The Vault

by Karen Long

  The building reeked of volatile chemicals, ordure and decomposition. If she’d previously considered it to be a fortress she now amended that description to a charnel house. Eleanor calculated that she’d have between three and four minutes to find Tommy, and plan either an escape or a defence. She debated whether to turn on the lights, as it was so dark, but darkness was to her advantage. Yanking out several kitchen drawers she found a slim but sharp fish knife. The kitchen door rattled and then began to shake as Toby tried to open it. She reasoned that the carboys were heavy and, if filled with volatile chemicals, dangerous to manoeuver, so the basement was the most likely location. The door rattling stopped.

  Time to move.

  Eleanor’s eyes were not entirely adjusted to the sudden change in light intensity and her lurch forwards caused her to crack her leg on the side of the huge oak table. The pain seared through the scar tissue reminding her that the last time she’d been alone with a killer, it hadn’t gone well. Limping to the nearest door, she pulled it open to reveal a pantry. The second opened onto a corridor, which stretched off to either side.

  There was no doubting the entrance to the basement and its purpose. She shuddered as she took in the noise-reducing polystyrene sheets that had been attached both to the door and around the frame. A clumsy hole had been cut, about halfway down the right hand side, and a key poked through. Once she entered this basement she knew that there would be no exit points, other than the way she came in. There was a splintering sound coming from somewhere off to her left. Decisively, Eleanor turned the key but the door was unlocked. The stench of unwashed flesh and fecal matter had an almost palpable quality as it surrounded her. Pocketing the key, she flipped on the light to reveal a small flight of stairs leading to a damp and squalid basement room. She could just about make out a steel cage in the middle of the room, and to its left a mattress covered in a pile of discarded and stained women’s clothing. Closing the door behind her, she tiptoed down the steps, and stared with disbelief at the contraption. She took in the mechanism, noting the lock was still in place, and concluded that it must be used for caging and pinioning his victims. The familiar band of pressure circled her throat as she moved closer. There were signs of some recent modification to the design, with unmatched metal supports making the structure smaller, possibly so that a child couldn’t escape. “Tommy?” she heard herself whisper. She peered into the bottom of the cage, hardly daring to look, but it was empty. A pair of soiled pyjama bottoms lay on the floor.

  Tommy was gone.

  There was a heavy running tread above her, and Eleanor knew she couldn’t make it out of the basement without confronting Toby Adams and his butcher’s knife.

  Toby was incensed. Who the hell was the woman, and why had she smashed the window of his car and then locked him out of his own home? He knew of no one who held a grudge against him. She couldn’t be police, as she wouldn’t have behaved like a home invader. She definitely wasn’t Tommy’s mother, as Rosheen was pale, with short brown hair. He had never felt so violated in his life. But he wouldn’t make a scene; he’d get back in and deal with the problem quietly and efficiently, just as he had with Parminder Kaur, the blackmailing bitch. He had been averse to hiding spare keys under plant pots, as they were the first place someone would look and decided that entering the house through its weakest link, as he had done over thirty years ago, would be the best bet.

  Grabbing a crowbar from the tool kit he kept in the garage, he pulled back the ground ivy from the top of the unused coalhole and then slid it between the wooden cover boards. The slats were rotten and yielded easily to the pressure. Lowering himself cautiously into the dark pit, he felt along the damp walls till his feet touched the stone steps. The door that led up to the utility stairs gave out with the lightest of shoulder pushes.

  Toby didn’t bother adopting a stealthy approach, it was clear to him that the intruder had an agenda, and that it concerned a member of his family, he had little doubt. As he approached the basement door, he noted it was open and the key missing. Outraged, he yanked open the door and thundered down the stairs; she was going to pay long and bitterly for this. The crush was empty. His son was gone and only one thing could have happened; that woman had taken him. With a howl of rage, he hammered back up the stairs.

  Dragging in a deep lungful of air, Eleanor flung the clothes off her and tried to steady her racing heart, as it made her clumsy and light headed. The exquisite torture of not knowing if a twelve-inch blade was going to be thrust into her, had taken a toll on her nerves. Did Adams think she’d taken Tommy? He must have assumed he was still captive, or he would have searched the only feasible hiding space. If he didn’t know where Tommy was then she had a chance to find him first. Grabbing a cheap leather-look jacket from the mound, she wrapped it round her left forearm; it wasn’t Kevlar but would give some protection. Cautiously, she mounted the stairs, trying to pinpoint where Tommy was, and praying that wherever he was, he would stay silent and secure.

  Tommy was looking for his mother. He had finally managed to squeeze himself through a small gap in the cage and, despite his pain and distress, had opened the unlocked door and found the stairs that led up to where his mother was. He didn’t understand why his mom would have been upstairs, and had to conclude that either the man was lying or she was in a cage like the one he’d been in. He heard slams and crashes downstairs, but had to find her. The first room was a bathroom, the second some sort of cupboard, with sheets piled in it. He tried the next door. It smelled awful in there and he thought it might be another toilet but the light was on and he could see a bed with a shape in it. “Mummy?” he whispered. He glanced behind him; perhaps he’d better shut the door. Tiptoeing closer to the shape, he saw that there was a lot of dark brown hair on the pillow. It couldn’t be his mom, but it was a lady. Carefully, his teeth chattering, he pulled the sheet away, to reveal a big doll. He didn’t understand. Why would the man have a doll in his bed? He touched the doll’s face, it was hard and gave off a stink as he pressed it with his fingers. Suddenly there were heavy footsteps, without a second thought he slid under the bed, covering his face with his hands in an effort to screen out the terror. The footsteps paused outside the room. Slowly, the door swung open and covering his mouth, so a scream wouldn’t slip out, Tommy looked at the large feet as they stepped into the room. He wanted desperately to close his eyes, or even make a dash for the door but he was frozen to the spot. The feet moved towards the bed, stopping inches from his face. The heels began to rise, slowly.

  Suddenly, crashing through the silence of the house there was a loud, metallic ringing. The heels dropped, turned, and then walked briskly away from the bed and out of the room. Tommy waited for several moments before scrabbling forwards and pulling himself upright. Suddenly, a pair of hands encircled his mouth and a woman’s voice whispered urgently into his ear, “Tommy, I’m a detective and I’m going to get you home.”

  His instinct was to bite and claw and get away, but the arms held him tightly and the voice soothed him. “Tommy I’m going to take you home to your mom Rosheen, but you have to trust me. I need your help.”

  The emaciated, filthy body began to lose its tension and allow her arms to take its weight. Gently, she turned him round to face her. His face was covered in open sores, and his skin loose and grey with dehydration. “Tommy, I think that’s my police friends at the door and they’re coming to help us. But we need to stay safe until they get into the house. Do you understand?”

  “Why can’t you shoot him?” he asked.

  Toby stood in the corridor and stared at the front door, his lip curled with anger and disappointment, his fists clenched. He knew who was at the door. Only one type of individual would ignore the deterrents and clear messages that he wanted peace and privacy: the police. The bell was a strident reminder that his situation was poor, and his options apparently limited. Now, a hammering sound accompanied the cacophony. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t thought through the possibility that this ma
y happen at some time in the future, or played with the idea that he may have to abandon his family and start again. He glanced at the stairwell and smiled. She could have the child. He knew now that he was never meant to be a parent. But his family existed for him and him alone. He wouldn’t leave them to be owned by anyone else.

  It was time to leave, his hands as empty as the day he’d arrived at Crowthorne.

  Running into the basement, he pulled open the metal door to the chemical cupboard, lifted down three empty glass bottles and hurriedly filled each half-full of gasoline from the plastic fuel can, taking care not to splash himself. He’d long ago cut and rolled the linen to act as fuse, and quickly doused all three before wedging them into the tops. His hands shaking from the effort, he paused momentarily to ascertain where the police were now. Despite the incessant ringing of the doorbell, he could just make out a hammering on the kitchen door. He would have very little time to execute his departure but his was a prepared mind, and fortune would favour him.

  Tipping over the first carboy, he stepped gingerly away from the flow, quickly uncorking the second. The flashpoint would be reached within seconds and that made his safe exit through the coalhole dependent upon exquisite timing. He ran out of the now saturated storeroom, along the corridor, and into his workroom. Pushing off the lid to Tara’s tank, he allowed his eyes to linger momentarily on her perfect form and take in the lonely figure of Monty, his beloved dog but there was no time for sentimentality, his future was at stake. Placing the first Molotov cocktail by the storeroom and the second two by the workroom, he lit the first, shocked by the instantly expansive flame. He flung it at the far wall, delighted at the intensity of flame. Turning and fleeing down the corridor, he had just lit the second bottle, when he felt the impact of the flash point. It seemed to create an internal sound that compressed his lungs. A balloon of flame hugged the ceiling and rapidly expanded upwards. Hurling the second towards the sides of the tank, he turned and ran, taking the last unlit bottle with him.

  Eleanor had no idea where Toby Adams had gone. She suspected, or rather hoped, that he had been unnerved by the doorbell, and was planning his escape. However, several other plausible scenarios, vied for a less optimistic outlook. She just had to make it to the front door and Tommy would be safe, but those stairs were beginning to resemble a snake pit. Darkness on both sides gave her little opportunity for stealth, and Tommy had used up all of his reserves and clung to her like a limpet. Keeping her back to the wall, she inched along the corridor, the child’s legs wrapped round her waist, and his head buried into her shoulder. If Adams was waiting for her, she wouldn’t see him until he attacked. Maybe she should just stay low and wait it out? Momentarily distracted by the sudden increase in noise and smell, Eleanor instinctively dropped to the ground, covering the child’s body with hers. She could feel his chest heave with the shock of her weight, but any sound he made was lost as the explosion ripped through the building. Staggering to her feet, she was immediately hit with the impact of second and third explosions. Flames billowed from the stairwell and hugged the ceiling, and she knew the intensity would soon engulf the first floor. Pulling the terrified child into her arms, she ran to the end of the corridor and tried to open the window but a quick glance at the nails driven into the frames made it futile.

  “Up!” screamed Tommy, pointing to a staircase that lead up to the second floor. Her instincts were to avoid being trapped by the fire but the corridor was filling with heavy, black smoke. A blast of flame igniting the curtains to the left of them, decided matters for her. The second level corridor was smaller and narrower than the first. Of the five doorways leading off from it she pushed her way into the first, slammed the door shut behind them and, falling to her knees, unwrapped the jacket from her arm to use as a smoke excluder. She’d chosen this room as it faced the front and any fire truck would be able to reach them. Flinging open the curtains, she tried to open the window, but like the others it was nailed shut. She needed a chair or something heavy. Spinning round she saw with horror the awful thing that Tommy was staring at.

  Mo had arrived a full eleven minutes before Timms and Wadesky, and another four before Whitefoot and Smith drew up. He’d been rather circumspect about calling in the troops on such a tenuous lead but his unhappiness and frustration with recent events was sapping his usual reticence. He’d been unable to get through to Eleanor, and anxious about this had run through the residential lists for the Annex area. There were only two households that had the name Adams listed and both checked out. Warning bells had rung when he saw that an elderly couple, Mr and Mrs Godfrey Aspen were listed as living at ‘Crowthorne’, and had been since 1926. That, he had calculated, put them comfortably into their hundreds. So, his finger immobile on the doorbell, he waited.

  Mo had been mulling over his options when the explosion kicked at the door. He felt his chest tighten alarmingly and made several involuntary steps backwards into the arms of Timms. This wasn’t the time for supposition, Mo called for the Fire Support Unit, as Whitefoot ran round to check on Smith, who was trying to gain entry round the back of the house, Monster racing ahead.

  “Who’s in there?” bellowed Timms, above the noise. “Mo!”

  “Ellie. I think Ellie’s in there.”

  The elderly couple lay, dressed in dated evening attire, side by side on the double bed. Their hands had been linked and they were surrounded by desiccated, floral arrangements. Tommy’s small naked body began to shake, his unblinking eyes riveted to the sight. Saving his skin was her priority; his mind could be coaxed back later. Grabbing a small bedside chair she hit the window with all of her strength. The immediate increase in siren and shouting, gave her a flush of strength. “Here!” she screamed at the top of her lungs. “We’re here!” Uncertain that she had been spotted she grabbed the child. “They’re dolls Tommy,” she said, sinking to her knees.

  He shook his head. “They’re…”

  She gently turned his face away from the door; pulling him into her chest and wrapping her arms tightly round him. A small glowing spot had appeared in the centre of the wooden door panel and smoke seeped urgently around the casing.

  “No, dolls… like the one downstairs… like the ones in clothes shops. Nothing more. Do you understand?”

  The door bulged and cracked against the heat onslaught.

  “Yes… dolls,” he said faintly, as he wrapped his arms around her neck.

  She scanned the room, desperate for escape but there was nothing. They were surrounded by death and its means. She closed her eyes.

  Smith’s internal alarm bells were ringing loudly as he tried to see into the house. He raised his torch but there were no entry points, or even gaps in the shuttered windows. What the hell was this place? Monster had followed him round to the side of the building and was sniffing enthusiastically, his hackles up. “You don’t like this either buddy eh?” he whispered. Making his way to the back door, he gave it a try and then started to hammer on it. “Open up!” he bellowed. “Police!”

  Suddenly, the dog was barking hysterically. Smith shone his torch on him and was horrified to see Monster was barking at him. The dog lunged forward, taking Smith off his guard and began to growl, jumping nervously around his feet. “What the fuck!” he managed before the explosion blew him and the dog fifteen feet into the garden, sand-blasting them with glass and debris.

  Smith was trying to focus on exactly who was down. He tried opening his eyes but they were wet and unresponsive. The ‘man down’ voice was speaking loudly into his ear, while running calm hands over him. “Smith? You with us?”

  “Who’s down?” he managed to croak.

  “You are buddy. Keep very still and we’re going to get you outta here,” said the voice. “Officer down at rear of building. Needs urgent medical assistance, but area not secure! I repeat, area not secure,” Whitefoot yelled into his radio. He could hear the sirens but couldn’t make out much else. “Roger that…” came the reply.