Issie was relieved to be in dry clothes again but the exposure of bare flesh to the wind-borne snow had chilled her until her teeth rattled.
‘Movement,’ she said to herself, vigorously stamping her feet. ‘It can’t be far now.’
She looked up but immediately had to screw her eyes tight as the wind drove snow into them. Visibility was deteriorating fast. She could only just make out the fence to her left, its posts black against the grey of the snow. Issie walked over until it was within touching distance, lifting her knees high to wade through the drifts along the path. Head down, she ploughed on. The cold soon ceased to be a problem as her body warmed with exercise, except for the exposed flesh above her scarf, but tiredness was creeping up on her.
After three weeks of poor treatment in captivity she wasn’t fit despite her surreptitious attempts at exercise whenever Steve wasn’t looking. Her muscles were aching across her back and down her legs, and there was an ominous pain in her right hip where Steve had kicked her that made her catch her breath when it flared. She pressed her right hand against it.
‘Not long now,’ she muttered and started to count into her moist scarf.
‘… five hundred and six; five hundred and seven …’
Other than her whispered, determined words, all she could hear was the sound of the wind. It was howling in rage against the cowering countryside. Issie thought of dormice and hedgehogs hibernating safe in their nests. If they could survive this then so could she. She felt betrayed by the weather. The forecast had promised overcast skies and no snow, yet she was walking into the teeth of a storm worse than any of the winter so far. She wouldn’t shape the word blizzard to herself but it was hiding there in the recesses of her mind waiting to scare her.
‘One thousand six hundred and five … one thousand six hundred and six … one—Aah!’
Issie doubled over, her hand pressed against her hip, the pain momentarily more than she could bear. She tried a step forward but the snow was deep and the step she needed to take so high that the fire shooting through her hip was excruciating. Tears of agony and sudden exhaustion filled her eyes but she blinked them away, angry with herself at the sign of weakness. She would NOT fail!
‘Just a moment,’ she comforted herself, bent almost double to relieve the strain in her side. ‘Just a moment.’
A strong gust almost knocked her over. Issie straightened up by inches as the pain faded back to an intense ache. She stretched straight and then twisted from the waist, first one way then the next. So far so good. Maybe she should ditch the backpack. After all, she must be close to Alfriston by now.
‘Stupid.’ She banished the thought. ‘Come on girl, not far now. If you can’t step over the snow then you’ll have to wade through it. Now where was I? Oh sod it! One … two … three.’
The wind shrieked, laughing at her so that she could no longer hear her own voice except as an echo inside her head. Issie raised the middle digit of her left hand – the right was still pressed to her hip – and laughed back.
‘Ha ha! Why don’t you clear off and torment someone else. Go
wreck some sheds and tear off some roofs and Leave Me ALONE!’
The wind howled. Issie ploughed on, following the path with only her voice for company. She lost track of time but kept counting, even when she had to stop because of the fire in her hip. Around her, day darkened prematurely to night as the storm assumed blizzard intensity.
‘Seventy hundred and twenty-something … seventy hundred and twenty-something more, oh I don’t know … three. Seventy hun … hang on, is seventy hundred right?’ Issie paused, favouring her injured side, her forehead corrugated with effort. ‘Ten, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty, sixty, seventy! Yes, that’s right. Seventy hundred and … something.’
She laughed but the wind whipped the sound away as it left her lips.
At least I’m warm,
she thought,
and I’m not panicking.
It was remarkable how calm she felt. She was marvelling at her state of mind when she bumped her knee. Looking up she could just make out some planks of wood in front of her, set at odd angles and rising into a hedge that she realised was blocking the track. Very strange. Issie stared at them, trying to work out how to get around them. Behind her, she could just make out a few fence posts disappearing into the snow. To her left and right was a thick hedge. The only way over seemed to be these planks.
Something about them seemed familiar. Issie closed her eyes in an effort to concentrate and tried to think. As the wind buffeted her she remembered. It was a stile: it had been placed there to climb over; of course. She felt a little frightened. How could she have forgotten what a stile looked like? The concern subsided to be replaced by an uncomfortable reality: would she be able to manage? Her legs were as heavy as iron, her knees rusty with cold and her hip … locked in a spasm at the thought.
When it had passed she murmured
‘Here goes’
and squared up to the obstacle.
Issie lifted her left leg first, then realised that was stupid because her right would have to do the hard work of going over the top, so
she stepped down again and tried to raise her right leg. It wouldn’t go; even trying was agony. Biting her lip and refusing to cry, Issie leant her weight against one of the wooden uprights. Using both hands she grasped the underside of her right thigh and lifted.
The pain made her scream but she persisted until her right boot was placed on the icy wooden step at knee height. Now what? Blinking back tears she shrugged out of her rucksack and heaved it over the stile to land in a snow bank on the other side. Gripping the top she pulled her weight up until her left foot was on the same level as her right. Issie twisted, whimpering, and lowered her upper body on top of the stile. Taking her body weight on her chest and stomach she lifted her right leg, ignoring the shooting sharp needles that ran down the side of her leg as she did so. After a moment’s rest she let it down the other side in a sudden fall that hurt like hell but was soon over. Now sitting astride the stile as if it were a horse, Issie twisted again and brought her left leg over and down to steady herself. Her right side from waist to toe felt as if someone was crushing every bone in a vice.
‘Aargh … ah!’ She was panting with exhaustion and she still had to work out how to clamber down the other side. She lowered her left foot carefully … and was saved the bother of any further effort as it skidded out from under, dragging her from the top of the stile. She tried to save herself but only managed to twist her back before gravity claimed her and she fell.
Her head landed on the rucksack but the snow was so deep that it cushioned the shock and it hardly hurt at all. She lay spreadeagled like a fallen angel, bolts of lightning pain shooting up her leg and into her pelvis. Had she broken anything? Gingerly Issie sat up. She wriggled her toes and felt them move. When she told her knees to rise they obeyed. She rotated her shoulders and apart from stiffness from carrying the pack they seemed fine. Nothing was broken. Groaning like an old woman, Issie brushed off the snow and stood up. Thanks to her jacket, the bin liner-puttees and boots she was hardly wet at all. She picked up her pack, settled it between her
shoulder blades, ignoring the protest from tendons and muscles that had been appreciating the rest, and hobbled forward.
The storm shrieked towards its height but Issie limped on, straining her eyes to pierce the gloom in search of any sign of habitation that surely must be close by now.
‘It’s no good, sir … Andrew; we’ll never get down the hill. It’s sheet ice. Even with these tyres we won’t be able to control the car and there’s a tight turn at the bottom. We’ll risk ploughing into the corner cottage if we try to go on.’
‘Then there’s no option but to walk. Grab the shovel and reflective jackets from the back.’
They stepped out into the blizzard and immediately hunched into themselves. Fenwick had his coat collar up to his ears and his scarf tight to his nose but he had no hat. Tate was better prepared with a puffy hooded jacket that looked enviably warm.
‘Let’s hope she’s not out in this,’ Tate said as he walked to the front of the car and Fenwick felt a rush of empathy. Those had been his thoughts exactly.
‘God willing,’ he muttered.
They started down the hill, hugging the wall, reaching out suddenly from time to time to steady themselves.
‘So how far from here to the farm?’ Fenwick asked but before Tate could answer his radio squawked into life and he answered, finding shelter in a doorway so that he could listen.
‘The MIU’s down there already. They must have passed us but I didn’t see them, did you?’
‘And they made it down the hill.’
The sergeant hung his head. ‘Sorry.’
‘Never mind, let’s go and find them.’
At the far end of the village, beyond a pub/hotel that promised warmth and hospitality, there was a rutted car park and in it the MIU. It was identical to dozens Fenwick had seen before, even down to the backs hunched over the complexities of the communication system that greeted them when they walked inside.
A short, burly man in a thick quilted jacket and deerstalker hailed them as they entered.
‘Jack Nesbit.’ He stuck out a hand and Fenwick shook it. ‘DCI from Eastbourne; we came in from the south. Almost didn’t make it up that last hill – a bit hairy but we’re here now. And you are? Sorry to be direct but HQ didn’t say there’d be someone on the ground already.’
‘I’m Superintendent Andrew Fenwick, head of Sussex MCS, and this is Sergeant Tate, Surrey CID. We’ve been involved in Goldilocks from the beginning and a connected investigation.’
Nesbit glanced at the proffered warrant card – standard procedure since a journalist had managed to infiltrate an MIU the year before – and nodded. Fenwick breathed a sigh of relief; his explanation had been taken at face value. Tate suppressed a grin.
‘So where are we?’ Fenwick asked.
A large-scale map of the area had been taped up in obvious haste on the back of the door. While Tate poured two large mugs of black coffee from a thermos without being asked, Fenwick and Nesbit studied it.
‘We’re here,’ Nesbit pointed to a blue cross. ‘The grandmother’s house is there.’
Fenwick stared at a red circle.
‘So close,’ he muttered. ‘Less than three miles as the crow flies.’
‘Two point three exactly from where we are; less than two to the western outskirts of Alfriston.’
‘What’s the best way to get there?’
Nesbit broke eye contact, taking time to unzip his heavy jacket.
‘Well?’
‘That’s the problem. The roads through Alciston and Berwick are impassable and the single lane road from Alfriston to the farm is under more than three feet of snow. The only way to reach the farm from here would be on foot along the South Downs Way. And in this weather we can’t call out H900.’
‘We have four-by-fours, we don’t need the helicopter.’
‘Lewes sent two of them out half an hour ago; they can’t get
through. I tried one from the south as well. It’s stuck in a drift and we’ll have to wait for a tow truck to pull it out.’
Fenwick sensed Tate’s relief that he hadn’t been such a failure.
‘We have to get there.’ He stared around as if the answer would materialise if only he knew where to look.
Tate suddenly saw his boss as Nesbit might see him – wild, deranged, maybe slightly crazy. He thrust a plastic mug of coffee into his hand. Fenwick took a sip immediately and then a proper, long swallow.
‘There must be some way to reach her,’ he said at last, more calmly.
Nesbit shrugged and seeing this Tate stepped forward.
‘I, er …’ He hesitated but Fenwick turned to him at once.
‘Go on, Jeremy,’ he snapped.
‘What about tractors? There are plenty of farms about. Some of them will have heavy machines capable of getting through the snow, otherwise they’d be unable to feed their sheep in the depths of winter. We could commandeer them.’
Nesbit laughed but Fenwick turned on him.
‘Have you got a better idea, Jack?’
The smirk disappeared.
‘No, sir.’
‘Then find out where the farms are. Look,’ he pointed, ‘there’s habitation here and here and a farm there … plus possibly that one there.’ He was jabbing at the map as Nesbit noted down the locations. ‘As soon as you’ve made contact with the owners, deploy the vehicles as you think best and radio back.’
Nesbit looked at him as if he really was crazy.
‘Not you? You’re not here to direct the investigation?’
Fenwick blinked twice and looked away. Tate could see his jaw tighten.
‘It’s your MIU, and you have a direct order from Lewes, Jack. I’m leaving it to you. Consider me an advisor and an additional pair of hands but the lead stays with you until DS Bernstein arrives. Better not to complicate matters.’
Nesbit frowned and looked as if he would like to check Fenwick’s warrant card again but he said nothing and soon left, asking Tate to go with him. Fenwick was alone with the MIU team, none of whom looked inclined to start a conversation, which suited him just fine.
A vicious gust of wind rocked the van, strong enough to shake a plastic coffee cup to the floor. Fenwick picked it up and threw it in the bin in the far corner. There was nothing to do except wait, keep a low profile and hope. Twenty minutes passed with only routine call-ins from the teams deployed around Alfriston. Then ten minutes later one of them checked in to say that they had reached one of the farms and within five minutes they confirmed that they had full cooperation from the owner and would shortly be leaving by tractor to try to reach the grandmother’s house down farm tracks and single-lane roads.
Shortly afterwards the second team called in and Fenwick heard Tate’s voice shouting above the gale that they were on their way to the grandmother’s. Before he could intervene to say he shouldn’t be part of the effort because he wasn’t equipped for it, the signal failed.
The third team radioed a few minutes later with bad news; there was no qualified driver at the farm and their team leader wouldn’t let them take the tractor because they hadn’t had the necessary training.