“Go after him—the old guy. Find him. Stop him. Now.” Then she said “Fucking hell” again, and peeled her shoes off.
Emma said, “Which direction did he go?”
The man in the blue coat pointed, and Emma ran.
Louisa climbed onto the wall and scanned the water. There was no sign of River. The rain was pummelling down, and she was already as wet as she’d ever been—she waited one second for someone to tell her not to be stupid, but the group had fallen unaccountably silent. There was a police car approaching, and police cars were famously loaded with heroes, and would soon deliver someone more professional, more trained, and more prepared to jump into the Thames. But the longer she hung here, the longer River spent underwater. Fucking hell, she thought again. But before the second syllable had formed, she was airborne, and then she wasn’t.
When he’d hit the water, his lights had gone out. Not far to fall, perhaps, but a little too far to be thrown: any surface was going to welcome him the way gravity welcomes the apple—it rattled him to the core; stole his breath, then swallowed his body, wrapping him in a bone-numbing cold that somehow held the promise of warmth later. And he didn’t know which way was up. He kicked, and seemed to move, but his lungs were bursting—he tried to turn, but everything felt heavy, his shoes, his coat, his limbs. Every action pushed him further into darkness. He couldn’t tell if his eyes were open. Soon his lungs would give up, and he would be forced to inhale. After that, the darkness would be complete.
His hand brushed something, he didn’t know what. He reached for it, but it was gone. And then he felt his body slowing down. Why fight it? He was in the river. It had been bound to end this way. He was drifting face down, and there was a light somewhere but it couldn’t reach him. He’d gone too deep. Slowly, slowly, River gave up. He breathed deep, and filled himself with water. After that, there were only two possible directions he could go. It was with some relief that he noticed he seemed to be heading upwards.
Most times of day the Thameside Path was kerb-to-wall joggers, only slightly less cavalier than cyclists in regard to legitimate pavement-users, but Emma was on her own as she hared under Blackfriars Bridge, its ice-cream colouring lost to the night and the weather. Everything was shades of grey, barring the odd blur in her peripheral vision—she was regretting those tequilas, regretting the beer they sandwiched, but was propelled onwards by the thought of having someone in her sights; a way to reclaim the day. Success would mean the sack of woe she’d laid out to Louisa in the bar could be knotted and dumped in the river.
Thoughts of Diana Taverner being dumped in that same sack, maybe with a couple of angry weasels for company, were a comfort . . .
Her breath was heavy, blood hammering in her ears, but there was a figure ahead of her so she ratched it up a notch, her footsteps echoing against the underside of the bridge. He must have heard her, but didn’t turn; he stepped, instead, into a halo of streetlight which transformed the rain into a torrent of gemstones, then disappeared up the flight of steps leading roadward.
Emma slipped, crashed into the wall, just managed to keep her balance—
Think.
A blue light was spinning on the other side of the road, a police car turning onto the bridge from the Embankment. A black van, too. The nasty squad. They’d be alert for mischief after Pentonville Road, and she had a gun in her pocket. Entirely legitimate, but accidents happened. She turned and went back down the steps. Level with the landing, upright in the Thames, sat a temporary structure bearing a winch or crane of some sort, alongside a workman’s hut and assorted junk impossible to make out in the dark. Whatever it was for, bridge maintenance or riverbed dredging, it was the only place the vanishing man could be. He must have jumped, and given how close behind him she was, must have done so without hesitation. Reached the landing, saw the platform, climbed onto the wall and jumped. Some nerve.
