Free Devil in the Wires by Tim Lees

very sharp. I had no idea who he was. I pulled one of the beds out so that I could get to him. It looked as if the bleeding was about stopped. He was conscious but I didn’t think he’d stay that way.
    Justine took out her reader, turning slowly round the room. “There is a drain,” she said. “The energy is all gone.” She clicked her tongue. “This place is stripped.”
    â€œShit.”
    We checked under the beds, in the wardrobe, the bathroom. Then checked again. I lifted the lid of the cistern. I checked the screws in the ventilation grill, so old and rusted they couldn’t have been moved in years.
    There was no flask. There was no Dayling.
    Just this unknown boy, here on the floor.
    I rolled him gently on his side. He groaned. There was so much blood that it was hard to tell where he was cut. He had been trussed up quickly, carelessly, by the looks of it. Trussed and butchered.
    I said, “Speak English?”
    â€œ Peu . . . little.” He sounded weak but co-­operative.
    â€œDayling. The man you came to see.”
    That got a blink that might have stood in for a nod.
    â€œWhere is he?”
    He muttered, shrugged. His eyes stared upwards, and the pupils were too wide.
    Justine took out her phone. I asked who she was calling.
    â€œMedical.”
    â€œNo. Not yet.” To the boy on the floor, I said, “You’re bleeding. You’re in a bad way. Understand? You could die, you could bleed out. Hurts, too, I bet. Or it will. One call, you get an ambulance. Paramedics. Morphine. Alternately, we walk and we were never here. Got that?”
    Blink.
    â€œOK. The Englishman. Dayling. Tell me about him. Where is he? Is he hurt? Is he all right?”
    â€œHe—­he cut—­”
    His fingers moved. I looked at the poor guy’s beaten face. I couldn’t picture Dayling doing that. I told him so.
    â€œNo. Try again.”
    He began to cough. Justine said, “Let me. His English is not good. And,” she caught my eye, “he is bleeding to death.”
    She took a pair of nail scissors from her bag and cut his hands free. Then they talked. I could follow most of it, largely because the young man pantomimed, stabbing, ripping motions with his arm. He coughed some more. At the end of it, Justine called for the ambulance.
    â€œHe says it was Dayling. The Englishman. He himself, he is working for another man. The other man—­he says he does not know his name—­offered him money to come here to collect a package.” Justine stood up, brushed down her jeans. “My view—­I think he is nobody. An errand boy. I also think he is telling the truth.”
    â€œThat’s rough.”
    I looked at the kid. His eyes weren’t moving. He was going into shock. Shit. He was in a worse state than I’d thought. I pulled the cover from the bed and laid it over him. I put a pillow under his head.
    It wasn’t his fault. He’d just got in the way, that’s all, run up against something that he couldn’t understand.
    God knows, I didn’t understand it either.
    â€œAll right. If your guys haven’t seen him leave, he’s still here. And we have the passkey.”
    So we searched for Dayling. We searched for the flask.
    We didn’t find either.
    We were sworn at by a woman in a pink toweling robe, ignored by a thin man with a newspaper, and offered dinner by an African family on the top floor. There were empty rooms, where we searched in wardrobes, shower stalls, and under beds. We looked in broom cupboards and opened suitcases we had no right to open, and checked bathrooms and cupboards. We were quick, we were efficient, we were thorough.
    We found nothing.
    There were sirens in the street.
    I said, “Let’s step away.”
    Outside, and half a block away, I made my call to Seddon. He sighed, he tutted. I could picture him, pursing his lips, steepling his fingers, his white brows