Then the others, one by one.
Pete kicked and howled and then succumbed like a kitten in a bucket of water. Steven shouted his name even after he disappeared from view – one arm dangling off the trolley. He fought panic.
The helicopter was closer now. The sound of the blades came to him in waves. It was criss-crossing the moor. Searching. For them.
‘One, two, three – Help!’ he shouted. ‘One, two, three!’ Maisie and Kylie just looked at him.
He had to give the helicopter a sign. He looked about his cage desperately. There was nothing to use. Steven gripped the top of the gate and hauled himself up. He pushed his head through the gap where the huntsman dropped the meat, swearing as his right ear tore. He tried to get his arm through as well, but couldn’t. His shoulder was too lumpy. He pulled his head back down, scraping his bloody ear again, then waved his right hand in the air until the fingers of his left gave way and he fell back to the floor.
‘Don’t! You’ll make him angry.’
Steven turned on Jonas Holly. The policeman hugged his knees to his chest, visibly trembling, his eyes huge and full of tears. Steven slapped the fence between them, making Jonas flinch.
‘What’s wrong with you?’ yelled Steven. ‘Get up and fight, you baby!’
Jonas closed his eyes and put his hands over his ears.
Steven kicked the fence once more, then turned around. The huntsman was right there – his green hand already reaching for him. Steven threw an arm up but he was too late.
There was barely a struggle. The fumes filled his head and he staggered and scraped his knees. He tried to get up and the huntsman helped him.
Helped him to his traitor’s feet.
Helped him on to the trolley and rolled him up the walkway and through the big shed to the flesh room.
Reynolds had asked to go with the chopper crew. They’d had several flights across the moor already, but he felt sure that his being there would make all the difference to the success of the operation.
Now they’d get things done.
The helmet they gave him smelled of sweat, and he grimaced as he tugged it down over his well-shampooed hair.
The co-pilot, whose name was Lee, shouted instructions at his face as though the blades were already whirring. They weren’t.
Reynolds made the mistake of asking about parachutes and everybody laughed so hard that he had to pretend it had been a joke.
He was no expert in aerodynamics, but as he approached the chopper he thought it looked too big for its rotor, and highly unlikely to take off. The closer he got, the more unsettled he felt. The paintwork was scratched all around the door as if it had been bumped in a car park; the vinyl seats were cracked and torn in places. The floor was grimy and utilitarian, with strips of wood screwed to it for grip – like the wooden slats in the changing rooms at the old public pool he’d been taken to as a child. Verruca city. He couldn’t help thinking he’d have more confidence in the whole aircraft if it had only been carpeted, the way an airliner was. Reynolds didn’t like to see the inner workings of things. It made him too conscious of how much there was to go wrong.
His seatbelt was frayed.
He should have sent Rice. Too late.
Leaving the ground was like climbing a rope ladder – a dizzy, lurching ascent. Lee and the pilot, whose name he hadn’t caught, were up front. He was behind them with a jolly, overweight air-support officer who had been introduced as Tuckshop. Reynolds couldn’t bring himself to use the name, but tried to sit as close to his own door as possible to stop the chopper yawing to one side.
They had barely left the big H before they were over Exmoor – the neat fields and Toytown cows giving way to brown patches and yellow and purple swathes of gorse and heather.
They passed over ponies, which did not look up, and deer that scattered. Reynolds peered between the seats at the thermal-imaging screen and watched a small group of them explode in a fountain of bright dots, like Pong gone mad.
The other three men shouted at each other and laughed, but Reynolds couldn’t make out a thing they were saying. If they were looking at him when they laughed, he just smiled and nodded and hoped they weren’t calling him a wanker. He seemed to be the only one who was taking this seriously. No wonder they hadn’t found anyone on their previous sorties.
The children could have been taken a long way off, of course. They could be dead. But if they weren’t on Exmoor, then there were no clues as to where they were. Exmoor was their only lead and it made a dull kind of sense to keep searching it.
Now, up ahead, on the top of a hill, Reynolds could see a small grey collection of utilitarian buildings. He consulted his map but couldn’t tell what he was looking at until Tuckshop’s nailbitten finger jabbed the paper and he shouted, ‘Hunt kennels!’ at full volume.
Reynolds nodded. It made him think of Jonas Holly and his dog theory.
The huntsman came back.
Jonas let it happen. He was so small, what else could he do? He kept his eyes closed and smelled that smell, and felt himself getting sick and wobbly.
‘Get up.’ The voice was in charge and Jonas tried to obey, but the chain pulled him back and he sagged against the fence with his long legs folded under him like a faun’s.
‘Get up.’
He tried again. The sound of the helicopter was louder now.
‘Get up!’ The huntsman gripped the tether chain and pulled.
Jonas staggered out of the safety of the kennel.
The ride on the trolley was brief. Then the sun on his back winked out and the cold was so sudden that he opened his eyes on blackness.
‘Stay.’
He stayed. There was the sound of chains and metal and the grunt of the huntsman moving something heavy. A squeal of something not oiled. Jonas wasn’t sure whether his eyes were open or shut, but then started to make out shapes in the dark. Long, pale shapes, swaying gently.
He was tugged off the trolley and fell to his knees. Strong fingers bound his wrists before him, and a cloth that tasted of dirt was wound around his mouth, pulling his lips painfully against his teeth. He flinched as cold chain was looped around his chest and suddenly there was a mechanical whine and he was being raised from the floor. He half staggered into a standing position just as the chain went slack, and he fell on to his side on a stone floor that was wet with cold.
‘Shit,’ said the huntsman. ‘You’re too big.’
Jonas tried to stand but something heavy and cold bumped his face and he nearly fell again. The huntsman steadied him by the collar.
Jonas was dragged and jerked – feeling smaller all the time – back out into the warmth, but on his feet now. He closed his eyes against the brightness.
The helicopter was close. Close and low. It brought no hope to Jonas. Nothing could save him, not even the police. Even as a child he’d known that.
The huntsman pulled harder and Jonas stumbled across the concrete in his bare feet, until his knees hit something metal.
‘Get in,’ said the huntsman.
Jonas looked down at the horse trough, its deep green water as smooth as marble. Getting in seemed a foolish thing to do.
The helicopter beat so close that Jonas raised his head, but he couldn’t see it. The very act made him dizzy.
‘In!’ said the huntsman, and pushed him roughly. The metal edge of the trough caught the side of his knee and he twisted awkwardly.
Off balance.