The Venice conspiracy

CHAPTER 75

Tom's legs wobble and splay like a deer on ice.

He strips the guard and puts on his clothes. The shoes are too tight to get on, so he goes barefoot.

He locks the door of his cell behind him. Heads down a corridor of old glazed brick and broken floor tiles that instantly cut his feet. Slithers along the wall, partly for support, partly to avoid the glare of overhead strips. His eyes are still stinging. Vision blurred by haloes of intense whiteness.

There's a door to his left. Identical to his.

Another ward.

He slips past and slides along the next wall.

Stops.

The door was closed.

Why?

He can't help it. He goes back. If the door is locked, then maybe someone else is being held inside. Someone due to suffer the same fate as him.

He hopes the sliver of steel in his hands is a master key.

He pushes it into the lock.

It doesn't turn.

He wriggles it deeper and tries again.

Chambers click and hidden metal teeth finally clack into play.

Tom cautiously pushes the door open.

The room is identical to his. Even smells the same. There's a rough metal hospital bed, jacked high. On it is a body.

Unconscious or asleep?

His heart thumps as he edges closer.

Tina.

The plump, moist lips he once kissed are dry and scabbed. Her vibrant eyes are rimmed with black bruising and are crusted shut. He shakes her.

Nothing.

Dead?

He bends close. Hears her breathe.

Thank God.

Tom knows he doesn't have the strength to carry her. There's no choice but to leave. Leave, get help and come back.

He glances down at the cellphone he took from the guard.

Still no signal.

He moves quickly. Locks the door again from the outside. Prays no one is coming as he slips back down the corridor.

Seeing Tina has given him energy. Determination. Hope.

Maybe there's more to her betrayal than he thought. An explanation.

He turns right at the bottom.

Another long corridor opens before him. His spirit sinks.

An iron gate.

Slap bang in the middle of his escape route is an iron, ceiling-to-floor, wall-to-wall gate. There's no chance his key will fit it. He can tell without even trying that the lock is much bigger.

There's a door on the wall on the right-hand side just metres away. He has no option but to go for it.

Five paces and he's there.

It's not locked.

He shuts the door behind him. Quickly checks the phone again.

Still no signal.

The room is pale green, cobwebbed and bare. Three deep wooden shelves run around the walls. In years gone by it must have been a storage area of some kind. There's a small window but it's barred from the outside. He can see trees through the dirt.

Tom figures he's in an old storeroom, or laundry, maybe two floors up. A place for dumping dirty bedding and distributing new sheets and towels.

A glance beneath the bottom shelf confirms his suspicions.

A laundry hatch.

He doesn't know where it goes, or whether he'll be able to fit in it.

The cover is pinned with nails. Big ones.

He hunkers down beneath the shelf and tries to pull a corner off, then remembers the Swiss Army knife he took from the guard. The blade is sharp enough to whittle out wood around a nail head. The slide-out screwdriver strong enough to get a little leverage.

It's a struggle.

But he gets there. The nail in the top corner comes away. He forces two, three fingers behind and tugs.

Slowly the plywood bends, then splits diagonally across the middle. Tom tosses the broken part and pulls on the pinned remains. Splinters stick into his skin. Jagged edges cut his flesh, but he keeps straining.

He falls backwards as it comes away.

Voices outside. The clunk of the iron gate. Footsteps.

A black hole faces him.

Unhesitatingly, Tom slips into it. Unaware of where it goes, or whether he's going to be able to get all the way through and reach the bottom.

The drop is not at all what he imagined.

It's sheer.

Deep.

Over in seconds.

What saves him from serious injury is that the laundry chute is as securely nailed at the bottom as it was at the top.

His six-foot-three-inch frame hits the board in total blackness. Jars both his ankles and knees but breaks his fall.

The backs of his thighs are ripped raw by the splintered wood as he tumbles out of the hole and drops three feet into a crunching heap on the ground.

Tom lies still for a second. Takes stock of the damage.

Everything hurts.

Nothing has escaped either the jolt of the surprise impact or the brutal scraping of the splintered and jagged wood.

He gets to his feet. Hobbles. Feels a burning in his right ankle. Twisted. Sprained. But not broken.

His eyesight is still blurred. Hazy, but better.

The room is big and open. Two windows. Both barred – just like the ones in the room where he'd been held.

At the far end – a door. Closed. Maybe locked. Maybe not.

He looks for the cellphone. It dropped from his hand when he fell through the chute. He hopes it's not broken.

He bends down and sees straight away -

– a signal!

He grabs it and hits Valentina's number.

Misdial!

He tries to clear it and start again.

The screen floods with a menu in Italian offering a camera, games, text messaging, calendar and a dozen other things that he doesn't want. He struggles to get back to just the dial function.

An internet browser pops up.

Internet on a damned phone!

He finally dials Valentina.

She answers within three rings.

'Pronto.' Her voice is cautious, no doubt because of the unrecognised number on her display.

'Valentina, it's Tom.'

'Tom?'

'I don't have long. I don't even know where I am. I've been drugged and held hostage.'

'Wait, Tom! Wait!' She looks across the office to Francesca. 'Get a trace on this call. Quick! It's from a cell. Get a GPS lock on it straight away.'

A noise outside the room makes him back into the corner.

Tom hears voices now. He knows they're closing in on him. He can't talk any longer.

He places the phone on the floor to free his hands, but leaves the call connected.

The door bursts open.

Two people rush in.

He recognises one of them straight away. The one pointing a gun straight at his head.