The Long Call (Two Rivers #1) - Ann Cleeves Page 0,122
to silence. She had another moment of panic, felt smothered by the dark so she could hardly breathe. Then she must have turned a slight bend in the road because there were lights ahead of her, a long way off, but providing somewhere to head for. Comfort. Spindrift, Matthew’s home. She passed the toll keeper’s cottage and continued towards the dunes and the beach, more confident now that she knew where she was. She’d be able to navigate her way from here.
There was no sign of Ross. He must have left the road already, taken the same path as Matthew over the sandhills towards the shore. Just as well that one of them was fit. She turned off the road and began the scramble to the ridge of dunes, needing to stop again when she reached the top to catch her breath. Looking down at the beach, all she could see was a flashing buoy somewhere in the distance. Then the brown cloud cleared and briefly the beach was flooded with moonlight. She saw something far below the high-water mark, close to the incoming tide. No colour. The light wasn’t sufficiently strong to make out more than a shape. A heap of discarded clothes, perhaps, or some washed-up debris from a passing ship. It could be a weird sculpture. Something Gaby Henry might have put together from found objects, a twisted piece of driftwood covered by seaweed. Ross was standing there and he was shouting.
She wasn’t a sporty woman. She’d never seen the appeal of Lycra and the gym, but now she ran. The strong moonlight had disappeared again, and the object she’d seen from the dunes was no more than a grey shadow, marginally darker than the flat sand that surrounded it. Ross was still shouting and she could hear the desperation in his voice.
Chapter Forty
MATTHEW WOKE TO A BRIGHT LIGHT, pain and cold. He couldn’t scream because his mouth wouldn’t open. Later he thought that had, at least, provided him with a tatter of dignity. He couldn’t yell with pain or whimper like a child. It gave him time to pull himself together. There was noise too. Somebody shouting. A voice he recognized. Ross. Then the tape was pulled from his mouth. More pain. Ross shouted again and Matthew had recovered enough by then to realize the man was shouting to Jen. ‘It’s the boss!’
Ross put his arm around Matthew’s back and pulled him into a sitting position, cut the tape that was binding his hands.
‘Lucy?’ Matthew could hear Maurice Braddick’s voice in his head, recriminating. So, they managed to save you. What about my girl?
‘Alive.’
‘Where?’
‘Here, on the beach. Not far from you.’
‘For God’s sake, see to her first.’ Matthew was pleased that he’d managed to shout.
‘Jen’s already with her. She wasn’t far behind me. And you were unconscious. I thought you might be dead.’ Ross sounded very young, as if he’d been crying. He repeated the words. ‘I thought you were dead.’ He cut the tape that had been tied around Matthew’s ankles and at the same time the clouds parted again. Matthew held on to Ross and pulled himself onto his feet. For a moment he stood with his hand on the DC’s arm. ‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘Great work.’
He saw that he’d been lying on the sand, and about two metres away Lucy was being helped by Jen. The woman had been gagged and tied too. Matthew walked unsteadily towards her, and in the spotlight of Jen’s torch, saw her in small glimpses: a trainer, turned on one side, covered in sand. An arm, soft and fleshy, very white against the shadowy shore. An eye, open, then blinking in the torchlight, alive. Lucy had been lying helpless on her side. Even a fit person would be unable to move in that position, and she was unfit, cold and scared. Jen was pulling away the parcel tape that was wound around her mouth and her head. Lucy winced at the pain as strands of her hair caught in it.
He shone the torch onto his own face so she could see who he was. There were tears rolling down her cheeks, but she gave a grin, defiant and brave. The water was only metres from them now, sliding up the beach, a gentle and secret killer. If she’d been there an hour longer, Matthew thought, Lucy Braddick would have drowned. And if Ross hadn’t found us, I would have drowned too.