FIVE

The loft space was even more cluttered than the room below. Its height was severely restricted because of the steep angle of the roof. At first, Hart couldn’t work out the architecture of the place. By rights the loft shouldn’t even have been there. The main building was constructed on the accordion principle – that much he’d seen before entering it. So what was this space? And what had been its function?

He crawled along the floor until he reached the end wall. Then he got to his knees and felt carefully around the roof space above him. The light from the room below radiated only part-way to where he was kneeling, so that he was in almost total darkness.

He touched what he assumed to be tiles. No lagging. No boards. As far as Hart could make out, the tiles were laid in grid formation directly onto the beams.

He crawled back the length of the loft space. He looked down at Nalan and the soldier. He lowered his voice to a whisper.

‘I’m pretty sure we can break through onto the roof. I think this whole section is an add-on to the original building. It’s built like an old-fashioned barn. The tiles are laid directly onto the beams and crossbars. Nailed on probably. One interleaved over the other so that they’re rainproof. The thing was built on the cheap, in other words.’

‘And it leads directly to the outside?’

‘There’s only one way to discover that. But we must do everything in the dark. A total blackout. This attic has to be on the same side of the building as the steel door. So if they’re watching that, and if they happen to look up, they’ll see us. So we need to switch off the light down here before we go up. And we need to knock down the makeshift ladder behind us and shut the trapdoor in case they manage to break in and come looking for us. It might buy us a couple of extra minutes. Because it won’t take them long to suss this place out once they break in. But it means committing ourselves entirely. No going back.’

The soldier came up first. He reached into his tunic jacket and retrieved a torch. He handed it to Hart. Hart put on an expression of mock surprise. He pretended to offer the torch back and the young soldier laughed for the first time since he had entered the building. Hart indicated with his fingers that the boy should mask the beam in some way. While he did that, Hart leaned down and motioned Nalan to close the outside door and switch off the light.

She climbed up the stack of boxes and took Hart’s hands.

‘Can you hang down, if I hold you, and kick the boxes away with your feet?’

‘Yes. Swing me.’

Hart swung Nalan from side to side. She was surprisingly light to hold. Barely half my weight and worth two of me, Hart decided.

When she’d kicked the boxes away he dragged her up into the loft. At one point he was forced to hold her tightly against his chest or risk dropping her. He caught her scent again at that moment – an elusive mixture of jasmine and musk, with just the faintest edge of citrus underlying it, like the discarded peel from an orange on a warm afternoon. Was he imagining it, or did Nalan rub her cheek ever so briefly against his as he held her in the darkness?

‘What is the boy’s name?’ he asked.

‘His name is Rebwar. The name means “farmer”. One who knows his place in this world. One who knows his country.’

‘That’s a good name. Later, you can tell me what yours means.’

‘Later. Yes. Perhaps I will tell you.’

They followed Rebwar down the narrow corridor that snaked between the accumulated loft clutter. At one point Rebwar stopped and pointed to the right. He briefly unmasked the torch.

‘What is that?’ Nalan came up beside the men and took the torch. She shone it onto the object. ‘What is this, John?’

Something closed down in Hart when he recognized the old-fashioned, fixed-bracket, Cinestar camera mount. He took the torch from Nalan and aimed the beam below the object. Then he flicked the light away and covered it again with his hand. He’d seen all he needed to. ‘It’s nothing. Just a bunch of old metal.’

Nalan took him by the arm. ‘Tell me. You know what it is. I saw by your face in the reflected light that you know.’

‘Really. It’s nothing. I thought it might be a weapon of some sort. Something that we could use. But it’s just some old junk.’

Hart shadowed Rebwar the last few yards to the end of the loft space.

Nalan slapped him on the foot. ‘You. I see you are still carrying your cameras. You never let them go. This was a camera, wasn’t it?’

‘Of course it wasn’t a camera. You know what a camera looks like as well as I do. And that was no camera.’

‘Then tell me. What did you see there that I didn’t?’

Hart sighed. He lowered his voice even further. ‘I’ll make a deal with you. I’ll tell you what I think I saw if and when we ever get out of here. Okay? The very same time you tell me about your name. Meanwhile we have work to do. And precious little time to do it in.’