Lamp Black, Wolf Grey (28 page)

By the time Huw returned she had made some inroads into the gap between the two stones.

“Megan? I have some water and bread,” he told her breathlessly.

“Are you sure you were not seen?”

“I am sure.”

“What tool did you find, Huw?”

“I took a knife from the kitchen. Will that do, Megan?”

“That will do very well. I have started to dig. Look down to your right, no lower than your knee.” She tapped the place from her side of the wall. “Can you hear that?”

“Yes.” He started to scratch with his knife. “Oh, it is very slow.”

“Don’t let that concern you, my brave little friend. Work steadily, and you will make progress. Only take care that no one hears you.”

“The guards are all up having their breakfasts. Brychan is out riding. I said I was feeling unwell and would stay in my bed awhile. No one will miss me for some time.”

“You are a true hero, Huw,” said Megan, marveling at the idea that it was breakfast time. There was not the tiniest indication in her little tomb that morning had broken. How long could the human spirit endure such unnatural conditions, she wondered?

Together they toiled on, pausing only for the occasional word of encouragement. The more she dug the more Megan became aware of the dreadfully solid, near impregnable nature of her prison. Near impregnable, but not completely, she told herself as she worked on. She knew they did not have unlimited time, for if Huw’s absence was noticed he would be searched for. With unexpected abruptness a sliver of light stabbed through the wall.

“Huw! It’s working. I can see the light from your candle!”

Huw scratched with renewed enthusiasm. At last Megan could see the end of the knife poking through the narrow opening.

“Good boy, Huw!”

“But it is such a small hole, Megan. Such a tiny space.” He began to cry softly. “I wish I could just get you out, Megan. I don’t like you being in there.”

“Hush now, little one. This is not a moment to be sad. We could not make the hole bigger or it might be noticed. As it is, this little space will save my life, with your help.”

“I’ll pass the bread through in small pieces.”

“Dip it in the water first, not too much, though, or it will be too soft to force through. That’s it.” She took the morsels as she felt them pushed into the gap. As they passed between the stones they blocked out the light momentarily, and Megan had to fight to quell panic. How crucial was that glimmer to her sanity.

After some time Huw said, “That’s the last piece. It is enough?”

“It is plenty. Thank you, Huw. I never smelled a more delicious loaf.”

“But, Megan, what about the rest of the water? No cup or bowl could ever fit through the tiny opening we have made.”

“You must simply pour it through the hole.”

“But you have nothing with you to hold water.”

“I will drink as you pour this time. Next time you come see if you can find me a small piece of leather. That will come through our portal, and I can fashion a bag of it with ribbon. It will hold water well. Now pour slowly.”

Huw did as he was told and Megan lapped the gritty, lime-tainted water. It tasted bitter and dirty, and grit threatened to choke her as she drank, but she knew she must drink it or die.

*   *   *

T
HE FOLLOWING
S
ATURDAY
morning was cold, bright, clear and, as far as Laura was concerned, inappropriately cheerful. It had reached a point where everyone at Penlan seemed worn out by the relentless worry and upset. It was decided that the boys would spend the morning with Dan clearing part of the garden and building a bonfire. Laura drove Steph to the hospital. They made the journey in silence, each lost in her own thoughts. The day before Laura had finally found a moment to use the Internet without being observed and had looked up Peterborough Mental Health Trust. Lawnsdale was indeed a psychiatric hospital. After searching her mind for a way to confirm her fears she had summoned her courage and telephoned the number given. She knew they would never give out information about an ex-patient. Unless she could trick them into doing so. Of course, it was just possible Rhys could have had a job there, rather than being an inmate. But in her heart she already knew which was the more likely answer.

“I’m phoning from the surgery in Abergavenny” The lie had made her voice thin. “We are still waiting for the notes for Mr. Rhys Fisher to be forwarded on to us.”

“Oh? Just a moment, please.” The young woman from the hospital administration department had disappeared for what felt to Laura like an age. At last she returned. “Mr. Fisher’s notes were sent on to the surgery at the Holly Road Hospital, Cardiff, last year. I have a copy of the accompanying letter from Dr. Hindmarsh. He was Mr. Fisher’s psychiatrist for the whole eight months he was here. You’ll have to take the matter up with Holly Road, I’m afraid. Which surgery did you say you were calling from?”

Laura had wriggled and waffled and made her excuses before ringing off as quickly as she could. She had found out what she needed to know. What she had suspected. Rhys had been an inpatient in a mental hospital. More than once, by the sound of it. She googled Dr. Hindmarsh and was further alarmed to find that his specialty was delusional psychosis. She felt ill at the thought of just how dangerous Rhys might be, and that it was she who had let him into their lives. It also accounted for his reluctance to talk about his past.

As they arrived at the hospital Laura did her best to forget about Rhys. She was here for Steph and for Angus. However often she saw her dear friend, the sight of him still so inert and so dependent on medical intervention was shocking. She looked at the tortured expression on Steph’s face.

“Oh, Steph,” she said, taking hold of her hand. The two stood in silence together, looking down at poor Angus, both unsure if life would ever return to anything approaching normal ever again.

“They still won’t let us move him,” Steph said. “I know it’s silly, but I want to take him home. Well, back to London, I mean. Don’t get me wrong, you and Dan, you’ve been great. It’s just, the boys would be better off back at school. And all this hanging around…” She shook her head slowly. “Wake up, Angus, you lazy old sod,” she said with a sniff. “This is no time for a lie in.”

Laura squeezed her hand. “He will be OK, Steph. You have to believe that.”

Steph nodded, “I know. The boys keep asking me when Daddy is going to wake up. How can I tell them he might not? Or that if he does, he might not be the Daddy they remember.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I try not to think about it but … Oh, Laura, what am I going to do?”

Laura wrapped her friend in her arms, noticing how angular her body had become after weeks of worry and not eating properly.

“I wish I knew what to say to make you feel better, Steph. We just have to stay positive. Angus is a fighter. He’ll come through this. OK?”

Steph nodded again, dabbing at her eyes. “OK,” she said in a small voice almost unrecognizable as her own.

“I’ll go and find us some coffee,” Laura said. ’There must be a machine here somewhere.”

“Right.” Steph mustered a tired smile. “Only fair that we should suffer, too.”

Laura leaned against the coffee machine and felt close to tears.
Ridiculous,
she told herself,
Steph needs your support. She does not need a sniveling wreck. Pull yourself together, woman.

She punched buttons and waited for the cups to fill. Two young doctors joined her, waiting for their turn. Laura recognized one of them as the intern who she had seen with Angus soon after he was first admitted.

“Hello,” she said. “I’m here visiting Angus Keane. He’s a close friend.”

“Ah yes, the climbing accident, I remember. How is he?”

“Not very good, I’m afraid. You know, he wasn’t really climbing. Just going for a mountain walk.”

“Nasty head wound.”

“He just slipped off the path. Hit some rocks. It seems such bad luck, to have such a serious injury from a simple walk.” She took the coffees and stood aside to let the others make their selections.

“He was unlucky,” the young doctor went on. “Must have landed pretty hard. But then, he’s quite a heavy chap. And of course the conditions didn’t help. Damp and foggy, wasn’t it? Took a while for the air ambulance to get to him.”

“Yes, but he was being looked after by an experienced hill walker.”

“I’m sure he did his best, but once the body goes into shock all sort of things can be affected.” He fed coins into the machine.

“Can’t you prevent shock?”

“To an extent, if you can keep the patient warm.” He picked up his drink and turned to leave. “Well, must get on. I hope your friend makes a good recovery. Everyone here will do their best.”

“Thank you.” Laura stood and watched him walk away, then a thought struck her. “Wait!” She trotted after him. “You say he needed to keep warm. What if the walkers had had one of those survival blankets with them? You know, the tinfoil type things? Would that have made a difference?”

“God, yes, huge difference. A sad reminder of how it pays to be well prepared. If he’d been snuggly wrapped up in one of those he wouldn’t be in the condition he’s in now. A not particularly serious head injury is one thing, but add complications brought on by shock and you’re dealing with something quite different.” He was interrupted by a beeping from his coat pocket. “Sorry, being paged. Gotta go.”

Laura’s mind was racing. All she could hear was William’s voice telling her how he was so well prepared for the walk. With his special bag. And the survival blanket.

As soon as she returned home Laura went into the utility room and searched through the coats. She found William’s hiking bag and rifled through it. No survival blanket. It must have been taken out and used when Angus had his fall. So why wasn’t he still in it when he was taken to the hospital? None of it made any sense. Rhys had been with him, looking after him while they waited for Mountain Rescue. He must have known how important it was to keep Angus warm. What possible reason could he have for taking off the survival blanket? Anwen’s words came back to her. Laura knew she considered Rhys dangerous in some way. But why would he want to harm Angus? And was he really capable of such a terrible thing? She went into the kitchen and hurried over to the shelf beside the telephone. There were dozens of scraps of paper with numbers written on them among the local directories and Laura’s own phone book. At last she found what she had been looking for. She unfolded the crumpled sweet wrapper. There, in Rhys’s flamboyant hand, were the map coordinates for the spot where Angus had been injured. She stuffed the paper into her pocket. She had no clear idea of what she might find, but at the moment she felt she was trying to do a puzzle with only half the pieces. Maybe the mountain would reveal some more.

*   *   *

M
ONDAY MORNING WAS
more grey and windier and generally not as pleasant as the weather of the previous week. Nevertheless, Laura was determined to seize the opportunity to go up onto the hill. Dan had left for work. Steph took the children to see their father and was expected to be gone some time. She had decided to try to get Angus moved to a London hospital so that they could go home and the boys could return to school. A meeting with Angus’s consultant had been arranged.

Laura dressed warmly, took a map, a compass, and a sketchbook, and set off. She was fairly confident about finding the right spot. It was the mountain mist that had caused problems for the walkers that day. In truth, they had not gone a great distance, nor chosen a difficult route, out of consideration for the children. On a clear day, with the map reference, her own familiarity with parts of the hill, and what Dan had told her about where the accident happened, she reckoned she stood a reasonable chance of success.

It felt good to be out of the house, away from the gloomy atmosphere which could only normally be escaped for a moment or two before someone said something, or did something, or looked a certain way that brought Angus’s condition back into vivid focus. Here thoughts could spread away, snatched up by the wind. Here was space and peace and timeless nature, constant in its beauty. The cold air rasped the back of Laura’s throat as her breathing labored on the steep incline. She pressed on, stomping out every second heartbeat as her boots thudded onto the frozen ground. After the better part of an hour she stopped and checked her map. The site of the accident must be close now. She looked around, realizing that her best hope at this stage was to use her eyes. Dan had described a narrow sheep track winding up the side of the hill. They had passed several rowan trees with branches so low on the path that the men had been forced to step off it, while the boys had enjoyed scurrying underneath. Then there was a stream, and after that the path became slightly stonier. They could have gone no more than fifty yards beyond the stream when Angus fell. Laura spotted some small trees and went to examine them more closely. The path did indeed run beneath them, and there was too little head clearance for her. She followed the track around a small bend and bingo! A stream. Laura felt foolishly pleased with herself for finding the right place. Jumping the stream, she started to count her paces. When she got to forty she slowed down, scrutinizing every rock, looking for the four “steps” Dan had mentioned. They were helpfully obvious. They consisted of four flat pieces of stone which weather and sheep had beaten into perfectly flat rectangles which did indeed look like man-made steps. Laura stood on the top one and scanned the area. This had to be the spot. The ground fell away steeply from the path and, about fifteen feet down, there was a small group of rocks sticking out of the wiry grass. Below that was a sea of winter bracken, brown and bent and almost impossible to walk through. She sat down and tried to understand what must have happened. It was a narrow path, but not dangerously so. Why would Angus have fallen? She could only think that the thick cloud that had reduced visibility to a few yards must have caused him to misjudge a crucial step. Even so, he would have had to hurl himself onto the rocks below or he couldn’t have sustained such a terrible injury. Unless he had been pushed. As the idea formed in her head Laura felt a shiver twitch down her back. But why? She always came back to the same question: Why would Rhys hurt Angus? She stared down at the stones, finding it hard to believe Angus could have smashed his head so badly and crushed his mobile as well. There were only a few rocks, and if the phone was in the pocket of his shorts it could not have connected with a stone at the same moment his head was doing so. And then there was the question of the survival blanket. What had happened to that? Laura had been half hoping she might have found it on the ground somewhere, having fallen out of William’s bag or been overlooked in all the drama. But, no. She sighed heavily, taking off her ski hat and running her hands through her hair. Whatever answers she had expected, none were forthcoming.