a windowpane broken. This was on a window next to the door that led outside to the stream, and the door itself was off the latch. Fresh mud formed a clump on the step.
Although she knew she should have been frightened, or at least cautious, Daidre was, instead, infuriated by that broken window. She pushed the door open in a state of high dudgeon and stalked through the kitchen to the sitting room. There she stopped. In the dim light of the tenebrous day outside, a form was coming out of her bedroom. He was tall, he was bearded, and he was so filthy that she could smell him from across the room.
She said, ―I don't know who the hell you are or what you're doing here, but you are going to leave directly. If you don't leave, I shall become violent with you, and I assure you, you do not want that to happen."
Then she reached behind her for the switch to the lights in the kitchen. She flipped it and illumination fell broadly across the sitting room to the man's feet. He took a step towards her, which brought him fully into the light, and she saw his face.
She said, ―My God. You're injured. I'm a doctor. May I help?"
He gestured towards the sea. From this distance, she could hear the waves, as always, but they seemed closer now, the sound of them driven inland by the wind. ―There's a body on the beach,"
he said. ―It's up on the rocks. At the bottom of the cliff. It's...he's dead. I broke in. I'm sorry. I'll pay for the damage. I was looking for a phone to ring the police. What is this place?"
―A body? Take me to him."
―He's dead. There's nothing - "
―Are you a doctor? No? I am. Take me to him. We're losing time when we could otherwise be saving a life."
The man looked as if he would protest. She wondered if it was disbelief. You? A doctor? Far too young. But he apparently read her determination. He took off the cap he was wearing. He wiped the arm of his jacket along his forehead, inadvertently streaking mud on his face. His light hair, she saw, was overlong, and his colouring was identical to hers. Both trim, both fair, they might have been siblings, even to the eyes. His were brown. So were hers.
He said, ―Very well. Come with me," and he came across the room and passed her, leaving behind the acrid scent of himself: sweat, unwashed clothing, unbrushed teeth, body oil, and something else, more profound and more disturbing. She backed away from him and kept her distance as they left the cottage and started down the lane.
The wind was fierce. They struggled against it and into the rain as they made their way swiftly towards the beach. They passed the point where the valley stream opened into a pool before tumbling across a natural breakwater and rushing down to the sea. This marked the beginning of Polcare Cove, a narrow strand at low water, just rocks and boulders when the tide was high.
The man called into the wind, ―Over here," and he led her to the north side of the cove. From that point, she needed no further direction. She could see the body on an outcropping of slate: the bright red windcheater, the loose dark trousers for ease of movement, the thin and exceedingly flexible shoes. He wore a harness round his waist and from this dangled numerous metal devices and a lightweight bag from which a white substance spilled across the rock. Chalk for his hands, she thought. She moved to see his face.
She said, ―God. It's...He's a cliff climber. Look, there's his rope."
Part of it lay nearby, an extended umbilical cord to which the body was still attached. The rest of it snaked from the body to the bottom of the cliff, where it formed a rough mound, knotted skillfully with a carabiner protruding from the end.
She felt for a pulse although she knew there would be none. The cliff at this point was two hundred feet high. If he'd fallen from there - as he most certainly had - only a miracle could have preserved him.
There had been no miracle. She said to her companion, ―You're right. He's dead. And with the tide...Look, we're going to have to move him or - "