He would be completely over the edge in seconds now. He could feel the bottom, way below, drawing him, reeling him in.
I’m going over, I’m going to die.
It was no good, he couldn’t fight it any more.
He would go over the edge and the 500-foot sheer drop. To oblivion.
‘ROY!’ he screamed in his last gasp of desperation. On the very verge of plunging. ‘ROYYYYY!’
Then hands clamped on his wrists, trapping his scream in his throat.
Grace’s voice shouted, ‘I’m here, mate, I’m here. I’ve got you.’
‘Help me!’
Branson’s body, hanging from his arms, swung backwards into the hard edge of the cliff face with a jarring crash and he screamed with pain. The woman still hanging on his ankles, the weight was stretching him out. Racking him and yanking his rib cage down as agony tore through his torso. He could feel her hands slipping. On his boots now.
Roy Grace lay on his stomach, half blinded by the wind and stinging rain, holding on to Branson’s slippery wrists. But the weight was getting too much for him. His arms were being pulled out of their sockets. The massive weight was pulling him steadily forward towards the edge.
Trying desperately to think what he could do, he kicked the toes of his shoes hard into the soft soil, getting a momentary purchase before they were dragged free. Then they stopped against something hard and solid — a rock or a stone. He kicked his toes again hard into the soil, trying desperately to dig in deeper and get a better grip. His feet held, but the strain on his arms was getting too much.
I can’t hold you, mate, I can’t hold you, he thought, his brain racing, his arms agony. His clutch was starting to weaken.
‘ROYYYYY! HELP ME!’ Branson screamed again. Then, suddenly, he felt the weight drop from his ankles. It was accompanied by a faint cry. Then just the wind.
Instantly, to Grace’s relief, Branson felt lighter. He was no longer sliding forward. Looking down into darkness, at the silhouette of Branson’s head, smelling the fear in his perspiration, he was now having to hold just his deadweight. But, even so, his hold was still slipping. His right hand felt Branson’s massive palm.
‘Grip me with your fingers, interlock them!’ he yelled down.
And, to his relief, felt Branson’s strong fingers entwining with his own.
‘Get me out of here, Roy, oh God, please don’t let me fall,’ he pleaded.
‘I’m not letting you fall. Just keep holding on!’ he gasped, trying with everything he had to lift Branson up, but he couldn’t even manage a few inches.
And now the stone he had his feet jammed against was starting to move, to lift out of the ground.
Oh Jesus. Glenn, his mate — his best friend in the world — he was holding his life in his hands. Somehow, he had to save him, he couldn’t let him fall to his death. Had to do something. But his strength was sapping with every second. He was weakening.
‘Stay calm!’ he yelled down. ‘Stop wriggling, you’re pulling me over.’
‘Roy, I can’t hold on much longer, my arms are going.’
The stone was moving more and more. Any second it would come out of the ground and—
Grace could feel the grip on his fingers slackening. Slipping. Was this how it was going to end? No way could he let him die. His mind was a chaos of thoughts. He dug his toes in again, digging, digging, digging in desperation.
‘I can’t hold on!’ Branson called, his voice sounding weak. ‘I’m going, mate.’
‘You fucking hold on!’ Grace yelled back.
‘Tell Siobhan and the kids I love them?’
‘You tell them yourself!’
‘I mean it. I’m going. I’m going.’
The fingers were letting go. Grace stopped them, clenching his hands even tighter. Seconds from having to make the decision whether to go over with Glenn or release him.
He kept on gripping his hands. Somehow. His arms felt as if they would rip free of their sockets at any second. Christ, if he didn’t let go he was going to fall with him.
Then a shout.
Voices behind him. And, suddenly, bright lights flashing all around.
Strong hands were gripping Grace’s ankles. Pulling him backwards, as he still gripped Branson’s hands, but Branson’s deadweight had suddenly lessened.
‘You can let go, sir!’ a female voice said. It was Sharon Orman. ‘Mark and the others have Glenn. I’m going to help them.’
‘He’s coming back up,’ Taylor shouted. ‘We’ve got him!’
‘Shit, you’re a heavy bastard!’ Smudger grunted as they dragged Branson safely back onto the grass.
Grace struggled to his feet, hurried across, then knelt and stared down at his friend’s face, Branson’s eyes blinking against the bright torchlight. He was bleeding from lacerations in several places and panting hard. ‘You’re safe, mate.’
Branson mustered a pained smile. ‘Yeah, but what about my threads? This suit — it’s brand new!’
Grace looked down at him, feeling a surge of relief flooding through him. ‘I think you’ve lost a button, mate. Get over it,’ he said, his face creasing into a smile.
110
Veins of pink streaked the pre-dawn sky through the windscreen as Roy Grace finally turned into his lane, the Ford bumping along the unmade track. Every muscle, tendon and ligament in his arms and upper body ached like hell, and his heart was heavy at what lay ahead, and behind him, and the terrible tragedy that had so nearly happened out there on the clifftop.
He honestly didn’t know how much longer he could have held on. Seconds at most. He shivered at the thought of what might have been.
Halting the car outside the cottage, he switched off the engine and just sat there for some moments, feeling the early morning breeze through his open window, too drained to even get out of the car.
In the distant farmyard, he faintly heard a cockerel crowing. The car clock showed 5.53 a.m.
He felt in turmoil. His dearest friend had so very nearly died. He wondered how, on top of the tragedy of Bruno, he could ever have lived with that. And he was shaking at the knowledge that he himself might not have been alive to see this dawn. To see Cleo and Noah and their unborn baby. He tried to blank that from his mind, but he couldn’t.
He’d insisted that a loudly protesting Glenn Branson be ambulanced to hospital for a check-up, while he waited at the scene for the Coastguard’s air-sea rescue helicopter to arrive. The crew radioed that in its searchlight they had seen the body of a man at the bottom of the cliffs. Presumably Niall Paternoster, but they wouldn’t be sure until after the body was recovered later in the morning by the lifeboat. Roy then phoned the control room to make the necessary arrangements for notifying the IOPC.
Rebecca Watkins had been lucky. She’d crashed through a tree and dense shrubbery onto a ledge twenty feet below the top of the cliff. Just a short distance to the right or left and she’d have missed it, joining Niall on an unsurvivable drop onto rocks at the bottom.
She was injured, just how badly Grace wouldn’t find out until sometime tomorrow. She’d sure been more fortunate than Niall — or maybe not completely so, depending on her injuries, and depending on what happened after she’d stood trial for murder. But that was for another day.