Cold Justice (Willis/Carter #4)(113)

Cam stood for a few minutes looking at the bales. They had been stacked so that their load was balanced. He ran his hands along the lowest row, counting until he stopped by a section that had two bales, end on. He knelt and slid his hands either side of one of the bales, wriggling it out like a piece out of a Jenga puzzle.

Lauren was watching, quietly terrified, from the entrance.

‘Do you want to wait in the car, Lauren?’ asked Jeanie, looking back at her. She shook her head.

Toby came to stand next to her.

‘When we were young we had a farmhand called Billy who was really kind to us kids,’ said Cam as Willis knelt beside him and helped him gently dislodge the bale.

‘He could see what was going on and so, when he stacked these bales in here, he created a tunnel for us as he went.’ They finished sliding out the bale.

‘We’d try and make it to here and then we’d scramble in and pull the bale to, and we’d hide in here, all night sometimes.’

‘Could Samuel really be in there now?’ asked Carter as he joined Willis on her knees by the tunnel. ‘Is there any air?’

‘There’s enough,’ answered Cam, ‘the stack is still standing, I presume the tunnel is still there.’

Willis lay down on her side and peered into the gap between the bales. Does it widen out?’

‘Yes, to the width of the two bales after about ten feet, just briefly. There’s a section in the middle where we used to stay overnight if we could get here. There is an exit over here,’ Cam said as he walked along the front of the bales and stopped at the far left, feeling along until he found the bale on the second level. He carefully slid it out. Carter and Willis followed him over to take a look.

‘This drops down into the stack then?’ asked Willis, as she reached her arm inside to try and gauge what was beyond where she could see with her torch.

‘Yes.’

Carter cupped his hands to his mouth and called Samuel. There was no reply.

‘We need a camera probe like they put in drains. Have we got one?’ Carter looked across at Pascoe for an answer.

‘I can get one within the hour.’

‘Then we will wait.’ Carter was just getting to his feet when he paused and looked at Willis’s face. She held her finger to her lips and listened hard at the tunnel exit. ‘You heard a noise?’ She nodded. Carter called across to Lauren and Toby. ‘Come over here and try calling him.’

They hurried across and knelt together and Lauren called into the darkness.

‘Samuel? Hello, Samuel. Talk to Mommy. Can you hear me? Samuel?’

Carter and Willis strained to listen as the faintest reply came from deep inside the stacks.

‘Mommy?’

‘Samuel, baby. We’re coming. You be a good boy now and stay still, stay there. We’re coming to get you.’ She couldn’t speak as she looked at Toby. She swallowed and breathed and wiped her eyes.

‘What can we do?’ she asked.

A bale shifted at the top of the stack and toppled down onto the floor in a shower of dust.

‘He’s going to die in there, get him out. You have to get him out.’

‘No, Lauren. It’s unstable. We’ll have to wait,’ replied Jeanie. ‘We have no choice.’

‘The specialist rescue team will be here within the hour,’ Pascoe said, but his eyes went up to the large crack that was starting to appear in the top centre of the stack. The stack was beginning to give way. Willis saw it too.

‘I’ll go in now, guv. We can’t wait.’

‘No, Eb, you can’t risk it,’ Jeanie said.

‘I think I can get through.’ She looked at Cam. He shook his head in response.

‘I have no idea what it’s like in there any more. It was always a small space, even when we were kids.’

‘No, Eb. You can’t, it’s too dangerous,’ said Jeanie.

‘But Kensa has been in there,’ answered Willis. ‘I’m bigger, but I reckon I can squeeze in. We know Samuel is in there. We have to try and get him out. We can’t wait an hour and then another hour trying to get in there. Let me give it a go.’ Jeanie looked at Carter to try and stop Willis. He was staring up at the stack. He looked at Willis and nodded.

Pascoe went to his van and came back with a length of rope and a safety helmet.

‘This is all I can find.’

Willis took it and switched on the torch on top of the helmet. She strapped it on tightly and tied the rope around her waist.

‘We have to go for it now,’ she said as she gave Jeanie her jacket but kept her radio, making a last-minute check it was working before giving Jeanie the end of the rope.

‘If it collapses, you’ll be able to locate me?’ she asked, as she looked across at Carter. It was a rhetorical question but Carter couldn’t answer anyway. He was struck with some sort of fear he’d never felt before. It was all right sending himself into danger, but not someone he cared so deeply for.

‘Guv?’

He nodded.

Willis lay down on her side and began to wriggle between the bales and work her way through.

The barn fell silent as the others listened to the sounds of her exertion until she disappeared from sight. Carter knelt on the ground and called through the darkness, ‘Okay, Eb?’