to hold tight. The skin over his knuckles was paper thin and the bones threatened to burst through. He swung forward, his feet kicking about as they tried to find the rungs. They found only space . . . pulling, plunging space. He was hanging by sweat-slippery hands, kicking wildly and he was terrified. Then he felt hands grabbing his ankles and placing his feet on a narrow rung. He managed to croak a word of thanks to the fireman and froze to the ladder, heart hammering, his face pressed against the cold metal, not wanting to look up or down or left or right, just wanting to be back on the ground, looking up at some silly sod doing what he was doing and telling everyone what a prat the man was.
‘Anything wrong?’ The fireman sounded anxious.
‘No,’ lied Frost. ‘Just catching my breath.’ He forced one hand to release its grip and move further up the rail. Then the other. One leg lifted and found the next rung. This was easy. As long as he didn’t look down, this was easy. It was just like climbing a ladder a couple of feet off the ground. But confidence cloaked near-disaster and he almost screamed when his foot slipped from the rung and he had to hug the ladder, shaking, feeling the ladder rattle like chattering teeth against the scaffolding. He forced himself to press on, rung by rung, his body stiff and rigid, leg muscles aching with the effort. ‘I’ll be fit for sod all when I get up there,’ he kept telling himself, trying to erase the mental picture of himself sprawled on the gantry, gasping for breath, while Gauld slowly hacked away at his windpipe. But even that prospect was currently preferable to going down, which meant moving backwards, descending the ladder in reverse. God, he was never going to get down again.
‘You’re doing fine!’
The voice seemed to come from a long way down. He risked a glance and saw the top of the man’s helmet floating in space below his feet. With an effort he forced himself on.
There was one frightening section which required him to swap from one ladder to another, holding with one hand to the first and reaching out for the next and swinging across. But not far now, thank God. He must be near the top. The teeth-setting grinding and squealing of the jib, like a giant fingernail scratching down a blackboard, screamed in his ears.
The ladder stopped and his sweat-blurred eyes were level with a wooden platform. His hands seemed fused to the ladder, but he tore them free and flung himself forward on to the gantry where he rolled across to huddle up tight to the side of the cab, keeping as far from the edge as possible.
‘Are you all right?’ A faint voice calling from a hundred miles down.
‘I’m fine,’ he yelled, not feeling it. A quick fumble through his pocket for a cigarette, turning his back to the hurricane force wind which, at this height, was making everything shake violently. Far away to his left were the winking dots of light from the Lego town of Denton. His radio squawked.
‘Inspector!’ It was Gilmore from the smug safety of the firm ground. ‘Gauld’s round the other side of the gantry to you. Just seems to be standing there.’
‘Not much else the poor sod can do,’ he answered. He’d almost forgotten about Gauld, the whole purpose of this nightmare climb. Another squawk from the radio. Gilmore back again. ‘Mr Mullett is here, Inspector. He’d like a word.’ Mullett! Trust Hornrim Harry to be in at the kill. All ready to take the credit should the operation prove a success, and to dissociate himself from it in the more likely event of failure. The thought of realizing a long-held ambition to defecate on Mullett from a great height flashed across his mind as he waited.
‘What’s the position, Inspector?’
‘I’m just about to go round and talk him down.’
‘Good. Let’s tie this up neat and tidy. Bring him down safely, and do it by the book.’
Stupid sod. How the hell do you get a knife-wielding mass-murderer down from a 200-foot crane by the book? He stuck the radio back in his mac and dragged himself to his feet. The wooden platform creaked and gave slightly under his weight, then the whole structure lurched and the stars danced in the sky as the wind pounded the jib. Through the cracks between the planks he could