‘So leave it there. Let’s get out of here.’

The lights were still on inside the museum, but the air conditioning had fallen silent. Spoder and I crossed to the exit. He was limping still.

I worked the door handle, a simple turn. It turned simply – but the door did not open. I pulled it hard. My hands were already wet with perspiration. Spoder elbowed me aside. The door was immovably closed.

‘How the devil did that happen?’

‘Ketty knows we’re in here,’ I said. ‘She’ll come soon.’

‘What did you say?’

The endless music, the grinding of the engine and the screams of the riders drowned out our voices.

‘Ketty!’ I said loudly. ‘She knows we’re here. She’ll be back soon.’

Spoder banged his fist on the thick door. ‘Let us out!’

The Scrambler motor slowed, the rolling noise of the wheels quietened. People were laughing and calling to each other, not for now screaming with enjoyable terror. The music continued at full blast. We tried shouting again.

‘In here! Ketty! We can’t get out!’

‘Help! The door’s locked!’

The Scrambler started up again. The shrieks were renewed.

Spoder said loudly: ‘Look, sir – that must be where the door was forced, after the murder.’

He was pointing at the area of the wall close to the handle and the heavy wooden frame. Although it had been expertly joined and repaired, and painted over, it was just possible to make out the irregularity, a sign of emergency renewal. Spoder was right. The door had been rammed open at some time in the past, forced violently through the frame. Long ago – maybe ten years ago?

‘That’s a weak area that we could work on . . .?’

I saw that Spoder’s face and neck were wet with sweat. My shirt was sticking to me. It was getting harder to breathe. The temperature was rising.

We turned together back to the door, hammering our fists against the door, and the wall next to it.

‘We’re still in here! The door locked itself! Get us out of here! Help!’

The music played on, unstoppably, deafeningly. The screams went on and on.

‘Help!’

The Alleged Safeguard

18

The Alleged Safeguard

What with the various distractions that had been invading my life, since coming back from Dearth I had been lazy about opening physical mail. For many years any message of interest and importance has reached me, in the same way it reaches almost everyone else, through email or the internet. The arrival of envelopes has long been associated with energy bills, credit card offers, reminders about prescriptions, irresistible sales bargains for my household and garden, information about incontinence and impotence cures, and at certain times of year greeting cards.