He turned to MacLean. ‘How much further on do you think they’ll be? They’ve had two and a half hours to cover the ground.’
‘They’ll be cold and wet, and there’s a kid with them, so they’ll be slow,’ growled MacLean in his thick Highlands burr. ‘But, even so, we ought to run into them in the next fifteen minutes.’
‘If they came this way.’
MacLean glared at him, his strange, round baby face looking almost demonic in the watery light of the moon. ‘They’ll have come this way. If they’d gone along the river, they’d have been in Tayleigh by now, and I’d have heard about it.’ He patted the phone in his pocket. ‘Don’t worry. Even if they try to hide, the dogs will pick them up. They’re trained to go after people, not animals.’
Keogh looked down at the two wiry-looking Dobermans and was pleased they weren’t after him. ‘Why don’t we let them off the lead now? See what they pick up?’
‘Don’t worry. I trained these two myself. When they get a scent, we’ll know about it.’ Without breaking stride, MacLean examined the map by torchlight. ‘There should be a waterfall coming up soon, and a few hundred yards east from that, there’s a house.’
Keogh tensed. ‘A house? I thought you said this wood was deserted.’
‘It’s the only house in the forest, and you’d have to know how to find it.’
‘Well, if they get there and raise the alarm, we’re finished.’
‘We’d better make sure they don’t get there then,’ said MacLean, as the two dogs stopped and began growling. He turned to Keogh and grinned. ‘What did I tell you? They’ve got the scent.’
Twenty-eight
AMANDA KNEW SHE had two options. She could either follow the single-lane track that led up from the house to the Tayleigh Road, or continue along the footpath through the woods.
As she left the house, she chose the footpath because it offered more hiding places and was, in her opinion, a less likely route for her pursuers to take. Amanda was a fit woman and she moved easily through the forest at a run, breathing in the fresh, cold air. Progress was a lot faster without the two girls in tow. In reality she’d had little choice but to take them with her for the first part of the journey, but she was glad they were no longer with her now, knowing they’d be far safer staying in the house.
For her own part, Amanda was terrified. She couldn’t believe she’d been targeted by a highly organized gang who seemed determined to kill her. When she’d found out from DCS Mike Bolt that they’d identified a suspect in the Disciple case, and that he was on the run, she’d been nervous, but not unduly so. There was no reason why he would follow her up here, or even have a clue where she was living. That information, as far as she was aware, was only known to the investigating team, and to one trusted friend whom she’d known for close to twenty years, and who would never betray her. And yet these men had found her, and she could only assume that they were somehow connected to the Disciple case.
The problem was, she couldn’t understand why they wanted her. They obviously thought she knew something, but what? Amanda knew nothing about The Disciple that wasn’t already known to the police.
Unless . . .
It hit her for the first time. A possible motive for her abduction. Something that truly was worth killing for. Amanda felt a coldness enveloping her as the thought took hold, because she knew that if she was right, then this was the end. She was finished.
But how could they know? How could they possibly know?
Amanda stopped running, telling herself to calm down. There was no way anyone could know about that. She shut her eyes and took some deep breaths, absorbing the silence of the forest.
And that was when she heard it.
The sound of dogs barking. Big dogs. Hunting dogs, probably. Not the kind of dogs that people took for walks.
And the barking was getting closer.
Twenty-nine
JESS STOOD IN the darkness at the foot of the bed, staring down at her sister.
Casey was fast asleep, with her head to one side, the position she always slept in, her blonde hair cascading down over her shoulders. Her mouth was ever so slightly open, her breathing coming in soft gasps, and she looked so peaceful that Jess didn’t have the heart to wake her.
It seemed strange that, even though they weren’t related by blood, Jess loved her so completely. But she did. These days, Casey was the only family she had left. Jess rarely thought about her biological family. On those few occasions that she did, it made her guts wrench and filled her with a cold dread. There were memories there that were far best forgotten, whatever the counsellors she’d spent so much time seeing in those early years might have said. All her love had gone into her adoptive family. The people she considered her real parents. They’d been the ones who’d taken her in – a damaged, hard-faced young girl whose innocence had long since gone – and brought her up as one of their own, showing her a love that she’d never experienced before.
And now Mum and Dad were gone too, and it was just her and Casey left. Two sisters against the whole world.
‘I’m going to keep you safe,’ she whispered in the heavy silence of the room, resisting the urge to reach out and touch the soft skin of her sister’s face, even though she desperately wanted to. Jess knew this was no time for sentimentality. For the next few hours she had to remain strong. If they stayed here, help would come eventually. She was sure of that. Amanda seemed like the kind of person who could get herself out of most situations – she had the kind of confidence about her that good teachers had, or politicians on the TV. She’d be back with help.
She had to be.
Turning away from the bed, she headed back into the kitchen. She was hungry and thirsty, and although there was no food in the fridge, she could at least grab some water. She found a glass and went over to the kitchen tap, staring out of the huge hole in the window where they’d broken in earlier as she poured herself a drink.
Which was when she heard the barking.
Jess froze. Amanda had told her there weren’t any other houses around, so who could be out here in the middle of a forest at this time of night with their dogs? Because there was more than one of them and they were making a hell of a noise.
Fighting down a rising sense of panic, Jess searched the kitchen drawers, her movements frantic, until she found a large kitchen knife. She picked it up gingerly, immediately feeling sick. Holding a weapon like this brought the darkest moments in her life rushing back, and for a second she thought she was going to faint. She let the moment pass, telling herself she needed to be brave, for Casey’s sake as well as her own. Her grip on the handle tightened and she lightly touched the blade. It wasn’t sharp but it would do. She thought about trying to find a weapon for Casey but knew that she would never be able to use it. Casey couldn’t hurt a fly. Their best bet was to hide and hope for the best.
But, as she hurried back through the hallway towards the room where Casey was asleep, Jess was startled by a loud knocking on the front door. Four quick raps, a pause. Then another single rap.
Wondering if this was some kind of trick, she crept over to the door.
‘It’s me, Amanda,’ hissed a voice on the other side. ‘Let me in, for Christ’s sake.’ She sounded breathless and scared.
Jess unlocked the door and Amanda came barging through. ‘They’re coming,’ she explained frantically as Jess relocked the door. ‘And it sounds like they’ve got dogs.’ They faced each other and Amanda’s gaze fell on the knife in Jess’s hand.
‘I know. I’ve just heard them.’
‘They’ve got guns and there are at least three of them. We can’t stay here. We’ve got to go.’
‘Where? If they’ve got dogs, they’ll catch us.’
‘We need to distract them.’ Amanda looked as if she was thinking hard, and Jess was glad that she was here again. ‘There was meat in the freezer, wasn’t there?’
‘I don’t know. I didn’t see.’
‘Go and check.
Now. I’m going to see if they’ve got a microwave.’
At that moment, Casey appeared in the doorway, rubbing her eyes, dressed only in the Buzz Lightyear dressing gown that was far too small for her. ‘What’s going on?’ she asked, looking nervous as she saw the urgency in Jess and Amanda’s expressions.
‘We have to leave,’ Amanda told her. ‘And you need to be very quiet.’
‘But I can’t go out like this. I’ll be cold.’
‘Your clothes are probably dry by now, babe,’ said Jess. ‘They’re on the radiators down here. Why don’t you go and put them on as quickly as possible, okay?’
Casey nodded and ran off to find her clothes. ‘Don’t turn any lights on, whatever you do,’ Amanda called after her, then grabbed Jess roughly by the arm. ‘Go and get the meat. We’ve hardly got any time.’
Jess remembered seeing the freezer in a utility room off the kitchen, and she went to it now, conscious that the dogs’ barking seemed to be getting closer.
The freezer was about half full, with ready meals on one side and packaged meat on the other. Jess grabbed a couple of packs of frozen sausages and ran back into the kitchen.
‘Right, I’ve found the microwave,’ said Amanda. ‘Give that here.’ She grabbed the sausages and flung them inside, switching the microwave onto full power to heat them up. ‘Now, make sure Casey’s ready, for God’s sake. We haven’t got much time.’
Trying hard to ignore the pounding of her heart, Jess ran back into the hallway where Casey sat in a T-shirt and pants, trying to pull on a still-damp sock. ‘I can’t find my shoes,’ she said, her voice breaking with fear. ‘And I can hear dogs. Are they coming here?’
Casey was scared of dogs. She had been ever since the age of six when, while out with Jess at the local park, she’d leaned down to pet a terrier tied to a fence and it had bitten her hand and refused to let go. Jess had had to prise the dog’s jaws open with her bare hands to make him release his grip, and finally he had, although he’d also bitten Jess in the process. When the owner, a huge woman with a sour face and a whole brood of kids, had come over, she’d tried to blame Casey for the dog’s behaviour, even though Casey was standing there crying her eyes out. But Jess had stood up to the woman, taking photos of her and her scraggy hound and threatening to report them both. The woman had tried to grab the camera but Jess had cut her down with a glare that said that if she tried anything, it would be worse for her, and the woman had backed off.
‘It’s okay,’ Jess told her sister soothingly now, trying to keep the ice-cold fear out of her voice as she helped Casey to get one sock on, then the other. ‘We’re going to be leaving in a moment, and Amanda’s getting some food ready for the dogs, so they won’t be interested in us. And your shoes are over here.’ She retrieved Casey’s brand-new Van pumps from a radiator in the single bedroom on the ground floor. They were still wet, as was every other item of Casey’s clothing, but there was nothing that could be done about that now.
‘Where are my jeans?’
Jess looked round frantically, conscious that every second they wasted brought the men hunting them closer. ‘We’ll get them in a moment.’ It was taking every ounce of mental strength to stop the fear weighing her down. She didn’t want to die. God, she didn’t want to die. Not here, in this cold, dark place, hundreds of miles from the home where she’d been raised. And, more than anything else, she couldn’t bear the thought of them hurting Casey.
‘Keep strong,’ she told herself, as she helped Casey on with her shoes, noticing that her hands were shaking. ‘Keep strong. Keep strong. Keep strong.’
The microwave bleeped, and through the open door of the kitchen, Jess saw Amanda pull out the steaming packs of sausages, juggling them between her hands before chucking them on the kitchen floor and wrapping them up inside the wet clothes that Amanda and she had been wearing when they’d first arrived. ‘Right,’ said Amanda, catching her eye. ‘We’ve got to go. Right now.’ She jumped up and ran past them to the front door.
Jess didn’t need telling twice. Pulling Casey to her feet and ignoring her complaint that she hadn’t got her jeans on yet, she clutched her sister’s hand and followed Amanda out through the front door and into the cold night air.
Even as they sprinted across the empty driveway and towards the thick laurel hedge that bordered the front of the property, they heard the sound of the dogs arriving at the back of the house, and barking wildly as they stopped near the back door. Worse, Jess could hear the sound of footsteps coming from round the side of the house as someone approached the front.
Amanda must have heard the footsteps too because, motioning them to follow, she forced her way into the laurel hedge, immediately disappearing from view. Holding Casey in front of her, Jess threw the knife she was still holding into the hedge, then swung round and threw herself and Casey backwards into the thick greenery, ignoring the pain as the branches tore her skin, before landing on her back, her shoulder blade pressed painfully into a knobbly root sticking out of the dirt.
They were just in time. Through the tiny gaps in the leaves, Jess could see the bottom half of a man dressed in dark clothing. A barrel of a shotgun was visible just in front of him as he walked round the front of the house, moving slowly, barely ten yards away from them. Jess held her breath, putting a hand over Casey’s mouth and holding her absolutely still. If they made even the faintest sound they’d be discovered – and then they’d be dead.
But it seemed the man hadn’t heard them. He kept moving round the house before disappearing from view. A few seconds later, Jess heard voices coming from round the other side of the house, but she couldn’t hear what they were saying.
A few seconds later, they heard a male voice with an English accent call out loudly: ‘If you’re in there, come out. We only want to talk to you. If you stay where you are, then we’re going to let the dogs on you, and you’re going to get hurt. Understand? You will get hurt.’
‘The dogs have picked up the scent of the meat,’ whispered Amanda, invisible amidst the laurel a few feet away. ‘We need to move while we’ve got a head start.’
Jess still didn’t see how they could outrun the dogs, because as soon as the men realized they weren’t inside the house, which would only be a matter of a couple of minutes, they’d be after them again. But she also knew there was no point staying put so, releasing her grip on Casey, she rolled over, retrieved the knife, and crawled through the dirt, forcing aside the laurel roots, whispering for her sister to stay right behind her.
Coming out the other side, Jess turned and pulled Casey through, and Casey cried out as her stomach scraped against a low-lying branch.
‘Sshh,’ hissed Amanda, putting a finger to her lips, her eyes flashing with fear and anger, and then she turned and began running through the trees.
Casey’s face crumpled up as she fought back tears and Jess lifted her to her feet and held her close. ‘Quiet baby,’ she whispered in her ear. ‘Be brave for me. This won’t last much longer, I promise.’ Grabbing her hand, Jess took off after Amanda, who didn’t look as though she planned on waiting around. Jess went as fast as she could with an exhausted ten-year-old in tow, but knew it almost certainly wasn’t fast enough.
They were back in the woods again now but, close by, Jess could see a single-track road that led down to the cottage.
And then she saw something else.
Headlights, appearing through the trees on the horizon.
And they were coming this way.
Thirty
Today 19.35
TONY HANSEN HAD had enough of his wife. He and Jackie had been married for twelve years now, and he reckoned that for most of the last ten of them she’d been driving him insane. It was the constant nagging. She nagged him about literally anything: his haircut; his job; his clothes; the way he left the toilet seat up when he peed in the middle of the night. At first he’d tried to react to her complaints by modifying his behaviour (when she’d told him she hated his flowery shirts, he�
�d stopped wearing them), but all that happened was that she’d start on about something else, and slowly it dawned on him that his wife was never going to be happy unless she was picking holes in him about something.
The fact was, he’d have divorced her years ago, but then she’d got pregnant with Jody (Christ, he’d hated that name, especially for a boy, but Jackie had been adamant and he knew better than to argue), and now there was no way he could leave her. He was trapped in a loveless marriage, and there was no way out of it. He’d tried to make things better by buying the holiday cottage up here in the country. They both liked walking, and wanted to encourage Jody, who was now six, to enjoy the great outdoors. In fact, when he was up here amidst the forests and hills, Tony was at his happiest. Even Jackie’s nagging seemed to slip effortlessly off him like the morning mist over the nearby river.
But right now she was driving him mad. She’d wanted him to drive up here via the A9, but he’d chosen the A93 instead, because the A9 had major roadworks between Dunkeld and Pitlochry. Unfortunately, it had taken him longer than he’d thought, and Jackie had been giving him trouble about it ever since. This was their first time away from Jody in over a year. They’d left him with Jackie’s mother while they spent four days up here celebrating (and he used the term loosely) their anniversary. They’d originally wanted to head for the Canaries for a bit of sun, but it seemed too far for such a short space of time and, anyway, money was scarce now that Tony had had to take a ten per cent pay cut at work – another thing she’d nagged him about, as if he had a choice in it.
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