Petra reached the edge of the rippled sand where the mud began. Clothilde’s shoes lay discarded on the sand, at least she’d had the sense to get rid of them, but sweet heaven, what was she to do now? It was a desperate question and the answer equally so. Still shouting at Clothilde to stop running, she gathered up her patchwork skirt, and gingerly took a step forward, feeling the mud seep around her toes. As she took another step she heard another voice, calling behind her.

“For God’s sake, Petra, stay where you are.”

She looked over her shoulder. Guy was racing down the beach toward her. He held a life ring, one of the many hooked onto poles left by the Coast Guard lifeboat crews along the sands. Petra couldn’t imagine what good it would do in the present crisis, and she couldn’t for the life of her imagine what Guy was doing here or how he could have appeared so suddenly. She ignored his command and stepped forward again, carefully, trying to step as lightly as possible on the surface of the mud flat. It was still shallow and sucked against her ankles.

A few yards ahead of her she saw that Clothilde had at last stopped, but she wasn’t moving at all, just standing stock still and Petra realized that the deeper mud had snared her. It was thick, viscous and deadly. She shaded her eyes against the sun and looked to the horizon. The silvery glimmer of the sea caught her eye and a cold dread ran down her spine. The tide, the notoriously fast tide of Weston, was coming in.

Desperately she took another step toward Clothilde, then another. She could hear Guy behind her. “Stand still,” he shouted. “I’m coming.”

Petra couldn’t imagine what good it would do if they were both stuck. She looked around. A stranded dinghy lay half on its side a few steps away. At least it was solid. She tiptoed sideways, and by some miracle the mud loosened around her toes as she lifted her heels as high as she could. Another step, and then another, and she could grasp the side of the dinghy. She was safe now. All she had to do was swing herself up and into the boat and wait for the incoming tide to lift it out of the mud. But Clothilde was several yards away and stuck fast with a rapidly rising tide.

“I can’t move,” the Frenchwoman called, sounding numb.