. Back off!”

  He stared expressionlessly at us both for a moment, then revved up the car. He started to turn it towards us, still revving. I glanced at Sam. “I think he’s going to knock us down! Let’s split up and run for it.”

  For a moment we looked indecisively at each other, then before either of us had a chance to move there was a deep rumbling sound and the front of the vehicle slumped down a foot. The concrete surface was caving in. I could see the panic in Nick’s eyes.

  There was another rumble and the front of the vehicle settled further, then a creaking sound as the back of it slumped to the same level. I took a step forward, but felt Sam’s hand on my arm. I paused, and as I did so the front of the vehicle dropped more abruptly than before. The SUV came to rest at a forty-five degree angle, looking like a foundering ship.

  I turned to Sam. “Someone needs to go and help him.”

  It wasn’t over. There was more rumbling and the whole vehicle started to sink. Time stood still as we watched. The back end levelled out and the whole vehicle seemed about to descend out of sight

  Then abruptly there was a different kind of sound: much louder, more percussive, more penetrating – more a bang than a rumble. The ground around the vehicle rippled and ruptured, and debris was flung into the air – concrete, bricks, parts of the black car. Sam and I were hurtled backwards.

  There were no pyrotechnics – just noise, a dust cloud and rubble. All the same, it was undoubtedly an explosion, and seemingly a powerful one. The collapsing floor had somehow set off a charge in the cavern below, and Nick was in the midst of it.

  * * *

  We both seemed uninjured, and with mutual consent we started walking gingerly towards the edge of the site. We gave a wide berth to the crater where Nick’s car had been, glimpsing mangled wreckage at the centre of it. The sight of it alone was enough to persuade us there was no point in looking for Nick himself.

  The risk was that we might set off further explosions. We walked slowly and cautiously. I gradually became aware of people watching us from the periphery. They looked concerned for us, but were evidently reluctant to put themselves at risk by stepping out on to the concrete. Finally we were out of danger.

  People clustered around us, most of them wearing green site gear and yellow safety helmets. They wanted to know what had happened – how we came to be there, and what Nick had intended. Between us we tried to explain that he’d shut us in that cellar for hours, and had apparently expected us to be blown up the following day. The pervading reaction was one of disbelief and bafflement.

  Neither Sam nor I had a phone, but the site foreman lent Sam one to call her father. I couldn’t think of anyone to call, so I just waited.

  All the emergency services turned out, and in due course Sam and I were taken off to a hospital in an ambulance. The streaked blood on our faces seemed to help us short-cut the waiting queues in the accident and emergency department: that along with the exhortations of the paramedics who brought us in.

  While we were there we were interviewed by two police officers, but I could only summon the energy to explain the basic details of what had happened. They were baffled by Nick’s motivation, and I could only tell them I would fill in the details later. Eventually they agreed to leave it at that.

  I asked them about Nick. Initially they were guarded, but eventually one of them relented. “He’s definitely dead,” he told me. “From what I hear, no one could have survived that explosion – not if they were sitting right on top of it.”

  I was reunited with Sam in the waiting room. She greeted me with a chagrined smile. She had a large sticking plaster on her temple and more on her arms, and there were signs of grazing on her cheeks. I had a plaster on my face, plus several on my fingers and on the palms of my hands. I felt sore all over.

  She said, “How is it that when I’m with you I keep ending up in a hospital?”

  “I have that effect on people.”

  “Yeah, I bet you do.”

  For a while we sat in silence, each no doubt reflecting on the day’s events. Presently she said, “I can’t believe Nick’s dead. And he’s brought it on himself. What a stupid, stupid man. All he had to do was accept things as they were, and he could have moved on. He could have had a fulfilling life. He’s put an end to it through his own obsessiveness and malevolence. He tried to kill us, and he’s killed himself instead. He was no better than a petulant child that’s had its toys taken away.”

  “A bloody dangerous one.”

  She sighed. “That’s for sure.”

  I thought she might let it rest there, but she seemed to need to keep reliving the experience. She said, “When you look at it, from the moment Nick walked in on me in his flat, he acted like a madman. He had a plan, but he didn’t seem to have any notion of whether he could get away with it. He just lunged on regardless.”

  “The frightening thing is that he might have.”

  Sam’s father eventually arrived at the hospital. He said to me, “What is it about you and Sam? Are you always going to end up in this kind of situation?”

  Sam said, “It’s not Mike’s fault! He saved us both. I could never have got out of that place on my own.” She shuddered.

  I said, “And you saved me. I would have gone mad in that place. I can’t stand confined spaces. Somehow you kept me sane.”

  Des asked, “How are you feeling now?”

  I shrugged. Sam said, “I’m fine. I’m alive! Last night I didn’t think I would be.”

  He turned to me. “Would you like to come back with us to the farm? Have a bit of a rest and resuscitation?”

  Sam shot me a questioning look.

  I
shook my head. “I’d love to, but I think I should head back to London. I need to get my head together, and you guys probably need to do the same. Can I catch up with you both later?”

  They pressed me, but it would have felt wrong to slide into the cocoon of their hospitality. I said, “If you’d like to do me a favour, you could drive back via Banbury, and drop me off at my car.”

  * * *

  Three hours later I was climbing the stairs to my flat, feeling bruised but still elated. I slumped down on the sofa as my mind raced over the events of the past twenty-four hours.

  Nick was dead, so now he would never be able to answer any of the questions I would have liked to put to him. It was hard to take in. He’d dominated my thoughts for so many months. From doubting the sincerity of his feelings for Samantha, I’d progressed to seeing him as a manipulative wheeler-dealer, then ultimately as a murderer. Now he’d proved the truth of the latter by attempting to kill Sam and me. Yet although I’d been vindicated, I felt strangely short-changed. He’d plunged me into a relentless pursuit, but now his death had put an abrupt end to it.

  Gradually I pieced together the events of the past two days. It seemed to me that Sam was right; something in Nick’s brain must have flipped when he walked in on her in his flat. He would have realised that she’d seen the survey report and the bundle of press clippings, and this would have told him he’d been undermined on two counts at once. His suppression of the survey threw damning light on his business ethics, and the existence of the cuttings raised a massive question over the whole history of his involvement with Sam.

  At that point, his talent for improvisation must have kicked in. He couldn’t endure the thought of his life unravelling so suddenly and comprehensively, and he’d decided on the spur of the moment to cut his losses by getting rid of both of us. He’d lunged seamlessly from obsession into a kind of madness.

  I thought back over his insane scheme. If we really had been blown up in that cellar, would there have been no trace of us left? Surely excavators would have been sent in to clear the site. The developers couldn’t have built new foundations over the top of concrete rubble. Wouldn’t they have found us – or what was left of us?