ROGER SUMPTION QC

Did he stay?

HARRIET KEALTY

No. He ran away.

ROGER SUMPTION QC

And the child?

HARRIET KEALTY

Elliot had come out from the trees. When the defendant saw him, he grabbed the boy and dragged him away. He left me alone. He left me alone there to face what he had done.

ROGER SUMPTION QC

And to be clear, the defendant kicked Sabih Khan over the edge?

HARRIET KEALTY

Yes. He kicked him over the edge. He killed him.

Chapter 29

Harri stood in the darkness and watched Ben Elmys take Elliot Asha into the forest. She wanted to go after them and snatch the child away from that foul man, but her friend and former partner was lying in the ravine. She had no idea whether he was alive or dead. He’d cried out as he’d fallen, and Harri tried not to think about the thud she’d heard, preferring to believe she’d imagined it. The odds of someone surviving a fall like that were . . . well, she couldn’t bring herself to think about that. Her friend needed help. The sirens were some distance away, and the helicopter had banked south, probably looking for somewhere safe to land.

Harri gave up any thought of pursuing Ben and Elliot, and turned to carefully check the foliage around the edge of the ravine. She took her phone from her pocket and used the torch to search the undergrowth. She moved north and when she was a few yards from the spot where Sabih had fallen, she saw a flat slab. She pushed through the gorse and bushes. There were stone steps that descended into the ravine. They were damp, but the gritstone wasn’t slippery, and she hurried down as quickly as her legs would carry her.

The ravine was about twenty feet wide, and its high walls were covered in lichen and moss that glowed an electric green in the moonlight. It was a few degrees cooler at the bottom, and the chill coupled with her gradual emergence from shock made Harri’s skin tingle. Her stomach was churning and she felt the clammy grip of nausea threaten to overwhelm her. She ran from the foot of the steps along the muddy ravine floor to the spot where Sabih had landed, and when she saw his twisted body splayed like a broken toy and his blank unblinking eyes, she knew he was gone.

But she had to do something. She had to try to bring him back, so she ran to him, kneeled beside his body, checked his airway, and pounded out chest compressions. High above, she heard shouts and indistinct voices.

‘Here!’ she yelled. ‘Down here!’

She was crying now, and her tears rolled down and hit Sabih’s face like heavy rain, tracing little brooks of sadness across his lifeless skin.

‘Help!’ she shouted. ‘Down here!’

Harri saw a pool of light materialize nearby, then another, and finally a third caught her and Sabih. She looked up and squinted into the glare of spotlights gathered at the edge of the ravine.