Dead Cat Bounce

by Peter Cotton

  Jean and Rolfe stood together at the back of the room, both eyeing me with a mixture of fear and bewilderment. After only a day in this place, Rolfe’s black suit was covered in blue carpet fluff. I figured there was probably cat fur all over him as well. The source of the fluff was obvious. The floor was populated with little drifts of it, and it massed in the corners of the room.

  ‘They’ll be back soon,’ I said, trying to sound calm but commanding. ‘So, please, some quiet now. It’s most important.’

  I knew I had to take charge, and what I had to do, because I knew exactly where we were and what being there meant for us. I also knew we had no time to lose, so I immediately began taking an inventory of all the elements of the room. The place was the size of a single-car garage, and the metal door looked to be the only way out. Four thin mattresses were piled up against one of the side walls. There was an empty soda-water bottle next to the mattresses. And in a corner near the door were two rolls of toilet paper sitting next to a red plastic bucket. The bucket was the source of the stink in the place.

  I walked to the closest wall and banged on it a few times with the side of my clenched fist. Every blow met solid brick. I took some of the wall carpet between my thumb and forefinger, but it was secured to the brickwork by lines of self-tappers, and it barely moved. Someone had done a thorough job here — so thorough that Joe and his friend were confident they could leave us alone in this room and that it would hold us, unsupervised, for at least a little while.

  There were power points set into the skirting board on either side of the room, and two rows of recessed lights shone down on us from the ceiling. Two air vents sat side-by-side between the rows of lights. Each vent had a cover made up of four little louvre-like shutters, and the covers were each secured to the ceiling by four screws.

  Then it occurred to me. Why two vents? Maybe one heated the room and the other cooled it. The vent furthest from the door looked slightly discoloured. I stretched up and tried to touch it, but it was well out of reach. I’d get to it later. First, I had to see if Jean or Rolfe had anything on them that we could turn into a tool or a weapon.

  ‘Okay, questions later,’ I said, as I joined them on the mattresses. ‘First, let’s pool our resources and see what we’ve got.’

  They both looked shell-shocked, and they had good reason to be. Jean would only just be realising what had happened to her. And Rolfe would still be grieving for the cavalry that had turned into a one-man band. I knelt on the edge of the mattresses, facing the two of them with my back to the door.

  The only thing I had that might prove useful was my ballpoint pen. It had been in the breast pocket of my shirt, and I’d been lying on it when Joe had given me the once-over. It was basically a tapered metal cylinder, half of which was coated with rubber for ease of grip. I dropped the pen into the space between our knees.

  ‘First things first,’ I said, trying to sound confident, like a man with a plan. ‘Have either of you got anything metal on you? Anything at all?’

  ‘These buckles are metal,’ said Rolfe, pulling his shoes off and handing them to me. ‘And the heels have metal discs. Stops them wearing out so quickly.’

  I removed the solid-metal buckles from the shoes and dropped them, and the shoes, onto the mattress next to my pen.

  ‘My beautiful Alicantes,’ said Rolfe, running his fingers over the shoes. ‘An indulgence, to be sure, but you can wreck them if you like, and anything else I own. Just get us out of here.’

  ‘Anything in your pockets?’ I said, ignoring him. ‘And I’ll need your glasses.’

  ‘My glasses?’ said Rolfe. ‘And how am I supposed to see?’

  ‘If we don’t get out of here soon,’ I said, ‘your ability to see will be the least of your worries.’

  Rolfe removed his glasses and placed them on the mattress next to the pen, the shoes, and the buckles.

  ‘And Jean?’ I said. ‘Anything?’

  ‘My studs?’ she said, fingering her ears. ‘And my watch? Are they any good?’

  ‘Umm, no. You keep them for now. So, Rolfe, these rules Joe talked about. What are they?’

  ‘He really only has one rule. When he wants to come in here, he switches the lights off and on a couple of times, and I have to move to the back of the room and face the wall. Then he opens the door and does what he wants. When he’s finished, he locks up and flicks the lights again. Then I’m allowed to move. And he’s warned me that if I peek while he’s in here, I’ll cop it. And I get the sense that he wouldn’t hold back.’

  ‘So how often has he been in?’

  ‘Twice. He brought some cheese and dry biscuits a few hours after he put me in here. And the water. And this morning he emptied the, um, the toilet. Oh yes, and I should say that, other than when he flicks them off and on, the lights stay on all the time. So get used to it.’

  I was studying the downlights when it occurred to me that if Joe was intending to gas us like he’d done with Wright and Proctor, why was he bothering to hide his identity? Maybe it was easier for him not to lock eyes with his victims.

  ‘Have you spoken to this Joe in any meaningful way?’ I said.

  ‘Not really,’ said Rolfe. ‘I mean, an hour after they put me in here, he opened the slit in the door and gave me his rule. And then this morning when he came for the toilet, I asked for some blankets and he didn’t answer. So I asked again, and he told me to shut up or I’d regret it.’

  ‘Did you ask him why he took you?’

  ‘Oh, I didn’t need to do that,’ said Rolfe, suddenly looking shamefaced. ‘I know how I got here, and I’ve got no one but myself to blame. And it’s probably my fault that you two are in here, too.’

  22

  I WAS KEEN to hear Rolfe’s explanation for why we’d been taken, but I told him we’d talk about it later. My highest priority was to examine our little prison before Joe or his mate returned. I moved the mattresses to the middle of the room and then started working my way around the walls, tapping them high and low with my middle and index fingers, like a doctor examining a patient’s chest. The dull, unyielding response supported my initial assessment: beneath their carpet covering, all four walls were solid brick.

  With Jean and Rolfe watching silently from the mattresses, I walked the length of the room, bringing my heels down hard on the floor, hoping to find something other than concrete underfoot. When I reached the front wall, I turned around, took a small step sideways, and walked to the back of the room, banging the floor as I went. I covered the whole room that way, and confirmed that the floor was indeed a concrete slab.

  Next, I got down on my hands and knees and used one of Rolfe’s shoe buckles to probe the hardwood skirting that was nailed to the bottom of the wall. I poked and prodded as I shuffled along the floor on my knees. Then I got to a join where the end of one of the lengths of skirting was slightly bowed. Excited by this find, I poked all around the join till I found a gap between the skirting and the wall wide enough to take the edge of the shoe buckle. It might have only been a minor defect in Joe’s home-made detention centre, but, right at that moment, that gap seemed like a lifeline.

  I used the heel of one of Rolfe’s shoes to hammer the buckle deeper into the gap. That made the gap wide enough to take the edge of the other buckle, which I hammered in as well, widening the gap even further.

  Then I sat on the floor in front of the join, settled my feet low on the wall, grabbed both shoe buckles, and pulled. The skirting didn’t budge. I adjusted my grip on the buckles and pulled again, pushing with my legs. The skirting moved, but barely. So I began working on it in bursts, and, millimetre by millimetre, it began to come away from the wall. When the gap was wide enough to take my fingers, I eased them into it, up to the first joint. Then I pulled with all my strength while I pushed with my legs.

  The nails gave a little screech as the skirting moved
a bit more. Encouraged, I adjusted my grip and went at it. The nails gave a piercing screech this time. Then there was a loud crack, the skirting came away in my hands, and I flew backwards with such momentum that I ended up on all fours in the middle of the room.

  When I got up and looked back, a metre-and-a-half of skirting lay on the carpet between me and the wall. I picked up the skirting and examined it closely. The end that had formed the squared-off join was a bit bowed. The other end, where it had broken away, was ragged with splinters. And there were three long nails sticking up out of it. One at either end. And one in the middle.

  I couldn’t have wished for a better outcome. In my hands I held the makings of an offensive weapon. Maybe a waddy, or a club, or even the prisoner’s weapon of choice — a shiv. Whatever I made from it, our chances of surviving this place had just improved a little. I piled the mattresses over the gap in the skirting to cover it, and I slipped my would-be weapon under the pile.

  ‘What good’s a bit of wood to us?’ said Rolfe, as he settled next to Jean on the mattresses.

  ‘You’ll see,’ I said. ‘Now, sorry, but I need some more quiet. Just for a while.’

  Rolfe grimaced at this rebuff but said nothing, and I went back to the middle of the room and examined the plasterboard ceiling. I figured there had to be a cavity above it — at least big enough to accommodate the ducting for the vents and the wiring for the downlights. In all likelihood, it wouldn’t have a crawl space, but if things got desperate we could tear down some of the plasterboard and have a look. The trouble was, we’d need to get up there to do that, and the noise from any demolition would surely bring Joe running.

  A muffled rumble jolted me from these thoughts. They were back. Or, at least, one of them was. I raced to the wall and pressed my ear to it. The rumbling stopped, a vehicle drove into the garage, and the door descended.

  It was time to test the soundproofing in this place. I waited a couple of minutes, then I took a deep breath and called Joe in a moderately loud voice. I waited thirty seconds, but he didn’t respond. I called him again, as loudly as I could this time, but still he didn’t come. So I turned side-on to the door and charged it with my shoulder. I hit it, and, as I expected, I bounced off and landed on the floor, winded. Half a minute later, the slot in the door slid open with a squeak.

  ‘No banging,’ said Joe in a rasping voice, ‘or you get trouble.’

  He shut the slot and was gone. He hadn’t heard me yelling because of the carpet on the walls, but he’d come running when I’d thrown myself at the door, probably because the impact had sent a small shockwave through the house. Maybe we could make that work for us. I was mulling that over when the lights went off and on, and off and on again. And stayed on.

  We huddled together facing the back wall. When the slot opened, I felt Joe’s eyes on me. It was the first time I’d been sized up by someone who I was sure was planning to kill me. The slide scraped shut, the door opened, and Joe dropped something onto the floor. He stood there for a few seconds, scoping the place. Then the door closed, the lights flickered a few times, and something brushed my leg. When I looked down, a ginger cat was staring at me.

  The cat scuttled away as I reached for it. Then it rolled onto its back and eyed me while it rubbed itself into the carpet. I stepped towards it, but it darted away again. Wright and Proctor had both had dead cats for company when they turned up at the lake. Was this moggy going to join us down there? That image sent a surge of dread through me, and I closed my eyes and worked to calm myself. I needed to think clearly now — not panic. And the best way to keep panic at bay was to stay occupied. But what to do? For a start, I had to have a closer look at the ceiling vents, and the only one way I could do that was with Jean and Rolfe lifting me up there.

  They were both sitting forward, staring at the cat as though it was radioactive. It had me thinking that maybe they knew more about our crime scenes than they’d let on. It was something to explore with them later, but for the moment there were more pressing matters to deal with. I asked them if they could lift me to the ceiling.

  ‘What do you weigh?’ said Rolfe, eyeing me up and down, making his own assessment. ‘Eighty-five kilos in your undies? Or ninety?

  ‘Something like that,’ I said.

  ‘Well, I’ve got a dodgy back, and trying to lift you might not be the best thing for it, but if …’

  ‘Hold on a second,’ said Jean, a hint of impatience in her voice. ‘If you need to know what’s up there, why don’t you two lift me?’

  It was a fair suggestion. She weighed much less than me, and we’d have a much better chance of getting out of this if all three of us remained fit and able. So I agreed. But first I gave her riding instructions.

  ‘Two very important things while you’re up there,’ I said. ‘First, do not touch the ceiling or the vent covers. We can’t let Joe know what we’ve been doing. Grab onto our hair if you’re losing your balance, but keep your hands well clear of everything. Second, if the door starts to open while you’re up there, we’ll have to bring you down in a hurry. You understand?’

  She nodded, and I handed her my pen.

  ‘When you get up under the first vent, use this to open the slats a bit so you can have a look up inside.’

  I positioned Rolfe underneath the cleaner of the two vents and stood side-on to him. We put our arms over each other’s shoulders and squatted. Jean then edged her backside onto our shoulders, we wrapped our free arms around her legs, and we stood up. When we’d steadied ourselves, I asked Jean to open one of the slats and describe what she saw.

  ‘There’s a big silver tube going from the base of the vent up into the ceiling,’ she said. ‘And it bends away towards the back wall. And there’s a fan with a little motor attached to it set into the middle of the tube, and there’s wires running away from it.’

  ‘Good,’ I said. ‘Put the slats back where they were, and then we’ll move you across to the other vent. You ready, Rolfe?’

  ‘Say when,’ he said.

  ‘Okay. Taking it slowly. And, now.’

  Jean took more time to open the slats on the dirtier vent.

  ‘There’s no motor or anything like it in this one,’ she said, finally. ‘Just more silver tubing coming down to it. And these slats are covered in some sort of dirt. Like it’s caked on.’

  ‘Does the tubing bend away towards the back wall, too?’

  ‘No — it seems to head towards that wall.’

  She nodded in the direction of the mattresses.

  ‘Okay. Good. Now I don’t want you to leave any evidence of what you’re about to do, so be very careful. First, I’m going to get you to fully open one of the sets of slats that face away from the door. That’s it. Open it up as far as it’ll go. Now put your finger up inside it and rub some of that black stuff onto it. That’s it. Good. Now close it up, like it was. Well done.’

  Once we’d lowered Jean to the floor, Rolfe put his hands on his knees and drew in some big breaths. The cat, which had been preening itself in the corner, looked up and assessed Rolfe for any threat. Detecting none, it went back to working on itself.

  I took Jean’s hand and sniffed her blackened finger. It was just as I’d expected — eau de dirty garage. Jean sniffed it and screwed up her face in disgust. Then she put the offending digit under Rolfe’s nose. Once he’d had a sniff, they both looked at me enquiringly. Apart from the prime minister, the only people who knew how Wright and Proctor had died were people associated with our investigation. Now these two were about to find out. Would I sugar-coat it for them? No. There was no point.

  ‘The stuff on your fingers confirms where we are,’ I said. ‘And what this place is.’

  ‘Wright and Proctor,’ said Rolfe in a whisper. ‘This is where they died, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes. From carbon monoxide pumped in through that dirty vent u
p there.’

  Like most of their colleagues, Jean and Rolfe had badgered us for a cause of death ever since Susan Wright had turned up at the lake. Now they had their answer, and it stunned them.

  ‘That black stuff is a mixture of carbon and unburnt petrol,’ I said. ‘It’s residue from a vehicle exhaust. When these people decide to kill us, they’ll rig up a hose between a vehicle-exhaust pipe and that ducting up there. Then they’ll turn the engine on, and this room will fill up with carbon monoxide. And that’ll be it for us, unless we do something about it.’

  ‘And there are things we can do, right?’ said Jean, her eyes pleading.

  ‘There’s plenty,’ I said. ‘I figure we’ve got about a day-and-a-half before they move on us, but maybe a lot less, so we’ve got to move fast. Our first task is to disable their delivery system. Then we’ll get them in here with their guard down and take them on. None of it’s going to be easy, but if everything goes in our favour, we’ll get out of this.’

  23

  THE FIRST STEP in disabling our execution chamber was to remove the screws that held the dirty vent cover in place. Once the cover was off, we’d be able to rip into the ducting that had been set up to feed carbon monoxide into the room. Most of the gas would then disperse into the ceiling cavity. To maximise our chances of survival, we’d also have to seal the vent cover somehow before we screwed it back into place. Once that was done, we’d wait for the European to turn on the gas, and then somehow convince him we were dead. And if that all went well, we might get a chance to fight our way out of this place.

  Neither Jean nor Rolfe had anything to add when I told them my plan, so I got down to making a screwdriver. Rolfe’s shoe buckles were clearly too chunky for the job. I considered honing them down on the concrete I’d exposed in harvesting the skirting, but decided against it. The noise and vibration might have brought Joe running.