Even by Andrew Grant Page A

close. It lasted twenty seconds. Then there was silence.
    The trunk lid opened, and all I could see was the inside of a roll-up garage door looming above me. The panels were made of wood. They ran horizontally. Each one was ten inches high, with some kind of dull brown coating applied to them. Rails ran up the sides to a winding mechanism that was fixed to the rough plasterboard ceiling.
    The door was less than an inch from the car’s rear fender. I stood up in the trunk and looked around. The front of the car was touching a wooden pole, sticking straight upright, with a red circular reflector attached to it at windshield height. There was a blank unplastered wall to our left, and room for two other cars to our right. The driver was in the center of the empty space. He was leaning against a round metal pillar, his hands in his pockets, looking pleased with himself. The passenger climbed out and went to stand next to him, also with a smug grin on his face. Then a plain wooden door in the opposite wall scraped open and another man stepped into the garage. He would be in hisfifties, and was heavyset with dark, wiry hair and an open, friendly face. He was wearing a black polo shirt with some kind of golf club logo, beige trousers, and boat shoes. He could easily have been a lawyer or stockbroker, home for a long weekend and killing time before the Tuesday-morning rush.
    “You two,” he said. “Where are your manners? Help our guest.”
    My feet were on the ground long before the passenger ambled across to the car, so he just took my elbow and steered me toward the internal door. The older man stepped through first, leading us into a basement area. It was basically a long rectangle, but with a block taken out at our end for a set of stairs. Another area was paneled in at the far end for something—I couldn’t see what—which made the remaining space into a shape like a capital H.
    The floor was gray concrete throughout. There were wooden shelves all around the walls with piles of suitcases, bags, plastic containers, and cardboard boxes neatly lined up on them. There was a lot of stuff in there, but you could have emptied the place inside ten minutes. The ceiling was the only part that wasn’t tidy and organized. It was mostly boxed in, but in several places the boards were missing and wads of pink fiberglass insulation were hanging down. Either the place had recently been searched, or they had a major mouse problem.
    The corner between the door and the stairwell was taken up with a washing machine, a dryer, some ironing equipment, and various baskets of clothes. The older man ignored them and hurried straight through, heading for the alcove on the opposite side. That was about the same size as the laundry area, and was also fitted out for a particular purpose. But not with white goods. Two giant cages had been crammed in there. They must have been ten feet deep by six wide and seven high. The floors as well as the sides and roofs were made of heavy-gauge wire mesh. Each one had a mesh door at the front. Both were padlocked.
    The cage on the right, next to the stairs, was empty. There was a person in the other one. It was a woman. She was lying curled up on her side in the far corner, facing away from us. Her clothes looked smart. She had gray-green trousers, a matching suit jacket, and blacklow-heeled boots. I watched her carefully. Her shoulders flexed slightly as she breathed, but otherwise she didn’t respond to our arrival in any way.
    “Need the john?” the older guy said.
    “No,” I said.
    “Hungry? Thirsty?”
    I didn’t answer.
    He took a bunch of keys from his pocket and unlocked the empty cage. I stepped inside.
    “Hang in there,” he said. “I’ll be right back with some food. Then you can eat. Or not. It’s up to you.”
    The guys from the car trailed meekly away after the older man. Their footsteps were hard and hollow on the bare wooden stairs, and the ceiling creaked loudly as they walked about