The Hunt (4 page)

I’ve only just begun
. But in truth she had started all this years ago.

She’d spent a long time imagining what it would be like to exact some sort of revenge. At night, in between nightmares about her family’s final moments, and during the day when she strove to better prepare herself for what was to come, she would dream: pointing a gun and pulling the trigger; running them down with a car; tying them up and setting them on fire; slashing out with a knife. So many ways to kill those of the Trail who had killed everything about her, and sometimes she lost herself for hours picturing their deaths.

And they had recognised her. That had been a surprise, although she supposed that they were always looking for her.

But in truth it was nothing like she’d expected. She had felt not one sliver of regret when she killed, but neither had she felt a flush of satisfaction, nor the much sought-after contentment she had been expecting. Their blood still stained her hands and clothing, but it was as if she had watched someone else do the killing.

She put her hand to her mouth and tasted blood.

‘Are there more outside?’ That Chris Sheen wasn’t a gibbering wreck was something she could only be grateful for. But perhaps his reaction was a skewed echo of her own. She didn’t feel shocked or even pleased, maybe because her mind might be shielding her from events.

She wished it wouldn’t. Now that her revenge had begun, she wanted to experience every joyous moment.

‘Not here, not right now,’ she said. ‘Shut up and follow me.’

‘But my family will—’

‘Shut up!’ She pressed her finger against his lips. He flinched from the stickiness of their blood. ‘Follow
…
me.’

She looked at the phone she’d taken from the first dead man. The home screen was a picture of two little children, and she stared at their faces, frozen, swallowed away into memory. Her own children had been that young, and would never be older.
He has a family. He has kids.
How someone like him could have been anything like her, Rose could not conceive. She shook her head to dislodge the confusion. It was useless to her, and she was determined to keep her mind in the moment. She’d spent too long living in the past, and the future she so desired was here and now. This was everything she had been waiting for.

Chris touched her shoulder. She blinked rapidly for a second or two, then nodded at him.

‘Quick,’ she said. ‘And quiet.’ She headed back into the study and crossed to the French doors. She’d come in that way, and it would be quieter to leave that way, too. She picked up the loaded backpack she’d left just inside the door, slung it over her shoulder, then rested her hand on the door handle.

Neighbours would have likely heard the gunshots, but most of them would have no idea what they were. A car backfiring, someone hammering, a TV turned up too loud; for people living in Cardiff, and especially in nice neighbourhoods like this, the first thought at such a sound would never be,
Gun!
That would change when the bodies were found.

But as she slipped from the doors and looked across the front garden, Rose realised that things might not be so simple. When she’d shot the woman, the glass in the front door had shattered. And now across the street there were several people gathered around a car, examining a hole in one of its side windows.

They’d still not immediately think of guns and bullets. Their minds wouldn’t work that way. But it meant that she and Chris didn’t have long.

He followed behind her, close and quiet. That was good. She needed him more than he needed her, but she’d never tell him that.

As they approached the open gates at the end of the short driveway, she pressed the button on the key fob. A little way along the street, a white BMW’s lights flashed twice.

A couple of the people examining the damaged car looked up. One of them smiled and raised his hand to Chris, then his expression fell a little when he saw Rose.

‘Morning!’ Rose said. ‘Lovely morning.’

‘Yes, lovely,’ the man said uncertainly.

‘Don’t look at him or say a word,’ she whispered. She led Chris along the pavement to the BMW, climbed into the driver’s seat, dropped the backpack in the passenger footwell, and watched him get in beside her. He still had the kit bag clasped to his chest. Taking the gun from her pocket, she placed it between her legs on the seat. Then she checked the phone again.

‘They’ve seen my front door,’ Chris said.

‘Doesn’t matter.’ She scrolled through the contacts list. There were only half a dozen names registered. She smiled when she saw the photos beside two names. And then she saw other faces, knew them, hated them all over again. ‘Here they are,’ she said.

‘Who?’

‘The Trail.’

‘What’s that?’

She glanced across at Chris, sitting confused and scared and still shocked numb beside her. He didn’t need to know, not yet. Not until they got away from here and were closing on their destination.

Her
destination. Because from this moment forward, she was taking charge.

She started the car and pulled away, making a three-point turn so that they didn’t have to pass Chris’s neighbours. Heading off along his street, she saw parents starting to leave home with kids. The school run. She missed that. She missed
everything
. For a moment her mind drifted again, flitting back to memories she could do nothing to temper and which seemed to become richer over time. Sometimes they were more real than her reality.

Your memories will be your downfall
, Holt had said to her in Italy.
You let the past distract you so much that it blurs your present
. But memories were all she had left, and she never tried too hard to lose them.

‘How many people have you killed?’ Chris asked.

‘Three.’ Their dying expressions already felt familiar.

The phone in the door pocket beside her trilled. She didn’t answer. As soon as it rang off she knew that the alarm would be raised.
They’re starting to panic
, she thought.
I can feel that. I can sense it
. And she could. She knew the Trail so well – had lived and breathed them for the past three years – that their thoughts were hers, their emotions and actions so tied into her existence that she might as well have been monitoring their individual heartbeats, their pulses.

They wouldn’t yet know she was here or who she was. But soon.

‘Where are we going? You need to let me out, now. Let me go.’ Chris’s voice shimmered with panic. ‘You leave, I won’t say anything. Got to
get out
!’ He tried the door handle, but she’d clicked on the central locking.

Rose checked ahead. They’d pulled onto a small commercial street with a few shops on both sides, and the road was wide, not too busy.

‘Stop the car!’ He grabbed for the steering wheel. Rose nodded across at Chris’s window, eyes going wide. When he looked, she launched a fast, accurate punch at his temple. His head jerked sideways and struck the window, and he emitted a long, low groan, slumping in his seat. His eyelids fluttered.

She’d learned the theory, but had never done that before.

Rose checked the mirrors and looked ahead. No one had seen. And if someone did notice him now, he was sleeping on his way to work, that was all.

She could imagine the heat of the Trail’s networks buzzing with consternation. The phone rang again.

This time she answered.

Gemma had no idea why they hadn’t blindfolded her as well. Maybe they needed a witness to what was happening, needed one of them to see just how serious this woman was. Or perhaps they just assumed she’d be no trouble.

Right then, they were correct. She was so scared, she seriously doubted she could even stand.

‘Please,’ Megs said.

‘Will you shut her up?’ the woman muttered. She’d said the same thing a dozen times, tone of voice hardly changing, but Gemma felt the air charging. Danger hung heavy. Violence simmered.

‘Megs, you need to keep quiet,’ their mother said.

Gemma’s heart hammered, vision blurred. She had never been so terrified, and she wished she could hold her little sister and make her feel better. The comfort would go both ways. But Megs was tied in a kneeling position next to their mum’s right leg, and Gemma herself was also tied, next to her mother’s left leg and with thin, strong ropes holding her against the van’s wooden seat. Her mother was on the seat, the two of them on the floor, all so close but with little comfort to be had.

‘Please,’ Megs said. She must have said it a hundred times, so many that the word had lost meaning.

‘Come on, Megs,’ Gemma said again. ‘It’ll all be fine, it’s just a game or something, a reality TV show. We’ll be famous!’ It was difficult sounding so positive and in control when she was so scared, but Gemma had always been protective of her little sister.

The windows in the van’s rear doors were covered with plywood boards, and a small, naked bulb provided the only light inside. It swung on a loose wire, light and shadows dancing around the vehicle’s interior. The space revealed was battered and well-used, the walls scabbed with rust, floor dirty, scratches and dents scarring the exposed metal bodywork.

‘If you just untie her, she’ll calm down a bit,’ Gemma said.

‘Really?’ the woman asked, raising an eyebrow. While they were being taken from the house, Gemma had heard her called Vey. The strange name only added to Gemma’s fear. Who called anyone Vey?

Were they going to be killed?

‘Where’s my dad?’ That he wasn’t here with them terrified Gemma. He’d always said that she had a vivid imagination, and she imagined him arriving home from his run and finding the house empty, meeting someone left behind to kill him. Her dad, in his sweaty, tight running kit that she often took the mickey out of, opening the door and being met with a fist or a gun.

The unreality of things hit her. That helped.

‘You just keep still and quiet. Be a good little girl.’

Gemma couldn’t remember the last time she’d been called a little girl. She was fifteen in six weeks, and already almost as tall as her mum. She hadn’t been a little girl for a while.
Vey doesn’t know how to talk to kids so doesn’t have any
, she thought, and she filed that in her memory bank. She called it ‘the box’, and imagined it as a concertina file like the one Mum and Dad used to store their household bills and other stuff. She closed her eyes briefly to open it and slip in this new piece of information. She didn’t bother with alphabetical order, just filed it in one of the cardboard folds.

The van bumped gently over a series of sleeping policemen.
We’re still in the town
, Gemma thought. She’d seen a film once where someone had been kidnapped, thrown into a car boot, and then tracked where they were being taken by listening to noises from outside, counting turns, making a mental map of the route they were taking. It was ridiculous, and she’d lost her way after the first couple of turns. But the box was still mostly empty. Every scrap of stuff she put in there might help her.

And concentrating on that might distract her from the terror that threatened to smother her.

She had just stepped into the shower when they came. A shout from downstairs, a scream from Megs, and then the door to the bathroom had swung open and the tall man entered. ‘Get dressed,’ he’d said, not even glancing her up and down.

Through her shock, Gemma had plucked a bowl of pot pourri from the small shelf beside the bath and flung it at the man. He’d caught it casually and thrown it back at her, dried flowers and bulbs showering the bathroom. The bowl had smashed on the tiled wall, and one heavy shard sliced across her shoulder. One foot had tangled in the curtain and she’d tripped from the shower, reaching out for balance but failing, tearing the curtain from its rings, falling to the floor with a heavy thud that vented the air from her lungs and winded her.

And something had happened. Her panic had dispersed, drawn back by the feel of warm blood cooling on her skin as her shoulder wound bled. There were smears across the shower tiles.
Dad’ll see that
, she’d thought, already starting to think ahead.

‘Please let us go,’ she said, knowing they would not.

‘Please,’ Megs said.

Vey pressed her lips tightly together and sighed. She still held the gun. She’d shown it to the phone earlier, the screen too far away to see clearly. Gemma thought Vey had been talking to her dad, although what she’d said was confusing. Something about one 9 away, and twenty-three minutes.

She flexed her right shoulder a few times. Her school shirt had stuck to the dried blood, and rolling her shoulder opened the wound again.

And then Gemma saw a long nail on the van’s bare metal floor. It had rolled into a joint between segments, and was now covered with a scattering of dirty sawdust.

She looked away quickly, down at her feet curled under her. Her legs were going numb. Looking anywhere but at the nail, she flexed her muscles, trying to keep numbness at bay. The time might soon come when she’d have to move quickly.

He dreamed of his family. Their voices accompanied him up and out of unconsciousness, and they were with him when he opened his eyes. His wife was beside him, Megs and Gemma were in the back seat, bickering softly over who was winning their game of Legs. They often played it when they were travelling, counting pub sign legs on their own sides of the car. The Duke of York had two legs, the White Horse four, and so on. Gemma made up pub names like ‘The World’s Longest Millipede’ and ‘The Herd of Spiders’, but she always let Megs win in the end. He tried to turn to speak to Terri but there was something wrong with his head, his neck. He opened his mouth to speak, but the pain was too much. It throbbed and pulsed within him like a living thing, too big for the inside of his head, rolling and turning and pushing with its many legs, its horse’s spider’s millipede’s legs.

Where are we?
he wanted to ask.
What’s happening?
But as he closed his eyes again, wishing away the pain, he remembered.

He looked. Hedgerows flashed by. The woman, Rose, sat in the driver’s seat, glancing over at him. Her expression betrayed nothing.

‘Sleep,’ she said. ‘Rest. You’ll need it.’

Where …
he tried to mouth, but even moving his jaw sent spasms of pain through his skull. He closed his eyes. The car’s motion was lulling, and the dreams welcomed him again.

It seemed like moments before he woke again, but it must have been longer.

‘Nearly there,’ a voice said. He thought it was Terri, but then Rose tapped his arm. She had blood under her fingernails. ‘Here. Take these, and drink this. Need to have your wits about you. They’re close, so we haven’t got long.’

The truth crashed in again with a flood of sensory memories – the splash of spilled blood, the warm tang of gun smoke, the fear on his family’s faces in the back of that van. A freezing terror so deep inside that he could never hope to reach it.

He tried opening his eyes again, squinting at the liquid fire pouring in and swamping his mind. Each jolt and bump of the car on poorly maintained roads was amplified a thousand-fold and punched through his head. But pain was nothing. A transitory thing, barely remembered and beyond description. Several years ago he’d been on several pain management workshops when a twisted back had put him out of action for weeks. There, past a sheen of new-agey trappings, he’d learned a powerful truth – that pain was all in the mind.

He opened his eyes and sat up fully, groaning out loud against the hammering inside his skull.

‘You hit me.’

‘Sorry.’ Rose, the murderer, was driving with the gun nestled between her legs. He took the water bottle she offered, and then the small foil pack of pills. They were strong painkillers. He popped three from the pack, held them on his tongue, and took a swig from the bottle. It tasted strange, vaguely bitter. An electrolyte drink. He used them when he went on very long runs, replacing electrolytes in his body to balance those lost through excessive sweating. This was an endurance athlete’s drink, not a murderer’s.

He squinted at the bottle. It was full.

‘How long
…
?’

‘Couple of hours. You were in and out, so I gave you a mild sedative. Needed time to drive, didn’t want you distracting me, jumping from the car, something stupid like that.’

‘My family,’ Chris said. The memory of what he’d seen of them on the phone screen hurt more than any physical pain could, and there was no way of ignoring an agony like that. He didn’t
want
to ignore it.

‘The best way you can serve them is by doing what I tell you.’

‘You sound just like
them
.’

‘I’m
nothing
like them!’ She did not shout, but still her voice was loud.

‘Where are we?’

‘Almost there.’

‘Almost where? Why can’t you answer me straight?’

Rose sighed and stared ahead, concentrating on driving.

Feeling sick and light-headed, Chris looked around, waiting for her to speak, hoping she would. There was no way he could force her to say anything. He could only hope that her promise of keeping him alive, and everything else she was doing, would help and not hinder him and his family. She knew what was going on, and the only way she’d tell him was if she wanted to.
And how will that benefit her?
he wondered. Because it was painfully obvious that everything she was doing was for herself.

They were in the mountains. Chris knew these places. The vista was wild, windswept, undulating, with still lakes hidden in deep valleys and sheer mountains looming over them. Streams carved glimmering routes down mountainsides. Grasses, ferns, heathers, and scrubby trees painted the landscape green and purple, and here and there forested areas huddled across mountainous foothills. Snow speckled the higher peaks. Sheer rock faces hung grey and forbidding, and even though sunlight touched them, the mountains remained cool and aloof. It was a mythical land where the true wildness of nature existed close to the surface, unhindered by considerations of civilisation. Even the road they followed was barely allowed here, twisting and turning through the rough terrain. Drystone walling lined the road on both sides, and here and there were lay-bys for parking, and rough tracks leading up into the hills.

The land was huge, the sky even larger. Humans were small here, stripped to the bare essentials of existence, the trappings of their lives made inconsequential by the scope and scale of where they were. Nature was in command.

Chris loved landscapes like this. He lived for the few times each year when he could get away for a weekend, with or without his family, and run and hike through the mountains. He was not a believer in anything divine, but being somewhere like this invoked the closest he ever felt to a spiritual experience. Once, running across the foothills of Ben Nevis, he had realised that he was an animal, just like any other. It was a sobering, thrilling experience. He had always remembered that time, and dwelling on it made him calm, and sane, and able to face the trivialities of business and human existence with renewed strength.

He thought he recognised this place, and a glimpse of a bilingual road sign confirmed his suspicions. They were heading into the Welsh mountains.

But nothing about this was right.

‘I’m just an architect,’ he said. ‘I live a good life. Nice, comfortable, uninspiring. Boring, some of my friends tell me. But I like my work, love doing sports with my girls. My wife and I get on well, still, after a long time together. We’ve got our differences, but who hasn’t? We’re happy.’ He nodded, blinking away tears. ‘This isn’t my world. I know stuff like this happens, and it scares me because of my girls. It terrifies me that people like them
…
and you
…
exist. I see it on the news sometimes, you know, “Young girl kidnapped, raped and murdered”, and sometimes the terror just makes everything seem so hopeless.’

‘That’s because you can’t protect your family,’ Rose said softly.

‘Yes. Yes! Terri and I do everything we can for our kids, but you can’t allow for evil.’

‘I’m not evil,’ she said. ‘My family was very much like yours.’

‘Was?’ Chris could hear something in her voice that betrayed that, perhaps, he was getting to her. Maybe she was starting to feel something. Even when she was tugging her knife through the remains of that man’s throat – an image he would never, ever be able to shake, try though he might – her face had barely changed.

‘They’re dead,’ Rose said. ‘The Trail killed them all. My husband and three children.’

‘No,’ Chris breathed, thinking of his own family trussed and blindfolded. ‘It was a woman in the van with them. She might have children of her own, how could she—’

Rose laughed, bitter and harsh. ‘Oh, don’t for a second think of them as human.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘They’re not people. Not normal. They’re monsters. Now shut up, we’re almost there, and I need to listen.’ She powered down both front windows in the car and tilted her head.

‘For what?’

‘Helicopter. I think we’ve got the lead on them, but we’ll have to stop soon.’

‘I have no idea what you’re doing,’ Chris said. He sounded pathetic, pleading, but Rose did not react. Whatever she said about them – the Trail, whoever they were – seemed to apply to her as well.

‘Rucksack in the back. Take what’s useful from the bag they gave you, too.’

‘What’s—’

‘Shut the fuck up!’ she snapped, glaring at him for a second then looking ahead again.

Chris reached into the back seat and snagged the rucksack resting there. It was a good one, a forty-litre day sack that he might well have chosen for himself. Several access zips, a waterproof cover in the base, small hip pockets on the waist strap. A whistle and compass built into the shoulder straps. Hydration bladder. It was heavy, and he grunted as he lifted it over into his lap.

For a moment he considered slamming the bag against Rose. He could knock her head against the doorpost, grab the wheel, steer them off the road and into a stone wall. While she struggled he could grab the gun from between her knees and press it into her stomach, and then everything would change. Then he would be in charge, and all the answers he sought would come tumbling from her mouth.

Except
…
he wasn’t sure they would. She would only tell him what she wanted him to know, gun or no gun. She was like no one he knew – one of them, those people he knew existed but whom he had always hoped he would never have to meet. Violent, brutal, a sharp edge in a life he’d strived to make so smooth. And he had never touched a gun in his life.

She glanced at him, as if reading his mind. Then she frowned and leaned to the side, concentrating on the road but listening for something else.

‘They’re close,’ she said. ‘We don’t have long. I’ll be leaving you soon.’

‘And going where?’

‘Check the bag.’

‘Do you know where my family is?’

Rose shook her head.

‘You do. You know.’

‘I don’t know! But as long as you’re going along with things, they’ll be safe. They’ll stay alive.’ Rose was looking up and around as she drove, trying to spot the helicopter only she could hear.

‘Yours didn’t.’

‘That’s because I didn’t play ball.’

‘So what do I have to do?’ Chris asked. He opened the rucksack and looked inside, knocked sideways for a moment by finding everything so familiar. New running trousers, base layers, weatherproof jacket, survival kit, energy gels, GPS watch, penknife, some energy bars, freeze-dried food packets. And a phone. ‘What the hell
…
?’

‘There,’ Rose said. ‘We don’t have long.’ She changed down a gear and pressed on the gas, powering them up the steep, winding road that headed for a low ridge between two monolithic peaks. Chris leaned forward and looked up and ahead of them, and after a few moments he saw the shadow of a helicopter moving against the mountains across the valley. It looked so small against that vast landscape, but he could tell it was larger than a private chopper. Military, perhaps.

‘Rose, please. Please help me. Tell me what’s going on.’

‘You’re going to get out of the car and start running. I’m going to lead them off. That’ll give you a head start.’

‘But why?’

‘Because they’ll be hunting you.’

‘What?’

‘This is a hunt. You’re the prey.’

He shook his head, trying to make sense of anything she was saying. That distance he’d felt back at the house – drawing him back from events, allowing him to react without going mad – suddenly seemed shakier than ever, and fear flooded in once more. His head still throbbed. A cool, sharp pain pulsed across his temple where Rose had hit him, and just thinking of that assault made him feel sick. He’d never been attacked like that before. He felt sick.

‘The Trail provide people for rich clients to hunt.’

‘What, like chase down? Catch?’

‘Kill.’

Chris shook his head. He couldn’t take it in.
Kill?

‘It’s a trophy hunt,’ Rose went on. ‘Like with lions and elephant in Africa, except this is with people. You’re the target. There’ll be some fat rich fucks in that helicopter who’ve paid millions each to hunt and kill you. The Trail set it up, provide everything they need – training, weapons, backup and support. They ensure there’re no repercussions. Except I’ve changed their plans a little. This one was supposed to take place in Cardiff Bay and the docklands. The Trail would have steered you here and there, made sure you did all the right things. It’s set up, completely, and when they felt the time was right and everything was safe, they’d have engineered the kill. Cleared up the mess, sent everyone home. Big money.’

‘Big money. Money? You’re doing this for
…
?’

‘I’m doing this because I escaped my hunt, and because of that the Trail murdered my family. And now I’m going to kill them. All of them. See? Understand?’

‘I can’t escape,’ Chris said softly.

‘No. But you can run. They know that, which is why they chose you. But by bringing you up here, into the wild, I’ve done you a favour. You have an advantage over the rich fat fucks now, and whatever the Trail had set up in Cardiff is useless to them. It’ll all last much longer.’

‘But my wife. My girls.’

‘Are safe while you’re still on the run.’

Chris closed his eyes and tried to take it all in. It was impossible to digest, too huge to contemplate. Too unbelievable.

‘It’s a joke,’ he said. He even managed a small laugh. ‘A wind-up. Reality TV, or something. Derren Brown’s hypnotised me.’

Rose said nothing. He saw the dried blood on her hands, remembered what she had done. That had all been real. Nothing like that could be faked, not without movie trickery. He’d been there to smell the blood, hear it hitting the ground, see the ragged mess of the man’s throat, see the impact of bullets.

‘It’s real,’ he muttered. Rose glanced across at him, then pointed.

‘There,’ she said. ‘By that spur of rock on the ridge. That’s where you get out. Hide for a bit, get ready. You’ll know when to head off.’