‘I’m so glad you’ll be there. It wouldn’t be the same without you. Can you believe it? Extremely famous people have exhibited there and now me. Me. I hope Mum’ll come too.’
‘You deserve it, Sasha. You’ve worked hard.’
‘So how was the charity gig? You were going with that bland bloke, weren’t you?’
‘David. And he’s not bland. His work is very interesting,’ she replied, tartly.
‘So how was David?’ Her sister was teasing her.
‘The do was a bit dull, in all honesty. And David was, well, not for me, shall we say.’
‘Do I detect something not right, my darling sister?’ There was amusement in Sasha’s voice, and it gave Alex such pleasure to hear it. For years her sister had been so very fragile, doubled under the weight of guilt from which Alex thought she would never recover. But she had, as journalists such as herself were fond of saying, ‘turned her life around’, and was making a pretty good success of her art – something she had started as a hobby only relatively recently, but a hobby that had turned into a passion, and a passion that was quickly becoming a career.
‘Put it this way—’ Alex began, but then her words were interrupted by a beeping sound. Damn. The phone battery must be low. ‘He was persistent.’
‘And?’
Beep. She knew she should have charged her phone before she left home.
‘And, nothing.’ Alex suppressed a shudder as she saw in her mind’s eye those wobbly lips coming towards hers. ‘He’s not my type,’ she said, briskly. ‘Worthy and all that, but not my cup of tea.’
Beep.
‘So you won’t be bringing him to my preview?’
‘No.’
‘That was pretty definite. Anyway, I must go. Art to create and all that. See you.’
‘Sash, hold on—’
But her sister had gone. Damn. She’d been about to ask her to phone a mate to come and fetch her.
Beep.
And that was it. The battery was dead.
‘Bloody hell,’ she muttered, shaking it as if that would bring it back to life. ‘Stupid, stupid woman.’
Definitely dead. No chance to ring Sasha or anybody else now.
She looked up. The light was fading fast. The wind was even sharper now, and the rain like needles on her face. There was a slight ache behind her temples. She didn’t think champagne was meant to give you a hangover. And she had drunk plenty of water. She bent her head lower and trudged on, regretting once more declining that offer of a lift. Her hands were numb, even inside her gloves.
All at once she became aware of a flickering orange light in her peripheral vision. Was she imagining it? Was her brain more alcohol-fuddled than she realized? On. Off. On. Off. She began to walk more quickly.
There. She peered down and could just about make out marks on the road. Skid marks?
She stumbled on.
Then, around a corner and out of the dark loomed a vehicle on its side in the ditch with an indicator light flashing lazily. She hurried towards it.
Judging by the tyre marks and the torn vegetation the Land Rover – for she could see it was that – had lurched from one side over to the other, then hit a tree before coming to rest in the ditch.
The front of the vehicle had caved in and the windscreen had been smashed to smithereens. Glass littered the road and the verge. A strong smell of petrol made her head hurt even more. Christ. Gingerly, she made her way over to the open driver’s door. No one inside. She looked in the back. Nothing. Then she heard a groan coming from a few feet away.
A man was lying on the ground like a ragdoll, his clothes half-flayed off him, his face a bloody mess. He groaned again. Rain diluted the blood that ran off him in rivulets. She hoped he looked worse than he was.
She knelt beside him and took his hand, swallowing hard. ‘It’s going to be okay. I’m here. You’re going to be all right.’ Her tears welled up at the lie.
‘Cold.’
Alex shrugged off her coat and laid it on top of him. ‘There. Now look, I’ve got to leave you.’ She peered into the unyielding darkness, wondering where the nearest house was. She thought she wasn’t too far from the pub, but how far? What did she reckon? The darkness was oppressive, and she had lost her bearings. The pub could be around the corner or a mile away.
‘No.’ A hand gripped her wrist strongly. ‘Don’t leave.’
She put her hand over his. ‘I’ve got to. I’ve got no battery on my phone, I can’t even make an emergency call. I need to fetch help. Do you understand?’
‘Yes. Don’t go. They’ll come. Here,’ she felt him press something in her hand, ‘take this. My sister—’
‘Please. Don’t talk.’ Her voice sounded desperate and she knew it. She was desperate. She had to get help – he was in a bad way.
She crumpled the piece of paper in her hand while trying to tuck her coat around him, oblivious to the fact that she was becoming soaked through. His skin was clammy. His breathing was becoming laboured. She could hardly bear to look at his poor, bloody face, but she made herself, and there was a flicker of recognition in her brain. He was wearing a gold chain. That, like his face, was familiar. She’d seen this man somewhere before, she was sure of it.
Before she could process the thought, she heard the sound of a car coming fast along the road. Thank God, thank God. ‘Help is coming,’ she whispered to the man.
His eyes opened. They were dark pools among the blood and torn skin.
‘It’s going to be okay, I promise.’
‘No,’ he said. His eyes closed. ‘It’s not.’
Alex leapt up as she saw headlights careering towards her and waved frantically. ‘Stop. Please stop.’
Two men jumped out of the car and hurried over to her.
‘You have to call the police. And an ambulance. There’s a man who’s been seriously hurt—’ Alex could hardly get the words out in her haste.
‘It’s all right,’ one of them said, turning the collar of the red Puffa jacket that strained against his body up against the rain and walking over to the injured man. ‘We’ve got this. We’ll take him to hospital.’
‘We shouldn’t move him.’ Alex was agitated. She wanted proper help. People in green with stethoscopes. The reassuring lights and sound of an ambulance. Her head throbbed.
The man shook his head. ‘Can’t call an ambulance. No signal.’
‘But—’ She was going to say she had been on the phone to her sister not long before, though she did know there could be a decent signal one moment and none the next in this part of the world.
‘If we don’t take him to hospital he might die anyway.’ The man in the too-tight jacket whipped her coat off the injured man. ‘This yours?’
Alex took it back and put it on over her wet clothes, then realized she was still clutching the bit of paper the injured man had given her. She shoved it into her pocket.
The two men heaved the injured man into the car, almost stuffing him onto the back seat. He groaned in pain.
No, this wasn’t right.
Alex had a half-memory from a First Aid course she had done years before that told her a casualty shouldn’t be moved if at all possible. But then, even if there was a phone signal, how long would it be before an ambulance came