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And it was obviously something important. He was hopping on the spot, his expression frantic, his arms waving wildly towards the sea.
‘Who is cut off from what?’ She winced inwardly as she listened to herself. Since when had she been unable to form words properly? To focus on a problem in hand?
‘The twins. They were playing.’
‘Twins?’ Alice shielded her eyes from the evening sun and stared out across the beach, her eyes drawn to two tiny figures playing on a small, raised patch of sand. All around them the sea licked and swirled, closing off their route back to the beach. They were on a sand spit and the tide was turning. ‘Oh, no…’
Finally she understood what Henry had been trying to tell her and she slid her hand in her pocket and reached for her mobile phone even as she started to run towards the water. ‘I’ll call the coastguard. Where’s their mother, Henry? Have you seen Harriet?’ She was dialling as she spoke, her finger shaking as she punched in the numbers, aware that Gio was beside her, stripping off as he ran.
The boy shook his head, breathless. ‘They were on their own, I think.’
Alice spoke to the coastguard, her communication brief and succinct, and then broke the connection and glanced around her. They couldn’t possibly have been on their own. They were five years old. Harriet was a good mother. She wouldn’t have left them.
And then she saw her, carrying the baby and weighed down by paraphernalia, walking along the beach and calling for the twins. Searching. She hadn’t seen them. Hadn’t seen the danger. And Alice could hear the frantic worry in her voice as she called.
‘You go to Harriet, I’ll get the twins,’ Gio ordered, running towards the sea, his long, muscular legs closing the distance.
The tide was still far out but she knew how fast it came in, how quickly those tempting little sand spits disappeared under volumes of seawater.
She ran with him, aware that Henry was keeping up with them. ‘Henry, go to the cliff and get us a line.’ She barked out the instruction, her throat dry with fear, her heart pounding. ‘You know the line with the lifebuoy.’ She knew the dangers of entering the water without a buoyancy aid. ‘Gio, wait. You have to wait. You can’t just go in there.’
For a moment the kiss was forgotten. The ice cream was forgotten. Nothing mattered except the urgency of the moment. Two little boys in mortal danger. The weight of responsibility.
‘In a few more minutes those children will be out of reach.’
Alice grabbed his arm as they ran. Tried to slow him. Tried to talk sense into him. The sand was rock hard now as they approached the water’s edge and then finally she felt the damp lick of the sea against her toes and stopped. ‘You’re not going into that water without a line. Do you know how many people drown in these waters, trying to save others?’ Her eyes skimmed his body, noticed the hard, well-formed muscles. He had the body of an athlete and at the moment it was clad only in a pair of black boxer shorts.
‘Stop giving me facts, Alice.’ His expression was grim. ‘They’re five years old,’ he said roughly, ‘and they’re not going to stand like sensible children on that spit of sand and wait to be rescued. What do you want me to do? Watch while they drown? Watch while they die?’ Concern thickened his accent and she shook her head.
‘No, but—’
‘Get me a buoyancy aid and go to Harriet,’ he urged as he stepped into the water. He caught her arm briefly, his eyes on her face. ‘And remember emotions when you talk to her, Alice. It isn’t always about facts.’
He released her and Alice swallowed and cast a frantic glance up the coast. She knew the lifeboat would come from that direction. Or maybe the coastguard would send the helicopter. Either way, she knew they needed to hurry.
From the moment he plunged into the water she could see that Gio was a strong swimmer, but she knew that the tides in this part of the bay were lethal and she knew that it would only take minutes for the water level to rise. Soon the spit of sand that was providing the twins with sanctuary would vanish from under their feet.
She could hear them screaming and crying and closed her eyes briefly. And then she heard Harriet’s cry of horror.
‘Oh, my God—my babies.’ The young mother covered her mouth with her hand, her breathing so rapid that Alice was afraid she might faint.
‘Harriet—try and stay calm.’ What a stupid, useless thing to say to a mother whose two children were in danger of drowning. She took refuge in facts, as she always did. ‘We’ve called the coastguard and Dr Moretti is going to swim out to them. Henry Fox is getting the buoyancy aid.’
‘Neither of them can swim,’ Harriet gasped, her eyes wild with panic, and Alice remembered what Gio had said about remembering emotions.
She swallowed and felt helpless. She just wasn’t in tune with other people’s emotions. She wasn’t comfortable. What would Gio say? Certainly not that the ability to swim wouldn’t save the twins in the lethal waters of Smuggler’s Cove.
‘They don’t need to swim because the coastguard is going to be here in a moment,’ she said finally, jabbing her fingers into her hair and wishing she was better with words. She just didn’t know the right things to say. And then she remembered what Gio had said about touch. Hesitantly she stepped closer to Harriet and slipped an arm round her shoulders.
Instantly Harriet turned towards her and clung. ‘Oh, Dr Anderson, this is all my fault. I’m a useless mother. Terrible.’
Caught in the full flood of Harriet’s emotion, Alice froze and wished for a moment that she’d been the one to go in the water. She would have been much better at dealing with tides than with an emotional torrent.
‘You’re a brilliant mother, Harriet,’ she said firmly. ‘The twins are beautifully mannered, tidy, the baby is fed—’
‘But that isn’t really what being a mother is,’ Harriet sniffed, still clinging to Alice. ‘A childminder can do any of those things. Being a mother is noticing what your child really needs. It’s the fun stuff. The interaction. And I’m so tired, I just can’t do any of it. They wanted to go to the beach so I took them, but I was too tired to actually play with them so I sat feeding the baby and then I just lost sight of them and they wandered off.’
Alice watched as Gio climbed onto another sand spit. Between him and the twins was one more strip of water. Treacherous water.
