Jessie – 6.15 a.m.
Seven per cent battery remaining. Not a lot, but it should be enough. I hold the phone above the waterline, dial three nines in a row and hit the call button, pray to God that it goes through. The weather is no better, and the signal no doubt still terrible. Will it make any difference that I’m calling 999? Probably not. No signal is no signal, whoever you’re calling.
Please connect, please connect …
One ring, then a male voice answers: ‘Hello, what’s your emergency?’
Unlike when I first spoke to Fiona – or Chloe – I don’t feel any great sense of relief. It’s too late for that. All I can do now is explain where I am and hope they can get to me in time.
‘I’m trapped, in Dutton’s Well, in Cooper’s Wood,’ I tell the operator. ‘I was speaking to someone who said they were one of you but … You need to get people here, right now. I’m going to drown. I don’t have long left—’
‘You’ve fallen into a well? Have I got that right?’
‘Someone pushed me …’ No time to explain. ‘It doesn’t matter. There’s water down here, and it’s getting higher. I don’t have much time left. You have to help me.’
The clatter of a keyboard in the background. ‘OK, please try to remain calm. Help is being arranged for you. Can you tell me your name, please?’
‘Jessie.’
‘And how old are you, Jessie?’
‘Thirty-one,’ I tell him, as if it matters.
Further questions follow. He asks how long I have been down here, about my injuries, how cold I am, if I have been drinking, and as I give my answers, I can feel time moving, slipping away from me. Seconds turn into minutes and the rain pours and the water continues to rise. It’s up to my shoulders now, the chill of it lapping at the base of my throat, the chill of it seeping into my body.
Chloe’s right, I realise. It’s too late.
I don’t know exactly how long I have left before the water is too high or the cold too bad for me to go on, but I know it isn’t long. Even if I could move my legs to help me tread water, I feel so weak I don’t think I’d have the strength to do it for more than a few minutes. And while much of what Chloe told me over the phone while she was pretending to be Fiona was a fiction, the storm up above is very real. All of the fake reasons she gave for why help hadn’t arrived – the fallen trees, the blocked roads, the flooding – are real reasons why it’s going to take them time to get to me. Time that I don’t have.
‘You have to hurry,’ I tell the operator. ‘I don’t have long.’
‘OK,’ he says. ‘Try to remain calm. Help is on its way to you right now. Is there anything you can do to keep your head above the water? Can you try to climb?’
‘No,’ I tell him. Been there, tried that.
They know where I am, and they know time is running out. There’s nothing more to gain from staying on the line with him. I think of Chloe, how she dropped the phone down to me, then was somehow able to call as Fiona just moments later. She must be close by. If she is, maybe what she said just before I hung up on her is true. Maybe she really is the only one who can save me now.
‘I’ve got to go,’ I tell the operator. ‘But please hurry.’ And I hang up.