Shift (24 page)

And the hospital gown didn't help. He tugged at the back and tried to pull the two ends closer together.

Louise gave up on the LSU and squatted alongside Nick.

"Is it him?" she whispered.

Nick shrugged. It had the feel of Pendennis. Torture by threat and suggestion, drawing out the moment, letting their own minds conjure the worst.

But what if it was something else? Could the door have been opened remotely?

He peered at the door-frame. He couldn't see anything that looked like a mechanism for opening the door but maybe it didn't need one. If the door was balanced to swing open it would do so the moment the lock bolt was released.

Which could be done remotely.

He whispered to Louise. "I think it's been opened remotely. The guards in the control room will have been monitoring the corridors. Maybe it's a message from them to say it's safe. Get out now and follow the open doors."

Louise wasn't so sure. "Why don't they come in and get us?"

"Maybe they're busy elsewhere. Maybe it's Ziegler giving us a chance to escape. Not just from Pendennis but from Upper Heywood as well."

He hoped what he said was true.

And the picture he had of Pendennis lurking in the corridor with his two smiling henchmen would go away.

He edged away from the bed, still crouching, trying to be as quiet as he could in that ridiculous swishing hospital gown. He crept towards the left of the door, leaning forward, trying to see as much of the corridor as he could without getting too close. It appeared empty.

He backtracked towards the beds—time to check the other side of the corridor. He inched along the foot of the first bed then the second, watching the doorway all the time, every muscle ready to fight or flee. Still nothing; an open door, an empty corridor—the small portion that he could see.

He reached the right-hand wall and crept along it—mantis-like, a slight sway back and forth as his subconscious pulled him back at every step. Prepare to flee. Prepare to flee.

Almost there. The right-hand door jamb a yard away. If Pendennis was out there he'd know in the next second. One more step and he'd see him.

Nothing yet. The wedge of visible corridor widened. He pressed his head flat against the wall and peered as far to the left as he could. It was empty.

Unless Pendennis had flattened himself against the near corridor wall.

Nick hovered in the doorway. He had to make that final check. He had to lean his head into the corridor. He swallowed, turned towards Louise and forced a smile. Now or never.

He jumped through, throwing his arms out to fend off any sudden attack and . . .

Relief. It was empty. It really was empty. He swivelled on the spot. The corridor clear in both directions and—he looked harder—all the other doors appeared closed.

Was that significant? Someone had unlocked their door but no one else's? Could it have been Ziegler?

He waved Louise over.

"Do you know where we are?" she asked.

He didn't. So many of the bays looked the same and he couldn't see any signs on the walls. Even the doors weren't numbered. But the central corridor couldn't be far away. Find that and he'd have his bearings.

"This way," said Nick, selecting a direction at random. "There's got to be a sign somewhere."

They inched along the corridor, slow tentative noiseless steps. They crept past one door—closed—then another—slightly ajar. Should they look inside? Maybe there was a window? A way out?

Nick peeked through the gap. No windows that he could see. Another trademark Upper Heywood room: bare and white. And if it was occupied, Nick didn't want to know.

They moved on. There was a camera pointing towards them at the intersection up ahead—a T-junction with passages left and right. They stopped and peered around the corner. The same bare, windowless corridors in both directions. Didn't Upper Heywood believe in interior decor? A few paintings, a splash of colour, a floor plan?

"Do you recognise any of this?" Louise whispered.

He still didn't. The more he looked the more the place looked like a maze. And if they didn't find a sign soon that's how he'd treat it. A maze they could escape from by always turning in the same direction.

They turned left. The camera followed them. Strip lights hummed and flickered overhead, the first real sound they'd heard for ages. They walked faster, passing closed door after closed door. They crossed an intersection, passages coming off left and right: both dead-ends, both containing a series of doors, everything unmarked.

How did people find their way around here? None of the doors were numbered or marked in any way. There were no signs or arrows, no bay numbers. All the corridors looked the same.

Voices floated down the passageway behind them.

Nick and Louise stopped dead. Pendennis? They listened. It was several voices. Yelling. And getting closer. A mob?

Nick and Louise started to run. No time for caution, they had to get away. A maze of passages lay ahead of them. They turned left, they turned right, they ran straight ahead. No plan other than to get away as far and as fast as possible.

The sound behind them grew louder: running feet, raised voices. Every corridor identical, all doorways threatening and uninviting. And not a window in sight. Not even a barred one.

They turned once more, running flat out, there had to be an exit soon! They were being pursued half-naked through a prison, hospital gowns flapping open at the back. If they were caught . . .

Nick tried to squash that thought but a hundred voices took up the cry. It sounded like the entire prison population were in pursuit, screaming and shouting.

The corridor turned to the left; he bounced off the right-hand wall in his haste to make the turn.

Then skidded to a stop.

It was a dead-end. The corridor ran for another twenty yards then stopped. There were two doors—one left, one right—halfway along the passage.

A glance back the way they'd come. A few more seconds and the mob would be upon them. They had to take one of the doors. Maybe it would be an exit?

"You choose," said Nick.

"That one," said Louise. There was a lock panel to the left of the door. He hit it hard and prayed.

It opened and they dived inside.

Peter sat on the floor in the middle of the room. The blood on his hands and face matched the red of his clothes, and scattered around him lay pieces of flesh, many with fragments of clothing still attached. He looked, as he often dreamed he looked, like a small child who had crawled inside a butcher's window.

One of the larger pieces lay in his lap. He was playing with it when Lulu and her doctor friend fell into the room.

He didn't bother to look up. They'd wait. But meat had sell-by dates. If you waited too long the little voices would escape and you'd never know where they'd been hiding.

He dug his hand in and started to pull the skin away from the flesh. He liked this bit. He liked the way the skin peeled back all in one piece. You could climb inside if you were quick. Climb inside and hide for hours, dressed from head to toe in shiny red skin.

He smiled at the thought. Then remembered he wasn't alone. He could see them in the doorway, looking scared. He closed the door behind them. He could do that—open and close doors. He had the power. Always had. He loved being in control.

He felt behind him for the head on the floor. The skull extracted, only the cap of skin and hair remained. He put his hand inside and held it up like a glove puppet to show his guests.

"Have you met Doctor Ziegler?"

The room was dark; Pendennis sat in a cone of light from a central spotlight, everything else was in shadow. The room could have stretched for miles. And anyone could be lurking hidden in the shadows.

Outside, behind the door that had so recently closed, there was silence. No shouting, no running feet, no mob hammering on the door. Just silence.

Nick and Louise were rooted in the doorway, their eyes locked on the mask in Peter's hand.

"Is that really, Ziegler?" asked Nick.

He had to ask, curiosity pulling the words from him. But did he really want to know the answer? Deep down, something inside him craved ignorance.

Peter didn't seem to care. He turned the grisly mask to face him, looked deep and hard into its features and said. "Looks like him to me."

He then turned, both face and mask, to Louise. "What do you think, Lulu?"

Louise didn't answer. She turned her head away, gritted her teeth and clenched her fists. She's going to attack him, thought Nick. He placed a hand on her arm. "No," he said. "Not yet." Pendennis had to be armed. There were body parts strewn all over the floor. Something had to have been used to cut them up.

And it was too easy. Pendennis laid traps. He wouldn't allow himself to be caught alone. Someone would be in the shadows, pressed up against a far wall, waiting.

Or would they? It was a long shot but what if there were other doors in the room, maybe a way out? Wasn't that worth a look?

He whispered to Louise. "Follow the wall around. There might be a door."

"Little voices," said Peter, his voice distracted, "always whispering, thinking Peter can't hear them but Peter hears everything, doesn't he, Doctor Zee."

Nick went right, Louise left—the pair of them sticking to the wall, their gowns swishing against the plaster, their faces turned half-inward, one eye on Pendennis, the other on the shadow up ahead.

"I'm watching you," said Peter, turning Ziegler's face to stare directly at Nick. "We both are."

Nick pressed on. He'd drawn alongside Pendennis. Still no door. If the light was in the centre of the room he was halfway to the far wall. If he ran, and there was a door, he could get to it before Peter. If there was a lock panel he could open it. If it wasn't guarded. If, if, if . . .

"I wouldn't go any further if I were you," said Peter.

Nick's heart thumped inside his chest. He speeded up. Not much further to go now.

"Have you seen what Peter does to bad boys?"

Yes, he had and he didn't want to think about it. He glanced across the room instead. He couldn't see or hear her but was Louise still making progress? Would she call out if she found a door?

"He bites their noses off," said Peter.

There was a growling sound from the centre of the room and then a shriek. Nick turned. Peter had grabbed hold of Ziegler's nose with his teeth and was pulling at it, shaking his head from side, trying to rip the mask to pieces, growling like a dog in a feeding frenzy.

"Peter! Stop that!" Nick's face drained. That was Ziegler's voice. The words, clear and authoritative. And they were coming from the mask.

Peter stopped, released his grip on Ziegler's nose and inclined his head. He looked spellbound, fascinated. The glove puppet spoke! Its lips, what was left of them, moved.

"That's better, Peter," said Ziegler.

Peter brought Ziegler's face closer to his. He looked mesmerised by the talking mask. His eyes filled with wonder.

"Now it's time for our little game again," said the mask. "Remember? Today, we're going back to the time when you were six years old. Do you remember when you were six years old, Peter?"

Peter nodded. "Yes, I remember."

"Good," Ziegler's voice droned on. "It's your summer holiday. You've gone to the seaside with your mother. Do you remember the day you got lost? When it was cold and showery and the wind chased you into that old funfair museum? The day you met Jack?"

Reality shuddered—as though hit by some immense force that made the room wobble like jelly. Walls and faces shimmered, began to break up, the room shattering into a myriad of dissolving fragments, leaving nothing but an all-encompassing blackness. No Peter, no Ziegler, no scattered joints of meat. Only Nick, Louise and the dark.

"Nick, are you there?" asked Louise. She sounded close but his eyes couldn't penetrate the gloom. Not that he was looking hard. He was too busy thinking. His brain was being battered by a meteor storm of puzzle pieces. Some were actually falling into place.

"Nick?" she asked again, her voice rising half an octave.

"Over here," he said, patting himself down. One body, present and correct. At least he hadn't separated and fallen into the void.

"What just happened?" she asked, shuffling closer. "Was that a hologram breaking up?"

"No," he said, sniffing the air. A musty, stuffy smell. Definitely not Upper Heywood. Which fitted his theory.

An outstretched hand caught him under the eye. Louise apologised. "Sorry, I can't see a thing in here."

"Don't apologise. You can't hurt what's not really here."

"Are you all right?" she asked.

He was more than all right. For the first time since he'd woken up that morning—or afternoon, evening or whatever time this pretended to be—he felt back in control. He knew where he was and he knew what to do.

"Nick, you're worrying me."

"Then prepare to be unworried," he said. If he'd been sure of his footing, he'd have added a dance. "We're not going to be extradited and John Bruce isn't President."

"What?"

"And Anders Ziegler is very much alive and regressing young Peter as we speak."

He felt the urge to pace and swing his arms. But that was tempting fate too much. Somewhere in this gloom was a funfair museum with sharp-edged metal exhibits and a six-year old Peter Pendennis. And in this place, whatever his age, Peter would be dangerous.

Somewhere in the distance a wind howled. And was that a draught? Nick turned instinctively towards it. A horizontal line of what looked like sunlight had appeared on the floor behind him. And was that a door above it? He walked over. Louise followed, tugging at his arm.

"What are you talking about? How do you know this?"

"Peter's probably listening so I won't tell you everything but think about it . . . one minute we're on the verge of rescuing your American friend, the next we wake up in Upper Heywood and all hell breaks loose. Why? Cue simple answer: because we never left Upper Heywood in the first place. We got too close to Pendennis and instead of pulling John out, Peter pulled us in."