Exposure (7 page)

At the same time she guessed he’d summed up the terror in her eyes.

“Okay. I’ll go first. I’ll tie your bag to the end. When you see the line drop down, loop it around your waist and put your arms through like this.”

He demonstrated briefly.

“Brace your feet against the rock as if you were abseiling. Yank three times – hard – and I’ll bring you up.”

He didn’t wait to see if she’d understood his instructions.

Paralysed, she watched him tie the rope through the handles of her grab bag and begin to scale the cliff. He climbed effortlessly, his hands and feet finding invisible holds, muscles working easily. He was soon out of sight, merging into the rocks. All she could hear was the sudden cascade of grit as his fingers dislodged pebbles.

She felt utterly alone.

Helene’s senses, frozen with cold, gradually began to unthaw and she looked around her. She knew they’d headed west because she’d seen the flare of lights from Penzance on her right. In the distance she could see a lighthouse blinking. She guessed it was the Longships Lighthouse which meant they must be near Land’s End. In which case this was probably one of several smugglers’ coves on this stretch of coast: easy to access from the sea, with a sandy, softly shelving beach and any number of caves in which loot could be stored. The only access from land was by rope. And now the RIB was history, her only escape was above.

At length she heard the nylon line snaking softly down the cliff and felt hugely relieved despite her fear of the climb ahead. With trembling, uncooperative fingers, she passed the knots around her waist as he’d shown her and tugged hard three times. Leaning backwards she tried to breathe deeply, quelling the terror that welled up.

She felt the rope tighten suddenly and slowly she began to rise up the cliff, her dead weight hanging in his hands. The rock was greasy with spume and moss beneath her feet and her wet trainers slipped repeatedly. A sharp piece of granite jabbed her shoulder and she grazed her hands trying to steady herself. She tasted blood as she bit the inside of her lip.

He continued to pull steadily. The rope bit through the thin cotton of her jacket, rubbing raw a patch of skin behind each arm. Soon it was agony and perspiration began to run down her face. She didn’t dare take a hand off the rope again, so the sweat stung her eyes.

When she saw the lip of the cliff silhouetted against the lighter night sky, she hooked a leg up as high as she could and clawed her way onto a smooth, grassy bank. She lay gasping like a landed fish. Seconds passed before she could squeeze open an eye: he was looking down at her, smiling slightly.

Every muscle ached: her hip and back were protesting at the rough usage and Helene felt every one of her fifty-plus years – more, if the truth be told. She knew from bitter experience that she’d be stiff as a post by morning.

She didn’t allow for the fact that most people, when faced with a midnight race, sea race and cliff climb, would be equally if not more fatigued. Helene had never been able to help but whip herself with a caustic sense of her own inferiority.

“Are you okay to move?”

What a stupid question. She doubted she’d ever be able to move again.

“Time to go.”

He loped off with her grab bag and she had no choice but to force herself to her knees and crawl after him.

Dear God, she thought, as she clawed her way across the tussocky grass; if I ever get through this alive I shall never bitch about my Pilates class ever again.

She raised herself painfully to a standing position and stumbled clumsily, trying to avoid any rabbit holes. If she broke an ankle now he’d probably toss her back over the cliff anyway.

He stopped abruptly and she nearly walked into him.

“We’re here.”

She looked up, cuffing the hair from her eyes.

A small, fixed-wing aeroplane was parked on the cliff top.

“You’ve got to be joking.”

She couldn’t help speaking the words out loud. He seemed entertained, as if he’d known she’d react like this.

“Have you ever done a parachute jump?” he said calmly.

The blood drained from her face.

He smiled, his teeth very white in the moonlight.

“Hopefully you won’t have to.”

He didn’t offer her a parachute.

The plane had four, tiny seats. He crammed her bag into the back and pointed at the front, right hand cockpit seat.

He didn’t seem to have any intention of helping her in, so Helene dragged herself up and collapsed gratefully into the bucket-like seat. He pulled free the chocks and slid in next to her.

The engine started with a roar, horribly loud in the night air. He indicated that she should wear some earphones hanging behind her. She put them on, wishing irrelevantly that she could reach the baby wipes in her grab bag for hygiene’s sake. She’d travelled by too many grotty airlines to want to chance an unpleasant ear infection, but this time she had no choice. They looked fairly clean in the dark.

His voice, electronically amplified, crackled in her ear.

“Buckle up.”

But before she’d clipped herself in, he’d begun to taxi across the uneven grass. When he reached the end of the field, he turned the plane in a half circle and opened the throttle. Pointing towards the cliff edge, the plane began to speed up.

With mounting horror Helene realised that he was going to launch them hang-glider like from the cliff. But the field was very small and the grassy runway too short, far too short!

The plane seemed to freefall off the cliff edge and Helene’s stomach was sucked upwards. A strangled squawk forced its way out of her throat as she squeezed her eyes shut. Her hands gripped her seat, waiting for a crash to splinter them onto the water.

Except it didn’t.

The plane’s engines struggled throatily and Charlie managed to pull the nose up so they appeared to skim across the surface of the water.

“You can open your eyes now.” His voice sounded amused.

“You... you bastard! Why didn’t you tell me you were going to do that?”

He raised an eyebrow and gave the same irritating half smile.

“Would it have made a difference?”

Yes, it bloody well would, thought Helene. I’d have climbed back down that bloody cliff and swum home.

“Where are we going?” she managed to ask in a stilted voice.

“North.”

“Could you be a little more specific?”

Her sarcasm didn’t seem to have any effect on him.

He hesitated briefly.

“Scotland,” he finally said with some reluctance.

“Okay.” She pursed her lips. “Scotland’s a big place.”

After an even longer pause, he relented.

“I’ve got a base there. I need to go somewhere I can think, somewhere we’ll be safe – for a while, at least.”

His lips pressed together in a thin line. He obviously wasn’t prepared to give her any more detail; she had no choice but to accept it.

He reached behind and passed her an old tartan blanket.

“Try to get some sleep,” he said roughly. “We’ll be flying through the night.”

Helene didn’t think there was much chance of that, but the throb of the engines was oddly soothing and with the blanket draped around her, her eyes began to close as tiredness washed over her.

She was nearly asleep when she heard his voice drifting through the headphones:

“By the way,” he said. “You look pretty damn good for an almost-pensioner.”

Chapter 6

It must have been several hours after dawn when Helene’s battered body struggled into consciousness. She felt as if every joint had been welded together by the work experience lad. Her neck creaked ominously as she moved her head.

She opened one eye, squinting into the bright sunshine. She really hoped she hadn’t dribbled.

“Good morning!”

His blue eyes, amused and unsympathetic were turned towards her.

“Are we there yet?” she croaked.

She regretted the words as soon as they tumbled from her mouth: she sounded like a petulant child.

“Just beginning to make the descent,” he replied.

Helene didn’t think it would be much of a descent. They were already so low they were practically mowing the grass.

“Just making sure I keep us out of radar sight,” he said, answering the unspoken question.

“Oh.”

He lifted the nose of the plane slightly and they rose up over a low range of hills, plunging down the other side into a wide U-shaped valley sculpted by ancient glaciers.

Helene felt as if she’d slipped out of time. It wouldn’t have surprised her to see giant, Jurassic ferns, or a herd of brontosaurus drinking from the lake.

But the valley was lifeless: there wasn’t a single building, stone wall or even a lost sheep: just miles of short grass, fringed by pink heather.

The lake glimmered in the morning light, a natural reservoir, banked in by a terminal moraine that also hid the valley and made it inaccessible by road. Which, she reasoned, was probably why he’d chosen it.

The plane sank lower until the wheels were skimming over the ground and they landed with a soft thump. They bumped along the rough turf and Charlie throttled back. At last the plane came to a rest and he turned off the engine.

The sudden silence was overwhelming.

Helene pulled off her headphones and drank in the deep peace. She peered out of the Perspex screen, gazing around at the scenery until her eyes came to rest on his.

“It’s beautiful,” she said.

“Thank you.”

She felt the colour begin to rise in her cheeks again so she was grateful when he opened his door and jumped out.

Stiff-legged, Helene followed him, half falling out of the plane. Even so, her body was grateful for the change of position. She stretched awkwardly, trying to ignore the myriad aches and pains.

Not bad for an old gal, she told herself.

He threw her grab bag at her feet and pulled his own backpack out of the plane. Then he went to the storage panel in the side of the craft and fished out a heavy piece of camouflage netting.

Without being told, Helene helped him spread it over the fuselage and wings, so it would appear hidden should anyone be searching for them by air.

How paranoid does that sound?
she wondered.

No matter how bizarre the situation might seem to her, he clearly wasn’t taking any chances.

Disconsolately, she heaved up her grab bag and looked around for any sort of shelter. Charlie had headed off down the valley so Helene stumbled after him, keeping one eye on his retreating back, and one on the uneven carpet of heather beneath her feet. Just when she felt miserable enough to ask him where they were going, an old crofter’s cottage separated itself from the piles of rocks that littered the valley floor. It looked derelict and any hopes she’d begun to hold of having a hot shower seemed dashed. On the other hand, she’d settle for a bed of bracken and a tin of beans on a camp fire right now. The only food she’d had in the last 24 hours had been the sausage and mash at the Trevarrian pub.

My God! Was that really only 20 hours ago?

But the croft was merely the set dressing for something extraordinary.

Charlie moved a piece of old sacking in the gloom of the croft’s interior, and from behind it Helene could see the soft blue light of an electronic keypad.

Charlie tapped in some numbers and a thick steel door slid open. He disappeared downwards as if into a well, footsteps producing a hollow ringing from the metal ladder.

She followed him, a sense of wonder overwhelming her. He flicked on a light switch and a compact, modern, well-fitted suite was revealed inside something that looked and felt like a submarine.

“Good grief! I didn’t think places like this really existed. Did you build it?”

He shook his head, pleased by her reaction.

“No. It was built by some millennium end-timer; you know, one of those nuts who thought the world was going to fall apart on New Year’s Eve 1999.”

“How did you end up with it?”

His reply was brief.

“Luck.”

She decided to stick to more neutral territory.

“What do you do for water? How do you heat it? Can you heat it?”

He smiled at her mournful expression.

“There’s a ground source heat pump, plus it’s pretty well insulated. And there’s a grey water tank that’s got a filtration system. It’s got its own generator, too, so pretty much all you need to bring in here is fresh food.”

Helene nodded slowly.

“What about the outside world?”

He frowned.

“I mean: how do you keep in touch with people: I didn’t notice an Internet cafe around here?”

“There’s a satcomms if I need it,” he said evenly. “I can hook up to the internet with a laptop but it’s totally secure. Anyone trying to find me would be routed through Singapore, Istanbul and a dozen other places.”

“I wouldn’t have thought anyone would ever even know this place existed.”

He looked at her steadily. “Someone always knows.”

Silence.

Helene stood awkwardly in the middle of the space, her grab bag still in her hands. Without further words, he sat down at the kitchen bar-top and for a moment rested his head on his hands. When he looked up she could see the tiredness in his eyes.

“Look,” she said, suddenly feeling some small concern for him, “why don’t you get some sleep? You look exhausted.”

“I didn’t know you cared.”

“Don’t flatter yourself,” she said firmly. “But we need to figure out what’s going on – you’re no use like this. Get some sleep.”

He nodded slowly.

“What are you going to do?”

“Type up my notes. I still have a story to write. At least, I think I do. Do I?”

He shrugged.

“Just make me look good.”

“I’m a journalist not a novelist,” she said testily.

He laughed out loud and she couldn’t help smiling with him.

“You’re right,” he said, rubbing his eyes wearily. “I’m not going to win any verbal fencing with you right now, Ms Journalist.”

“Sleep won’t change that,” she said, raising one eyebrow.

He smiled again, saluted smartly and headed toward a small cubbyhole that stood in for a bedroom.