The first time he regained consciousness, he didn’t open his eyes. Instead, he lingered on the image of Kerstin in her Barbour jacket, now holding a whiskey sour. But he was having difficulty breathing, so he let himself drift off. The next time he came to he had a horrible hangover, a thumping headache and a mouth as dry as a Bedouin in a sandstorm. Kerstin made her drinks too strong—she always had. The third time he saw a woman who he first thought was Kerstin, but when he realised he was mistaken, he closed his eyes again because he would never betray her, not Kerstin. After that he didn’t want to open his eyes again, because he could see what he wanted to see inside his eyelids—good people in beautiful places where there was freedom and air to breathe and no pain.

30. Jeanette

30

Jeanette

ONCE THE AUDI had disappeared, she instinctively set off down the slope without giving a thought to the fact that she was hardly dressed for that kind of escapade. It wasn’t far in terms of distance, but it was steep and the terrain inaccessible. She climbed and slithered down, occasionally setting stones rolling that caused her to slip and end up on her behind—but she didn’t care, simply getting up and struggling on. She had to get down there as quickly as possible—even if the price was a twisted ankle or torn coat.

Peter was slower off the mark, but he had stronger legs and caught up with her when she was almost at the bottom. While Jeanette ploughed her way through brush and scrub to the driver’s side of the car, he stopped.

“I don’t think I can,” he said. “You look first.”

“It doesn’t look good,” said Jeanette when she reached the car. “It looks dreadful.”

She wanted to cry—scream in fact. An awful scene lay before her: the car looked like an accordion, and the driver was squashed between the steering wheel and the rest of the crushed car. He was presumably dead, because his face was covered in blood, and he had a deep, unpleasant gash on his forehead and a large shard of glass in his throat. It was a scene from a horror film—this couldn’t be happening.

“Is anyone in the car alive?” Peter asked from a distance.

He had moved round to the back of the car now.

“I don’t think so,” said Jeanette. “I can only see the driver, and he seems to be alone. We have to try and get him out.”