Barrett swam up, treading water as he looked around. ‘Where’s Charles MacGarioch?’
‘Give us a chance!’
Tufty wasn’t far behind. ‘I’ll find him.’ And under he went, Spider-Man socks flashing in the sunshine before the murky river swallowed him whole.
‘Urgh...’ Barrett grimaced. ‘This is astupidgame.’ Then followed Tufty into the depths.
Over on the bank, Steel hurried towards a bright-orange lifebuoy, mounted at the side of the road. Still giving someone a hard time on her Airwave. ‘Yes, butthreeof them have gone in now, OK? SO DO SOMETHING!’ She yanked and tugged at the ring, snarling and roaring till it popped out of its mount, then dragged it back to the rescue scene. Fiddling one end of the attached rope free and standing on it, before flinging the buoy, one-handed, upstream of Logan. ‘Well, I don’t know, do I? Coastguard, fire brigade...’ She scooped up the spare end of rope. ‘Any bugger with a boat would do!’
The ring was swept straight towards Logan, and he grabbed it – wrestling the thing over the unconscious man’s head and shoulders.
Tufty popped up from the murky deep with a gasp. ‘Nope!’ Then disappeared underwater again.
A spluttering Barrett surfaced next, blinking and coughing. ‘Sodding fudgemuggers...’ He pulled his way along the sunken van. ‘MacGarioch’s gone.’ Wiping the water from his face. ‘Don’t know if he’s washed away, or what, but there’szerosign of him.’
Great.
Tufty resurfaced a second time. ‘More nope.’ He took a big breath and bobbed up, ready to have another go.
‘Hoy!’ Barrett waved at him. ‘Stop, you daft...’
But Tufty was gone again.
‘Seriously?’
‘Oh, for God’s sake.’ Logan shoved the ice-cream man at Barrett. ‘Get him back to shore.’
A confused look. ‘Where are you—’
‘To find the daft wee loon.’ Logan ducked under the water, half-swimming, half-pulling himself along the side of Mr FreezyWhip, hunting idiots. Past the serving hatch and on to the passenger door.
At least the window was open.
The driver’s one too – letting the current barge through the van’s interior, making a pair of ice-cream-cone-shaped furry dice bob and twist above the inverted rear-view mirror.
The windscreen was cracked, but from the look of things it was because of the large boulder the van had wedged itself against, rather than Charles MacGarioch’s head.
There was no sign of him, though. And no sign of Tufty either.
Logan turned, squinting into the milky water, but neither idiot was upstream of Mr FreezyWhip.
So he poked his head through the open passenger window.
The cab wasdefinitelyempty.
A gap between the front seats led through to the back of thevan – sectioned off by a beaded curtain that undulated like a forest of multicoloured kelp.
Bracing himself against the wing mirror, Logan swung around to the leeward side of the van. Nothing but more rocks and the skeletal frame of a dead bicycle. Maybe MacGarioch had been thrown clear in the crash? If so, he was long gone – swept away downriver. Might even be halfway to the North Sea by now...
Andstillno sodding Tufty.
Lungs burning, Logan struggled back up, like a breaching whale, bringing a huge spray of water with him. Coughing and gasping, because this underwater-rescue stuff was a shit-load harder than they made it look on TV.
A hand grabbed his arm, hauling him up onto the underside of Mr FreezyWhip, where the water was only thigh deep. And Branston was still slowly twirling.
Tufty pounded Logan on the back a couple of times. ‘You OK, Sarge?’
Over on the riverbank, most of the old ladies had their phones out – some filming Logan’s attempts at deep-sea rescue, the others recording as Barrett and PC MacLauchlan performed CPR on the ice-cream man, while Steel looked on. Issuing instructions, as she paced back and forth in front of the knackered police van. Giving someone a bollocking on her Airwave at the same time.