where she lives, and if they can’t… My chest tightens. Well, at least one of us will be safe.
I want to go over the route with her again, but there’s no time. I have to trust her. “Tell them your dad’s trapped inside so they know to send someone quickly.”
“I’ll say you’re a policeman,” she says earnestly, and I smile, despite everything. “I’ll say you’re a real policeman and you have a number but it isn’t on your uniform and it’s eight three nine.”
I look at my daughter, and I think of all the times I’ve listened to her reciting plane numbers, all the times she’s talked me through Mina’s routes and routines. I think of the petty jealousy I’ve felt each time. “You know my shoulder number.”
“You’re Detective Sergeant 839 and you work on CID and you used to drive a Vauxhall Astra with flashing lights but now you’ve got a blue car with no flashing lights, and it corners like a bloody tank.”
“Sophia Holbrook, you never cease to amaze me.” I take a deep breath. “Time to go, pumpkin. You know how you and Mummy play airplanes?”
She nods.
“And you can balance so brilliantly on Mummy’s feet—like you’re flying?”
Another nod.
“We’re going to do some balancing now, and you’re going to be really brave, okay?”
Her eyes are pools in the darkness, the light from the coal chute serving only to shadow her further. “I’m scared.” She breathes in, bottom lip wobbling.
“Me too.”
The coal chute is high—too high for Sophia to reach by standing on my shoulders while I’m seated, and with my hands fixed to the metal pipe, I can’t stand up. I twist around instead, my back on the floor and my legs against the wall. I have a sudden, painful memory of Mina doing the same one evening after work. My back’s killing me.
I shuffle back toward the wall till my shoulders are as close to the brick as I can get them, my feet as high as they can possibly reach while I’m still cuffed to the ground. “Ready to play airplanes?”
“Y-yes.”
I bend my legs close to my chest, keeping the soles of my feet horizontal. “Can you kneel on my feet? That’s it. Don’t worry about hurting me.”
She scrambles over me, squashing my face as she clambers onto my feet, Elephant clutched in one hand. Smoke catches at the back of my throat, and it’s all I can do to stop myself from catapulting Sophia upward. “Ready? We’re going to fly!”
Slowly, so she doesn’t fall, I push my legs straight, my thigh muscles straining with the unaccustomed action. Sophia clutches at my feet, and as she leans to the side, I fight to keep her balanced. I lock my knees into place. “Can you stand up?” I can’t see the entrance to the coal chute, but I know we’re not high enough.
Not yet.
“It’s all wobbly!”
“I need you to stand up, sweetheart. Please try.”
For a second, I think she won’t do it. Can’t do it. I think it’s all over, and I’ll have to lower her down and we’ll stay here—we’ll die here—in this concrete tomb.
But I feel her move. Slowly. Carefully. One tiny foot pressed against mine. She gets her balance, then I feel the other foot on mine. My toes curl around her slippers as though that alone will stop her from falling.
“Can you see the tunnel?”
“It’s right by my head.”
Another big breath. “This is it, then, sweetheart. Time to crawl out and get help.” It isn’t a long chute. With her feet in the entrance, she can stretch up through the shaft and—
She’s five years old.
What am I doing?
I have no choice. If she stays here, she’ll die. Outside, it’s freezing, snow on the ground, and Sophia is in pajamas and slippers. She’s walked to school every day for a whole term, she knows every turn, every shop off by heart, but can she do it on her own? In the dark?
Even if she doesn’t, she’ll be away from the fire. Away from the smoke. She’ll be safe.
I feel the sudden lightness on my feet as Sophia lifts first one, then the other leg into the chute, blocking off the light as she crawls out onto the grass. “Don’t run!” I call after her. “You’ll fall!”
Maybe she’ll get help to me in time. Maybe she won’t.
It’s the biggest gamble of my life.
FORTY-FIVE
PASSENGER 1G
I cannot be confined. Arrested, interrogated, thrown in a police cell. I couldn’t sit in the dock of a criminal court and