Phil stood back as the OSU prepared their battering ram. They brought it back, hammered it at the double doors. The doors didn’t want to give. The OSU weren’t going to take no for an answer. Eventually, with a creaking and splintering of ages-old wood, the doors opened.
‘Move! Move! Move!’
They rushed in. Phil ran in with them. All was suddenly noise and commotion. The OSU surged into the building. Phil looked round. The inside was completely different to the exterior. The walls were stripped back to the bare brick, the floors polished concrete. It looked more like the entrance to a suite of Shoreditch artists’ studios or some hipster internet company. Like the rest of Digbeth, thought Phil.
He tried to take bearings, decide where to go.
‘Elli,’ he said to his earpiece, ‘I’m inside. Where should I go?’
‘Straight ahead,’ she replied. ‘That’s where the heat’s coming from.’
‘OK.’ He set off down the corridor in front of him.
There were doors off on both sides. An indication of what was inside was given by the decoration around the frame. One had chains cemented into place. He glanced into the room. It looked like a prison cell. Or the stage set of a prison cell. The floor was flagged stone. The dried blood looked real enough.
Back into the corridor again. Looking round.
‘It’s on the first floor, I think,’ Elli said. ‘Head towards it.’
Phil did so. He passed other doorways. The next one along had rusted circular saw wheels pinned up. He didn’t want to see what went on in there. The one after that a dried snakeskin. He focused. Kept going. Found a set of stairs at the end, took them two at a time.
‘Are you still registering heat signatures?’ he asked her.
‘Yes, but it’s getting much warmer.’
‘How many?’
‘There was just one. There’s that many people in the building now, it’s hard to tell.’
He didn’t need Elli to tell him where the heat was coming from. He felt it himself now. He ran towards the far end of the corridor. There was a door in front of him. Doll’s heads of varying sizes all around the frame. This was it. He pulled it open. And immediately felt and heard the roar of the flames.
He looked round, hand over his face. It was the room from the DVD. McGowan’s living room writ large. He looked down. Marina was lying on the floor.
‘Shit…’
His heart was hammering as he knelt down, began to pull her out. She was near to being unconscious. He tried to untie her, realised it was futile. He dragged her, chair and all, down the corridor.
‘Get an ambulance!’ he shouted into his earpiece.
‘What have you found?’
Phil didn’t reply straight away. He couldn’t. He waited until he was far enough away from the flames, then looked at Marina.
Please don’t be dead, please don’t be dead, please don’t be dead…
He reached round behind her head, wrenched off the gag. She gasped a breath. Opened her eyes. She looked round in panic. Then saw who it was.
‘Hey…’
‘Hey yourself,’ he said, smiling.
Any further conversation was cut off as she began coughing.
‘We need the fire engines here, Elli. Quick as they can.’
‘They’re on their way,’ she said.
He dragged Marina further down the corridor, then, when he was a safe distance from the blaze, started to pull at her bonds. They were tight, difficult to budge. But he managed to get most of them off, as well as the heavy leather restraints tying her wrists together.
‘Can you stand?’ he said.
She nodded numbly and he pulled her to her feet.
‘Got… pins and needles…’ she said. ‘Oww…’
He smiled. ‘Come on. I’ll help you.’
He put his arm around her, helped her to walk.
He reached the stairs and picked her up in his arms, carried her down. Marina opened her eyes, smiled.
‘Carrying me over the threshold,’ she said, managing a weak smile. ‘Caveman.’
‘Shut up,’ he replied. He was smiling too.
They reached the front door. He carried her through. Imani Oliver ran over towards them. Phil set Marina upright.
‘The ambulance is in its way. Don’t worry. You’re safe now.’
Marina put her arms round his neck. Began to sob. ‘I thought… I thought I’d never…’
‘I know,’ he said, ‘I know…’
They held each other in the street, strafed by the light of the helicopter.
‘Boss,’ said Elli, ‘I’ve picked up those other two heat signatures.’
‘Where?’
‘On the roof.’
Phil looked up. The flames hadn’t reached the roof yet.
‘There’s an alleyway between that building and the next,’ said Elli. ‘If he can cross that, he might get away.’
‘And he’s got someone with him,’ said Phil.
‘Maddy,’ said Marina. ‘He’s got Maddy…’
Phil turned to her. ‘Stay with Imani,’ he said. ‘You’ll be fine.’
She frowned, clung on tightly to him. ‘Wh-where are you going?’
Phil looked back at the building.
‘Up there,’ he said.