Carver

39

Carn Drum Farm

DEIRDRE BULL WAS not dead. Not quite. She opened her eyes, emerging from unconscious oblivion to a skull-splitting headache and an overwhelming desire to be sick. It took a second or two to register further sources of agony from her shoulder, her left arm, her ribs and her right leg. Neither the arm nor the leg would move. She propped herself up on her right arm, gasping with the pain that this simple movement sent shooting through her body, and saw jagged fragments of bone poking through the bright nylon arm of her cagoule and the dark-stained denim of her jeans. She almost fainted, slumping back to the ground again. Then she remembered: her phone. She fumbled in her pocket for the little handset, lost her grip on it as she pulled it out of the cagoule, and felt the panic rise in her as her hand fumbled blindly across the ground before touching the phone again. She held it up to her face so that she could see what she was doing, and then with her one working thumb tapped out the three digits 9… 9… 9.

‘Help me,’ she whimpered. ‘Please help me. I’ve been shot. I’m hurt really badly. And the others… I think… I think…’ But before she could complete the sentence she had fallen unconscious again.

It took a combined force of police and volunteers from the Brecon Mountain Rescue Team the best part of three hours to locate Deirdre Bull. By that time the carnage at Carn Drum farmhouse had been discovered. Deirdre herself was in a critical condition. She had multiple fractures, and although the bullets that had hit her had miraculously avoided doing any damage to her heart or lungs, there was a strong chance of internal organ damage caused by her fall. She had lost a great deal of blood, and was slipping in and out of consciousness. Just as she was loaded into the rescue helicopter that was going to take her away to hospital she gripped the arm of the paramedic nearest to her, stared him right in the eye and hissed, ‘The attack… You’ve got to stop the attack!’