It was then that she heard a noise, a thump. Swivelling, she saw nothing. There wasn’t anything out of place in the corridor, a halo of smoke around the door she’d left ajar, but nothing else. And then it struck her. The cellar. If Red had been searching for somewhere safe, he could just as easily have headed for the cellar. Why hadn’t she thought of that earlier?
The cellar door was wide open, and Fran hit the light switch as she began her descent, taking the first few steps without waiting for the slow energy-saving bulbs to flicker into life.
‘Red, are you down here?’
She called out as she descended, the words morphing into a strangled cry as her foot caught against something hard, tipping her centre of gravity too far forward. Sticking out a hand to try to steady herself, Fran heard something smash, and she was falling, the light blinking and illuminating the scene as she sprawled.
With no way to halt her forward momentum, Fran did her best to tuck and roll, but a sharp pain in her wrist as her hand collided with the stone step was followed by knees thudding against rock, and reflex action took over as she squeezed her eyes tight and waited for the next blow.
Tumbling her way down the stone staircase, impact after impact knocked the wind out of her. With her eyes closed, time stood still, and the only things Fran remained aware of were momentum and pain. Until, that was, Fran’s head connected with one of the steps. An unexpectedly sharp blow, the only benefit being that all the other painful parts of her body seemed to float away until she was left with nothing but starsand strange-coloured shapes stretching and flexing inside her eyelids, or maybe inside her head.
Fran couldn’t tell whether the darkness was because her eyes were closed, or because everything was disappearing in the gathering gloom. The stars extinguished one by one by the darkness, the colours fading until there was nothing but black, until Fran felt herself float away, too, and then the blackness itself disappeared and there was nothing at all.
Chapter 29
‘Where is she?’ Johnny shot along the corridor, barely aware of Noel repeating that he’d found Fran, that she was in the cellar, following the point of his brother’s finger without hesitation.
Johnny took the steps down at speed, hurdling the overturned box and slipping on spilt wine. He grabbed at the rope banister to steady himself, then took the rest of the steps at a more sensible clip.
The blood roared through his ears as he reached her. Johnny threw a silent prayer skywards, laced it with as many begging, ingratiating phrases as he could think of – hoped it might make up for a distinct lack of interest in all things religious, except curse words, up until this point in his life. Because it looked as though Fran was going to need all the help she could get. He’d recognise that hair anywhere, even if the gloss of chestnut had been dulled by a layer of what he assumed was ash. In fact, Fran was almost entirely coated with a thin, grimy layer. She must have been outside in the smoke. But it wasn’t the particles of smog sticking to her clothes and her hair that concerned Johnny as he reached her. Rather it was the grey hue of her skin underneath the dirt. The fact that she wasn’t moving. The creeping horror of not being able to tell whether she was even breathing.
She was way too still, her limbs far too sprawled. He rubbed the back of his fingers against her cheek, aware it was the first time he’d touched her. That he’d wanted this moment almost from the first time he’d laid eyes on her. But not like this.
‘Fran, can you hear me? It’s Johnny.’
He brushed strands of her hair away from her eyes and off her forehead, seeing the livid red gash up near her hairline and recoiling. His gasp brought Noel closer.
‘What is it?’ Noel peered over his shoulder and inhaled almost as sharply. ‘Shit, that doesn’t look good. Is she breathing?’
‘I don’t know.’ Johnny bent closer, a vague memory surfacing from one of the many disaster movies he’d watched of someone using a mirror held above the person’s lips to check for condensation. But he didn’t have a sodding mirror. Perhaps he’d be able to feel her breathing. He held a hand millimetres away from her mouth but felt nothing. In desperation, he brought his cheek as close to her as he could, willing himself to feel the gentle puff of air against his skin.
‘Christ, Johnny … Is she …?’
There was no need for the final word, they both knew what Noel was unable to say out loud.
‘Shut up, Noel. I can’t tell.’
Never had Johnny felt this useless. He’d come close when Natalie had given birth to Estelle, but they’d been surrounded by a team of healthcare professionals, so …
‘Either way, we need to get her out of here.’
For once in his life, Noel was speaking sense and Johnny nodded, scraping himself around on the rough flagstones, lining himself up to be able to lift her. As he slid an arm beneath her shoulders, a micro-movement in her expression had him pausing. He waited, breath held, until it came again. The tiniest of frowns, joined this time by a feather-soft groan.
‘Fran? Can you hear me? It’s Johnny.’
‘Ohnny …’ The frown deepened as the word came out as a groan, a hand moved up and her fingers zeroed in on the gash on her forehead. ‘Hurts.’
‘It’s OK, you bashed your head. But you’re all right.’ Johnny couldn’t stop himself breaking into a relieved grin. ‘You’re going to be all right.’
‘Thank Christ for that,’ Noel said.
‘You’re in the cellar, Fran. Do you remember coming in here?’
‘Fell down the stairs. Tripped …’ Fran’s eyelids fluttered and then opened a slit, as though they were too heavy for her to lift them. ‘Red might be down here.’
Johnny did his best to keep his expression level. There was no way the cat would have survived being anywhere near that fire, let alone made his way into the chateau. ‘We need to get you out of here. There’s a fire, remember?’
‘Fire everywhere,’ she said, mumbling out words. ‘Red’s tree is on fire.’
