Freeze Frames ef-4

by Peter May

  Now, for the first time, his focus shifted, and he began to feel apprehensive. He reached into the glove compartment to take out Jane’s flashlight and flick it on as he stepped from the Jeep. The bitter cold caused the skin on his face to tighten as it made contact. The stink of damp, rotting vegetation assailed his olfactory senses, and in the far distance he heard the roar of the sea, driven against the cliffs by the tide. Killian’s scarf was tied around his neck, his jacket buttoned over it, and he wore a thick pair of woollen gloves.

  Even so, the cold was already penetrating his outer layers, and he could feel his body temperature dipping. He aimed his flashlight around the car park to pick out a track leading up through a tangle of gorse and bramble to the coastal footpath that led toward the clifftops.

  There was no other vehicle visible, and he knew with unerring certainty now that he was allowing himself to be lured into a trap with eyes wide open. If he were to be sensible about it he would get into his car and drive back to resume his conversation with Charlotte. But he knew that to date he had made no progress at all toward knowing who had murdered Killian, and that this might provide the only fingerhold he had on the case.

  He pulled up his collar and headed quickly up the footpath, following it around to his right until the trees opened out into a wide area of rock and grass. It joined a gravel road leading to a wooden gate which was closed but not locked. A sign warned that no vehicles were allowed beyond this point.

  There was more light here, the last of it dying in the west as the moon began its steady ascent into the November sky, and he found he could see without his flashlight. He passed through the gate and strode purposefully along the mud track toward the top of the cliffs. He could see light shimmering on the ruffled surface of the ocean beyond, and he heard the growl of it as it beat itself against the rocks a hundred feet below. The southern elevation of the island opened out all around him, and he could see, off to his right, a black slash where the ground fell sharply away into a deep cleft.

  Now he heard a sound like wind blowing through trees, and a deep sigh, as of phlegm crackling in a constricted throat. Strangely human, and yet oddly unnatural out here on the clifftops. He saw a sign, and turned his flashlight on it. A warning to take extreme care. Here, a father and two children had recently lost their lives, it said. Incongruously, there were three holes in the metal panneau, made by what looked like pellets from a shotgun. It wasn’t only the cliffs that posed a danger, then.

  Rope was pegged along the line of the trou, about six inches off the ground, creating a safe passage toward the distant gun emplacement out on the point. But it looked more to Enzo like a tripwire than a safety measure. Signs everywhere warned not step beyond it.

  Enzo edged closer to the innermost edge of the trou, and saw that the fissure in the cliffs ran a good hundred yards back from the sea. In the dark, it was impossible to see how deep it went, but the roar of in-rushing water was almost deafening, amplified by the widening of the chasm toward its topmost edge, which created a megaphone effect.

  He turned then, criss-crossing the ground ahead of him with the beam from his flashlight, and steered a safe course between the ropes out toward the distant point.

  As he approached the one-time German gun emplacement, he saw that it was little more than a concrete platform surrounded by a low, broken-down wall. Beyond it lay a slab of concrete at ground level, the roof of the bunker where soldiers on duty must have spent their days and nights sheltering from the elements. The ground around it was strewn with rock and smashed-up pieces of the gun mounting. He picked his way carefully through them until he reached the steps leading down to the door of the bunker. They, too, were broken, and overgrown. He trained his flashlight into the dark below, picking out empty beer cans and the detritus of tourist picnics and teenage misadventures. The acrid smell of stale urine rose to greet him.

  He stopped to listen, but could only hear the wind and the sea. “Hello!” he called, and his voice was immediately whipped away in the breeze and lost in the ether. His earlier apprehension was hardening into fear. He should never have come.

  He looked back in the direction of the car park. He had a clear view in the moonlight now toward the distant trees. There was no one to be seen. Nothing to be heard. He could simply head back to his car and drive off. Back to Port Melite and Charlotte. To ask her what she had meant about the child being hers and not theirs. To hell with Adam Killian and his damned secret messages! What did any of it matter anyway?

  But he didn’t move, the beam of his flashlight still directed into the darkness below. He cursed his own stubborn stupidity as he touched his fingertips to the wall and began making his way down to the opening where once a steel door had shut out the wind and rain. The door was long gone, as was the glass and even the frame in the window opening beside it. His foot struck an empty beer can that clattered away into the dark, and he stood still again, listening once more, before swinging his flashlight through the doorway and directing its beam into the bunker. A shadow passed through it. He heard a rush of air, and something flew into his face. Something soft, flapping in panic. He thought he heard a distant scream, before realising it was in his head, and he called out involuntarily. The flashlight almost fell from his hand as he raised his arms to protect himself-and then it was gone, whatever it was. Into the night. And all that he could feel was the pumping of his heart, and all he could hear was the rasping of his breath. A bat? A bird? He had no idea. But his legs were like jelly. He saw now that the bunker was empty. Graffitied walls, a floor strewn with litter. The stink of human waste.

  He turned and ran quickly back up the steps. And as he emerged onto the open sweep of the clifftops, he felt how the wind had got up. Stronger than before, and softer in his face. A change of weather. Milder air from the southwest, and with it, large swathes of dark cloud scudding overhead. For a moment, the moon was obscured. Just as if someone had flicked a switch, the landscape around him was plunged into darkness. And then light washed again across the cliffs, racing in from the sea and off across the rise of the land toward the northeast.

  Enzo stepped up onto the broken cement plinth of the gun emplacement and looked around. There was no one to be seen anywhere. This had all been a wild goose chase. Someone’s idea of a joke, perhaps. Damn them, whoever they were!

  The moon vanished again behind a bank of cloud. He felt, more than heard, the movement behind him. Some sixth sense caused him to turn, just in time to see a shadow rise up above him. Then his head was filled with light and pain, and he felt his legs buckle beneath him. The concrete beneath his feet was hard and unforgiving as he hit it with the full force of his body weight, his flashlight clattering away. He heard the air escape his lungs in a rush, and he panicked as, for a moment, he couldn’t seem to draw another breath. Then he heard his own voice in his throat, a long, painful gasp, as he finally refilled his lungs.

  Half-turning at the scrape of leather soles, Enzo rolled himself over to look up and see a figure looming over him, arms raised to strike again.

  From somewhere he found the strength to scramble to his feet, and stagger toward the perimeter wall of the platform, fuelled by pure adrenalin. He tumbled over it, and on to the frost-hardened ground below. He gasped involuntarily as the force of it emptied his lungs once more. But one single, sharp intake of breath, and he was on his feet again. Shaky legs somehow carried him forward, half running, half staggering. He glanced back to see his attacker coming after him, silhouetted against the horizon, moving quickly and easily in his wake.

  The moon emerged from behind the clouds, their shadows chasing him back the way he had come, toward the dark line of the trees at the car park. He didn’t look back. Just ran. His breath tearing at his lungs now, his body crying out for oxygen to power this sudden, unexpected, and painful burning of energy.

  He could hear the footfalls behind him. Closer now. Also running. He felt panic rise inside him. And then the sky carpeted the land below it with darkness again
. He was running blind now, back toward the gate and the warning sign peppered with buckshot. He could no longer see it, or anything else.

  Something cut into his leg, just above the ankle, and he found himself flying headlong into space. The damned rope pegged around the trou to keep people away. And he remembered thinking how it had seemed more like a tripwire than a deterrent. Again he hit the ground, spreadeagled across grass and rock. And as he tried to get to his feet, felt a jarring pain in his right knee. It almost buckled beneath him as he hobbled forwards, uncertain now of his direction.

  He could hear the roar of the sea deep in the folds of the Trou de l’enfer, a hundred feet below. But the noise seemed to be all around him. He was stunned, confused, but scared to stop. With no idea now where his pursuer was, he turned toward where he thought the gate might be. Light cascaded over the cliffs once more as the wind tugged at his jacket, and he saw the deep, dark slash of the trou immediately ahead. Almost at the same moment, the ground beneath his feet slipped away. Frozen mud and rock crumbling and tumbling into darkness, and Enzo felt himself falling through space, down into this crack in the earth that led straight to hell. The call of the devil below filled his ears. And in that moment he knew that his life was over, that whatever Charlotte might have meant by her parting words, it no longer made any difference. His unborn son would never know his father.

  For the third time, a hammer blow knocked all the wind from his lungs, and pain filled his world. Arms, legs, head, chest, back. But he was no long falling. He was lying prostrate, in an odd, twisted position, the wind whipping around him, his ears filled with the sound of the sea venting its anger on unyielding gneiss. By the light of the moon he could see it far below, frothing, phosphorescent, furious that it had failed to claim him.

  He lay perfectly still, breathing hard, screwing up his eyes against the pain, frightened to move in case he couldn’t. Finally he removed a glove and lifted a hand to his head. He felt warm blood on his temple, then raised himself on to one elbow and bent each leg at the knee. Miraculously, it seemed that there was nothing broken. He tilted his head to look up toward the sky. The lip of the gorge hung ten to fifteen feet above, a wedge of black that cut hard across the sky. He couldn’t see any way of getting back up there, and knew that none of the ground around him could be trusted to take his weight.

  He seemed to be on a narrow ledge of some sort that ran across the sheer wall of the rock. He let his head fall back, and lay breathing in short, stertorous bursts. If he lay here for long enough he would die of exposure. If he tried to climb back up, the chances are he would fall to his death.

  The line of black above him was broken, suddenly, by a shadow leaning over to peer down into the chasm. Enzo must have been plainly visible, lying twisted on this shelf of rock, and he wondered why his attacker would risk coming so close to the edge. Perhaps to be certain that Enzo was dead and to finish him off if he wasn’t. He lay perfectly still, looking up at the silhouette looking down, and both remained like that for some minutes, until finally Enzo could stand it no longer. “Help!” he shouted. “Help me!” Though he had no expectation whatsoever that any help would be forthcoming.

  Almost immediately, the figure above withdrew from sight, and Enzo was left staring at an unbroken sky, the moon flitting in and out of the clouds, its light switching off and on, like the flickering filament of a dying light bulb. He closed his eyes and listened to the roar of the sea, aware of the light and dark that washed over him, breathing slower now, and feeling his bruised and bleeding body stiffen with the cold.

  Finally, he decided that he would risk the exposure rather than the fall, hoping to survive till daybreak and the chance of someone coming by, someone who might hear him calling for help. But even as he thought it, he realised how unlikely it was that anyone would be out along the cliffs in the early morning light. In the season, there was every chance he would be discovered by the dozens of randonneurs who trekked around the coastal footpaths. But they were into November now, and tourists to the island were few and far between. He felt the mantle of despair settle on him, like the darkness that fell as the moon vanished yet again.

  He was not sure how long he lay, shivering, semicomatose, before becoming aware of a sound like someone hammering. The repeated smack of metal on metal. Regular strikes, sharp enough to be heard above the constant commotion of the sea. It came from above, and did not sound that far away.

  “Hello!” he shouted into the night. “Is there anyone there?”

  And the hammering stopped.

  He held his breath. Nothing. No response. The hammering did not restart, as if he had chased it away with his calls. He felt despair settle on him like dust. Maybe he had simply imagined it. He lay listening intently for several minutes, but there was no further sound.

  Then suddenly something fell on him, tumbling over him, heavy and rough, and he yelled out in fear and surprise. He sat up, supporting himself on one arm, trying to make sense of it. His fingers closed around something coarse and thick, and he realised it was a rope. Someone had thrown a rope over the edge of the cliff. Long enough that it had coiled around him on the ledge, the end of it falling away from his grasp now and dropping into the darkness below.

  He held on to it with both his hands and pulled hard. There was no give whatsoever. It seemed firmly anchored to something up on the clifftops. And yet, he realised, if he was to use it to haul himself up to safety, he would have to trust it completely. With his full weight. The very thought sent shivers of apprehension through him. He could picture himself only too clearly, almost at the top when it gave way, sending him tumbling backward through fresh air to his death.

  Who had thrown him this lifeline, and why? Why didn’t he show himself and call out to see if Enzo was all right?

  “Hello!” Enzo shouted again into the night. “Goddamnit! Who are you?”

  But only the wind replied, moaning through the fissures in the rock and wrapping itself around him, cold fingers robbing him of strength. Even if he decided to trust his life to the rope, he was not certain he had the power left to pull himself out.

  Slowly he managed to get to his feet, balancing precariously, forced now to trust the rope. He yanked hard, several times, and still it remain rock solid. He stood for several moments, teeth clenched, eyes closed, summoning the courage and the strength to give it a try.

  He pulled up the end of the rope, and wrapped it several times around his waist before knotting it securely. If he fell, and the rope held, he would survive. If the roped failed to hold, he was dead. He reached up as far as he could, grasping the rope with gloved hands, and braced his legs against the face of the rock, pushing himself out. Fully committed now, he knew that his life was in the hands of whoever had secured the other end. It was not so much a question of trust, as of blind faith.

  Inch by painful inch, Enzo worked himself up the cliff face, feet searching for footholds to brace him as he moved his hands up the rope, one over the other. His arms began to ache, his legs trembling, his strength ebbing away, slowly but surely. Desperation clutched his heart with icy fingers. He gritted his teeth against the pain and kept going, never once looking up until the very last, when he felt his hand crushed between the rope and the rock, and realised he was almost there. Rock and earth was crumbling all around him, sending showers of debris down into the black. He threw an arm over the top and grasped the rope, pulling with all his might, kicking a leg over the lip of it to give himself extra purchase.

  And then he was up on the high crest of the cliffs, fully in the open, shadow and light racing to greet him as he rolled himself over and over until he was sufficiently clear of the edge to feel safe.

  He lay on his back looking up at the moon, arms and legs spread wide. And with relief, came an urge to weep. So he closed his eyes and took deep, steady breaths to calm himself, before finally getting stiffly, painfully, to his feet and untying the rope from his waist. He looked around and saw that the rope was tethered to a stout metal
crowbar driven at an angle deep into a crack in the rock. It could hardly have been more secure.

  He stood shakily, the wind whipping around him, and looked all along the line of the cliffs and back toward the woods. There was no sign of either his attacker or his rescuer. And he wondered if they were one and same person, and if so, why? All he knew was that by some miracle he was still alive, and he was grateful for that.

  He stepped over the rope that delineated the supposedly safe walking area and started stiffly back toward the car park.

  It was with an enormous sense of relief that he slipped into the driver’s seat and pulled the door shut. He started the engine, turned the heater up full, and laid his head back against the headrest and closed his eyes. Every muscle in his body ached. He waited until the engine had warmed up and he felt the heat coming through, before slipping the Jeep into reverse gear and accelerating backward to turn. The whole vehicle shuddered and he almost stalled it. He braked, slipped into first, and tried to go forward. The same thing.

  Enzo opened the door and jumped out to see what was wrong. The offside front tyre was flat. He cursed out loud and raised his eyes to the heavens. To have to change a wheel now, after all he had been through, was the final straw. With anger fuelling determination, he stalked around to where the spare wheel was bolted to the back of the vehicle. Which is when he noticed that the rear offside tyre was flat as well. And the rear nearside tyre. Despair gave way to anger as he walked briskly to the other side of the Jeep and saw that the front nearside tyre was also flat. He crouched down to run the tips of his fingers over the deep slash cut into the tyre wall, and closed his eyes, breathing out through clenched teeth.

  Not content with almost killing him, his tormentor was determined that he would now have to walk across the island in the dark to get back to Le Bourg. Enzo stood up slowly and leaned both hands against the roof of the Jeep, his anger simmering dangerously inside him.