Chapter 28
28
Just as Albert had predicted, the storm clouds had closed in and, as the heavens opened, day seemed to turn into night within a matter of seconds, despite being only mid-afternoon. Lijah had rung Aidan, the only one of Amy’s close friends he had a number for, and had hastily explained why he wanted to see her and how urgent it was that they got the chance to speak before he caught his flight. She’d blocked his number, and he had no idea whether she was at work, home, or somewhere else. Aidan had promised to try and track Amy down, and Lijah had been staring at the phone, willing it to ring ever since. He just wanted a chance to explain how he felt before he went away. It would give her time to think, him being on tour, and the knowledge that if she wanted him to, he’d be coming back as soon as his commitments were seen through. They could go wherever she wanted after that, the Outer Hebrides, Timbuktu, or stay right here in Port Kara. It didn’t matter to him as long as they had the chance to see if they could make it.
‘Amy’s brother’s gone missing.’ Aidan had called him back a few minutes later, sounding almost as breathless as Lijah felt. ‘Apparently he threw one of his hissy fits at lunch time and said something about making them all sorry.’
‘Sounds like Nathan.’ Lijah clenched his jaw.
‘Yes, it does. Except this time someone’s found his rucksack and coat on the cliffs near Dagger’s Head. He can’t have had a lock code on his phone, because the person who found it managed to use it to call Kerry. Now Amy and her parents have gone out looking for him. The rescue team have been called out too, but there was an incident at one of the old copper mines, so a second team is coming from Port Tremellien. This weather isn’t helping anything, it’s so windy, the rain is coming down sideways.’
‘I’m going to go and find her.’ Lijah’s chest tightened at the thought of Amy being out on the cliffs in weather like this and it was clear he wasn’t the only one who was worried.
‘I know I should probably try and talk you out of that, and tell you how dangerous it might be, but Ames is out there and…’
‘I’m going straight there now.’ He didn’t need Aidan to finish, because all that mattered to Lijah was getting to Amy and making sure she was okay. The thought of anything happening to her was unbearable, and if he’d needed any more indication of how strong his feelings for her were, this was it.
* * *
There’d been times in Amy’s life when she’d hated her brother. Not that kind of faux-hatred that siblings sometimes had for one another, but the deep-seated kind when the idea of a world without him had seemed far more appealing than one with him in it. That sensation never lasted long, and deep down Amy had known she didn’t really hate him, she just hated the way he behaved, and what that did to the people around him, especially her parents. She didn’t really want a world without Nathan, she just wanted a world where Nathan got the help he needed and he could interact with the people who loved him in a way that was enjoyable, rather than toxic. Even if she had genuinely wished him ill, her mind would have been changed when she saw the expression on her mother’s face after the call came in to say his coat and rucksack had been found on the cliff.
‘No, please, he can’t have done anything stupid.’ Kerry had broken down in tears in the middle of the conversation and Amy had been forced to take the phone from her and finish the call. She’d gone cold when the person had described finding Nathan’s belongings on the cliff. Like her mother, Amy desperately wanted to believe he wouldn’t do anything to put his life at risk, but Nathan’s ability to think logically was severely impaired and he was capable of catastrophising and turning what his mother had said into a situation where he was prepared to do almost anything. Despite a GP suggesting that Nathan had a severe personality disorder, he’d refused to see the specialist because he didn’t think anything was wrong with him. He claimed benefits and, when he was forced to go to job interviews, the way he presented himself was more than enough to put off any potential employers. His world had become smaller and smaller, and his behaviour more extreme, getting him into fights when he insulted the wrong people. He was a disaster waiting to happen and, when Amy reached the cliffs with her mother and got out of the car, a trickle of dread ran down her spine, along with the rivulets of rain that had quickly found their way in through the neck of the coat she’d grabbed off the hook in her parents’ porch.
‘We should split up, so we can cover ground in both directions.’ Amy’s father had come straight from work to meet them in the car park at Dagger’s Head and Kerry had run into her husband’s arms.
‘You and Mum go together towards Port Agnes, and I’ll go the other way.’ Amy looked over her mother’s head towards her father, silently mouthing the words, ‘She needs you.’
‘Okay, good idea, but keep in contact and be careful, Amy. The rescue team are on the way and the last thing they need are two casualties.’ Her father’s tone was firm, and he wagged a finger at her when she nodded. ‘I mean it, sweetheart, promise me you’ll be careful.’
‘I promise.’ The wind in Amy’s back propelled her forward as soon as she stepped away from her father. She’d been sent an alert by a weather app on her phone with a red warning for high winds, which could reach sixty miles an hour. They weren’t anything like as high as that yet, but being up on the cliffs still made it pretty hair raising and the sea was churning, grey and foreboding, crashing up against the cliff with enough violence to drown out the sound of anything else. It wasn’t even 4p.m. yet, but she was already using a flashlight. The visibility wasn’t the only challenge. When she tried to call out Nathan’s name, in between the sound of the waves crashing against the cliffs, her voice was lost on the wind, making it pointless to even try.
Amy had been up and down the coast on various boat trips enough times to know there were some ledges and hollows in the cliff face, and despite the promise she’d made her father, she moved closer to the edge of the cliff, forcing down the fear that made her breath catch in her throat and her scalp prickle. She was close now to where her brother’s coat had been found. The person who’d called her mother had met them at the car park, to hand over Nathan’s belongings, in case there was anything she’d missed which his family might pick up on. She’d described the exact spot where she’d found his things, at a point where the clifftop narrowed and two rocky outcrops jutted out towards the sea in a V-shape. There was a crevice where the V-shape began, and it was where Amy was heading. The coat she’d borrowed was already heavy with rain, and the wind was so strong now that she was fighting to keep moving, almost bent double with the effort.
‘Nathan!’ She screamed his name again, despite the futility of the effort, pushing forward once more, just as she spotted a flash of red about two metres below the top of one of the rocky outcrops. Edging close, she could see it was Nathan and he looked like he was clinging to the side of a narrow ledge.
‘Oh God. I’m coming, Nathan, just hold on.’ He wouldn’t be able to hear her, but she hoped he would somehow sense she was there and keep holding on.
‘Amy!’ The sound of her name was almost a whisper on the wind She was imagining it, she had to be, because she was certain she wouldn’t be able to hear anyone calling out. Yet when she turned to look over her shoulder, she realised she wasn’t imagining it and that Lijah was running towards her. Relief flooded her body and not just because it meant they had more chance of finding Nathan. She hadn’t realised just how much she’d wanted to see him again until that moment. She couldn’t think about why for now, she just knew she wanted him there.
Amy raised a hand to greet him, but she couldn’t wait, the wind was getting more and more vicious, making it almost impossible not to be propelled along and her chest ached when she tried to breathe. It was probably even worse for Nathan, it would be getting harder and harder to hold on, and if she waited for Lijah, and watched her brother slip away, she’d never forgive herself.
‘Amy, wait!’ This time she knew she wasn’t imagining it, but she had to keep going, picking her way over the rocks as the cliff top jutted further out into the water and the surface became more treacherous. She half-expected Lijah to reach her before she got to where Nathan was, but he was still about thirty feet away when she reached the place above were her brother was clinging to the ledge.
‘Nathan, don’t move. We’re going to help you get back up here, just hold on.’ She almost screamed the words, but thankfully he heard her, his head jolting back in response.
‘Chunks of the ground keep dropping off and I don’t think I can climb up the way I came down, the rain is washing the hand holds away. You’ve got to get me up.’ Nathan tried moving and another huge lump of mud, sand and rock broke away, dropping into the sea below. The water was now almost black, mirroring the sky above it.
‘Amy stop!’ Lijah repeated his plea, but she still couldn’t wait; the next piece of ground that broke off could take Nathan with it. Instead, she lowered herself down on to another ledge, just a couple of feet above Nathan’s head, and about four feet to the left of him. She could see the footholds and grooves in the cliff face that Nathan must have used to climb down, but the weather was changing everything. The ledge wasn’t that far below the cliff top and it looked like plenty of people had used it for climbing practice. Getting back up to the top would probably have been easy in dry weather, but Nathan seemed to be paralysed with fear and for good reason. One false move could be disastrous now that the rain had made everything so much more treacherous.
‘It’s okay I’m here.’ Amy flattened her back against the cliff, trying not to look down and gingerly removing the ruck sack she’d grabbed when she left her parents’ house. She had no idea what she was going to do now, she’d just felt an instinctive need to get closer to Nathan. As she reached down to try and get her mobile phone out of the pocket of the borrowed coat, she realised one of Bernie’s extendable dog leads was in the pocket on the right-hand side. Her parents always bought the strongest leads on the market for their English Bull Mastiff, and anyone who’d ever been on a walk with him when he spotted a squirrel, would know why. The webbing of the lead was about an inch wide and there was a quality sticker on the handle describing it as a twelve-metre lead that guaranteed to restrain a dog of up to seventy kilograms. Whether it was strong enough to hold Nathan’s weight was doubtful, but if it gave him the reassurance to keep holding on until the rescue team got there, it had to be worth using. She just needed him not to panic and try anything stupid, that was all. Amy pulled out about four metres of the lead before locking it in place, so it wouldn’t suddenly retract back into the handle.
‘I’m going to throw you the end of this lead, try and grab it.’ Amy was amazed when the clip end of the lead landed just inches from her brother’s hand. It helped that she was above him, so gravity had more to do with where it landed than any skill on her part.
‘Amy I’m coming down,’ Lijah called out to her.
‘No, I might need you up there, and we’ve got to let someone know where he is. Can you do that, please?’
‘Okay, but if anything happens, I’m coming straight down.’
She didn’t answer, looking towards her brother instead. ‘Try to wrap the lead around your waist and clip it in place. I’ll hook the other end over something stable.’ Amy searched around her, looking for a tree stump or anything else that was secure enough to fix the other end of the lead to, but there was nothing. It seemed to take forever for Nathan to put the lead around his waist, but there still wasn’t anything she could tie her end to.
‘I’m coming down,’ Lijah called out again, but Amy looked up and shook her head.
‘I don’t think the ledge will take it. I need to get the other end of this lead up to you and there’s plenty of length if I extend it to the full range, but I don’t think I’m good enough at throwing, and if it goes down instead of up…’ She couldn’t finish the sentence, closing her eyes for a moment to try and work out what on earth to do. When she looked up again, Lijah was lying on his stomach leaning down towards her. He couldn’t reach her, though, even with both their arms fully extended, and she tried not to think about what that meant for her chances of getting up on the clifftop again.
‘I’m going to see if I can find something up here to use.’
Lijah edged away again and it was a couple of minutes before he reappeared, dangling down a length of orange baling twine towards her. It was just about long enough for her to reach and tie around the handle of the lead, which she’d extended to its full length. Within seconds, Lijah had pulled the handle up and was holding on to it as another huge clod of earth broke away from underneath Nathan and hurtled into the sea, making both him and Amy scream. Time was definitely running out, the torrential rain fast eroding what was left of the ledge where Nathan was sitting. They couldn’t hold on any longer, and Amy couldn’t bear to think about what might happen if any more of the ledge where her brother was sitting fell away.
‘We’re going to have to get you up now, Nathan,’ Lijah called down. ‘We can’t wait for the rescue team to get here.’
‘It’s not strong enough.’ Nathan sounded terrified, and Amy could hear the blood whooshing in her ears, even above the sound of the storm.
‘The webbing is really tough, it’s as good as any rope,’ Lijah called down again, his voice steady. ‘Just make sure you’ve tied it around your waist as securely as possible, and then I want you to use the same footholds that you used to climb down to get back up. Don’t worry about slipping, because I’ve got you if anything happens.’
‘I’ve knotted it three times and put it through the clip. Do you think that’s enough?’ Nathan suddenly sounded like a little boy and tears stung Amy’s eyes.
‘You’re going to be fine, I’ll feed my end around a rock, so there’s no risk of me letting you go. You’ll be up here before you know it.’ Lijah paused for a moment. ‘Right, are you ready?’
‘Okay.’ Nathan nodded and very gingerly stood, getting to the first foothold, just before another piece of ground fell away, making him scream again. Lijah called out encouragement and instructions every step of the way. He was as good as his word, too, and within minutes he’d hauled Nathan up onto the cliff top beside him.
‘I’m going to undo the lead from Nathan’s waist and send it back out to you,’ Lijah called down to Amy again, and then it was her turn.
‘I’m scared!’ She looked up at him and he nodded.
‘I know you are, but I won’t let anything happen to you. You can trust me.’
‘ I can trust you .’ She whispered the words to herself over and over as she secured the lead around her waist, repeating them on a loop until she’d climbed back up to the top of the cliff, finding each foothold slowly and carefully, moving at a pace that had felt agonisingly slow, when all she’d wanted to do was get back up as quickly as she could. She’d only slipped once, and Lijah held fast to the rope until she righted herself again, with Amy silently repeating the mantra that she could trust him until she finally got up to where he was.
‘Thank God.’ Lijah held on to her like he never wanted to let go, and for a moment she let herself be held. There was so much she wanted to say, all the stuff that had gone through her head as she’d been on that cliff face, despite trying to block it out by repeating those same four words over and over: I can trust you . But, before anything else she needed to make sure Nathan was okay, so she pulled away from Lijah, stepping backwards without looking. All she heard was a terrible crack, before a searing pain ripped through her, and the darkness of the storm closed in completely.