Losing You (29 page)

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 remember 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.’

Charlie’s eyes opened and she looked at me. Then she looked past me. Her mouth opened but no sound came. I saw a widening of her eyes and felt an explosion of pain so great and so sudden that it wasn’t just a feeling: I could see the pain, flashing white and then in bursts of blue and red, and I could hear it too, ringing in my ears. I didn’t feel my body collapse and hit the ground. I saw the ground move up and then it was against me, the slimy mud against my cheeks, in my mouth. The name came into my mind: Rick.

I rolled over and felt the pain in my left leg, spurting and flowing down to the foot, up through my thigh and into my body. As I turned, I saw Rick. He was on his knees. Even in the darkness I could see that his face was covered with filth and blood. Things were happening quickly yet I seemed to have a great deal of time to think. I realized that he had crawled towards me from behind and that I hadn’t seen him.
He had struck my right knee with something, which had made me collapse, and now he was raising it to strike me again, on my head this time. I realized I had dropped Charlie and I thought, All this has been for nothing. I had called the police and the police would get here and they would find Rick but it would be too late. But at least I had found Charlie, if only for a moment. She was not alone any more. While I was thinking all that, I raised my right arm to ward off the blow and there was another explosion of light and sound. I cried out again, but I snatched with my left hand and gripped the metal bar he was wielding.

Even though he was injured, Rick was far bigger and stronger than me. But I thought of Charlie and I held the bar and knew that I would never release it until I was dead, and then he would have to prise my fingers from it. My right arm was hot with pain but I clawed at his face with my right hand. I felt flesh under my nails and scratched deep. I heard a scream from somewhere close. I had been pulling the metal bar but then, suddenly, instead of trying to wrench it free he pushed it down on me, on my neck, and I began to choke. I pushed and twisted with all my last strength, I scratched at his face but he was staring down at me. I tried to speak, I tried to tell him that it was all over, that the police were on their way, but the metal was hard against my windpipe. I could see him shaking his head at me, as if in reproof, and he was saying something but I was no longer able to hear or see. I was losing consciousness and then I heard a sound, felt it as much as heard it, of something heavy hitting the earth, and his weight on me was gone.

It was several seconds before I could see. There was a shape in front of my eyes, which gradually acquired form
and detail, and I could make it out as Charlie. She was barely recognizable as the daughter I had last seen on the previous day. Her skin was as pale as that of a corpse. She was drenched, her hair and clothes plastered flat against her. She was holding a piece of concrete from the disintegrating pillbox. She let it drop and stood there, looking through me with dead eyes. She swayed like a tree that was about to fall. I glanced around. There was no sign of Rick.

I cried out my daughter’s name and got to my feet. I knew there was pain and damage in my arm and leg but it felt like a distant memory. I held her close in my arms; we were both trembling violently, with cold and fear. I looked into her eyes. ‘Charlie,’ I said loudly. ‘Can you hear me?’

She didn’t answer. Her eyes were rolling as if she was drugged or desperate for sleep. I remembered Rick. Where had he gone? Was there a chance he could come for us again, out of the darkness?

Then I saw him. The force of Charlie’s blow had knocked him off the bank where the remains of the pillbox stood. He had slipped down into the water and the mud. I could see the shape of his body in the water, pushed this way and that by the tide, which was now at its height. Slack tide – and before long it would ebb once more. He was lying on his back with one of his legs deep in the soft, gluey mud. I thought he was unconscious, but then his eyes flickered open and he looked up at me. He lifted his bashed, bloody head as far as he could. Occasional waves swept over him, making him choke with a horrible gurgling sound, but he couldn’t move. I stared down at him. I needed to hate him for what he had done. He had killed Olivia Mullen. And he had been intending to kill Charlie, or to stand by and allow
the sea to drown her. I had spent the day hating the anonymous man who had snatched Charlie, and now I knew Rick was that man.