by Chris Ryan
It was only gradually that the feeling came over Ben. It was a curious sensation, a bit like pins and needles but not so acute. The feeling of being watched. He looked around him, and at first could see nobody. But then he looked back towards the train station. An arched bridge connected the two platforms, and standing on top of it, silhouetted ghost-like against the dusk sky, was a figure. Something about him chilled Ben's blood.
The figure stood perfectly motionless, and Ben found himself squinting his eyes to try and make out his features more clearly. He was too far away, though, and the light was not good enough. Gently he nudged Annie.
'What?' she asked, tiredness showing in her voice.
Ben didn't say anything — he just nodded in the direction of the figure. Normally he would have expected a sarcastic comment from his cousin, but not tonight. She too fell silent as she watched the silhouette, clearly as unnerved by it as Ben was, though neither was able to pinpoint quite why.
Ben bent down to his rucksack, opened it up and pulled out the pair of binoculars that Annie had lent him. He knew how rude it would be to use them to stare at somebody so close, but he couldn't stop himself: he just wanted to be able to look at the guy clearly, to dispel some of the uneasiness he was feeling. He put the binoculars to his eyes and adjusted the focus. Gradually the man came into view.
He was elderly, tall and thin and wore a shabby grey overcoat. His nose was hooked and his floppy hair seemed to fall over his face, though he made no attempt to brush it off. His left cheek occasionally twitched nervously, but it was the eyes that alarmed Ben most of all. They seemed constantly to flick off in different directions, nervously — panicked, even — and they gave the man's face a scary, disturbed demeanour. It did nothing to ease Ben's mind. What was he doing there, all alone? What was he searching for? Ben felt scared of him, yet transfixed. For a moment he wondered if the man intended to throw himself in front of the next train.
Suddenly, Ben felt a shock of ice run through him. The man was staring at him — staring straight at him — and his eyes had stopped darting around, though his face still twitched. How long they remained like that, Ben couldn't have said. Seconds probably, although it seemed like an age, and he watched in horror as the man's lip curled into what could only be described as a smile — but a smile with no humour.
Ben found himself almost hypnotized by the man's eyes, and it was only the sudden sound of the bus pulling up that made him lower the binoculars. Again the man appeared to him as no more than a silhouette in the distance.
The two cousins shuffled their rucksacks onto the bus, a rickety old thing that was empty apart from the driver, who silently took their fares, then they grabbed seats together at the back of the vehicle. As the bus pulled out, Ben glanced out of the window in the direction of the railway bridge. The old man was no longer there.
It was Annie who finally broke the silence. 'Why d'you look at him through the binoculars?' she asked.
Ben shrugged. 'Don't know,' he replied a bit defensively. 'I just had a weird feeling, that's all. Like he was watching us.'
'It's all right,' Annie replied. 'He gave me the spooks too.' She looked out of the window herself. 'It's pretty remote up here,' she observed. 'That's why it's good for bird-watching. Not too many people. If I was a bird, that's definitely what I'd want. People aren't good for wildlife — they always seem to manage to mess it up somehow.'
And with that melancholy observation, they both fell quiet again.
It was nearly an hour's bus ride, and for all that time Ben could not get the image of the old man out of his head. For some reason the hooked nose and the way those beady eyes had stared directly at him put him in mind of the picture of the female hen harrier from Annie's RSPB magazine — a ridiculous notion, he knew, but sometimes when you're scared you look for associations that aren't really there. He was glad when they arrived at the youth hostel as it meant he could focus his mind on something else.
The hostel was a large, grey-stone building, stark and imposing against the twilight sky. It was the only building for as far as the eye could see, which gave it a sinister look; yet it seemed at the same time to welcome them, with the lights beaming out of all the windows. As they lugged their heavy bags through the front door, a young man who seemed nice enough to Ben, if a bit overfriendly, directed them to their respective dormitories — sparse rooms with four sets of bunk beds each and only a couple of other guests occupying them. A quick snack from some of the food they had brought with them, and before long they were asleep in bed.
Tomorrow would be an early start.
Ben was awoken by the gentle vibration of his mobile — Annie, giving him their arranged alarm call. It was still dark outside and it seemed an effort for him to shake off the blanket of sleep, but they had arranged to leave the youth hostel before dawn in order to be out and about when the sun rose, and in a few minutes they were standing outside the hostel warmly dressed against the night-time cold in their outdoor gear. Each of them carried their rucksack on their back, but they were lighter today, filled only with the equipment that would be useful to them on their day's trek.
It felt good to be out of doors as dawn crept across the sky. Here, among the lanes and the fields, Ben felt miles from anywhere and anyone, and as the sky lit up, it made them all the more aware of the vastness of the landscape around them. It seemed impossible that only yesterday they had been in grey, suburban Macclesfield.
As they tramped through the fields, there were few sounds around them other than the noise of their walking boots squelching in the marshy ground. Annie held the ordnance survey map in a protective plastic covering and directed them confidently to the north-west with the aid of a small orienteering compass. 'There's an RAF base in this direction,' she explained quietly to Ben — something about the early-morning light encouraged them to speak in hushed whispers. 'It's called Spadeadam, and it's massive — over nine thousand acres. We can't cross over the boundary, but we can skirt around it. It's a good place for bird-watching.'
Ben raised an eyebrow. 'Really?' he asked mildly. 'I'd have thought it was the last place you'd see them — noisy planes flying overhead and everything.'
Annie shook her head. 'Spadeadam covers huge areas of marshland,' she explained. 'The RAF have to make sure they protect the wildlife around here, so loads of it has been left untouched as a perfect natural habitat. My dad was posted here once, years ago. He told me all about it.'
As they had been speaking, the air had gradually started to become filled with the throng of bird song, as though somebody had slowly been turning the volume up. Ben and Annie stopped still and looked in wonder around them as the empty canopy of air became flecked with the black silhouettes of myriad birds rising up from the marshy land. All their senses seemed to be filled with the sights and sounds of nature, and Ben quickly fumbled in his rucksack for his binoculars while Annie took out a waterproof blanket and spread it on the ground in front of them. They lay down on their fronts like snipers, and feasted their eyes on the display that was acting itself out before them.
Annie was an informative guide, seeming to see things Ben would never have noticed, and able to identify birds by the idiosyncratic swoop of their wings or their distinctive cries. She pointed out peregrine falcons, kestrels, skylarks and various small songbirds, all the while talking in a low, monotone voice that did little to hide her thrill at what she saw. It didn't take long for Ben to become infected with her enthusiasm, and after a while he started recognizing the birds for himself. He could have lain there all day watching them.
As the morning grew brighter, however, the initial frenzy of activity started to subdue and Annie suggested that they start walking, both to warm up a bit, and to continue their hunt for the elusive hen harrier. They packed up their things and moved on.
They hiked towards an area of woodland and skirted around the edge of it for an hour or so. They talked only infrequently, Annie occasionally pointing out something of interest, but otherwise
both of them enjoying the peace and the solitude. Eventually, though, they found their path blocked by a fence made from evil-looking barbed wire.
'This must be the boundary to Spadeadam,' Annie observed, looking slightly wistfully over it and into the land beyond. 'We'd better not cross it.'
Ben followed her gaze. 'It just looks like open countryside,' he said. 'If you think we've got a better chance of spotting our bird there I expect there's some way we could get through the fence — if not here then somewhere else.'
Annie gave him a withering look. 'My dad's an air commodore,' she reminded him. 'Bit embarrassing if I'm caught trespassing round here, don't you think?'
'Oh, yeah.' Ben grinned at her. 'I guess you're right. Fancy some breakfast?' He pulled a couple of chocolate bars out of his rucksack and they ate them in silence before continuing their trek by following the perimeter fence westwards.
They spotted the occasional interesting bird throughout the morning, but nothing more than they had seen at dawn, and no sight of the hen harrier. By early afternoon, their feet were getting sore and the rucksacks heavy, so they agreed to turn round and head back to the hostel. On the way, they found themselves chatting to pass the time. 'You've got a real thing about the RAF, haven't you?' Ben asked Annie as he caught her looking over the Spadeadam perimeter yet again.
She smiled. 'You could say that. When I'm old enough, I'm going to join up.'
'Why? I mean, I know because of your dad and everything, but you're the first girl I've met who wants to be in the military.'
Annie didn't answer for a moment, but walked thoughtfully by Ben's side. 'People think being in the army is all guns and fighting, but it's not,' she said finally. 'You get to help people — people who really need it. When my dad was in the Gulf, he found two Iraqi children whose parents had both been put in prison. They were living on the streets. He was able to do something for them, make sure they got a roof over their heads and something to eat.' She flashed a quick grin at him. 'Plus you get all the guns and fighting on top of that.'
Ben laughed, but as he did so Annie suddenly interrupted him. 'Shhh,' she hissed, grabbing him firmly by his arm and using her other hand to point in the air. 'Look!'
Ben followed the direction of her finger. Two birds were flying over Spadeadam in the distance, performing an intricate aerial dance. 'Hen harrier,' Annie whispered; they both fell instinctively to their knees and put the binoculars that had been hanging round their necks up to their eyes. In rapt attention, they watched the birds somersault in the air.
'Look at the male,' Annie whispered. 'He's got something in his talons. Do you see?'
Ben strained his eyes and thought he could just make out what Annie was talking about.
'Yeah,' he said. 'I can.'
'Watch carefully,' she told him. 'They do this amazing thing. The male bird performs a sky dance and passes the food to the female in mid-air.'
Ben watched it happen, and found he was holding his breath in anticipation as he did so. The male swooped and dived and then, in one spectacular movement, they met and the food passed from one to the other. Ben couldn't help breaking into a grin as it happened. He turned to look at Annie, to see that she too was beaming with wonder.
It all happened so quickly after that.
The sound of a single gunshot echoed around the countryside. A flurry of birds rose up from the high grass of the marshland; but there was one bird that would never rise up again. The male hen harrier dropped from the air like a stone.
Annie gasped. As she did so, there was another gunshot and, with pinpoint accuracy, the female fell to earth.
The girl's binoculars remained pointed at the empty sky where the hen harriers had been flying only seconds before; but something urged Ben to scour the ground. Gunshots didn't come from nowhere, and he was determined to find out who had just shot down the birds. High grass suddenly filled his vision, and as he moved his head swiftly from side to side, flashes of sky and the distant forest replaced them momentarily, until finally he found what he was looking for.
The man must have been several hundred metres away, and as he came into Ben's field of vision he was breaking his shotgun and allowing two spent cartridges to fly out over his right shoulder. 'Look,' Ben whispered hoarsely.
'I see him,' Annie replied, and they both stared at the man as he turned and walked away. Neither of them said what was clearly obvious, but Ben knew beyond question that they were both thinking it.
The man who had just shot two rare hen harriers was wearing the distinctive khaki uniform of an RAF combat soldier.
As he walked out of sight, Ben and Annie lowered their binoculars in unison. And then, as though the sky itself was mourning the horrible sight they had just witnessed, it started to rain.
Chapter Four
It was a long walk back, not just because of the rain but also because of a frosty silence between them. Annie seemed to have taken the death of the bird as a personal insult, and Ben felt that as he was the closest person to her at the time, he was at the receiving end of her prickly reaction.
It was early evening by the time they returned, their clothes saturated by the rain. Ben felt numb, not only from the wet but also from the strain of the last few hours. Annie hadn't spoken, but he could tell she felt the same too. They changed into some dry clothes, hung their wet walking gear in the hostel's boiler room, a cavernous, musty basement thick with the aroma of drying clothes, and then headed off to the common room together.
The common room was a cosy but slightly shabby place. There were squashy old sofas that sank deep as you sat in them, and low coffee tables that had seen better days. A soft-drink vending machine hummed gently in the corner, and on one side there was a kettle and tea-making things. Ben made a cup of hot, sweet tea for them both, and they sat side by side on a sofa in a deserted corner of the room. Small groups of people sat together talking quietly; here and there was the occasional solitary guest, minding their own business. They were a mixed bunch — not many of them were particularly young, despite the fact that this was a youth hostel. Ben wasn't minded to make eye contact with many of his fellow guests — he felt subdued and not much like talking to anybody.
They were glad of the warmth of the room after the soaking they had received, but were halfway through their tea before either of them spoke. 'Pretty weird day, huh?' Ben offered. He knew it sounded stupid even as he said it.
'Weird?'
Annie spat. 'Is that all you can say? It was horrible.' She slammed her tea down on the table in front of her, causing some of it to slosh over her hand.
'All right, Annie,' Ben snapped at her, suddenly infuriated by her attitude. 'It wasn't me that killed the birds, you know.'
She wiped her tea-moistened hand against her trousers in annoyance. 'No one said you killed the birds, Ben. I'm just saying it was horrible, all right?'
He took a deep breath and tried to calm himself down. 'You're right,' he said quietly. 'It was horrible.' Annie was clearly spoiling for an argument, and there was no point getting into one with her. 'Do you think we should tell someone? I mean, surely it's illegal, what we saw.'
His cousin shrugged. 'Yes, I suppose so. We can call the RSPB when we get back: they'd definitely want to know about stuff like this going on — shooting hen harriers is illegal, and it's important to notify the authorities. I just wish we could identify the guy who did it. He shouldn't be allowed to get away with this. He should be prosecuted.'
'I could contact my mum,' Ben offered, trying to raise Annie's mood a bit. 'As she's an environmental campaigner, I bet she'd know people who would take an interest in all this.'
'Yeah, I guess,' Annie replied sullenly.
'I just—' Ben hesitated because he knew that what he was about to say would touch a nerve. 'I just don't understand why the RAF would be involved. Why are they shooting rare birds? It doesn't make any sense.'
'It's not the RAF,' Annie said through gritted teeth. 'I know it's not. They go out of their way to
look after the environment up at Spadeadam.'
Ben gave her an involuntarily sceptical look. He knew what he'd seen, after all, and it had been Annie herself who had identified the guy's RAF combat dress.
'Don't look at me like that, Ben,' Annie warned him. 'I know you think I'm only saying this because of my dad, but I'm not. Think about it — there'd be an outcry if that amount of land was given over to military training without any regard for the environment whatsoever. There's some other explanation. There has to be.' She stood up, and Ben was alarmed to see tears filling her eyes. 'I'm going to bed,' she said. 'And tomorrow, we walk in a different direction. I never want to see Spadeadam again.'
As she stormed out of the room, Ben realized that the other occupants had all stopped talking and were staring at them. Slightly embarrassed, he sat down again and went back to contemplating his cup of tea. Despite the fact that half of him wanted to follow and have it out with her, he knew Annie well enough to realize that continuing the row now would be the worst thing to do, especially as he was pretty on edge himself. Stuff would be better in the morning, he hoped. Besides, he didn't blame her for being angry — he'd been as shocked as her when they saw the birds plummet to the earth, and like her he didn't feel any desire to head back towards Spadeadam.
'Spadeadam?'
Ben jumped. The voice seemed to have come out of nowhere. He looked up sharply and couldn't see anyone — for a moment he wondered if he had been imagining it.
'Been up to Spadeadam, did she say? The girl? The girl who just left?' The words seemed to tumble nervously over themselves.