Текст книги "Vows of Silence "
Автор книги: Susan Hill
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Текущая страница: 12 (всего у книги 17 страниц)
He looked calm and in control, but grim-faced as he took questions about the Lafferton shootings. It was easy enough to tell that Simon was on the spot and hard not to sympathise with the public outrage that a gunman was on a killing spree while the police appeared to be doing nothing to stop it. But after a moment, Jane saw Serrailler not there, under the television lights, giving a press conference, but outside the bungalow in which she had been held by a man driven mad with grief, Simon talking to him, trying to calm him down, and later, when she had finally been released, waiting for her, reassuring her. She remembered the evening they had spent together. She had cooked a makeshift supper. She had enjoyed his company but, at the last minute, rebuffed him, backed off, uncertain and confused, still in shock after what had happened to her. She had not been able to give Simon a chance and she knew that because he never found closeness easy, he had been both surprised and hurt at her behaviour. He had not understood why, having taken such a risk, he had found himself rejected.
Later, after leaving Lafferton and during the last weekend before going into the abbey, she had written him a long and careful letter in which she had tried to apologise and to explain.
She had never posted it.
The phone rang for a long time before Cat answered.
“It’s Jane.”
“Sorry, I was upstairs with Chris.”
“That’s why I’m ringing. How are things?”
Cat sighed. “Hang on, let me sit down. I’m so glad you rang.”
“Good, but you will always say if it’s a bad time or you can’t cope with talking about it, won’t you? I don’t want to intrude.”
“You absolutely do not. But yes, I will always say. He’s feeling pretty bad c his mood swings are quite strong and he sleeps a lot. He’s on massive medication of course and he’s had three radiotherapy treatments.”
“Any help?”
“Hard to say yet. I have my doubts.”
“Have you told the children?”
“Oh yes. As much as I can. Sam understands c he’s very quiet about it. But he sidles up to me and hangs about rather a lot. Hannah—I don’t know. She’s such a bouncy little thing, I’m not sure she’s taken it in. I can’t tell them he’s going to die, Jane c I’ve said I’m not sure if he’s going to be well but that isn’t the same. Sam looks at me. I know what he’s thinking. Felix is too young of course, though he notices that he can’t crash about all over Chris as usual. I have to keep him away, he’s so boisterous. Dad has been here today. Blunt as ever. Judith didn’t come, she’s gone to Edinburgh for a few days to see her daughter. I could have done with her, she takes the edge off Dad. But Simon came and he’s the one person who has the knack with Chris c nothing fazes him. They just talk. He can say anything and Chris takes it.”
“I just saw him on the news.”
“I missed it—Chris needed a sick bowl. How was Si?”
“Very professional. Grim.”
“They’re in a mess. They haven’t a clue, Jane, this guy’s running rings round them. Have you been in touch with him?”
“No.”
“I think he’d like it.”
“I’ll see. Maybe when they’ve got this one cracked.”
“That might be never. How’s Cambridge?”
“Wonderful. Love it. Love everything. It’s right, Cat c I just want it to stay right. I’ve made too many mistakes.”
“Not your fault.”
“Whose then?”
“I have to go, Chris is calling. Ring me again. I’ll need you.”
Jane went to the window and opened it. The air smelled moist and earthy. One or two lights were on but it was almost silent.
She could not get Simon out of her mind. His face on the television screen. His face as she had looked up and directly into it at Karin’s funeral. His face all that time ago as he had told her he wanted to see more of her, as he had sat in her kitchen in the Lafferton bungalow after supper.
But she had fled a long way across the country, to get away from him, to start a new life. She wanted that new life. It felt right. She did not want to go through her days with the image of Simon Serrailler hovering at the back of her mind.
Fifty-four
“This is bloody ridiculous,” Clive Rowley said. “This is the sort of thing the public complains about. If the media gets hold of this—”
“Belt up, would you?”
“I’m saying, they’ve every right to ask questions. I’m asking questions, you should be asking questions.”
“Well, I’m not. OK, let’s head round onto the Starly Road, see who we can catch using their mobile while driving.”
Clive snorted. They were on traffic.
“Not like the old days then,” Liam said.
“Bloody isn’t. I mean, we’re highly trained firearms officers, what are we doing doubling up as traffic?”
“Resources.”
“Plenty of money when they have to find a load of it to look after the bloody royals.”
“To be fair, not all of that’s down to our force and it’s only the once.”
“No it’s not, it’s every time we have one of them opening this or unveiling that.”
“I heard the wedding counted as private so they paid for their own policing.”
“Yeah, right.”
“God, you’re a cynic, Clive.”
“No, I just want to be doing the job I was trained to do. With an armed lunatic running round, you’d think it would dawn on them we ought to be on permanent standby.”
“Playing cards, you mean. That one looks dodgy c bet he hasn’t got insurance—look at him.”
“Stop him?”
“Why not? Doesn’t look safe to be on the road.” Liam switched on the lights and warning siren and speeded up to get in front of the boy driving an ancient resprayed Fiesta. “OK, laddo, let’s be having you.”
They slewed to a halt in a lay-by and got out. As they walked towards the Fiesta, a motorbike shot by going so fast the tarmac smoked in its wake.
“Come on, come on,” Clive Rowley said, “let’s get after him.”
Liam shook his head. “He’ll be long gone.” He spoke into his radio, giving their location and reporting the speeding bike, then politely asked the boy, who looked no more than fourteen, to get out of the Fiesta for him.
On the outskirts of Starly, a patrol car returning from inter viewing a shopkeeper about the theft of some stock came up behind a motorbike, forced to slow down at a traffic hold-up, and revving impatiently. As all motorcyclists were currently under greater scrutiny than usual, they pulled him in.
Ten minutes later, a DC put her head round Simon Serrailler’s office.
“Guv? Someone’s bringing in Craig Drew’s father.”
“What for?”
“Doing eighty in a fifty limit.”
“What’s that got to do with us?”
“He was riding a black Yamaha motorbike.”
Simon went back to his screen but he had lost track of what he was doing. Motorbikes. Craig Drew’s father. The wedding.
He called the team into the conference room.
“Motorbikes. It’s thin, to be frank, but it’s our first definite line of inquiry. Black Yamaha motorbike, 1,000cc probably.” He wrote on the whiteboard. “I want a check on how many of these are registered to the area, excluding our own bikes obviously c anyone with the slightest link to any of the gunman’s victims, log it, copy everyone in, put it up here. When you’ve got a connection, if you get one, think, think, think. We’ll interview but”—he tapped his forehead—” make this work. What’s the connection, is it coincidence, is there any personal history, firearms? Anything.”
“Is this just Lafferton, guv?”
“For the moment. The rings will spread outwards. He hasn’t come from far—we won’t be looking on the other side of the county. This is a local man, local knowledge—I’d be surprised if he comes from as far as Bevham. Now, funerals. You know the theory—the killer likes to see the job finished so he sometimes goes so far as to attend the funeral of his victims. The bodies of Melanie Drew, Bethan Doyle and the girls who were killed outside the nightclub are being released on Friday. Once we have funeral details, we’ll mount a discreet presence at each one. ARV will park up nearby. We’re taking no chances. We’ll have uniform in the cemeteries or the crematorium and outside the churches c in any case, there’ll be an official police presence at each one. But I want CID mingling with the mourners in the pews and at the gravesides, at the wakes if they have them c everywhere. Looking and listening. Detail, detail, detail c connections, connections. And motorbikes first. Thanks.”
A mile away from the station, in the Dean’s office at Lafferton Cathedral, the Chief Constable, Paula Devenish, was in reassurance mode.
“All leave is cancelled. The cathedral, the grounds and the close will be sealed off from the Friday morning—only those with photo ID and passes will be allowed anywhere near. Two armed response vehicles will be on standby and officers from two others will be in position from five a.m. on the Saturday morning.” She nodded to the AR Gold Command.
“The sniffer dogs will go into the cathedral twice, on the Friday morning and again on the Saturday. They will also go over every delivery as well as the flowers. We know our job and we’ll do it. Please trust us on this.”
“Thank you, Chief Constable, but given the number of shooting incidents—fatal shooting incidents—I’m sure you understand only too well how concerned we are.”
“Of course I do.”
Royal Protection coughed. “There hasn’t been a lot of, er, progress, has there?”
“If you mean there hasn’t been an arrest yet, no. That doesn’t mean lack of progress.”
Royal Protection’s face was a mask of politeness.
“It isn’t,” the Lord Lieutenant said quickly, “as if we don’t quite often have royal visitors to the county. We’ve always looked after them well and kept them safe, I think.”
“You haven’t always had a sniper in your midst,” Royal Protection said.
“So what do you propose?” Paula Devenish spoke sharply. When her force was under attack from outside she defended it aggressively, no matter what she might say in private. It was one of the things Simon Serrailler liked about her.
“I propose that Their Royal Highnesses do not attend.”
“Oh but you can’t!” The Lord Lieutenant’s face was puce. “My daughter will be so upset. The Prince of Wales is her godfather, and a very attentive one. He came to her confirmation.”
“Well, perhaps he will not be coming to her wedding. I’m sorry, but this is what I will be recommending to His Royal Highness’s office.”
“Well, I will be speaking to His Royal Highness himself, never mind his bloody office, and I think I know what he’ll say. He’d be appalled if he thought he was seen to run away. Good God, man, the royal family face a possible sniper’s bullet, to name but one threat, every time they appear in public. It’s thanks to the police that they have all remained safe to do their jobs among us and I deplore your suggestion that our own force cannot continue to guarantee their safety. This c gunman has made no specific threat to the royal guests—not so far as I am aware.” He looked at the Chief Constable, who shook her head.
The Dean had been silent, biting the side of his finger occasionally. Now, he sighed. “I do hope this is not going to cause a falling-out amongst us,” he said unhappily. “Do please reconsider.”
Royal Protection frowned. “I have to act as I see fit, and I do see a problem here, frankly. But let’s look at the updated plan and the proposed arrangement of armed officers.”
Gold Command stood and unrolled a map smoothly, laying it on the table and securing it with brass paperweights and a candlestick.
“ARVs will be parked here, here and here. An armed officer will be positioned here, here, on the tower here, on top of the New Song School building here, in the organ loft, and in the roof space above the fan vaulting. There will also be armed officers at the east door, here—”
“Just a moment,” said the Lord Lieutenant. “I can’t say I like the idea of our guests arriving and there being officers with machine guns clearly visible.”
“Most of them will be concealed, sir c”
“I hope and trust you’re not allowing the public into the close, are you, Chief Constable?” said Royal Protection.
“We were planning to allow a cordoned-off area opposite the east door c the public would like to be able to have some sight of the wedding.”
Royal Protection shook his head vigorously. “Out of the question.”
“But only yesterday I was watching the Queen doing a walkabout among a crowd in Southampton—”
“Southampton doesn’t have a killer on the loose—or at least not as far as we know. As far as I am concerned this area of yours is a no-go zone for the royal family until you catch him.”
He stood up. “If you will excuse me, I have a meeting in the next county in an hour and a half. I’m sorry to disappoint you, Lord Lieutenant, but I will recommend that Their Royal Highnesses do not attend your family wedding. Unless there is an arrest, of course.”
Royal Protection glanced across at the Chief Constable, who barely met his eye.
Fifty-five
“Candyfloss!”
“You can’t be serious.”
“I am perfectly serious. I love candyfloss.”
“But it tastes like sugar-coated wire wool.”
“Does it? I’ve never eaten sugar-coated wire wool.”
Helen exploded with laughter and let Phil pull her by the hand towards the candyfloss stall. The smell of burnt sugar mingled with the diesel fumes of the generators and the burning oil from the burger stalls on the smoky night air. It was eight o’clock and the Jug Fair was packed. Helen looked up at the Sky-Dyve plunging giddily down and at the sparks and crackles from the bumper cars and felt like one of the kids.
The candyfloss queue snaked round and back and mingled with the queue for hot dogs and another for toffee apples.
“God, this is fun. I haven’t been since Tom and Lizzie were in single figures.”
“Place is knee-deep in cops.”
“Not surprised. This is just the sort of event where a gunman could run amok. Look around c all those points a sniper could stand.”
Helen’s eyes were drawn to the Sky-Dyve. If a man c at the top of the helter-skelter. If c”
A gun cracked loudly not far away.
Phil put a reassuring hand on her arm. “Shooting ducks. He wouldn’t take the chance. Here.” He handed her a shocking-pink cloud of candyfloss. “Flowers for the lady.”
He put his arm round her and they wandered off in the direction of the rides.
Sam Deerbon steadied himself and waited for the row of ducks to bob past him four times.
“Hurry up, Sam. What’s wrong with you? Can’t you do it or something? I could do it easy-peasy, they don’t go very fast, hurry up.”
He ignored his sister. The ducks bobbed by again. He steadied himself again.
“Sam, are you still there?”
Crack. Crack. Crack. Crack. Three ducks out of five went down.
Hannah turned away in disgust.
“Well done, Sam!” Judith said.
Sam smiled a small, satisfied smile and chose a pink porcelain piggy bank from the prizes on the stand.
“What do you want that for? What a stupid prize. You could have had that big blue elephant and given it to Felix, you could have had a mega box of sweets, what do you want a stupid piggy bank for?”
“To save money in.”
“What do you want to save money for?”
“To leave home with.”
Hannah’s eyes widened slightly and she looked up at Judith.
“So I won’t have to live with you, stupid.” Sam turned towards the fish-hooking game, examined it and came away.
“Too easy,” he said.
Cat returned carrying four paper cones of chips.
“God, I hate this fair. It’s packed, they rip you off, it hurts your ears and it smells.”
“It’s GREAT.”
“I knew you’d say that, Sam. Have some chips.”
“Think what the men are missing.” Judith Connolly bit into a hot chip and winced.
Chris was at Hallam House with Richard. He had felt like a change of scene and the radiotherapy had begun to bite, giving him better days. Judith would pick up pizzas from the Italian restaurant, on her way back from the fair.
“I just saw Si on the far side of the square talking with a couple of CID. Never seen so many in one place.”
“Makes it safe. I hear they’re not letting the royals come to the cathedral wedding though. Seems a pity.”
“They daren’t risk it at the moment c only think.”
“I suppose so. But you shouldn’t let this madman change the way you behave. Some people thought this fair ought to have been cancelled.”
“Mummy, can we go on the dodgems, please, please?”
“Not yet.”
“Why not?”
“Because you’ll go in a car with me, I’ll drive and I’ll bang you into so many other cars you’ll puke up all your chips and all your ice cream and—”
“Sam!”
Sam smiled and folded his empty chip cone into smaller and smaller triangles.
The sky above St Michael’s Square was orange. AR Bronze Command stood in shadow looking round, up, down, to one side, to the other side. He had assumed that the sniper wouldn’t fire from anywhere not providing him with a clear escape route. What if he had been wrong? They had discussed and dismissed several times the idea that he might now be on a suicide mission and therefore be trigger-happy at the fair, unconcerned if he was caught at last. He looked up at the top of the helter-skelter. Someone could have climbed the spiral stairs and be hanging about at the top. No. Only a kamikaze shooter would do that. The direction of the shots would be easy to see and there was no way down other than by sliding on a mat. And if he did that, they would be waiting for him at the bottom.
The floodlit cathedral tower commanded the fair. They had been up there, locked the bell tower, locked the door to the observation platform, and a couple of men were patrolling below. But he felt uneasy. Something niggled at the back of his mind and he was annoyed that he did not know what.
The square was heaving with people, the noise of rival music and machinery and generators most likely to muffle the sound of shots, and besides, shots were going off all the time as people queued at the rifle ranges. Maybe they should have closed those down for tonight?
He looked around him again. And up. And down. To this side. To that.
Tanya and Dan Lomax were on the Jinny horses, trying to hold hands across the gap between them as the merry-go-round picked up speed until it was a dazzling whirl of music and lights streaming through the night. She seemed to have been on the Jinny horses half her life, as a maid, as the Fair Queen, and now as a bride. The Jinny horses meant being happy and Tanya was happy. She tried to see Dan’s expression but they were going too fast. She wanted to shout, with laughter and excitement and pride and happiness.
“I have decided,” Sam Deerbon said, coming back to the spot beside the fortune-telling tent, where Cat had told him to meet them. He had been given the choice of his last ride. Hannah had already chosen the teacups and been sneered at. “The teacups are what babies go on—Felix could go on the teacups, I should think. You’re a scaredy-cat.”
“Right, what’s it to be, Sam, and don’t say the Sky-Dyve, you know you—”
“No. It’s in the square. Come on.”
They moved slowly through the crowd.
“Hold onto my hand, Hanny, don’t let it go.”
Sam shoved someone in the back.
If Chris were here he could have had one of them on his shoulders, Cat thought. Even Sam. Even now.
They shuffled forward, Judith in front, trying to weave in and out.
“There’s Uncle Simon! Uncle Simon!” Hannah yelled but she wouldn’t have been heard, and in any case, Simon was out of sight again, somewhere in the crowd.
“There!” Sam said.
TAKE A TRIP TO GHOUL TOWN ON THE GRAVE TRAIN.
“I’m not going on that, I’m not going anywhere near that.” Hannah pressed herself into Cat’s side.
“You’re too little anyway, you have to be as tall as that gate and you’re not. Can I?” His eyes shone.
“I’ll go with him,” Judith said quickly. “If you’re dead sure, Sam.”
“Dead, dead sure.” Sam laughed. “Good joke, Judith. Come on, quick, the queue’s moving.”
“Judith, if you c”
“It’s fine,” Judith said, as she was pulled away, “honestly. Why don’t you and Hannah go on the wobbly staircase into the hall of mirrors. Go on, I’ll treat you.”
“Thanks! Would you like to, Hanny?”
“Yeah!”
They separated. When Cat glanced back, Sam and Judith were at the ticket booth, ready to go.
*
Clive Rowley, Paul J and Paul C pushed their way through the ten-deep crowd surging towards the Sky-Dyve. No one moved for them.
“Like ambulances,” Paul C said, “people used to move aside for them but they don’t now.”
“Yes they do. Always. Where’ve you been?”
“He could shoot anyone here—have the gun in his pocket, straight into the back, no one would know.”
“Not that easy. Besides, he won’t do that.”
“How do you know?”
“Because,” Clive said as they reached the vans on the other side, “he’s a planner is our marksman, not an opportunist.”
“You’ve been reading too much profiling rubbish.”
“Why’s it rubbish?”
But the generator behind them started up again and Paul J’s reply was drowned out.
Simon Serrailler looked over his shoulder as he began to walk away from the fair. The high-profile police presence was working. CID were everywhere, standing in queues for fish and chips and rides on the dodgems, wandering about among the bobbing ducks and shove-halfpenny stalls, standing in pairs near the fortune-telling booths. Uniform were making a point of chatting to children and teenagers, joshing with the elderly, arresting a couple of pickpockets. AR were on the perimeter and on relief parked up in the vans. He had a good feeling. No gunman would take a chance here tonight.
He had tried to find his sister but the crowd was too thick. He’d catch up with them later but, for now, he was heading out of the melee, towards the back lane that led towards the Cathedral Close. In five minutes he intended to be drinking a whisky and reading the final chapter of the last Michael Dibdin Inspector Zen novel, which had more twists than the Jug Fair helter-skelter.
Sam Deerbon’s eyes gleamed full of life and excitement as their car shot through the plastic curtains and into the silvery half-dark of the ghost walk and at once a couple of skeletons rattled down from the roof, almost touched them and swooped back up again. The tannoy let out terrible screams and shrieks as they hurtled into pitch blackness. Judith felt Sam nudge very slightly nearer so that his leg was just touching hers. The car dropped down and a gravestone opened up just ahead. A plastic bat was slippery and cold like seaweed waving in their faces.
“OK?” she asked, but a ghoul emerged from the walls of the tunnel, its terrible amplified groaning louder than her question, louder than the shrieks and screams of the people in the cars in front and behind.
They slowed down and then went suddenly very fast again and the tunnel swerved sharply to the right. This time, Sam grabbed her hand, and in the car two back, Helen squeezed Phil’s, alarmed in spite of herself. She saw his face in the green phosphorescence, artificially pale, his teeth flashing as he roared with laughter.
There was a crescendo of noise as they plunged hard down into the darkness, and then, suddenly, down again, faster and faster until the car was rocking to and fro violently and the rails seemed to be rearing up in their faces. Helen screamed. The green lights were out and the place was both black and a hell of noise as metal and timber buckled and canvas ripped and the entire ride began to crumple, the top level crashing down through into the next and the bottom of the whole edifice collapsing under the weight and pitching forward onto the crowd below.
Simon Serrailler heard the noise and for a split second thought not one shot but a barrage of gunfire was resounding through the square. Then he turned and saw the ghost train toppling forward and crumpling like a pack of cards. Heard the unbelievable noise of tearing metal and wood and the exploding generator and the screams that rose and rose in terror, mingling with the lights and the smoke and rising, rising up to the great cathedral tower and so on up and up into the darkness.
“Sam!” Cat screamed. “Oh God, no, no. SAAAAM.”
She tried to push forward but a wall of people was pushing her back and she almost fell over Hannah and they were forced to go the way they were going, to get out of the way of the falling debris. “My son’s in there, I have to get to my son. Oh God, please let me get back. Sam c” Someone was grabbing her arm and pulling her side ways and then she was pushed against the merry-go-round and a girl in a bright pink quilted jacket was pressed up to her so that the quilting was in her face, she could smell the shiny oily fabric. The fairground noise was dying down. The music was stopping, as the loudspeakers were switched off one by one, and then the generators began to fade, and after a while the only sounds were of the still-cracking, crushed ghost-train building and of human voices, shouting, calling, barking orders from somewhere behind. And screaming. Screaming.
Serrailler, pushing through the crowd and shouting “POLICE’, reached the fallen ride at the same time as a dozen other officers and St John Ambulance paramedics. Sirens were now sounding in the distance.
The smell of burning and dust and oil was acrid, the whole structure had toppled in on itself so that it was impossible to tell what had come down, what had been beneath. Fairground workers were already hauling at great beams and crippled girders and dragging them away, while uniform took over crowd control and also began to rummage in the broken mountain for trapped bodies.
Simon’s mobile rang as he was clambering onto part of the broken carriage runway.
“Simon, Jesus, where are you? Sam was on the ride, Sam—”
“OK, I’m up there now. Where are you?”
“I don’t know, on the other side, by a stall, I’m up against a stall, we’re all pushed together—”
“Stay exactly where you are. Don’t move. There are a lot of us here and everything is on its way. Stay there, Cat.”
He clambered over the rigging and canvas, a couple of armed response men behind him. There were shouts and cries from all around them, from underneath, from inside.
“Watch out, guv, it isn’t stable, watch where you’re putting your weight.”
“Wait for the fire crews. Listen, there’s someone just here, Paul, shove this plastic sheet out of the way, hold me steady.” Clive Rowley balanced on a broken piece of rail at an angle.
“Shut up. Listen.”
They stood in the small pocket of silence they had constructed out of the noise crazy all round them.
“Left, to your left and then down, Clive.”
“Hold this steady.”
“Watch yourself. You need an axe.”
“Haven’t got a fucking axe. Hang on. Hold it steady, will you?”
He squatted and began to rip the plastic sheeting apart. It came away easily in his hands, revealing a cavern of black twisted metal, with a wheel broken off and sticking up into the air. Below it, someone was crying softly in pain and fear. He put his foot forward. Beside him, Paul C held the girder fast.
Clive reached his hand and then his arm into the dark space beneath him and felt around.
“Hello. Where are you? I’m Clive, I’m a police officer. Can you hear me?”
The moaning went on without a pause but it was near, almost at his feet.
He got down on his knees, testing the surface cautiously, then inched along and put his head to the hole.
“Can you hear me?”
“Help me, help me.”
“Gotcha. OK, we’ll have you out of there in a minute. I’m reaching my arm down. Can you lift a hand up?”
A moan.
“Try lifting a hand and feeling round for mine.” He half turned his head. “Get a torch, can you? I need to see in here.”
The sirens were in the square now, vehicle after vehicle turning in and stopping, the flashing lamps still going. Firemen, ladders, lights, hoses.
“Get me a torch.”
A torch was in his hand from somewhere behind.
“Steady, watch that wooden platform on your left, Clive, duck down. It’s moving.”
There was a creak and a splintering sound but Clive held steady and the girder did not move. He waited. He felt round again in the blackness and then managed to get the torch in but all he saw was a mess.
“Can you still hear me?”
No reply.
“Reach your hand up.”
Silence.
He wiped the sweat off his face.
“I’m still here. I’m Clive. Can you hear me?”
From below, someone shouted and a woman was screaming, “Oh my God, oh my God. Oh Jason, oh my God.”
Then, without warning, Clive felt something touch his hand and move an inch up to his wrist and, for a second or two, grip.
“Yessss.”
Gradually, arc lights began to come on and now the ladders were being run up the fallen stands, one after another. A child was crying in the blackness deep down under the broken girders.
“I’m Clive,” he said. “Can you reach my hand again?”
After a moment, he felt his wrist gripped weakly. He crawled forwards cautiously an inch or two, set the torch down and reached both his arms into the hole.
“Grip,” he said. “Grip hard and hold on. Can you move?” He thought the voice was a woman’s. “Are your legs free?” A groan of pain but then a movement and a sudden cracking sound. “Be careful. Slowly, do it slowly. Can you move your legs?”
He felt the grip tighten on his wrists. He held fast. Someone had his legs behind and there was a ladder beside him.
“You can do it,” he said into the hole. “You’re nearly there. Just try and free your legs very carefully. Do your legs hurt?”
He could not make out the words. Sweat dripped from his face onto his hands and onto the hands that were gripping his wrists. A beam shone and caught the black hole and held it and in its vivid white light he saw the tangled wreckage, the wheel, and the woman’s hands on his wrists. Further down, he could see a green jacket. Dark hair. Her legs, one free, the other angled out of sight. His wrists were burning and his back felt as if someone were pressing a weight of cement onto it but gradually, very gradually, he began to move the woman up out of the dark pit, painfully slowly. Then, other arms reached out and took the strain with him.
“Don’t pull too hard, her left leg isn’t free. Watch it, watch it.”
But after hours of the night and another lifetime beyond those, her head and then her shoulders were up and into the cool air and the brilliant arc light and someone was cutting away the metal and wood below to free her left leg.
“Clive,” she said faintly.
“That’s me. Nearly there. Be out of it any second.”
“Leg’s free, leg’s clear. Be careful, she may have a broken ankle there.” The noise of cutting stopped, though they could hear it going on all around them, above them, below them, as the firemen worked on the wreckage.
