Diana Glass
The Help
‘Where can he be going, I wonder?’ Miss Marple asks.
She is peering out of Mrs Bantry’s window through her bird-watching glasses. ‘Look, there—’
I join her at the window and see him: a large, ungainly figure with a large pack slung over his back, hurrying through the wilderness of white.
‘It’s Bruno Crane,’ Miss Marple says.
‘He’s heading for the train station,’ I say. ‘That path really only leads in one direction.’
‘He’s trying to escape!’ Mrs Bantry says. ‘Someone must stop him, surely … he can’t be allowed to leave!’
But no one seems to be following him along the path; perhaps no one else has seen him leave.
‘I’ll go,’ I say.
‘No, Diana – he’s far too dangerous!’
‘I won’t do anything foolish,’ I promise. ‘I’ll just try to get there in time to alert the driver.’
I hear further words of protest, but I’m already on my way out of the room.
A few moments later, after pulling on boots and jacket, I am hurrying through the thick snow that has already covered the path towards the train station.
Every step is an effort, my boots sinking through the frozen crust and my lungs burning as I gasp the chill air, the blood-tang of iron on my tongue.
The falling snow is a cold assault; it lands in my eyes, mouth and nose.
At the same time there’s exhilaration in the sense of duty and purpose, of pushing myself like this: something I thought I had lost after the war.
I think I am even gaining on Crane – he’s not a fit man.
But I’m running out of time, because we are already at the station, the train resting patiently beside the platform.
Now I watch in disbelief as Crane hauls open the door to the driver’s cabin.
So that’s his plan. He’s going to drive the train himself.
‘Mr Crane!’ I shout, hurrying after him, my feet skidding a little on hidden ice beneath the packed snow. I suppose I’m hoping just to distract him a little, to buy time.
A figure runs from the little hut on the platform, gesticulating: the driver. I see him speak with Crane and then a brief tussle: Crane throwing a punch and the man falling and lying very still on the platform. And now Crane is climbing into the driver’s cabin.
He can’t be allowed to leave …
I have reached the train now. But I’m too late: there’s a screech that echoes off the surrounding rock, the groan of large machinery, and the train begins to move.
Very slowly at first, then beginning to gather pace, the windows running together to form a chain of light.
I don’t have any time to think. I reach out a hand, my fingers brushing a door handle which is ripped out of reach.
But there’s the next, which I lurch for and miss again, and then the next, the metal smacking against my knuckles, and then finally on the next I manage to grasp hold of the freezing metal.
I feel myself pulled from the ground with a wrench that feels like it’s tearing my arm from the socket.
At the same time, belatedly, I think: Diana, what on earth are you doing?