Let’s see...
She deleted the ‘Don’t be an idiot: she’s got a gun!’ text and thumbed out a reply of her own:
She’s driven off — heading east!
SEND.
And five, four, three, two...
The phone buzzed in her hand.
TUFTY:
Get to the road & I’ll pick you up!
Oh no you don’t.
No time you idiot! Follow her! I’ll catch up later!
SEND.
Shouldn’t be long now.
Danielle fastened her seatbelt.
Come on ‘TUFTY’ — which was a stupid nickname, by the way — soon as you like...
Ha! A manky old Vauxhall raced past the end of the track, heading east.
‘One elephant. Two elephant. Three elephant.’ She turned the engine on and crept back onto the road — look left, look right. Not a single police officer to be seen, so she turned west, clicked her headlights on, set Jimmy Page’s solo belting out of the stereo again.
After a mile, she picked the Airwave handset off the passenger seat. The Airwave with its built-in GPS and panic buttons and here-comes-the-cavalry. No thanks.
Danielle pulled into the next passing place. The ground dropped away on the left: trees and bushes clinging to the side of the hill. Good enough. She buzzed down her window, stuck her arm out, and lobbed the Airwave over the roof of the car. It sailed off into the darkness and vanished.
Even if they activated the thing’s GPS and sent out a search team it’d take them forever to find it. And by the time they did, she would be long gone.
She buzzed her window up again and drove off into the night.
Now, the big question was: what to do with Inspector McRae?
42
A single standing stone flares in her headlights — pink and notched, its surface covered in intricate swirls and knotwork — and Sally’s phone dings at her, the red circle at the end of the line flashing. This must be it.
Please still be here. Please still be here. Please...
There’s a small parking area not far from the stone, at the side of the road, with spaces for about eight vehicles, separated by fading white lines. But there’s only one car there: a single black hatchback, no number plate, engine idling. The glowing red tip of a cigarette flares to a hot orange, then fades to red again.
Sally parks two spaces away. Pulls her sunglasses on and her hoodie up, the curly ends of her wig sticking out. She takes a deep breath and climbs into the rain. Hurries over. Stands there, cold water seeping into her hoodie as the wind whips away her fogging breath. Shifts from one foot to the other.
The cigarette flares orange again.
She knocks on the passenger window. ‘Hello?’
It buzzes down, a curl of smoke escaping into the night. ‘What?’
Please...
Sally bends forward, resting her arms on the sill. ‘Excuse me, I’m sorry, but I was sent a text...’
The man in the driver’s seat is big as a nightclub bouncer, dressed all in black. For a moment it looks as if he hasn’t got a face, but he’s wearing a mask. It’s barely visible in the dull glow of the hatchback’s instrument paneclass="underline" a dull-blue featureless slab, marked with a large number four. Eyes nothing but two thin slits. His huge hands covered in red leather gloves.
They match the accents on the car’s upholstery.
He places his cigarette in the ashtray and gets out of the hatchback.
Sally’s bladder clenches: he’s even bigger than he looked, cricking his neck from side to side, rolling his shoulders as he limps over and looms above her.
She shrinks against the Shogun. Everything about him radiates violence.
She clenches her hands into fists. Not to fight him — he’d kill her — but to keep them from shaking. ‘I was sent a text? They said to come here and...’
Four clenches a huge red fist of his own, snapping it up, ready to—
‘Foxglove! The password’s Foxglove!’
He nods, then beckons her forward with a finger. And when she steps towards him he slams her back against her car, hard enough to make her teeth rattle against each other. Bellowing in her face. ‘YOU’RE LATE!’
‘It was flooded outside Meikle Wartle! I had to—’
‘And where’s your mask?’
‘I didn’t—’
He grabs her hoodie, pulls her forward, and shoves her against the Shogun again.
‘Please, I didn’t—’
‘Bloody amateurs.’ Four slams a red glove down on her shoulder and spins her around, so she’s facing the car, then thumps her into it again.
Pain cracks across her ribs. ‘Aaargh!’
‘Shut it!’ He forces her legs apart with his foot, then goes through her pockets, hard and fast. Hauls her phone out of her jacket and spins her around again. ‘What’s this? You going to film us? That it? You going to call the cops? You got GPS on it?’
The tears roll down Sally’s cheeks, cold as the rain. ‘I don’t... I didn’t... Please, I don’t know what to do!’
He pockets her phone then points at the far edge of the car park, where a tarmac path leads up to the stone. ‘You stand there and you keep your pervert mouth shut.’
So she does, standing huddled into herself, arms wrapped around her aching chest, shivering in the rain as he searches her car with the kind of efficiency you’d expect of a policeman or someone from the armed forces. Even checking under the floor mats and seats.
Four pulls out the red rucksack and rummages through it.
Sally’s breath catches in her throat, but he doesn’t take anything. He nods and dumps it in the passenger footwell again. Then turns and beckons her over.
He reaches into his pocket and produces an envelope. Throws it at her with a flick of the wrist, like he doesn’t want to risk touching her again. In case he catches something. ‘Address is in there. And you’d better get your skates on — the Auctioneer isn’t as forgiving as I am when paedos are late.’
She nods. Scoops down and picks up the envelope — already starting to grey as the rain soaks into it.
Four lunges forward a step. ‘Well don’t just stand there, you snivelly bitch, MOVE!’
And Sally does, scrambling into her Shogun, jamming it into reverse, roaring out of the parking space then off into the rainy night.
The air catches in her throat, short, panting, rasping.
Sally pulls in to the side of the road and sits there with her head on the steering wheel, throat dry, everything shaking, heart like an angry man hammering on a locked door.
Breathe.
Come on: for Aiden.
She sits up and takes the damp envelope from her pocket. Sticks on the interior light. Opens the thing with trembling fingers and slips the card inside free. The words ‘BOODIEHILL FARM’ stretch across the top in big inkjet-printed letters — the text beginning to spider where the damp has got to it. And underneath that: a map and directions.
Sally nods, takes a deep shuddery breath, props the card up behind the steering wheel and pulls out onto the road again.
A sign looms out of the darkness as Sally slows for the junction: ‘BOODIEHILL FARM ~ AGRICULTURAL PROPERTY FOR SALE’. The wood it’s painted on is bloated and swollen, streaks of green and black staining the white surface like it’s been there for a long, long time.