“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 f
irst 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.”
The sound of more cars, the noise echoing strangely in the enclosed space. “The reception’s over.” His voice was almost drowned by the revving of engines. “They’re all in evening dress. Going home. It’s late, I’m afraid.”
Too late? Useless and dangerous to ask. From the way the noise was increasing, they must be close to the car park now. “This way.” As they groped their way forwards, the light at the end of the tunnel increased as well as the noise. Now, Michael guided her round a corner of rock and she found herself looking down on to the huge car park. Dimly lighted, it was still about a quarter full of cars, many of them moving and manoeuvring their way towards the exit, which was at the far side from where they stood.
“Damnation.” Michael’s hand was on her arm. “Just too late,” he said quietly, pointing, and at the same time holding her back in the shadow at the back of the ledge on which they were standing.
Straining her eyes, she saw the reason for the delay at the exit. Uniformed attendants were checking each car as it left. Uniformed. The “police” who had knocked her out. Frensham’s men.
“I could steal a car easily enough,” Michael told her. “That’s what I’d planned. But we’d never get past that check-up. They’ve just started it. I wonder why. Pity we didn’t get here ten minutes ago. How’s your strength?”
“Good,” she said.
“Bless you for a gallant liar.” He guided her back round the corner of the rock, light and sound diminishing together.
“Not back up?” She did not think she could face it.
“No, not that, but I’m afraid it’s almost as bad. If nothing has changed, this tunnel should take us along to where the river goes under. You can swim, can’t you?”
“Oh, yes. But, Michael, you don’t mean …” They were talking a little louder now, their voices reassuringly masked by the reverberation of engines.
“It’s the only way,” he said. “And not much time either, I’m afraid. The reception was due to end at eleven. Less than an hour to go. I hope to God they get all the cars out in time. Stupid of Frensham to slow them up with that search. But like him. What are a few extra deaths to him? Because we’ve got to face it. There’s a strong chance that we’re going to be too late to give the alarm. We may have to say goodbye to that opera house, and just pray to God there’s no one in it. We’ll build another one, I promise you; smaller; the right size for Lissenberg.
“We?”
“We Lissenbergers.” As they talked, he had been guiding her along the smooth concrete floor of the tunnel. “Look.” He paused for a moment to point upwards at a darker patch in the general gloom. “That’s the way we came down. No wonder I never noticed it from down here. I don’t suppose anyone else has, except maybe the workmen who built the garage. They would have had light.”
“I wish we had.” It had been hard to move away from the dim light of the big garage, back to feeling their way in the cold darkness.
“Not long now,” he told her. “And just as well. I want you right away from here before it goes up.” And then, “Don’t mind too much about the opera house. It’s people matter, not things. And just think what a surprise we’re going to give James Frensham. Ah!” His guiding arm tightened on hers. “Listen!”
The sound of water, ahead and below. Water rushing fast. A waterfall? “Michael, I can’t!”
“Oh, yes you can. You want to live, don’t you? To sing again. To marry me? Well, that’s our way, down there.” He was holding her close, the sound of water below them somewhere. “You’ll have to go first,” he told her. “You dive in, not too deep, and a deep breath first. Then hold it, just as long as you can. Stay under till you’re bursting, till you can’t stand it a moment longer, then up to the surface and let yourself go with the current. You should be about halfway down the valley, more or less level with the hostel. I’ll come right in after you. Tread water, if you can, and wait for me. The current shouldn’t be too strong. Then all we have to do is get safe under the road bridge, and we’re home and dry.”
“Home and wet,” she said.
14
So Many Questions, and no time to ask any of them. Obediently, she kicked off her light sandals. Her cloak and dagger she had left behind in the torture chamber, but she baulked momentarily when he told her to take off her tunic. “It might just make the difference.”
He was right, of course. Shivering in bra and pants, she thought it impossible to be colder. He had stripped to his jeans, now put a chilly arm round her shoulders in a quick gesture of love and encouragement. “I’ll be right behind,�
�� he said. “I love you dearly. You’re a good breather. Breathe, and dive, not too deep, remember—and God speed you. Now, quick!”
She obeyed him, marvelling at herself. A long breath, a plunge that seemed endless before she met the icy shock of the water, and then the current had her. She had dived in sideways to it, but the very force of it turned her round. Hold your breath … She was counting to herself … Twelve, thirteen, fourteen … Something scraped against her side; the icy water surged savagely round her … Twenty, twenty-one, twenty-two … What was the longest she had ever held her breath for? Twenty-nine, thirty … The water felt easier round her … Could she be out in the valley already? Michael had not told her how the stream emerged … Best not to know? … Thirty-three, thirty-four … Or had she lost count?
It made no difference. Could make none. Her lungs were bursting, and her legs, as she kicked out for the surface, so cold that they only just obeyed her. Air. An enormous shuddering breath … Her mind began to steady. Forty, she said to herself, and opened her eyes. An amazing jumble of light and sound. Not daylight. The water around her dark as it was cold. Shadows to right and left must be the banks of the stream. But above them glowed light, and from beyond she could hear the sound of voices, laughter, shouts … Almost too cold to think. Tread water, Michael had said, wait for him. But if she did not make herself swim, the cold would kill her. And starting to swim, was aware of movement behind her in the water.
“Anne?” Just audible above the rush of the water.
“Yes.”
“Quick. Can you? It’s not safe here. I’d forgotten the crowds.” The words came out in breathless gasps as he swam beside and a little behind her.
He was right. At any moment someone might look down into the stream and see them. And it was Frensham’s “police” who were in control of the crowded valley. Suppose they had been told to keep an eye on the river. But why should they? How far was it to the bridge at the bottom of the valley? Too far, she thought. As far as from here to doomsday.
Last Act Page 21