‘He’s gone!’ A young woman holding a tiny baby was running up and down the sand at the edge of the waves, frantically scanning the water. ‘He was in the boat and now he’s gone!’
‘I saw him.’ Fraser backed away from the mother and moved closer to Logan, instinctively seeking protection from the woman’s mounting hysteria and the baby’s howling. ‘We were up on the cliffs. He leant out of the boat with this bucket thing and a wave caught the boat and he fell. Straight down.’
The woman’s wails turned to screams and Logan took Fraser to one side, his tone urgent.
‘Where, exactly?’ He was ripping off his shirt as he spoke. ‘And how long ago did he fall?’
Fraser shrugged. ‘About two minutes? We started running down as soon as it happened. The wind’s blowing off shore so I suppose it was probably there.’ Fraser pointed. ‘You want me to go in and look?’
‘No. I want you to stay right here.’ Logan thrust his clothes into Fraser’s hands and handed him a mobile phone. ‘Call the coastguard on that and then go to my car and get my bag. Here are the keys. Then stay here with Evanna and do everything she says. Everything.’
‘OK.’ Fraser nodded importantly and punched the number into the phone. ‘I’ll give them the details. Be careful, Dr MacNeil.’
Logan looked at Evanna, his ice-blue eyes sharp and alert. ‘Beach duty.’
She nodded, reading his mind. He wanted her to coordinate efforts on the beach. He didn’t want any of the tourists plunging into the waves on a rescue mission, because they were likely to get into trouble. He didn’t want little Fraser going in. He wanted her to give support to the mother and then help the rescue services.
Logan lifted the buoyancy aid that he’d grabbed from the top of the beach and ran with a long-limbed, athletic stride towards the sea. At any other time she would have admired the strength and power of his body but the crisis was unfolding in front of her. The mother was screaming now, a thin, high-pitched panicky noise that cut through the air like a knife. A crowd had gathered in the way that humans always gathered when they scented disaster.
Kyla moved them back. ‘Come on, now. Nothing to see.’ Her tone was clipped. Efficient. ‘Move right back, please. Go to the far end of the beach. Right back. That’s right. We’re going to need to land a helicopter here.’
Fraser was speaking to the coastguard on the phone and Evanna turned to the mother and slid an arm round her shoulders.
‘You poor thing. You must be frantic with worry but try and calm down so that we can ask you some questions,’ she said gently. ‘How old is he?’
‘Six.’ The mother gave a gulp and jiggled the baby to try and soothe it. ‘He’s just six. Jason. He’s so little.’
‘And he was in some sort of boat?’
‘I only turned my back for a minute. I was changing the baby.’ She sucked air in and out of her lungs, her eyes wild. ‘It was just a minute.’
And a minute was more than long enough when water was involved, Evanna thought as she squinted towards the sea. ‘What boat?’ She couldn’t see a boat. Only a small toy blow-up boat of the sort that people used in swimming pools.
‘There! That’s it.’ The mother pointed to the toy. ‘We bought it in the beach shop on the quay.’
‘He was in that?’ Evanna couldn’t quite believe that anyone would have considered such a flimsy toy sufficient protection for a child in open water and her shock must have sounded in her voice because the woman stiffened defensively.
‘He was just playing near the shore. I thought he was fine. It was just for a minute…’ The woman was sobbing again, clutching at Evanna who supported her and glanced towards Fraser with a question in her eyes.
He slipped Logan’s phone into the pocket of his jeans and gave her a thumbs-up.
Evanna smiled her approval and watched as he sprinted across the sand, arms and legs pumping as he went to fetch Logan’s bag. ‘The lifeboat is on its way.’
The baby was red in the face from howling and Evanna glanced towards Kyla. She gave a nod and strode up to the woman.
‘Let me take the baby,’ she offered briskly. ‘One less thing for you to worry about.’
‘I don’t want to let her out of my sight.’
‘Kyla is a nurse at the local practice,’ Evanna said quickly. ‘We both are.’
‘Oh—in that case, I know I’m just upsetting her.’ Struggling with her own sobs, the woman handed the baby over and Kyla expertly tucked the squalling child against her shoulder and walked away.
Evanna calmed the woman as best she could and watched as Logan dived into the waves. He cut through the water with a powerful front crawl, reached the little boat and then made a guess as to where the boy might have fallen.
‘Wow.’ Fraser was standing beside her, Logan’s bag at his feet, his eyes wide with hero-worship as he stared. ‘Dr MacNeil must be diving down to look below the surface. He’s a brilliant swimmer, isn’t he, Nurse Duncan? He got a bronze Olympic medal, didn’t he? And he saved that kid two summers ago and it was all over the papers. I’m going to be a lifeguard when I’m older, like he was. And a doctor. He’s so cool.’
Evanna tried to look relaxed but the tension gripped her like a vice. ‘He’s a good swimmer, Fraser,’ she agreed, as much to reassure herself as the little boy and the mother.