Cal
Bushes rustle and twigs snap a few yards to my side. The fog has swallowed up Kit and although I know it’s him making his way over the heath a few yards from me, hearing but not seeing him is still an eerie experience.
How then must Demi feel, frantic and alone, looking for Mitch? Thinking her beloved dog might be hurt or worse. My guts twist sharply and I know that sickening sensation. It’s the same one I felt every time they opened the door to the stinking room they held me in in the Middle East. I remember the bullet holes in the walls, the heat pressing down on me, the sun beating down on the tiled roof. The sound of their boots ringing on the hard earth as they came for me. Every time I thought it was the end.
‘Cal!’
‘Jesus!’
‘Sorry I scared you.’ Kit looms in front of me. He appeared as if from nowhere in the middle of the path.
‘You didn’t scare me. I was trying to listen.’ He angers me although he’s done nothing wrong.
‘OK. Let’s try again. You call and we’ll both stand here and listen.’
‘Demi!’ I shout at the top of my voice. ‘Mitch!’
My pulse pounds in my head as I strain to listen but there’s nothing. Kit looks at me enquiringly and I shake my head. He grimaces.
‘You carry on searching that side of the path and I’ll go this way,’ I say. ‘And don’t go getting lost. We’ve enough on our plate. Keep within hearing distance,’ I tell him again.
The gut punch subsides to a gnawing anxiety as we approach the engine house. I try to calm myself, wondering if Demi and Mitch have already made their own way home and are huddled by the fire in Kilhallon House, waiting for us to give up and return. But when should we give up? At some point, Kit or I are going to have to go somewhere with a decent mobile signal and ask Polly if they’ve returned on their own. Otherwise we’ll go round in circles looking for each other. And if Demi isn’t found soon, we really will have to call out the cliff rescue team.
If only I’d let her go to Brighton, she wouldn’t be lost in this godforsaken place in this nightmarish weather. She’d be serving up amuse bouches at Eva Spero’s and making her name as a chef or a cookery writer. Despite her passion for Demelza’s, I haven’t forgotten that things could still all go wrong here at Kilhallon, in a business sense and in a far worse one.
I’ve made a huge mistake in not seeing what was in front of me for far too long.
‘Wait! What was that?’
Kit’s torch sweeps over the wall of the inside of the engine house and back to me. I blink, dazzled by the beam. ‘What was what?’
‘Shhh.’
‘Help us!’
Kit mouths, ‘Demi?’
I nod, straining my ears until my temples throb.
‘Kit? Polly? Anyone? We’re here!’ The shout is followed by a faint but definite bark.
‘It’s them!’ Kit says.
My heart rate takes off. ‘I think they’re over there on the other side of the engine house. Be careful, follow me!’
‘Demi, we hear you!’
‘Cal? Is that you?’
‘Yes, me and Kit. Keep calling!’
‘We’re here in a big hole beyond the engine house. Mitch is hurt!’
‘Hold on.’
All I can think is that she’s alive and OK, and so is Mitch. Until this moment, I hadn’t realised how terrified I was of any other outcome. I surge through the undergrowth, Kit behind me. Demi’s voice grows louder and Mitch yips.
‘Watch out. The edge of the hole gave way!’
Demi’s voice seems to almost come from next to me but I still can’t see her. Whoa. I stop suddenly almost overbalancing. I prod the bracken ahead of me with my toe and realise there’s no solid earth under it. It must overhang a hollow. ‘Be careful!’ I warn Kit. ‘They must have fallen through here into a pit. Looks like the depression left from the winding gear. I don’t think it’s the entrance to an old shaft, but you can’t be too careful.
‘Don’t move!’ I call to Demi.
‘I can’t bloody move! If I could, I’d have climbed out. My ankle’s done for.’
Although I’m almost out of my mind with worry, I’m relieved to hear her back chat. She’s going to be OK. Edging forward gingerly, I direct the torch into the darkness below. The beam shows the broken tendrils and roots of the brambles and, to my enormous relief, Demi’s pale face peers upwards, six feet below. She has her arms around a very still and subdued Mitch who yips softly as he spots us. I let out a sigh and call to her. ‘We’re coming down.’
Thanking every star they’re safe for now, though I’m worried about the state of Mitch, Kit and I scramble into the hole.
Demi grabs me and clings on for a second or two then pushes me away. ‘You have to help Mitch. I think he’s broken his leg. I don’t know what I’d do if I lost him.’
Realisation slams into me, a punch to the chest that sucks away my breath: I was thinking exactly the same thing about Demi.