Huntress

by Amanda Radley

  “They seemed so nice, so genuine.”

  “Yes, I’m hearing a lot of that.” Claudia shook Michael’s hand. “Thank you for your help, and the coffee. As I say, if you think of anything at all, don’t hesitate to call me.”

  25

  Know Your Enemy

  The sound of the industrial sit-on cleaner pulled Amy from her sleep. She opened her eyes and watched as the service station employee drove the cleaner across the concourse, performing a fast and tight turn before the entrance. He performed another tight turn and then another straight after, clearly enjoying riding the large, noisy machine.

  Well, he’s having the time of his life, Amy mused.

  She looked up at the large clock on the wall. It was approaching nine o’clock in the morning. They’d been there for eight hours. Two people had kindly given them rides, each in opposite directions. Amy was happy that if Claudia tracked one then she certainly wouldn’t expect the second to take them back past the scene of the crime. She’d heard that criminals never returned to the scene of the crime. Or they always returned to the scene of the crime. Either way, she remained certain that Claudia wouldn’t expect it.

  The second person had left them at the deserted service station just outside of Coatbridge near Glasgow.

  Once they had cleared Edinburgh, the adrenaline had quickly given way to exhaustion. So, the quiet services were a blessing as it forced them to rest. Sitting on the hard benches, Amy was convinced that she wouldn’t be able to sleep. But eight hours had passed, so clearly she had.

  She turned to see Kerry hugging her rucksack, asleep with her face planted in the top of the bag. Deciding to let Kerry sleep a while longer, she shucked off her coat and stood up. She rolled her head and lifted her arms to stretch her body out, then pushed her things close to Kerry before taking a stroll around the services.

  The car park was starting to fill up. She looked at the people coming into the services to determine whom she might approach. Hitchhiking was their only way away from the services. It was in the middle of nowhere with no public transport. It was essential that Amy found someone to charm. That person also had to be travelling in the right direction, and not a murderer.

  Amy might not let on to Kerry, but she knew how dangerous hitchhiking was. She’d taken a “needs must” approach so far, but she’d be happy when they arrived at Aberdeen and could finally get the data off of the USB stick.

  She put her hand into her pocket and nervously rolled the stick over in her hand. Hoping that Kerry’s friend would be able to help them was a leap of faith. But with the wrath of the intelligence services coming down on them, they had no choice. Amy knew she needed a plan B. She had been wracking her brains for one, and nothing had presented itself to her yet. The stress of being chased was doing strange things to her mind. Her thought process was all over the place. She took a deep breath and continued walking, hoping to clear her head.

  A bank of computers with free Internet was in the corner of the services, and before she knew it her feet were walking her towards them. Before she pulled the chair out, she peered over to check that Kerry was still asleep. She knew what she was about to do was, potentially, very stupid. She didn’t know how the powers of the state worked. So far she just assumed that they could see and hear everything. She assumed that every single camera had facial recognition and would instantaneously ping up at headquarters. But logically she knew that was unlikely. Otherwise there would be no criminals on the run. Crime would be a thing of the past. Surely, they couldn’t be as advanced as they looked on television?

  She sat down and looked at the computer screen. After a moment’s indecision, she pulled the keyboard towards her. She wiped it down with the sleeve of her jumper in one long stroke. She glanced back up at the screen and watched the flashing cursor. After another look over her shoulder to check Kerry was asleep, she typed in a search.

  Claudia McAllister

  A second later, thousands of search results were compiled. She scanned the list until she saw a business profile. Amy clicked the link. Her eyes were immediately drawn to the photograph. A strict and unsmiling work picture gazed at her. Long, dark hair was swept back into a practical ponytail. Hazel eyes bored into her. Amy quickly scrolled down, feeling the intensity of the stare looking into her soul. Claudia, if this was the same Claudia, was beautiful in an ethereal way that Amy had never experienced. Just a couple of seconds of looking at the image, and Amy felt a strange connection.

  She shook her head to refocus her thoughts and started to read the business biography on the screen. It was short and to the point; Amy wondered if it was Claudia’s own words.

  “Used to work with MI5 counter-terrorism. Now runs her own agency,” Amy mumbled to herself. She sat back. “She’s not with them, she works alone.”

  “Who works alone?”

  Amy jumped out of the chair, crashing her thighs into the desktop.

  Kerry ignored her drama and leaned forward to look at the screen.

  “Jesus, Kerry, don’t sneak up on me like that.” Amy rubbed her thighs.

  “You left me on my own over there,” Kerry said without looking at her. “Then I find you, and you’re chatting away to yourself like a lunatic. This is the woman who found us?” Kerry reached for the mouse and started to scroll up and down the webpage.

  “Yeah,” Amy muttered, unsure if Kerry was about to berate her for doing the online search.

  “She’s independent, so she was telling the truth when she said she was on her own,” Kerry said.

  “I think so. Now I’m wondering why she’s found us and they haven’t. Are they even looking for us? Maybe they aren’t even looking. Maybe they... don’t care? Or gave up? Or they just farm out the silly cases to people like her. Surely they don’t think we’re important if they gave the case to her?” Amy knew she was clutching at straws.

  Kerry pulled a chair over and sat down. She focused on the screen, returning to the search results and looking at other pages.

  “Maybe. Perhaps we’re full of ourselves and they aren’t coming at all?” Kerry suggested.

  “Either that or she is, like, elite, and she’s found us and they haven’t,” Amy guessed.

  Kerry let out a sigh. “Which would mean we have two groups of people looking for us.” She leaned back and pinched the bridge of her nose.

  “Three, if you count Spiky.” Amy reached for the mouse and navigated back to the original webpage. She hesitated a moment as Claudia’s photograph appeared again and then scrolled down. “What’s she got that they haven’t? How is she tracking us, almost finding us, and they don’t seem to be?” Amy asked.

  “I don’t know, babe. But I don’t think you’re going to find the answers on there.”

  Amy scrunched up her face and sat back in her chair. “It was weird. Speaking to her, I mean. Like it already felt real, but then it felt one hundred percent more real.”

  Kerry just nodded and looked at her sympathetically. “What do you want to do?”

  Amy knew that Kerry was asking a wider question. Kerry wasn’t just asking what she wanted to do next, but what she wanted to do overall.

  Amy looked at the floor, ignoring the hustle of the services that was gradually becoming busier. She wanted to be proved innocent. She wanted to go back to her life, where everything was simple and easy. She wanted her bed, her home, her mum.

  “Nothing’s changed,” Amy said. “They still think we’re... the t-word... so we have to prove that we’re not. We have to get this USB stick to an expert.”

  “I agree,” Kerry said.

  “I think we need to focus on the goal. So far, we’ve been running. We’ve vaguely tried to get to Aberdeen, but we’ve been all over the place. If we’d stuck to our plan, we might already have got there by now.”

  “You’re right, we’ve been focusing on running. What do you suggest?”

  Amy looked out into the car park. “Someone here must be going Aberdeen. I think we wait to find someone who is t
ravelling there. It might take a while to find that person, never mind a person who is willing to let us travel with them. But it’s better than potentially travelling backwards.”

  “Yeah, speed is of the essence now. We don’t know how this woman found us, so we need to crack on.”

  “Exactly, she may know that we’re hitchhiking, but how’s she going to find us? There’s a lot of space between here and Aberdeen. It will take her a while to find us. Surely?”

  Kerry nodded. “Yes, we’ll spend more time here finding the right person, going to the right place. In the long run, it will save us time.”

  Amy reached for the mouse and closed the search window.

  “Amy, it’s more important now that we remember what we agreed.”

  Amy sucked in a breath. “If we get split up?”

  “Yeah. We’ve split the money, but we can’t split the USB. You’re carrying that, and I’m fine with it, but I have to know that you’ll carry on. If I get caught, I have to know that you’re going to keep going. I need to know that you’ll finish what we started. If this woman...”

  “Claudia.”

  “Claudia, if she finds me, I need to know that you’re already running. I’ll be able to deal with it all better if I know that you’re okay.”

  “But, what if I’m not okay without you?” Amy asked softly.

  “You’ve always been okay without me.” Kerry swept her into a one-armed hug. “It’s me who needs you. You’re...”

  Amy waited to hear what she was. She felt Kerry stiffen. “Don’t keep me in suspense, Kez. I’m what?”

  “Holy shit.”

  Kerry loosened her grip and Amy turned around. She followed Kerry’s gaze to one of the big screen TVs mounted on the services’ wall. A cold tingle of air swept up her spine. They were on the news. The TV was muted, and the subtitles were slowly catching up with what the newsreader was saying. But the image on the screen was of them, the screenshots from the CCTV the day it all started.

  “We need to get our wigs,” Kerry mumbled. She looked around to see if the few people in the services were paying attention to the screens. Luckily, everyone seemed to be too busy going about their business to notice.

  “Agreed.” Amy casually walked over to the seats where she’d left Kerry sleeping and hauled her rucksack onto her back. Kerry joined her and grabbed the handle of her own bag.

  “Let’s head for the bathroom,” Kerry suggested. “Nice and slow.”

  “I’m freaking out,” Amy whispered.

  “I know. Just... look normal. We’re just travelling. Like everyone else. Everything will be fine.”

  Kerry sounded calm, but Amy could detect the underlying panic in her tone. She tried to swallow down her fear. It wasn’t the first time they had been featured on the news. But this was different, now they were the subject of a nationwide manhunt. Finding people they could trust had just become a hundred times harder.

  26

  On The Move

  Amy felt her hand rise subconsciously and quickly lowered it again. The wig was great at disguising her appearance, she could hardly recognise herself in the mirror, but it was uncomfortable. It made her head hot, and it was starting to give her a headache where it fit tightly over her unruly hair.

  To add to her discomfort, there was the added problem that she was convinced that everyone was looking at her. The news article featuring them was running every thirty minutes inside the service station. When the article was running, they headed outside and stayed away from people. Once it was finished, they stayed in the car park, only speaking to people who had just arrived. Now and then, they would head back into the services, but only with their hoods shielding their faces.

  Amy could feel the sweat trickling down her back. The pressure was on, and she mentally cursed Claudia for it. She couldn’t know for certain that the mysterious huntress was the one who had set the media on her. It felt like it must have been her.

  Them had now turned into her. Claudia McAllister, elite hunter who had been so successful she had set up her own business. She’d already found them once, and Amy felt as if she lurked behind every corner, waiting for them. The cat and mouse game now felt more claustrophobic with the stark knowledge of just how sharp the cat’s claws were.

  A motorhome pulled into one of the large spaces at the end of the car park. Amy walked over to the vehicle and waved towards the male driver who sported a hipster look. He was in his mid-thirties. He smiled and waved back to her as he manually wound down the window on the old motorhome.

  “Hey,” she greeted him. “I’m Amy.”

  “Stuart, and this is Alice.” He gestured behind him with his thumb.

  Amy looked into the back of the motorhome and saw a little girl, no older than eight.

  “Hey Alice, I like your braids,” Amy said warmly.

  Alice smiled. She blushed and looked down at her feet, clearly embarrassed by the attention.

  “Me and my friend Kerry are kinda stranded and looking for a lift to Aberdeen,” Amy said. She pulled her shoulders as high up as she could and shivered a little as the wind blew. She wasn’t cold, her heart was beating too fast to be cold. But she knew the pathetic look may tug at a heartstring or two.

  Stuart looked her up and down, weary to say the least. Amy remained silent; she knew that silence was the most powerful weapon when it came to bartering.

  “Well...” Stuart trailed off, uncertainty warring on his features.

  “We are so quiet, you won’t even know we’re here. Unless you want us to sing, we’re great at singing. And we bring our own sweets, because every road trip needs sweets.” Amy winked towards Alice who was looking at her curiously.

  “I’ve never picked up hitchhikers before,” Stuart admitted.

  Amy had picked up on the unsaid signal that he was going to Aberdeen. This was her chance to get out of the services and on the road to their final destination.

  “We’re not hitchhikers, we’re Amy and Kerry. And we’re dead nice. You’ll even miss us when we’re gone, when you’re driving alone you’ll think, ‘Gosh, I wish Amy and Kerry were still here’. I promise, we’re no trouble.”

  Stuart laughed and then nodded. “Okay, okay, I’ll give you a lift. I warn you, it might take a while, the van is a bit clapped out. We can only do fifty on the motorway, so it will be about a four hours’ drive.”

  “Better than a three-day walk,” Amy replied. She turned around and waved her arms to get Kerry to come over.

  Stuart wasn’t exaggerating when he said that the motorhome was clapped out. The engine was making a noise that echoed throughout the vehicle. Kerry and Alice sat in the back, Kerry keeping the girl entertained with the travel games set that Amy had brought along. Alice had seemed sombre when they first started the journey, but it only took Kerry a few minutes to win her over.

  Stuart smiled as he chanced the occasional look in the rearview mirror. Amy watched him with interest. He seemed relieved; he had been concerned about Alice for some reason.

  “She’s a great kid,” Amy fished. The music was playing loudly enough to cover their conversation.

  “She is. She... um, well, we lost her mother, four months back.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that, was it sudden?” Amy chanced a look back to check that they were speaking privately.

  After another glance in the rearview mirror, Stuart nodded. “Yeah, cancer. She was gone in five weeks. It really hit Alice hard.”

  Amy took in his taut body language and looked towards her window to give him some privacy. “I’ll bet, it must have hit you hard, too. You’re lucky you have each other.”

  She caught Stuart’s reflection in the glass. He wiped at his eye quickly. “Yes, she’s my life. She’s all I have left of Sam. When Sam got sick, everything fell apart. She was the breadwinner, so we lost that income straight away, we lost the house, and we’ve been living in this motorhome ever since. But it’s not sustainable. I’m going to Aberdeen so I can drop Alice off with my mum wh
ile I look for work and try to get back on my feet.”

  Amy continued to look out of the window, not wishing to crowd Stuart while he confided in her. “That sounds like a good idea. It will give her stability.”

  “Yeah, it’s best for her.”

  Amy detected the tone and understood immediately. Stuart felt guilty. “It’s best for you, too,” she said. “You need time to grieve.”

  He was silent for a few moments, and Amy knew he was struggling with the ocean between managing personal grief and the responsibilities of being a single parent.

  “You need to be the best parent you can be for Alice, you’ve clearly done that in the immediate aftermath,” Amy continued. “She’s loved, safe, and as happy as she can be. She needs time and stability to process what has happened, but you need that, too. Dropping her off with your mum, so you have some time to grieve, is best for both of you.”

  “I hope so,” Stuart replied softly. “I feel like...”

  “Like you’re abandoning her?” Amy guessed.

  “Yeah...”

  Amy turned to face him. “You’re not. You’re clearly a devoted dad, but even the best parent needs some time to breathe and think about what has happened. What you’re doing is giving Alice a loving family environment while you get some time to get yourself back together. Losing a partner is huge.”

  “So is losing a mother,” Stuart pointed out.

  “Alice is young. Kids are resilient and she will bounce back in no time. Losing a mother is hard, but with a great dad and a loving grandmother, she’ll be okay. But you need to look after you, to make sure you can look after her.”

  Stuart glanced at her and offered a tight smile. “Thanks, I needed to hear that.” He looked back at the road. “It’s been hard, just the two of us.”

  “I can’t imagine what you’ve been through,” Amy confessed, “but I do know that you can’t saddle yourself with guilt. You need your own time to grieve so you can get back to Alice as the best person you can be.”