by Paul Adam
He closed his eyes and tried to relax. He thought he was too tense to sleep, but he must have dozed off anyway because when he next looked at his watch it was nearly eleven o’clock. He went across to the window. The policeman was still in the doorway opposite the hotel. He was leaning against the wall, his face in shadow so Max couldn’t see his eyes. Was he awake? Max had to assume he was.
He took a last look around his room. He had his passport and money in his pocket. Everything else—his spare clothes, his wash things—he’d have to leave behind. He stepped out onto the balcony. The policeman across the street didn’t move. Max waited a few seconds, then clambered nimbly up onto the railing. He balanced on the narrow iron strip, one hand pressed against the wall to steady himself, and reached up with his other arm. His fingertips just brushed the underside of the balcony above. He glanced down across the street. The policeman was still motionless. Maybe my luck’s in and he’s asleep, Max thought.
He braced himself. This was the really dangerous bit, where all the skills of balance and agility that he’d practiced for his stage act would be crucial. If he misjudged this, he would plummet to the pavement below and break his neck. He took a deep breath and launched himself upward. He grabbed the railings of the balcony above and clung on. Max dangled in space for a moment, then swung his legs, hooking them through the gaps in the metal. Ten seconds later he had pulled himself up and was standing on the balcony.
It was at that exact instant that the policeman across the street saw him and started shouting.
Max moved rapidly. The French windows next to him were half open, presumably to let in the cool night air. Max dived through the gap and dashed across the room. A man was snoring in the bed, but he didn’t wake up, even when Max unlocked the door and went out into the corridor. Which way now? Max thought. Make up your mind. Quickly. The main stairs were to his left, but they were too risky. That was the way the policemen would come. Was there a back staircase, or a fire escape? He didn’t know, but surely there had to be. He turned right, running along the corridor and round a corner. It was a dead end—no staircase anywhere. Max swore. What now? He went back to the corner and peeped out. He could hear heavy thudding footsteps on the stairs, voices shouting in Spanish. The policemen were heading toward him. Max looked around. There were doors on either side of the corridor. Some were obviously bedrooms—they had numbers on them—but one was marked BAÑO. Bathroom. Max pushed open the door and ducked inside.
There was a window next to the bath. He whipped it open and looked out. He was two floors up, but a couple of yards below him was the sloping roof of an outbuilding on the ground floor. Max didn’t hesitate. He scrambled through the window and lowered himself down the wall, hanging from the windowsill by his fingertips. His feet stopped before they reached the outbuilding. Max let go and dropped, praying that the roof was strong enough to take his weight. It was. He landed lightly and immediately twisted round, slithering down the tiles on his backside. At the edge of the roof he slowed and rolled over onto his stomach to lower himself down into the yard in front of the outbuilding.
As his feet touched the ground, he heard a shout above him and glanced up. One of the policemen was leaning out of the bathroom window, screaming at him to stop.
Max sprinted away across the yard. He turned into the alley at the side of the hotel—and ran straight into another policeman, a third officer who must have been watching the rear of the building. The man caught hold of him. Max felt cold steel on his skin as a pair of handcuffs was fastened around his wrists.
“No more games,” the policeman said in a thick Spanish accent. He took Max by the arm and led him away.
12
THEY DIDN’T RETURN HIM TO HIS ROOM IN the hotel as Max had expected, but took him instead back to the central police station and put him in a cell. It wasn’t the same cell as before, but it was more or less identical in layout—a small square box with a high barred window, a dirt floor, and a wooden platform for a bed. There was no mattress or pillow, just rough bare planks.
“What about the handcuffs?” Max asked the police officer who’d brought him in. “Aren’t you going to take them off?”
“You big trouble,” the policeman replied. “Handcuffs stay on.”
“But you can’t do that,” Max protested. “How am I supposed to sleep?”
“That your problem,” the officer said and went out, locking the cell door behind him.
Max sat down on the wooden platform. He was furious with himself for allowing the police officers to catch him. He’d had a chance to get away, and he’d blown it. Now he was in an even worse situation than before. He was still a prisoner, but he didn’t have the luxury of a hotel room and a proper bed.
He looked around the cell. It had the same green mold on the walls as the previous one, the same sour stench. No doubt there were cockroaches here, too. There was a light in the ceiling, a single bulb glowing dimly behind a wire-mesh cover. Max could see that it was going to be left on all night, making sleep even more difficult.
Sleep? he thought. Why are you thinking about going to sleep? You’ve failed once, but that doesn’t mean you should give up the fight, just lie down and let them send you home in the morning. You’ve got to find another way of escaping.
He went across to the door and crouched down by the keyhole. He’d gotten a good look at the key when the police officer had unlocked the door. Now he examined the lock itself. It was a big, sturdy-looking mechanism, but Max was knowledgeable enough about locks to realize that it wasn’t very sophisticated. It was an old model that had been designed more for show than effectiveness. The lock—and the massive key that came with it—gave an impression of strength, but it was actually a very crude piece of ironwork. The tumblers inside, which were turned by the key to pull back the bolt, would be simple to pick—if Max had something to pick them with.
He heard footsteps in the corridor outside. Two sets. Male footsteps—Max could tell from the heavy sound. They went past his door and stopped outside the adjoining cell. A key rattled in a lock and a door squeaked open. Max heard the footsteps coming back, the two sets as before. Only this time there was a third set accompanying them. Lighter footsteps—maybe a woman’s? Definitely—there was the unmistakable click of heels on the stone flags of the corridor. A woman? Heels? Max’s heart leaped. He took a chance. “Consuela?” he shouted through his door. “Consuela, is that you?”
“Max?” It was her voice. “Max, you must get—”
The words were choked off abruptly.
“Consuela?” Max yelled. “Are you okay? What’s happening? Consuela?”
The footsteps got fainter and then faded away altogether. Max hammered on the door of his cell with his fists. “Hey, let me out!” he shouted. “Do you hear me? You can’t keep me locked up like this!’
He knew he was wasting his breath, but he had to release some of the frustration that had built up inside him. What the hell was going on? Consuela was alive, at least. That was a relief, but why was she being kept in a police cell and where were they taking her?
Max went across to the back wall of his cell. He reached up, his wrists still handcuffed together, then jumped, grabbing hold of the bars over the window. He pulled himself up and looked out. His previous cell window had faced an alley and a brick wall, but this one overlooked the floodlit yard at the rear of the police station.
Consuela was being led across the yard by two police officers. They were each holding one of her arms and were practically carrying her, her feet hardly touching the ground. She was struggling to escape, but she was no match for the men.
“Consuela!” Max yelled.
Consuela twisted her head round. “Max…”
She shouted something else. Max didn’t quite catch what it was because one of the policemen cupped his hand over her mouth to gag her again. Then she was bundled into the back of a police car and driven away. Max watched the car turn onto the street before he let go of the bars and dropped back
down to the floor of his cell.
What had Consuela called? He’d caught only a few words before the police officer had cut her off. But one of the words had sounded like ironed. Ironed? Why would Consuela shout that? Max thought about it for a while; then it suddenly dawned on him. It wasn’t ironed, it was island. It had to be Shadow Island.
Max sat on the wooden platform. He’d sensed there was something sinister about Isla de Sombra from the moment he’d arrived in Rio Verde. Was that where Consuela was being taken, or did she have another reason for mentioning it? Either way, it must be important, and Max wasn’t going to be of any use to her stuck in a police cell. He had to get out.
He held up his arms and examined the cuffs. He’d seen similar ones before. His father had built up a vast collection of handcuffs and manacles, and Max had practiced escaping from every single one of them. These were British-made, but they were at least ten years old, and the lock on them—by modern standards—was flimsy. With the right tool, Max could have had them open in a few seconds. But he didn’t have any tools on him, let alone the right one.
Maybe he could open them some other way. There were certain locks that could be disabled by tapping them in a particular place. Harry Houdini, the legendary escape artist, had kept a metal plate strapped to his leg underneath his trousers on which he could tap handcuffs to open them. But that was in the early twentieth century, and lock technology had moved on a lot since then. Still, it was worth a try.
Max shuffled to the end of the wooden platform and positioned his handcuffs so that the lock was directly in front of the sharp corner. He struck the cuffs against the wood several times, hoping the impact might dislodge the tumblers inside the lock. But nothing happened. What other method could he try?
Then he remembered. He was wearing trousers with a belt. And on the belt was a metal buckle. He reached down and unfastened it, then flipped out the metal spike in the center of the buckle and inserted it into the keyhole of the handcuffs. It wasn’t the ideal implement for picking a lock, but it was more than adequate in Max’s skilled hands. The lock clicked open. He pulled off the cuffs and rubbed his wrists, sore where the steel bands had chafed his skin.
Now for the door. Max crossed the cell and paused, checking there was no guard outside who might hear him working on the lock. “Hello?” he called. “Is there anybody there?” He put his eye to the keyhole. “Hola!”
He saw nothing, heard no sound in the corridor. There was obviously no guard. That didn’t surprise him. As far as the police were concerned, he was just a kid, a kid who was handcuffed and locked in a secure cell. He couldn’t possibly pose any kind of threat.
Max slipped the belt out from the loops on his waistband, crouched down in front of the door and inserted the buckle spike into the lock. He maneuvered it around for a couple of minutes without any noticeable effect, then removed it and had a rethink. The spike was too straight. The tumblers of the lock were arranged in parallel. What he needed was a hook he could insert between the tumblers to push them back one after the other.
He slid the tip of the spike into the narrow gap between the door and the jamb and exerted pressure on it, hoping that the metal wouldn’t snap. Slowly, the end bent at a right angle. That was better. Max put the modified implement back into the keyhole and probed the moving parts of the mechanism. Click! The first tumbler sprang back. Max peered into the keyhole. How many tumblers were there? On complex locks there could be five or more. But on this old one there were probably three at the most. Click! The second tumbler snapped back. Max twisted the spike to get farther in and felt the tip break. He mouthed an expletive. That was the last thing he needed.
Pulling out the spike, he examined the end. The tip had sheared off, leaving a jagged point behind. There was still a slight hook, though. That might just be enough. Max put the spike back into the keyhole, pushing it in as far as he could. He twisted it and eventually felt it catch on something—the edge of the third tumbler. But the lock had rusted with age. The parts no longer moved as smoothly as they once had. Max increased the pressure. “Come on,” he whispered. “Just a little bit farther.”
It wasn’t going to go: The lock was too stiff. Max squeezed the tip of his forefinger into the keyhole to get extra leverage and pushed on the spike. He felt the tumbler give a little. He kept pushing. The tumbler gave a bit more, then…it clicked back and the bolt disengaged.
Max stood up and grasped the door handle. This was a first for him—breaking out of a police cell—but it gave him no feeling of elation. He was too worried about Consuela. He depressed the handle. The steel door swung open. Max looked about cautiously. The cell block appeared to be deserted. He stepped out and edged slowly along to the end of the corridor. A flight of stairs went up to his left; on the right was a door that, he guessed, gave access to the backyard. He eased the door open a fraction. Yes, there was the yard, a black-and-white police car parked nearby against the wall.
The stairs were out of the question. Going up them into the heart of the police station would lead to certain capture. So the yard it was. But how could he get across without being spotted? The area was brightly lit, and there was a high metal gate topped with spikes across the exit, an intercom next to it that you presumably had to speak into to get it opened. Not good.
Voices rang out on the stairs. Max heard the heavy tread of boots. Someone was coming. He looked around in a panic. Where should he go? Back to his cell? No way. He’d only just got out of there. He pulled back the door and darted out. What now? The yard was bordered on three sides by buildings. Max couldn’t see anywhere to hide. He’d just have to run for it, try to climb over the gate.
Then he had another idea. A reckless, totally wild idea that might just work. He ran over to the police patrol car, pulled open the rear door, and threw himself inside, turning round to close the door quietly behind him. He lay on the floor behind the front seats in the darkness, his heart pounding.
Those footsteps he’d heard, were they officers coming to see him in his cell? If they were, he was done for. They’d raise the alarm when they found him gone. Every nook and cranny of the police station and the yard would be searched until Max was located. But maybe they weren’t coming to see him. Hopefully it would be morning before his escape was discovered.
He heard the voices again—two men speaking in Spanish as they crossed the yard. One of them laughed. They sounded relaxed, not like men who’d just found a cell door unlocked and a prisoner missing. The front doors of the police car opened. Max’s heart missed a beat. The men were getting in.
The front seats rocked as the two police officers sank into them. Max held his breath, his body rigid. If the officers looked back…
The engine turned over. The two policemen kept talking. One of them lit a cigarette. The car moved off.
Max let the air out of his lungs and started breathing normally again. The sounds of the engine and the men’s voices were loud enough to cover any slight noise he made.
At the exit barrier, the car paused. The driver spoke into the intercom and the gate swung open. The patrol car turned out into the street and accelerated.
For the next half hour they drove around the streets of Rio Verde, the men talking and smoking, Max lying motionless on the floor in the back. Then the radio crackled. A voice relayed a message in Spanish. Max listened intently for a mention of his name, but he didn’t hear one. The officer in the passenger seat picked up the radio mike and acknowledged the message, then flipped a switch, turning on the patrol-car siren and roof light. The vehicle did a sharp U-turn and sped back the way it had come. For a moment, Max wondered whether they were returning to the police station, but then the patrol car careered round a corner and skidded to a halt. The officers jumped out. There were yells, the sound of glass breaking. Max lifted his head and risked a look out of the car window.
They were outside a bar in the center of the city. Four or five drunken young men brandishing beer bottles were brawling on the pavement. T
he police officers were busy breaking them apart.
Max moved fast. He opened the door on the road side and slithered out on his belly. Getting to his feet, he looked round. The policemen were concentrating on breaking up the fight, the boys on getting away from the vicious baton blows. No one was looking Max’s way. He dashed across the road and away down a side street.
The courtyard was in darkness, not a light burning in any of the windows. Max made his way carefully up the stairs to the third floor and knocked on an apartment door. When he got no response, he knocked again.
Bare feet padded on the tiles inside the apartment and a bolt slid back. The door opened a few inches on a chain and Isabella’s wary eyes peered out. She recognized Max immediately. “It’s you,” she said softly in English. “What you want?”
“I need help,” Max said.
“Is the middle of the night.”
“Please, let me in. I have nowhere else to go.”
“What you mean?”
“The police may be looking for me.”
Isabella’s eyes opened wide with fear. “The police? You must go away. I’m sorry, we no want any trouble.”
She started to close the door, but Max jammed his foot in the gap to stop her.
“Please, listen to me,” he said urgently. “Your dad helped my dad. I need your help now. You can’t turn me away.”
“Is too dangerous.”
Isabella pushed hard on the door, trying to force Max’s foot out.
“Don’t you want to know why your father was murdered?”
Isabella froze. She stared at Max. “What you say?”
“Let me in—we need to talk.”
“Murdered?”
“Let me in, Isabella. This is important.”
She hesitated for a second. Then she unhooked the chain and pulled back the door to let him in.