The Getaway - By Tom Barber Page 0,42

got the message.

Farrell may have extended trust towards him, but she sure as hell hadn’t yet.

Farrell stepped back inside the cage, scooping up some red striking pads that had been left on the ground and hooking them over his forearms. The older guy with the water stepped outside the cage and moved to a timer, pressing a button. It beeped.

‘Let’s go!’ he said.

Farrell had the pads up, and Ortiz went to work.

Archer was expecting a spectacle, but she was truly vicious. From where he was standing he was surprised the pads didn’t burst considering the force she was hitting them with. She was exhaling sharply with every shot, so each strike was accompanied with a yell that made it more intimidating. Bambambam. She was working combos, firing elbows and kicks and fast punch sequences that were crisp, technical and brutally powerful. Farrell was knocked back every now and then by a blow that was really clean, especially her kicks where she torqued her hip and her shin crushed into the pad. Archer watched her work, and his memory flashed back to the street-fight on Monday night. He wondered if the guy she’d clinched and kneed in the face had woken up yet. He was probably still unconscious.

The workout upped in intensity as the five minutes went on, Ortiz’s stamina not dropping at all. She was in impressive shape. If anything, she actually gained momentum, her yells growing louder as she hammered violent combo after combo, strike after strike, into the pads Farrell had strapped to his arms. On the exercise equipment behind them, Archer noticed a couple of people turning at the noise, then looking away in the next instant, not wanting the woman in the cage to see them staring. After another minute or so, the buzzer sounded and the round ended.

‘Good job!’ the old guy outside called.

Farrell and Ortiz bumped fists, and she hunched over, catching her breath, drenched with sweat. Farrell nodded approvingly and stepped outside, pulling off the work-mitts and heading over to Archer.

‘She’s got a fight coming up?’ Archer asked, watching her recover from the workout.

Farrell shook his head. ‘No. Just staying sharp.’

Archer nodded, looking over at her inside the cage. She leaned back, hands on her hips, and glared over at him again, her chest heaving as she sucked in oxygen and as her body recovered from the exertion. She walked out of the side entrance to the cage which Farrell had opened, and the other trainer started pulling her gloves off. Farrell beckoned Archer to follow him and the two men walked over as the grey-haired corner-man pulled off the second glove. Ortiz grabbed the bottle of water resting on a chair with her white-wrapped hands and unscrewed the cap, drinking from it and sucking in gulps of oxygen.

‘What’s he doing here?’ she asked, panting, glaring at Archer, her accent Hispanic.

‘Both of you, come with me,’ Farrell said, headed for a side door and ignoring her question.

Archer didn’t move.

‘Ladies first,’ he said.

Ortiz stared at him, hostile, sweat dripping down her brow, the odd strand of hair from her corn-rows twisted and frizzed up in the air from the workout. Then she grabbed a white towel from a bench and wrapping it around her glistening shoulders, she followed her boyfriend towards the doorway, her t-shirt soaked with sweat.

Archer followed, but made sure to keep his distance.

The door opened onto a flight of stairs that led down through the back of the building. Farrell pushed open another door on the floor below, and walked ahead of them into a storage room.

No one was inside. The place was dimly lit, filled with brown boxes, some of them opened, containing white towels and t-shirts with the gym logo on the front. Farrell walked on, and pushed a stack of boxes out of the way at the end of the room on the right. He reached forward and pulled a second panel open on the wall, leading to another level. It was well-camouflaged, painted cream like the rest of the wall. Archer would never have guessed it was there. Farrell led the other two down the steps. Turning, Archer realised the older man, the corner-man, had followed them to the storage room, and had shut the secret door behind them. He heard the slide of the boxes being pushed back across the doorway, hiding it once again.

All three of them stood there in the red-brick tunnel, momentarily still, just a solitary light-bulb hanging from the ceiling providing light,