Disorder (Sam Keddie thriller series Book 1) by Paddy Magrane Page A

door. He opened it halfway, standing on the threshold to listen. In between Eleanor’s rapid breaths, he could hear a loud rattling sound from downstairs. The noise of a lock being tampered with, he was sure of it. They had, he reckoned, a minute before the door was opened and the men came charging up the stairs.
       He shut the door. ‘Is there a fire escape?’
       ‘The kitchen. The back door leads on to an outside staircase.’
       Sam followed Eleanor as she ran down a short corridor into the kitchen. She then began fumbling with her keys, trying to find the one that would unlock the back door.
       ‘There’s no time,’ said Sam.
       He grabbed the nearest object, a metal bread bin, and used it to batter the glass above the lock. The glass was reinforced. It wouldn’t break.
       ‘Fuck!’
       He looked round the room feverishly, searching for a heavier object, some other way out of their rapidly shrinking prison.
       He felt a hand tightly grip his arm.
       ‘With me, now,’ said Eleanor.
       She led him back to the front door, which she opened a fraction. They both heard the noise. The door below had been opened. There were people on the stairs. Sam could hear the sounds of clothing rustling, hushed instructions, getting fractionally louder.
       Eleanor was out first. Sam was gripped with a terror that somehow she meant to confront them, let loose her anger on a group of men she held responsible for her father’s death. But she was moving left, away from the stairs down, and towards the next flight up. She then darted upwards. Sam leapt the steps in Eleanor’s wake to where she’d halted, outside the flat directly above Charles Scott’s.
       Eleanor looked Sam straight in the eye. ‘Let’s hope to God this works,’ she whispered, the words punctuated by heavy breaths. She then rapped gently on the door.
       Sam reckoned the men were now on the second floor. He and Eleanor had a matter of seconds before they reached the third and Scott’s front door which, he now realised, they’d left ajar. And then barely a minute before they discovered the flat was empty and came looking for them elsewhere.
       There was no answer. Eleanor knocked harder now, but with the side of her fist not her knuckles, in an attempt to muffle the noise. Sam listened below for any sign that the men had heard. They’d reached the third floor. Eleanor’s hand was raised to knock again and Sam rapidly put a finger to his lips. Eleanor stopped, her hand frozen.
       On the floor below, words were being spoken in muted tones. There was a creak of hinges. They were in the flat.
       Sam nodded. Eleanor hammered on the door one last time, again with the side of her fist. The door opened almost immediately, an older man’s face appearing in a chink of opening restrained by a chain.
       ‘Eleanor,’ a voice boomed.
       ‘Sssshh,’ hissed Eleanor. ‘Just let us in.’
       The man looked affronted and pushed the door shut. Sam wondered whether Eleanor had upset the man but then he heard the chain being pulled and the door re-opened.
       ‘What the hell’s going on?’ said the man before them, a lean figure in a check shirt and corduroys.
       ‘In a minute,’ whispered Eleanor, pushing past him and pulling Sam in behind her. She shut the door quietly.
       ‘Donald,’ Eleanor said. ‘I cannot explain right now, but I’m in trouble. Something to do with Dad. There are men in his flat right now. Men who mean to do me harm.’
       ‘Then we must call the police,’ said the man.
       ‘No,’ said Eleanor. The man reached for a phone on a table behind him. Eleanor’s arm shot out, grabbing the old man’s hand. ‘No, Donald.’
       It was then they all heard the unmistakable sound of glass breaking. Where Sam had failed, these men had succeeded. They were out on the fire escape. There was a clatter of footsteps on metal. But then another noise, words being grunted. An order