Not Dead Yet

The bolts could be slid long before he even got close. He couldn’t take the risk, not at this moment.
    There was another crack. This time the trapdoor visibly sagged a fraction, tightening the razor wire even more. The door was going to cave in at any moment.
    ‘Detective Superintendent Roy Grace,’ the apparition smiled, speaking through gleaming white teeth in a seductive, gravelly voice that mimicked Gaia’s. ‘I recognize you from the Argus . How nice of you to join our little private party!’
    Gaia was pleading with her eyes for him to do something.
    His heart was hammering so hard he could feel pulsing in his ears. ‘Eric Whiteley?’ he said. ‘Or should I call you Anna Galicia?’
    He heard footsteps behind him, then heavy panting.
    ‘Get rid of your fat friend with the tash, hon, he’s so ugly,’ the apparition continued in her Gaia voice. ‘I’ll talk to you, but I’m not talking to any bullying thug.’
    Grace hesitated.
    The creature slid the bolts back a good half inch. The panic in Gaia’s eyes deepened into wild terror. There was another, smaller crack, and the apparition jolted, but seemed not to care. ‘Get rid of your fat friend or the bitch and I go. You have five seconds, Detective Superintendent.’ He tightened his grip on the bolts.
    Grace turned and said urgently to the security guard, ‘Do what she said!’
    The guard gave him a look, as if questioning his sanity.
    ‘GET OUT OF HERE! GO!’ Grace yelled at him.
    It had the desired effect. The security guard turned in shock and lumbered out of the room. Grace turned back to the transvestite, thinking fast. He was trying to remember all he had been told by the indexer Annalise Vineer, who’d had researchers delving back as far as they could into Whiteley’s past. As well as all the insights he’d had from the psychologist Dr Tara Lester. But the first stage was to get a rapport going, to try to bond with Whiteley. And at the same time to make his Plan B.
    ‘Tell me what you would like me to call you,’ he said. ‘Anna Galicia or Eric Whiteley?’ He looked up at the wire above Gaia for an instant.
    ‘Very funny,’ Whiteley snapped back. It came out as a male snarl. ‘I’m not afraid to kill her.’
    ‘You’ve killed before haven’t you, Anna? Shall we stick with Anna?’
    ‘Anna will be very happy with that.’ Now she sounded like Gaia again.
    A chill wave swept through Grace. It felt as if he were dealing with two totally different people in one. ‘And how about Eric? Will he be happy?’
    ‘Eric will do what Anna tells him,’ Whiteley said in his Anna voice.
    ‘You killed Myles Royce, didn’t you. Why did you kill him?’
    ‘Because he was richer than me. He kept outbidding me on things I really wanted. I couldn’t let that go on. I invited him round to see my collection and then I killed him. I collected him! He was a nice trophy to have. Eric approved!’
    Grace was conscious of Gaia desperately staring at him, but at this moment he didn’t want to break eye contact with Whiteley. He needed to try to find some common ground, some way to start to bond with him. And he knew he didn’t have much time. Maybe only seconds.
    There was another splintering crack.
    ‘You’d better be quick, Detective Superintendent, we’re going down!’ Whiteley said, again in Anna’s seductive Gaia voice.
    Whiteley had been clever. The wire had been wound several times around the winch in large loops, then he had bent it several times just above Gaia’s head, to take up the slack and force her on to her toes. There was about six feet of slack in those loops. If the hatch collapsed, Gaia would fall that distance, and even if her neck wasn’t broken instantly, or her head severed completely by the wire, it would be impossible to reach her. It would be equally impossible to haul her weight up by that single strand of sharp wire.
    Suddenly he heard the wakka-wakka-wakka-wakka thrashing of a helicopter, roaring overhead. He saw Whiteley’s eyes dart apprehensively towards one of the dusty oval windows, and realized to his dismay he had missed a split-second chance of jumping him while he was distracted.
    The sound faded away.
    ‘I don’t think a helicopter’s going to do you much good in here,Detective Superintendent Grace, do you?’ Anna said, then looked up at Gaia. ‘Don’t get your hopes up, know what I’m saying? About someone coming to save you? It’s not going to happen.’ Then he raised his right hand,