The Darkest Hour (19 page)

Chapter 28

“
C
AN I HAVE
a drink?” Rossett said, his voice heavy and defeated.

The guard on the opposite side of the room shook his head and remained standing, stiff as a board, arms behind his back and eyes raised, looking at a space on the wall opposite, above Rossett’s head.

“I’m parched. Come on, chum, just a little water? I’ve a hangover from hell and you fellas gave me a good kicking. I just need a drink, please?”

Rossett picked the empty mug off the table and proffered it, but this time the guard didn’t even shake his head; he merely ignored Rossett, who held the mug up for a moment longer, maybe ten inches off the tabletop, before smashing it down in frustration.

The ceramic mug shattered when it hit the table, and shards flew in all directions. The guard flinched and looked at Rossett but didn’t move from his position, merely shaking his head a fraction and resuming his vigil on the spot on the wall.

Rossett sighed and wiped his arm across the table to clear off the fragments of broken mug before leaning back in his seat.

“One cup of fucking water? That’s all I want.”

Rossett jerked his handcuffed wrist, and the heavy wooden table jolted. The U-bolt his wrist was handcuffed to rose an inch or two before dropping back down, safe and secure.

“I’ll shove this fucking table down your throat.” He slammed the table again, this time harder. It lifted an inch off the floor and banged back down.

The guard finally looked at Rossett wearily.

“Look, do us both a favor and be quiet, eh? We’ve got a long night, and you’ve got bigger problems than trying to get my goat, so shut up.”

Rossett shook his head and leaned forward again.

“Shit house” was all he said before he gripped the leg of the heavy chair under him and in one movement swept it up and tossed it across the room at the guard, who easily fended it off by raising his own leg and trapping it with his foot. Rossett was crouched over the table, standing as straight as his handcuffed wrist would allow. The table was too heavy to use as a weapon, but he gestured with his free hand for the guard to come in and
have a go.

The guard sighed wearily and pushed the chair back toward Rossett, stopping when he was about two feet from Rossett’s reach and sliding the chair closer with his foot.

“You ain’t gonna wind me up, so sit down and maybe I can get you that drink if you beh—”

Before the guard finished his sentence, Rossett gobbed a dirty ball of bloody phlegm and spat it across the distance between them.

The guard turned his face, but the spit landed with a thick splat against the side of his head. He touched his ear and, feeling the mess there, grimaced as he flicked it away.

“You dirty bastard” was all he said. He launched himself across the gap as the one-armed Rossett took a half step back and kicked with his right foot toward the guard’s advancing left knee.

The kick landed perfectly and Rossett thanked the gods, as that had been his only chance.

The guard stumbled forward and Rossett trapped the man’s head tightly under his free left arm. Pushing forward and down with all his might, not allowing the guard to straighten up, he managed to force the guard, facedown, almost onto the tabletop.

Close to his handcuffed wrist.

He squeezed, tighter than he had ever squeezed before. He knew he couldn’t strangle the guard from this position, but he could keep him from crying out. The guard pushed against Rossett’s arm, trying to maneuver it over his ears, and Rossett squeezed harder and looked down to the reddening head of the guard as it lay between Rossett’s chest and the table.

Rossett took a deep breath and jerked the guard a couple of inches closer to his handcuffed wrist, which was straining like a guard dog on a leash, trying to get into the fight.

He drove his knee into the guard’s side and jerked him again. Now the guard was weakening. Fighting for breath, he moved a few inches, pulling at the arm around his neck, and Rossett had his chance.

Using the broken ceramic handle of the mug he’d held in his manacled hand since smashing it, he traced its sharp edge along the guard’s neck, beneath the ear that he’d just gobbed on. Rossett closed his eyes and heard a muffled yelp as the shard broke the skin and dug into the tissue beneath.

As he expected, the guard found new strength as he felt the blood trickle out, and Rossett gripped even harder, feeling the skin split and catch, inch by inch, as he pulled the handle across the throat, pushing it deeper, searching.

The guard thrashed at Rossett’s back with fists that were trying to find his head. Rossett ignored the blows as he dug with the shard, searching until finally he found the point he’d been looking for. His hand suddenly became hot and wet with the gush of a burst jugular. The guard frantically grabbed at Rossett, and one hand scratched on the table. There was another muffled cry, softer this time.

“Sssssh” was all Rossett could think of saying as the guard flapped an ever-weakening hand against his back. Rossett waited for the flapping to stop, and as it eased he thought about how many people he had felt pass to the other side in his hands.

Finally, the guard stopped moving.

Rossett twisted the shard deep into the wound to check if the man was still alive.

He wasn’t.

Rossett relaxed his grip and slowly let the body slide to the floor. He knelt next to the guard and quickly patted him down. He found nothing except a pocketknife, some small change, matches, and an empty wallet. Rossett placed the booty on the table and then, with his free hand, he pulled his raincoat belt out from behind him where he had fastened it between the two loops when he had bought the coat.

He hated the flapping intrusion of a loose belt, and it was a tradition that he always tied it behind him before he wore a coat for the first time.

Those who might have wondered why he never threw it away would have had their question answered as he took the belt in his teeth and opened the pocketknife quickly with his bloody hands.

He glanced toward the door as he worked. He placed the belt on the tabletop and managed to cut off the end opposite the buckle. Then, holding it up as if it was a dead snake, he shook the belt and dragged it through his teeth for a moment until out of the end dropped a bright and shiny handcuff key, never used but salted away for a worst-case scenario.

Rossett nearly cried out with joy when the key rattled onto the table, and he quickly uncuffed himself, rubbed his wrist, and surveyed the room once more. He was free of the table but not yet free of the room.

He pressed his ear to the door and listened: nothing. He knew there was at least one guard out there, and surmised that if the door was sturdy enough to prevent noise from getting out, it could just as easily stop noise from getting in. For all he knew there were twenty of them sitting waiting for him. Rossett turned the handle slowly and then tried to ease the door open.

It didn’t budge. Locked.

He crossed to the boarded-up window and looked through the cracks. It was dark outside and there was glass in the window, but other than that, it offered no clues.

He squeezed his fingers behind the old timber of the bottom board. At first, he could barely get his fingertips into the gap, but by rocking them back and forth, he slowly managed to get three fingers of each hand behind the wood.

He gripped it, noticed he’d opened the cut on his palm again, and then rocked the plank back and forth against the nails that held it in place. It creaked and groaned, and Rossett looked back to the door, stopping to see if anyone had heard it from outside.

Nobody stirred, but as a precaution, Rossett took out the pocketknife and opened the blade. If anyone came in to stop him, he would kill him or die trying.

He pulled on the board again, this time concentrating with one hand at one end. The nails gave, a quarter of an inch, then a little more with each twist. Once he freed one end, he eased the board back and it gave way at the other end, the leverage making the task easier.

He held the plank, about four feet long by six inches wide, in his hand and crouched down to look through the dirty window. He still couldn’t see anything outside, and set to work on the next one after placing the first at his feet.

This time the board came easily. Gripping tightly with both hands, in no time he’d removed four boards and exposed the lock of the sash window.

It was painted shut, and Rossett cursed under his breath as he jabbed and scraped at the old paint with the pocketknife. His fingers ached as he pulled at the iron lock until at last it gave, and he set to work on the paint-fastened frame. Picking and scraping seemed to take an age, and each rattle of the window frame sounded like cannon shell landing in the small room.

His heart raced, and, as time passed, he became more and more certain someone was going to enter the room to relieve his now drained and very dead guard.

Rossett decided that if he was disturbed, he would just jump through the window. Regardless of what lay on the other side, whatever it was, it had to be better than Leigh and the handcuffs.

Once again, not much of a plan, but the best he could come up with.

He finished chipping the paint and then, with all his remaining strength, he pushed, until finally the window gave in and moved. The swollen wood had the resistance of a glacier as inch by inch it unevenly made its way up in the frame.

When he had exposed a gap big enough for his head, Rossett smiled as he felt the cold night air on his face, but his smile faded when he saw the hard concrete quayside four stories below.

“Fuck,” he said to the pigeon-shit-stained windowsill before pulling his head back in again.

He stood back from the window and completed a half turn, looking around the room, almost hoping that it had changed in the moment he’d had his head outside.

It had to have been just five minutes since he’d killed the guard, but it felt like five hours, and he suddenly felt exhausted. He leaned his hands against the window frame and bowed his head.

He took a deep breath and sighed. There was no giving up, there was never any giving up, it wasn’t allowed.

He gripped the frame, and instead of pushing, he rested his face against the remaining boards and pulled. The window rose slowly, inch by inch, side-to-side applied pressure walking it up the frame until there was a gap big enough for him to fit through.

Rossett didn’t bother looking out this time. It didn’t matter what he saw, he was going through it.

He crossed the room and dragged the guard to behind the door, gently resting the body where it would block the door from opening. He placed the chair and table quietly in a similar manner and then put the guard’s belongings, plus the handcuffs and key, in his pockets.

His ribs were starting to ache again as the adrenaline of the fight wore off. He rubbed his side and arched his back, and, body aching, he crossed back to the window.

At the window, Rossett bent over and stuck his head and shoulders out before completing a half turn, so that he was sitting, legs still in the room, upper torso in the cold night air, on the window ledge.

There was no going back as he shuffled out of the window, looking up into the gloom like a rock climber seeking a crevice to hold.

He grabbed the top of the sash window he’d just opened and lifted his right foot up and out onto the ledge. He left leg was still hooked inside, and he used this as a brace to allow him to lean back farther, looking up and then left and right.

To his right, there were more windows, the same size and shape as the one he had climbed out of. The brickwork was old and the building seemed to stretch as far as sixty feet till it reached the corner.

To his left, there was only one more window before the corner of the building. Between the windows was a gap of about five feet: too far to jump.

He leaned back, using the window frame as a brace, and looked up, trying to ignore the pain from his ribs. Maybe two feet above his window was what appeared to be a brick ledge that jutted out about twelve inches. Rossett guessed it was the gulley for the roof, but from his position, he couldn’t be sure. For all he knew, if he reached the ledge it might not be the roof at all; it might just lead to more smooth brick, and he’d be stuck.

He looked down, never the best option for someone as nervous about heights as he now found he was.

Beneath him were the warehouse walls, which seemed to go on forever until they reached another window, possibly ten feet below. Rossett imagined himself dropping to the window and trying to hold on with his fingertips, then realized that would be suicide and dismissed the thought.

He looked around again and caught sight of a broken drainpipe that was snaking around from the overhang like a bent straw. Rossett wondered whether he could reach the pipe if he stood on the window ledge.

The pipe looked as if it was pinned to the building by a cast-iron bracket that had a small bush growing out of it, not exactly the securest anchor in a storm but an anchor all the same.

Rossett looked at the window ledge again and tried to weigh the odds of survival.

Somewhere out on the Thames, a foghorn sounded, and Rossett rested his face against the window and closed his eyes. The glass was cold, so cold it hurt his cheek, and the cold soaked through to his teeth, setting them on edge.

He nodded to himself. Now was as good a time to die as any; at least this way it would be quick.

Another foghorn answered the first, and Rossett took his cue and pulled his leg out of the room. He half crouched as his whole body finally made it outside. The window wasn’t tall enough for him to fully stand up in, so he had to use his right hand to brace against the upper wall that surrounded the frame. He looked down again and tried to guess if he could jump the width of the quay and make it into the oil-slick-black water that was lazily slapping the dock wall below. He couldn’t. It was too far, even for a running jump, let alone a crouching one from a window ledge.