The bearded mountain grumbled something in some foreign language - probably ‘I wish I could!’ in Urdu or Punjabi or some other Indian language. Then he marched after Mr Ambrose, who was already charging down the stairs. We could hear the harsh staccato of his shoes on the stone steps.
‘Wait up!’
Mr Stone looked up, surprised, as he saw Karim stomp past him. Then his surprise doubled when I flitted by, even faster than the large Indian. I got to the staircase just before Karim did and flashed him a charming smile. If his face hadn’t already been so dark, it would have turned red like a tomato. This was just oojah-cum-spiff! Finally some excitement!
If only that bloody man would stop!
‘Mr Ambrose! Wait!’
I ran down the stairs after him and, behind me, heard the Mohammedan muttering again. I caught the word ifrit mixed in with several expressions that, in spite of the foreign language, didn’t sound very complimentary.
Oh well. I suppose there are worse things than being seen as a 12-foot-tall demon with fiery wings.
‘Mr Ambrose, Sir! Wait, please!’
Did he wait? Did he slow? Well, let me put it this way: Are lions vegetarians? Probably not.
It took me forever to catch up with the basted man! He wasn’t running, but he seemed to have the ability to march with military speed, even down a staircase. I just caught sight of him as he stepped off the last landing and into the great hall, which was buzzing with people.
I certainly hadn’t expected what happened next.
The effect of his arrival was earth-shattering. Everybody stopped dead and turned, standing stiff and straighter. No, they didn’t just stand straighter, they stood at attention, their eyes wide.
‘Holy Moly,’ I whispered, gazing at the silent crowd.
Mr Ambrose stood at the edge of the hall. He stood on the same level with everyone else. Still, with their stares fixed on him like that, he seemed to tower over everybody like some Greek god on Mount Olympus who wasn’t above hurling a few lightning bolts at people who didn’t worship fast enough.
His dark eyes met those of Sallow-face, whose face actually lost some yellowness, turning white at the eye contact. He gave a tiny, curt bow, and bent over his books again, back to work. He wasn’t the only one. That flicker of dark eyes had been enough: suddenly, everybody was moving again, only now they moved at double speed.
And Mr Ambrose started forward again.
Blimey…!
I could almost feel it radiating out from him: the power, like a spider’s web, that joined him to every person in this building, the ends of the web connected to his employees’ brains, right to the part that was responsible for fear and obedience.
Maybe, that annoying little voice inside me said, just maybe, in comparison, he hasn't worked you that hard after all.
Mr Ambrose headed straight across the hallway. He didn’t need to navigate through the masses of people: wherever he stepped, people made way for him. Not like they would for a king, forming a guard of honour or something, no. They were far too busy showing him how busy they were, working for him, making more money, to stand around doing nothing. But they never got in his way as he headed for a metal door at the other side of the huge room, marching along a line as straight as a ruler.
Taking a large ring of keys out of his pocket, he opened the door, stepped inside the corridor beyond and was just about to let the door fall shut behind him when I woke up from my daze. Bloody hell! I was supposed to go with him!
‘Wait up!’
He was so intent on getting to his victim and starting to squeeze information out of him that he seemed to have forgotten all about me, and Karim, too, for that matter. But when I called, he looked up to see me dashing across the hallway. I was beside him in seconds, and after a moment’s hesitation, he held the door open for me.
‘I thought… it’s only… ladies who go first,’ I panted, not able to conceal my grin. ‘Since when have you started acknowledging my femininity?’
‘Since I want to have the door locked behind us and am the only one with the key,’ he shot back. I heard Karim come up behind me, huffing, puffing, and grumbling things in Punjabi. ‘Now shut up and get a move on!’
‘Yes, Sir!’ I smirked and stepped into the corridor beyond. After a few steps I stopped, for a very good reason:
The corridor had no windows and no lamps. Before me lay complete and utter darkness. Well, almost complete and utter. Through the open door a few rays of sunlight shone into the corridor, but they only reached a few yards, then failed. All I could see were these few yards of cold stone floor.
‘Err… Mr Ambrose, Sir…?’
I heard Karim step into the corridor behind me, and the door slammed shut, bringing us from almost complete and utter darkness to utter complete and utter darkness.
‘Well, that’s just spiffing,’ I commented, turning my head from left to right, which made absolutely no difference to the blackness I saw. ‘Now it’s even easier for us to walk into walls!’
‘This corridor leads underground,’ Mr Ambrose said. ‘That makes it hard to have windows. And why should I expend money on wall lamps…?’
‘Yes, why? I mean, the human skull can take a few concussions, no problem.’
‘…why should I spend money on wall lamps, when it is perfectly possible to carry one single lamp and save a lot of money for oil?’
A spark flared in the darkness. It caught on something and, a moment later, a yellowish light grew a few feet away from me, at about my shoulder level. It fell on Mr Ambrose’s classic features, and he jerked his head to the left, down the corridor.
‘Come. Let’s go.’
Holding the lamp over his head, he marched ahead of us. The little light was just bright enough to shine a few feet ahead. Luckily the stone floor was as even as a ruler, or I would have stumbled and broken my foot a dozen times. Probably he’d polished it himself with sandpaper, to save the builder’s bill. Or he’d just willed it to be smooth by staring at it long enough. I wouldn’t put it past him.
The corridor started to slope downwards into the earth, towards the cellars under Empire House. We went around several curves, and the angle downwards remained the same, yet we never came across any stairs.
‘Why is there no staircase?’ I asked.
‘Sometimes, the things we have to carry down this corridor can’t walk on their own,’ Mr Ambrose shot back without slowing his pace or turning his head.