Peter May - Freeze Frames

He held on to it with both his hands and pulled hard. There was no give whatsoever. It seemed firmly anchored to something up on the clifftops. And yet, he realised, if he was to use it to haul himself up to safety, he would have to trust it completely. With his full weight. The very thought sent shivers of apprehension through him. He could picture himself only too clearly, almost at the top when it gave way, sending him tumbling backward through fresh air to his death.

Who had thrown him this lifeline, and why? Why didn’t he show himself and call out to see if Enzo was all right?

“Hello!” Enzo shouted again into the night. “Goddamnit! Who are you?”

But only the wind replied, moaning through the fissures in the rock and wrapping itself around him, cold fingers robbing him of strength. Even if he decided to trust his life to the rope, he was not certain he had the power left to pull himself out.

Slowly he managed to get to his feet, balancing precariously, forced now to trust the rope. He yanked hard, several times, and still it remain rock solid. He stood for several moments, teeth clenched, eyes closed, summoning the courage and the strength to give it a try.

He pulled up the end of the rope, and wrapped it several times around his waist before knotting it securely. If he fell, and the rope held, he would survive. If the roped failed to hold, he was dead. He reached up as far as he could, grasping the rope with gloved hands, and braced his legs against the face of the rock, pushing himself out. Fully committed now, he knew that his life was in the hands of whoever had secured the other end. It was not so much a question of trust, as of blind faith.

Inch by painful inch, Enzo worked himself up the cliff face, feet searching for footholds to brace him as he moved his hands up the rope, one over the other. His arms began to ache, his legs trembling, his strength ebbing away, slowly but surely. Desperation clutched his heart with icy fingers. He gritted his teeth against the pain and kept going, never once looking up until the very last, when he felt his hand crushed between the rope and the rock, and realised he was almost there. Rock and earth was crumbling all around him, sending showers of debris down into the black. He threw an arm over the top and grasped the rope, pulling with all his might, kicking a leg over the lip of it to give himself extra purchase.

And then he was up on the high crest of the cliffs, fully in the open, shadow and light racing to greet him as he rolled himself over and over until he was sufficiently clear of the edge to feel safe.

He lay on his back looking up at the moon, arms and legs spread wide. And with relief, came an urge to weep. So he closed his eyes and took deep, steady breaths to calm himself, before finally getting stiffly, painfully, to his feet and untying the rope from his waist. He looked around and saw that the rope was tethered to a stout metal crowbar driven at an angle deep into a crack in the rock. It could hardly have been more secure.

He stood shakily, the wind whipping around him, and looked all along the line of the cliffs and back toward the woods. There was no sign of either his attacker or his rescuer. And he wondered if they were one and same person, and if so, why? All he knew was that by some miracle he was still alive, and he was grateful for that.

He stepped over the rope that delineated the supposedly safe walking area and started stiffly back toward the car park.

It was with an enormous sense of relief that he slipped into the driver’s seat and pulled the door shut. He started the engine, turned the heater up full, and laid his head back against the headrest and closed his eyes. Every muscle in his body ached. He waited until the engine had warmed up and he felt the heat coming through, before slipping the Jeep into reverse gear and accelerating backward to turn. The whole vehicle shuddered and he almost stalled it. He braked, slipped into first, and tried to go forward. The same thing.

Enzo opened the door and jumped out to see what was wrong. The offside front tyre was flat. He cursed out loud and raised his eyes to the heavens. To have to change a wheel now, after all he had been through, was the final straw. With anger fuelling determination, he stalked around to where the spare wheel was bolted to the back of the vehicle. Which is when he noticed that the rear offside tyre was flat as well. And the rear nearside tyre. Despair gave way to anger as he walked briskly to the other side of the Jeep and saw that the front nearside tyre was also flat. He crouched down to run the tips of his fingers over the deep slash cut into the tyre wall, and closed his eyes, breathing out through clenched teeth.

Not content with almost killing him, his tormentor was determined that he would now have to walk across the island in the dark to get back to Le Bourg. Enzo stood up slowly and leaned both hands against the roof of the Jeep, his anger simmering dangerously inside him.

There would be a reckoning.

Lights burned in several windows of the doctor’s house as Enzo pushed open the gate and followed the path through the jungle that was the front garden up to the door. He heard the weary hammering of his knock echo along the hallway behind it. And after a moment, footsteps approaching. The door opened, and the Servats’ elder daughter, Oanez, peered out at him.

For a moment her face was frozen in something like shock, or disbelief, before she let out a shriek that almost burst Enzo’s eardrums. He recoiled, startled, as Elisabeth, followed by Alan, appeared hurriedly in the hall behind her and looked at him in astonishment.

The doctor said, “For God’s sake, man! What’s happened to you?”

It wasn’t until he saw his reflection in the hall mirror that Enzo realised why Oanez had screamed as she had. His face was streaked with dried blood. Most of his hair had pulled itself free of the band that held it in a ponytail, and, where it wasn’t matted with blood, hung wild and unkempt over his shoulders. His jacket and trousers were blood-stained and filthy, the lower half of his right-hand trouser leg almost hanging off where it was torn open at the knee. He was pale with the cold, and shivering.

“Come in, come in, for Heaven’s sake.” Elisabeth took his arm and led him through the dining room to the kitchen and sat him in a chair at the kitchen table. The whole family gathered round to stare at him as he described how he had been attacked at the Point de l’Enfer and fallen into the trou.

Alain boiled up some water and poured in disinfectant, and began methodically cleaning the wounds and scrapes around his head as he talked, holding him steady as he winced from the pain of the antiseptic. He didn’t tell them who he had been expecting to meet, or why. Only that it was connected in some way with his investigation into the Killian murder.

“Did you get a look at who did it?” Elisabeth said.

Enzo shook his head. “It was too dark.”

Alain tipped his head to one side and dabbed carefully at a gash on his right temple. “But you have your thoughts?”

“I do.”

“And?”

“It could only have been Kerjean.”

Elisabeth said, “Are you sure?”

“No. But if it wasn’t him and he didn’t murder Killian, then it must have been the real killer who attacked me out there.”

Alain secured a dressing over the wound. “And do you have any idea who that might be?”

Enzo breathed out his frustration. “No, I don’t.”

Alain stood back and looked at him. “You’re going to be black and blue by tomorrow, Monsieur Macleod.” He smiled wryly. “You’ll make a pretty sight.” Then he crouched down to examine Enzo’s knee and drew a sharp breath. “Going to have to get these trousers off you, I’m afraid. That’s a terrible gash in your knee. I might have to put stitches in it.”