by Nicci French
But which direction had he taken? Rory had always laughed at me as a woman who could lose her way in her front room. I couldn’t afford a mistake now. I started into the darkness. My world had been reduced to darkness. I would have felt as if I were floating in outer space, had it not been for the soggy grass soaking through my shoes and the wind off the sea that I could feel against my skin. The flicker of light, when it came, was so brief and faint that I thought it might be another trace of the light in my car still scarring my eyes. But no, there it was, a sick, wavering firefly, sometimes obscured, by grasses or ferns, sometimes disappearing altogether but always returning. It was real.
I held the torch below my knees, pointing it at the ground. Around me was rough grass but I was on a narrow path. Bent forward I walked as quickly as I could. I couldn’t see any of my surroundings but I could feel the path carrying me towards the light. My posture was agonizing but I had no choice. I had to keep the torch lit. Driving on the road, the Tarmac beneath my tyres, was one thing, walking on this narrow excuse for a path, snaking through the marshes and mudflats, was quite another. One wrong step to either side and I could be falling down a bank and lost. But for Rick to catch a glimpse of the light was unthinkable. So I scuttled onwards like a crab.
After a few minutes I switched off my torch, stood up and had to stop myself gasping because I was almost on top of him. The torch he had been carrying was now on the ground and he was squatting to one side doing something I couldn’t make out. I crouched down, hoping that the scrub around me would provide some concealment.
He had apparently placed the torch so that it threw a pool of light towards him. I wondered where we were. I could hear the sea close by. I put the handle into the same hand as the torch and felt the ground. It was gravelly, even sandy. And wet. We were right by the water. I could feel the high tide round my feet. And what was this, just beyond us in the rising waters? It was hard to see through the pool of light to anything on the other side but I squinted and saw the dimmest, most shadowy of shapes against the cloudy sky. What could it be? It was solid with straight lines. But there were no buildings out there on the sand and mud. Rick owned a boat. Could he have moored it there? Was that where he had stowed Charlie?
Even in my frenzied state, I couldn’t make that work in my mind. The boat couldn’t have been moored in a place where the water was just a few inches deep at high tide. I wasn’t a sailor but even I knew that. But something was there, looming solid in the darkness.
I rummaged through my memory. I made myself look back to those awful winter days after Rory had left, wandering the remote paths of Sandling Island with Sludge, those walks in the stinging northerly gales when I hadn’t known whether the tears were of grief and anger or just the wind. I thought and remembered and suddenly I knew. Then I could see it clearly. It was one of the pillboxes left over from the island’s defences during the war. With that I realized everything and saw with utter clarity what I must do and that I must do it immediately. As it was, there was almost no hope but otherwise there was no hope at all. I took the steel handle back into my right hand and held it firmly. The important thing now was not to think. I needed to feel and act. I stood and took a few steps forward, all that was necessary to close the gap between us. As I approached him I brought my right arm back. From his crouching position Rick looked round as I swung the metal bar into his head, catching him above his left eye. He gave no sound. There was just the ringing, crunch of the metal bar on his skull and he folded up on the ground. I wanted to continue, to beat his skull to mush but there was no time for anything.
I turned away from him, dropping the bar on to the ground, and shone my torch out over the water. Its frail light skewed on the small inky waves and then, as I raised it higher, picked out the massed shape of the pillbox. I ran towards it, splashing through the icy water that rose rapidly to my knees and then thighs, slowing me down. I gasped at the shocking cold, which almost took my breath away. My jeans clung to me, my feet sank into the muddy sand, salty water stung my face and made my eyes weep. ‘Charlie!’ I shouted, as loudly as I could, wading forward, surging through the breakers, cursing the thickness of my sodden jacket, which held me back. ‘I’m here. Wait. Darling – darling, just wait.’ For I had the sense that every second, every fraction of a second, might count now. Like atoms being split, the world could fracture at any moment.
My voice rolled out over the sea and broke somewhere in the distance. There was no answer. Silence lay all around. I flung myself the last few yards, holding the torch high above me so it didn’t get wet, staring through the darkness for the opening, which I could hardly make out. Black on black. Depth on depth. I reached out my free hand and found the wall at last, rough and gritty under my fingers. I followed it with the torch’s beam until I found the opening, and fought through the rapidly rising waters to stand at the entrance at last. The pillbox, which had once stood on the cliffs and now lay in a wreck at their base, was tipped askew, so that its small doorway was tilted slightly upwards. This meant that the tide, which had been temporarily held back by its walls, was gushing in rapidly.
I shone my torch, my dim puddle of light, into the interior. And there was nothing. Nothing but water, rolling at the door and calmer further in.
‘Charlie!’ I called, in a voice that cracked apart. ‘Charlie!’
And then the torchlight touched on a shadow, a blur the shape of a water-lily. I leaned in to shine my torch directly on it. I heard my breath catch in my throat, for what the frail beam of light picked out was a pale patch barely breaking the surface of the incoming water. A tiny island of flesh in the flood, like the belly of an upturned fish. A mouth open like a gill, pursed for oxygen.
For a moment, I couldn’t move. Then, with painful slowness and care, I inserted myself into the pillbox’s small opening, feeling my jacket rip, feeling rough stone against my hands and face, blood and salt in my mouth. The sea came up above my waist and then, as I moved forward, up to my neck. But I didn’t dare make any rough movement, for fear of splashing water into that tiny, pitiful mouth. I was terrified that my bulk would make the level rise enough to submerge it entirely. With tiny steps, I shuffled towards my daughter, one hand still holding the torch high, the other reaching out to touch her dear drowning body.
And at last my fingers found her – the stretched stem of her neck and the seaweed tangle of hair. ‘It’s all right, dear heart,’ I whispered.
Her eyes stared at me blindly. Her lips gasped at the remaining air. Water bubbled at her upturned chin.
‘I’ll get you out.’
I needed to put the torch down. I stared frantically around the clammy space until I saw a shallow nook, where the stone had crumbled. I crammed the torch into it, its light now shining horizontally, so that I could no longer see Charlie at all. I put my arms round her waist, under the water, and pulled. She rose an inch or so, heavy and unresponsive as a corpse, then jerked to a stop. She was tied down, but I couldn’t tell with what, or to where.
‘Wait,’ I hissed.
I sank beneath the surface of the water, my jacket opening. I opened my eyes but could see nothing except the brackish swirl of the sea. I groped with my hands and found her legs. Her ankles were tied with something rough, thick and strong. A rope. I tugged at it hopelessly. My lungs were aching now. I followed the rope to where it stopped, knotted to something heavy and cold. I tore at the thick knot with my fingers, trying to wriggle it free, but I knew I couldn’t untie it. Not without seeing it, not under water, not in time. There was no time. I had seconds – Charlie had seconds.
I rose again, gasping and spluttering. I pulled off my bulky, sodden jacket, bundled it up into a thick parcel and plunged down once more. I blew air out of my lungs so I could stay submerged while I put my hands round Charlie’s calves and pushed her up until the rope went tight. I forced the folded jacket under her dangling, booted feet, pushing it into a shape that would accommodate her weight, not tip her off if she shifted. Now at least
I’d gained a minute or so.
Once more I surfaced. I reached for the torch and shone it into my own face.
‘Wait,’ I said. ‘Don’t move. Stand tall. Breathe. I’ll be back in a few seconds. I swear to you that I’m going to save you.’
Her eyes widened. Out of her mouth came a long, bubbling mew. It wasn’t a human sound.
I turned away from my daughter and pulled myself out of the hole. I waded through the waves and the ripping wind. Past Rick, whose splayed body was now lapped at by the waves, and to my car. As I ran, my eyes scanned the land for headlights. Surely the police would arrive soon. But the road was dark.
I threw open the boot and the light came on, dazzling me. Leaning across, I unzipped the nylon sports bag and drew out Christian’s Christmas present, wrapped in silver paper with stars on it. I put my torch into my mouth because I needed both hands now, then turned back to the sea and ran, tearing off the paper as I went, fumbling at the thick plastic folder inside. A snorkel. And the mask it was attached to. I yanked the breathing tube free of the packaging, dropping the rest into the mud. I took the torch from my mouth, held it in my free hand, brandishing the tube in the other, and launched myself through the tide towards Charlie, both arms raised, the water parting in a trough before me.
Into the small opening. The torch was dying. Its beam flickered. But it found the half-open lips of my child. With one hand, I inserted the snorkel between them, making sure the mouthpiece fitted securely. Her skin felt cold and rubbery, unreal. I pushed the mask over her face and pulled the strap round the back of her head.
‘Hold on to it with your teeth, Charlie,’ I said, my voice loud and steady. ‘Grip it and breathe. If the water comes above your face, don’t panic, do you hear? You can still breathe. You’re going to be fine. Now I’m going to get something to cut you free.’
Easy to say, but I needed something strong to hack through that thick wet rope and I had no knife, no scissors, no blade. But then I thought of someone who might have something. I left Charlie alone once more, in that terrible flooded darkness, and waded to the shore.
Rick’s body was half in the water now, half out. His sail-bag was still roped over his shoulder and I had to half roll him over to pull it free. His body was cumbrously heavy and limp, and my hands came away sticky with his blood. But I had the bag. It had a drawstring top, pulled tight shut, and I had to jiggle it open with my numb, clumsy fingers. Inside I found a towel, a change of clothes and a clutter of odd bits and pieces, most of which seemed to be to do with his boat – a couple of cleats, a few lengths of thin nylon rope, a small plastic bailer, a spanner, a pair of rowlocks, pliers – perhaps I could use those to ease the knot free. Secateurs: they might do. And what was this? I pulled it out and held it up to the last rays of the torch: an army knife.
I took the pliers, the knife and the secateurs and returned to the pillbox. The last of the light in the west had gone and it was quite dark. But as I reached the shelter, the moon emerged from behind a cloud and cast a faint, silvery light over the surging water. For a moment, I could see everything around me: the icy expanse of sea, the high, cold sky, the crumbling banks of mud and sand and, like a smudge, the ruined shelter breaking through the rising tide. It must be almost full now. The sand and pebbles beneath my feet were sucked by the undertow, the shallow breaking waves had curled lips, and it was harder to make my way. My jeans clung to my legs, my shoes were like bricks but they were laced up – I had no time to undo them and kick them off.
I pulled myself through the pillbox’s entrance and found myself floundering for a foothold. Water rose up and engulfed me; I was almost out of my depth and had to stand on tiptoe at the higher edge to breathe properly. I managed to hold the torch above my head still, and shone its wavering light around the deathly space. Nothing. Charlie had gone. A howl rose in my throat but I pushed it down, staring at the place she had been. And there I saw a small tube rising above the water, just a few inches long. My daughter was underneath it, down in the water. Was she breathing?
My torch gave a last few yellow flickers and went out. I let it drop with a muted splash. For a moment, the moon shone a trickle of light after me, but then I was in darkness. I pushed the pliers into my jeans’ tight wet pocket, gripped the secateurs between my teeth and blindly opened the knife’s largest blade. One deep breath and I sank under the water, free hand stretched out. I found Charlie’s body. Her arms tied and bound behind her back. Her waist under the sodden leather bomber jacket, her thighs, her legs, her ankles. I had to make sure I didn’t dislodge her from my folded jacket. I felt for the rope and clutched it with my left hand. Now I was facing downwards, like a diver, while the rest of my body floated up. I started sawing at the rope with the knife. I needed to breathe but I couldn’t stop. The rope was soaked and thick, the knife was small and blunt. My lungs were shrivelling, scorching with pain. Soon I would breathe, draw in great gulps of salty water. A spasm jolted my body and I let go of the rope and rose up into the air retching and gasping, nearly losing the secateurs. But I took them in my hand, opened them at the ready, and put the knife into my mouth.
Down again. The rope. My fingers found the groove where I’d been cutting. I snipped at it with the secateurs, sometimes missing and snapping them closed on water. I let the ache build in my lungs again, filling each cubic millimetre with solid pain. I imagined the threads breaking, one by one, could feel the gradual give in the rope. Just a few more cuts, surely, but it took so long, so agonizingly long, and I had no time and no breath and my body was about to explode with the pain. All the while, as I dived down, attached to the rope, Charlie hung above me, swaying with the waves.
When I thought I could bear it no longer, the rope gave a tremor and snapped. My body floated upwards, no longer anchored. I heaved against Charlie as I rose to the surface, pushing her head into the air, grappling with her passive weight. She lolled against me, and I couldn’t hold her properly because I was now out of my depth. Her head tipped back in the water as I thrashed by her side. Violently gulping in air myself, I put my hands on either side of her head, over her ears, and lay on my back, towing her the short distance towards the entrance. Once, I thought she twitched, a tiny shudder like a reflex, but otherwise she was unresponsive. Her legs bumped against mine under the water.
At the doorway, I tried to haul myself backwards, one arm wrapped round her torso, tugging her slack, slipping heaviness upwards while her upper body leaned away from me, as if she wanted to slide back into the shelter. I couldn’t get a proper grip on her clothes or her clammy skin. Her fingers were like pieces of slimy driftwood; her limbs twisted in impossible ways. Several times I almost let her go, back into the flooding darkness. Once I had to clutch a handful of her hair to keep her head above the water. The concrete scraped at my face and I felt blood in a warm gush down my cheek and neck. I tumbled over the submerged threshold, back into open sea, feet sinking deep into the mud, and dragged her after me. The moon shone down on us, its rippled trail widening over the water. The waves washed at my neck, and Charlie’s body drifted heavily behind me like a net of dead fish. I hooked my hands under her armpits. I couldn’t see her properly, just the shape of her body and the ghostly blur of her face. Her eyes were closed now.
‘You’re OK, you’re OK, you’re OK,’ I was shouting, as I towed her to the shore, hauling her past Rick and dragging her by her arms on to the dry sand and the rocks beyond, where we collapsed in a heap, wrapped up together so I could feel the clammy chill of her skin. I struggled to my knees. In the moonlight, her face was grey, her lips the same colour as her skin. Her mouth was gaping open, but slack, her flesh cold as the sand she lay on.
I gathered Charlie’s body to me, pressing my face into her neck and holding her head to my ear to feel or hear her breath. All I could hear was the steady, rumbling wash of the sea behind me, and the fretful moan of the wind. I pinched her nostrils between my thumb and forefinger and put my mouth to hers. I blew once, twice. I tried to remembe
r what I knew of first aid. I pumped down on her chest several times, then breathed air into her mouth once more. Again, then again.
‘Don’t go, my lovely,’ I said. ‘Stay with us now.’ I called her by her name and crooned nonsense to her as if she were a baby again.
Suddenly, a tiny bubble of air and a gurgle came from her colourless lips. Then a helpless choking sound. I hauled her into a sitting position. With her arms tied behind her, she looked like a prisoner before execution. Her head lolling forward, she vomited into my lap. I held her against me and pressed my lips to her forehead. A terrible, agonizing hope opened its wings inside me, stopping my breath and knocking my heart against my ribs. I felt her body tremble against mine. I wrapped my arms round her as tightly as I could, rubbing her back, trying to press my living warmth into her. If only there were blankets in the car, or clothes.
I remembered Rick’s bag. I laid Charlie on the ground, sprinted down the sand and grabbed it, stumbling back to where she lay. I shook out the contents of the bag and found a small metal spanner, which I twisted into the knot that bound her arms. I wriggled it free and unwound the rope, feeling with my fingers the deep welts it had left on her wrists. I tugged off her jacket, snatched up the large towel and the sweatshirt, and wrapped them round her, then folded her up in the nylon bag. I took the bulky, layered weight of her in my arms again and cradled her to me while I tried to lift her up.
‘Come on, Charlie,’ I gasped, into the coarse salt coils of her hair. ‘You’re safe, my bravest darling.’ I slung one of her limp arms round my shoulder. ‘I’ve got you now, the ambulance is on its way and I’m going to carry you to the car.’