Lost - Michael Robotham [89]
Weatherman Pete drops me on the corner opposite the delicatessen and I walk the final seventy yards. Nestled in the lint of my trouser pocket are my last two morphine capsules. Every so often I reach inside and feel their smoothness with my fingertips.
The façade of Dolphin Mansions is in full sunshine. Stopping periodically, I study the gutters, looking for the openings and metal grates. I notice the camber of the road and where downspouts enter the ground.
Some of the mansion blocks have basement flats that are below street level. They have drains to take rainwater away and stop them from flooding.
I wait on the front steps until one of the residents leaves, nodding as they hold the door open for me. Then I glance up the central stairwell, checking I’m not being watched. Skirting the lift well, I discover the door leading to the basement. A low-wattage naked bulb suspended from the ceiling transforms the darkness. The stairs are narrow and steep and the walls are a mottled green where patches of damp have broken through the plaster.
Reaching the bottom of the stairs I try to put myself back in this place, three years ago. I remember searching the basement. Like every other room it was turned upside down. Along one wall, cut into an alcove, is a large disused boiler. It must be fifteen feet around, with meters, valves and pipes of every caliber. The square copper nameplate bears the inscription FERGUS & TATE. The floor is covered with half bags of plaster, cans of paint, offcuts of carpet and a Victorian gas lamp encased in bubble wrap.
Moving materials aside, I begin searching the floor.
A noise makes me turn. A young boy sits on the top step holding a plastic robot on his lap. His khaki trousers are stained with paint and his dark eyes peer at me suspiciously.
“Are you a stranger?” he asks.
“Yes, I suppose I am.”
“My mum says I shouldn’t talk to strangers.”
“That’s very good advice.”
“She says I could get kidnapped. A girl got kidnapped from here—from right off the stairs. I used to know her name but I forgot. She’s dead, you know. Do you think it hurts when you die? My friend Sam broke his arm when he fell out of a tree and he said it really hurt—”
“I don’t know.”
“What are you looking for?”
“I don’t know that either.”
“You’ll never find my hiding place. She used to hide there, too.”
“Who?”
“The girl who got kidnapped.”
“Michaela Carlyle.”
“You know her name! Do you still want to see it? You have to promise not to tell anyone.”
“I promise.”
“Cross your heart and hope to die, stick a needle in your eye.”
I cross my heart.
Tucking his robot into his belt, the boy slides on his backside down the remaining stairs and steps past me toward the boiler. He disappears through a gap no wider than his shoulders where the curved side of the boiler doesn’t quite touch the brickwork.
“Are you all right in there?”
“Yes,” he replies, emerging again. He’s holding a book in his hand. “That’s my cubbyhole. Do you want to come in?”
“I don’t think I’ll fit. What have you got there?”
“A book. It used to be hers but it’s mine now.”
“Can I have a look?”
He hands it to me reluctantly. The front cover is tattered and chewed at the edges but I can still make out the illustration of a mother duck and ducklings. On the inside cover there is a large label with a scrolled border. Written on it is “Michaela Carlyle, 41⁄2.”
The story is about the five little ducks that go out one day, over the hills and far away. The mother duck says, “Quack, quack, quack, quack,” but only four little ducks come back. The ducklings disappear one by one but on the final page they all return.
Handing the book back to him, I slide to my knees and put my head on the floor, peering into the gap between the boiler and the brickwork.
“It’s dark in there.”
“I have a light.”
“Is that running water I can hear?”
“My dad says there’s a river down there.”
“Where?”
He gives me a thumbs-down and I look at his feet. A sudden chill rushes through me, like ice at