‘Jesus,’ was his response, and there were a lot of confused stares among those left in the courtroom echoing his sentiment.

Then Johnny was beside her. She looked at him and knew what he was thinking. They looked at each other’s clothes.

‘I’ve got running kit in the car,’ she said.

He nodded. ‘Let’s go.’

Chapter 8

People use the words ‘disaster’ and ‘emergency’ too often. When it actually happens no one really knows what to do. Decisions aren’t made as the catastrophe unfolds; rather, training undertaken over many years kicks in and instinct takes over, for those who have it. Those who don’t stand by helplessly and, more often than not, just get in the way. Dozens of race watchers scrambled up to the top of the mountain at the head of Wasdale, but few who reached the wreckage in the first hour actually knew what to do. On the mountainside, those who witnessed the crash couldn’t even get to the twisted metal, though they could hear screams.

It was too hot, too smoky, and too terrifying. Who ran towards danger? Only a psychopath. The families, friends and fell runners on the mountainside weren’t psychopaths; they were ordinary people. A small number of the folk on the tiny paths and tracks possessed simple first aid skills but those consisted of clearing airways on test dummies and positioning fully intact models on their sides in the recovery position. Real trauma was something that required high-level practice. In any scenario such as the one unfolding on the slopes of Scafell Pike, those who knew what to do took time to arrive, and meanwhile, people were dying.

Black smoke mingled with low-lying cloud, pieces of twisted metal and body parts, which were strewn everywhere. Spectators of the fell race, who were dotted along the whole route up Scafell Pike, screamed and ran in all directions, panicking and shaking from the adrenalin flooding their bloodstreams, becoming disorientated and making terrible decisions. One man ran along the Lingmell Col, which led down the Corridor route off the mountain, but he took a tumble down the cliff face towards Piers Gill, one of the most dangerous spots in the whole of the national park. It had been covered in cloud one minute and the next displayed in all its horrific glory as a gaping rocky ravine with sheer drops and terrifying rocky edges, only leading to the bottom. No one saw him disappear over the edge.

Shouts and moans floated on the wind, punctured by moments of absolute silence, as victims lost their grip on life.