Missing Dad 3

by J Ryan

  Without a breath, we slide beneath the table. The shadows deepen as the white light goes out. Those high-heeled shoes tip tap on the rock floor within inches of my face. I wait for the shoes to stop. But they don’t. They head for the exit. The silk dress rustles. There’s a clink of keys. A click, as the blue lights are switched off. Then, a gust of that scent blows towards us as the door clangs shut behind her. A key turns in the lock. Another rumble booms over our heads.

  ***

  ‘OK. It wasn’t a good idea.’ Becks’ voice is very quiet.

  ‘Let’s get the torches back on.’ We scramble out from under the table.

  ‘Sorry, Joe. I really blew it, didn’t I?’

  ‘No! We know an awful lot more now.’

  ‘A lot of good that’s going to do us. How are we ever going to get out of here?’

  ‘We’ve got to use our brains. You’re better at it than me. Think, Becks!’

  She shines her mobile onto the lock. ‘Perhaps we can find something…?’ The light darts around the bench tables. There are drawers beneath.

  I rummage inside and find a pair of scissors. ‘This might do it.’ Jamming the smaller blade into the lock, I manoeuvre it around. Lock doesn’t want to know. I glance at my watch. Ten past three. Fifty minutes before we’re locked in for the night, even if we find a way out of this stinking room. ‘You’re hot on Chemistry, Becks. Is there something in those jars we could use to maybe, corrode the lock? Or the door?’

  Her torch beam picks out the label on one of the jars. ‘Hydrofluoric acid. It would dissolve our skin long before we got it near the door.’

  ‘Bad idea, then.’

  The beam moves on to the next jar. ‘Sodium. Mix it with water, and it explodes.’

  ‘Let’s do it.’

  ‘We’d need so much water, a swimming pool might not be enough to blow out that door.’

  ‘Right.’

  Becks skips the beam across two more jars. ‘Acetone peroxide. Ammonium chlorate. We don’t want to go near those.’

  ‘What IS this place? A poison lab or an explosives factory?’

  ‘It could be both.’

  ‘Then there must be something that can get us out of here!’

  ‘We can’t use any of these chemicals. They’ll kill us.’

  ‘Can I borrow your torch? Mine’s had it.’ The slim beam moves around the lab. It shines on the Bunsen burners then on the two cylinders. ‘Gas! Enough of it, and we can blow out that door.’

  ‘And blow ourselves into another place!’

  ‘There’s the other room. We can use the door as a barrier. We just need to fill this room with gas and then ignite it, don’t we?’

  ‘We’ve got no idea what will actually happen.’

  ‘Like, what?’

  ‘Like, we could bring the roof down? We don’t know how thick it is. And all those chemicals could explode and kill us with their poison gases. If we haven’t already been crushed by the roof.’

  ‘So it’s a doss, isn’t it?’

  She sighs. ‘OK. First thing, we need breathing equipment. There’s a couple of face masks and oxygen cylinders on the shelf below that drawer.’ Precious minutes tick past as we work out how to put on the masks and cylinders. The masks look like they were made for a nuclear attack, they’re so complicated. We shove them up onto our heads so we can talk.

  ‘Now what?’

  ‘We get the gas next to the door.’ We drag the cylinders across the room.

  ‘There’s a box of matches in that drawer.’

  ‘Good. Now, we need something that’ll burn.’

  I grab a towel from the bench. ‘This’ll do.’

  ‘Pass it over. I just want to check…’ She sniffs it cautiously. ‘Hmm…there’s something on it but I don’t think it’s anything that’ll explode in our faces.’

  That rumble again. ‘D’you think it’s the Metro? Sounds really close.’

  ‘Let’s hope not. Right, let’s get these things open.’ She twists at the tap on the first cylinder. ‘I can’t budge it!’

  ‘Here, let me have a go.’ I yank at the tap. Grudgingly, it starts to turn. There’s a hissing. Cylinder number two puts up less of a fight. ‘That’s got it.’ The hissing intensifies.

  ‘Where are the matches?’

  ‘In my pocket.’ We go into the room, and close the door firmly. I flick the torch around. It seems to be a small office. ‘There’s a mobile on that table. Looks like the latest Samsung.’

  Another rumble. Becks looks upwards at the rock ceiling. ‘What IS that? The trains don’t run every thirty seconds!’

  ‘How long before there’s enough gas for an explosion?’

  ‘That’s the big one. We give it, say, five minutes?’

  ‘That long?’

  ‘We haven’t time for a second go at this, Joe. It’s got to work.’ We crouch in the dark, with only the pencil beam of the torch for company. ‘What did you say about a mobile?’

  ‘Oh yeah, I forgot. On the table. It could have some useful addresses and stuff. I think we should take it with us.’

  ‘IF we get out!’

  Wondering if I’m going to set off an alarm, I pick up the phone. ‘Yuk!’

  ‘What is it?’

  Recoiling, I put the mobile back on the table. ‘There’s some kind of gel all over the keys.’ I spot some paper lying on the table. Scrunching it up, I scrub at my hands. ‘She must have spilt something on it.’

  Becks’ voice is wary. ‘Spilling stuff doesn’t sound like our Poison Ivy.’

  The skin on my hands feels cold. I stare at the mobile. When the next rumble comes, a few seconds later, it’s deafening. ‘How long now?’

  ‘Forty seconds.’

  My hands are starting to tingle. ‘Let’s light the towel. It could take a few goes to get it burning. Can you hold the torch?’ Trying to keep my hands steady, I strike a match. A small burn mark appears on the towel and the match goes out. I strike another. The towel starts to smoulder. Then, it’s alight. My hands are stinging now.

  Becks jumps up. ‘Masks on!’

  ‘I’m going to chuck it, right?’

  ‘Do it.’

  I hurl the burning towel towards the gas cylinders and slam the door closed. Jamming on our oxygen masks, we scramble for the other side of the room. I pull the table across and we crawl beneath it. Seconds go by. The skin on my hands feels red hot.

  Becks’ voice is muffled behind her mask. ‘Maybe five minutes wasn’t long enough.’

  ‘Shall I take a look?’ I have to push the words out. Something’s happening to my throat.

  ‘We daren’t open the door now. Let’s give it…’

  BAROOMM!

  The last thing I remember is the door spinning towards us like a ballistic missile, in front of a sheet of flame.

  ***

  I’m on my back. All I can hear is my wheezing breath. My throat’s closing up. Two hands, swollen like balloons, float in front of my face. I can hear Becks, a long way off. ‘Joe – are you alright?’ She grabs my arm. ‘Your hands! Oh, God!’

  I lift my head and try to speak but nothing comes out. My head drops back down. I can’t get any air at all now. I want to shout, ‘Get out of it, Becks! Run!’ But in the darkness, choking, all I can do is shake my head in slow motion.

  ‘Joe…!’ Becks’ voice echoes into silence.

  I’m drifting. Endless tunnels. Skull faces fly towards me. The empty eye sockets get closer and closer. They yawn into more tunnels, sucking me in. I’m falling, now. The stone floor is opening beneath me. I can hear the roar of boulders, tearing themselves apart. And I’m toppling in. Going down.

  Then something touches the back of my left hand. It’s like a pinprick. So light, I can hardly feel
it. Suddenly, air is going into my lungs. I gulp in massive breaths. All I can hear is the roaring of my own breathing in my head. I’m underwater, now. Still, the roaring. This thing on my face is a scuba mask. It’s so dark, I must be very deep underwater. Perhaps I’ll meet some electric fish. Must tell Jack about it. I’m not alone, down here. Becks is calling again, ‘Joe!’ She must be swimming with me. I think she’s crying. And she’s talking to someone in this deep, dark ocean. ‘Is he…?’

  I hear Monsieur’s quiet voice. ‘He is breathing again.’

  Like a diver coming back up to the light, I climb towards the slim beam of Becks’ little mobile torch. The light catches the silver of Monsieur’s short-cropped hair. ‘Can you hear me, Joe?’

  This must be a dream. Slowly, I nod.

  ‘Do you think you can stand up?’ Coughing, and shielding his mouth with one hand, he slips his arm under mine. My head swims and my legs feel like jelly. Heaving myself up, I look at my hands. They’re puffy and black. Must be dirt from the explosion. Another rumble. Stones clatter down from the rock ceiling.

  ‘We have to leave this place, Joe. Put your arm over my shoulder.’

  With hardly any feeling in them, like I’m wearing inch-thick gloves, my sausage fingers reach up clumsily and try to pull at my mask. Gurgling words comes out of my tight throat. ‘Can I…?’

  His voice is sharp. ‘On no account!’

  ‘Becks…?’

  I can barely see her through the clouds of dust. She still has her mask on. Her voice is muffled. ‘Can you walk, Joe?’

  I take a step. Next thing, I’m on my knees in the rubble like a toddler who’s lost it. I force the words through the mask. ‘What…?’

  Monsieur helps me up, and my legs are leaden as we climb over the wrecked door into the tunnel. ‘She poisoned you, Joe. She wanted you to die.’

  ***

  Slowly, some strength comes back into my legs, as I stumble down that dark passage, holding onto Monsieur’s shoulder. Becks follows. ‘Monsieur, how did you…?’

  ‘When I got your message, I knew at once who you meant. I also knew where to look for her. I did not expect to find you and Joe here, instead.’

  ‘How did you know she’d poisoned Joe?’

  His voice is grim. ‘The triggering of anaphylactic shock is one of the Contessa da Palestrina’s trademarks. I found that out some years ago. Ever since, I have always carried anti-histamine.’

  ‘It must have been the mobile, Joe!’

  ‘Something you touched?’

  I wheeze. Becks says quickly, ‘Joe picked up a mobile that was lying around. We were going to take it with us. There was this sticky gel on it.’

  ‘It would have contained a poison quickly absorbed into the bloodstream. You were suffering an extreme allergic reaction, Joe. If you had not been wearing that oxygen mask, it would have been too late to save you.’

  We’ve reached the squat with its glaring graffiti. ‘The fumes are behind us now. It is safe to remove your masks.’ My hands fumble and shake as I pull off my mask. I look at my fingers. It’s not dust that’s made them so black. ‘It is bruising, from the sudden swelling. In time, it will pass.’

  Becks tears off her mask, long red hair tumbling down her shoulders. She looks at her watch. ‘It’s half four. They’ll have locked us in here. The party! Arnaud!’

  Monsieur’s voice is urgent. ‘Arnaud? What has he to do with this?’

  ‘Talia, this new girl at our school? We’re sure she’s this Palestrina woman’s daughter. She invited Joe and me to her birthday party here in Paris. And she said Arnaud would be there.’

  ‘Becks…’ My throat is still too tight to talk. But I HAVE to talk to her…what she said, on the train.

  ‘We only came because she said Arnaud would be there. We had to warn him. We couldn’t get through to you, Monsieur.’

  His voice is very quiet. ‘What did you have to warn him about?’

  ‘Detective Inspector Wellington told us about Palestrina. How she poisons people. How she’s trying to take over Bertolini’s territory now that he’s locked up.’

  I force it out. ‘Becks…the…’

  She whispers, ‘Don’t try to talk, Joe.’ She looks at Monsieur. ‘We worked out the rest from that coded email she sent you sixteen years ago. Never Forget Me…’

  He murmurs, like he’s back there in the past, ‘And that woman knows my son? Dear God.’ He looks at us. ‘So it is tonight, this party that Arnaud plans to attend?’

  Becks nods. ‘At her place, or somewhere near. It starts around nine.’

  ‘Then hopefully, there is still time.’ Quickly, he leads us from the chamber, back down the tunnel. With a feeling of relief, I sense the energy creeping back into my legs. We hurry along with only the pencil beam of the torch picking out the path.

  My throat burning, I croak at Becks. ‘What…if you were right?’

  ‘Right about what?’

  ‘What if Arnaud…isn’t at the party? Remember what you said…about the double hook?’

  ‘If he’s not at the party, he’s safe from her, isn’t he?’

  I still sound like a frog. ‘Is he? She thinks she’s killed us. What’s she going to do next?’

  Monsieur calls urgently from up ahead, ‘Do you need help, Joe? We must move quickly.’

  Becks’ voice is troubled as she takes my arm. ‘We just don’t know, do we? Arnaud could be there.’ Following Monsieur, we retrace our steps until we get to the barrier where we turned off to follow the Contessa. All the lights have been switched off. Becks’ phone torch flashes on the empty eyes of the grinning skulls as we hurry past.

  When we reach the spiral staircase, Monsieur continues for a few yards. Another barrier is chained across the entrance to a tunnel far smaller than the one we’re in. He unclips it. ‘This is not an easy route. But it is the quickest.’

  The tunnel goes up in a steep slope. It’s so low we have to crawl, in a slow, painful climb that seems to go on forever. After a while, I’m gasping for breath. Monsieur turns. ‘Put your mask back on, Joe. The oxygen will help.’ It does help, although the mask makes me feel like Darth Vader. I’ve lost all track of time when we finally emerge from the tunnel onto a platform of rock. Becks and I stand up, flexing aching backs. I tear off the mask and chuck it into the shadows. Several seconds pass before we hear it land. I look more closely at what is yawning at our feet. ‘Give me the torch, Becks. You will need both your hands for this.’ The slim beam touches an iron ladder, bolted to a wall of rock. Between us and the ladder, a narrow well plummets into the dark. ‘I will go first. You next, Joe.’

  ‘OK.’

  Monsieur leaps lightly across. His hands grab the ladder; he swings for a moment, then pulls himself up, his feet finding a rung. Some small stones rattle down into the well. He holds out his hand to me. Without looking down, I jump. His hand grasps my arm and pulls me onto the ladder. ‘Good. Now climb up past me.’

  Tingling as some feeling starts to come back, my huge fingers fumble with the rungs. He looks across to Becks.

  ‘Ready, steady…’ Her flying figure leaps across the abyss. She gets hold of a rung, then her hand slips.

  Quick as a flash, Monsieur grabs her arm. ‘Get your feet on the ladder!’ Her breath comes in gasps as she hangs above the drop. Slowly, one foot, then the other, finds a rung. She grasps the ladder and pulls herself towards me. The torch beam points upwards into the darkness. Monsieur’s voice comes quietly from below, ‘Take great care. It is slippery in places.’ I wonder just how high the ladder is and put the question behind me. Every muscle is protesting now. And I can barely feel my fat hands as I grasp one rung after the other. I’m getting scared that I’ll lose it and just drop into that black well. Then Monsieur calls upwards, ‘We are very close to the top now.’

  At
those words, fresh energy surges into my aching arms and legs. A few minutes later, the ladder comes to an end. ‘Whooh, we’re there!’ Feeling around, I pull myself onto flat rock, wriggling right away from that hole.

  Becks scrambles out. ‘Where’s there?’

  ‘Six feet below Place Denfert-Rochereau.’ Monsieur shines the torch onto a round metal plate in the roof just above our heads. He gives it a shove, lifts it slightly and listens. ‘All clear. Quickly!’ Becks and I need no urging to get out of this place fast. As Monsieur replaces the manhole cover, I take huge gasps of the sweet air. This being alive thing is definitely OK by me.

  Chapter 9

  Behind the Mask

  Dusk is falling and the street lights are coming on, as we follow Monsieur across the square with the waking lion and into a small side road. He unlocks the doors of a battered white Citroen. I stare at it as we get in. ‘Where’s the Merc, Monsieur?’

  He smiles that half-smile. ‘Too easily noticed, Joe. Like the Armani.’ He’s wearing just a casual shirt, sleeves rolled up, and old jeans smeared with dust and soot from our underground journey. He looks so much younger in this gear, even with that short, silver hair. But his face is preoccupied. Inside the car, he punches a number into his phone. He shakes his head. ‘Switched off.’ He taps in a brief text message, then turns round to us from the driving seat. ‘Have you spoken to Arnaud at all, since we last met?’

  I shake my head. ‘We didn’t have his mobile.’

  Becks says gently, ‘Have you any idea how Arnaud could have met Talia, Monsieur?’

  ‘During those years when he was in Bertolini’s power, many things could have happened. Things that he may never want me to know.’

  ‘Do you think he knows what her mother is?’

  ‘In the high society circles she moves in, few people suspect what she is. In the underworld, everyone knows.’ The Big Question raises its head like a gargoyle in my brain. But I daren’t ask Monsieur how he seems to know this deadly woman so well.

  Becks says, ‘What happened, Monsieur, after we left you at Marseille?’

  ‘Arnaud and I have had to remain undercover. There was a great deal of police activity after Bertolini was arrested.’