One Fine Day in the Middle of the Night (29 page)

‘Is it automatic?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Is it triggered automatically – by the fire alarm or anything?’

‘No.’

‘Then they’re comin’ to get us. They know we’re up here: or at least they know
some
body’s up here.’

‘Oh God,’ Gavin whimpered, lying down on the bed and burying his head in his hands. ‘We’re going to die.’

‘Come on, Gavin, fuck’s sake, chin up. You know this place better than I do. We need you thinkin’ straight.’

‘We’re going to die,’ he moaned again. Davie tried to pull a hand away from Gavin’s head, but he lashed out and squirmed a few feet further along the bed. ‘Oh God. Oh Christ, why is this happening?’

Davie shook his head disparagingly and looked at Catherine instead. Her eyes were moist with tears, but she was keeping it together.

‘Okay, think fast,’ he told her. ‘We’ve still got some time. If they knew exactly where we were, they’d be here already, right? What are our options?’

‘Well, kill the lights for a start. Bloody homing beacon.’

Davie pulled the card from the NRG‐
Sava. Gavin let out another quivering howl as darkness engulfed them.

‘They’re gaunny be lookin’ for hidin’ places,’ Davie said. ‘They’re gaunny check every room. Is there a way oot o’ here apart fae the stairs an’ the lifts?’

‘There’s emergency stairs running down the outside of the hotel at the back and either side.’

‘No, we’d be too obvious. Anythin’ else? A waste‐
disposal shaft or somethin’?’

‘The laundry chute,’ Catherine remembered, her voice rising and taking Davie’s hopes up along with it. ‘It’s at the far end of the corridor, round the corner. It goes all the way down to sub‐
level three.’

‘So that’s – Christ – six floors?’

‘Seven. Straight down. But it’s all we’ve got, unless you fancy crossing the corridor and jumping out the window: only a hundred feet down to the Cromarty Firth.’

‘Well, let’s check the chute out first, eh?’

Davie felt himself smile. Christ knew he didn’t feel like it, but the faintest glimmer of possibility had always found reflection in his eyes. He was an indefatigable believer in DIY salvation, and having saved himself from himself, saving himself from anyone else could surely never present the same challenge.

‘Right, Gavin,’ he declared, dragging his ex‐
schoolmate upright from the bed. ‘Dry your eyes or I’ll boot your baws.’ Gavin gave out a sniff, but he seemed alert. ‘Catherine, take him to this chute affair an’ start climbin’, quiet as you can. I’ll be there in a sec.’

‘A sec? What are you going to do?’

‘Buy us some time. Get goin’.’

Davie checked his watch. It had been two minutes. He had to go. There was other stuff here he could use, but time was more important, and the terrorists might not go for it, anyway. He slotted the keycard back into the NRG‐
Sava and headed for the patio doors.

Climbing quietly and carefully on to the balcony railing, Davie noticed that one of the gunmen was gone from below, perhaps reassigned to search‐
party duties. It was unquestionably Gavin they were after. Davie hadn’t said anything about it, because the poor bugger was already falling apart in front of him without adding a personal element to the encroaching danger. But whoever these people were, they’d want to talk to the man in charge, and Davie guessed the longer that didn’t happen, the better the chances of the cavalry arriving in time.

It was only a four‐
, maybe five‐
foot jump to the next balcony, but the forty feet of fuck‐
all underneath added an unwelcome note of excitement. Davie counted to three and dived across the gap, landing with a palm‐
grazing tumble on the concrete of the next terrace. He picked himself up and pushed the handle of the patio doors, which remained fastly closed.

‘Fuck.’ He’d assumed this keycard‐
override business downstairs would open everything, but he’d forgotten that the sliding panels were on a plain old manual lock. There were a couple of one‐
time petermates of his who’d be pissing themselves if they could see this, career housebreakers who lapped up tales of burglary incompetence. He decided he wouldn’t begrudge them their laughter if he actually lived to tell them the tale.

Two more jumps, two more balconies, one lightly sprained wrist and a bloodily stinging collection of grazes later, he made it to an unlocked portal and charged inside.

As he neared the end of the corridor he failed to spot any kind of hatch for a laundry chute, and he remembered with growing alarm that Catherine had said it was ‘round the corner’. His route had taken him three rooms along, so it was possible he was in the wrong hallway altogether. Worse than that, there was a stairwell just a few yards away, and he could hear the sound of footsteps from it, though he couldn’t be sure how far above or below they originated.

He looked around again. The door nearest him was marked Private, and lacked the brass fittings that distinguished the residential rooms. It opened to reveal a cupboard packed on one side with cleaning utensils – mops, brushes, buckets – mostly still wrapped in Cellophane, and on the other side sat a blue canvas laundry cart. Right in the centre was the hatch he was looking for, sunk into the wall, four feet back from the door. The shaft itself sat behind a good six inches of concrete, which was why he hadn’t heard anything from within. Neither, he hoped, would the pursuers.

Davie climbed inside and pulled the hatch closed behind him, supporting himself by pressing his feet and one hand against the sides. The darkness was total, for which he was grateful. The drop was twice what had been beneath him on the balconies, and this time there were two people for him to hit on the way down. He began his descent very slowly, edging his feet lower by tentative increments and nervously pulling his hands away from the sides, only to replace them quickly each time he felt the sensation of gravity upon his body weight. A yard or so down, his feet encountered one of the braces that held the chute’s sections together, and after finding another one the same distance down again, he had the confidence to move more easily, allowing himself to slide until reaching the next indentation. This allowed swifter and more assured progress (admittedly unmeasurable in the dark), the slides soon becoming more like bounces in a pseudo‐
abseiling descent. He’d therefore built up both a rhythm and a momentum by the time his feet landed on fingers and his exposed groin crunched into the corresponding head.

The obstruction instantly disappeared from beneath him, then he also began to fall, his legs temporarily unable to apply pressure after the blow to his testicles. His arms were forced uselessly above his head by the drop, and he slid for several terrifying yards until power returned to his thighs, upon which he was able to brake with the outsides of his feet. He thumped hard into the next brace and came to a halt there, breathing fast and heavily with fright.

Looking below for further sign of whoever he had struck, he saw only a bright white square at what had to be the bottom of the chute. He granted himself a few more seconds to let his balls recover, then bounced quickly down the final few yards, dropping out on to a soft bed of linen and towels. At the other end of the laundry hopper lay Gavin, semi‐
conscious and groaning incoherently.

Catherine’s face appeared, peering over the side. ‘Is he all right?’ she asked, keeping her voice low. ‘What happened?’

‘I think he’s just sore and a bit pissed. I landed on his head comin’ doon the shaft. I reckon my balls got the worst of it, but he lost his grip and fell the last couple o’ floors.’ Gavin gave out a muffled moan, his face half buried in towelling cotton. ‘Lucky for him this thing wasnae empty, or he’d have broken his legs. Come to think of it, why isnae it empty? I thought this place wasnae open.’

‘I’m sure Gavin’s made, ehm, a few overnight stays,’ Catherine explained, her cheeks glowing a little, perhaps from her exertions.

‘Well, at least he didnae fall into someone
else’s
dirty laundry, eh? Anyway, do you want to gie me a hand gettin’ him out?’

Catherine shook her head. ‘We might as well leave him be if he’s comfortable. We’re not going anywhere.’

‘What d’you mean?’

‘The doors are locked from the outside. I’m sorry. The only way out of here is the way we came in.’

Davie gripped the top of the hopper and pulled himself over the side, dropping to his feet on the floor beside Catherine. The aqua‐
blue of her dress was streaked with dust, and was ripped around her left shoulder, where a little blood also stained the fine material.

‘Thank God for lycra, eh?’ she said, acknowledging his concern. ‘If I’d gone for a taffeta ballgown I’d be stuck in that chute till doomsday.’

She looked back at Davie’s attire, grime and bloodstains smearing his white shirt where he’d been wiping his grazed hands. Both his trouser legs were torn below the knees, and he could consider his new shoes thoroughly ‘christened’.

‘Don’t know how James Bond manages it,’ he said.

‘At least you kept your tie on,’ Catherine observed.

‘Forgot I was wearin’ it.’ He patted at it with one hand then pulled the thing free. ‘Miracle I didnae strangle masel’.’ Davie dropped the tie to the floor, which was when he noticed that Catherine was in her bare feet.

‘Dropped the shoes and tights down the chute first,’ she explained. ‘Mother Bridget in RE always said high heels would be the ruination of us St Mick’s girls, but I don’t think this was the outcome she had in mind. Of course, the bloody things landed in all this laundry, and there was me at the top listening for them hitting the ground, to hear how far down it was. Endless bloody silence. I started wondering whether the chute went right down and opened out into the sea.’

‘It must have taken some bottle, goin’ first too. You did well.’

‘Oh yeah, David, I did great. Led us all into a locked room.’ She walked away from the hopper to the heavy double doors, demonstrating with a push that they were locked.

Davie looked around the room. Apart from shelves stacked with clean linen, and a small fleet of laundry carts, there wasn’t a lot to the place. ‘Where’s all the machines?’ he asked.

Catherine looked apologetic again. ‘This isn’t actually a laundry as such,’ she said, sitting down deflatedly on the bare floor. Davie squatted beside her, his back to the wall, still scanning the room for possibilities. ‘It’s a “laundry depot” or “laundry station” or something, I can’t remember the term. The resort’s got one big central laundry servicing all the hotels; it’s on this level somewhere. This place is where the Laguna’s dirty stuff is supposed to get sent from and returned to. So the good news is that there are corridors on this deck linking all parts of the resort via the central laundry. The bad news is that the corridor leading from this one starts on the other side of these doors. I’ve dropped us in it. Literally.’

Davie looked at Catherine as she sat and stared miserably into space. Interrupted upstairs before she could unburden herself, the woman was sure hell‐
bent on taking the blame for
something
tonight.

‘I don’t remember anyone else havin’ any brilliant suggestions,’ he told her. ‘We needed a hidin’ place and that’s what you gave us. Plus, they’re less likely to look for us somewhere that’s locked from the
oot
side. You kept the heid up there. I’d say I owe you one.’

‘No, David.’ Her eyes lost their blank glaze and focused sharply upon him. ‘I’m about the last person on this earth that you owe anything.’

Catherine turned her head towards the back of the room, glancing at the hopper wherein Gavin lay. There was no sign of him stirring, which Davie considered a mercy for all parties. When the poor bastard did wake up, it would be with a family‐
size variety pack of headaches. Then he’d remember that they were the least of his worries, and wouldn’t that be a fun moment.

She looked back at Davie. ‘That night,’ she said with a resigned sigh. ‘The night of the Easter disco, when you, I mean, when Derek Patterson—’

‘Saturday, March 24
^th
1984. I don’t normally have a great memory for dates, but for some reason that one sticks in my mind. That’s the night you’re talkin’ about, isn’t it?’

She nodded. Davie smiled, trying to let her know it wasn’t sacred ground. He knew what she was going to tell him.

‘You were the girl,’ he said, saving her the strain. It was a rough enough night already.

‘You knew?’ Her voice was a horrified whisper, her eyes reddening again. ‘You always knew?’

Davie took one of her hands in his own, gently shaking his head. ‘Not until tonight. I never saw your face. I don’t think I even looked. It wasn’t a priority at the time.’

‘I was so scared,’ she whispered. ‘I was so, so scared. I was coming back from the toilets and he just appeared from behind and pulled me into the art room. I think I’d knocked him back for a dance; he was in the year above, I didn’t even know who he was. He’d some kind of art knife in his hand, and he said he’d cut me if I made any noise. “I’ll mark you, hen,” he kept saying.’ Catherine twisted her expression in an angry parody. ‘“I’ll fuckin’ mark your face.” Then he began touching me. To this day I don’t know how far it would have gone if you hadn’t appeared.

‘When the two of you started fighting I just ran. I went back to the toilets and locked myself in and sat there crying, for ages. I tried to cry quietly so’s no‐
one would knock on the cubicle asking what was wrong. By the time I came out, everyone was in the car park. There were police cars, an ambulance, God, all the lights. But when I heard what happened, I said nothing. I didn’t tell anyone. I was too ashamed.

‘There was a policeman and a policewoman came round the classes on the Monday. They split up the girls from the boys and she asked us to come forward at lunchtime if any of us “knew anything” about what happened on the Saturday night. They were looking for someone to back up your story, and presumably Derek Patterson wasn’t going to own up to his part. But I couldn’t come forward. I didn’t want anybody to know what had happened to me, what he’d done. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.’

Catherine wiped away her tears, sniffing a little. ‘As time went on, every time I heard or read about what was happening to you, I always felt so guilty. You’d barely turned sixteen by that night, and maybe you wouldn’t have ended up on that … downward spiral if, if …’