Cuthbert's Way (DCI Ryan Mysteries, #17)(80)
Dimly, he heard the man’s maniacal laughter, before he scuttled off in the direction of the village and the harbour on the other side, where he had a boat ready to go.
Ryan swept his hands along the sand under the water, trying desperately to judge where the keys had landed. Finally, his fingertips brushed against something metallic and he pulled them out of the water. Keys clasped in his hand, Ryan made a dash for his car, but the water was already too deep to drive back across to where Anna was trapped inside a metal box. There was half a mile between where he stood and where the car was half-submerged—and the current too strong to swim the distance and have enough energy to get her out.
Thinking fast, Ryan jumped back inside his car and a minute later was roaring through the quiet streets, with its pretty lights and squat stone cottages, towards the harbour. He passed Chatterley on the way, but didn’t care; he had one goal in mind.
Ryan came to an emergency stop outside the Coastguard’s Station, and was relieved to see the light burning inside.
Throwing open the door, he was met with a pair of lively green eyes and a broad smile.
“Well, look what the tide dragged in.” Alex Walker, the Chief Coastguard in those parts, was an old friend of Anna and Ryan’s, but this was no time to catch up.
“Anna’s trapped, over on the causeway. I need a boat—now!”
Walker took one look at his friend’s face and grabbed the keys to his rib.
“Let’s go.”
*
A few minutes later, they rounded the harbour and headed out onto the open water, racing towards the channel to where Anna remained trapped inside the boot of Chatterley’s car. Alex knew those waters like the back of his hand, and handled his boat with the ease of long experience. Ryan was look-out, blinking the cold spray of water from his eyes as he searched the water for any sign of the car.
As they neared the causeway, they found it fully covered by the tide, and Alex cut the engine so they could search for any sign of the car.
“It was here!” Ryan cried, wild with anguish. “Anna!”
Just then, the waves buffeted the car so it rolled upward, revealing itself to them in the powerful beam of the boat’s search lights.
“There! Over there!” Ryan cried.
“I see it!” Alex shouted, and moved them a bit closer.
Before he could object, Ryan had removed his life jacket to enable him to swim more freely, and dived headfirst into the icy depths of the sea.
*
Anna knew the air was running out.
The tiny sips of air she rationed herself from the air cap were becoming thinner and thinner, and wouldn’t last much longer. Her body felt numb and lifeless, and a terrible fatalism threatened to take over, as a prelude to the end.
The last thoughts she called to mind were of Ryan’s face, laughing as they walked along the beach, and of her daughter, the first time she’d opened her eyes to look up at her mother.
Exhausted, hypothermic, she let go for the final time.
*
The first shock of water hit Ryan like a brick wall, but he powered through the waves, thrusting his legs hard until his hands reached the car boot. He rose to the surface to take in a huge gulp of salty air, then dived beneath the surface again, clutching the key in his hand.
The waters were too dark to see, despite Alex’s efforts to shine the search light in the right area, and Ryan felt his way along the back of the car until he found the keyhole.
His lungs were starting to scream, but he persevered until the key turned and the boot opened. He had to force it higher, battling the downward pressure of so much seawater, but in a final, monumental effort, reached down to grasp his wife’s limp body and pull her free.
Alex dived in after him, armed with a life ring, and took the weight of Anna’s inert body as Ryan broke the surface.
No words were spoken, but the two men dragged her back to the rib and through strength of will alone heaved her up onto the boat in record time.
Once there, Ryan went to work on her immediately.
One…two…three…
Breathe, Anna, breathe!
One…two…three…
Ryan performed CPR while Alex rushed to start the engine, radioing his colleagues a couple of miles further down the coast in Seahouses to expect their arrival and order an ambulance.
One…two…three…
Stay with me, Anna.
One…two…three…
Ryan continued to pump his wife’s chest, breathing air back into her exhausted lungs, while their friend waged his own battle with the sea, hands gripping the wheel tightly as they negotiated some of the worst waters of the British Isles, passing over the skeleton graveyards of sunken ships as they went.
When the lights of Seahouses Harbour came into view, Ryan didn’t so much as look up.
He didn’t stop CPR until a paramedic was ready and waiting to take over, this time with a defibrillator device.
CLEAR!
He watched his wife’s body jerk once, then twice.
Again!
CLEAR!
Ryan saw his past, present and future pass before his eyes in that one dreadful moment. He heard her laughter, her tears, her singing in the shower. He saw her face as they made love, as he kissed her goodnight, and as he kissed her good morning. He saw all the mornings that might never be, stretching out before him.
Then, she reared up, and took another breath—before twisting onto her side as her body convulsed, expelling what seemed like gallons of seawater.