CHAPTER TEN
THE impact stunned Kirsty. There was a sharp, hot pain across her chest that threatened to overwhelm her as she sank. But Susie’s hand was in hers. Susie was still with her and as she rose to the surface she felt Susie’s grip tighten.
They’d waited almost too long. Almost. The boat’s momentum had become their momentum, so they were in the wash of white water around the rocks. And there was a spray of wood around them. Splintering parts of the dinghy that had gone forward and smashed hard into the rocks. Without them.
They were safe?
Not yet.
Kenneth would still be concentrating on getting his boat clear, Kirsty thought in the vestige of brain she had left to think of things apart from breathing and staying afloat and ignoring the pain in her chest. He’d come so close that he’d have had to pull an almost one-eighty-degree turn to haul his boat away.
Susie was tugging her. Injured and pregnant as she was, Susie was rising to their need faster than Kirsty.
The waves were crashing against the rocks. This could be a maelstrom at times, but not today. Today the sea was kind. The waves weren’t so great they couldn’t fight them, and Susie’s hand was hauling her further into the white water rather than away from it.
In the white water lay their only protection. Kenneth mustn’t see them. Both of them knew that.
Their hope lay in him being too intent on hauling his boat away from the rocks to have seen what they’d done.
So they surfaced but they surfaced with fear. With their heads barely above the water, Susie made a tiny hand movement, a movement like that of a porpoise.
Maybe he’d picked the wrong twins for a watery death, Kirsty thought, fighting back pain, and for a moment she allowed herself a glimmer of hope. She and Susie had played water polo-had lived for the game as youngsters. Susie’s hand movement meant
A fast glance showed she was indicating the only gap in the line of rocks. The gap held a mass of white water but maybe it was possible. And if they could get through…
They couldn’t do it with linked hands and both of them knew it. Susie’s legs were so weak she’d be slow, but the pain in Kirsty’s chest meant that she’d be limited as well. She’d cracked a rib, she thought, and gave herself a tiny test. Breathe in. Breathe out. It hurt but her breathing wasn’t impeded.
Maybe she hadn’t punctured a lung.
Susie’s hand was squeezing hers and her eyes were questioning. She’d know Kirsty was in pain.
But they had no choice and both of them knew it.
And amazingly she did it. Kirsty used her feet, kicking hard under the surface of the water, duck-diving, ignoring the scream of protest in her chest.
Somehow she found the gap. The waves were crashing against her, pushing her sideways. She had to surface just for a moment to reorientate, to breathe, but the gap was right where she’d seen it and down she went again- and through.
Through.
She surfaced.
And then she had to wait. Only for seconds, but they stayed as some of the longest seconds in her life. Please, let Susie be safe. How could she get through? Her legs had no strength. She was eight months pregnant. Eight months pregnant! Please…
And then the water exploded beside her and her twin was with her, and she was even laughing!
This was the Susie who’d been at her side since childhood, a tomboy, a reckless, brave, laughing hothead who’d chosen landscape gardening as a profession because she’d loved playing in mud, and whose light had only been dimmed by Rory’s death. Somehow in the past few days the old Susie had started to resurface, and now Kenneth’s threats had lifted her right back to life.
‘Let him get us now,’ Susie said. She grabbed Kirsty’s hands and they were treading water behind the rocks. Their heads were still barely above the water and there were waves breaking between them and the horizon. Even if Kenneth brought the boat round to their side of the rocks, he wouldn’t be able see them. The only way he could was to bring his boat so far that he’d risk his own boat being smashed.
How long should they stay there?
How long would Kenneth wait? He’d see that their boat was a splintered mess. He would assume that they’d be injured at the very least, desperately injured and miles from the mainland.
He wouldn’t wait long, Kirsty thought, and they could stay treading water.
‘What’s hurting?’ Susie asked.
‘I think I might have cracked a rib,’ Kirsty told her. ‘No drama. How about you?’
‘I can tread water for hours.’
No, she couldn’t, Kirsty thought. She wasn’t as strong as she’d thought. The adrenalin was high now, but after an hour or so in the water…
Maybe they could get up onto one of the rocks. In a little while she’d check and see if it was possible.
But not yet. Not yet.
Jake, you have to find us.
The beach was deserted, but there were signs that there’d been people there. There were footsteps in the sand. Three different ones. Two smaller-women’s. One larger. And a dog’s pawprints.
There was a deep indentation in the sand. A boat had been dragged up here and then dragged off again.
He had them in a boat, Jake thought, his heart almost stopping. Where…?
‘We’ll call in the chopper.’ Fred Mackie, Dolphin Bay’s only policeman, was looking as grim as Jake felt. ‘If it’s not being used, they can get here in less than half an hour.’
‘Half an hour.’
Fred’s hand was on Jake’s shoulder. ‘Meanwhile I’ll have every boat out of harbour searching.’
‘If he kills them at sea…’
‘He’s mad but not that mad,’ Fred said, uneasily, though, since Fred had known Kenneth as a boy. ‘I’ll call in the psychiatric crisis assessment team.’
The phone sounded on Jake’s belt. If he’d been sensible, Jake wouldn’t have answered it, but he answered automatically.
‘Jake?’
It was Angus. What the hell?
‘They’re saying he has the girls.’ Angus sounded breathless and desperately worried.
‘Now, don’t-’
‘Don’t protect me,’ Angus snapped. ‘The nurses here have been doing that. I knew something was wrong. Word travels round this place faster than you’d believe, and the girl who came to take my obs looked sick. Wouldn’t tell me why and that made me think it had to be Kenneth. So I rang Ben Boyce and he’s with me now.’
‘Don’t worry-’
‘Of course I’m worrying,’ he snarled. ‘I should have found the strength to say something this morning. I saw Spike and I knew it had to be him. The thing is…I know where he might have taken them.’
‘Where?’
‘He’s dead scared of guns,’ Angus said. ‘Fascinated by them but when they go off he turns to jelly. His father used to tease him with them, which helped a whole lot, I don’t think. I’m telling you now that he might threaten them with a gun but I doubt he’d use it. But if he wanted to do mischief…’
‘Tell me.’
‘There’s Rot-Tooth Rocks,’ Angus said, and Jake thought he should stop him now because he could hear from Angus’s whispered speech that the old man was pushing himself past the limit to impart what he felt he ought to. ‘A line of rocks about two miles out to sea. Nor-nor east. You look on a nautical map…’
