FIFTEEN

Daniel was cold, a bone-deep, marrow-freezing chill that negated all other sensation.

Time passed. How much time, he could not have said. It wasn’t important. He didn’t want to think. All he wanted was to sink back through the icy numbness into the enveloping darkness from which he’d come.

It wasn’t to be. All too soon, another sensation forced its way into his consciousness.

Pain.

Intense, throbbing, grinding pain that left no room for conscious thought and rendered the mere cold something to be welcomed.

Someone was standing on Daniel’s head wearing running spikes and bouncing up and down.

It had to stop.

The decision wasn’t the product of thought, just pure instinct. It couldn’t go on. It wasn’t sustainable.

Daniel tried to lift his hand to the source of the agony, but his arm was just too heavy. For a while he accepted the fact without question – almost with relief – but as the seconds ticked by and awareness refused to leave him, some lingering vestige of self-preservation crept in, telling him that he had to take back responsibility.

He could feel that he was lying on his back with his head turned to one side, but his whole body felt leaden and strangely detached from the hazy, swimming confusion of his mind. He knew he should open his eyes, but was in no hurry to take that step, knowing that more demands on his willpower would inevitably follow.

Sound began to filter through. First, and closest, a repetitive, harsh rasping interspersed with short bursts of a high-pitched whistle. The noise hurt, and almost before his dysfunctional brain had positively identified it, he heard himself say in a croaking whisper, ‘Shut up, Taz!’

Instantly, the panting stopped, the weight lifted from his arm and a warm tongue began to wash his face with ecstatic fervour. Daniel grimaced and immediately wished he hadn’t, as the right side of his face felt stiff and painful.

After the dog’s well-meant attentions, all possibility of postponing the inevitable was effectively banished and he forced his eyes open. In the event, vision was an anticlimax. Through slitted eyes he could see only a nonsensical haze of white streaked with black.

Blinking, he tried again and pulled into focus a near landscape of snow crystals crisscrossed with stems of reedy grass.

For a moment, he couldn’t think why he should be lying in the snow, but another sound prompted recall, at first fragmented and confused, and then in all its unwelcome detail.

Somewhere a child was crying.

Daniel pushed himself dizzily to one elbow, but aside from Drummer and Taz, he appeared to be alone in the valley. Even the pony had lost interest and wandered off to forage, pawing through the snow to the rough grazing underneath.

How long had he been unconscious? There was no way of knowing, and while the absence of Macek was definitely a plus, the realization that he had taken Molly with him was a crushing blow. Once again, it seemed to Daniel, he had failed.

‘Where are they, Taz?’ he said aloud. ‘Which way did they go?’

The German shepherd looked at him, head tilted intelligently, and then started to cast around, head down and tail waving, apparently intent on picking up the Romanian’s scent.

A renewed bout of sobbing claimed Daniel’s attention and he struggled into a sitting position. Over the snow-topped grassy tussocks he could see the forbidding expanse of the bog, where, looking strangely alien, the sloping black roof of the Nissan was all that was left above the surface. There too, clinging to the roof rack with heaven knew what reserves of strength, was the forlorn figure of Elena, and even at that distance Daniel could see the desperation on her white face.

Something plainly had to be done. In his current state, Daniel wasn’t capable of much forward-planning, but nothing at all could be accomplished from where he was, so he turned on to his hands and knees and prepared for the push to his feet. The movement caused his vision to blur, and as it cleared, he could see, pressed into the snow he’d been lying on, the black handle and wicked blade of Macek’s knife. He decided he must have fallen on it, and that fact had most probably preserved his life, for he felt sure that if the Romanian had had the weapon to hand, the urge to finish Daniel off would have almost certainly proven too great.

As Daniel stared down at the blade, a small dark hole appeared in the snow beside it, to be rapidly joined by another and then a third. It was a moment or two before Daniel recognized them for what they were. Blood spots.

Sitting back on his heels, he put an exploratory hand to the right side of his face and then sat staring stupidly at fingers slippery with blood. A few feet away in the snow lay a rough lump of stone about the size of a grapefruit. No wonder his head was pounding.

Wincing, Daniel held a handful of snow to his face for a moment, hoping the cold would stem the bleeding. Then, tossing away the resulting scarlet slush, he climbed slowly to his feet, where he stood swaying slightly as the ground rolled unpleasantly under his feet.

‘Help me!’ Elena had caught sight of him and her voice was shrill with panic. ‘Help! Please!’

‘It’s OK. I’m coming, hang on,’ he called back, his voice an unreassuring croak. Just how he was going to help her, he had no idea, but she didn’t need to know that. A wave of nausea hit him and he doubled over, his body alternating between waves of fiery heat and icy cold. Black blotches formed in front of his eyes, threatening to join up and overwhelm him. He screwed them shut and concentrated on breathing deeply, desperately clinging to consciousness. He couldn’t, he mustn’t give in now: Elena was depending on him.

Slowly Daniel lifted his head. The landscape swam and then settled to its rightful place. That, at least, was encouraging.

He looked across at the girl. The Nissan had tipped still further and black peaty water now covered the lower corner of the black roof. Elena had drawn her knees up, trying to keep her once-pink trainers clear of it. She was looking over her shoulder at Daniel, eyes huge in her white face.

‘Help me!’ she sobbed piteously. ‘Please!’

‘It’ll be all right. Try to stay calm,’ he told her automatically, hearing his voice as if from afar. It was a good job she was too far away to see what a pathetic figure he cut as her would-be rescuer.

Manually engaging his powers of coordination, Daniel made his way with weaving steps to the edge of the bog, where he clung to the familiar bent hawthorn tree like a drunk to a lamp-post.

Under his right hand he could feel the smooth leather of his makeshift line, still knotted round the trunk of the tree, but it took a moment or two for him to recognize it for what it was. He stared at it, his mind working sluggishly. If he could throw one end out to the child, would she have the courage to let go of her only security and catch it? he wondered. And would she, for that matter, have the strength to hold it, cold and exhausted as she must be? It was a lot to ask of anyone, let alone a young girl, but he didn’t have a better idea.

‘Elena!’ he called, looking across at her. ‘I’m going to throw you a rope.’

‘Please, you must hurry.’ The black tide had reached her knees.

‘I will. I will . . .’ Daniel promised.

Leaning on the gnarled trunk of the hawthorn for support, Daniel went to work on the knot, glad that his recent time around stables had led to him automatically using a quick-release knot such as is commonly used to tie up horses and haynets. Even so, Macek’s weight as he’d hauled himself out had pulled the leather strap incredibly tight, and with fingers weak and stupid with cold, it wasn’t going to be easy to pull it undone.

In the centre of the bog, next to the Nissan, a huge bubble welled up and burst with a spray of dirty water as the black roof tilted a little more and Elena screamed in terror.

‘Hold on!’ Daniel called urgently, tugging at the release strap with as much strength as he could muster. The knot was so tight it was as though the leather had fused together and his hands slipped on its smooth surface. Fleetingly, he thought of the Romanian’s knife, lying in the snow, but cutting and rejoining the line would lose inches that he could ill afford to sacrifice, so – wrapping it round his right hand and taking a double grip – Daniel threw his weight backwards, hoping to jerk it free.

The tree shuddered and Daniel’s shoulders almost popped from their sockets, but it worked – the knot slipped undone and the next moment he was sitting in the wet snow on the very edge of the bog.

Once more his head swam as nausea rose and he turned to retch violently into the snow. The action left him feeling still more feeble and his teeth were chattering as the wind whistled through his shirt.

‘Hang on, Elena,’ he called as he climbed to his feet and began to coil the leather, ready to throw it.

His aim didn’t let him down, even if the effort involved in hurling the line made him overbalance and go down on one knee, but his relief was short-lived. Unfortunately, although the line lay on the surface of the blanket of matted vegetation for the majority of its length, the end dipped into the water what looked like a good 2 feet short of the sloping black roof to which Elena clung, and no matter how he encouraged her, she was just too terrified to take even one hand away from her precarious haven to reach for it.

An odd assortment of mismatched bits of leather, the line itself was hardly something to inspire confidence, but even so, Daniel struggled to keep the frustration from his voice as he urged Elena to be a brave girl and try.

After a minute or two, Daniel was forced to admit that his plan wasn’t going to work. It was just possible that when the Nissan finally slid under the murky waters of the bog, the girl would see that the makeshift rope was her only chance, but it was equally possible that she might panic and ignore it, or even be sucked under as the vehicle went down.

If he could find a way to get out to the Nissan, would he be able to pull himself and Elena hand over hand back to the tree? It seemed he was destined to find out, for he couldn’t think of any other solution.

Another upsurge of bubbles from the sinking 4x4 decided him. Elena was waist-deep in the thick peaty water now, and crying uncontrollably. It was impossible to say whether she had minutes left or only seconds. Calling words of reassurance, Daniel hurried back to where the loose end of the line lay and knotted it back on to the hawthorn as quickly as his numb fingers would allow.

With one hand on the safety line, Daniel moved a few feet to the side of the trail left by Macek, before dropping to all fours and venturing cautiously forward.

Here at the perimeter of the bog, the days and nights of hard frosts had crystallized the topmost layer, stiffening the floating mat of roots and vegetation so that it supported Daniel’s weight, only creaking a little as he moved tentatively across it. This, then, was how the Nissan had travelled so far into the bog before starting to sink.

Further out, as he left the psychological comfort of the tussocks behind him and the mire became deeper, it also became increasingly unstable. The surface dipped and rippled outwards under the pressure of his splayed hands like some giant snow-covered waterbed. Here and there a little stinking brown water had started to ooze through and Daniel was forced to lower himself to his belly in order to spread his weight as thinly as he could.

He’d not thought he could get any colder than he already was, but as the slushy snow and dirty water soaked through his shirt and T-shirt, he was proven wrong. The icy touch of the mire almost took his breath away and he had to clench his jaw to stop the increasingly violent chattering of his teeth.

Fixing his eyes on Elena, Daniel wriggled forward inch by inch, commando-style, on his elbows and knees, constantly aware of the fragility of the layer of vegetation beneath him.

The girl was quiet now, only an occasional muted sob shaking her body, and he could see that she’d reached the end of her tether, physically and mentally. Up to her armpits in water that could only be a fraction of a degree above freezing, her eyes were half closed and her pretty face pinched and blue with cold.

‘Elena, hold on! I’m coming,’ Daniel called, but there was no response and he guessed that her grip on the vehicle roof was now more due to muscle memory than conscious thought. What if that instinct should fail?

Throwing caution to the wind, Daniel began to move faster. He was just a few feet away from his goal now, but with his increased activity, the surface of the bog began to undulate alarmingly. Ahead, just a few feet of liquid mud stood between him and the girl. Into this the leather line trailed uselessly, offering him no help at all to bridge the gap. He could only hope that he would be able to reach out far enough for the girl to take his hands, and also that Elena would be sufficiently aware for him to make her understand what she had to do.

How close to the edge dare he go?

Six more inches . . . Twelve . . . Eighteen . . . He was crawling through 3 or 4 inches of water now and the sulphurous stench filled his lungs, almost making him gag.

Suddenly, shockingly, the mat of moss and roots gave way beneath his left elbow, tipping him head- and shoulder-first into the suffocatingly thick soup of the bog.

It was a strange sensation – not the splash and instant immersion of a pond or river – but a nightmarish, slow-motion descent into the greedy arms of the foul-smelling slime.

Daniel panicked.

Reason deserted him and he kicked and thrashed wildly with all his limbs to try and regain the surface, but opening his eyes was obviously pointless, and with the heavy pull of the bog counteracting his natural buoyancy, he couldn’t tell which way was up.

In his head, quite clearly, he heard Hilary’s voice recounting the legends of the mires and bogs. ‘The locals call them “Dartmoor’s stables”,’ she’d told him, ‘because unwary ponies that wander into them stay there.’

Something wrapped itself sinuously round his leg and the unreasoning part of his mind instantly screamed, ‘Snake!’ causing him to struggle even more desperately.

His lungs felt as though they were bursting, blood pounding in his ears and coloured lights exploding like starbursts behind his eyes. Then, just as he knew the urge to exhale would no longer be denied, in spite of the inevitable consequence, the reality of the ‘snake’ dropped calmly into his mind as if placed there by some benevolent entity.

Not a snake but the rope.

How stupid had he been? Due to his frenzied kicking, the line was no longer wound round his leg. What if his terrified struggles had carried him away from the very thing that could have saved him? Saved them both, he amended, remembering the girl spread-eagled on the roof of the sinking Nissan. Pushing his arms wide through the sludge, Daniel desperately combed the mud with his fingers, even as he finally yielded to the overwhelming physical pressure and let a bubble of air escape from his nostrils.

It was the start of the rot. The relief, though intense, was fleeting and replaced by a yearning ten times greater to ease the pressure by releasing more air. The desire made it impossible to focus his mind on anything else, and involuntarily he let more air escape from his lungs.

Daniel’s resolve weakened, leached away insidiously by exhaustion and the pervading cold. He knew it could now only be moments before his lungs emptied completely and the air was replaced by the thick, noxious fluids of the mire.

Would his body be found and exclaimed over one day, many years in the future, he wondered with a kind of resignation, preserved in wizened, dark-skinned completeness? He had a momentary dreamlike vision of the bog with the bodies of centuries of stricken creatures suspended around him, before a trace of common sense acknowledged that there would be a search for him, and sooner rather than later, his filthy, lifeless body would be pulled from the peaty sludge and zipped tidily into a body bag.

So far had his mind gone down the road to acceptance that when, just moments later, he felt the smooth length of the leather strapping under his fingertips, Daniel didn’t immediately react. All at once the struggle to live seemed too hard, the reward not great enough. But then he remembered Drew. He didn’t want to leave his son like this – with no chance of explaining, no chance of making up. He owed it to the boy – and to Elena and Katya – to keep trying.

His fingers closed around the leather strap and he pulled on it. For one heart-stopping moment it offered no resistance, but then, as the slack was taken up, Daniel felt it tighten and hold. Moving his left arm to grasp the line higher up, he began to haul himself upwards, hope lending him a strength he had thought lost, and it was only seconds before his hands and then his head broke out into life-giving air.

Daniel’s chest heaved, his oxygen-starved lungs working like bellows to restore normality. For several long moments all he could do was wipe the grainy mud from his eyes and cling to the leather rope like some oversized dragonfly nymph waiting to dry out and spread its wings. Before long it was borne upon him that the security lent him by the line was only temporary; under his weight, the leather was slicing through the unstable skin of the bog like a cheese wire through ripe Brie and he was slowly but inevitably sinking once more.

Pulling himself up a further few inches, Daniel twisted to see where he was in relation to the girl. For once, fate seemed to be on his side, as the 4x4 and its precious cargo had tilted towards him in its death throes, leaving Elena almost within reach of his outstretched arm.

‘Elena? Can you hear me? Elena!’

The girl was silent, her eyes closed. The peaty water was up to her chin now, her dark hair spread on the surface of the mire. Aware that each time he adjusted his grip on the leather line he was pulling himself further away from her, Daniel wound it round his forearm and tried to reach back towards the girl.

He’d had bad dreams like this, frantically trying to move but with each frustratingly slow step having the sensation of wading through treacle. There was nothing firm against which he could brace himself and his desperately stretching fingers found only the floating ends of Elena’s hair.

He hated to do it but he had no option. Twining as much hair as he could round his fingers he began to pull, and slowly, agonizingly, the girl started to move towards him. A whimper made him wince in sympathy, but conversely filled him with the relief of knowing that Elena was still hanging on.

‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry,’ he said.

As soon as she was close enough, he let go of her hair and dug down into the mire to transfer his grip to her clothing, managing to lift her a little and finally slide his arm under hers and pull her towards him.

Even now, his problems weren’t over. Their combined weight pulled downward with greater force, causing the line to carve its way faster through the matted surface of the mire, and with one arm round the child, it was difficult to readjust his grip. Within seconds both of them were up to their chins once more.

Daniel could have wept with frustration. He was so tired and the thought that he’d he strived so hard only to fail at the last hurdle was insupportable.

The fetid water was lapping at his mouth now and he had to tip his head back to breathe. Letting go of the line, he lunged to catch it once more some 10 inches higher. Then, gritting his teeth, he strained to pull the two of them upwards, to gain a few precious inches, a few seconds more.

The effort left him gasping, the energy-sapping effects of the cold, his head injury and the battle with the mire having drained his reserves of strength, and he realized that if he was going to attempt to lift the girl on to the surface of the bog, it would have to be now or never.

One thing was clear: he couldn’t do it one-handed. Elena might be slightly built, but she must still weigh the best part of a hundred pounds, even without the dragging pull of the mud.

Daniel took a deep breath and, shutting his mind to the consequences, relinquished his grip on the line, sliding his hand down until he had enough slack to pass round the girl’s body. Fumbling in the thick slime, and aware that he was already beginning to sink once more, he managed to knot the leather strap under her armpits, thanking providence that this end of the line consisted of Drummer’s reins and not the thicker stirrup leathers.

Taking hold of the line again, he pulled himself up one last time. When he got the girl up on to the surface – if he did – the makeshift rope would in all probability be beyond his reach.

Putting his hands round Elena’s waist, Daniel heaved upwards with all the strength he could muster and tried at the same time to push her forwards. He managed to get her head, shoulders and upper body out of the mud, but he hadn’t got the reach to place her far enough away from the weakened edge. Daniel could do no more than watch despairingly as it broke away under her weight and she slid back into the stinking mire beside him.

Although he wouldn’t stop trying, he knew that in the circumstances the task was beyond him, but he had no better ideas. He had reached the end. Dizziness threatened and he closed his eyes. He would rest for a moment, then try again.

A sharp bark revived his drifting consciousness.

Taz.

Daniel turned his head to see the dog at the edge of the bog, close to the stunted hawthorn the line was tied to. He was pawing at the snow, obviously aware of the danger, as the pony had been, but drawn by the presence of his master.

‘No, Taz! Get back!’ Daniel tried to raise his voice, filled with fear for the dog. There was nothing he could do by venturing out across the surface and Daniel couldn’t bear the thought of him perishing too.

The germ of an idea started to form in Daniel’s tired brain. Could he perhaps get the dog to pull on the line? He was strong, but was he that strong? Perhaps he could manage the girl’s weight.

Taz was still standing on the very edge of the bog and had set up a continuous barking, much as he had been taught to do when he’d located a suspect or missing person. After a moment, Daniel realized that was exactly what he was doing – telling the world that he’d found them. What a shame there was no one to hear.

Or was there?

Even as the thought crossed Daniel’s mind, he could have sworn he heard a man’s voice say, ‘Good boy!’

Had he imagined it?

Daniel strained to turn his head further. Up to his chin in putrid water once more, his view was restricted by the scattered tussocks of rough grass that sprouted from the edge of the mire. Grasping the leather rope again, he pulled himself up a scant 6 inches, and from there, miraculously, he could see what looked like a whole crowd of people hurrying down the slope. They all seemed to be calling instructions.

‘Daniel! Hold on!’

‘Daniel, keep as still as you can.’

‘Hold on, all right? We’ll get you out.’

Daniel blinked, aware of a sense of unreality, but when he looked again, they were still there – at least half a dozen of them – and behind them a Land Rover that might have been Hilary’s bumped and bucketed down the side of the valley, a steel ladder strapped to its roof rack.

Hope, so recently extinguished, rekindled and began to glow warmly. Daniel turned Elena to face him and shook her slightly. Her eyelids flickered and half opened.

‘They’re here, sweetheart. It’s going to be all right. It really is.’