‘I can’t do this anymore, Liv.’
I’ve waited till she’s got enough video material for a complete sequence about the casualty we’ve followed.
‘Are you struggling?’
Yes. But it’s not about my health, it’s about what we’re doing to make this situation even more horrible.
‘I’m not in pain, but I need to sit in the car for a while. Your freelance can’t be far away now, can he?’
‘Shall I come with you?’ She is only offering because she feels she should, and I shake my head.
‘I’ll be fine. You carry on.’
I lose her in the sea of hi-vis jackets. As I walk back towards the car, I admit to myself I do have some pain, though nothing like the piercing agony in July when the loose lead nearly punctured my heart.
It’s still raining, but shock has turned some people into human statues who don’t seem to notice they’re getting drenched. I wonder if I could fetch blankets or guide people towards the shelters. Anything to be useful.
A woman tugs at my coat. She’s wearing a light-coloured mac and her hair and face are saturated, her eye make-up has run down her cheeks. ‘I can’t find my granddaughter.’
‘Would you like me to help? I think they’re organizing transport from the tent over there. I bet she’s waiting for you or they’ve taken her to hospital.’
‘I’ve been there already, checked all the lists. Something’s wrong.’
‘When did you last see her?’
‘After the crash. She wasn’t hurt. A bruise or two, same as me. We tumbled a bit when the train crashed because we were standing up ready to get off at the next station, but it was so packed, we were cushioned by everyone else.’ She shakes her head. ‘Emily? EMILY! Where are you?’
As she calls out, I hear the panic and want to calm her down. ‘How old is Emily?’
‘Six.’
I try to imagine losing Leo. Even though he’s twice this child’s age, I’d be frantic. ‘Listen, I’m positive someone will be looking after her, but we’ll make sure. I’m Joel.’
‘Barbara,’ she says, and her cold hand in mine feels like a contract.
Together we head back towards the casualty area under the tarpaulin roof. I explain we’re looking for a child, and though I say nothing to Barbara, there’s a fast chain reaction as different emergency staff check and double-check if anyone has found a little girl.
‘I don’t know what’s happened to her,’ Barbara is saying. ‘After the crash, I kept calling for her but I think she got out of the carriage first . . .’
Behind her, I spot Liv coming under the tarpaulin and I realize someone must have tipped her off that a kid is missing. The last thing Barbara needs is to have a camera pointed in her face.
‘Let’s find her, eh?’
I nudge Barbara out the other way, so Liv won’t see her, or me. We start walking. The rain is getting heavier.
As she scans the darkness, Barbara stops suddenly. ‘There.’
My heart speeds up. ‘What is it?’ I ask her.
As my eyes adjust, I can make out the white legs of horses in a field beyond the ditch. ‘We ride, both of us, sometimes. She’s obsessed with horses. What if she went to find me there?’
It doesn’t seem likely to me, but at least this keeps Barbara out of Liv’s clutches. We walk with arms linked, so we don’t slip. She leads, pulling me gently in the opposite direction to where the police are headed. I know this is futile, there’s no reason a kid would have wandered off that far. But if I’d lost Leo, I would want everywhere to be checked.
‘Can you hear something?’ she says.
I strain, but there’s nothing but wishful thinking on Barbara’s part. My phone’s torch is feeble but it helps us both avoid boggy puddles and the scattered debris underfoot. The further we get from the emergency vehicles, the less light and noise there are . . .
‘There,’ Barbara say again. There seems to be nothing to the right except for darkness.
And two voices.
‘Nellie the Elephant packed her trunk . . .’
No one sings that song anymore, it’s something my parents would have known when they were kids.
‘Emily?’ Barbara tries to pull me forward. I move my phone torch across the ground like a searchlight, in an arc. The singing seems to fade away as we walk.
‘. . . I can’t.’
Definitely a little girl’s voice now.
‘You can, Emily. Nice and loud, come on—’
‘Kerry?’ My own voice is swallowed up by the black emptiness and the sound of rain. It can’t be her. I’m hearing things.
Yet she is on site somewhere. ‘Kerry, is that you?’
‘Joel?’
‘Yes. It’s me. Tell me where you are.’
‘Down here. But it’s slippery and steep, I fell. Don’t come any closer. Can you get help? My radio is dead.’
‘I’ve got my phone, I’m already dialling,’ I say, swiping to call Liv, ‘but are you all right?’
‘I’ll survive. But tell them the little girl here is P2, tell them that.’
Liv answers. ‘This better be good, Joel! I’m with the crew looking for some kid—’
‘We’ve found her. Next to the field where the horses are. There’s a doctor with them and she says the child is a P2. They’re going to need a vehicle to get them out, it’s boggy and treacherous . . .’
I hear Liv calling out to tell someone, before she tells me, ‘Joel, I’m handing you over now to one of the firefighters, stay on the line, we won’t be long.’
‘All right, mate, where do we find you?’
As I try to describe our location, Barbara is telling her granddaughter how Santa will get through the chimney later.
Every cell in my body is telling me to climb down and get Kerry to safety – but I know I shouldn’t make the situation worse, force the rescuers to have to haul three people out instead of two. So instead I kneel down, feeling the thick cold mud sinking instantly through my stupid £300 jeans, and – passing my phone to Barbara – I lower my chest onto the ground.
Kerry has started singing again but I can’t hear the little girl joining in anymore. I shimmy along the wet earth, till suddenly there is no earth. My head and neck are facing down into the ditch. My chest aches. My heart thunders.
A halo of a torch illuminates the girl’s face and the torso of the person holding her.
‘Kerry?’
‘Joel? Are you real?’
I laugh, despite the situation. ‘Yup. Are you all right?’
‘I’m fine. But we need help down here.’
‘They’re on their way.’
‘Hear that, Emily?’ Kerry says. ‘I told you the singing would work. Up there is Joel, a very, very old friend of mine.’
I try to shift my arm from my side through the mud to the edge of the ditch, so I can wave. It’s hard work at this angle. ‘Hello, Emily. I liked your singing.’
She barely responds and her breathing sounds shallow and wrong.
‘Come on, Emily, stay awake for me now,’ Kerry says. ‘Do you know I can fly a plane? And that’s because of Joel. He paid for me to learn.’ She looks up. ‘It was you, wasn’t it?’
I smile. ‘Did they tell you or did you guess?’
‘I guessed . . .’ I see her hand stroking the girl’s head. ‘Keep your eyes open, Emily . . . Are they nearly here?’
I twist my head around. ‘Barbara?’
‘I can see them. Car headlights. People with torches,’ she says. ‘Hurry, please,’ she shouts down the phone.
‘What are you doing here, Joel?’
I could tell her about Liv, and the filming. But I don’t think that’s the question she’s asking. The rumble of emergency vehicles gets louder, but they still sound much too far away.
I move my other arm from my side up over my head, and begin to claw through the mud to propel myself forward, like I’m doing the front crawl in a swimming pool. All I want is to take Kerry’s hand, hang on till she’s safe. Or maybe I can do something more?
Argh.
Something stabs, near my heart. Has one of those leads worked loose again?
Not now. She needs me this time.
My brain and body scream at me to stop moving. But I won’t give in. As my hands grasp for something solid in the mud, I inch forward and the pain stops. It must have been a branch or piece of debris digging in, nothing more. My fingers close around a root ball and I pull myself nearer to the edge. ‘I’m here.’
Kerry’s head lamp shines into my eyes and her hand reaches up. I shimmy further, despite the pain as my ICD grinds against another dead branch.
Our fingers touch. She is so cold. I inch forward just enough to be able to wrap my fingers around hers and she squeezes back. ‘Why you, Joel?’
‘Because you were there for me.’