It was painful.
He wasted the air he had in his lungs still trying to kick out a window.
He could feel himself greying out.
The car hit the bottom.
Nikolas wished he’d had time to say goodbye to Ben.
He said it now in his heart and hoped one kind tendril of the universe would carry that dying thought to Ben.
He heard glass shatter.A hand seized him.He pushed with his legs, trying to help.It seemed to get warmer.Then air and the best of all—the tape was ripped from his mouth, and he could take a great greedy lungful through his mouth of that beautiful air.It was all he could do.Swimming was quite beyond him.He lay like a useless sack, trussed and drowned, as he was towed along, kick by agonising kick.Gradually, he could hear over the sound of his own heaving, ragged breaths, “Fucking typical of a fucking great big fucking useless sack of fucking shit.”
Nikolas tried to speak but took a mouthful of water instead.He felt them stop, and he was crushed to a chalky, gritty wall.A knife slit the parcel tape around his wrists and ankles, and then he came up close and personal with his saviour, and Nikolas’s first rational thought was,Thank God I didn’t kiss him.He’d thought it was Ben.Until the swearing began, of course.Then he’d known.Squeezy.
Squeezy was dragging them along the chalky wall, searching for a place to climb out of the water.Nikolas recovered and shook off gripping hands, clinging now himself to the wall.“Where’s Ben?”
Squeezy turned a furious face to him.“The fuck?You stupid fucking moron!I was this close!This close!”He wasn’t making the gesture with his fingers that would usually accompany such a declaration, so Nikolas was at something of a loss to work out what he was talking about, but this had been a feature of their relationship for the three years they’d known each other.What hadn’t been, however, was Michael Heathcote swearing at him and calling him a moron—not out loud, anyway.Nikolas suspected he often got called worse things in the man’s head.Before he could point this insubordination out, Squeezy had swum off again, examining the cliff face as he did so.Nikolas followed.He’d begun to shiver from the cold and the confusion.He caught up.“Ben?”
Squeezy had found a place to climb out and was pulling himself up on a root until he was out of the black water and perched precariously on a small ledge.He put a hand down for Nikolas and heaved him up, too.From there, it was a short, crumbling climb to the top.They lay on the quarry edge for a moment, recovering their breath, and then Nikolas coughed out, “What are you doing here?How did you know…?”
“Jesus H Christ and all the fucking saints.I’ve been watching you the whole fucking week so I could follow you to the second stage place, and what did you go and fucking do?Blow it on the last fucking day.The very last fucking day, and I had to come and rescue your fat arse instead of finding the fucking place they took Jono and what they fucking did to him!Are you fucking happy!”
Nikolas blinked.“Fat?”
Squeezy stared at him in the dark.He nodded knowingly to himself as if this confirmed something he’d always thought.Then he looked down and admitted more genuinely, “They’ve got Ben, and I don’t know where.”He punched the ground.“I don’t fucking know where!Because I had to fucking rescue you!”
“I know where he is.”Nikolas held out his hand.“Phone.”
Squeezy had left his phone by his bike when he’d dived off into the inky water to pull his boss out of the sinking car.They trudged to where he’d left the machine skidded on one side, and Nikolas dialled Kate.
Nikolas hadn’t given Ben a cheap watch to wear on the course to protect the expensive one he’d bought him as a present the first time Ben had agreed to meet him in a hotel room for the afternoon.The first time Ben had agreed to do other things.He’d given him a state-of-the-art GPS tracker he’d acquired from a reliable contact in the department.He’d almost lost Ben Rider-Mikkelsen once.Nikolas wasn’t about to make that mistake again.But if he’d told Ben what it was, he knew, he just knew, the one time Ben needed to be wearing it he wouldn’t.Agift.A new watch—that would be worn.It was just the way Ben was.
Kate gave them the location.
It was only a mile from the Victorian manor where they’d spent the last week.
Squeezy dragged his bike up and climbed on, ramming his helmet down.Nikolas blinked.It was becoming a habit around Squeezy.He had to stop.“I’m not riding on that with you.”
“Okay.I’ll see you there then.”Squeezy fired the bike up and began to bump it off the rough edge of the quarry.
“What?Wait!”Nikolas slung his leg over the seat and clung onto the wet man in front of him.
* * *
Nikolas had always declined Ben’s offers to ride on his bike with him.After a few years together, Ben had stopped offering.It wasn’t a big thing between them.Ben didn’t smoke.Nikolas didn’t ride motorcycles.Each to his own.That ride from the quarry to Ben’s new location was one of the most unpleasant experiences of Nikolas’s life, which wouldn’t be unusual for most men; after all, he was soaking wet, had no helmet, and was sitting behind a man who Nikolas had always secretly thought should be locked up, not given the responsibility of a uniform and a gun.However, Nikolas Mikkelsen had experienced an unusual amount of unpleasant experiences in his life.When he climbed off, shaking, he wasn’t exaggerating for effect at all.
They were in a wood on the side of a hill overlooking a large redbrick building.A mill.They were using an old mill.
“How long was it from when they drugged me to the quarry?”
“Couple of hours.”
“So they’ve had Ben for three, maybe.”
“What went fucking wrong?”
“The other doctor was there.The one from London.He recognised me.”
