‘We leave in one minute!’ Poe shouted, racing down the stairs to get Bradshaw.
She looked at his expression, nodded once and ran up the stairs to get dressed.
Good girl. No messing about, no asking why.
Poe tried to call Nightingale.
‘Pick up, pick up,’ he urged.
Nothing. Not even a dial tone.
He checked the screen. It said, ‘No service’.
‘Shit!’
He didn’t waste time trying again. Signals going down were a common occurrence around Shap at the best of times and entirely predictable in extreme weather. He knew he wouldn’t get a signal until he was nearer a different cell-phone tower.
He gathered everything he could think of for what was going to be a dangerous journey to Shap Wells. He was confident that if he could reach his car then he could make it to the M6. As the only motorway in Cumbria it would still be open and, if the weather in the south of the county wasn’t as bad as it was in Shap, he’d be able to get to Snab Point on Walney Island within an hour.
He grabbed his coat and pulled on his boots. They had thick treads and wore well. He only had one pair of gloves and he’d have to give them to Bradshaw. He took the stairs three at a time and ran into his bedroom, yanking a pair of green army socks out of his chest of drawers. They were heavy and woollen and would work as mittens in an emergency. He stuffed them into his pocket. As he left his bedroom, Bradshaw emerged from the bathroom, fully dressed, a determined but scared look on her face.
‘What’s happening, Poe?’
‘I’ll tell you in the car but I think DI Flynn’s in trouble, Tilly. Serious trouble.’
She set her jaw and her myopic eyes turned to steel.
‘I’m with you all the way, Poe.’
A mile from Herdwick Croft and the quad slowed then stopped. Its wheels span without gaining traction.
He always had a shovel in the back in case he became an ‘unexpected item in the boggy area’ but the tyres were useless in snow this thick. He could spend fifteen minutes digging the quad out only to get stuck again a couple of yards farther on.
He turned to Bradshaw, shielded his eyes with his arm and shouted above the noise of the storm.
‘We’re stuck, Tilly! We’re on foot from here.’
She tightened the straps on her satchel and zipped up her jacket so it covered the lower part of her face. She nodded.
Poe bent his head, narrowed his eyes until they were almost shut and started walking.
The quad had taken them a mile, so Poe reckoned another mile on the same bearing would bring them to Shap Wells. He was worried, though. The swirling white dust had hidden his usual landmarks and he’d already veered too far to the left.
Bradshaw, lagging five yards behind him, was in danger of becoming part of the landscape – she was already little more than a crude outline of a human. He stopped and waited for her. Knew that if they were separated she’d get lost and freeze to death.
He removed his coat, took off his jumper and put his coat back on. He passed her one of the jumper’s arms and took hold of the other.
‘No arguing, I’m tethering you to me.’
No doubt like his own, her face was red raw. Although she was frightened, she smiled and gave him a double thumbs up. He knew she would keep going or die trying.
With the snow stinging his exposed cheeks and the wind’s savage blasts cutting through his sock-mittens and into his bones, Poe headed off in what he hoped was the right direction. He could barely see farther than his breath.
For ten minutes they slogged on, their feet crunching the snow and their breath fogging the air. They forced their way through snowdrifts and jogged down the side of slopes protected from the wind. Bradshaw was breathing heavily but so was he. The cold air was burning his lungs and, although he was used to physical activity, his recent illness had weakened him more than he’d realised. He was soon wheezing. Bradshaw, who had never knowingly exercised, didn’t complain once. Each time he caught her eye she smiled and gave him another thumbs up. He took strength from her.
He put his head down and kept going.
A tug on the jumper they were using as a tether made him turn. Bradshaw was pointing at something. He looked but couldn’t see anything. His eyes were permanently watering. Bradshaw’s were dry, probably because her glasses were shielding them from the worst of the wind. For once she could see farther than he could.