halt, the rope biting cruelly into his stomach. Brian's laughter echoed around him. "Did you think we were going to drop you all the way?"
"Please," Ziggy sobbed. "I never killed her. I don't know who killed her. Please?
Now he was moving again, the rope lowering him in short spurts. He thought it would cut him in half. He could hear the heavy breathing of the men above him, the occasional curse as the rope burned a careless hand. Every foot took him further into darkness, the faint flickers from above fading in the dank, freezing air.
It seemed to go on forever. Eventually, he felt a difference in the quality of the air around him and he stopped bumping the sides. The bottle was widening from the neck. They were really going to do it. They were really going to abandon him here. "No," he shouted at the top of his lungs. "No."
His toes scraped solid ground and blessedly took the strain off the rope biting into his gut. The rope above him slackened. A dissonant, disembodied voice echoed from above. "Last chance, cocksucker. Confess and we'll pull you out."
It would have been so easy. But it would have been a lie that would lead him into impossible places. Even to save himself, Ziggy couldn't name himself a murderer. "You're wrong," he shouted from the bottom of his battered lungs.
The rope landed on his head, its whipping coils surprisingly heavy. He heard a last jeering laugh, then silence. Total, overwhelming silence. The glimmer of light from the top of the shaft died. He was immured in blackness. No matter how hard he strained his eyes, he could see nothing at all. He had been cast into outer darkness.
Ziggy edged sideways. There was no way of telling how far he was from the walls, and he didn't want to walk his tender face into solid rock. He remembered reading about blind white crabs that had evolved in an underground cave. Somewhere in the Canary Islands, he thought. Generations of darkness had made eyes redundant. That was what he had become, a blind white crab sidewinding in impenetrability.
The wall came sooner than he expected. He turned and let his fingertips feel the grainy sandstone. He was struggling to keep his panic at bay, concentrating on his physical environment. He couldn't let himself speculate on how long he would be here. He'd go mad, fall to pieces, dash his brains out on the stone if he thought about the possibilities. Surely they wouldn't leave him to die? Brian Duff might, but he didn't think his friends would take that chance.
Ziggy turned his back to the wall and slowly slid down till he was sitting on the chill floor. He ached all over. He didn't think anything was broken, but he knew now that you didn't have to have fractures to suffer the sort of pain that demanded serious analgesia.
He knew he couldn't afford just to sit there and do nothing. His body was going to stiffen, his joints cramp if he didn't keep moving. He'd die of exposure in these temperatures if he couldn't keep his circulation going, and he wasn't about to give those barbaric bastards the satisfaction. He had to get his hands free. Ziggy bent his head as low as possible, wincing at the pain from his bruised ribs and spine. If he pulled his hands up to the limit of the rope, he could just get his teeth on the knotted end.
As silent tears of pain and self-pity dripped down his nose, Ziggy began the most crucial battle of his life.
Chapter 16
Alex was surprised to find the house empty when he arrived home. Ziggy hadn't said anything about going out and Alex presumed he'd planned an evening working. Maybe he'd gone round to see one of his fellow medics. Maybe Mondo had come back and they'd gone for a drink together. Not that he was worried. Just because he'd been rousted by Cavendish and his crew was no reason to believe anything bad had happened to Ziggy.
Alex made himself a cup of coffee and a pile of toast. He sat at the kitchen table, his notes from the lecture in front of him. He'd always struggled to hold the Venetian painters distinct in his head, but tonight's slideshow had clarified certain elements he wanted to be sure he'd grasped. He was scribbling in the margin when Weird bounced in, full of earnest bonhomie. "Wow, what a night I've had," he