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On top of me - the second time in a row! But I didn’t dare say these words aloud. They made heat rush to my face just thinking them. Was it just coincidence that we always seemed to end up like this?
‘Well? I asked. ‘What are you waiting for, just wasting time lying here? Knowledge is power is time is money, isn’t it?’
He was silent for a moment.
‘You remembered, Mr Linton.’
‘Of course, Sir.’ Before I knew what happened, my hand had reached out and touched his face. Bloody traitorous limb! ‘You’re a very memorable man.’
Another moment of silence.
A long one.
A really, really long one.
Then his weight was suddenly lifted off me, and his arms were gone. I gasped with surprise.
‘You’re right of course,’ I heard his voice from high above. ‘We have to get moving. I must have received a blow on the head when falling to the floor and been temporarily stunned. That is the only explanation for such unforgivable inactivity. Now… let’s see…’
I could feel him climb past me, back into the metal container of the cart, and had to fight hard to suppress a sense of stinging disappointment. But why? Having a man so close had been highly improper, and against my every principal and yet…
And yet, now that he was gone I wished him back. Bloody hell!
‘Mr Linton! Look what I’ve found!’ His shout roused me from my dangerously unfeminist thoughts.
‘I can’t look,’ I pointed out, turning towards where his voice had come from. ‘It’s dark.’
‘Actually, I was aware of that, Mr Linton.’ Suddenly, a light flared up, making me raise my hand instinctively to shield my eyes.
‘How…?’ I demanded, grasping for the edge of the cart for balance. The bright yellow shine forced its way through my fingers and, after the long time spent in utter blackness, almost made me dizzy.
‘There is a wooden case with spare equipment attached to the back of the cart,’ I heard the voice of Mr Ambrose from beyond the golden glow. ‘A safety lamp, knife, flint, food, water - you can say what you like about Lord Dalgliesh…’
‘Really? Well, then I’d like to point out that he is a pretentious, lying, bloodthirsty ball of slime!’
‘That was not meant as a prompt, Mr Linton.’
‘Oh. Sorry, Sir.’
‘As I was saying, say what you like about Lord Dalgliesh, but he does take all possible safety precautions. And this time, they work to our advantage.’
Slowly, I lowered my hands from my eyes and let my eyes get used to the brightness. Slowly, I looked around, and for the first time since starting on this mad, muscle-tearing ride, actually paid attention to my surroundings.
The orange glow of the safety lamp fell on rugged stone walls rushing past at a prodigious speed. They rose up about three meters, forming a vaulted ceiling above our heads. Both in front of and behind us, the tunnel disappeared into seemingly endless darkness, not giving away any of its secrets about where it would lead. For the moment, I couldn’t bring myself to care very much, as long as it brought us away from hostile men with guns. What I did care about was the ice-cold wind in my face, making my sweat-drenched clothes feel as if they would freeze any second.
My teeth began to chatter.
All right, maybe I cared a little bit.
‘Come.’ Suddenly, Mr Ambrose was beside me, nodding towards the rear of the cart. ‘Get into the container. It will shield you from the wind.’
He was right. The metal was cold to sit on, but it was a relief to have the biting wind out of my face. And there was an old sack in the metal container. The material was rough, but warm, and we huddled together, pulling it around us.
‘Where do you suppose the tunnel leads?’ I asked, after a while.
‘As I said before, I smelled sea-air from down there. I still catch a whiff of it now and again. Also, the tunnel is going down, and we started at the centre on the island, inside a mountain. This all would support my theory that the tunnel leads to the coast.’
As the last words left his mouth, the scene around us suddenly changed. Where before there had only been the stone walls of the tunnel rushing past, there now gaped a black opening. For just a moment I glimpsed another tunnel, and another set of rails splitting off from the ones we were riding on and heading down the other way. It was gone as quickly as it had come.
