Parlabane looked into the gloom of the corridor, probing the darkness with his penlight for somewhere he could hide. He saw four locked doors along either wall, noting with growing despair that they all boasted sturdy-looking strike plates indicative of five-lever mortise locks.
‘Right, a quick once-over,’ he heard one of the guards say from below, the clarity of his voice a warning about how close they were and how easily the sound would carry. ‘We’ll check everything’s secure down here first, then up the emergency stairs and back along. Probably an electrical fault, but we’ll stick together in case some bastard comes flying out from nowhere.’
Parlabane wouldn’t have time to pick even the flimsiest of locks, and as an art rather than a science it wasn’t something that was ever easy to do under pressure. As always when he was in trouble like this, trained instinct told him to look up, to think in three dimensions. This time, however, there was no window to climb out of, no outside wall to scale: only a low ceiling of crappy polystyrene tiles.
A low, suspended ceiling, he would bet, and it was the only bet he could make.
In a second he was on top of one of the filing cabinets that were littering the corridor, wincing at the hollow sound it made due to being empty. He gave one of the tiles a gentle push. It wouldn’t lift. He pushed a little harder. Still nothing, and he noticed the frame move with it. It might be glued. It would be easy enough to punch through but he couldn’t afford to leave a hole, or the resultant pile of crumbled polystyrene beneath, advertising his escape route.
He nudged the tiles either side. Neither moved.
He took a breath, cautioned himself not to panic. He gave one of them a harder push, driving the heel of his palm firmly against the corner. It popped up and almost tumbled through his startled grasp as it fell.
He slid it out of the way and hauled himself into the gap, his fingers finding a vertical suspension spar either side, supporting a lattice of aluminium. It took his weight, though there was a worrying creak as his midriff cleared the gap and his balance shifted forward.
He was sure he heard a door close below: most likely the fire door on the ground-floor access to the emergency stairs. They would be in this corridor in seconds.
He executed a limb-wrenching turn in the cramped and awkward space, manoeuvring himself one hundred and eighty degrees among the pipes and spars in order to be able to achieve a position from which he could replace the ceiling tile.
He slotted it into place just as the top fire door opened and a click of a switch later he found himself bathed in light.
He held his position, sinews straining, aware that the tiniest adjustment and resulting shift of balance might cause a tell-tale groan from the metal structure. It seemed impossible that they wouldn’t see him anyway, a human shape silhouetted against the white tiles. The light was from beneath him, though, projecting downwards.
‘All looks clear,’ one of the guards said, in such a bored tone as to suggest he had long since passed the night when he last expected anything interesting to happen on his shift.
‘Aye, probably an electrical fault right enough,’ his partner agreed.
‘Or maybe a moth. They can set off the sensors. Actually, I mind there was a bird one night over at Plumbcentre. Set off every sensor in the place fluttering aboot.’
‘Must have been the first overnight excitement involving a bird you ever had anyway.’
‘Fuck you.’
Despite his protesting limbs, Parlabane held his position until he was sure they had gone down the main stairs. As he waited, he looked around. This moth that had tripped the sensors was right up among the lights, and his position was giving him a very different perspective on the building’s integrity.
Despite all those heavy-duty locks on the doors, the security was only two-dimensional. The developer had done a cheap and superficial conversion job in subdividing the units, the gypsum partition walls only going as high as the suspended ceiling. From where Parlabane hung, up above the tiles, he had a clear path to drop down into any office on this floor.
Given that he was going to have to wait a while after the guards buggered off before risking an exit, he reckoned he might as well have a snoop around MTE while he was here.