Coffin’s Dark Number. Gwendoline Butler

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      ‘Why’s he crouching there?’ said the woman.

      ‘Is he crouching?’ I wasn’t sure what I could see.

      ‘He was standing up a little while ago, I swear it. Now he’s on his knees … He’s ill.’ She was breathless with interest. ‘That’s what it is, he’s been taken ill.’

      ‘How did it happen?’

      ‘Well, I don’t know. I was just coming by with my shopping when this young boy says there’s a man stuck up there.’ She looked round for the boy, who nodded vigorously.

      ‘Yes, he’s up there,’ he said, with interest and apparent pleasure.

      ‘Supposing he falls down?’ said the woman.

      ‘No, he won’t fall down. It’s like a great cage, see.’

      ‘How did it happen?’ I asked, stepping back to get a better look, but it wasn’t easy to get details clear at that angle.

      The boy shrugged. ‘He phoned down to me and said: Help me, help me, they’re getting me.’

      ‘That was a funny thing to say.’

      ‘I didn’t know what he meant. And I said: Come down, then. And he said: I can’t, the power’s gone. Then he said he was falling.’

      ‘But he hasn’t fallen.’ I squinted upwards, trying to see.

      ‘It doesn’t make sense,’ agreed the woman.

      ‘I think the lift’s stuck,’ said the boy.

      ‘It was working all right this morning,’ said one of the other men, turning round to talk. ‘Much you know about it, Patsy Burden.’

      ‘I know what I’m told,’ retorted Patsy.

      ‘And what’s been done about it?’ I aked. I was beginning to think the man up there was ill. Or worse.

      ‘I heard him call out,’ said the woman, reading my thoughts, ‘when I got here first. He’s dead silent now.’

      ‘I got the foreman coming,’ said the boy.

      ‘I reckon he’s dead.’

      ‘The foreman’s coming,’ repeated the boy.

      ‘He’s not God, is he?’ demanded the woman. ‘Supposing the poor chap’s gone, he can’t bring him back.’

      ‘He’s not gone,’ said the boy. ‘I see him.’ He pointed.

      ‘Not gone in that way, stupid. Gone, passed away. Dead.’

      I was still silent. I had that itchy, scratchy feeling I get when things are going wrong. I scratched my wrist absently. I’d had an infection there once and my skin still remembered it.

      ‘Here is the foreman,’ said Dove. ‘It’s Joe Davies. I know him. Hello, Joe, trouble here?’

      ‘There shouldn’t be,’ said the foreman, a tall spare man with a brush of fair hair. ‘But this lot can foul up anything.’ He glared at the bunch of men. ‘Have you tried bringing it down?’

      ‘No,’ said one of the men. ‘I saw one of those cages drop from top to bottom once with the man in it. You do it.’

      ‘Who is it up there? Whoever it is he shouldn’t be there. We’re not working that face today.’

      ‘I bet he’s thinking he shouldn’t be there.’

      ‘I think it’s Tom Butt,’ said one of the men.

      ‘And what’s Butty doing up there?’

      ‘I dunno. Anyway, he’s a nervous type. If he went up there it was because someone told him to.’

      ‘I’ll give him nervous when I get him down.’ He moved away.

      ‘I’ll come with you, Joe,’ said Dove.

      ‘Thanks.’ But he hardly looked at Dove as he strode off. We both followed him towards a small wooden hut which stood at the bottom of the scaffolding.

      It was empty, but smelt of men in sweaty clothes and cigarette smoke and stale tea.

      ‘I have all the controls here,’ said Joe. He looked white. He put out a hand towards a panel of switches, then hesitated. ‘Maybe I should get the police.’

      ‘I am the police, Joe,’ Dove reminded him.

      ‘How does the lift work?’ I asked.

      ‘By electricity. We don’t pull it down by hand.’ He was irritable. ‘He has a control up there. I have an emergency switch down here.’

      ‘How can you get in touch?’

      ‘We have a telephone.’ He pointed at it. ‘But either it’s gone dead or he’s not answering. I’ve tried to get him three times.’

      ‘Pull that emergency switch.’

      ‘If that man gets killed …’

      ‘Yes,’ said Dove gently.

      ‘Why is this hut empty?’ I said. ‘Shouldn’t there be someone here?’ It looked like the technological heart of the building operation.

      ‘Yes, me,’ said Joe briefly. ‘And the boy’s about. He took the call.’

      ‘Pull the switch, Joe,’ advised Dove. ‘And quickly. If the power is on then that cage will come down safely. If it’s not then it’ll stay put; it won’t fall.’

      Joe still hesitated.

      ‘Get him down,’ said Dove.

      I was letting Dove take charge because he knew the man.

      Without another word, Joe reached out and pulled down a red-coloured lever.

      ‘Go outside and watch,’ he said, now calm. ‘I’ll stay here.’

      When we rejoined the watching crowd it had grown in size. There was a pause and then the cage began to descend, slowly at first and then more swiftly. The crowd sighed with relief.

      Gathering speed the cage slid towards the ground. I thought it was travelling just fractionally too fast for safety.

      I looked at it and looked again.

      The cage slid to the pavement. But this time we had all seen. There was a heap of crumpled clothes in a corner and a pair of shoes, but otherwise the cage was empty.

      The woman gave a little tiny muted shriek.

      We could see a jacket, some shoes, СКАЧАТЬ