“And Astrid?”
“Right behind me. And, for God’s sake, keep out of sight as much as you can, keep well under the lea of the cliff.”
“I know what to do.”
I said sharply: “No, you don’t! The state you’re in now, you’re just going out to get yourself killed. That’s not what we want, any of us!” More gently, I said: “If there’s a complex of desperation, Estrilla, get rid of it, slough it off. Even if he is dead, we want the men who killed him. And for that, we need your help.”
She stared at me, and I said, very, very quietly: “I don’t believe that he is dead, Estrilla. I swear to you, I don’t believe it. Try and take some of my hope, I have lots of it.”
For a long, long time she held my look, trying to gauge the depth of my feelings, trying to find out how much of that hope was a lie. And then she suddenly put out her hand and touched me once, quite quickly, and she said: “I’ll be careful, I promise you.”
I was suddenly very impressed with Estrilla; I saw some of the qualities in her, perhaps for the first time, that must have attracted Fenrek to her. He liked good looking women, but his difficult and trying job had conditioned him into demanding something more than good looks, something more than intelligence too. I’d never known quite what it was he was always searching for and never quite finding; I thought now that it might perhaps be ruthlessness, a sort of inexorability to match his own.
I said: “Just let me take the first look.” She nodded.
We went to the upper entrance together, conspirators in the semi-darkness, moving quietly with the huge empty cavern a kind of symbol of what we were leaving behind us. At the upper exit, I stayed close to the sandstone wall and looked out over the broad blue sea and the hot sands, brilliant now in the sunlight, watching for any sign of movement; there was nothing.
I examined the broken rocks down there where the waves were breaking; nothing there either. I tapped Estrilla on the shoulder and said quietly: “All right, go.”
We waited a while, Astrid and I, while we watched her move easily and lithely along the wide path to the concrete steps. She went down them quickly, not hurrying, not yet trying to hide herself, because there was no place here to hide. And then, she moved off along the weed-covered track where the dense bushes were and we lost her. She was concealing herself carefully now, moving, I knew, bent double, swiftly, half running along the narrow track that was never used now because most of it had fallen down onto the barnacle-covered rocks far below.
I whispered to Astrid: “All right, keep behind me all the way. If I drop, drop too, fast, you understand? And I mean fast.”
She nodded. As I began to move off, she put out a hand to stop me, and whispered, pleading: “You really believe that? That he might still be alive?”
I said: “I know it.” Even to myself, I couldn’t explain the certainty in my voice.
I began to slip down away from the steps, moving carelessly here where there was no cover. If anyone was watching, watching and waiting for me to get close, I wanted him to think we were on our way down to the beach too. And when we reached the bushes where Estrilla had disappeared, I whispered to Astrid: “It’s harder now, we go up. Watch out for falling sand, it’ll give us away.” She nodded. I could hear her breathing, though her feet made very little sound on the soft sand.
I moved on a few paces, then reached up for the overhang of rock above us. I found a handhold there, a tangle of roots, and pulled myself up, then waited for Astrid to follow. We crawled on among the gorse bushes and the tall grass, moving steadily up, then down again, and up once more, edging along in parts, where the remnants of the track were less than two feet wide. Far below us, the sea was pounding, the white surf breaking and swirling and sending up its friendly, warning sounds to us.
In a little while, the goat track, which is about all it was, dropped away at a deep fissure in the rock. There was some wild anemone growing there, pale blue and pink in the morning sun. And the sheer side of the cliff fell straight down to the water. I felt Astrid’s hands groping at my back, feeling for the comfort of a touch of another body, and when I looked back, she was staring down into the cleft with a look of horror on her face. It seemed that we had come as far as we could, that there was no room on the narrow shelf even to turn; we clung there like ants, suspended on the face of the cliff with no place to go.
Far, far below, the differing shades of color in the boulders that lay among the barnacles showed where the track had collapsed, leaving a twelve-foot gap and no way to cross it. But this was where we had to go.
Far below, I could see Estrilla moving steadily along. To go back now and leave her unprotected? Out of the question.
Across on the other side, the cliff seemed sheer too, till I searched it well and found a tiny outcrop, not much bigger than a doorknob, but granite-colored and therefore strong. Below it was a narrow horizontal fissure, quite small and deep, a transverse scar in the red sand wall. And above it, high above it and well out of reach, was a jutting piece of iron at the top of the cliff, a bent and rusted piece of angle-iron.
I looked back at Astrid and whispered: “Once we cross over, the worst is behind us.” There was plenty of broken rock further on, on the other side of the fissure, broken rock and bushes to hide in, and great friendly clusters of golden boulders, all streaked with blue and purple and covered over with yellow creeping plants. I whispered: “Piggyback.”
She stared at me, and I said: “Arms round my neck, legs round my waist, and close your eyes. And then, hang on tight for all you’re worth.”
She did not hesitate. She clambered up onto my back, locked her legs around me just as she had done that day in the lobster trap, and I smiled at her over my shoulder and said: “Trust me, it’s not as bad as it looks. And for God’s sake, don’t open your eyes, you’ll have kittens.”
Her face was white, but she managed a half smile and a nod. I saw her screw her eyes up tight; I almost waited for her to start praying.
I put my feet together, slowly and carefully bent my knees and then...then I leaned forward. I toppled slowly over till Astrid’s fragile weight was just so on my back, and the bottom of the gorge, whitewashed with the breaking waves, was directly below my eyes, and then I pushed hard with my legs and jumped, reached out with my arms, and grabbed with both hands at the granite protrusion. My fingers closed over it, and one foot and then the other found the niche below it, and we hung there for a moment, like a baboon on a cliff face with its young on its back. I thought: this is a hell of a time for Van Reck to spot us, suddenly.
I looked back and whispered: “We’re over, you can open your eyes, but don’t move a muscle.”
She said: “I’ll keep them...keep them closed if you don’t mind.”
“Good. Hold tight, we’re going up.”
I let go with one hand and groped for a better hold, but there just was none. I reached high above my head, as far as I could reach, wondering if I could find that hunk of iron, up there somewhere but out of my sight. Curving my hand over the top, I could just brush it with the very tip of my finger, but it was quite impossible to get a hold on it. I eased my body back and hung onto the lump of granite with one hand, my feet wedged tight in the fissure for security.
I said: “I always wanted to be a contortionist. Just hold on tight. Wherever you feel my hands groping, don’t unwind yourself, it’s a long way down to the bottom.”
I slipped my free hand under her warm thigh and found the buckle to my belt, a good strong piece of two-inch cowhide, oil-tanned and supple. My fingers worked at it till the buckle was undone. I heard Astrid catch her breath, and I said: “Just about through.” I pulled hard on the belt and felt it unwinding, and when it was away from my waist, I wrapped it tightly round my fist into a loop, reached up again, and slipped it over the bent piece of iron. I pulled hard on it and felt the belt wrapping itself tighter round my hand.
I said: “What do you weigh?”
She answered, whispering: “A hundred and ten pounds.”
“And I’m two hundred and ten, give or take a dinner or two. That’s a good belt, but whether it will support both of us together...” I’ve got figures at my disposal for almost everything, but the breaking point of a two-inch leather strap isn’t one of them, because too much depends on the curing. I said: “Hold on tight round my neck with both arms, unwrap your legs, and feel for the fissure I’m standing in.”
She said: “My God, what are you going to do?”
“Do as I tell you, for God’s sake!”
I waited while she slowly, very slowly eased herself into position, her arms almost strangling me. I said: “Feet firmly in place?”
“Yes, I think so.”
“Good. Now, hold onto this piece of granite. When I let go, slip your hand under mine and grab tight with it.”
“All right.”
