by Eva Hudson
“If that’s where she’s going. We’re still working on a hunch here. What if we lose her?” They turned a sharp bend in the road and Ingrid could just make out the beams from Sherwood’s headlights in the distance. It felt more like luck than judgment.
“Maintain this speed and we won’t lose her. We don’t need backup. I’m not sure the local cops could find their own asses with a— What the f—”
Ingrid yanked the steering wheel hard right and stamped on the brake as an overhanging branch loomed up at the windshield in the twilight. She yanked the wheel in the opposite direction just a few inches from a dense thicket on the far side of the road. Her heart lurched in her chest. She felt as though Gurley was watching her every move, waiting for her to make a mistake. She was determined not to give him the satisfaction. “You must work with the cops here all the time. Are you seriously suggesting they can’t do their job?”
“I don’t work with them a whole lot. They leave us to deal with our men as the Air Force sees fit. They get on with their business and leave us to ours. And that’s just the way I like it.”
“I’m sure they’re really not as bad as you make out.” Ingrid didn’t know why she was defending the local force, but now she’d started she felt as though she had to follow through. “I’ve worked with a lot worse police departments Stateside.”
“Then maybe the whole world is screwed.”
“Yet military cops remain shining examples of perfect policing that everyone else should emulate? You don’t have such a great record yourselves. Maybe you should think twice before you start throwing stones.”
“I can only judge on what I’ve seen so far. And it don’t impress me much.”
“As long as you know I’m calling the cops as soon as we get Foster.” Ingrid squeezed the steering wheel harder.
“That’s just fine with me.”
“Good.”
“Great.”
After another couple of minutes twisting around tight bends, the road straightened and Ingrid could clearly see the taillights of Sherwood’s little Nissan a hundred or so yards ahead of them. Fifty yards later the silver car slowed right down and took a left. Ingrid drove past the dirt track Sherwood had disappeared down and stopped on the other side of the road. As she came to a halt, the driver side wheels sank into a ditch and the Land Rover lurched sideways.
Gurley huffed out a sigh.
“Maybe you should have brought along the night vision goggles.” Ingrid used the flashlight function on her phone to avoid landing in the ditch herself as she climbed out.
They both closed their doors quietly and jogged back to the dirt track. “She might be driving miles down here,” Ingrid whispered.
“Lucky we’re both in such good shape, wouldn’t you say?” Gurley lengthened his stride.
Unlike Gurley’s, Ingrid’s boots weren’t designed for uneven terrain. She did her best to tread carefully and avoid the worst of the exposed stones and random divots underfoot. Right now, straining or twisting her ankle would be nothing short of disaster. Forced to make two strides for every one of Gurley’s, she felt a little like a small child trying to keep up with its older sibling. After a few more strides she picked up pace a little and overtook him. As she passed, she noticed his breathing seemed labored. Maybe he wasn’t as fit as he’d claimed.
Less than two hundred yards down the track, Ingrid saw the Nissan parked up close to a wide wooden gate. The interior light was on, but there was no sign of Sherwood inside the vehicle. Ingrid shoved out her hand in front of Gurley, who had already slowed down. They ducked sideways into a nearby hedge.
“Where the hell is she?” Gurley whispered.
“Wait a second.”
A moment later, the top of Yvonne Sherwood’s head appeared above the headrest of the driver’s seat. As Ingrid had suspected, the woman had been bending low over the passenger seat, where she’d dumped the heavy sports bag and the groceries earlier. She then climbed out of the car, ran around to the passenger side and, with some effort, heaved the bag out. She hauled it onto her back and immediately seemed six inches shorter.
“What does she have in there?” Gurley leaned out of their hiding place to get a better look. “We have to move in closer.”
“Can we just wait for a moment?” Ingrid grabbed his arm and pulled him toward her.
They watched in silence as the petite manager of the Hare and Hounds struggled to the wooden gate with the bag. She fumbled with something where the gate met the gate post, then shook the gate with both hands in frustration. With great effort she heaved the bag over the top of the gate and let it fall on the other side. It landed with a loud metallic clank that echoed down the track. Sherwood then climbed the gate and swung one leg over, sitting on the top for a few seconds, staring toward the muddy field beyond.
She awkwardly swung her other leg over and jumped down the other side. Then she grabbed hold of the heavy bag and dragged it behind her as she stumbled toward the middle of the empty field.
Crouching low, Gurley quickly slipped across the dirt track. He reached the fence that ran alongside the field, and, still keeping his head low, headed toward the gate. Ingrid followed him. Although her eyes were adjusting to the gloom, the darkness seemed to be closing in on them fast. If it hadn’t been for the light pink sweat top Yvonne Sherwood was wearing, Ingrid might have lost sight of her all together. She strained her eyes a little harder and managed to figure out the bar manager’s destination. Two-thirds of the way across the field was a small trailer. It looked like it had no wheels. Its windows were boarded with wooden planks and the door was hanging half off.
A few feet ahead of Ingrid, a good thirty or so yards from the gate, Gurley stopped. He pulled a small pair of binoculars from a pocket.
“Can you see any sign of life inside that trailer?” Ingrid asked. “Can you see anything at all?”
“I can’t see anything happening on the inside and Sherwood is at least fifty feet away from it.”
Ingrid peered into the grayness of the night. She could just about make out a lonely figure standing completely still in the middle of the field. “What’s she doing?”
“Looking around. Waiting.” Gurley moved in closer to the fence and lowered his head. “Stay very still. She’s more likely to notice movement.”
“Is that so?”
“She’s walking again. Headed straight toward the trailer.” He slowly scanned the field with the binoculars. “No signs of life anywhere else. She’s opened the trailer door now and she’s putting the bag inside.”
Although Gurley’s running commentary was starting to grate, Ingrid wouldn’t have known what the hell was happening without it.
“She’s not climbing inside the trailer,” he continued. “She’s walking around it.” Gurley watched for a few more moments then, grabbing Ingrid by the arm, dropped suddenly to the ground. “Dammit. She’s headed back toward the gate.” He lay flat on his belly and dragged Ingrid closer to him.
“We can’t stay here. We’re too exposed. She’ll see us when she drives past,” Ingrid hissed at him.
“We can’t exactly get up and hightail it back down the track either.”
Ingrid peered through the fence into the churned up field. Running along the length of it, parallel to the fence, was a trench, two-foot wide. “Can you wriggle under this wooden bar?” She hit the bottom of the fence with a fist.
“It’d be tight.”
“I figure if we time it so that we roll into the ditch when she’s climbing over the gate and stay low, she won’t notice us.”
“You’re suggesting we roll into a ditch?”
“You have a better suggestion, then make it fast.” Even without binoculars, Ingrid could see Sherwood was striding quickly across the field. She’d reach the gate in no time.
Gurley was already slithering toward the bottom of the fence.
“Deep breath in, Major.”
“It’s not my stomach I’m concerned about.”
&nbs
p; As Gurley wriggled closer to the fence, Ingrid noticed for the first time just how big his ass was.
Sherwood grabbed the top of the gate and started to climb.
“OK, you’ve got to go now,” Ingrid told Gurley and watched with alarm as his buttocks got wedged beneath the low wooden strut. “Relax your glutes,” she told him.
“Don’t you think I’m trying to?”
Ingrid grabbed his ass and started to push.
“What do you think you’re doing?”
“Helping.” She shoved harder. “Come on, she’s on top of the gate now. I’ve got to get under there too.” She took hold of his hip with both hands and pushed with all her strength. Gurley’s ass finally submitted and he slid the final few inches into the field. Ingrid quickly followed behind him, rolling into the ditch and onto Gurley’s back. She shuffled backwards fast, into her own section of the trench, and was rewarded for her haste with a mouthful of dirt. She spat it out. She was grateful there wasn’t a pool of stagnant water at the bottom of the ditch. In fact it was remarkably dry. She exhaled.
They stayed exactly where they were, not daring to move a muscle, until they’d heard the Nissan chug along the track a couple of minutes later. Ingrid lifted her head and shook dirt from her hair. Gurley adjusted his position so that he could prop the binoculars on the edge of the trench and train them toward the trailer.
“I guess all we can do now is wait.”
As the cold, silent minutes passed, Ingrid wondered if she should make the most of the forced intimacy and try to get Gurley to open up a little. There was something going on with him that she couldn’t put her finger on. But staring at his impassive, motionless back, she quickly decided she’d need a crowbar and a dose of sodium pentothal to make him tell her anything about himself. “Do you think Foster is hiding in an identical ditch on the opposite side of this field, watching the trailer just like us, making sure Sherwood wasn’t followed?”
“We can’t rule that out.”
“That’s got to be difficult, with an eight-year-old boy in tow.”
“You’re assuming Tommy’s still alive.”
“I’m certain he is.” Something about the way Rachelle Carver spoke about Foster had convinced Ingrid that the boy was safe with his dad. She hoped to God she wasn’t wrong.
“Must be nice to be so sure about things.” Gurley started to lift his head, then froze. “Did you see that?”
“How can you see anything in the dark?”
“Ten o’clock, movement in the bushes. There it is again.”
Ingrid saw it this time. A gray shape about a hundred yards away, making a beeline for the trailer. When the figure was just a few dozen feet from the door, Gurley lurched to his feet. He started to race across the field in the darkness, stumbling and tripping as he went, somehow managing to stay upright.
What the hell did he think he was doing? Why hadn’t he waited until Foster had disappeared into the trailer? His impatience had completely blown their cover.
Ingrid scrambled to her feet, but rather than follow behind Gurley, she ran in the opposite direction, aiming to approach the trailer from the other side. Hopefully she could stop Foster if he ran away across the field.
She ran as fast as she could without losing her balance. When she was just thirty or so yards from the trailer, Gurley started yelling.
“Stop right where you are, Foster. Put your hands above your head.”
From her position, the trailer was now obscuring Ingrid’s view. She accelerated forward, stumbling as she went. Just a few feet away she saw a figure come hurtling around the side of the trailer.
It wasn’t Gurley.
She picked up speed and hurled herself at the running man, grasping his legs and bringing him crashing to the ground in a classic quarterback tackle.
Gurley caught up with them a few seconds later. “Got you,” he yelled. “You sonofabitch!”
27
The man on the ground reared up against the pressure Ingrid was applying to his butt and lower back. Gurley stamped a boot between his shoulder blades.
“You stay just where you are.”
He moved his foot upwards and pressed on the man’s head, forcing it further into the ground.
“Who the hell are you?” the man managed to say before his voice was muffled by the dirt.
Gurley glanced at Ingrid. The man had spoken with an English accent.
Holy crap.
Ingrid scrambled to her feet. Gurley released the man’s head, grabbed his upper arms and hauled him upright as if he were as light as a child. Once he was vertical the man started to cough violently. Grabbing his knees he bent forward. He vomited onto the ground, retching for long moments. Finally he stopped, wiped a sleeve across his mouth and, gasping for breath, managed to stand up straight.
Ingrid grabbed her cell phone, found the flashlight app and shone it into the man’s face. He had dark hair and dark eyes, a two inch diagonal scar across his left cheek.
“What are you doing here?” Gurley yelled into his face.
“You’re American. Are you from the base?” He wriggled his shoulders. “I think you might have broken something, you know. I could sue.”
“We had reason to believe you were a known fugitive.” Gurley’s tone was unapologetic. “Tell us what you’re doing in the middle of a goddamn field in the middle of the night.”
“I live here.” He pointed toward the dilapidated trailer.
“You do?” Ingrid said.
“I just needed somewhere to put my head down for a couple of nights.” He turned more toward Gurley. “The missus chucked me out.”
“This is your trailer?”
He shook his head, cleared his throat and spat onto the ground. “I suppose it belongs to the farmer who owns the field. Not sure who that is. But it’s not as if I’m doing any harm. He won’t even notice.”
“So no one knows you’re staying here?” Gurley started walking around the trailer.
The man followed him. Ingrid brought up the rear.
“It’s not exactly something I want to broadcast. I am squatting, after all. And… well, I don’t want my kids to find out. It is a bit of a shit hole.” He wiped his mouth again.
Gurley had reached the front of the trailer and was inspecting the door, it was hanging from one hinge. He grabbed it with both hands and yanked it from its flimsy mooring. The door snapped off like a piece of cardboard. Gurley picked up the bag Sherwood had left inside.
“Hang on,” the man said, a note of panic in his voice. “That’s nothing to do with me. I’ve never seen it before. If you’re trying to plant some evidence on me… you can—”
“Yes?”
“This is my country. You can’t just come over here and act as if you own the place. Bloody hell.” He started rubbing his back. “You know, I think I am going to make an official complaint. What’s your name?”
“I’ll tell you when we get to the station house.”
“The what?”
“I’m sure the police will want to speak to you. At length.” Gurley smiled. Even in the dark, Ingrid could see his even white teeth gleaming. “On the plus side, at least you’ll have a leak-proof roof over your head.”
“Wait a minute.” He peered at the bag in Gurley’s hand. “You’ve got to believe me, that’s not mine.”
Gurley just stared at the man, clearly enjoying his discomfort.
“Really—I wouldn’t lie to you.”
Gurley reached up a hand toward the guy’s head. The man immediately flinched. Gurley placed his hand on the man’s shoulder and squeezed. “I’m feeling generous. So I’ll give you the benefit of a doubt.”
“And there’s no need to tell the police anything, is there?”
Gurley turned his head toward Ingrid. “The police? No—I don’t think we need to get the police involved at this stage.”
“Cheers, mate—I owe you one.”
Ingrid and Gurley left the man where he was and trudged across the fie
ld back to the track, Gurley keeping a tight hold of the sports bag. When they returned to the Land Rover, he unzipped it. Ingrid found a pair of nitrile gloves in her purse. She didn’t have a pair large enough to stretch over Gurley’s hands, so she searched the bag. Inside she discovered a small tent, two bed rolls, bread, cheese and a pint of milk, a change of clothes and a folded wad of bills.
“Seven hundred,” Ingrid told Gurley after a quick count.
“Wouldn’t get him that far.”
“We don’t know how much he has on him already. But I guess we can assume he must be running out of cash.”
“And maybe getting a little desperate.”
“There are kid’s clothes in the bag,” Ingrid said, doing her best to sound upbeat. “So maybe that means Tommy is still alive.”
“Or maybe that’s just what Foster wanted Sherwood to believe.”
28
Ingrid parked the Land Rover right outside the entrance to the Hare and Hounds. It was just past closing time, so she was forced to bang on the door for a good minute before it opened. Marcus Sherwood stood in the doorway, arms folded defiantly across his chest.
“Jesus. Look at the state of you.” He looked Ingrid up and down then past her toward Gurley, who was standing on the sidewalk, the sports bag grasped firmly in his hand.
Ingrid shook the remaining dirt from her clothes. “We’re just here to return some property of your mother’s.”
The young barman glanced down at the bag. “Mum hasn’t lost anything. I think you’ve made a mistake.” He started to close the door.
Ingrid shoved her foot over the threshold and grabbed the doorframe with her hand. “We could do this the friendly way, or I can call the police. It doesn’t actually make much difference to me. But your mom might prefer to keep this just between ourselves. Why don’t you go ask her?” She stepped through the doorway, forcing Sherwood’s son backwards.
“There’s no need for that.” Yvonne Sherwood appeared at the open interior door, a resigned, disappointed expression on her face. “You’d better come in.”