The Hunt (20 page)

Chris lay motionless for a while longer, trying to analyse the pains as they truly settled in. Nothing screamed at him. He’d fallen before, though not quite so far. A few tumbles from a mountain bike, one of them down a steep slope that luckily had been softened by heathers. A couple of falls from his road bike had given him severe road rash, a nicely stitch-laden scar, and dented pride, but little else. He felt like that now – abused, battered, bleeding here and there, his body finally screaming at the efforts he was asking of it.

He sat up gingerly, cautious not to disturb his position too much. He had to take stock, not only of himself but of his situation. Gingerly he reached up and flicked on his head torch. The beam diffused around him and, if anything, made him feel more enclosed.

It was misty again. Maybe he’d slipped down into a layer of mist, or perhaps it had formed again over the past moments. He knew how quickly it could descend this high in the mountains. The glimpse he’d caught of the lightening underside of grey clouds was no longer visible. He was on a steep slope. Darkness and the mist brought visibility in close, as if the landscape wanted him all for itself.

If he went back up he would risk slipping and falling again. The slope here was not sheer – he could climb on his hands and feet – though if he’d been here by choice he would likely have rope, crampons and proper climbing gear. But there had been that brief moment of weightlessness after he’d fallen and before he struck ground, which indicated a vertical drop of perhaps ten feet.

He was lucky he hadn’t brained himself or broken a limb.

Several fingers on his right hand were bleeding. He went to suck the blood from them, then saw the smears of muck streaked with blood. He sniffed. It was foul and sickly, the stench of accumulations of bird shit. Instead, he wiped his hands on his running trousers.

Aiming the light downhill showed the slope continuing before disappearing into the mist. That was the way he needed to go. Down into the valley, then south towards his family.

He started moving that way, edging down on his backside, feet first with his hands propped behind him. The rifle stock snagged on a rock and he moved it aside, trying to sling it at a diagonal across the front of his body. He kept the head torch on.

The ground sloped so steeply that he constantly felt on the verge of losing his grip, and the fear of what he could not see below chilled him. It felt like lowering himself into an abyss that might never end.

The surface changed from bare, loose rock to a layer of tough heathers, and his fingers and heels dug in as he crawled downward. It felt safer, and he was also certain that the slope was lessening.

Maybe I’m almost down
, he thought.

But then the slope ended at another sheer drop. He saw it several feet ahead and below him, a space where mist drifted and rolled with no sign of the mountainside below.

Chris made sure he was secure and switched off the head torch. It was a spooky experience. He felt so small and alone, a speck of insignificance in this huge landscape. The mist seemed so heavy that it was cloying, cooling his skin, settling on his tongue when he opened his mouth. Perhaps it was a little lighter than before, but it was so difficult to tell.

He now faced a choice, and neither option appealed to him. He could climb back the way he’d come and try to ascend back up to easier ground. He’d been descending for twenty minutes, and to climb up again would be three times slower. Or he could continue down, descend the sheer drop before him, and perhaps find himself below the mist when dawn came.

That would be soon. But he could not afford to stay in one place until it arrived. He had to keep moving, everything depended on that. The hunters would have seen that he was all but motionless and they’d be coming for him. Perhaps Blondie had another phone he had not found, and he might have told the others not to climb the mountain but wait for their target at the bottom. Chris could be climbing down towards them even now. They’d wait quietly, patiently, watching him moving on their tracking devices, fingers tight on triggers as he came closer, each of them wanting to be the one that made the kill. When daylight came and exposed him on the cliff, he would be in their sights.

Maybe they’d agree to all shoot at the same time, and all claim the kill.

And yet he could not believe they had moved this quickly. Blondie had been fast and fit. The others
…
he hoped they were still struggling across the dark and stormy landscape. If he descended quickly, while it was still dark, he could reach the valley floor and be away before they even arrived.

But Chris could know nothing for sure, and he could not afford to dwell on the situation.

He started climbing down.

He had discovered his fear of heights relatively late in life. On a family holiday several years before, Gemma had asked if she could do some high ropes. They were a network of ladders, bridges, and rope structures high in the trees, traversed from one end to the other. Anyone using them was clipped to a safety harness and it was impossible to fall. But Chris had almost frozen.

Even edging up the first ropes, set at an angle and in high tension, he’d not liked looking down. By the time they were almost thirty feet above the ground, his heart had been hammering, sweat slicked his hands, and the only thing that kept him moving was the sight of Gemma progressing confidently ahead of him.

Since then he’d happily look from an aircraft window at the ground far below, but he avoided ladders at all costs.

Head torch on, slipping over the cliff edge and feeling around for footholds, that same consuming fear settled over him. He remained in place for a couple of minutes, toes pressed tight on a narrow ledge, arms spread on the sloping ground before him, fingers clawed into the rugged soil. He’d secured the rifle and backpack, and now they both felt like weights seeking to pull him out and down. Maybe he should leave the rifle behind.

Chris closed his eyes and thought of his family. ‘Get your fucking act together!’ he said aloud. Then he started easing himself down the cliff face.

He focused. The slope was not quite vertical, but it was steep enough to necessitate care and consideration as to where he next placed his toes and fingers. He sought out each toe and hand hold, moving one limb at a time, testing his weight, shifting slowly. Sometimes the little ledges or cracks in the face were soft with soil and moss, other times they were cool wet rock. He hoped that every movement would be the last one, and that his foot would touch down onto a gentle slope, the beginning of the valley and the foot of the mountain. But the cliff continued.

He was breathing hard, heart hammering, yet he soon became immersed in his task. If he did think of the unknown drop below him his stomach turned, his bowels felt suddenly loose. What was he doing? How
stupid
could he have been? He was stuck out here on the face of a cliff, and if he froze now he might never get moving again. But it would only take a few seconds of searching, locating a ridge or crack, moving, before his mind was set to its task once more.

His left knee was stiff and felt swollen inside his running trousers. The ankle on the same leg was hot and painful. His fingers continued to bleed, wounds not given the chance to clot. The pain was rich and sickly, but he tried to shut it out. Pain was merely a warning that he chose to ignore.

The wind picked up. Gusts prised at him, attempting to tug him away from the cliff. Rain slanted in, running down the cliff face before him. The sudden change in conditions was shocking, yet painfully familiar. He pressed in tight and closed his eyes, trying to become part of the cliff, hoping that if he was still enough the storm would pass him by.

When he opened his eyes he realised that dawn had come, the wind had started to disperse the mist, and he could look down and see how far he had yet to descend.

Chris whined and hugged himself against the cliff as tightly as he could. He realised that he was going to die.

For the first few hours they kept them restrained, seated on a leather sofa in a comfortable living room, wrists tied in front of them with itchy rope and ankles bound with zip ties. But then they let them visit the small downstairs bathroom. They also let them undress, and Gemma’s mum swilled their piss-stinking clothes and hung them on a rack above the bath, and while they waited for them to dry they wore big, fluffy towels. Gemma had been worried about the nail – she didn’t want anyone to know about it, including her sister or mum – but she managed to slip it into the space between sofa cushions before undressing.

Vey and Tom took it in turns watching them. Tom would sit in the window seat, leg swinging, gun in his belt, looking from the window. Vey would take the larger armchair and scan her phone. Neither of them said much, but they didn’t seem to mind their captives chatting quietly.

From the minute they had arrived, Gemma had been storing away information about where they were being kept. Their mum chatted with them, told jokes, doing her best to keep her girls calm while she herself seemed ready to collapse at any moment. Gemma hated seeing her mother like that – shaking, pale, constantly swallowing as if verging on being sick – but she’d already decided that she was the one looking after them.

She didn’t know how, or why. She’d never thought of herself as brave. But she was not about to question how she felt.

They’d had only a glimpse of their surroundings as they walked between the van and cottage. She’d seen a barren, wide landscape, mountains in the distance, steep, sweeping slopes closer by dotted with sheep and lined with old stone walls. Staggered fencing prickled one slope, turning it into a patchwork of fields. There were a few other buildings visible through hedges and past clumps of trees, and perhaps some were in shouting distance. Perhaps. She stored that knowledge in the box.

The cottage was large and well-maintained, with a simple garden of lawn and flower beds and a gravelled driveway. They entered through a side door into a big kitchen, passing through to a square hallway with a staircase and three other doors. One of them was the bathroom they’d been using, and another led into the living room. They had been there ever since.

It was a holiday home. She’d seen plenty of signs of that – small, tasteful notices; a folder of brochures of things to do in the area; a visitors’ book in the living room – and she stored that away, too. She didn’t think it was good news, because these people might have hired the place for a week or two.

They were somewhere in the wilds of Wales. Beyond that she knew nothing.

None of them knew
anything
.

She hugged Megs and tried to comfort her, and their mother held them both. They ate some bread and cheese, drank glasses of milk, and Gemma hated being so hungry. Eating what the bastards brought them implied some sort of gratitude, but she made them know for sure she wasn’t grateful. When Vey told her to take the plates through to the kitchen, Gemma dropped them in the hallway and watched them shatter across the flagstone floor.

‘You’ll eat your next meal off your laps,’ Vey said.

Gemma didn’t reply. But she thought,
Stupid girl. Don’t antagonise her. Don’t make her think there’s an inch of resistance in you. Put them at ease
.

Her mother asked what they wanted. So did Megs. Gemma asked too, with no need to feign the sudden tears that burned in her eyes. Vey said nothing, merely glanced up at their questions and then returned to surfing her phone. Once or twice Tom gave them obscure answers, which raised more questions than anything else. ‘Ask your husband,’ he said. ‘Tomorrow will tell,’ he said.

Gemma hated him. She hated both of them, and the hate helped her maintain the distance that kept at least some of the fear and panic at bay.

As dusk fell and Vey went around the living room closing curtains, Gemma probed down between the sofa cushions and tucked the nail back down the back of her washed and dried trousers. No one noticed. It was cold against her skin, and sharp. Her subterfuge made her feel that she was doing something positive.

‘Should have had stitches in that,’ her mother said later. Megs was asleep on the big leather sofa, head propped against the arm. Gemma sat at the other end, and their mother was between them, a hand on each of her daughter’s legs. Gemma knew then that her mum was doing as much as she could. She was keeping control, fighting panic, and not doing a single thing that would risk her daughters’ wellbeing.

Gemma was the one ready to take risks.

‘It’s okay,’ she said. ‘Doesn’t really hurt any more.’ She pulled her shirt collar aside and checked the cut on her shoulder. It was crispy and sore, and a bruise was forming around it. She would have a scar.

Vey watched them from the armchair. Several times now, Gemma had seen the woman’s eyelids drooping, and she’d felt a flutter of excitement in her chest at the idea of grabbing the gun. It was stupid. Stuff like that only really happened in films. These people seemed slick and organised, they knew what they were doing – whatever the hell that was – and she had the impression this was far from the first time.

But the idea persisted. Vey relaxed in her chair. Her breathing came slower and deeper. Gemma didn’t want to do anything to startle her into alertness.

‘Good that she’s asleep,’ she whispered, nodding at her little sister.

‘Yeah,’ her mum said. ‘You okay?’

‘I’m fine, Mum. It’ll all be okay. If they were going to hurt us they’d have done it by now.’ She knew that wasn’t true, as did her mother.

‘We should get some sleep,’ her mum said. ‘We’ll be fine, Gemma. We’ll know more tomorrow.’

‘What do you think Dad’s doing now?’

‘Don’t know.’ Her mother turned away as if to dismiss the subject. Something about her changed. She became somehow softer, reduced.

‘Mum?’

She was sobbing. Gemma leaned in and pressed her face to her mother’s shoulder, reaching across her stomach to hug her, and she could hear the sobs coming from deep inside, feel them translated through her body. But she was trying to keep quiet. Probably so that she didn’t wake Megs, Gemma knew, but she kept glancing at Vey, slowly nodding off in the armchair across the room by the large, curtained window.
That’s it, keep it quiet, Mum
, she thought,
let’s all keep it quiet
.

She thought she could remain strong. But hearing her mother’s distress caused Gemma’s resolve to slip, become more fluid and uncertain. Your mother was supposed to be the strong one, her warmth a place of safety, her smile a sign that all was well. As her sobs continued, fear threatened to overwhelm Gemma. It pressed in like the loaded shadows, heavy with dread, that she had once believed were trying to take her away.

She’d been eight years old then, and every night for a week she had dragged herself kicking and screaming from sleep, thrashing at sweat-soaked bedding and reaching for her troubled parents as they dashed into her room, arms held out ready to rescue her. The retreating shadows had glared from corners, on top of her wardrobe, and beside her bookcase, but between her parents she had always found a safe place. It was only when she was diagnosed with glandular fever that the cause of such night terrors had been revealed. Their hold over her had soon melted away.

This fear felt the same. An unstoppable force threatened her and her family, and the dread was heavy and slick. It pressed against her, constraining her breathing, dulling her senses. She blinked and the room grew darker. The overhead light had vanished, and a soft glow filtered through the open doorway from the hall. Her mother no longer sobbed, but her breathing was still uneven. Megs muttered in her sleep.

Gemma stood slowly from the sofa, and it felt like someone else. Her limbs were not her own, her body was alien, her intentions were unlikely and distant. She touched the nail down the back of her trousers, then let go and took three steps towards the sleeping woman and her gun.

‘Sit down,’ a man’s voice said from behind her.

She froze. Breath caught in her throat. Fear winded her.

Vey stirred and then quickly stood, grasping the gun from her lap, smiling through sleep-swollen eyes. She pointed it casually at Gemma’s face.

I’ve killed little girls tougher than you.

‘Gemma!’ her mother whispered, stirring behind her. Megs woke as well, mumbling.

‘I could kill you and do just as well with the other two,’ Vey said.

Gemma could not speak. No words came to her, and her throat convulsed, struggling to draw in a breath.

‘Sit down,’ Tom said, walking around the sofa and turning on the light. He’d been sitting at the small table in the corner of the room, keeping watch while Vey slept, and Gemma had not even looked for him.

Vey kept the gun aimed at her face.

Gemma drew in a long, ragged breath, afraid that it might be her last.

‘Please,’ her mother pleaded from behind her.

Vey grinned. ‘Tom, tie them up again. Tight. And gag them.’

The light remained on for the rest of the night, and Vey stayed awake, looking at her phone. It buzzed once and she answered, hung up, and called out to Tom, who was making coffee in the kitchen, ‘Still on!’ From then until dawn she scanned the screen, chuckling now and then when something seemed to amuse her.

Pictures of drowning puppies
, Gemma thought. And each time she closed her eyes to sleep, the promise of that dreadful gun’s barrel kept her awake.