Page 146 of Dying Truth
She looked up to try and shout for help and that was when she saw them.
Her three colleagues entering the bell tower.
One Hundred Seven
‘Jesus, Dawson, slow down,’ Bryant called around Stacey to the sergeant who was leading the single-file charge up the narrow, winding stone staircase.
Bryant was sure they’d been climbing for hours. If he looked down he could see the eighty metres they’d ascended, and when he looked up he could see they were almost there.
‘Geoffrey,’ Dawson called again now they were closer.
Bryant thought he heard some kind of whimper in response.
‘He’s up here,’ Dawson called.
Bryant heard the relief in Dawson’s voice. Thank God, the kid was probably frightened of the dark and was just finding his way back to the stairs. Secretly he’d thought his colleague had been overreacting to the danger the kid was in. It had all seemed a little far-fetched to him that the kid would be at risk of death for refusing to join some kind of school club. He couldn’t wait to get back down and christen Dawson with his new nickname of drama queen. Wait until the guv knew he’d had them climb a million steps to save a boy from ringing a bell.
Oh, how he loved to tell this kid he was wrong.
He made the final few steps with a smile on his face that eased the lactic acid burning his thigh muscles.
‘Hey drama—’
‘Fuck,’ Dawson said, shining his torch into the middle of the space.
Oh shit, Bryant thought, swallowing hard. His colleague hadn’t been wrong after all.
One Hundred Eight
Stacey joined her colleagues in shining her torch into the middle of the room.
Three beams converged on the figure of a young boy rooted to the spot.
‘Don’t step forward,’ Dawson warned, aiming his beam down.
The floorboards had given way leaving the boy standing on a thin beam of wood at the very centre of the space. They’d been climbing for at least four minutes and nothing had sailed past them. Stacey had no idea how long he’d been balancing precariously on the single plank, but she guessed it wasn’t going to continue to support him for long.
‘Don’t move, Geoffrey,’ Dawson said.
‘O-okay,’ Geoffrey stuttered, hanging on to the lip of the bell.
Stacey knew that if the beam beneath him broke he would not be able to hang onto that lip. The boards beneath her own feet felt solid and stable around the outside but that was a good five feet from the gaping hole beneath Geoffrey’s feet that dropped all the way to the bottom of the tower.
‘H-help me,’ he whispered.
The fear in his voice kicked her right in the stomach.
‘You just stay still,’ Dawson advised, calmly. ‘We’ll get you down, I promise.’
Stacey marvelled at her colleague’s steady voice when even she could see there was no way they could reach him. Every step forward risked both his life and theirs.
Bryant was already on the phone to the fire service. Unless they were waiting right around the corner Stacey suspected there was little they could do in time.
‘Look around,’ Dawson said, shining his torch towards the wall. ‘Look for something that can help.’
All three torch beams turned away from the trembling child, but Dawson continued to speak, to reassure the boy.
‘It’s all right, Geoffrey. We’ll have you off there in a minute. Just stay still.’
