31
Sergeant Fitzgerald accompanied the Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) to the crash site, to investigate and make recommendations on the safety of the helicopter.
I wondered how they recommend avoiding being shot at by a Russian surface-to-air missile.
The last time I walked past the hulks, I discovered the two dead Russians.
Now I headed back to search for the weapon that killed them.
With the tide creeping in, the hulks lay in a massed huddle on the mud. Dozens of noisy, cheerful gulls perched on the smashed decks. The wind hummed among the ripped planks.
With no sign of Clarissa Briggs, and no sign of life on her houseboat, I continued on my way.
The light was fading, and my world was reducing to an eerie twilight. If I were floating in outer space. Except for the soggy grass soaking through my footwear. The wind off the sea that against my skin.
A flicker of light. Brief and faint. I thought it was light from the sea. Then, there it was, a sick, wavering firefly, sometimes disappearing altogether, but always returning. It was real.
Around me was rough grass, but I was on a narrow path. Bent forward, I walked as fast as possible. I couldn't see any of my surroundings, but I sensed the path carrying me towards the light.
I didn't use my torch. Give away my position.
I kept walking on the narrow excuse for a path snaking through the mudflats.
One wrong step to either side, and I might fall. I scuttled onwards.
After a few minutes, I stood. I stopped myself from gasping. Two of them. Close. With a body being carried between them.
Clarissa Briggs.
The torch was on the ground. Providing a pool of light. To guide them in their task.
They were squatting to one side, doing something I couldn't make out. I crouched, hoping the surrounding scrub provided concealment.
I lost my bearings, wondering where I was for a moment. The sea was close. I touched the ground. It was gravelly, even sandy. And wet.
I was right by the water. The tide around my feet. And what was this beyond me in the rising water? Difficult to see the other side. I squinted and saw the dimmest, most shadowy of shapes against the cloudy sky. What was it? It was solid with straight lines. There were no structures on the sand. Only houseboats.
Something was there, though, looming solid in the lowering darkness.
It was one pillbox left over from the coastal defences during the Second World War. With that, I realised everything and saw with utter clarity what I must do. And I must do it.
There was no hope. I took the revolver out of my waistband and twisted on the silencer. It was important not to think. I need to experience and act. I stood and took a few steps forward, necessary to close the gap between us.
As I approached them, I closed both hands around the gun. I fired two shots. Two head shots. At the sweet spot, where the medulla meets the spine. They died. To make sure, I fired two more shots. One each into both of them.
I turned away from them, removing the silencer and tucking the gun back into my waistband. I turned on my torch and out over the water. Its frail light skewed on the small inky waves, and then, as I raised it higher, picked out the massed shape of the pillbox.
I ran towards it, splashing through the icy water that rose to my knees and then thighs, slowing me. I gasped at the shocking chill, which took my breath away.
My jeans clung to me, my feet sank into the muddy, salty water, stung my face and made my eyes weep.
"Clarissa!"
Wading forward, surging through the breakers, cursing the thickness of my sodden jacket, which held me back.
My voice rolled out over the sea and broke somewhere in the distance. There was no answer. Silence lay everywhere. I flung myself to the last few yards, holding the torch high above me so it didn't get wet. I stared through the darkness at the opening, which I couldn't make out.
Black on black. Depth on depth. I reached out my free hand. Found the opening.
Fought through the rising waters to stand at the entrance.
The pillbox, once stood on the cliffs and now lay in a wreck at their base, tipped askew, so its small doorway stood tilted upwards.
This meant the tide, held back by its walls, was gushing into the pillbox.
I shone my torch, my dim puddle of light, into the interior. And there was nothing. Nothing but water rolling at the door, calmer further within the darkened walls.
"Clarissa!" I called, in a voice that cracked apart. "Clarissa!"
The torchlight touched on a shadow. A blur in the shape of a water-lily. I leaned in to shine my torch on it. I heard my breath catch in my throat, for what the frail beam of light picked out was a pale patch breaking the surface of the incoming water.
A tiny island of flesh in the flood. Similar to the belly of an upturned fish. A mouth opened, pursed for oxygen.