“Of course.” He adjusted his lens and turned around to take some panoramic pictures of the sea and the coastline.
She climbed down and went back inside to the spiralling stairs, through the lower chambers and then out of the fort. There was no one else here. The lone guard who’d let them in must have assumed everyone left with the tour and went off for his break or something. Her little red Toyota Aygo stood alone in the visitors’ car park.
Once behind the wheel and buckled in, she spent ten minutes checking through the guidebook for local attractions. A lighthouse at St Ann’s Head sounded like fun. Pierre reached to turn on the engine when a distant shout reached her.
“HELLO! ANYONE THERE?”
The call came from the sea but whoever was shouting was invisible below the cliff edge.
“HELLO?”
“HELP!”
“RAPUNZEL? HELLO!”
Camera guy. Pierre climbed out of the car and hurried back towards the fort and up to the tower room. Looking out of the window, she found him, still down on the beach, his hands cupped around his mouth as he called,
“HELLOOOOO. RAPUNZEL.”
“My name isn’t really Rapunzel,” she called back.
“Thank God.”
“Don’t say that, my real name might be much worse—”
“What?” he asked looking confused. “No, I’m glad you’re here, I need help.”
A quick look around showed her what the problem was. Having jumped a long way down, he couldn’t jump back up. There were no handholds in the stone wall, no way to climb. The cliff came to a sheer drop on all sides.
“Wait, I’ll try and find the tour. They only went to the bird sanctuary. I think the lady said, a couple of miles away.”
He looked even more worried. “Is there no one around? I’ve been calling and calling.”
“I don’t think so.”
“We don’t have time,” he said, glancing around. “I think the tide is rising.”
Sure enough, most of the stones scattered along the tiny beach had disappeared below the water. Only a couple of larger ones remained, and he stood on the highest of those. Soon enough, it too would be submerged. Camera guy was trapped.
“Let me see if I can find a number to call.”
She ran downstairs to where the guard had been sitting. Indeed, there was a poster behind him with a number for the Welsh Tourist Information, but even if they were open on a Sunday, her phone had no signal. She ran out to the car park and held it up turning this way and that. Nothing.
She ran back to the fort. Maybe there was a rope or something the camera guy could use to pull himself up.
Nothing.
It may be a crumbling ruin, but the place was well-kept and clean. Nothing even resembling a plank or a rope.
She went back to the window. Camera guy had climbed up to the highest edge of the rock. Even so, the water was already lapping at the heels of his boots. She remembered reading something about this once.When the tide comes, it rises faster than doubt in a fearful heart.
The young man was right up against the wall now.
“I can’t find anything, not even a phone signal in here, the walls are too thick. I need to drive out on the cliff to catch the network.”
He glanced up at her, opened his mouth to answer something, then changed his mind. But he didn’t really need to. She could see, as well as he, that the tide wasn’t going to wait for her.
“Can you swim?” she asked.
