by Janet Wakley
“Four,” added Mel. “Kurt’s in that old house as well,” she added bitterly.
Silas made a clicking sound with his tongue and smiled ruefully. “They didn’t shoot him. Gave him a hard time for kicking off a police hunt, though; I just told you that to make sure you were compliant. We couldn’t have you squealing and putting us all in danger.”
Taking a deep breath, Mel made a sudden and explosive attempt to scramble to her feet. She felt a hand grasp firmly round her ankle, causing her to fall face down onto her open hands. A vigorous kick behind her failed to release the shackle and rolling onto her side, she struggled for release as Silas groped awkwardly to improve his containment of the girl as she fought for her freedom. A second stamp onto his fingers finally freed her foot as he let go with a cry of pain. Rising to her feet once more, she launched forwards into a run. Adrenaline pumped through her veins in her panic to get away from the man whom she had once believed to be, like her, an innocent victim of a random hostage taking.
The rugby tackle from behind sent her once more sprawling to the ground, face down onto the wet tufted mounds of tangled grasses and brambles. Her involuntary yell was stifled as she hit the ground with the wind knocked out of her. Silas, grabbing her by both ankles, dragged her backwards along the ground. Unable to resist or fight back as she was scraped along the ground, Mel realised that the screwdriver was no longer in his hands but was helpless to halt the backward motion along several feet of undergrowth. Roughly, her legs were dropped onto the broken wet reeds and, with a display of superior fitness and strength, he pushed her sideways into thick coarse reed stems. The ground beneath her instantly submitted to her weight, allowing her to unceremoniously drop through its canopy of vegetation into the black murky water below. Mel gasped a sharp intake of air and water as she landed in the dyke. A cacophony of sound from the splash was suddenly muted as her head submerged into the freezing water.
Rising to the surface, spluttering and spitting the floating algae from her mouth, she reached forwards to grab at the bank of the dyke, its sheer sides slimy with mud. Waterlogged shoes and denim jeans weighted her legs as she fought to free them from the suction of the bottomless sludge as it pulled her downwards. Thrashing wildly, she reached blindly for the reeds, unable to focus properly on the long thick stalks. They bent and snapped, tormenting her frantic efforts to reach the safety of the bank. Mel saw, through blurred vision that Silas was on his knees at the edge of the bank, reaching down towards her. As she clung desperately to the muddy vegetation, he stretched out his arm until his hand came in contact with the top of Mel’s head. Pressing downwards he pushed her beneath the water as panic increased the ferocity of her struggles.
He didn’t hear the movement behind. The blade sank swiftly and cleanly through his sweater and into his chest, making a small deep incision between two ribs. It was only a split second between the release of the pressure on Mel’s head and the full weight of Silas’s body as he projected forwards headfirst into the already agitated water. The impact, as he crashed heavily on top of the submerged Mel, caused her to inhale a copious amount of the stagnant water. As she slipped into unconsciousness, the film of green algae on the surface of the dyke quietly closed over her head once more.
26
Consciousness returned to Mel with the awareness of an oppressive load bearing down across the back of her legs. She was face down on cold wet grass. With mouth open, she drew in a gasp of cold air. Her nose was blocked and foul-tasting algae clung to the inside of her mouth and tongue. Struggling to move, the weight was spontaneously lifted and she rolled onto her side to see Clive, propped up on one elbow, lying beside her. His clothes, like hers, were sodden. His face was so white he was the colour of death and he shivered with such ferocity that his whole body shook with a violence that caused droplets of water to spray from his hair. Reality returned with an abruptness that brought forth an involuntary sob.
“Stay still and don’t move,” he whispered through chattering teeth. “I think there’s someone walking quite close by. They might he looking for us.”
Mel stifled the urge to cough. Her mouth felt and tasted foul from the water and she wanted to spit. Her nose was congested and uncomfortable. Her chest felt painful and bruised and her throat sore. With fingers that were so cold they would not bend, she tried to wipe at her mouth and eyes, removing particles of mud and leaves from her face. Her hair hung in wet tousles, leaves caught in the tangles which now irritated her nose.
“Keep quiet, now, while I see where that chap’s got to. He may just be a rambler, but there again, he might not.” Lifting his head higher, he peered above the long grass.
Clad in a grey waterproof jacket, a middle-aged man walked casually along an adjacent field, his hands dug firmly inside his pockets. Oblivious to the scrutiny focussed upon him, he wandered on past, comfortable in the tranquillity of the open landscape. Clive looked around. The early morning mist hung low and still over the unkempt fields and the ghostly outline of cows could just be seen standing motionless in the distance.
Lowering his head, Clive placed a restraining hand firmly on Mel’s back. For several minutes the couple lay still, shivering and tense, vulnerable in the brightening sunrise. Rustling in the grass nearby came closer and louder. As a presence felt so close it must be about to touch her, Mel lifted her head to make immediate eye contact with the large brown pools of a black Labrador, who appeared equally startled by the meeting. He sniffed the air, vapour rising from his warm breath and his tail wagged slowly and uncertainly. Please don’t bark. Just go away. Mel willed the animal to leave them and return to his owner before he came over to investigate.
“Toby! Toby!” the man’s voice called out in the stillness of the morning. “What have you got there? Come on, leave it alone. This way, Toby.”
The dog continued to stare. Mel hardly dared to breathe. Then just as suddenly as he had appeared he turned on his hocks and was gone, satisfied presumably that they were not worth playing with. For several minutes, they remained still and quiet. The lightening sky to the east improving the visibility with a steady unstoppable progress which, as it prepared to awaken the wildlife inhabitants of the Broads, was bound to perilously expose the outlines of the escapees.
“How did I get here?” Mel asked eventually. “I thought I’d had it. Did you have to... I mean, did you actually have to....?”
“Resuscitate you? Yes, but don’t tell the wife,” he grinned fleetingly.
“Silas? Where’s Silas?” Panic rose in her throat. “He tried to drown me.” The painful memory surged back and she looked round wildly in fear of his presence.
“He’s down there,” Clive solemnly indicated towards the reeds of the dyke. “I had to stop him.” Broken reed stems denoted the place where Silas’s body had been engulfed into the dark and murky depths.
“I was trying to come back for you,” Mel tried to explain.
“It’s okay. Leave it for now. Let’s try and get away from here and back to civilisation, shall we?”
“But he stabbed you. Are you hurt badly?” She turned to look towards his shoulder. Mud and grime from the still waters of the dyke masked the blood stain on his clothing but the distorted way in which he held his arm to his side betrayed the suffering the wound had inflicted.
“It’ll do until I can get it seen to,” he sighed. “Can you crawl? If we can reach those trees over there, it looks like there might be some better cover. Think you can manage it?” Without waiting for a reply, Clive began to laboriously clamber forwards on his knees, using just his right hand for forward support. Mel followed, fighting her instinct to stand upright and try to run. Progress was slow, very slow, but Clive struggled on. Cold wet clothing, slimy from the dyke water, clung tightly to their skin, restricting each movement and making their forward motion clumsy and awkward. They reached the footpath, along which the man with the dog had passed. Crouching
, Clive peered around him for signs of followers and a suitable route away from the direction of the big house. The path was hard and narrow, overlaid with wet mud which made the ground slippery and messy. Nearby movement caused them to pause and look up. A marsh harrier, perching on a broken wooden post, ignored them as it tucked into a small mammal plucked from the reed-beds nearby. Crossing the pathway, they continued on towards a row of trees. A mixture of alder, sallow and birch trees lined yet another dyke. Unmanaged, the surrounding bell heather and gorse, normally a colourful sight in early autumn, was already dying off under the canopy of trees and bracken. Here at least, the ground was dry and Clive sank to the ground with exhaustion and pain.
Mel looked around her. For as far as she could see, the landscape continued on encompassing both wild marshland and drained, cultivated farmland. It was structured only by the grid of dykes, discernable by the rows of alder trees and banks of reed. The land around them, now showing a mosaic of purple, green and yellow in the morning light, had a remoteness and tranquillity that seemed to have escaped the bustle of modern day living. There were no buildings in sight.
“Let me look at your shoulder.” Mel knelt beside Clive’s heaving form.
“No. I just need a short rest and then we’ll make back to that path and head in the direction of where that dog-walker came from. If he walks his dog every day, he can’t have come very far this early in the morning.”
Mel ached. Tiredness, hunger and not least the cold racked her body. The will to keep moving conflicted with muscles that cried out for rest. She sank down onto the ground beside Clive. For half an hour Clive laid between trees roots, his head propped against the base of an alder tree, his eyes tightly closed. Mel knew he wasn’t asleep. Gripping his left arm above the elbow with his right hand, his knuckles shone white with tension. His breathing was faster than normal and occasional bouts of toe tapping showed that far from relaxing, he was coping with extreme pain. Helpless to relieve his suffering, she wondered just how much the physical effort of following her and Silas from the church, his timely intervention to prevent Silas from drowning her and most of all, the struggle to pull her from the water, before giving her mouth to mouth resuscitation, had cost him. She owed him her life. She couldn’t now sit there beside him and watch him die.
“Come on, Clive. We have to go on. The sooner we find a house, the sooner we can get you some help.” Dragging her cold wet jumper over her head, she tied the cuffs of the sleeves together to form a makeshift sling. Sitting him forwards, she slipped it over his head and, after a few minor adjustments, the extra garment took the weight of his arm. Obediently Clive allowed himself to be pulled to his feet. Mel positioned his right arm over her shoulders and held her body close to him, encircling her arm round his waist.
“Ready?”
“As I’ll ever be” he acceded without complaint.
Together they stepped forward as though about to embark on a children’s three-legged race. With only the thin cotton top of her blue theatre scrubs now to protect her against the cold autumn breeze, Mel speculated which of the two of them would give in first to the discomfort and misery they were about to experience. Retracing their steps back to the muddy pathway, they paused to inspect both directions. With the exception of some bobbing pied-wagtails searching for food, the pathway was deserted.
“We should crawl. They’re bound to be searching for us,” Clive spoke in almost a whisper.
“We need to make as much ground as possible though, and besides, you’re in no shape to crawl on all fours,” Mel insisted, and using the arm wrapped round his waist, propelled him forwards firmly. Huddled together in a stooping posture, like that of an elderly infirm couple, they stumbled along as quickly as they could muster, skirting the worst of the mud and puddles and supporting each other on the slippery peat ground until a division in the path halted their progress.
“Which way?”
“Keep to the left. There looks to be more cover over there.” Clive nodded towards a row of high conifers, resplendent in their dark green foliage and contrasting against the steel grey sky.
They continued on. Where the path became narrowed they snagged their clothes on overhanging gorse and brambles, wilting stinging nettles seemed to reach out to them as they passed. Progress was slow but consistent. Occasionally they were forced to walk single-file. Mel led the way, pulling Clive behind her by his hand as they climbed an embankment. Reaching the top, Clive sank to his knees, breathing hard while Mel scanned the landscape behind them for signs of anyone following. Satisfied they were still alone, Mel left Clive to rest while she explored the path ahead through the trees.
“You still okay? Five minutes rest then,” she instructed Clive on her return. “There’s a small lane just the other side of those trees and about two hundred yards further on. We’re bound to find a farm or house along there soon.”
“And what if they find us first?” Clive said anxiously. “There’ll be no escaping them if they drive along the road.”
“Then there’s a footpath on the other side of the lane which looks as though it leads down the side of some ploughed corn fields. We could go along there. It’s probably easier going than on these marshes.” While they deliberated the safest route to take, a convoy of fast-moving vehicles could be heard passing along the lane. “The footpath it is then.” Mel conceded.
The ruts made by tractor tyres proved no easier to negotiate than the overgrown path across the marshes. Puddles and ridges made it difficult underfoot and their advancement remained slow. Cold wet clothing clung to their bodies, making movement difficult and uncomfortable. The cold breeze numbed their senses as they clumsily struggled to make headway.
“What’s that noise?” said Mel nervously and swung round as a faint droning sound broke the silence of the morning. Quickly amplified to a throbbing hum, the distinctive noise of a helicopter could be heard approaching from the west. Spontaneously the pair dived for cover, Clive giving out an involuntary grunt as he hit the ground and rolled into copper coloured bracken beside the path.
“It could be the police,” said Clive as he recovered from his rugby style fall. He wanted so much for the ordeal to be over.
“I doubt it. Why would it be? Besides, we don’t know what resources that gang have got. We can’t afford to take the risk. If they spot us from the air we’ve had it for sure.” Mel felt panicky. Desperate as she was for the police to find them, she also carried a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach from the fear that she was likely to be arrested for her part in the robbery and deaths of three people.
“Silas killed Charlie,” she said suddenly. “He told me that if I had been a trained scrub nurse, I would have realised that he had not tied off all the bleeding points. He closed the wound knowing that he would eventually bleed to death. He told me it was his way of getting back at Madeline and the gang.”
Clive said nothing.
“I was trying to go back for you when...”
Clive raised a hand to staunch Mel’s inevitable self recriminations. She saw the beads of perspiration glistening on Clive’s forehead. They had to keep moving on. The aircraft was still out of sight, despite the fact that it sounded nearby, and the constant throb resonating beyond the lines of trees behind them indicated that it was now hovering.
“Come on, let’s keep going along the line of these trees.” She dragged Clive to his feet.
As they reached the end of the field, a keen wind gusted and swirled, giving a faint taste of salt to their dried lips. Across a short meadow they halted and stood aghast. Spread before them was the vast expanse of exposed coastline. A shingled beach, its steeply raked banks of pebbles heaped into shelves and terraces by successive storms and the daily pattern of tides, stretched as far as the eye could see in either direction. There was no habitation and no cover. The cliffs, such as they were, were low and crumbly, composed of sandy orange
-brown crags, showing its vulnerability to frequent landslips.
“Which way now?” Mel asked miserably. “North or south?”
“North,” replied Clive. “Always look upwards,” he smiled thinly.
The rhythmic scrunching of their footsteps in the shingle as they doggedly followed the coastline, seemed deafening to their ears. A flat sea lapped lazily onto the lower beach as if it were a warm summer evening and a scattering of gulls rode the swell out on the deeper water. The unruffled serenity of the picturesque landscape seemed absurdly incongruous to the desperation of the couple who now walked its shores.
They each continued to look over their shoulder frequently for signs of being followed, but appeared to remain undetected. The helicopter, now a more distant hum, came no closer and at last they appeared to be putting reasonable distance between themselves and their pursuers. They trudged on purposefully, ignoring the aching legs and cold sea breeze.
Mel’s next fleeting glance over her shoulder struck horror into her heart as swiftly as if it had been lightning. A lone figure on the ridge of the shallow cliff face was running towards them.
“Run! Run!” Her desperate shout resembled a croak in an already dry mouth.
Without turning, Clive broke into a lumbering jog.
“Come on, along the waters’ edge, its wet sand there.” Mel grabbed Clive’s arm and steered him to where the ground underfoot was firmer. They ran as hard as they could on heavy resistant legs but which were powered only by an uncontrollable panic. Turning as she ran, Mel saw that the running man, although still some four hundred yards away, was rapidly gaining on them. Binoculars hanging loosely round his neck beat against his chest as he ran. He held an object openly in his right hand, which Mel feared to be a gun, but what almost caused her to stumble and fall, was the identity of the runner. The unmistakeable short blonde hair and the tall athletic frame belonged to Kurt. He was now coming to kill them.