Текст книги "Stay Alive"

Автор книги: Simon Kernick

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Текущая страница: 11 (всего у книги 21 страниц)

Twenty-six

Today 19.10

‘LOOK, I HAVEN’T been entirely honest with you,’ said Amanda.

‘No,’ said Jess. ‘I thought not.’

They were standing in the living room of the house where they’d found shelter. Next door, Casey was flat out in the single bedroom. Jess was amazed that she was able to sleep after everything that had happened today, but she was thankful she was. The less she dwelt on the deaths of Tim and Jean, the better. They’d searched the house from top to bottom just in case there was a phone hidden anywhere, but there wasn’t. They had, however, found some women’s clothes in the upstairs bedroom. It was mainly walking gear and Jess was now dressed in a woollen jumper that was at least two sizes too big for her, and which itched, and a pair of waterproof trousers that crinkled when she walked. But at least she was dry now, and with the heating clanking away in the house, she was also warm for the first time since she’d fallen in the river.

They’d kept the lights off so as not to attract attention, and Jess eyed Amanda coolly through the darkness, feeling a flash of anger. She’d always had a hot temper, it was one of her downfalls, and she needed to keep a lid on it now. ‘So what’s really happening? And why are these people after you?’

Amanda sighed. ‘You’ve heard about The Disciple, haven’t you?’

Jess nodded. You’d have to have been living at the bottom of a mineshaft for the last year not to know about The Disciple. ‘Yeah, I’ve heard of him. He’s meant to be on the run, isn’t he?’

‘That’s right.’ She paused. ‘Well, he murdered a couple three weeks ago – a man and his lover who were together in the man’s home.’

‘I heard about that. Didn’t the wife walk in on it?’

‘Yes, she did.’

The truth dawned on Jess then. ‘And the wife was you?’

Amanda smiled grimly. ‘They managed to keep my photo out of the papers. The police wanted me to stay down south until they’d arrested the killer, but I wanted to get as far away from what happened as possible, which is how I ended up here.’

Jess looked at her carefully, still not entirely sure whether to believe her or not. ‘And you think it’s The Disciple chasing us now?’

Amanda shook her head firmly. ‘No. I was ambushed today by three men, and I saw all their faces. A few days ago, I was shown a photo of the Disciple suspect, Leonard Hope, and he definitely wasn’t one of them. And this is where I really was telling the truth. I have no idea who these men are, or why they want me.’

‘Why should I believe you?’

‘Because I’ve got no reason to lie, Jess. Look, I’ve involved you both enough already, and I regret that, I honestly do. Just like I regret what happened to your aunt and uncle. But the point is, it’s me they want, not you and Casey. Without me you’ll be safe, so the best thing is if I leave you here and make my own way back to the nearest town.’

Jess felt a flash of panic at the thought of being left here alone with Casey.

Amanda must have seen the look on her face because she gave Jess a reassuring smile. ‘As soon as I get to civilization, I’ll send the police back here for you, I promise.’

‘How far is it?’

‘About five miles across country. Alone, I could probably make it in an hour and a half, and have help back here in two.’

Jess wasn’t convinced. ‘Don’t you think we should stick together?’

‘It’ll take too long with Casey, and we’ll be too exposed. It’s best if I go alone. They won’t come looking for you here.’ She stepped forward and put a hand on Jess’s shoulder, giving it a squeeze. It was a curiously intimate gesture.

Jess thought about it. Amanda was right. Casey would slow them all down if they tried to cross country, but the idea of the two of them stuck here alone and vulnerable in a place they didn’t know, didn’t make her feel much better either.

‘What happens if you don’t make it?’ she asked Amanda.

Amanda took her hand away from Jess’s shoulder and frowned. ‘If I don’t make it, you’re better off staying put, anyway, but I’m pretty sure I will. I don’t think these guys know the area that well. It’s dark now and there’s a lot of country out there. Just keep the lights out and stay hidden. If I send help back, I’ll come with them, and I’ll knock on the door four times in quick succession, then pause. Then one more knock. That way you’ll know it’s me. Don’t let anyone else in, no matter who they say they are. If no one comes out back tonight, it means they’ve got me, which means they won’t be interested in looking for you, but – either way – make sure you wait until daylight before looking for help. Do you understand?’

Jess nodded, knowing there was no point in trying to persuade Amanda to stay with them. ‘I understand.’ She paused a moment before asking the next question. ‘But if they want to get you so badly, why didn’t they just shoot you when you were in the canoe?’

‘Because they want me alive. Don’t ask me why, but whatever the reason is, it’s not a nice one.’ Amanda took a deep breath. ‘I’ve got to go. Look after your little sister, and stay calm. Okay?’

‘Okay.’ Jess watched as Amanda went out through the back door, then bolted it behind her, before retreating into the darkness of the house, suddenly feeling very alone.

Twenty-seven

THE THREE MEN made a menacing sight as they moved purposefully down the forest path in a tight line, the two Dobermans that MacLean had brought back with him straining at their leashes. Each of them was armed with a pistol with suppressor attached, while Keogh also carried the Remington .303 rifle he’d used to shoot at the canoeists earlier, and the big cop MacLean was armed with a five-shot automatic shotgun as well, capable of bringing down a horse.

By now, Keogh was even more worried. Not only had he still not heard any word from Mehdi, but they’d been walking for a good half-hour through the forest and there was still no sign of their quarry. MacLean was confident that they’d be coming up from the river on this path, since it was the only one that led directly out of the woods, and that they wouldn’t have made it this far by now, but Keogh wasn’t so sure. Amanda Rowan would be doing her utmost to hide, which meant keeping off obvious paths like this one, and in a forest this size, with all manner of animals living in it, the dogs were going to have a hard time picking up their scent.

The only bonus was that, from what Keogh had heard, MacLean had some experience of hunting people in this kind of terrain, and not in the course of his police work, either. As well as being a copper, MacLean looked after the boss’s country estate in the nearby Cairngorms, and some pretty unpleasant things happened up there. Rumour had it that the boss kept young women imprisoned in the cellars of his manor house, where they were sexually abused, sometimes for weeks on end, before being killed and buried in the grounds. The women were mainly foreign prostitutes working illegally in the country, so they wouldn’t be missed, and Keogh wasn’t sure if it was just the boss himself who abused the girls, or whether his contacts in the criminal and business worlds were also involved. What he did know, however, was that the previous year, one of the women had escaped and been found by a group of hikers up from London, and it had been up to MacLean and his brother to hunt the five of them down before they raised the alarm. They’d done it too, eliminating both the woman fugitive and all the hikers, with the help of their mother (she, apparently, had been the one who’d hanged the last hiker to be murdered, a female teacher from London, in an effort to make her death look like a suicide). Keogh was hoping that MacLean could manage the same thing again tonight, although he also hoped that Amanda had split from the kids. He didn’t want their deaths on what was left of his conscience.

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.