Chapter 21
I didn’t even make it halfway through the warming mug of marshmallow-topped hot chocolate Dorothy had quickly whipped up while Jamie was driving Hayley back to town.
‘I can’t just sit here and do nothing,’ I said, dumping my mug back on the table and looking at the concerned faces around me. ‘Are you absolutely sure he isn’t anywhere here in the hall?’
‘We’ve checked the playroom and the lofts,’ said Mick, ‘twice.’
‘And every other room we can think of,’ added Catherine with a shake of her head.
‘He’s been nosing about in the stables quite a bit during the last few days,’ I said, my brain ticking over as I tried to think about all of the other places he could possibly be.
I didn’t even want to entertain the idea that he might be hurt somewhere outside and unable to alert us as to his whereabouts.
‘I’ve looked in there,’ said Mick. ‘In the stables and up in the hayloft.’
I glanced up at the clock on the wall.
‘And the woods,’ I asked. ‘What about there?’
‘Jamie and I have been working out there today,’ Mick confirmed. ‘We would have seen him. We’ve even had Molly on the case. If Angus was somewhere in the woods, she’d know about it.’
‘Well, I can’t just sit here,’ I said again.
‘But didn’t Jamie say to wait?’ Dorothy reminded me.
‘He did,’ I said, standing up and pulling on my coat again, ‘but I have to do something. It’s getting really cold out there now and if he isn’t in here somewhere then he must be outside.’
Dorothy nodded and Catherine didn’t try to stop me.
‘I’ll take a torch,’ I said, ‘and Mick, will you check the playroom just once more, just to be sure?’
‘Will do,’ he said, also abandoning his drink.
‘I’ll probably be back before Jamie, hopefully with Angus in tow, but I’ve got my phone in case you find him before I do.’
It was freezing outside and the sky was clear, the stars bright. I didn’t know where I was going to look that hadn’t already been investigated, but I headed towards the stable yard looking for clues. It didn’t take many seconds to find one.
The yard itself was decidedly empty and I couldn’t believe that no one had taken on board the fact that the little tractor and cherry picker had been moved. Penny to a pound, if I found them, I’d find Angus. Pulling my coat tighter around me I set off into the garden. I’d give it ten minutes and if I hadn’t found him by then I’d just go back to the hall and call 999.
Stumbling along, I’d soon visited every spot in the garden that was accessible to such cumbersome equipment and I jogged back towards the hall to see if there was any sign of either Angus or the machinery around the actual building. Scanning up and down, my torch missed the muddle of cables on the path and as I stepped into them, they snagged around my ankle and sent me sprawling.
‘Shit,’ I muttered as I pulled myself to my feet and felt a warm trickle running from my knees down the inside of my jeans. ‘Shit.’
Two grazed knees for Christmas, how lovely, but at least I’d found my quarry.
‘Angus!’ I shouted, as the beam of my torch sought out the silhouette of the cherry picker at full stretch leaning up the side of the hall. ‘Angus!’
Mick had been telling him not to use the wretched thing because it kept getting stuck, but the daft old bugger had obviously ignored him and was now doubtless trapped in the bucket, which was almost as high as the eaves. But what was he doing up there? I looked again at the muddle of cables and the ‘eureka’ moment struck. Of course! That would account for the plethora of parcels. He was putting up Christmas lights, no doubt trying to surprise everyone by doing a Clark Griswold.
‘Angus!’ I called again.
He had to be up there, but why wasn’t he answering? I tried pressing the button to lower the blasted bucket and pulled at the levers but nothing happened. I hesitated just for a second, then sent Jamie a text explaining where I was and what I thought had happened and then I began to climb.
It hadn’t looked so far from the ground, but when I heard the gravel crunching below, far below, as footsteps came running and I dared to look down I soon realised I wouldn’t survive the fall without a fair few broken bones.
‘What the actual fuck are you doing?’ shouted Jamie.
‘What, in life?’ I called back. ‘Or right at this moment?’
My attempt to make light of my foolish decision didn’t go down well at all.
‘Are you completely mad?’
He sounded absolutely furious and I hoped my hunch about his father was right because it was the only thing that was going to help me survive his wrath. Now was certainly not the time to remind him that the hall did at least have a comprehensive public liability insurance policy should I slip and break my neck.
‘I’m sure he’s up here!’ I called down.
I tried to shake my hair out of my eyes and my hands slipped a little against the icy drainpipe I was attempting to climb up. Had it not been for the ivy clinging to the walls and the gnarled trunk of the ancient wisteria which was giving me a reasonable foothold, I don’t think I would have made it far at all.
‘Jesus, Anna!’ Jamie bawled. ‘You’re going to kill yourself!’
My arms were aching by the time I was level with the bottom of the bucket, but there was no way I was going back down.
‘He’s definitely in there,’ came a voice from somewhere high above my head. ‘I can see him.’
It was Mick. He was at the very top of the house, leaning out of a window and looking down.
‘But he’s not moving.’
I wondered for a moment if it would have been better, safer even, if I had climbed out of the window and down, but thinking about the wide ledges up there I knew I couldn’t have summoned the courage to go over the edge, and anyway it didn’t matter now. The only way was up, and quickly before my arms gave up completely.
Using the last of my energy and throwing out what had to be the most unusual wish to the Wishing Tree, I let go of the drainpipe, momentarily trusting the strength of the ivy, and made a sideways grab for the edge of the bucket before hauling myself inside.
‘Yes, he’s here!’ I shouted down to Jamie. The whole machine swayed as I leant over the side. ‘But he isn’t conscious.’
Mick’s head disappeared from view and, in the torchlight, as best I could, I put into practice the first-aid skills everyone hopes they’ll never have to use when they turn up to take the course. In the tiny space I manhandled Angus into the best recovery position I could manage and stripped off as many warm layers to cover him in as I dared without risking hypothermia myself. It was a huge relief to hear him groan as I shuffled about in the cramped conditions.
‘I’m going to throw some blankets down,’ said Mick.
A coat would have been better, but I was grateful for anything he could quickly lay his hands on.
‘And the ambulance is here,’ Jamie called up, rushing away in the dark to give them directions.
Unfortunately the fire crew took longer to arrive, no doubt because of the hazardous travelling conditions, and while I waited all I could think about was trying to get Angus warm and keep him breathing.
By the time I had shouted various details down to the paramedics I could see the blue beams of the fire engine lights flashing through the trees and into the wider landscape and knew that no matter how wonderful the display Angus had been planning, nothing would have been able to lift my spirits more than those lights telling me that help was on its way.
It took what felt like hours for Mick and the guys on the ground to try and work around the machine’s dodgy wiring, but eventually they freed the stuck mechanics and the contraption made its jerky descent, with me shaking like a leaf and hanging on for dear life inside. The glacial conditions finally began to have an impact as I gradually ran out of adrenalin, and my ankle and knees began to throb.
‘Jesus, Anna,’ scolded Jamie, once his father was safely transferred to the back of the ambulance and was being checked over. ‘Of all the dumb-arse things I’ve ever seen, that has to take first place.’
I knew he was only having a go at me because he was scared, but a quick thank you wouldn’t have gone amiss. Perhaps it would come later, when he’d had time to calm down.
‘I thought she was actually rather brave,’ winked the fireman who had lifted me out of the bucket and set me back on terra firma. ‘Her quick thinking has probably made all the difference to your dad.’
He tossed me another blanket to wrap around my shoulders, as I still hadn’t got back the clothes I had stripped off to try and raise Angus’s temperature.
‘Have you ever thought about joining the fire service?’ the guy carried on. ‘We could use a nimble little thing like you to help us out in tight spots.’
I felt myself blush and Jamie muttered under his breath before stalking around the side of the hall to where the ambulance was parked. I hobbled on behind as best I could and listened in on the conversation.
‘Looks like hypothermia,’ the paramedic explained, ‘and possible concussion. We think he might have had a bump on the head.’
No doubt it was hard for them to tell with Angus.
‘He’s a bit out of it,’ carried on the younger attendant, ‘but don’t worry, we’ve seen worse.’
‘This one might need a quick check-over,’ said Jamie, who had spotted my bloody knees.
‘No,’ I said, shaking my head. ‘You get off. I’m fine. It’s just a scratch from when I tripped over.’
Jamie shrugged and the crew slammed the ambulance doors shut before heading off.
‘I’ll go and tell Mum what’s happened,’ said Jamie as he watched the blue lights disappear from sight.
Fortunately, Dorothy had been able to keep Catherine inside the hall while the drama was playing out. Seeing her husband being loaded into the back of an ambulance was the last thing she needed. I looked up at the hall to see if I could spot any tell-tale cabling that would give Angus’s antics away, but as far as I could tell, there was nothing. Either he’d crashed out before he got started or he’d hidden the cables very well.
‘What are you looking at?’ asked Jamie, following my line of sight. ‘You haven’t had a bump on the head as well, have you?’
I ignored his churlish tone.
‘This was in the bucket,’ announced the fire chief, who came striding over with what looked like a rather large lump of masonry.
‘If that’s what hit him on the head,’ I tutted, ‘then no wonder he was out for the count. I wonder how long he’d been up there?’
‘And more to the point, why was he up there at all?’
Obviously Jamie hadn’t spotted the cables that were lying about, and I wasn’t about to fill him in.
‘Anyway,’ he said, taking the lump of brick, ‘I just need to go and talk to Mum. I’ll be back out in a bit.’
After telling Catherine what had happened, Jamie set off with his mother and Mick for the hospital and Dorothy made hot drinks for everyone who was left behind. In true Wynthorpe style she had even warmed a batch of sausage rolls in the Aga and, with no new emergency to attend, the crews gratefully piled into the kitchen and tucked in.
I had added as many layers as I could to my top half and was gingerly cleaning my knees when I looked up and spotted my rescuer standing over me and watching my progress with interest.
‘Could have been worse,’ he smiled when he realised I had caught him staring.
‘Could have been fatal,’ I said, shaking my head.
‘I was talking about what happened to you, not Angus.’
‘So was I,’ I said and we both laughed. ‘It was scary up there for a while.’
‘I can imagine.’
Given that he tackled raging infernos and untangled mangled metal for a living, my little drama must have looked like a walk in the park. My mind flitted back to Angus and his crazy one-man illumination project.
‘He’s a law unto himself, my boss,’ I tutted.
‘Oh we know that all right,’ sighed the calendar-worthy fireman. ‘It isn’t the first time we’ve been out here on a rescue mission.’
‘Really?’
‘Really,’ he nodded. ‘Have you heard about the time—?’
Whatever anecdote he was about to reveal was cut short by the radio the crew chief was carrying.
‘Right, lads,’ he said, abandoning his sausage roll, ‘time to go.’
‘Let me take you for a drink,’ said the cheeky guy next to me, ‘then I’ll tell you all about it without any interruptions.’
‘I don’t know,’ I said doubtfully. ‘That probably wouldn’t be a good idea.’
‘No time to argue,’ he said, making for the door. ‘Meet me in The Mermaid at six tomorrow night. I’m Charlie, by the way.’
And with that he was gone.