Danny knew that he couldn’t hang around. And that he certainly couldn’t stay in the panic room. If the police found him here, how was he going to explain himself? He was one strike away from having a police record and all the consequences that brought. Trouble at home. No chance of a job in the police. That sort of thing.
But how was he going to get away?
The police were already in the hallway of the house, about to come up the stairs. He had just seconds.
Danny slammed his hand on to the illuminated red pad by the door, grabbing the file. The door opened immediately.
He turned to head down the stairs. But two steps down he heard voices.
‘Police!’
Danny jumped back up the stairs.
Where now? Back into the panic room?
If he went in there the police would either get in or sit there and wait for him to come out. Wire had no doubt told them he was in there.
And then Danny had an idea. The start of a plan.
If Wire had told them he was in the panic room, then maybe he could buy himself some time. Danny pulled the panic-room door shut as hard as he could.
He listened.
And there it was: that strange electrical noise. The panic room had locked itself.
Then Danny lunged into the other doorway, expecting the police to be coming up the staircase at any point.
He pushed the door to, then quietly slid the small bolt across to lock the door.
Now what?
He could hear the police on the stairs. Two voices. He put his head to the door.
‘Is there anyone in there?’ one of them shouted.
‘Hello?’ Another shout. A woman’s voice.
‘Do you think there is?’ the man said, quieter now.
‘Maybe. But I’m not sure I buy it. A teenager following him around the house? Unlikely. But we have to take it seriously.’
Danny had his back to the door as he listened. He was looking for a way out. The attic room was set up as a spare bedroom. He glanced through the window. There was no way out there. Unless he fancied climbing on to the roof.
He looked for another way. The fireplace? Could he climb up the chimney? Danny told himself not to be so stupid. The hole was tiny.
He had to face it. He was trapped. He would go out there and tell them the truth. If they didn’t believe him, then at least he knew he was doing things for the right reasons.
Danny stood up straight and gripped the door handle.
This was it.
The end.
Except it wasn’t. Because Danny had noticed something. A hole in the ceiling. A way into the roof. A loft. The ceiling here was low. Very low. And his mind went back to Paul Wire in the toilets of that pub. Hide where no one would look.
Danny took a stool from next to the bed. He set it under the hole in the ceiling, stood on it and eased the ceiling panel out of the way, passing the file up into the space above him. He was about to lift himself up when he heard the door handle of his room go again. Someone was twisting it one way, then the other.
‘This one’s locked too,’ the policeman said.
‘Really?’ replied the policewoman.
‘Yeah.’
‘Force it.’
And, with that, there was a smash and the door flew open, bouncing off the wall and ricocheting back at the two police officers who were staring into the room.
The empty room.
The two police officers shrugged and turned their attention back to the panic-room door. But above the room they saw as empty, in the loft, his hands and feet lodged on the beams that were holding the ceiling up, the file next to him, Danny Harte was poised, too terrified to move.
Half an hour later, Danny was still in the roof. He had found himself a more comfortable position. His arms and legs along the beams, so it was almost as if he was lying down. But things were beginning to hurt.
After a lot of long silences and shifting of feet, the police radioed back to their HQ and asked for some sort of code. Once they had it they keyed it in and opened the panic room.
‘Empty,’ said the policewoman.
The policeman said nothing. Although Danny thought he heard him tut. This was important. Danny needed them to leave so he could get away. But would they? Or would they stay? Or, worse, search the house properly?
The policewoman was on the radio again. ‘Nothing here. The house is empty.’
Then a silence.
‘He might say that,’ she replied down the radio, ‘but there’s no one here.’
Then she went quiet again. Listening, Danny judged.
‘OK,’ she said finally. ‘We’re coming back.’
And Danny breathed out. They were going. What a relief. And he turned his attention to the papers in the file.