Murder at Twilight

by Fleur Hitchcock

  Pulling up the sleeve of the rugby top he shows me a neat set of four punctures, not bleeding heavily, but bleeding all the same.

  “Does it hurt a lot?” I ask.

  Noah nods and pinches his lips together. I can see tears welling in his eyes.

  “I don’t really know what to do about it,” I say. “I think you should probably try and keep it clean.”

  “Rabies,” he says.

  “I doubt it,” I say. “I think bats are more dangerous for that. But we’ll get it seen to as soon as we can.”

  We jog over the field. With every step, my feet protest.

  “Have you ever seen that dog before?” he pants.

  “Looked a bit like Chris Mumford’s dog, Lady.” I catch a tussock with my foot and stumble, nearly falling full length. “But I don’t think it can be – she’s always on Chris’s heel. She’s really well trained. She’s lighter than that too.”

  We stagger into the next field, this one pocked with cow footprints, and run on. Legs burning, lungs burning, feet burning.

  “Chris’s got two dogs – Lady and another one that looks like Lady. Can’t remember what it’s called,” Noah pants. “He keeps it off the estate.”

  We run on.

  “But that dog was angry,” he says. “Can’t possibly be Chris’s – must be a stray.”

  “Oh,” I say, and another distant thought begins to form in my mind, and it’s not happy.

  * * *

  Mid-morning, the rain comes again. It’s as if someone’s emptying a bucket over our heads and we get soaked in seconds. “This is illogical,” says Noah, stopping and leaning on a fence post. “We’re so close to home – we should be trying to get there.” He’s holding his arm as if it really hurts and I can see that his fingers are starting to swell.

  “Like how?” I say, watching drips falling from his ringlets, and feeling something between irritation and pity. “You thinking of swimming?”

  “I don’t know, we could demand a tractor from a farm or something.”

  “You might be able to demand a tractor – d’you think anyone would lend me one?” I point at the tattered plastic-bag ringlets around my feet, the enormous rugby top that reaches my knees and my filthy jeans. “Anyway, there isn’t a farm. The farm’s on the other side of the river. Everything’s on the other side of the river.”

  “Except the kidnappers,” he says. “And a dog with large teeth.”

  I look beyond him. We’re probably outside the Blackwater Estate by now. I don’t think I’ve ever been this far over, and I can’t work out where the river is in relation to the village. Floodwater’s changed the landscape so much I probably couldn’t point out where home is.

  “I might just fall asleep here,” he says. “You can tell them I died of wet.”

  Looking at him properly, I see that he’s horribly pale. Some of it’s the colour of his skin, and some of it is the rain on his hair. A medusa assortment of rat-tailed ringlets frame his face and he’s shaking again. I’m not shaking, but that could just be because I’ve gone beyond it.

  It could be an infection from the dog bite.

  “Come on, Noah – one foot in front of the other,” I say. “We’ll be there soon.”

  He trails behind me, slower and slower. Hours and hours pass. Stumbling and mumbling we wander, possibly in circles.

  “It’s the Blackwater Bonfire tonight,” I say eventually. “There’ll be fireworks everywhere,” I add, noting that the rain is getting heavier by the minute.

  “Oh,” he says, barely walking now.

  The rain beats down around us, bouncing on the fallen leaves, all the orange of the morning turning into grey afternoon.

  “What’s the worst that could happen?” he asks in the end.

  “We die of exposure?” I say, not mentioning the dog bite.

  “No, I mean if they catch us?”

  I think about it for a moment.

  “They could recapture you – and I suppose get the ransom for you. I just don’t know what they’d do with me.”

  “But you’ve never seen them – you don’t know who they are. You’re not a risk to them, are you?”

  “I know Dave’s involved, somehow,” I say, thinking of all the things circling in my mind, some of which are making me feel really uncomfortable. “And I think maybe someone else from the estate. And there’s something that’s been bothering me. When they picked us out of the river, they never asked me for my phone – they never checked that I didn’t have one.”

  “You were sopping wet. Your phone would be flooded.”

  “Some phones are waterproof.”

  We wade through another boggy patch of grass.

  “What are you saying?”

  “It’s as if they knew I didn’t have my phone. Like they knew me – personally. They knew my phone was taken by the police.”

  “Oh,” he says, but I’m not sure he understands.

  “That’s why we’re heading for the village. To get off the estate.”

  “I think you’re wrong. So what if Dave is involved – he’s not a bad man. I’m sure he’ll regret anything that’s happened,” he says. “My parents can pay the ransom – and we’ll be free.”

  Is he being deliberately obtuse? “What about Sanjeev? What about the person groaning in the back of the van? The bloodstains in the bag? The missing body?” I find myself shouting. “Go on then,” I say, trying to control my fear, my anger. “Go and find them – go and walk up to them with their gun and their dog and their manacles. Go on!”

  Noah turns and takes a couple of paces back the way we came.

  “Go on!”

  “Viv, come with me. I’m scared.”

  “I’m scared too – that’s why I’m walking the other way.”

  “Viv – please.”

  “No way,” I say. “No way. I’m going to find my way to somewhere I can call the police myself. I’m going to walk out of here. I’m going to… Oh, I don’t know, I’m just going to survive.” Stumbling away over the waterlogged grass, I pick my way between blackthorn bushes until I reach a gate that gives on to yet another field, this time full of wet sheep.

  “Viv!” Noah calls. “Viv!”

  Although I want to, I don’t look round. Instead, I clamber over the gate, my feet leaden and dead on the bars, and drop heavily into the sheep field. The animals scatter away from me, and then wander closer, peering curiously at this strange half-human creature.

  “Hello, sheep,” I say, looking out for another gate. In the far hedge is a gap. I waddle towards it, my feet so painful I can hardly bear to put them down on the cropped grass. The rain picks up, and now there’s nothing remotely dry about anything. Water drips down my neck, my chest, through the gaps in my fists.

  “Viv.” But I won’t turn.

  “Viv.” Again.

  The gap seems to take an age to get to – and when I finally reach it, it turns out to be a gate and it’s almost dark. A vehicle trundles along a lane a couple of fields over and the two cones of its headlights light up the rain racing through the sky.

  Risking a look behind me, I see a shape approaching through the sheep. Noah.

  Part of me wants to punch him. Part of me’s glad he’s changed his mind.

  By the time he catches up with me, the sky’s got an orange streak across the bottom, below the heavy clouds, and the temperature’s dropping.

  “OK,” he says, cradling his hand in his other arm. “Where are we going?”

  It’s dark, and we can’t see what we’re doing, and Noah may or may not be developing rabies or an infection or turning into a werewolf. But there’s nowhere warm to hide, or to stop, and I think we’re both aware that if we don’t keep moving we’ll die of cold. The cup of tea and the biscuit at the sawmill are such distant memories I’m beginning to think they weren’t real. I’m also beginning to wonder about the dog.

  That dog was like Lady, but it wasn’t Lady.

  And if Chris has another dog…
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br />   What was it doing there? Did it follow us all the way from the sawmill?

  Was Chris at the sawmill?

  I can believe it of Dave – but Chris? No. Surely not.

  I stumble in front and Noah stumbles behind. Brambles catch on my clothes, hook my skin, but I don’t care any more. And my feet. My feet are on fire.

  On the plus side it hasn’t rained for at least an hour.

  “Why isn’t there a village? Or a house?” says Noah at last.

  I don’t bother to answer; I think it’s a rhetorical question.

  He’s right though. The blackness seems to extend in every direction. Sometimes, a distant pair of headlights catch skeletal branches, and for a second I know which way to go, but mostly, it’s just dark.

  “No lights, no people, no kidnappers,” he says.

  “Hmm,” I say, and even that feels like an effort.

  Then, in the furthest possible distance, a tiny purple firework mushroom erupts, and ten seconds later a quiet thump reaches us.

  “D’you reckon that’s Blackwater Abbas?” he asks.

  I sniff. I don’t know, but the firework makes me feel better. Warmer. “Let’s head that way,” I say.

  We’re now so slow that negotiating our way out of every field seems to take forever. This one doesn’t seem to have a way out and I wonder if we’ve walked in a circle when we clamber over another gate. The ground falls away from us and soon I can hear the river again.

  “Oh.” Noah slumps to the ground behind me.

  “Get up,” I say.

  “Can’t – I’ve got to eat something,” he says.

  “There’s nothing to eat. We have to keep going.”

  “Can’t I just stay here?”

  “No, you can’t. Come on, Noah. Get up.”

  “No,” he says.

  “Yes,” I say. “You have to – you’ll die otherwise.”

  There’s a long drawn-out sigh and then I hear him shuffle up alongside me.

  Edging our way towards the river I have a sudden notion of where we are. With a little more confidence I march over the squishy grass to a point slightly our side of the river and then slow down, my hands in front of me. “Ow!” I catch my fingers on a barb and follow the wire along in both directions. Wood. A stile.

  “Yay,” I say, because I know that on the other side of this is a lane – and the lane goes towards the Middle Stoke Airfield, and then Middle Stoke itself. “And Middle Stoke has a pub,” I say out loud.

  “What?” says Noah.

  “A pub, a village with a pub – just a Sunday walk away.”

  “Really?” says Noah.

  “Not far. Don’t you remember? The pub by the river, with the playground – that used to do egg and chips.”

  “I never went there. But … egg and chips. Oh, no. No – too delicious. I can’t bear it.”

  We have to help each other over the stile. My jeans seem to have fused with my skin, they’re so damp. And my rugby shirt is still heavy with water, although the water’s kind of warmed up.

  The tarmac is pebbly underfoot but at least it doesn’t have splinters or thorns and I find I can walk at a reasonable pace. Sanjeev’s sock, much like the plastic bags, has no bottom any more. Who knew how badly a rugby sock can wear when it’s used as a shoe?

  I laugh.

  “What’s so funny?” asks Noah.

  “Rugby socks,” I say, not bothering to explain more.

  “Oh,” he says.

  The last glint of sky disappears, and the clouds give a dense black cover, so we have to use the slant of the road to work out the middle.

  We walk for ten, fifteen minutes before I hear a car.

  “Get in the hedge,” I say.

  “We could stop them – get a lift,” says Noah.

  “No,” I say. “We can’t, in case it’s someone we know.”

  “What? That’s mad.”

  “Trust me, Noah, we need to get off this lane. Hide. Now.” And I throw myself through the hedge, brambles and all. I feel Noah’s hands behind me and I drag him through too. We land in something soft and wet and smelly. Cowpat?

  “Ah!”

  “Shhh!” I whisper, as the brakes of the car squeal, feet slap on to the lane and torchlight burns wildly through the pale leaves in the hedgerow.

  “What did you see?” says a voice that sounds so like Chris I can’t think it’s anyone else.

  “Prob’ly a rabbit,” mutters another. Definitely Dave.

  Feet scrape the ground, hands push through the hedge, and then a foot.

  Dragging at each other, Noah and I scrabble backwards through more mud and throw ourselves down in a tall patch of nettles. As my legs are stung a thousand times I stifle a scream and peer through my hands back towards the hole in the hedge.

  The torch is now very properly on our side. And someone’s standing there, playing it slowly across the field.

  “See anything?” says the first voice. It’s Chris Mumford, and I almost want to run towards him. Safe Chris. He wouldn’t hurt us.

  Dave has to be the ringleader. Surely.

  The torch beam bounces through the undergrowth. From where I am, I can see it very definitely fall on Noah’s legs, but perhaps the torch-bearer doesn’t expect to find anyone in the nettles.

  Boooompffff.

  A firework blossoms nearby and something panics in the hedgerow on the other side of the field.

  A rabbit.

  Shwwwwwweeegh!

  Another firework fills the sky. I don’t look up, but the torchlight wobbles and the man turns, heading back towards the hole in the hedge.

  “Whooooo,” I hear Noah exhale.

  The torch is switched off. The engine of the vehicle starts and all goes quiet.

  Slowly, we uncurl. I’ve got something smeary down my front, and my skin is tingling from the stinging nettles.

  Noah grips my arm and together we help each other across the field to the gap.

  “How did you know,” he says in the end, “that they weren’t looking to help us? That was Dave.”

  I think about what I heard. Perhaps I’ve got it all wrong. “And Chris. I’m pretty sure it was Chris. And I don’t – not for certain. I really don’t. I don’t want to believe it either,” I say. “I might be completely wrong. But then again. If I’m right…”

  Noah lets out an “I don’t really believe you but I’ll humour you” sigh.

  We stay on our own side of the hedge and a pompom of greens and blues bursts into the sky to our left.

  “That’s not in town. It’s too close,” he says. “And it’s not a proper display.”

  “Yeah,” I say, my feet sliding in something wet and horrible.

  At the corner of the field, we squeeze through into the next one. We’re now so slow, so cold, we’re barely making any progress.

  A lone firework blasts into the sky, crackles in a silver cascade, and everything goes quiet. There’s just the sound of our feet in the grass, the rapidly freezing grass.

  After a long silence, Noah says, “Is the airfield near here?”

  “Yeah – before the village.”

  “There’ll be a phone at the airfield.”

  We struggle on. A vehicle drives slowly along the lane to our right, stops, reverses and comes back again. A door opens, creaks, and slams shut. A second door slams, and there’s the rapid breathing sound of a dog. Then there’s a torch beam dancing across the tarmac.

  Whoever it is combs the hedgerow behind us, muttering to themselves. Or the dog.

  “Let’s stop,” whispers Noah, just as the hedge to our right explodes and something barrels towards us in the dark.

  “Dog!” I hiss, stumbling right away from the road towards a dark corner of the field.

  Alongside me, Noah’s panting, both of us straining for the hedge that has to, needs to, let us through.

  Overhead another single firework whooshes into the sky and for a moment everything is lit up. Directly ahead of us is a gap in the hedge
, with a wooden bar across. It can’t be a stile because there wouldn’t be any footpaths over the airfield, but at least it’s a way through.

  “There!” Noah yells, and the dog growls, its paws crunching across the cold grass, closer, closer. I force my limbs to speed up. Everything hurts – lungs, feet, legs, everything tingles from the nettles. I could just give up.

  “Go on, dog,” shouts Chris, definitely Chris. “Find ’em.”

  With a mad burst of energy, I lumber in the dark towards the gap, Noah bumping alongside me, my feet sliding and trampling over so many thistles I could scream.

  The fence comes sooner than I imagined and my knees make heavy contact with the wood.

  “Ow!”

  It’s high, with wire netting, and we have to cling to the horizontal rails to get to the top. As I reach the second rung of wood, I feel the dog snapping at my feet. Its teeth grab the remains of the rugby sock. I panic and pull hard. The weight of the dog dangles from my leg until the sock gives up and dissolves, and the dog falls back with a long yowl of defeat.

  Above me, Noah hauls on my top to help me over and we tumble in a heap on the far side of the fence. The dog is centimetres away, but unable to get through.

  Behind us, the vehicle engine starts up and headlights spring on, shining through the hedge, showing me the whole layout of the entrance to the airfield. At a snail’s pace, it creeps forwards. In the field, the dog whines and then begins to bark.

  “Now what?” says Noah.

  “Shhh,” I say, shuffling on hands and knees through the smooth cropped grass of the airfield. The entrance is off to our right; the planes are parked up at the other end. There’s about 500 metres of open ground to cross before we get to the first house of the village where a reassuring yellow rectangle of light beams out of an upstairs window. Beyond that, more houses, more lights, more people, and I can even hear voices now.

  “C’mon, Noah – houses – not far!” I force my legs one in front of the other, but they’re made of jelly and my feet of fire and I can’t move as fast as I want to and I keep stumbling and almost falling. Like wind-up toys at the end of their springs we weave across the grass.

  “No!” shouts Noah to my left. He hits my arm and points to the right. Through the gate of the airfield bounce a pair of headlights. Too high to be a regular car, and close together, like a Land Rover’s. They’re slow but they’re searching and they’re heading towards us.