The Hunting Party

by Lucy Foley

  ‘I don’t know why we’re doing this,’ Miranda says, suddenly, ‘when we could be back at the Lodge getting stuck into the champagne.’ She complained on the climb up here, too: about the boggy ground and the icy water seeping over the top of her boots. It’s because she wasn’t any good at the target practice – I’m sure of it. If she had turned out to be a crack shot, it would be a different story – she’d be leading the charge. Miranda hates being bad at anything. I could practically see her lip curl as Doug praised Emma, as though she didn’t believe someone like Emma had any right to be a good shot.

  ‘It’s so fucking cold,’ she adds, ‘I’m sure the deer will be hiding somewhere out of sight, if they have any sense. Surely we’re not going to catch anything now?’

  Nick wheels suddenly on his heel to face her. ‘Hey!’ the gamekeeper shouts. ‘Careful man, you’re carrying a loaded weapon.’

  ‘Sorry,’ Nick looks slightly abashed. ‘But to be honest, I’m pretty tired of hearing about how bored you are, Miranda. Why don’t you go back to the Lodge, if you’re so keen for that? We’re never going to surprise anything if you keep moaning about what a terrible time you’re having.’

  There’s a resounding silence in the aftermath, the freezing air seems to drop another few degrees. Miranda looks as if she has just been slapped. Everyone has been a little more tense on this excursion, but this is the first openly hostile thing that anyone has actually said. Perhaps it’s no surprise that it’s between Nick and Miranda. Nick, after all, has never been Miranda’s greatest fan. I don’t think he’s ever really forgiven her.

  When Nick came out to a few of us, in our first year at Oxford, he hadn’t yet told his parents, who were then serving an ambassadorship in Oman. It wasn’t that he was afraid of doing so, he told me. ‘They’re pretty liberal, and they might have guessed already – there were a couple of guys, when we were in Paris, who I got close to.’

  But he wanted to choose the right moment, because it was an important milestone, an affirmation of who he was.

  Miranda claimed that she knew none of this when Nick’s parents came up for reading week, and Nick introduced them to everyone in the JCR. There was some discussion about end-of-year exams, and Miranda said – in a nudge-nudge wink-wink tone – ‘Don’t worry, Mr and Mrs … M, we’ll make sure Nick has his nose to the grindstone and doesn’t just go off chasing after all the prettiest boys.’

  She wasn’t even supposed to know, that was the worst of it. The select group Nick had confided in had not included Miranda. I had not been proud of myself for telling her. I was very good, normally, at keeping secrets. But I had been drunk, and Miranda had been teasing me about my crush on Nick, and it had just come out. Of course, I had begged her not to say that she knew. And yet she claimed to have no memory of this at all. She claimed, too, afterwards, that she assumed Nick’s parents ‘just knew’.

  I was sure that Nick would never forgive me. So I was relieved by his reaction. He was furious, that was true. But not, thankfully, with me. He told me that he had thought of several unpleasant ways in which to exact his revenge on Miranda, but couldn’t find anything that matched the scale of what she’d done to him.

  ‘I know it shouldn’t really matter,’ he told me, ‘I was going to tell them this week anyway … over a nice lunch or something. But it was the principle of it. I know it wasn’t an accident. I think she did it because she liked having that power. And to cause trouble between the two of us, of course.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ I asked, surprised.

  ‘I’m pretty sure she resents your being friends with me.’

  ‘That’s rubbish,’ I told him. ‘Miranda has loads of other friends, and I have … a few.’

  ‘Yes, but she doesn’t have any other close friends – have you noticed that, Katie? She’s only got you – and Samira at a pinch. And I don’t think she likes sharing her toys.’

  Now, of course, that’s all water under the bridge. Or, at least, Nick has done a good job of suggesting as much. I wonder, though, whether he still thinks of it. Wounds inflicted at that sort of raw, unformed time in our lives tend to cut the deepest – and leave the worst scars.

  ‘Hey,’ Samira says, sharply. ‘Let’s all just chill out, OK? We’re here on holiday.’

  Funny, I don’t remember Samira being quite so sanguine in the past about things. And I recall her struggle with herself at brunch, how she managed to bite back whatever rejoinder she might have made to Miranda then.

  Miranda mutters something under her breath, defiantly. But I can see that she’s really stung. She can give it out, you see, Miranda – but she can’t always take it. Underneath that tough, glossy exterior she’s softer than she looks. And I think she’s always secretly admired Nick, sees him as an equal.

  I see her glance at Julien. I wonder if she’s waiting for him to stick up for her. If so, she’s disappointed, but perhaps not surprised. She has always said that he hates confrontation, likes to try to please everybody – never wanting to be seen as the bad guy.

  I don’t want to take sides, either. I can’t afford to. I have enough of my own issues to deal with. I feel as though I’ve been catapulted into the past: Miranda causing drama, me having to mediate between her and the unlucky opponent – feeling that each of them is asking me to choose. I’m not going to do it now. I walk away from the group, around to the other side of the ruin, and stand in the full force of the wind for a few minutes, my eyes closed.

  I clench my fingernails into my palms until they sting. I have to stop. I have to stop this thing, this compulsion, once and for all. But every time I have tried I find that I can’t bring myself to. When it really comes to doing it, I’m never strong enough. I can’t believe I’ve got myself into the mess that I have. I take a few deep breaths, open my eyes, and try to distract myself with the view.

  I have been to some beautiful places in my life, but nowhere quite like this. It’s the wildness of the landscape, perhaps: raw, untouched by human hand other than the small cluster of dwellings below us, the tiny station on the other side, and the old ruin behind us. It is bleak and brutal, and its charm, if it can be called that, lies in this. The colours are all muted: slate-blue, the old bruise yellow of the sky, the rust red of the heather. And yet they are just as mesmerising as any turquoise sea, any white sandy beach.

  As I watch, a huge clump of the heather seems to lift up and move, and I realise that it is deer, running as one, their sleekness only offset by the comedy flashes of their white tails. Perhaps it’s this movement that draws my eye to another flash of movement, lower down the slope. I don’t think I would have seen it otherwise. Seen him, that is. He is some fifty yards away, wearing camouflage gear, a large backpack on his back. I can’t make out his face, or even his height – because he’s up to his waist in heather. He appears to be making an effort not to be seen, keeping low down, close to the heather as he moves. It must have been him that scared the deer and set them sprinting off.

  I don’t think he’s seen me yet. I can feel my heartbeat somewhere up near my throat. There’s something menacing about the way he moves, like an animal. Then, like a predator catching my scent on the breeze, he looks up and sees me. He stops short.

  I can’t make sense of what happens next. It defies all logic. In the next couple of seconds he seems to sink from view; to disappear into the heather itself. I blink, in case something has actually happened to my vision. But when I open my eyes there is still no sign of him.

  I think of the manager’s instructions. ‘Tell the gamekeeper or me if you see anyone you don’t recognise on the estate.’ So should I tell them? But I’m not even completely sure of what I have seen. A person doesn’t just dissolve in plain sight, do they? It’s true that my eyes are full of tears from the rawness of the wind, and I’m still a bit groggy from the sleeping pills I took last night. The others will think I’m simply making it up, or imagining things. I’m too weary to try to explain what I saw. If I were Miranda, I’d make this in
to a big drama, a ghost-story anecdote. But I’m not. I’m Katie: the quiet one, the watcher. Besides, there can’t be any real harm in not saying anything. Can there?

  DOUG

  There’s a change in the group. He noticed it even before the argument between the man with the glasses and the beautiful blonde. He has seen it happen before, this shift. It starts with the rifles. Each of them is suddenly invested with a new, terrible power. At first, during the target practice, they flinched with each report, at the jump of the device as it punched bruises into the flesh beneath their shoulders. But quickly – too quickly, perhaps – it became natural, and they were leaning into each shot: focused, intent. They began enjoying themselves. But something else crept in too. A sense of competition. More than that … something primeval has been summoned. The ‘buck fever’ felt by all novice hunters before their first trophy. The blood lust. Each of them wants to be the one that makes the kill. And yet they don’t even know what it is they’re yearning for. Because they have never killed before – not beyond the odd swatted fly, or trapped mouse. This is something completely different. They will be changed by it. An innocence they did not know they possessed will be forsaken.

  There is the landscape, too. It has made them edgy. Up here the harsh, skeletal lines of the land are revealed, granite peeking like old bone through the rust red fuzz of heather. Up here they become aware of quite how alone they are in this place – not another human soul for a very long way indeed.

  Except … his fingers now find the cigarette stub in his pocket. He doesn’t like it. It shows that someone has been up here, recently. Heather doesn’t smoke, as far as he knows – and she certainly doesn’t go anywhere near the Old Lodge if she can help it. Iain smokes, he thinks, but he has no need to come up here: he’s been working down by the loch, on the pumphouse. It could also have been the Icelandic couple – but he saw them smoking rollies the other evening, after the dinner.

  He’ll mention it to Heather, later. Just to check whether she’s noticed anything.

  Poachers? But there would have been some other evidence of them, surely? In the past he has found blood-smeared grass where they have dragged their illegal bounty, or the cartridge shells with which they killed it. He has found the remains of fires they’ve made to attempt to burn the rest of the body (it’s the heads they’re after, in general) and the blackened bones that remain. Sometimes he’s even found the kill before they’ve come back to claim it – they’ll take the head, the most valuable part, and leave the headless corpse hidden in the grass until there’s an opportune time to come and collect it.

  It could merely have been dropped by a hiker – there’s still a right to roam, though they’re no doubt discouraged by the (probably illegal) ‘private property’ signs. He can’t remember the last time he saw a walker. Besides, hikers are all bright cagoules and cling-filmed lunches and earnestness, not the sort to callously litter the landscape they’ve come to enjoy.

  No, he doesn’t like it one bit.

  He’s pleased to put the Old Lodge behind him. Its story parallels his own ghosts. The gamekeeper haunted by his own war, burning the place down. He knows the sorts of forces that might drive a man to such an act.

  They find the hinds in the stretch of land beyond the Lodge. There is a stain of darkness in the sky already – the sun, invisible behind cloud, must be readying to set. They need to be quick. He has the guests lie in the heather and crawl towards the deer, so as not to alarm them.

  One has got separated from the others, an old doe, with a hobble to her walk. Perfect. You only shoot the old, the limp. Despite what the poachers might think, this is not about magnificent trophies.

  When they are close enough, he turns to the shorter, not-beautiful blonde. ‘You,’ he says. ‘Want to try her?’

  She nods, solemnly. ‘All right.’

  He helps her sight it. ‘The largest part of the chest,’ he says, ‘not the head. Too much room for error with the head. And not too low, or you’ll shatter her leg. And squeeze the trigger, remember, gently does it.’

  She does as he says. The gun discharges, a flat thunderclap of noise, ringing in the ears. The other deer scatter in fright, fleeing at astonishing speed. There are exclamations from the other guests behind him, sharp intakes of breath.

  There is a beat, as always, when it seems that the bullet must have misfired, or disappeared completely. Then the doe jerks as though passed through with an electric current. There is the belated thud of the bullet’s impact, the metal entering flesh. A bellow, the sound as much like rage as pain. She staggers a couple of steps, swaying on her feet. And then finally, down she goes – quite gently, as though she is being careful with herself, her legs folding underneath her. Her chest is, suddenly, a mass of red. A perfect shot.

  He walks the hundred yards or so to the dying beast. She’s still there, just: her breath mists in the cold. There is a moment when her eyes seem to meet his. Then he takes his knife and shoves it in, clean, to that place at the base of the skull. Now she is gone. He feels little remorse, other than for the grace that once was, now stilled. Unlike other deaths for which he has been responsible, he knows this one is right, necessary. Unchecked, the population would get out of control; resources would be so thin that the whole herd would begin to starve.

  He bends, and dips a hand into the wound, coating his fingers with gore. Then he walks back to the woman, Emma, and – in time-honoured tradition – anoints her forehead and cheeks with the blood.

  EMMA

  The gamekeeper told me I’d have to wait for the fillet from the deer I shot. It needs to be hung for a few days – apparently in the first twenty-four hours rigor mortis really sets in and it would be inedible until the tissues start to soften again. But they’ve got some properly aged meat that I can use if I want. I was going to do a beef Wellington tonight, but I’ve realised I could make it with venison instead. That would be perfect, wouldn’t it – a reminder of our day?

  I’ve come over to the barn to collect it. I’ve washed my face first, of course. Apparently there’s some old wives’ tale about not cleaning it off until midnight or bad luck will befall you, but that’s just nonsense and superstition. Besides, it had dried and crusted into a very unsightly mess.

  When I get to the barn there’s no sign of anyone, but the door is slightly ajar. I give it a push with one hand and it swings open.

  I can hear the murmur of voices, low and urgent. At the sound of my footsteps, they cease. It’s gloomy inside, and I have to squint to adjust my eyes. When I do I take a step back. At one end of the room hang two huge, grisly, bloody pendants of meat next to the carcass of the deer I shot, skinned, its eyes still glassy black and staring. There’s a distinctive smell, impossible to mistake: heavy, metallic.

  Behind the carcasses I make out the odd-job man I sat next to at the dinner, Iain, wielding a large cleaver in one hand, and wearing a butcher’s apron soaked in blood. He raises his other hand in greeting; his palm is stained red. Next to him are the two Icelandic guests.

  I wonder what these three strangers could have been talking about so fervently.

  ‘Got your venison ready for you,’ Iain says. He reaches towards the counter behind him and lifts up a parcel wrapped in stained greaseproof paper.

  ‘Thank you,’ I say, taking it from him gingerly. It’s heavy, cold.

  ‘These two,’ he points to the two other guests, ‘were just asking me if they could have the heart from your kill, as that’s best fresh. I hope you don’t mind them taking that?’

  ‘No …’ I say, trying to conceal my distaste, as a good chef should. ‘Not at all.’

  The man, Ingvar, grins at me. ‘Thank you. You know, you should try it sometime. It’s the tastiest part.’

  NOW

  2nd January 2019

  HEATHER

  I stare at the computer screen. I sit with my hand over my mouth like a pantomime of shock. But I am genuinely stunned by what a simple search of Doug’s full name has brought
up. It’s bad. Really bad. It’s far worse than probably even my mother could have guessed in her most lurid imaginings.

  I can see that even from the brief precis of each article on the Google results page. He almost killed someone. I’ve been living in this place alone with a man who has served time in jail. Who was convicted of, as the official line has it: ‘causing grievous bodily harm with intent’.

  The Daily Mail article is the first hit. I click it open. There is a photo of Doug, hollow-eyed, mouth a grim line, hair shorn to the scalp. Another of him in an ill-fitting suit, being shepherded out of a car into the courthouse, his teeth bared at the photographers in a snarl. He looks like a criminal; he looks violent, dangerous. The article that follows is a lurid attack on every aspect of his character. Educated at a private school; university dropout; time in the Marines, the only one to survive an attack by the Taliban in ‘murky circumstances’. Strongly insinuating, if not stating outright, that some foul play or cowardice was involved on his part.

  And then a ‘brawl in a bar’.

  As I read on, it only gets worse. The form of ‘bodily harm’? Attempted strangulation. I look for anything in the article that might exonerate Doug’s behaviour in some way: something I could latch onto. I want him to be exonerated. Not just because the idea of having lived with someone capable of cold-blooded murder (or at least the attempt of it) is horrifying, but because, despite his taciturn ways, I have come to rather like Doug. I genuinely believed what I said when I told my mum he was ‘harmless’.

  There is nothing to excuse him though. I discard the Daily Mail, click on the BBC News link, which should give me an account without bias or sensationalism. That article contains a quote from an eyewitness: ‘It just happened out of nowhere. One moment they were talking, I think – just two blokes having a quiet chat in the corner of the pub, the next that man was trying to strangle him. People tried to pull him off, and he fought them all, until finally there were enough of them to overpower him. It was terrifying.’