Pointless shouting. They wouldn’t hear him. But the cop was right. He couldn’t go anywhere. They had him trapped. God, how had it all gone wrong?
‘Come on down, Gauld.’
The fool was yelling again. Come on down? He ventured another look over the edge. Just looking made him dizzy and he pressed back against the cab, his hands scrabbling for something to hold on to. If they wanted him, they’d have to bring him down.
Above him the jib gave another tortured scream of pain, then another sound pierced the night. A two-tone siren.
The fire engine halted outside the gate and a bearded fireman made his way across to the inspector. He looked angry. ‘You called a vet for that dog? It’s still alive, you know.’
‘He’s on his way,’ snapped Frost, annoyed with himself for not attending to it. He signalled to Jordan who moved out of earshot and radioed through to Control. Frost pointed to the crane platform. ‘We want to get up there. Would your turntable ladder reach?’
The fireman squinted up, then shook his head. ‘You’d need a bleeding helicopter to get up there.’ He moved to the ladder lashed to the scaffolding and gave it a shake. It didn’t seem very firm ‘That’s the only way up.’
‘Sod that for a lark,’ said Frost. ‘Take me up on your turntable ladder as far as it goes. I’ll see if I can’t sweet-talk the bastard down.’
The turntable platform gave a jerk, then the ground suddenly hurtled down and Frost had to grab the rail to steady himself as the ladder zoomed upwards. Briefly he chanced a look down, then quickly pulled his eyes away and concentrated on staring straight ahead at the bolts and nuts and rusted metal of the scaffolding as they zipped past.
After what seemed ages, the ladder slowed and juddered to a halt and the fire officer tugged Frost’s sleeve. ‘As far as we go.’
Frost looked down. Toy cars, tiny people, miles and miles away. He looked up. Lots more scaffolding roaring up to the sky and the white blob of Gauld’s face staring down at him. ‘There’s nowhere to run,’ shouted Frost. ‘Chuck your knife and we’ll bring you down.’
Gauld yelled something, but the wind snatched and tore the words to shreds. Then the blob of his face withdrew and they couldn’t see him any more.
‘Now what?’ asked the fire officer.
Frost’s neck was aching from craning upwards. He lowered his head. In front of him was the flimsy metal ladder which Gauld had climbed. It didn’t look very safe and was rattling in the wind. He shivered. ‘If we both went up, we could overpower him.’
‘Not our job to overpower nutters with knives,’ said the fire officer, firmly. ‘Disarm him and you can have as many of my men as you like. Until then, you’re on your own.’
Sod it, thought Frost. Let’s pack it in and starve the bastard into submission. But he’d come this far. He wanted to get it over and done with. Fumbling at the buckle, he released the safety belt. ‘Help me across to the other ladder.’
The fireman looked doubtful. ‘Are you sure you know what you’re doing?’
‘I never know what I’m bleeding doing,’ said Frost.
The gap between the platform and the scaffold ladder grew markedly wider as he looked at it. Before common sense made his nerve fail he ducked quickly under the rail, holding it tight with one hand, and plunged forward in the blind hope his other hand would find something to hang on to. He managed to find one of the ladder rungs and squeezed it to death as he released his grip on the guard rail and grabbed at the same rung. He was now hanging over the gap, feet on the platform, hands on the ladder rungs and definitely at the point of no return.
‘You’re doing fine,’ called the fireman unconvincingly. ‘Now hold tight and swing your feet forward.’
He didn’t need to be told to hold tight. The skin over his knuckles was paper thin and the bones threatened to burst through. He swung forward, his feet kicking about as they tried to find the rungs. They found only space… pulling, plunging space. He was hanging by sweat-slippery hands, kicking wildly and he was terrified. Then he felt hands grabbing his ankles and placing his feet on a narrow rung. He managed to croak a word of thanks to the fireman and froze to the ladder, heart hammering, his face pressed against the cold metal, not wanting to look up or down or left or right, just wanting to be back on the ground, looking up at some silly sod doing what he was doing and telling everyone what a prat the man was.
‘Anything wrong?’ The fireman sounded anxious.
‘No,’ lied Frost. ‘Just catching my breath.’ He forced one hand to release its grip and move further up the rail. Then the other. One leg lifted and found the next rung. This was easy. As long as he didn’t look down, this was easy. It was just like climbing a ladder a couple of feet off the ground. But confidence cloaked near-disaster and he almost screamed when his foot slipped from the rung and he had to hug the ladder, shaking, feeling the ladder rattle like chattering teeth against the scaffolding. He forced himself to press on, rung by rung, his body stiff and rigid, leg muscles aching with the effort. ‘I’ll be fit for sod all when I get up there,’ he kept telling himself, trying to erase the mental picture of himself sprawled on the gantry, gasping for breath, while Gauld slowly hacked away at his windpipe. But even that prospect was currently preferable to going down, which meant moving backwards, descending the ladder in reverse. God, he was never going to get down again.
‘You’re doing fine!’
The voice seemed to come from a long way down. He risked a glance and saw the top of the man’s helmet floating in space below his feet. With an effort he forced himself on.
There was one frightening section which required him to swap from one ladder to another, holding with one hand to the first and reaching out for the next and swinging across. But not far now, thank God. He must be near the top. The teeth-setting grinding and squealing of the jib, like a giant fingernail scratching down a blackboard, screamed in his ears.
The ladder stopped and his sweat-blurred eyes were level with a wooden platform. His hands seemed fused to the ladder, but he tore them free and flung himself forward on to the gantry where he rolled across to huddle up tight to the side of the cab, keeping as far from the edge as possible.
‘Are you all right?’ A faint voice calling from a hundred miles down.
‘I’m fine,’ he yelled, not feeling it. A quick fumble through his pocket for a cigarette, turning his back to the hurricane force wind which, at this height, was making everything shake violently Far away to his left were the winking dots of light from the Lego town of Denton. His radio squawked.
‘Inspector!’ It was Gilmore from the smug safety of the firm ground. ‘Gauld’s round the other side of the gantry to you. Just seems to be standing there.’
‘Not much else the poor sod can do,’ he answered. He’d almost forgotten about Gauld, the whole purpose of this nightmare climb. Another squawk from the radio. Gilmore back again. ‘Mr Mullett is here, Inspector. He’d like a word.’ Mullett! Trust Hornrim Harry to be in at the kill. All ready to take the credit should the operation prove a success, and to dissociate himself from it in the more likely event of failure. The thought of realizing a long-held ambition to defecate on Mullett from a great height flashed across his mind as he waited.
'What’s the position, Inspector?’
‘I’m just about to go round and talk him down.’
‘Good. Let’s tie this up neat and tidy. Bring him down safely, and do it by the book.’
Stupid sod. How the hell do you get a knife-wielding mass-murderer down from a 200-foot crane by the book? He stuck the radio back in his mac and dragged himself to his feet. The wooden platform creaked and gave slightly under his weight, then the whole structure lurched and the stars danced in the sky as the wind pounded the jib. Through the cracks between the planks he could see straight down to the swaying, yawning black of the bottomless drop. One last drag of his cigarette before he flipped it away. The wind caught it and hurled it over the side where it nose-dived down to oblivion, spitting red sparks.