Free Crocodile Tears by Anthony Horowitz Page A

Sabina grabbed hold of his arm. He opened his eyes. Alex let out a deep breath. He’d been about to try mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, and despite everything, a little part of him was relieved that it wasn’t going to be needed.
    Silver sparks crackled and exploded, hundreds of them, spread out across the darkness, then rained slowly down onto the loch.
    We’ve got to get help. Alex tried to speak, but he was so cold, he couldn’t make himself understood and the words came out as no more than single letters. “W-w-w . . . v-v-v . . . g-g-g . . .” His whole body was out of control. His teeth were chattering. The muscles in his neck and shoulders seemed to be locked rigid. He could see the snow settling on Sabina’s and her father’s hair. He had never been so cold. He hadn’t thought it was possible for the human body to continue functioning at this temperature. A few more minutes out here and the three of them would freeze solid.
    But the greatest miracle of the night was still to come. Alex heard the sound of footsteps on the shingle and turned around. There was a man hurrying toward them, carrying a blanket. He had appeared as if by magic. In fact, it seemed so unlikely that he was there at all that Alex wondered if he was hallucinating. It was impossible to make out the man’s features in the shifting colors of the night, but vaguely Alex registered the fact that he wasn’t dressed in black tie. He wasn’t a guest from the party.
    The man reached them. “I saw what happened!” he exclaimed. “I thought you must be dead. Are you all right? Can you move?”
    “Our car . . .” Alex pointed out at the loch. For a moment, the water blazed emerald green. A great circle of fire hung in the sky, then blinked out.
    “I know. I saw. We have to get you, quickly, into the warm.” The man draped the blanket over Sabina, and as he leaned forward another firework exploded, the glare revealing the side of his face. Alex saw that he was either Indian or Pakistani, a young man, in his very early twenties. As Sabina clutched the blanket and drew it around her shoulders, the man peeled off his coat and gave it to Alex. “Put this on,” he instructed. “Do you think you can walk? My van is just up on the road. It’s only five minutes from here. Once you’re inside, you’ll be okay.”
    Edward Pleasure was recovering his strength. He dragged himself up onto one elbow and broke into another fit of coughing. “What happened?” he asked. His voice was little more than a whisper.
    “Not now, sir. Not now. We have to go.”
    The fireworks display had come to an end. In the far distance, Alex heard clapping and the blare of plastic noisemakers and paper horns. Slowly, the three of them staggered to their feet. Sabina and Alex had to support Edward Pleasure, and all three of them needed the help of the man who had come out of nowhere. Somehow he managed to guide them across the beach with the snow whirling around them as if unwilling to let them go.
    A track led down from the main road and, on it, a white van sat with its headlights on and taillights blinking. The sight of it lent them new strength. They came off the shingle and threw themselves into the back.
    “Don’t worry!” Without his jacket, the man was shivering himself. He paused beside the doors. “I’ll take you to a hospital. You’ll be all right.” He closed the doors, locking them in.
    They were lying on the bare metal, a puddle of water surrounding them. Sabina was almost hidden in her blanket. Edward Pleasure was barely conscious. Alex heard the driver get into the front, and a few seconds later, they moved off. At the same time, he realized that his senses were returning. The man had turned the heat up to full and Alex could actually feel the warm breeze against his skin.
    It took them an hour to reach an Inverness hospital, and Liz Pleasure arrived two hours after that. By then, all three of them had been treated for hypothermia and shock and were