Read Midnight Never Comes - PC 04 (v5) for Free Online Page A

Personally, I feel like an early breakfast. It's been a long night.'
    They moved to the door. It closed and Chavasse heard two bolts rammed home and then a key turned in the lock. He swung his legs to the floor, sat there for a moment and then got to his feet.
    The strange thing was that he felt no ill-effects at all except for a fierce hunger that gnawed at his empty belly as he moved to the door and listened. The voices faded away as though the two of them were descending a flight of stairs and then there was silence.
    There was little point in wasting time on the door and he moved across to the window and pulled back the curtains. It was of the old-fashioned sash type and heavily barred. Rain drummed against the dirty glass and fifty or sixty feet below, a stone courtyard and outbuildings gleamed palely through the grey dawn. Beyond, rolling parkland was shrouded in a heavy, clinging mist.
    He turned away and from somewhere in the depths of the building, a patient cried aloud, drumming on the door of his room and the sound was taken up by another and yet another, ugly and menacing.
    The door was out and so was the window which left the floor or the roof. One thing was certain. Whatever he did had to be done quickly. He would certainly get no second chance.
    He moved back to the window, crouched down and looked up and could just see a heavy iron gutter which at least proved that the false roof of the house was directly above the room or perhaps an attic. There was only one way of finding out. He dragged the table into the corner by the window, placed the chair on top of it and climbed up carefully.
    The plaster of the ceiling was old and covered with a network of fine lines, so soft that when he raised his elbow into it sharply, a large piece fell away, a waterfall of white dust cascading after it. The noise being made by the inmates in the other part of the house was even louder now and Chavasse clawed at the edges of the hole, enlarging it quickly, tearing the wooden lathing away in great pieces. His fist went through and he could see into the false roof, light gleaming between chinks in the slates.
    A couple of minutes later he was pulling himself up between two beams to crouch in the half darkness, covered in white dust. The false roof was extensive and obviously covered the whole house, a rabbit warren of strangely shaped eaves and half walls. He moved forward cautiously, walking on the beams and came to a trapdoor which had obviously been designed to give a more conventional access. He opened it carefully and looked down on to a tiny landing and below it, a narrow staircase, obviously leading from servants' quarters or something very much like them.
    He dropped down and paused to listen. There was still a considerable disturbance going on elsewhere in the building, but fainter somehow and he started down the stairs quickly, stepping lightly on bare feet.
    He paused on the next landing, peering over the rail for a moment before starting down and then a door on his left opened and Karl walked out, his mouth gaping in a wide yawn. In the same moment, he saw Chavasse and his eyes widened in alarm. Chavasse moved in fast, slamming his right fist into the man's stomach, lifting his knee into Karl's unprotected face as he keeled over, sending him backwards into the small room to sprawl across the bed.
    He followed him in quickly, closing the door. Karl slid from the bed and rolled on the floor, moaning softly. Chavasse could find no gun on him and a quick search of the dressing-table drawers proved equally unsuccessful. He helped himself to a pair of rubber tennis shoes that were half a size too large for him, laced them up quickly and left.
    At the bottom of the stairs he came to a narrow stone-flagged passage. A stale smell of cooking rose to meet him and somewhere to the left he could hear voices and the clatter of pans. He moved to the door at the end of the passage, opened it cautiously and looked out into the courtyard.