Chapter 13: Chapter 13

James Klempner pauses, sucking at his teeth, eyes vacant for a moment. Then he head-jerks up the stairs.

“Keep going. I’ll be right behind you.” Then he reverses and, to the sound of running footsteps vanishes back the way we came.

“Klempner… where…?” But he’s gone.

Michael meets my eyes but doesn’t comment, simply heading upwards, Charlotte clinging to his neck with one arm, and to Cara with the other.

I follow. “You know the way out?”

He talks back over his shoulder. “Not sure. Finchby’s office is just up here.”

“Great. From there, out through the pool room, across the dance floor and out down the stairs.”

He grunts acknowledgement, stepping up his pace.

At the top of the stairs, now on the level, Charlotte and Cara in his arms, Michael goes through the office and past the pool room bar at speed. Ahead of us, women mill.

“Downstairs,” I yell, but none of them seems to understand English. The multi-coloured glare of the dance-floor lights illuminates complete chaos. Customers are looking wildly in all directions, pulling their pants on, dashing for the exit…

Thinking it’s a police raid maybe?

Michael pauses, looking around. “Which way?”

“There.” I point towards the stairs I entered by the first time I came here with Klempner. “Through that door then two floors down to the front exit. Go.”

He sets off at a run, leaving me hanging and wondering what Klempner’s doing.

Should I go back for him?

Above the cacophony of the dance music, an alarm rings. The steady tone of a fire bell. Klempner emerges from Finchby’s office. “Your attention, please,” he shouts. Everybody out! This is not a drill.

Evacuate the building… Evacuar o edifício!”

Women… some of them the prisoners, others Finchby’s workers, scream and scatter, clutching what passes for their clothes. Clients too, some half-dressed, others holding up their pants at the belt. They at least know the way out, dashing for the exit. The women don’t, some heading for the back rooms.

Klempner snags one by the arm, whirling her around, then pointing to the stairs. “I said out!”

She cringes, then runs, this time the right way.

“Klempner, what’s going on?”

“James, get everyone out. And quickly.” He glances at his watch. “Within seven minutes to be precise.”

???

“What the fuck have you done?”

“Never mind. Get them out. Have you seen Finchby or Baxter?”

“No.”

“We need to find them, or we’re back to square one.”

*****

Michael Charlotte hanging to me, clinging to a wailing Cara, I run out into the dark. I don’t know where we’re going, just out.

Something shrieks by me, hammering into the ground a few feet ahead and my brain catches up with the fact that shots are being fired at us. Behind me, there’s the rat-tat of gunfire.

Ahead of me, a car…

Crap…

In my breathless, headlong charge, for a moment I don’t recognise it, but then I see the face. Richard at the windscreen, screeching in, almost on two wheels as, rubber burning, he skids to a halt in front of me.

The central locking clunks open and Ross leaps out from the other side. “Get her in the back!” he yells, opening the doors ahead of me, pulling Charlotte through from one side as I push her in from the other.

Richard yells from the driver’s seat. “Michael. Get in.”

I clamber in beside Charlotte. She’s trembling violently, Cara clutched to her chest. She doesn’t seem to have realised that James isn’t with us.

I pull her into my arms. “It’s alright, Babe. You’re safe now. So’s Cara.”

She nods, face pressed into my chest, then explodes into weeping. Ross twists back to look. Richard meets my eyes in the mirror then nods to Ross. “Call Elizabeth. Tell her to let Mitch know we have them.”

Ross taps in, talking quietly into his mobile. After a few moments, he turns back again. “Your mother’s waiting for you Charlotte. She wants to meet her grand-daughter.”

Charlotte jolts in my arms. “You’re not taking me to the hospital, are you?” Her voice is rising in pitch, panic in every word. “Not the hospital. I don’t want…”

Richard cuts her short. “No, not the hospital Charlotte. I thought you’d feel like that about it. I’ve made other arrangements. I’m taking you home.”

Through her tears, Charlotte’s brow puckers. “Arrangements?”

“Home?” I lean forward, hissing by his ear. “Richard, she needs medical help. Cara too. The conditions they were keeping her in…”

Richard ignores me. “I wasn’t able to be part of your rescue, Charlotte. But I’ve not been sitting on my hands while all that was going on.”

James…

Flooding from the doors now, women and men alike stream out.

I tap Richard on the shoulder. “Get her out of here.”

He twists back. “What? What about you.”

“James… He’s in there somewhere. So’s Klempner.” I kiss Charlotte. “See you soon.”

“No!” She’s scrabbling after me as I get out. But behind me, I hear the clunk of the locks re-engaging as Richard pulls away.

*****