It was cold. That was his first impression. His second impression was that of noise, and a sharp, choking smell. Third, there was someone persistently calling his name.

"Lewis! Please, wake up!"

"Aye, pet, I'm awake," he murmured, thinking it was Val, and then memory came crashing back and he suddenly snapped awake, with a gasp.

He found himself lying on a cold, concrete floor. His wrists were tied tightly behind his back, and his ankles also seemed to be bound. He glanced around – Dr Russell lay nearby, similarly bound, her eyes wide with fear.

"Where are we?" Lewis asked, fuzzily, shaking his head to try to clear it.

"One of the holiday cottage garages," Russell replied, "he hit you, tied me up, and put me in here. Then you. Then your car…"

Lewis frowned, rolled onto his back, and looked over his shoulder. Sure enough, there was his car, in the compact garage, the garage door sealed shut, and the engine running. Lewis groaned, and coughed – the garage was quickly filling with fumes.

"We haven't got long," Russell said, urgently, "we've been in here for about three minutes already – a lethal level of carbon monoxide can build up in the bloodstream in about ten minutes in a closed garage like this!"

Lewis nodded his understanding, coughing, rolling over onto his knees. He managed to shuffle over to the car, and, twisting around, tried the handle. The door came open, and he fell forwards clumsily. Worming his way around the door, he got a look at the keys, and groaned audibly. The keys had been thoroughly taped into place using thick, black duct tape. There was no way he'd be able to unpick it all in under seven minutes, not with his hands tied behind his back. He needed to free himself… he backed out of the car, and fell to the ground, coughing, head pounding, already feeling sick from the effects of the fumes. On his knees, he surveyed the garage, and his eyes fell on a rusty hacksaw hanging from a nail on the wall. He scrambled over to it desperately, as Russell watched from where she lay on the floor.

Awkwardly, Lewis managed to get to his feet, and knocked the saw to the floor with his shoulder. A heavy, leaden feeling began to creep through he body as his numb fingers scrabbled to pick up the blade, and he willed himself to stay conscious. He could see Dr. Russell's eyes already closing.

"Stay with me, doctor!" he called to her, desperately, as he sawed at the cable tie around his wrists as best he could.

The blade kept slipping, and bit cruelly into his skin, making Lewis curse; "damn it… come on you…ah!"

The last exclamation came as the tie finally snapped. Ignoring the deep cuts on his hands from the hacksaw blade, Lewis quickly freed his ankles, and severed the doctor's bonds as well. He dashed to the car, as dizziness threatened to overwhelm him. He clawed at the thick black tape over the keys, desperately trying to peel it off, but it was as if his fingers were refusing to obey. Black sparkles danced at the edge of his vision, as, coughing, he tried to pull back the tape. It wouldn't budge.

"Robbie…" Russell's voice sounded horribly weak.

Lewis tried to think. He grabbed the bottle of water and cloth from the glove box that he normally kept there for cleaning the inside of the car windows. He sloshed water over the cloth, took it to Russell, and pressed it over her nose and mouth. She held it there, gratefully, breathing through the damp cloth in an effort to cut the smoke inhalation. Lewis, choking, went back to the car. In sheer desperation, he yanked the hood open, and, grabbing the cables to the battery, yanked them free. A jolt of energy smacked into his hand, making him yelp, as the car engine died. Lewis, coughing, pitched to his knees – he'd cut the exhaust emissions, but they were still locked in a garage with toxic levels of carbon monoxide in the air. Choking, one hand going to his throat, unable to breathe, he pitched forwards onto the concrete floor, and surrendered to unconsciousness.

~*~

"What do you mean you don't know?" Morse bellowed down the 'phone line, "I've just called his wife and she thought he'd been called out to a scene – there weren't any off-duty call outs last night! You were supposed to be watching the house!"

Morse listened to some profuse apologies from the sergeant, snarled something unsavoury, and slammed the phone down. He stormed out of his office, and grabbed the nearest unfortunate constable.

"You! Find out if there were any suspicious call ins last night," he snapped, "probably somewhere isolated. We've got a missing police officer and I want him found!"

The constable scrambled off, and the station became a hive of activity, and Morse was soon summoned to CS Strange's office.

"Lewis is missing," Morse said, without preamble, "his wife thinks he was called to a crime scene early this morning. There's no record of any such call-out."

"Dr Russell is missing as well," Strange told him, bluntly, "it can't be a coincidence, and I doubt very much it's of their own volition. The entire resources of this station are at your disposal – find them!"

Morse nodded, and strode out quickly, a sense of urgency making him move with an unaccustomed speed. He was interrupted half-way to his office by a competent-looking female DC wearing a black leather trench coat.

"Sir," she said, quickly, "we picked this up at about 3am this morning – a canal boater was interrupted by two cars driving past the canal on their way up to some holiday cottages – he heard noise of a fight and then a car driven off at high speed. He thought it might be drug dealers. No description of the cars, sir, but two vehicles, and in an isolated area…"

"Good work, my dear," Morse said, absently, ignoring the look of irritation that passed briefly over the woman's face at the term of endearment, "can you drive?"

"Of course I can bloody drive," she snapped, and then quickly added, "sir."

"Then let's go!"

~*~

Russell saw Lewis keel over, and, using one hand to keep the cloth over her mouth, she used the other to crawl over to him. She checked his pulse – it was fast and irregular, as she'd suspected, and he was non-responsive. He did not appear to be breathing. Russell took as deep a breath as she could through the cloth, titled Lewis's head back, pinched his nose, and blew hard into his mouth. She repeated this twice more before she was rewarded with a sudden bout of coughing from the Sergeant. She quickly pressed the damp cloth over his mouth to allow him to take a few semi-clear breaths, as she felt her own head spinning from the effects of the fumes.

Lewis, coughing, trying to draw breath, pressed the cloth back into her hand, indicating to her to keep it.

"We need to get out of here," Russell told him, her voice muffled by the cloth.

"I've got an idea," Lewis said, coughing, "… I need you to… stay back…"

Russell obediently pressed herself against the wall, as Lewis hauled himself up to the bonnet of the car. He crudely, clumsily, reattached the disconnected wire to the battery. Dizzy, he half-staggered; half-crawled his way into the car. They key was still stuck in place, so he ripped out the panel beneath the steering wheel. Yanking out the electrics, he exposed the wires, and began tapping them together. He was rewarded with a cough and a roar from the engine, as the exhaust began to kick out foul fumes into the already choking atmosphere of the garage. Russell stared at him, wide-eyed in shock, as he wrapped the two wires together, and climbed into the car.

"Lewis!" she shouted, realising what he was about to do, but choked, coughing, falling back against the wall, overcome by fumes.

Lewis did not waste time closing the door or putting on the seatbelt; he simply hauled himself into the drivers' seat, put the car in gear, released the handbrake, and stomped on the accelerator. The car shot forward, and the garage door crumpled under the impact. Lewis slumped forward over the steering wheel, as Dr Russell crawled forward to try to reach him. However, the fumes overwhelmed her, and she passed out on the floor.

~*~