The Hunt (21 page)

Rose popped another palmful of painkillers from the helicopter’s first aid kit. Too many and she’d damage her liver. She almost laughed at the idea.

She welcomed the dawn. It came as she faced the Trail woman, casting light on their interaction and bringing stark colour to the situation. Mainly red.

‘It’s turned out a bit differently to how we’d expected. We knew you were still alive. And we always wanted you to be a challenge, a good hunt for us. But we didn’t know if that would ever happen. And we didn’t expect you to take control quite so comprehensively.’

‘What do you mean, a hunt for you? The Trail?’

‘Yeah. You’re the one that got away, Rose. Of course we couldn’t let it stay that way, and some of us have always wanted to sample what we sell. Believe me, it’s always the same. Drug dealers become addicts, pimps screw their whores. I was Trail for only a year before I craved a kill, and I knew others who were thinking the same way.’

‘What others?’

The woman coughed, groaning and curling around her stomach wound as if to hug it to sleep.

‘What others?’

‘Come on. Don’t tell me you don’t know something. You’ve been stalking us for years.’

‘Not stalking. Hunting. A cold hunt.’

‘And the war’s just gone hot,’ the woman said in a faux gruff voice. She even managed a laugh. ‘Bit melodramatic, eh, Rose?’

‘Melodramatic? You killed my family, you sit there with your guts squeezing out between your fingers, and you’re taking the piss?’

‘I didn’t have anything to do with that,’ the woman said, an element of fear creeping into her voice. Good. Rose didn’t like to think that they were indestructible. Cool, calm, superior, almost always in control
…
but not immortal.
I’m sure they can bleed
, Holt had said, and she had proven that statement true. But Rose realised that he’d meant more than blood.

‘So what were you doing when they were slitting my children’s throats?’ Her voice was flat and hollow. Any injection of emotion and she’d have broken down, taken up a rock and smashed in the dying woman’s skull. And it still contained information she needed.

‘Barely involved,’ the woman said. ‘I was logistics. Still learning the ropes. Just kicked out of the army for—’

‘I don’t give a shit about your history,’ Rose cut in. ‘You’re just a voice to me. A source of information. So who killed my children?’

The woman’s eyes flickered away from Rose, squeezed half-shut in pain.

‘What’s your name?’ Rose asked. Even pretending to be familiar with this bitch left a stale taste in her mouth, like dried blood.

‘Michelle.’

‘Keep pressure on the wound, Michelle. Tell me a name and I’ll call mountain rescue, they’ll take you off to a hospital. I’ll let you explain the bullet wound. I’m sure you bastards have failsafes in place for a situation like this. Just one name.’

She saw a flicker of hope in the wounded woman’s face, a drifting of her harsh facade.

‘You know only pseudonyms. This one you know as Margaret Vey.’

Grin!
Rose thought.
It
was
Grin … she killed them … and I saw her, I was near her, I could have waited in her house and killed her there and then
.

She stood, whining in pain and grief reborn, pulling the pistol, aiming it at the woman’s face.

The bitch who said her name was Michelle held up two bloody hands. In that last moment of her life she became a normal human being – not wanting to die, begging for mercy, mewling in terror and remorse.

‘There’s more!’

‘I don’t need more.’

‘Holt.’

The name was like a blow to her gut. Rose blinked, trying to tie flailing ends of information together. She could not even grasp them.
Nobody knows him
, she thought.
Unless …

‘Go on,’ she said.

The dying woman talked.

Chris was frozen. He’d had nightmares about situations exactly like this – caught halfway up a sheer cliff, exposed, his weak flesh and blood and bone body insignificant compared to the measureless weight of rock, the endless expanse of open sky. He
connected
rock and sky, both of them seeking to do him harm – the sky pulled, promising a quick fall; the rock pushed, its gravity drawing him down.

Climbing back up seemed impossible. Making his way down, looking between his feet, filled him with dread. Remaining where he was depended on the strength of his leg muscles, the clench of his fingers against sharp rock. Falling held a terrible allure.

He dared to look down again.

The cliff fell away below him. There were cracks and fissures, projections and dark areas, but the remaining descent was near-vertical. The base of the cliff was a litter of tumbled rocks and boulders. He tried to perceive distance, but it was difficult.

It’s all scree
, he thought.
They’re all tiny pebbles, and I’m one step above the ground
. But even though there was little context to assess his height, he knew that was a vain hope. There were a few plants down there, and scatters of pale shapes that might have been a dead sheep’s bones and tattered woollen remains. It was at least far enough to die if he fell, and that was plenty far enough.

He pressed his face to the rock and stuck out his tongue, feeling the rush of cool rainwater. He swallowed, grateful for the fluid. The rifle felt heavier than ever on his back, tugging him out and down. Perhaps its reason for being was to deal death in any way it could.

‘It’s always one step down,’ he said. ‘I’m close to the bottom. One step at a time. One step down.’ But he could not fool himself. He prided himself on his mental strength, but this was nothing to do with strength, or endurance, or the levelling of pain. This was all about falling.

He was one movement and several seconds from death.

Terri, Megs and Gemma came to him then, not tied and terrified, but laughing and happy. That was how he would see them again. And he’d tell them about this, and Gemma would remind him how scared he’d been on the high ropes and how he’d vowed after that to confront his fears, face them and triumph. But after everything he’d done, dealing with that one terror was something that had slipped through the net.

‘So this is it, Gemma,’ he said. ‘This is when it happens. For you and your sister, and your mother. This is me on the high ropes again, only this time I’m running, and you’ll—’

A gust of wind roared across the cliff, driving water against his face and squeezing fingers between him and the rock.

‘Fuck off!’ he shouted. He clung on tighter than ever, waiting for the wind to lessen. Then he started down.

The worst of it was, he had to look. He couldn’t risk locating toe holds simply through feel. But he did his best to blur his vision of anything below his feet, not planning the route of his descent, simply the next step. The boulder-strewn ground below was a grey mass, always only a step away. Rain poured down the rock face, and he used it to cleanse the wounds on his fingers, washing grit and blood away. Each time he touched something with his right hand it felt like pressing his fingers against blisteringly hot metal. He absorbed the sensation and cast it aside.

Rocks slipped beneath his right foot and fell away. He held his breath and gripped hard, scrabbling with his foot until he found a solid ledge. From below he heard a sharp
crack
as one rock hit another. It sounded like a gunshot.

Chris held his breath and froze.
I’m a sitting duck!
he thought. He turned his head to look north, out along the looming cliff face and across the lower landscape in that direction. There was no immediate movement, but he concentrated, shifting his gaze slowly left and right across the rugged terrain. If they were there and had already seen him, they’d be creeping forward. Wouldn’t they?

‘No,’ he whispered. No, of course not. If they saw him climbing down the cliff they’d be racing each other to get close enough for a shot. All eager for the kill, there would be no need to conceal themselves from him any more. It would be about getting within range, taking time to aim, and then putting a bullet in him where he clung to the cliff. Then they’d cut off whatever trophy they desired from his broken body and wait for extraction. A posh hotel, perhaps. Nice hot bath, classy escorts to suckle their brave, manly hunters’ cocks, bottles of expensive champagne, a dinner bill in the thousands.

He started down again, quicker than before, trying to translate fear into ease of movement.

Close to the bottom, confident that this really
was
the bottom and that the rocks he could see below were almost near enough to touch, he slipped. His left knee struck the rock wall and he cried out in pain, leaning out, arms pinwheeling as he fell backwards.

He hit the ground with a shattering thud, breath knocked from his body, limbs on fire. The only thing that stopped the back of his skull striking solid ground was the rifle across his back. The sky grew darker for a few moments then lightened again, and Chris lay where he’d fallen, twisted between rocks and waiting for the pain to roar in.

I’ve got the gun
, he thought.
If my spine’s snapped or my legs are screwed, I can try to shoot them when they get close, at least
.

It was a sickening thought. He didn’t want to kill anybody.

The rain had reduced to a drizzle. He remained motionless for a moment longer, looking up at the sheer rock facade he’d just climbed down and marvelling at the gorgeous patterns of water flowing down its surface, touched by slanting dawn sunlight that drew hazy, oily rainbows in several places. He didn’t think he had ever seen anything so beautiful.

Slowly, carefully, Chris stood. His left knee and ankle screamed at him to lie back down but he ignored them, stretching his leg past the pain and vowing that he would only feel it when this was all over.

He was not yet down in the valley, but the terrain was more familiar now, and dawn cast its gentle early light across this wild landscape as if to show the way.

It was time to start running again.

The storm had faded away, leaving sheets of rolling mists in its wake. The wind was a gentle breath, the rain had ceased, and the sound of running water rose and fell as Chris negotiated a rocky descent from the mountain. He was sliding down rocks, climbing down waterfalls, stepping and leaping towards the valley floor, none of it as difficult as the cliff he had faced and triumphed over. In pain from his wounded left leg, still he felt good. He was confident that he had a decent lead on the hunters, and now he was waiting to hear from Rose. That was pressing. He tried to bite down his panic, and his fear that either something had happened to her or she had abandoned him. But he knew that if he never heard from her again, he was finished. She was his only friendly link to what was happening. If she had gone, he might as well hand himself in.

He checked his watch, saw that it was just past six am. He had been on the move for almost eighteen hours, and on top of his long run the previous morning, his body was still holding on.

He paused on a relatively flat area of ground, and as he ate the last of his energy bars the mists before him began to lift, revealing the shadowy spread of the valley before him. He was further down the mountain than he’d thought. Looking back and to the north he could see the dark, sheer cliffs, and further up the mountain was still shrouded in heavy mist. It was a beautiful scene, and it should have been tranquil. But not today.

He tried calling Rose again. Her phone was still off. He left another terse message, then moved on.

His limbs were heavy, left leg hot and stiff, and his clothing soaked in sweat, but he hoped that the sun’s appearance over the mountains across the valley would go some way to warming and drying him. He still felt strong and confident. He still had purpose. He considered what his family were going through right now, and he almost screamed with frustration and rage.

If he had, he would have alerted the campers.

He saw the small tent as he mounted a shallow ridge, a bright orange splash on the otherwise bland, rain-washed landscape. It was a shock, although it shouldn’t have been. He’d already met the two walkers, and he knew that even the remotest parts of Britain attracted sport and nature lovers. He rested for a few minutes, settling down so that he would not be seen if someone exited the tent. Maybe they were still asleep, or if not they might just be lying there, enjoying their warmth and waiting for the sun to fully rise. As yet, dawn was little more than a glow to the east and a gentle fading of the night.

He considered making himself known to them. They might have food they’d be willing to share, anti-inflammatories, painkillers. He’d have to hide the rifle beforehand. But he’d been lucky with the first two men. They hadn’t recognised him, even though his face seemed to be splashed all across the news. He might not be so fortunate a second time.

And something else also helped dissuade him from meeting these campers. Propped against a rock close to the tent were two mountain bikes. The thought of the rest he’d get travelling on one of those almost made him groan, and as if in response his legs tensed, muscles twisted. The first signs of severe cramping.

He didn’t like stealing. So in his mind, he called it borrowing.

Chris had slept in a tent many times, and he knew what it was like hearing strange sounds from outside. Even if they did hear a footstep or a slip on slick vegetation, they’d lie there for a while, breaths held, listening harder and perhaps giggling as they made up some horror scenario. A mountain man, come to eat their hearts. An escaped, claw-handed killer. Anyone of a certain age knew the urban legends.

They’d never guess the truth.

He moved quickly and quietly, fearing that now he’d decided on his course of action, they would wake and unzip the tent, emerge to watch the sunrise. If they did that and saw him with the rifle, few explanations would make sense. He’d have to turn and run, or threaten them. Right then neither held any attraction.