But his only thoughts were for Edward Pleasure. Helped by Sabina, he turned the journalist onto his back, then knelt beside him. The weeks he had spent in the Brecon Beacons being trained by the Special Operations Division of MI6 hadn’t included lifesaving. Fortunately, he’d learned that at school.
There was a hiss and a scream, and for a second the sky blazed red, illuminating Edward’s face. His eyes were still closed. Alex checked that his mouth wasn’t blocked. He found his heart, placed both fists on top of it, and pushed hard.
He did it again, then continuously. Sabina was shaking violently. She might have been sobbing, but she made no sound. She had no strength left. She could only watch in growing despair as Alex kept up the massage. Edward Pleasure lay flat out, still. But suddenly, on the tenth or eleventh attempt, he suddenly coughed and water gushed out of his mouth. Sabina grabbed hold of his arm. He opened his eyes. Alex let out a deep breath. He’d been about to try mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, and despite everything, a little part of him was relieved that it wasn’t going to be needed.
Silver sparks crackled and exploded, hundreds of them, spread out across the darkness, then rained slowly down onto the loch.
A few more minutes out here and the three of them would freeze solid.
But the greatest miracle of the night was still to come. Alex heard the sound of footsteps on the shingle and turned around. There was a man hurrying toward them, carrying a blanket. He had appeared as if by magic. In fact, it seemed so unlikely that he was there at all that Alex wondered if he was hallucinating. It was impossible to make out the man’s features in the shifting colors of the night, but vaguely Alex registered the fact that he wasn’t dressed in black tie. He wasn’t a guest from the party.
The man reached them. “I saw what happened!” he exclaimed. “I thought you must be dead. Are you all right? Can you move?”
“Our car . . .” Alex pointed out at the loch. For a moment, the water blazed emerald green. A great circle of fire hung in the sky, then blinked out.
“I know. I saw. We have to get you, quickly, into the warm.” The man draped the blanket over Sabina, and as he leaned forward another firework exploded, the glare revealing the side of his face. Alex saw that he was either Indian or Pakistani, a young man, in his very early twenties. As Sabina clutched the blanket and drew it around her shoulders, the man peeled off his coat and gave it to Alex. “Put this on,” he instructed. “Do you think you can walk? My van is just up on the road. It’s only five minutes from here. Once you’re inside, you’ll be okay.”
Edward Pleasure was recovering his strength. He dragged himself up onto one elbow and broke into another fit of coughing. “What happened?” he asked. His voice was little more than a whisper.
“Not now, sir. Not now. We have to go.”
The fireworks display had come to an end. In the far distance, Alex heard clapping and the blare of plastic noisemakers and paper horns. Slowly, the three of them staggered to their feet. Sabina and Alex had to support Edward Pleasure, and all three of them needed the help of the man who had come out of nowhere. Somehow he managed to guide them across the beach with the snow whirling around them as if unwilling to let them go.
A track led down from the main road and, on it, a white van sat with its headlights on and taillights blinking. The sight of it lent them new strength. They came off the shingle and threw themselves into the back.
“Don’t worry!” Without his jacket, the man was shivering himself. He paused beside the doors. “I’ll take you to a hospital. You’ll be all right.” He closed the doors, locking them in.
They were lying on the bare metal, a puddle of water surrounding them. Sabina was almost hidden in her blanket. Edward Pleasure was barely conscious. Alex heard the driver get into the front, and a few seconds later, they moved off. At the same time, he realized that his senses were returning. The man had turned the heat up to full and Alex could actually feel the warm breeze against his skin.
It took them an hour to reach an Inverness hospital, and Liz Pleasure arrived two hours after that. By then, all three of them had been treated for hypothermia and shock and were tucked up in bed with hot water bottles and soup, being looked after by nurses who had agreed to work through New Year’s Eve and who, Alex decided, really were true angels. The man who had rescued them had left without even giving his name. He had told them he was a supplier—on his way to Kilmore Castle. But what had he been supplying so late into the night? Alex didn’t think it right to ask him, but even now it struck him that something didn’t quite add up. After all, the back of the van had been empty.
They were released the next morning, Edward Pleasure blaming himself for the car accident, all of them too shaken to discuss it. Between them, they had decided to cut the vacation short. The Highlands and lochs of Scotland held no attraction after what had happened. They needed the reassurance of the city.
Waiting for the plane that would take them back to London, Alex did wonder if he should tell them what he knew, what he had seen one second before the car swerved and left the road. But in the end he decided against it. He still wasn’t one hundred percent sure. He wanted to believe that he was wrong.
Just before the car had lost control, he had heard a distant cracking sound. And at the same moment, out of the corner of his eye, he thought he’d seen a tiny flash of light in the darkness, behind them and high up above. He hadn’t imagined it. It had been there. And he understood exactly what it meant.
A marksman positioned in the battlements of Kilmore Castle.
Edward Pleasure hadn’t skidded on the ice. One of his tires had been blown out and it had been done quite deliberately by someone who wanted to force them off the road. Anyone else would have thought they were imagining it, but Alex knew better. He had been a target too many times before. Someone had just tried to kill them.
But who?
Desmond McCain? Because he had lost at cards? No—that was insane. There had to be someone else.
An old enemy perhaps. Alex had plenty enough of them. Or maybe it had nothing to do with him.
Edward Pleasure could have been the target. Journalists, too, had plenty of people who wanted to settle scores.
He said nothing. The last time he had been with the family, in the south of France, they had been attacked. How could he possibly tell them that it had happened a second time? Sabina would never want to see him again. It was much better to persuade himself that he was wrong, that he was tired, that he had an overactive imagination.
