Wanted (Flick Carter Book 1) (28 page)

Adam very quickly moved through all the rooms of the cottage, and found them to be empty. He went back to the entrance and gave the all clear before poking his head out and waving. The rest of the squad moved in.

‘She’s not here now, but has she been here?’ Dixon asked.

Sergeant Wailing stepped forward. ‘We’ve done a sweep, ma’am. The grate’s cold, so there’s been no fire in it recently, although there have been fires lit in the not too distant past. No sign of bedding or waste material, so if she was here she covered her tracks.’

Dixon turned to Adam, ‘Can you remember anything about the place that might be different or not quite right?’

Adam thought for a moment. ‘No, we never used to leave stuff here, ‘cos there’s no door and it might get nicked… No, wait… there was something. She used to have a spare bow and arrow that she hid in the wall. Thought none of us knew, but we did. I’ll see if it’s still there.’

He went over to the wall and pulled back a board. The space behind it was empty. ‘It’s gone,’ he called excitedly.

Dixon instructed the squad to make a sweep of the area in the time they had left, to discover if there were any signs of activity that hadn’t been erased by their size ten boots. Before long they’d identified several tracks made by a narrow two-wheeled vehicle, probably a bicycle, and determined that they led off in several directions.

‘Clever,’ Dixon said. ‘She’s laid down some false trails. Good delaying tactic. Carter, which way do you think she’d go from here?’

Adam thought for a moment. ‘My first guess is that she’d go up to the top of the ridge. It’d give her a good vantage point. But she’d also be exposed. My second guess is she’d double back to the railway line and go along the tracks. Depends where she’s headed.

‘I’ve got an idea there,’ said Dixon. ‘If she had been in contact with this Shea O’Connell character, chances are she’ll be trying to meet up. Now that probably means they’ll be headed west. My instinct is they’re going to Bristol.

‘The railway track worries me. One thing is that the embankments will be a problem for the APC to get up and down, the other is that the tracks lead straight into the middle of Swindon, and I’m convinced that’s one place she’ll try to avoid. No, we’ll take the ridge. Get Fletcher and tell her to signal Young: We’re coming up to meet him.’

The squad piled back into the wagon, and they set off up the winding track, past the giant white horse carved into the side of the hillside, and onto the top of the ridge. At the top they picked up Kingsman Young, who gave his report.

‘Ma’am, there are definitely bicycle tracks up here, but whether they are our girl I can’t say. I sighted Griffin and his gang while you were on the way up; they are quite close to the cottage now.’

He handed the lieutenant his binoculars and pointed. She studied for a while, then handed them back.

‘They should be busy there for a little while. The girl laid a load of false trails, including I suspect, one coming up here. My gut feeling is that she headed for the railway, but I also don’t think she’ll stay there long. She’ll be forced to come back south if she’s to avoid Swindon, so we’ll get there ahead of her, and wait for her to come to us.’

They made good progress along the ridge, and after a while came to the side of a wide valley that signalled they were getting close to Swindon. Sergeant Wailing turned to the lieutenant.

‘Ma’am, there’s a com tower here just off the track; we should check it out.’ Dixon agreed, and the truck turned and drove up to the tower. A chain link fence surrounded a small compound in which a tall metal pylon stood among a small cluster of sheds.

‘Looks like no one’s been up here–see the tracks that we’ve just made, but there are no others. We should fill our tank while we’re here: these places usually have a water tank for the steam generator.’

‘Do we have a key for the padlock?’ Dixon asked.

‘Doubt it, ma’am.’

‘Okay, cut it,’ she said.

They were quickly through the gate and into the compound. While they were filling the tank, Adam asked what the steam generator was for.

‘That’s above your pay grade, cadet’ growled Sergeant Wailing.

‘
Everything’s
above my pay grade Sarge, ‘cos I ain’t had no pay yet!’ Adam replied.

‘Pay? We do it for the love of it!’ Anderson chipped in, and everyone laughed.

‘Okay,’ Dixon said. ‘Back in the dark days before…’ She raised her eyebrows. ‘You get the picture. There were lots of these towers all over the place. They used them to send messages through the air.’

‘Oooh, electric,’ said Anderson, raising her arms above her head, hands waving in her best ghost impression.

‘No, seriously…’

‘Anderson’s right, it was electricity. After The Collapse, they used steam to make electricity, but as the people disappeared, they forgot how, and the towers stopped being maintained, and they collapsed or got scavenged for the steel.’

‘But this one hasn’t collapsed, and there’s water in the tank…’

‘That’s above your pay grade!’ Dixon said, laughing.

‘And isn’t electricity the root of all evil?’ Adam asked.

Before anyone could answer, the corporal poked his head into the back of the truck. ‘Tank’s full, and everything’s squared away, ma’am,’ he reported.

‘Lock and load ladies, we’re out of here!’ the lieutenant announced, and moments later they were on the move.

FLICK MADE USE of the time she spent hiding in the bushes, and ate lunch. But now she needed to get far away from the railway track as soon as possible, since if those four on the traction engine met her pursuers, they’d have no trouble believing the story of a girl hiding in the brambles…

She crawled out when she was sure they were out of sight and set off along the track, keeping a beady eye out for a gap big enough to squeeze both her and the bike through. When she found one, she pushed through it, ignoring the scratches from the brambles, and emerged into the remains of a field on the other side.

The going was tougher now, and she had to push her bike much of the way until she found what once could have been a lane between field boundaries. After that she could ride and pedal once more. Only now did it occur to her that she was back on the south side of the railway and heading back towards the ridge…

There was more smoke.

It was moving from left to right, and quite far away. Instinctively she hid among some trees while she tried to get a better look. It was far enough away that she could only see the smoke, and not what was making it–probably another steam engine of some sort–and hopefully from that distance they wouldn’t see her.

When she continued, she stayed close to the hedge line and stayed as far away as she could from open spaces. A horrible thought struck her as she neared the base of the ridge: She must cross the road that led directly back towards her cottage hide out. What if the pursuers came directly along it instead of following her trail? Even walking, they could be here in as much time as she’d taken cycling back up and along the railway and down again. She had to hope that the lack of any trail would mean they turned around and went elsewhere. Her best hope was that they didn’t know where she was headed and try to cut her off.

There was no sign that anyone had been along that lane though, and it was pretty well overgrown at this point. Once across, the track started to rise. There were more frequent bends as it followed the contours of the hill, until finally she reached the top. The ridge itself was quite thickly forested, although there were many clearings, and the steep north face was pretty much bare of anything other than grass. There was an old girder tower on the ridge; if she could climb it, the view over the area would be spectacular, and anyone moving over open ground would be visible for miles around.

The tower was set in a small compound, along with a brick and concrete hut, and surrounded by a mesh fence. Someone had put time and effort into maintaining it, although there were signs of recent neglect; a gap under the fence that had probably been started by some burrowing animal, gang tags painted onto the walls of the hut. If she could get inside it, she thought the hut could be easily defended and the fence meant she wouldn’t be taken entirely by surprise.

There were tyre tracks leading up to the compound from the main ridge-top trackway; big chunky tyres from the looks of them, from a tractor or other large vehicle, and quite fresh. There was no sign of the tractor now, and Flick wondered if it had anything to do with the smoke she’d seen earlier. As long as it didn’t come back though, that was the main thing.

The door to the hut was padlocked. Flick examined the lock; it was not something she could open. But the door was old wood, and with the big steel hunting knife in her pack she should be able to jemmy it. But first she would walk around and see what there was to see. On one side of the hut there was a small window. The glass though was opaque, designed to allow in some light but not to see in or out. It was also covered by a metal grille that was set into the brickwork. Around the other side there was a stack of logs, chopped as if for a fire and covered by a wooden awning. She stood back and saw there were two small chimney stacks set into the concrete roof. Next to the wood pile there was a large covered tank. The cover was rusty metal but it had a handle on it, and with some effort she was able to lift the cover and look inside.

Water.

She dipped a hand in and licked it: fresh too. That solved the problem of what to do when her water bottle ran out.

The tower itself was made from an open metal lattice. At the base there were four legs planted in the ground and forming a square. Its top was easily as high again as the highest tree, and a number of strange objects were attached to it near the top. There was a ladder running up one of the legs, so it would be relatively simple to climb to the top.

Flick decided that it would be better to climb the tower before opening the hut. For one thing she would know if there was anyone nearby and by extension if she needed to keep running. The sun was starting to sink in the sky and soon it would be dark, so potentially this could be a good place to spend the night.

She dumped her pack by the door to the hut, and set to work climbing the tower. It was pretty straightforward, and other than stopping for a breather a couple of times, there was no real difficulty. When she reached the top there was a platform made from a metal grille that she could perch on to survey the area.

The view was terrific, so long as she didn’t look in the direction of the sinking sun. The sky was clear and the moon had not yet risen. She could see for dozens of miles in every direction; looking back along the ridge she could see the trackway that ran along the top. In some places it faded out and in others it was hidden behind trees, but there were no obvious signs of people. She could also clearly see the lane that ran along the bottom of the ridge although much more of it was obscured.
 

Off to her right, in the distance was Faringdon. To her left, much closer, the ruined outskirts of Swindon jutted through the trees like so many rotten teeth, and a little further away the centre of the town that was still inhabited. Only the tallest buildings showed, broken and crumbled. Smaller ones were lost, hidden among the trees and vigorous undergrowth. They hadn’t built a wall around Swindon, and as a result it was a rough, lawless place. She hoped that she could stay away from it and skirt around; there were worse things than walking through the streets of Swindon unprotected, but not many.

Radiating out from Swindon was the line of the railway track, like a scar cut through the countryside. She scanned its length until it faded into the distance. She doubted if she would see one or two people being stealthy, but a crowd or a mob or a hunting party ought to stand out if they were moving.
 

Then she saw smoke.

There was a thin wisp coming from a section of the track, roughly north from her position. It corresponded as far as she could tell with the spot where she had decided to leave the track. If this was the pursuit party looking for her, they could be as little as two hours behind. Then she saw more smoke, drifting through the trees at the bottom of the ridge. This was much closer; if they were following the lane they could be here in not much more than an hour, assuming they were on foot. Were there two hunting parties, or had they divided their forces? Or were the smoke trails a coincidence and nothing to do with her? Regardless they had probably decided to camp down for the night, and hence the fires. So she would do the same. She just had to make sure she got an early start in the morning.

Flick climbed down from the tower and set about the door, forcing the padlock. Once she’d got it open, she saw that inside the hut there were racks of strange equipment, which didn’t really interest her, and in the corner a wood-burning stove that did. The stove was attached to a boiler and a contraption that could be a steam engine. She didn’t know what the steam engine might drive–there didn’t seem to be any belts attached to it for making machines work, like they used on farms and so on. Anyhow, it didn’t seem to matter.

She waited until the light started to fade before lighting the stove; hopefully the smoke from her own fire would be hidden by the darkness and not so visible to those followers. She was conscious that her position on the top of the ridge would automatically make any smoke stand out like a sore thumb during daylight, and maybe even at night if it was clear and the moon was bright enough. She stacked up some wood from the pile outside, along with some kindling, and used the hunting knife against one of her stone tools to strike a spark. Soon there was a cheery fire crackling away. She saw there was a spigot on the boiler that could be used to draw off boiling hot water, and she would be able to fill her water bottle from it with good clean drinkable water.

Now the light was fading outside, Flick saw several rabbits grazing on the grass beyond the fence. She took her bow and some of the arrows, and soon there was a small pile of rabbit carcasses ready to skin and cook. They would keep her going for several days, especially if she found some wild roots and leaves to go with them.