‘Would you like a constable to come with you?’
Martin thought of the young faces he had seen today, blotched with cold under their helmets.
‘No,’ he said. ‘Thank you. I’ll be all right on my own.’
They nodded, waiting for him to go and leave them to their work.
‘It said … it said on the radio that there are still three people in there. Is that true?’
The officer hesitated for a moment and then he said, ‘Yes. Before the collapse at least one of them was alive. We heard a shout. There’s still hope, of a sort.’
Martin stood up, painfully, like an old man.
Annie, was it you, screaming down there?
They escorted him back to the cordon. Martin walked to the place closest to the control trailer and stood once more to watch as he had watched since midday.
There was a disturbance behind him but he didn’t hear it. It took a tap on his shoulder to make him half turn his head, never taking his eyes off the store.
‘Hello. Mike Bartholomew from the BBC.’ It was a man with a microphone, a camera crew trailing behind him. ‘I saw you come out of the control trailer back there. Is there anything you can tell us?’
Martin whirled round and struck out, almost knocking the mike out of the man’s hand.
Annie, was it you, screaming down there?
‘No,’ he shouted. ‘I can’t bloody tell you anything.’
And he turned his back on them, staring helplessly at the circle of lights around the store front, tears blurring his eyes.
Steve lifted his shoulders, gathering what was left of his strength, and then dragged himself another inch to the right. He had to rest afterwards, lying with his lip still drawn between his teeth until the claw of pain released a little. Then he tensed his muscles again for another effort.
If he could get close enough to her, he thought, he might be able to do something to help her. Annie lay very still and silent, and the beat of her pulse seemed frighteningly weak.
To move across the last few inches separating them took everything Steve had. His head flopped down and his ears filled with the sound of his own gasps for breath.
At last he had done it. He was still holding on to her hand, and he clung to it while he fixed all his will on the next breath, and then the next. He had kept the worst fear at bay while he struggled to reach her – the fear that the airflow, wherever it had come from, had been blocked off by the fall. But now that he could think about it he realized that the clogged air was settling. Each breath came easier, and although the dust still choked him there was oxygen filling his lungs. He even had the impression that a draught of clean, cold air touched his face.
He lay on his side facing Annie. He could feel her close to him, and he had the sudden sense that they were like lovers in the dark. Gently he disentangled his fingers from hers and felt for her pulse. The little beat was still there. He laid her hand down and then reached out to touch her face.
With his fingertips he followed the contours of it, trying to see her through his hands. Her hair was tangled over her cheek and he stroked it back. Her forehead was cold, but he knew that she was alive. When he touched her upper lip and traced the line of it through a crusted patch at the corner, her mouth opened and he felt the faint exhalation of breath on the palm of his hand.
His fingers moved again, over her chin and then to cup the point of her jaw. Except for the dried blood at the corner of her mouth her face was untouched.
He rested for a moment. Steve was thinking, his confused mind still only admitting one thought at a time, What happened?
He tried to recall the exact quality of the noise. It had been a long, diminishing roar. Not an explosion, but a collapse. It must be that more of the store had fallen in overhead. Perhaps the rescue work had undermined it. Perhaps the rescuers themselves were pinioned, somewhere in the weight above …
Steve headed off the thought. They would come in the end, but how much longer could it be? He thought of the watch again and knew that it was gone for good. They had both moved, and he had lost his bearings.
Annie’s cheek had grown a little warmer under his hand. He began his slow exploration again. Her hair was matted with dust, but that was all. He combed his fingers through the ragged length of it, but he could find no trace of blood. Very slowly, as gently as he could, he lifted her heavy head and slid his right arm under it. Her skull felt hard and round. There were no soft places, nothing sticky. Steve felt the first flicker of real hope. No head injuries. He settled her head once more so that it was pillowed on his arm. Then, with his free hand, he stroked her hair.
As if to reward him Annie stirred a little, and then murmured something. Thillren? He strained to hear, and then to make sense of it. Children, was that it?
‘Annie?’
He whispered her name at first, then repeated it, louder and more insistent. There was no response, and she didn’t move again.
Doggedly Steve slid his hand down from her head to her throat, and then over the crumpled stuff of her coat.
At the level of her breastbone his fingers stopped moving. There was a stiffness at first, a difference in the texture of the cloth. He reached further, and then met the stickiness he had dreaded. Blood, here, a patch that had soaked right through her clothes. It was warm on the side she was lying on, and he couldn’t stretch far enough beyond her waist to discover how far the blood had seeped. He trailed his fingers downwards to touch the rubble underneath her and there was blood there too, mixed with the grit and dust. He lifted his hand and put it to his own mouth. There was the taste of blood in the dirt, and when he put his hand down to feel it again the patch seemed bigger.
In despair, Steve let his head drop back. A shower of powdery dust fell on his face and he thought of the earth scattered on a coffin lid. Annie was bleeding, and she would bleed to death in his arms.
He opened his mouth and shouted upwards into the black firmament. ‘Why don’t you come, you bastards? Why don’t you come for us?’
The shout was no more than a croak, and he felt the dry ache of thirst in his throat.
There was no point in shouting. ‘Annie,’ he murmured. He turned his head again so that they lay face to face, their foreheads almost touching.
‘I’m here,’ he told her.
Suddenly he felt weak, languid and almost comfortable in his exhaustion. The thick air was like a blanket. It if wasn’t for the thirst, he thought, he could fall asleep. Like a lover, with Annie in his arms. If he just inclined his head a little he could kiss her cheek …
Annie. Not Cass, or Vicky. A stranger, but he knew her face now.
Steve forced his eyes open again.
Not fall asleep. Not.
He made himself think, remember, anything, just to keep his consciousness flickering on.
Overhead the lights made a harsh ellipse
