He witnessed the next two seconds in slow motion and dived sideways, to the ground, as his brain was overtaken by what was unfolding above him, and instinct took control of his large motor skills. He saw the machine slow down and the tail blade come off first, and he watched as it floated silently down towards the lake. Then he stood helpless as the rest of the helicopter seemed to slow dangerously and then hover, and then it began to rotate dreadfully.

There was a screaming whir as it spun faster and faster, and descended towards the racers behind him, who didn’t know what was happening until they looked ahead, at him, and then skywards, and in the half second before they were crushed by the metal missile, they’d been distracted by why the great Glynn Cortantes had stopped running.

He could see in their eyes that they momentarily thought they could catch him, now he had stopped, unaware of the true reason he’d thrown himself to the ground. He became aware of the pain in his shoulder, and realised he had hit it on a rock. He hid his head in his hands as an explosion rocked the mountainside behind him. His knees came up to his chest and flying debris rushed past his body as he curled tightly into a ball, placing his arms as far around himself as he could to protect his organs. In the moment before the fireball subsided, and the rush of air sucked every sense of feeling out of his ears, he realised that if a piece of metal belonging to any part of that helicopter hit him, neither his hands nor his T-shirt would save him. He braced himself for impact. But it never came.

Then silence.

Chapter 6

Major Lance Tatterall breathed deeply, and took in as much of the pure mountain and lake air as he could, willing himself to remember this moment forever, to cherish and take back with him when he had to return to his ordinary life, which he kept running from.

He was holidaying in the Lake District, a kind of mental break, some decompression from the demons in his head. He’d spent the last twenty years flying helicopters; mainly Apaches. Now he’d made the dizzy heights of promotion to chief instructor for the Army Aviation Centre in Middle Wallop in Hampshire.

He’d come here alone. It was time to reflect and make decisions on whether he wanted to remain in the army or divorce it, after a painful twenty-year romance. The same was true of his marriage, but the Lakes had at least given him the space to park that to one side of his head, and embrace the peace and quiet.

That serenity had just been blown apart by something up on the mountainside, and he stood stock still, trying to work out if it was a trick of his imagination.