Danny leapt backwards and almost fell into one of the rooms at the top of the stairs, tripping on a step. Without thinking it through, he went into the room with the reinforced door and swung it behind him.
But the door was heavy. Much heavier than Danny had expected. It hadn’t slammed shut as he’d wanted. In fact, it was still open. And Danny could hear that Paul Wire was nearing the top of the stairs.
Wire would be able to get in.
Danny flung himself at the heavy door, his shoulder hitting it hard.
Wire made it to the top of the stairs just as Danny hit it. Wire’s hands had been on the door as Danny pushed. Danny heard him cry out as he fell backwards. Then he heard a strange noise. An electric whirr.
What was that?
He looked up at the door. And was surprised to see that it was solid metal on the inside.
Then he heard Wire banging, trying to get in. But it was obvious to Danny that the door was locked. The noise had been the door locking itself automatically. And there was a sign by the door, an illuminated image of a padlock. Red.
Danny managed a half smile. He was safe. For now.
He stood to take in the rest of the room. It was not what he had expected to see in the top room of a house like this. He had imagined a bedroom or an office. Not this.
The most striking thing in the room was the huge plasma screen on the chimney breast. It was as big as the TV screen in Didier François’ house. Or bigger. But this one was a split screen, showing sixteen views from security cameras of the house Danny was in. Top left showed Paul Wire banging on the door. His door.
Danny watched, fascinated. He could see Wire on the screen ahead of him, at the same time as he could hear him for real banging on the door behind him. It felt weird.
After a few seconds Danny watched Wire head down the stairs. The top left camera tracked him as he went down. Then Danny noticed movement on another part of the screen. Wire was on the first-floor landing now. On another screen. At the point where he had left the file.
And that was where he was looking now. Danny watched him scanning the landing, then looking down into the hallway below. Then he saw Wire sprint back up the stairs as he realized Danny had the file.
The banging on the door was harder now. Danny could hear Wire shouting ‘… the papers … the … papers.’ Then a stream of swear words.
Danny glanced at the file he’d picked up. The one Wire had wanted. It was on the floor near the door. He must have dropped it there as he came in. What the hell was in there that was making Wire go so berserk?
Wire was kicking at the wall around the door. And Danny feared it would cave in. Then he’d be helpless.
Danny looked around the room. He didn’t know what he was after, but he needed something that would help him. If Wire got in, he’d really hurt Danny.
Next to the padlock sign by the door there was a second illuminated sign that he’d not noticed before. It bore two words: POLICE EMERGENCY.
Without thinking of the consequences, overwhelmed by fear, Danny hit it.
For a moment everything went quiet. Wire had stopped attacking the door and wall. And Danny could hear a voice coming from a speaker saying something outside in the stairway. Some sort of warning. He thought it must be a pre-recorded warning being played to Wire. To say the police were coming.
And Danny realized that if the police were coming for Wire, then they were coming for him too.
So why did Wire continue to just stand there? Danny watched him on the screen. It was like he was paralysed.
Danny used the time to check the rest of the room. Apart from what looked like a control panel and a computer screen, it was like a small sitting room. The sofa looked like it would convert into a bed. And in the corner there was a fridge next to a door.
Danny found himself caught as to what to do. He was locked in a strange room in a house he was trespassing in. A violent man wanted to get in. The police were on the way.
Behind the door there was a toilet, a sink and a shower.
It’s a panic room, Danny thought. A room you could hide in if a burglar or kidnapper came into your house. Danny wondered if the people who built it had ever thought it would be protecting a fourteen-year-old boy from an ex-professional footballer.
Then Danny caught sight of one of the screens. Trained on the outside of the house, the front garden. The path.
They were here already – the police.
Two white marked cars. Four uniformed officers in black. All heading up the garden path.
Danny watched Wire suddenly come to his senses. Something must have told him the police were here. Snapped him out of his trance – or whatever it was he had been doing. Then he saw Wire thundering down the stairs. Flitting from camera to camera as he sprinted through the house. Running across a landing, then down another staircase.
He’s heading for the back door, Danny thought, as he saw the police coming through the front.
As they did, Wire hit the bottom of the stairs.
Danny watched from a camera placed above him. Watched Wire freeze on the spot as he looked to his right. And that was when Danny saw him on another camera as well. The same camera that showed the police. A second later two of the police officers were chasing Wire to the left.
Now they were in the kitchen. The room through which Danny had entered the house. Danny watched the three people come together, a heap of bodies, a kitchen table.
And, eventually, all five people were together on the same screen. Two police holding Wire, one on each arm. The other two opening the front door, leading the way out.
Maybe, Danny thought, I am going to get out of this. Maybe they think Wire is here on his own. They might just go.
But then Danny felt as if a cold hand had gripped itself round his heart. Because he could see – in the screen showing the front garden – that, as he still struggled, Paul Wire was pointing. Pointing back at the house. And he knew that the footballer was telling them about him.