Captives (42 page)

    Scott slowed his breathing and then, with infinite slowness, raised his head from the pillow.

    The dull ache remained but did not develop suddenly into the searing pain he had come to know so well. For that, at least, he was grateful. He propped himself up on one elbow and rose a few more inches, swinging his feet out of bed, touching the cold floor with his toes.

    He sat upright.

    No pain.

    Steadying himself, he prepared to stand, aware of the weakness in his legs.

    He stood up.

    A wave of dizziness hit him; for a moment he thought he was going to collapse. The room spun madly around. He shot out a hand to steady himself, almost knocking over the jug of water on the bedside table. It teetered precariously for a second but remained upright. He leant against the bed, closing his eyes, waiting for the dizziness to pass. He stood up more slowly this time, pressing each of his feet in turn hard onto the floor.

    
All right, hot-shot. Now let's see you walk.

    He took a faltering step, afraid that the dizziness would return, or worse than that, the pain.

    Neither happened.

    He walked with relative ease towards the door, turned and walked back again. He repeated his movements, still aware of the silence beyond the closed door.

    He had to know if there was anyone there.

    From what Porter had told him, he knew he had to get into the adjacent room.

    Porter.

    Scott hoped he'd managed to fulfil his part of the plan. Not that it would matter if he had or not, if Scott couldn't get into the next room.

    He reached down for the door-knob; his hand rested on it.

    If the orderly was there he would want to know why Scott was out of bed.

    If he wasn't, he couldn't be far away.

    If…

    Scott glanced down at the door-knob again.

    He swallowed hard.

    Still silence from the other side.

    He hesitated, looking across at the bedside table. To the jug of water.

    Scott turned and headed back, sitting on the edge of the bed. He waited a moment then pushed the metal jug. It landed with a loud clang on the floor.

    No one came running to see what was happening.

    The door didn't open.

    Scott got to his feet and crossed to the door, this time turning the knob immediately. He peered out into the room beyond. It was empty but for a small desk and some cupboards round the walls.

    On the corner of the desk was a steaming mug of tea.

    Scott realised that the orderly who'd left it would be back to claim it.

    He had to move fast.

    The laundry chute was directly opposite him, a hole in the wall about three feet square.

    Scott closed the door behind him and made for the chute, clambering in feet first, feeling the cold metal against his back when the surgical gown opened. He supported his weight against the frame of the chute, aware of the dull ache in his skull.

    
Please don't let it be a long drop.

    He let go of the frame.

    His weight carried him faster than he would have liked; in seconds, he found himself coming to the bottom of the chute. He went hurtling off the metal lip and sprawled on a pile of dirty sheets, rolling over once.

    He grunted in pain as he hit the bottom and flopped over onto his back, the pain in his head intensifying for a moment.

    It was almost pitch black in the laundry room, the only light coming from a furnace that stood in the centre. It was used to burn any linen too soiled to be used again. The small chamber was lit by a hellish red glow from the furnace's mouth.

    Scott got to his feet, touching his head tentatively, aware of the stench around him.

    The sheets he was lying on were smeared with excrement. Scott grunted and dragged himself upright, wiping the reeking mess from his hands with a clean portion of the sheet. Still, they had served their purpose to break his fall. As he looked around he could hear the low rumble of the furnace. The stone floor beneath his feet was warm.

    Scott squinted in the gloom and finally found what he sought.

    The laundry cart was there, just as Porter had promised.

    Scott crossed quickly to it, rummaging through the dirty linen inside.

    He found the prison overall.

    Moving swiftly he pulled off the surgical gown and tossed it aside. Climbing into the overalls, he held on to the side of the cart momentarily as he felt a particularly violent stab of pain inside his head.

    
Not now.

    It passed. He continued searching through the cart, ignoring the stench that rose from its contents.

    His hand closed over the torch and he pulled it free. Ficking it on, he tested the beam in the gloom of the furnace room.

    At the bottom of the cart he found the knife.

    It was fully ten inches long; Porter must have taken it from the kitchen. Scott ran his thumb gently along the edge of the blade, feeling its razor sharpness. Satisfied, he slid it into his belt.

    The door of the furnace room opened out onto one of the prison's two courtyards. As Scott peered into the night he could see search-lights moving slowly back and forth over the open, cobbled area.

    A little to his left was the drain cover, two feet square and rusted. He knew he must remove it.

    He stood there for moments, trying to estimate how long he had between the light passing. It was no more than ten seconds.

    The beam swept by and Scott hurried across to the cover. He dug his fingers inside and pulled.

    It wouldn't shift.

    The light was turning, sweeping back towards him.

    He pulled at the lid again.

    Jesus, it was heavy.

    Five seconds before the light returned.

    He pulled.

    Pain filled his head as he grunted with the effort.

    Four seconds.

    It moved a fraction.

    Three.

    Scott dropped the lid again and scurried back inside the furnace room as the light swept by.

    He watched it disappear in a wide arc then tried the lid for the second time.

    It moved a fraction more, the rusty metal scraping against the stone.

    
Come on. Come on.

    The light was beginning its movement back towards him.

    Scott lifted, his muscles screaming with the effort, the pain in his head intensifying.

    Nine seconds away.

    The drain lid was coming away.

    Eight.

    He lifted it free with a final triumphant grunt and shone the torch down into the black maw below.

    Seven.

    The powerful beam picked out a rusted metal ladder. Far below, the light reflected on the surface of a stream of filthy water.

    Six.

    Scott swung himself into the outlet, climbing down the first few steps. Gripping the metal grille in one hand, he hauled it back into place behind him.

    Five.

    
Jesus, the pain.

    Four.

    The grille dropped into place above him.

    Three.

    He clambered down the next few rungs as the light swept over. Scott hugged the ladder, his breath coming in gasps. He shone the torch below surprised how far down the shaft went. The old sewers must be a good seventy or eighty feet below ground. Scott swallowed hard, then began to descend.

    

    

    The stench was almost unbearable in the tunnels but Scott pressed on, wading through filthy water that lapped as high as his knees. The walls on either side of him were crumbling, pieces of rotten stone falling away as he touched them. Occasionally his hand encountered patches of the green slime that coated the subterranean passages like putrid mucus. It was like walking through the gangrenous veins of some sleeping giant, paddling in stagnant blood.

    Scott realised that the sewer tunnels were so full because of the rain that was still falling. The knowledge hardly made his journey any more palatable, all the same. He would stop every few hundred yards to catch his breath and try to get his bearings. The tunnels usually ran straight, but when he reached the junction of two he had to be sure he was travelling in the right direction; otherwise he would merely double back on himself and end up wandering these cavernous halls until he collapsed.

    There was one such junction up ahead.

    Scott leant against a wall, feeling the slippery slime soaking through his overall. He ignored the cold and pointed the beam ahead. It cut through the tenebrous blackness, picking out something that glinted dully in the luminosity.

    About fifty yards ahead there was a grille, the steel not yet rusted and crumbling like most of the metalwork down there. It must have been recently fitted, he assumed. Behind the grille the tunnel was much narrower. At present Scott could walk without needing to stoop; if he'd been able to get past the grille he would have been forced to crawl, such was the narrowness of the outlet beyond.

    He moved off to his right, grunting as he felt a renewed stab of pain inside his head.

    He tried to quicken his pace, but the water rushing around his knees prevented that. He fought his way on through the reeking flow.

    Again he paused, sucking in deep lungfuls of the vile air, coughing at its rankness. The spasm set off a dull and persistent ache in his skull. He closed his eyes for a moment, touching one hand tentatively to his bandaged head.

    When he brought his hand away he noticed, with horror, that there was blood on his fingers.

    'Oh God,' he whispered, the sound amplified by the confines of the tunnel.

    He must have opened up the wound when he fell from the laundry chute, he guessed. He'd have to be careful to keep it clean. If any of the dirt down in the sewer got into it, God alone knew what would happen.

    Scott pushed on, reaching another tunnel junction.

    Left, right or straight on?

    He shone the torch first one way, then the other.

    The right hand tunnel was blocked about twenty feet on by a new stone wall.

    He chose to go straight on, trying to get some kind of mental picture of where he was. He guessed he was below D Wing by now. He couldn't be that far from the wall, surely? It felt as if he'd been walking for hours. His body was quivering from the cold and the pain inside his skull was getting worse.

    Perhaps it was the cold breeze blowing into his face which…

    The realisation hit him like a thunderbolt.

    Cold breeze blowing into his face.

    The breeze had to be coming from up ahead.

    He'd passed beneath many outlets above, but had felt no cold air coming through them because of the depth of the tunnels. But now the wind was blowing into him. He must be heading in the right direction. He pushed on, his throat dry, his head throbbing but the thought of escape now giving him added energy.

    
Escape.

    It had a beautiful ring to it.

    He even managed a smile.

    Ahead of him there was a loud splash.

    Then another.

    Something had dropped into the water.

    Scott shone the torch around and it picked out two pinpricks of yellow light.

    Eyes.

    Staring back at him.

    There was another splash, closer this time.

    He felt something nudge his leg.

    There were rats in the water.

    The knowledge brought with it a stark and quite irrational terror that he found difficult to shake off. He moved forward more slowly now.

    Close by him a furry shape scuttled along the low ledge that ran alongside the flowing effluent.

    Scott moved away, his hand sliding into more of the noxious slime that coated the walls.

    He moved as quickly as he could, the cold breeze now strong in his face.

    Ahead, less than twenty feet away, he saw the grille.

    Beyond it he could smell grass.

    He tried to run, to reach the barrier more quickly, gripping it with both hands when he finally did. He could see through, out into the darkness of the night. He could see trees swaying, silhouetted against the swollen clouds that filled the sky. The stream of filth was now hardly over his boot tops. He tugged at the grille.

    It remained firmly in place.

    He tried again.

    Still no luck. It was stuck fast, secured by six heavy screws which fixed it to the wall.

    Scott pulled the knife from his belt and placed the blunt edge in one of the grooves on the screw-head. He turned it, putting all his strength into it, his teeth clenched.

    He closed his eyes as he felt that all-too-familiar pain inside his skull.

    The screw began to come free.

    He turned it, twisting it the last quarter of an inch with his fingers. He dropped it into the water and set about the second one. Then the third.

    Despite the cold wind he could feel the perspiration on his face as he worked to remove the screws.

    The last one came free and he tugged the grille away from the wall, hardly feeling the pain as the steel cut into the palm of his hand. He tossed it aside and blundered out into the fresh air, almost slipping on the muddy ground. He breathed in the air. Clean air. Untainted by the stench of captivity.

    The air that came with freedom.

    He wondered if revenge would smell the same.