Out of the Night Read Online Free PDF Page A

much beyond the next few steps. The outcrops of wet sandstone weren’t too bad to negotiate, but in places there was nothing for it but to let go and slide down expanses of the slippery shale that constituted much of the cliff. Jimmy’s ancestors had carved footholds here and there in times past but they weren’t much use when they were covered in sleet and running water. Best – quickest at least – just to slide down the rock, and hope coming back up wouldn’t be a problem.
    It was about half-tide. So when I hit the beach there was plenty of sand and shingle exposed. I checked the three fishermen’s huts and hunted along the hundred yard stretch to the southern end of the beach, and found nothing. Just the usual junk you find on the North Sea shoreline: plastic bottles, driftwood and, paradoxically, empty halves of grapefruit from some shipboard breakfast table. They weren’t supposed to dump stuff like that any more, but some ships did still.
    Thankfully, there was nothing unusual in sight. I turned when I reached the rocks at the end of the beach and scanned the cliffs. Nothing up there either. No dead body hanging suspended. So far, so good.
    Now I had a problem. I couldn’t go north. In that direction, the cliff curved and jutted out into deep water, making it impossible to get round.
    At the southern end of the bay I could scramble across rocks and get round the protruding cliff – ‘Wreckers’ Nab’ – but I couldn’t stay on the next little beach for long. There, the sea came right up to the cliff even before high water, and as the tide rose I wouldn’t be able to get back here either.
    To try it, or not? I stood still for a moment, bracing myself against the wind shrieking in from the sea, closing my eyes against the needle-tipped sleet, and thinking. I could see her face. She was as real to me as if she had been standing in front of me right then. I knew I had to risk it. I had to go on. I had to know if she was there or not.
    Ignoring the pounding sea to my left, as well as the sheets of icy spray and the blasts of sleet, I clambered across the boulders at the southern end of the bay and reached round the small headland into the next cove. Back on firm sand, I took stock. This beach was about half a mile in length. Ten minutes to the far end, say, and ten minutes back should do it. It had better. The tide was coming in fast.
    The first danger point would be a shallow depression about a hundred yards from where I was standing. That was where the water got deepest quickest. I would have to be back past that in good time. And I would have to come back because there was no other way off the beach.
    Jimmy Mack had once told me there was a way but I’d never seen anything to suggest it. The shale walls were not climbable and there was no way round the headland at the far end. Deep water saw to that. Probably Jimmy’s route hadgone with most of the sailors’ trod one day when sections of cliff slid into the sea.
    I grimaced and set off, alternating between a fast walk and jogging. As I went I scanned the cliff walls and the beach ahead of me. The sand changed from firm to ultra soft, slowing me down. I ploughed on, breathing hard with the extra effort. My legs began to ache. The tension rose. This was going to take longer than I had allowed but I couldn’t give up. I had to see it through.
    I stopped fifty yards short of the rock wall at the far end. That was close enough. She wasn’t here. Not on the beach or spread-eagled halfway down the cliffs either. Time to get back.
    Quite soon after I turned round I realized I’d left it a bit late. Ahead of me I could see thin sheets of water spreading across the remaining dry sand faster than I had anticipated. I redoubled my efforts but the sand was so soft that running was impossible. Halfway back I could see that the returning tide was obliterating the footprints I had made on the outward leg. I had to move faster.
    I grimaced and urged myself on.