Out of the Night Read Online Free PDF

Faster! Faster!
    I repeated the mantra more and more urgently, and kept on doing it. I willed my aching thighs to lift higher and press down harder.
    A wave bigger than the rest suddenly streamed across the sand in front of me and washed over my boots. Another one followed, reaching up to my knees. Before I knew it, I was into the shallow depression and the water was waist-deep. I got through and kept going. Desperately, I floundered over the last fifty yards of sand and hurled myself onto the rocks, to begin the scramble round the headland.
    I was up to my chest now in icy water that swirled all around me in violent spasms. Huge surges threatened to suck me out to sea as they retreated. My feet skidded on wet rock and seaweed. Spray arced over my head. I ducked my face against a shower of hail. Then a wall of water towered over me and crashed down to slam me against a big rock. I wrapped my arms around it and hung on desperately, face pressed hard against the icy, slimy surface. My feet slipped, leaving me hanging on by my arms, stretched full-length.
    Mercifully, the water level subsided. But I knew it would only be for a moment. I moved on fast, threshing madly through knee-deep water. Panic was close. Another wave like the last one would do for me.
    I made it. I felt shingle under my boots, and then I came out of the water and reached sand. I didn’t stop. Not for a moment. I kept going, past Jimmy’s boat and the little fishermens’ huts, going straight for the foot of the track. I was safe from the sea but I was dangerously wet and cold. I had no time to spare.
    The climb back up the track took most of my remaining strength. I took risks on wet rock, and forged on. I couldn’t get home fast enough.
     
    I filled the bath, climbed in and indulged myself in a really long soak in wonderfully hot water. What I’d just done was stupid, plain stupid. It could have been fatal. Jimmy would shake his head when I told him I’d nearly been caught by the tide. His opinion of me wouldn’t be enhanced. No two tides were the same, he would tell me. You couldn’t depend on small margins. I hadn’t allowed enough time. And for what?
    I knew all that, but as well as being cold I was relieved and happy. What else could I have done? I’d had to satisfy myself that the beaches and cliff walls in at least the immediate vicinity were not occupied by my mysterious visitor, the girl who had come out of the night.
    I could have called it in, I suppose. Contacted Bill Peart even. Despite the girl’s plea, and her obvious fear? Well, yes. Despite that I could have done it.
    But it didn’t feel like the right thing to have done, and it was too late for that now anyway. At least I’d satisfied myself. She wasn’t dead on the beach, and she wasn’t lying somewhere nearby badly injured. I could rest more easily.
    It took me a while to get warmed up. I loaded the stove with wood. Then I closed the little kitchen window. I’d had more than enough ventilation for one day. But I was more relaxed, and even content. The girl had gone. Good luck to her.

8
    B ill Peart turned up again first thing the next morning. This time he came in a big posh Volvo 4 x 4 with yellow and black zig-zag patterns all over it. I went out to meet him.
    I inspected the vehicle.
    ‘What do you think?’ he said.
    ‘Nice.’
    He nodded. ‘We could do with a few more of these.’
    ‘Pity about the colour scheme.’
    He scowled and followed me inside.
    ‘Coffee?’
    ‘Yeah.’
    I put the kettle on once again. My main task in life these days, it seemed.
    ‘The chief says he’s trying to get more,’ Bill chuntered on, ‘but every time he asks, the chairman of the Police Authority reminds him how much they cost. Mind you, he also says cracking this case could be worth a couple more of them.’
    ‘So there’s your incentive.’ I grinned. ‘How are you getting on with it?’
    ‘Not great.’
    That’s what I had assumed. He wouldn’t have come to see me