Someone To Save you

by Paul Pilkington

  StSY

  Title Page

  Part One

  Part Two

  Part Three

  Part Four

  Epilogue

  Someone to Save You

  By Paul Pilkington

  Copyright 2011 Paul Pilkington

  http://sites.google.com/site/paulpilkingtonauthor/

  License Notes

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  Part One

  1

  The teenage girl came from nowhere, running straight out into the middle of the country road from behind a line of trees.

  Sam Becker slammed on the brakes and wrenched the wheel hard right, feeling the seat belt lock as he was thrown forward at speed. The car jerked before losing control, spinning on its axis while throwing up an ear-piercing screech. Everything was a blur until suddenly the spinning came to a violent stop, sending Sam’s head flying back into the headrest.

  Shaking off his dizziness, he twisted anxiously left then right, looking for the girl, but he couldn’t see her. ‘Please, no.’

  He staggered out of the car, about to look underneath the vehicle, when he spotted her standing across the road; several metres down a dirt track that ran off to the left.

  ‘Please, help us!’ she shouted, crying. ‘Please!’

  He moved towards her as she ran in the opposite direction, heading further back down the lane. ‘Wait,’ Sam shouted after her. ‘Are you okay?’

  He followed her around the corner, where she stood by a smashed down fence. ‘Down there, you’ve got to help us,’ she pleaded. ‘Please, help us, quick.’

  As Sam moved closer he could see down the embankment at the railway line below.

  ‘Oh my God.’

  The car was astride the railway line and someone was sat motionless in the driver’s seat.

  ‘Please, help us!’ the girl repeated, as she stood there at the edge, sobbing.

  Sam nodded, trying to take in the situation. His eyes traced the journey of the car, from the point where they stood, through the smashed out wooden fence and down the steep grassy embankment, onto the track. ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Alison.’

  ‘My name’s Sam,’ he said, placing a hand on the girl’s shoulder while trying to think. His body was on overdrive. As a cardiothoracic surgeon he was used to dealing with emergency situations, but nothing like this. He looked left, then right down the line. No trains. But he would have to be quick. ‘Is that your mum down there?’

  Alison nodded, sniffling. ‘She said she wants to die. I didn’t know she was going to drive on there. Please, help.’

  ‘It’s going to be okay,’ he promised, hurriedly picking his way through the broken fence. Alison began to follow but Sam gestured her to stop. ‘You’ll be safer staying here,’ he said.

  ‘Jessica’s in the back,’ she sobbed.

  ‘Right,’ he replied, turning back to the car. Now he looked more closely, he could see something in the back seat. ‘Just wait there. Everything will be okay, I promise.’

  Alison nodded, but Sam was already scrambling down the bank, his hands brushing against stinging nettles as he tried to keep his balance. He raced onto the track and up to the car. Now he too was in the impact zone for any approaching train. He would have to act quickly. He pulled at the door handle.

  Locked.

  ‘Open the door,’ he shouted at the woman inside. The woman appeared slightly older than him, maybe late thirties. She looked utterly vacant, staring straight ahead at the track, not even acknowledging his presence. He banged against the glass. Without her co-operation, this could end very badly. ‘Open the door, please.’

  He peered through the back window. There were two young children in the rear, a boy and girl about a year old, strapped into booster seats. The child nearest to him met his gaze. They’d both been crying, their reddened faces tear-stained, but seemed calm now.

  Sam looked back at the woman. Then he noticed the handcuffs attached to the steering wheel. What the hell? This hadn’t been a spur of the moment suicide attempt; this was well planned. It would make things so much harder. ‘Christ.’

  He looked down the track, which turned off at an angle a few hundred metres ahead. This was no longer just a matter of coaxing her out of the car. His heart was thumping in his head. He thrust his hand into his pocket for his mobile, but it wasn’t there. It was in his jacket, on the front seat of his car.

  ‘So stupid,’ he said, chastising himself for not picking it up at the time. There was no time to go back.

  He tried to push the car, straining until his body felt like it was about to explode with the effort. But the handbrake was on, and his feet slid on the stones between the tracks, denying him any grip. The vehicle just rocked back and forwards. Sam turned back to the woman. ‘I know how you must be feeling,’ he pleaded, ‘but you don’t want to kill your children, do you?’

  She never flinched.

  ‘Look,’ Sam shouted, throwing a nervous glance down the track again. ‘Any minute a train could come, and we’ll all be dead. Your daughter up there,’ he said, pointing to Alison, ‘you don’t want her to see this, do you? What will she do without you; without her brothers and sisters?’

  Nothing.

  Sam looked at the two children, then at the window. There was no other way.

  He searched between the rails and found a sharp edged stone, about the size of a tennis ball. ‘Close your eyes,’ he ordered, already hammering on the bottom right hand corner of the passenger front window with the stone. He increased the force, until cracks appeared. With four more hits, the window shattered but being safety glass, held itself in place. The children in the back seat began crying; shocked and scared by the drama. ‘Close your eyes,’ he shouted again, as he elbowed away the glass as gently as he could. Cubes of glass flew onto the front seat, some hitting the woman, who remained wide-eyed and motionless. Finally, the way was clear for Sam to reach the inside door handle. Undoing the lock, he ripped open the passenger door and grabbed for the handbrake. Once more, he tried to push the car, straining with the effort. ‘For God’s sake, please move.’ This time the car did move forward a little, but the wheels were jammed in between the tracks, and there was no way it could be pushed any further.

  Another glance down the line – still no train.

  He needed to try something different. Stay calm, stay focussed. He reached back in the car and thrust the spare passenger seat forward, giving him access to the children.

  ‘Come on,’ he said, undoing the children’s seat belts with shaking hands. He grabbed at the little boy. ‘Come with me.’ He pulled him close to his chest and placed him carefully on the grass bank, just a couple of metres away. Rushing back to the car, he brought out the little girl. Then, as carefully as possible, he scooped up the two children, one under each arm. They were heavier than expected, weighing him down as he fought his way up the embankment. The steep incline was hard going, but this was the safest place. He passed the children to Alison, peeling them away from him as they clung onto his shirt. ‘Look after your brother and sister.’

  And that’s when he heard the ominous hiss, reverberating across the overhead power lines.

  A train was approaching.

  ‘My mum, please help my mum!’ Alison screamed.

  He slid back down towards the car, burning his hands against the dry
scrubland, momentum slamming him into the car’s side. Still no train. But the hiss was getting louder.

  His chest felt volcanic and he struggled to catch his breath. The woman was still silent, still staring dead ahead. ‘The keys to the handcuffs,’ he gasped. ‘Where are the keys?’

  No answer.

  ‘The keys,’ he shouted, ‘tell me where they are.’

  He thrust his hands into her coat pockets, then the rest of her clothing, desperately searching every possible place where the keys might be. There was no reaction from her, even when he forced his hands into her tight jeans pockets. The keys were nowhere.

  What was he going to do now? Maybe he should have told Alison to retrieve his mobile phone. He looked up at her, watching from the top with the children in her arms.

  And then the train appeared around the top of the bend, travelling fast. A horn blared and the emergency brakes screeched. ‘Please, God, no,’ Sam cried, stepping back from the car as the train sped towards them. ‘Look away!’ he shouted to Alison, through the deafening scream of the brakes. ‘Don’t look!’ The horn blared again, but the train didn’t seem to slow. Sam tried to push the car again, in one last desperate effort.

  It was still held fast.

  ‘Please, help Jessica!’ Alison screamed hysterically from the top of the embankment. ‘She’s in the back! Jessica’s in the back!’

  Sam looked up at her, then back towards the car. What did she mean? Then a sickening realisation hit him.

  The boot.

  He thrust his head in the car, scrambling to find the boot release lever. As with his vehicle, it was on the far side, near the accelerator pedal. He threw himself across the still motionless woman and strained to reach the lever, pulling it upwards, knowing that any second the train would hit. Hauling himself out of the car he rushed to the back. The train was bearing down on them, brakes still screeching, no more than a hundred metres away. He had seconds before impact. Sam threw open the boot. A new born baby looked up at him with watery blue eyes, wrapped in a pure white shawl. He grabbed it as a thunderous noise enveloped him, instinctively sprinting off to his left and diving for cover, shielding the baby from the impact as he hit the ground.

  And then everything went black.

  2

  Sam’s head was pounding with the sound of sirens, shouts and screams, piercing the darkness. Then a soft Irish voice sliced through the gloom.

  ‘Sam. Mr Becker?’

  He opened his eyes; the harsh, artificial hospital light blasting him like a full-on torch beam. For that first moment he didn’t know where on earth he was; his bearings were all over the place. And then, with shocking suddenness he remembered – the train crash. His dry lips peeled apart as he tried to speak.

  ‘Sorry to disturb you,’ the sister said, smiling warmly, ‘but there’s someone here that I’m sure you’ll want to see.’

  Sam shifted in the bed, seeing his wife Anna approach, his eyes still adjusting to the conditions. For a second, watching Anna stood there, her face full of concern, he wondered if the blow to his head was causing him to hallucinate.

  She shouldn’t be here.

  ‘I’ll leave you be,’ the sister said, exiting with a smile.

  Anna moved anxiously towards the bed. ‘Thank God you’re okay.’

  Sam raised himself from his pillows to meet her, trying to reassure her with the movement that things weren’t as bad as they seemed. ‘How did you…you should be on a plane to Bangladesh.’

  As co-ordinator for Hope Springs, an emergency relief charity based in London, Anna had been called out to respond to severe flooding in the delta region of the south of the country. A water and sanitation specialist, Anna has spent years working abroad, mostly in India, where Sam had first met her six years ago during his placement in the paediatric department at the Christian Medical Hospital in Verlore. And although she now spent most of her time working out of the London offices, occasionally her technical and organisational skills would be required on site.

  ‘The hospital called me just as I was about to leave for the airport,’ Anna explained, taking his hand in hers. Her skin was warm and smooth and Sam breathed in her familiar, comforting perfume as she kissed his cheek. She’d bought the scent on a romantic break in Rome three years ago, and it always reminded Sam of that magical weekend in the Eternal City. ‘Louisa and I drove up here as quickly as we could.’

  ‘But what about the trip? The emergency.’

  ‘Don’t worry about that,’ she replied, examining his face with concern. ‘Anyway, I’m pretty sure this classes as an emergency. Let me deal with one at a time, eh?’

  Anna placed a comforting hand on his head, gently brushing away some stray hair.

  ‘It only comes in black and blue,’ Sam noted, referring to the nasty-looking bruising around his left eye that was throbbing to its own pulse.

  ‘Looks sore,’ she said. ‘Are you sure you’re okay?’

  ‘I’m fine, honestly,’ Sam replied. ‘Just minor bruising - nothing broken, no lasting damage. They’ve done all the obs. Said they might let me go in a couple of hours. Feel like I could sleep for ever though.’

  He twisted to read his wrist watch on the bedside, wincing at the short stab of pain from his side. He’d been asleep for just over an hour, and it was now three hours since the crash. He’d slept most of the time since that horrific event, and everything was a bit of a blur. There were snippets of memories – the acrid smell of burning, the shouts and the moans, the wail of sirens and flash of blue lights, the squawk of radios, the young female paramedic talking him back to consciousness and then struggling to keep him awake, the first few minutes in the ambulance as it rocked and rolled away from the scene over the uneven ground.

  Sam slumped back onto his pillow. ‘Did they tell you what happened?’

  ‘Not much,’ Anna said, perching on the edge of the bed. ‘There was a crash involving a train, a car, and you. I was so scared when they called,’ she added, squeezing his hand as her green eyes glistened with tears. ‘What the hell happened?’

  Sam shook his head, thinking back to the events. ‘I was driving home and a girl ran straight out in front of the car. Somehow, I really don’t know how, I managed to avoid hitting her, and then she led me to her mother. She’d driven her car onto the railway track, with her kids strapped in the back. Her baby was in the boot.’

  ‘My God,’ Anna said, aghast. ‘You think it was a suicide attempt?’

  ‘Her daughter told me she drove the car straight onto the track, and that she wanted to kill herself,’ Sam replied. ‘I tried to talk to her, convince her to move, but it was like she was in trance, just staring straight ahead. I tried to move the car, but it wouldn’t budge. I got the children out, but I couldn’t get her before the train came.’ Sam thought of the woman in the driving seat, the emotional shutdown that he’d seen too many times before in the eyes of mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters, who had just lost a loved one on the operating table. ‘Did they say anything about the children and the mother? They wouldn’t tell me anything.’

  Anna shook her head.

  ‘The people on the train?’

  ‘They didn’t tell me anything else.’

  ‘Who spoke to you? The hospital?’

  ‘The police. They’re waiting outside to see you. I think the nurses have been holding them back until they think you’re ready.’

  ‘I should speak to them.’

  ‘Only if you’re ready,’ Anna replied. ‘If you’re not, I’ll tell them to wait.’

  Sam smiled – Anna was always ready to defend people in their hour of need, and now it was his turn. ‘I’m okay. Where’s Louisa?’

  ‘Getting some coffee - it was a busy, stressful drive. It took us two hours to travel the twenty miles from home. Louisa said she’s never going to travel through London at rush hour ever again.’

  Louisa was a childhood friend of Sam and now good friend to Anna also. She was considered more like family. Probab
ly the only aspect that Sam didn’t trust her completely with was her driving skills – her car, a rusting old style mini, had had more bumps and scrapes than a dodgem.

  ‘You didn’t have to ruin your trip for me you know,’ Sam said. ‘The people in Bangladesh need you more.’

  Anna kissed his forehead tenderly.

  Sam smiled. ‘But I’m glad you’re here. That’s all the treatment I need.’

  The two plain clothes officers strode in, led by the Irish sister. As the sister left them, she exchanged a glance with the officers that Sam could tell was a warning to take it slowly with her patient. After twelve years on hospital wards, he was adept at interpreting the body language and expressions of staff.

  ‘Mr Becker,’ the taller of the two began, as Anna reluctantly stepped back from the bed and took up a place a few feet away, her arms folded across her chest. The policeman was pushing six foot four, and built like a rugby front row forward. His dark hair was shaved short, and his face was strong and sculpted. Sam placed him in his late thirties. His partner, the scribe, was round faced, noticeably shorter and older, maybe in his fifties. He sported a greying moustache. ‘How are you?’

  ‘I’m okay,’ Sam replied, sitting up straighter. He could smell diesel and smoke and noted that their white shirts were holding black dust.

  ‘That’s good,’ the officer said. His accent wasn’t too dissimilar from his own, somewhere around Manchester. ‘I hear you’re a doctor yourself.’

  Sam nodded.

  ‘What speciality?’

  ‘Paediatric heart surgery,’ Sam replied.

  The officer unfurled a lip, impressed. ‘Must be strange to be on the other side; being the patient rather than the one doing the looking after.’

  ‘It is,’ Sam agreed. And it was. Sam, like most doctors, was a terrible patient, as Anna had commented on the previous year during a dose of heavy flu. It felt completely wrong to be in the bed rather than the one standing over it. Maybe it had something to do with the loss of control; placing yourself in someone else’s care. When it came to it, most doctors were control freaks. ‘I don’t intend to be a patient for much longer,’ he added.