Believe This... You’ll Believe Anything

Her screaming voice brought me to my senses. With a shudder, I threw Dyer from me, pushed Val aside, grabbed hold of the bolt and wrestled it back.

The wind pounced as the door slammed open. I went down on hands and knees, peering into the wet darkness.

‘Vidal!’

A vivid streak of lightning lit up the roof. I saw him. He was lying flat, his fingers trying to get a grip on the wet roof, the wind moving him closer and closer to the sloping edge. Once there — nothing could stop him from being swept away.

I heard the door slam and the bolt go home. Dyer had locked me out! I didn’t care. I had this compulsive urge to save Vidal and I was going to save him! Laying flat, buffeted by the wind, I began to edge towards him.

‘Vidal!’ I yelled at him.

He looked around. The roof was lit by more lightning and he saw me.

The wind suddenly flung me towards him. Grabbing hold of a low wall that ran along the side of the roof, I managed to anchor myself. I saw the wind shift Vidal towards the sloping edge. I was within ten feet of him. I relaxed my grip slightly so I was blown closer to him. Still holding on to the wall, I stretched out my leg and his fingers closed around my ankle.

The wind tore at us. I thought my grip must be broken. My arm felt as if it was being pulled out of my shoulder socket. Vidal shifted his grip to my knee and heaved himself on top of me. As my grip was broken, he reached above me and grabbed the wall. I began to slide away and I seized hold of his jacket.

Half drowned, hammered by the wind, we lay panting. Then with incredible strength, Vidal began to claw his way back along the wall, dragging me with him. He kept moving back until we reached the shelter of a chimney stack. The wind continued to roar around us but no longer dragged at us.

Vidal leaned forward, his mouth close to my ear.

‘There’s another exit on the far side of the roof,’ he shouted. ‘If the door’s locked, we’re cooked.’

His face lit by a flash of lightning showed no fear. He looked confident and calm which was a lot more than I felt.

‘Stay here,’ he went on. ‘I’ll try to get across.’

‘You won’t make it!’ I shouted.

He didn’t stop to argue. Keeping flat, he began to edge out of the shelter of the stack. Instantly, the wind pounced on him and if I hadn’t caught hold of his arm, he would have been swept away, across the roof and over the edge.

I dragged him back to shelter.

‘So we stay here,’ he said.

We stayed there, the warm rain beating down on us, the wind howling around us, but at least we were in no immediate danger.

The minutes dragged by: the most uncomfortable minutes I had ever lived through. There was no let up from the violence of the wind and the rain. We had to keep our heads down to breathe. The almost continuous crash of thunder deafened me. My mind was bludgeoned. I didn’t even wonder how long we could remain as we were.

Then suddenly Vidal gripped my arm.

‘Look!’

I followed his pointing finger. Across the far side of the roof appeared the light of a powerful torch. The beam swept the roof, passed near us, continued on, came back and found us. For several seconds the beam held us, then abruptly went out.

‘Gesetti!’ Vidal shouted.

I felt a surge of hope.

Again the light appeared, then I saw Gesetti’s squat figure, lit by the lightning, as he plunged towards us. The wind threw him flat and swept him across the roof. For a moment I thought he was going over the edge but another flash of lightning showed me he had a rope around his middle and the rope was secured somewhere inside the doorway he had just left.

He fought his way nearer. Again the wind swept him back and again, but for the rope, he would have gone over.

‘Hang on to me,’ Vidal shouted.

As I caught hold of his jacket, he moved out of the shelter. We were swept towards Gesetti who grabbed hold of Vidal’s wrist.

Then began the long and desperate struggle to get to the open doorway. Gesetti hauled on the rope, dragging himself, Vidal and myself inch by inch across the wet roof until we finally rolled through the doorway, out of the rain and the wind. As I leaned against the wall, my knees buckling, Vidal and Gesetti got the door shut.

‘You took long enough,’ Vidal said harshly. ‘What the hell were you doing?’

Gesetti snorted.

‘Getting the goddamn rope. If you think that was easy, have another think.’

‘Where are they?’

‘Trying to bust into your office.’

‘That’ll take them quite a time. Where do they think you are?’

Gesetti gave a snorting laugh.

‘Dyer put on a big act and I fell for it. He got me out of bed, yelling you were out in the garden and in trouble so I go out in the wind and the sonofabitch locks me out. I saw you on the roof so I get the rope, kick in the back door and here I am.’

‘They’ll be busy for an hour or so. We’ll take a shower and a change of clothes,’ Vidal said. ‘Here, Gesetti, find Burden something to wear. I’ll be in Harris’s room.’ Taking a small flashlight from his pocket he went down the corridor and into a room at the far end.

Gesetti led me to another room. He lit a hurricane lamp, then regarded me with his sneering snake’s eyes.