Forty-Three

It took them twenty-five minutes to get to Hamble Down.

In any normal circumstances it should have taken forty.

Edith did not appear to be distracted by Kieran’s wild driving, or by the screeching of brakes as they took each bend. Fortunately there was very little traffic around, and only one solitary car in front of them, which had pulled over after Kieran’s flashing lights and leaning on the horn.

‘I’ll be arrested for bloody road rage before I get there,’ he had muttered.

Edith did not reply. Her eyes were closed, her hands tightly bunched in her lap. Occasionally, she whispered something. On one long stretch of road, Kieran dared to ask his only question of the journey.

‘Is he alive?’

‘I don’t know,’ Edith said. ‘He’s silent.’

They stormed past isolated houses, silent farms, between dark fields. Eventually the road started to rise. They could now see Hamble Down—the tower perched on its hill of heather and gorse—outlined in front of them. The road narrowed to a single-width lane. As he took it at fifty, Kieran prayed that nothing would be coming the other way.

‘Here,’ Edith said suddenly, as a gravel track appeared as a slash of light in the car’s headlights. ‘Turn here.’

They were at the top of the hill, under the tower itself. There was a rough car park here for those who came to walk the hills and look at the views towards the coast. As they turned up the last slight gradient, the lights picked out Ruth’s car ahead of them. It was empty—with both doors standing wide open.

Kieran killed the engine, and jumped out.

The rain was much heavier now, driving across the exposed hillside. Kieran sprinted forward to the empty car, looked inside and then straightened up, peering into the darkness.

‘Is he there?’ Edith called, struggling in his wake.

‘No,’ he said. ‘Ruth!’ he shouted. ‘Theo!’

There was not even an echo.

Edith reached his side and touched his arm. ‘The tower,’ she said.

‘Is he in there?’

‘He was.’

Kieran ran over the grass, shielding his eyes against the rain. Just before he reached the tower, he stumbled over the rough ground and staggered forwards. His foot had brushed against something soft lying on the turf. He felt around his feet with his hands—and came into contact with cloth. He continued to run his hands over it, trying to distinguish its shape, waiting for his eyes to accustom themselves to the darkness. Then, he felt hair.

He retracted his hand with a cry. Theo was his first thought.

But it wasn’t Theo.

Edith, with more presence of mind than him, had taken the torch from Ruth’s car and was coming towards him, a trembling beam of light in the curtain of rain.

‘Over here!’ he called.

She trained the torch-light on him.

‘Shine it on the ground,’ he said.

Ruth lay face-down, her soft wool coat bunched around her body, her legs and one foot bare. The other foot wore a shoe with a broken heel. ‘Oh, Jesus. No,’ he murmured. Afraid of what he might see in her face, he turned her over.

Her eyes were closed. The rain beat down on an expression of complete calm and repose, as if she had fallen asleep. Dust streaked her skin. Tiny shards of gravel were embedded in her forehead. He felt the side of her neck, then her wrist. To his horror, both felt broken.

He looked back over his shoulder, at the looming stone column of the tower.

‘What is it?’ Edith called, still negotiating the uneven ground.

‘Ruth,’ he told her. Disbelief blasted him. He withdrew his hand from Ruth’s cold face.

As Edith drew level with him, he took the mobile from his pocket, his hand shaking. ‘Would you call the police?’ he said, passing it to her.

She nodded.

He gazed up at the tower. ‘You said steps,’ he murmured.

‘Yes,’ she replied.

He began to run, slipping and staggering on the dark hillside. At the tower’s entrance, he saw that the wooden door was open, the lock broken. Inside, it was pitch dark.

‘Theo!’ he shouted.

His voice soaked into the dark. Groping ahead of him with his hands, he could feel that the steps curved into a spiral. He went forward on hands and knees, the stone scratching his hands. Make him be here, he thought. Make him be alive.

Thoughts pressed in on him as he fumbled his way upwards.

That he had never been the father he intended to be.

That he had failed his son.

That he should never have gone into the university that afternoon.

He recalled his own low-key, irritated impatience with Theo—the slight relief as he had left him with Mrs Sawyer. He should have stayed with him.

Now he would give anything, anything …

‘Theo,’ he called.

More a prayer than a cry.

‘Theo …’

He could hear the rain and the wind buffeting the top of the tower. How many steps were there? How many had he climbed already? It felt like hundreds, each one explored first with his fingertips. The incline felt almost vertical. A narrow, black stone box. He gasped for breath as he got to the top. Emerging from the pitch blackness of the stairs, he stepped out, and was shoved sideways by the blast of wind. A four-foot stone wall ringed the platform. The door from the stairs had been opened, and left to crash backwards and forwards. He tried pushing it back, and found that something was stopping it. Half-closing his eyes against the driving rain, he pulled the door towards him.

His son was lying on the ground behind the door, curled into a foetal position.

Kieran dropped to his knees.

He bundled Theo into his arms.

‘Wake up,’ he whispered. ‘Wake up …’