He had decided to obey all his instructions meticulously, including not bringing a torch, but he could really have done with one. He just hoped he didn’t break his neck before even encountering Deep Throat.
There was barely a breath of wind, which was why the night was so unseasonably warm. Yet visibility was so bad he thought that the darkness of the night was probably being intensified by a sea mist. He really did feel as if he were engulfed in a slightly clammy blanket, a feeling he thought was unique to the coast, particularly in foggy conditions. Certainly, he had experienced nothing like it inland anywhere in the world. It was strangely disorientating. Momentarily, Kelly lost his sense of direction, and only the sound of the waves gently lapping on the shingly beach told him that the sea was to his right, and the wooded hill leading up to Babbacombe proper and the main drag into Torquay was to his left. There was no other sound at all. You could hear no passing traffic noise down at Babbacombe beach, of course, and the lack of wind made the night almost eerily silent.
Kelly stood for a minute listening. Was there someone else already on the beach, he wondered? Not only could he not see anything, but neither could he hear anything. He began to pick his way over the shingles, straight along the beach as he had been instructed, startlingly aware of the rhythmic thumping of his heart, which, in the otherwise intense silence, seemed unnaturally loud. He slid each foot cautiously in front of the other. Once, a particularly large pebble caused him to stumble for a second time, but this time he righted himself immediately and continued to move painstakingly forwards.
Visibility was so poor that he almost walked into the cliff at the far end of the beach, unaware that he had even reached it. And he paused for a moment before adhering to his instructions once more, turning on his heel and shuffling back along the beach.
Twice more he repeated this manoeuvre, and, just as he had almost reached the far cliff for the third time and was beginning to wonder if he was the victim of an elaborate hoax, it happened.
Suddenly he sensed that someone was behind him. He had neither heard nor seen anything, but all his senses told him that there was another presence on the beach and that it was threateningly close to him. The beat of his heart not only seemed extraordinarily loud now, he was also aware that it was much faster than usual, indeed his heart was racing. He tried to turn around, and opened his mouth to speak, or maybe to scream. He wasn’t sure. It didn’t matter. He was not given the chance to do either.
With no further warning, an arm locked around his throat and he felt the pressure of a large, strong body against his back. The crook of his assailant’s elbow locked beneath his chin, crushing his larynx. Kelly raised his own arms and lashed out with them frantically in all directions, desperate to make any kind of contact. A second arm from behind knocked his down to his side and pinned them there. The grip around his throat felt like steel and was tightening. He was being choked. Then he was aware of his attacker shifting his balance.
Oh, my God, thought Kelly. This is it. This is really it. I am going to die. This time, I really am going to die.
He forced himself to think. He realised he probably had only a few seconds of life left. Kelly knew a bit about unarmed combat. Certainly enough to be aware that his assailant was a professional. And Kelly reckoned he knew exactly what was coming next. He steeled himself for the sickening thud of a knee in the small of his back, before his head would be jerked back and his neck broken. Swift, silent and brutally efficient.
He struggled to clear the black fog inside his head, which was now every bit as dense as that outside.
He had once, briefly, undergone self-defence training with an elite para unit. The purpose had allegedly been to write a feature for his newspaper, but Kelly at the time was travelling the world seeking out the worst trouble spots. He had already been kidnapped by guerrilla forces in a remote part of a war-torn African state, and had had a narrow escape. So he’d paid close attention to his brief experience of military training, reckoning it might one day save his life. But he had never before had occasion to use any of the manoeuvres he had learned, and had no idea whether, even if he could remember what to do, he would stand a chance of executing any of it. Particularly against a professional. Kelly was twenty-odd years older, and carried a couple of stone more weight, almost all of it around his belly, than he had back then. And there was also the little matter of not one, but two drug and alcohol detoxes along the way.
Never mind, he told himself. He knew it was brain power which counted for most, in these situations, rather than brute force. He forced his brain to work. To remember. To maintain the discipline not to lose control even as death looms. To tell his body what to do. But the fog inside his head was already impenetrable.
So instead, he abandoned all thoughts of conjuring up some magical move of self-defence from the distant past, and merely struggled mindlessly, trying to slide his body down and away from the steel-like grip. Quite frantic now, he wriggled and kicked with all his might. One thing he did remember, was that a moving target was always more difficult to dispatch, not that he could move very much.
However, his terror seemed to give him a kind of frenzied strength, and he thought he actually managed to kick his assailant sharply on one shin — certainly, the grip around his throat suddenly slackened just enough for him to be able not only to breathe but to do the only other thing he could think of by way of a counter-attack. He yanked his head downwards and twisted his lower jaw as best he could in order to find his target, then buried his teeth into a section of what appeared to be exposed wrist, using all his strength to drive them into the bare flesh. The grip around his neck slackened totally then. Kelly realised two things. One was that he was no longer being strangled and, the other, that this slight reprieve would not last. After all, the grip of the second arm, the one pinioning his own arms to his body, had not slackened at all.
However, he took advantage of the brief, partial respite to cry out with all his might. Even in this moment of abject terror, logic told him that there was no one around to hear him — the pub and the pair of houses below it would both be tightly shut against such an unpleasant night and, in any case, were at the far side of the beach, but he didn’t know what else to do. And, curiously, he found that just the sound of his own voice, which he had thought he might never hear again, gave him some fleeting comfort.
‘No, no,’ he yelled as loudly as he could manage. ‘Help, help, help!’
But the moment was over in a flash, as he had expected it to be. The steel-like grip of his assailant’s arm locked around his throat again, once more crushing his larynx, not only making any further sound impossible but also again making it extremely difficult to breathe. Kelly could only gasp for air. His legs had turned to jelly. He felt his body begin to go limp, his eyes start to glaze over, and all reason begin to drain from his brain.
He prepared to die. And with what remained of his strength, he braced himself against the sickening thud he expected to feel at any moment in the small of his back.
But, instead, the grip around his arms and body slackened. It made little difference, however, and he was sure his assailant would have known that, because he had no strength left to put up any further fight. And he was certainly not able to even attempt to break free and escape. In any case, he knew he had no chance at all of getting away. Instead he half stood, half leaned against his attacker, barely breathing, like an old, broken, rag doll.