Dead Man's Footsteps

the van. Several more police officers were running towards it.
    Then he heard the scream again.
    Where the hell was his car?
    And he was suddenly filled with a terrible, sickening dread.
    No! Oh, Jesus, no!
    He heard the scream again.
    Then again.
    Coming from below the cliff-top.
    He staggered to the edge, then took a sharp step back. All his life he had suffered from vertigo and the sheer drop to the sea below was more than he could look at.
    ‘Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeelp!’
    He dropped on to all fours and began to crawl, aware of pains all over his body. He ignored them and made it to the edge, where he found himself looking down into the underside of his car, which was tangled up in several small trees, nose into the cliff, its tail out, balanced like a diving board. Two wheels were still spinning.
    The first part of this drop was a short, steeply woodedslope. It ended in a grassy lip, about twenty feet below, and then dropped sheer for several hundred feet, down on to rocks and water. It freaked Grace out and he pulled back to where he felt safer. Then heard the scream again.
    ‘Help me! Oh, God, help me! Please help me!’
    It was Cassian Pewe, he realized. But he couldn’t see the man.
    Fighting back his fear, he crawled to the edge again, looked down and shouted, ‘Cassian? Where are you?’
    ‘Oh, help me. Please help me. Roy, please help me.’
    Grace shot a desperate glance over his shoulder. But everyone behind him seemed occupied with the van and the Honda, which looked like it was going to go up in flames.
    He peered down again.
    ‘I’m going! Oh, for God’s sake, I’m going.’
    The sheer terror in the man’s voice jolted him into action. Taking a deep breath, he leaned down, gripped a branch and tested it, hoping to hell it would hold. Then he swung himself over the edge. Immediately his leather shoes slid down the wet grass and his arm, holding on to the branch, jerked painfully in its socket. And he realized in that instant that the only thing stopping him from sliding all the way down the sharp slope to the lip, then straight over into oblivion, was this one branch he was holding with his right hand.
    It was starting to come loose now. He could feel it pulling free.
    He was truly terrified.
    ‘Please help me! I’m going!’ Pewe screamed again.
    Panicking himself, Roy quickly found another branch, then, clinging on to it while the wind blasted at him, as if it was trying to prise him off the cliff, he dropped further.
    Don’t look down , he thought to himself.
    He kicked his toe into the side of the hill and got a small, slippery purchase. Then he found another branch. He was level with the grimy, partly buckled chassis of his car now. The wheels had stopped spinning and the car was rocking like a see-saw.
    ‘Cassian, where the hell are you?’ he shouted, trying not to look down below the car.
    The wind instantly ripped his words away.
    Pewe’s voice was muffled with terror. ‘Underneath. I can see you. Please hurry!’
    Suddenly, to Roy’s shock, the branch he was holding on to gave way. For one terrible moment he thought he was going to tumble backwards. Frantically he lunged out for another branch and grabbed it, but it snapped. He was falling, sliding down past the car. Sliding towards the grassy lip and the sheer drop. He grabbed another branch, which was covered in sharp leaves that slid through the palm of his hand, burning it, but it was young, springy and tough. It held, almost jerking his arm off. Then he found another one with his left hand and clung to it for dear life. To his relief, it was sturdier.
    He heard Pewe screaming again.
    Saw a massive shadow above him. It was his car. Perched twenty feet above him, like a platform. Rocking precariously. And Pewe was suspended upside down from the passenger door, his feet entangled in the webbing of his seat belt, which was all that prevented him from falling.
    Grace glanced down and immediately wished he hadn’t. He was right on the edge of the sheer drop. He stared for an instant at the water pounding the rocks. Felt the deadweight pull of gravity on his arms and the savage, relentless wind tearing at him. One slip. Just one slip.
    Panting, terrified, he started to kick out a toehold with his right foot. The branch in his right hand suddenly moved a fraction. He kicked harder at the wet, chalky soil and after some moments he had made a space big enough to jam his foot in and take his weight.
    Pewe screamed again.
    He would try