He opened his mouth to say something, something witty and light after the grim enormity of what had happened to her and the sudden weight of what she had been obliged to discover. But she was asleep in his arms already, lulled by the easy rhythm of his footsteps in the snow. So he just carried her, descending in sunlight through the virgin powder, in his boots, the burden he bore light and welcome in his arms, the hair in pale tufts growing back on her head all the while she slept and breathed.
Night had fallen by the time he got her down. The jeep was where he had left it. It was buried under a snowdrift, now. But when he used his entrenching tool to dig it out, he saw that the canvas canopy had withstood the wind and the weight of snow without tearing from its frets. So he put Natasha in the back, still asleep, still wrapped in his parka, thanking God for anti-freeze as the Jeep grumbled and misfired and then lurched into reluctant life. He drove her to the hospital in Denver and from a payphone there, called the number Julia had given him to reach her on. She arrived fifteen minutes later from the police station in a patrol car. She looked pale and thin and she squeezed Bill’s arm and rushed past him in her eagerness to see and touch and talk to her child.
Bill gave a statement to a polite but persistent Denver cop. He signed the statement and the cop shook his hand and left. He drank coffee from a vending machine and dozed on a chair. His mind was dull in the aftermath of all the tribulation. He ran a hand over his crumpled face and wondered that relief could be so exhausting an emotion. Wasn’t it supposed to be one of the minor league emotions? He thought it criminally underrated if it was. Relief was an emotion that could win the World Series. He yawned and caught sight of his reflection in a window. He needed a shave. To say the least, he needed a shave. And then he had a thought that caused him to laugh out loud. It was a Thursday, wasn’t it? Shouldn’t he be at Frank Sinatra’s place, startling the assembled throng with his all-new, all-star, iced-tea and soda-water routine?
Julia came out of her daughter’s hospital room. Her hair was scraped back in a ponytail. There were dark shadows under her eyes. She wore no make-up. She looked different. She looked unburdened. Bill thought he had never seen her look more beautiful.
‘She’s fine, Bill. No amputations. Her kneecap has a hairline fracture. She’s badly bruised and hungry and dehydrated. But she’s fine.’
Bill nodded.
‘What would he have done with her?’
‘He would have killed her. He had a radio. He had a crystal set hidden under a trapdoor in the floor of the place they were at. He’d have used it to contact an intermediary, a newspaper maybe. He’d have made threats, threatened deadlines, the usual stuff kidnappers do. He’d have taken your money. But he’d have killed her.’
Julia looked out of the window. It was dark outside and there was nothing to see but herself looking back. ‘And now she’s safe.’
‘You’re both safe.’
‘I don’t know what to say to you.’
‘You can say goodbye.’ He smiled at her. ‘I’m tired. And I’ve never greatly cared for Denver.’
She shook her head. ‘I’ve said goodbye too often to you. I don’t want to have to say it again.’ She reached for his hand, held it. ‘Take us home, Bill,’ Julia said to him. ‘Let’s all go home.’
A Note on the Author
Francis or F.G. Cottam was born and brought up in Southport in Lancashire, attending the University of Kent at Canterbury where he took a degree in history before embarking on a career in journalism in London. He lived for 20 years in North Lambeth and during the 1990s was prominent in the lad-mag revolution, launch editing FHM, inventing Total Sport magazine and then launching the UK edition of Men's Health. He is the father of a two and lives in Kingston upon Thames. His fiction is thought up over daily runs along the towpath between Kingston and Hampton Court Bridges.
Discover books by Francis Cottam published by Bloomsbury Reader at
www.bloomsbury.com/FrancisCottam
A Shadow on the Sun
Slapton Sands
The Fire Fighter
This electronic edition published in 2012 by Bloomsbury Reader
Bloomsbury Reader is a division of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 50 Bedford Square, LondonWC1B 3DP
First published in Great Britain 2005 by Simon & Schuster UK
Copyright © 2005 Francis Cottam
All rights reserved
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make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means
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may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
The moral right of the author is asserted.
eISBN: 9781448209934
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