Paris Love Match - By Nigel Blackwell Page 0,21

barreled in their direction. As they passed through the swing doors, Piers grabbed a mop and wedged it into the door handles. The maître d’ bounced off the doors, then returned with a booming voice, demanding to be let in.

Steam rose from pots and pans all around a tiny kitchen. There was no other exit. Three cooks were packed into one corner, apparently tasting something. After a moment’s surprise, they armed themselves with pots and pans.

“We don’t mean you any harm,” Piers said, holding up his hands.

“Get out,” said the head chef.

“There’s a man after us.”

The chef advanced on them. “Then call the police. Get out.”

Sidney opened a small hatch in the far wall. “Over here.”

April and Piers danced around the cooks to join her.

The head chef folded his arms and smiled. “Go ahead. It’s only five floors straight down into the trash.”

Sidney grabbed a tablecloth from a pile on a cart. She held it out to April. “Wrap it around your feet and back. Press on either side of the chute to slow you down.”

Her eyes widened. “Me?”

There was a hammering on the door. Piers saw a flash of police uniform through the small window. “Yes, you. Unless you want to deal with them.”

April wriggled into the opening and wrapped the sheet round her legs. “This is stupid.”

“Go!” said Sidney, wrapping another tablecloth around herself.

One of the cooks started for the door.

“Wait,” said the head chef. “This I have to see.”

April dropped into the chute, screaming.

The chef nodded. “I’m impressed. Now open the door.”

Piers grabbed Sidney and stepped into the hatch. He forced his feet against one side of the chute and his back against the other. His shoes skidded and juddered on the smooth metal. Sidney rolled into a ball in his arms and they rocketed downward. His back grew hot and he couldn’t see below, but above them he could hear shouting. The outline of someone appeared at the hatch, but in a moment they were gone.

“Hope they don’t have a bloody gu—”

Piers’ feet flipped off the end of the metal, and his back fell away under Sidney’s weight. He redoubled his grip on her and curled his head forward, cringing.

The ground wasn’t what he had expected. They hit it with a percussive whump. It was soft, trash bags filled with god knows what. The plastic bags were almost frictionless, and he slid sideways. The impact on his back felt more like a mistimed jump into a swimming pool than a concrete floor. The smell wasn’t what he had expected either. A savory, sickly sweet putridness. He almost gagged.

Sidney struggled to get free. He relaxed his grip and she levered herself off him by wedging her elbow in his stomach. He struggled to get up on the squirming bags.

The room would have been pitch dark but for the glow from April’s mobile phone. She was searching the walls. “This was a stupid idea.”

Piers snorted. “Did you want to see if we could talk our way out of things with the police?”

“You didn’t even look for another way out!”

“There wasn’t another way out. Didn’t you notice the guys with the pots and pans and the police at the door?”

“Don’t be stup—”

“Stop it,” shouted Sidney. “Both of you. We need to get out of here.”

Piers clenched his teeth, and took out his phone for illumination.

“There’s a crack down the corner of this wall,” Sidney said.

Piers scrabbled over the stinking bags and saw the line of light in the corner. There was a gap. He ran his phone upward. The gap went right to the top of the room then along the ceiling. “The whole wall’s a door. We need a lever or something.”

“Here,” April said from the other side of the room.

“Pull it,” Piers and Sidney said in unison.

April put her weight onto the lever. There was a metallic crunching sound, a rumbling, and light burst in through the top of the wall. It shook and rattled like an ancient drawbridge.

The wall opened onto a parking area for a trash truck. Piers expected to see a line of police officers, but there were none in sight. Beyond the parking spot, pedestrians and Paris traffic bustled. Piers stepped forward as the door headed for the horizontal. They were still high above the ground; the trash was obviously poured straight into the rear of a parked truck.

The floor began to tilt. “Shit!”

Sidney grabbed his arm. “What’s happening?”

“Jump!”

He leapt down to the ground. His feet stung from the impact but he turned