Hand pressed to my throbbing side, I twisted around and ran, zig-zagging down the rest of the hill which was rutted, stony and treacherous, but nothing like the scree had been.
In the daylight and closer up, Jake’s rifle had looked like a relatively small-bore one, meant for shooting things like rabbits. It was no doubt accurate, but I reckoned the range would be short.
Sure enough, once I’d made it most of the way down the slope, Jake lifted his rifle without having got off a shot and he and his partner headed away back up the path. I leaned over my sore knees, panting, hoping desperately that the two of them would give up now, rather than trying to find a different way to get at me.
But Jake had shot at a police officer in daylight, and I couldn’t think he was willing to give up until he caught me, the thought of which made me shudder.
My side was a mass of pain, and I lifted up my soaked coat to look at it, grimacing at the sight of blood. One of the rocks on the scree slope had slashed right through my shirt and jacket and cut into my side. It wasn’t deep, but it was bleeding, and the pain made me grit my teeth. Still, there wasn’t anything I could except to find somewhere away from these maniacs hunting me and where I could call for help.
Scanning the hillside which was more grassy now that I’d split away from the moorland and descended, there was Lockdale way down in the valley with a few spread out farms, all of them perhaps a mile away. There was a coppice of fir trees off to the right, and I started to head towards them. They’d provide some cover and get me out of the open, and from there it would be a straight run down to the nearest farm.
Though I’d lived here for years, I wasn’t sure exactly who the farm belonged to, but I knew it wasn’t the Collins’ and as long as they had a landline, it didn’t matter.
I was half-way to the treeline when I heard the sound of revved engines behind me and sped up without turning around. My legs felt like bags of gravel, and my lungs struggled to drag in enough air as I ran, slipped and scrambled down the rutted hill towards the trees. The quad bikes wouldn’t be able to follow me in there, or at least not at speed, since the trees were fairly tightly packed and their branches hung low.
A shot rang out, and I ducked, tripped over on a patch of slick mud and cried out as I rolled, the pain of my side almost blinding me. The quad bikes were still gaining, doing better on the rough ground with their thick set of four tyres than I was on my two exhausted, sodden feet. I staggered back up and kept pushing forwards, only a hundred yards or so from the trees when there was another shot, and a line of white-hot pain blazed across my arm.
My adrenaline was high enough to keep going, even as I could feel the wetness of more blood on my arm.
I’m never going to get all this blood out of my coat, I thought almost hysterically.
I dived into the trees, racing between them with the branches whipping my arms as I ran. I dared to glance back once and saw the quad bikes had been forced to swing to a swerving stop by the edge of the firs, but my relief was short-lived as the pair of them quickly wheeled around, tearing down the edge of the cluster of trees. The coppice gave me some shelter from them, but it wasn’t large enough to protect me for long. I drove myself harder, determined to get out of the trees on the downhill slope before the quad bikes could cut around the edge and block me off. I had the advantage of a direct route, but their bikes were going twice my speed.
I burst out into open ground just seconds before the quad bikes swerved around the edge of the trees and came after me. The nearest farmhouse was straight down the hill, and the rain was beginning to ease off, like a good omen after all the awful luck.
I skidded and slid down the hill, going as fast as I could without smashing my head into a rock. If I could just get down to the house to call for help, I reckoned I’d be alright.
When I was only fifty yards or so from the house, I risked looking back over my shoulder, only to stumble to a shocked stop when I saw that Jake and the other man had stopped. They were sitting on their quad bikes, Jake’s rifle slung over his shoulder, and I stared up at them as they looked down. I could picture the hatred in Jake’s eyes because I’d seen it up close. Looking back down at the house as I started moving towards it, I guessed that Jake, reckless as he might’ve been, didn’t want to shoot me right outside someone else’s farm. Maybe they were home, and maybe they weren’t, but it was more of a risk than trying to attack me up on the moor.
Exhausted as I was, some kind of tired triumph and a heavy dose of relief needled their way in when the two men revved their quads and moved away, climbing steadily back up the hill and finally leaving me alone.
There remained the feeling that this wasn’t over. I’d only barely gotten away this time, and I wasn’t sure how much longer my luck would last.
Twenty-One
As the adrenaline began to wear off, the pain in my arm and side hit harder, and I winced as I limped the final short way to the farmhouse and raised my uninjured arm to knock the door. I hoped hard that there was someone home because the idea of having to trek across open country to get to the next nearest farm made me want to collapse on the porch.
I heard footsteps from inside and released a breath of relief, stepping back slightly from the doorway because I knew I looked like a bloodied wreck and I didn’t want to scare the homeowner into slamming the door in my face.
A woman opened the door, her face round and kind with dark eyes that widened at the sight of me.
“Hello?” she said warily before her gaze moved to the blood on my blue coat, and she stared for a minute. Then she straightened up and stepped back. “You’d better come in.”
“Thank you,” I said, more tired than I thought I’d ever been.
It was blessedly warm inside the woman’s homely kitchen, which was done up in shades of rustic, dark work and shades of a sunny yellow.
“Darren Mitchell,” I said as I dropped into a chair that she pulled up by the agar stove. “I’m with Lockdale police.”
Her eyebrows rose. “Alice’s Darren?”
I looked up, surprised, and I couldn’t find the right response, “Uh…”
She waved her hand. “Never mind. I’m Danielle, by the way. Alice is a friend. We get drinks sometimes. I’m not a stalker, promise.”
I wondered what Alice was doing now, and whether she’d thought much about me in the last few days. This morning, when I’d read her text message encouraging me for the race today, seemed like it had happened weeks ago.
“That’s a relief,” I said weakly. “I would shake your hand…” I showed her my filthy hands, which had been badly cut up by the rocky ground I’d fallen on and plastered with mud.
Danielle wrinkled her nose. “Need to get those cleaned up,” she said. “Are you hurt badly elsewhere?” She gestured towards my ribs. “Do you need an ambulance?
I pulled a face and then moved to lift up my coat and jacket, before pausing. “You’re not squeamish?”
She laughed, not unkindly. “I’m a farmer.”
Fair enough. I bared the injury and studied it with a wince, and when my host got down a first aid kit and offered me some sterile wipes, I wiped away some of the blood. It stung badly, but the cut wasn’t deep, and my ribs didn’t hurt enough to be broken. I did the same inspection on my arm and found that it was just a graze, though it’d bled quite a lot.
“You were lucky,” Danielle noted. “Or extremely unlucky to get shot at, I’m not sure.”
“Yes. Both,” I agreed. Though I wanted nothing more than a hot bath, a gallon of water, and a decade-long nap, I said, “Can I borrow your phone?”
She looked at me as if doubting my ability to stay awake long enough to hold a phone before she nodded and picked a landline phone off its stand on the kitchen counter. I thanked her as I took it and began dialling Kay’s number from memory imagining how frantic she must be, not knowing where I was and no answer from my mobile.
Danielle gestured towards the hall and backed out. “Shout if you w
ant me.”
“Actually,” I said, my finger hovering over the call button, “could you write down your address?”
“Of course.” She found some scrap paper and did that whilst I called my partner, waiting anxiously for a reply. Danielle left the room once she’d slid the piece of paper over to me, leaving me to talk to Kay in privacy.
“Hello?” Kay sounded shaky and short on both patience and breath. I could hear the wind buffeting the phone’s speaker in the background, and I wondered where exactly she was.
“Kay, it’s Darren.”
“Oh, thank God.” Kay’s voice cracked, and she sounded close to crying. “What the hell took you so long?” she demanded. “I thought— I thought you were dead, you— Christ, Darren! Where are you?”
“I lost my phone,” I said, rubbing my forehead tiredly, “and I’m at a farmhouse now. It was Jake Collins chasing me, I’m pretty certain.”
“You said there were two--”
“I didn’t recognise the other one.”
“His brother?”
“No, too short. They’d both covered their faces.”
Kay swore quietly. “We were up on the moor, Gaskell as well, combing the area looking for you. We found your phone and I--” She swallowed thickly.
“I’m alright.”
“Good,” she croaked. I heard her take a breath. “Do you know where you are exactly?”
“I’ve got the address.”
“Tell me.” I read it off the paper for her. “Alright, we’re not far away. We’ve been combing the paths for the last half-hour, trying to find you. They wanted to get a helicopter out for you, but it was busy with a rescue.” She sighed, and I didn’t know what to say, so I stayed quiet. The warmth of the house was making me want to yawn.
“I’ll see you soon,” I said after Kay was silent for a minute.
“Yes,” Kay said, “I’m really glad you’re alright.”
“Me too.”
We hung up, and I set the phone down on the table, leaning over it to put my elbows on the rich wood. The table looked old and well-used, but still richly beautiful. I wanted to put my head down on it and pass out for a few hours, but my hands were filthy, and my side was still bleeding sluggishly.
Heaving myself to my feet, I staggered over to the deep basin sink and let the blood and dirt run down the drain until my hands looked more recognisable again.
A shape moved behind me, and I startled, twisting round sharply only to find that it was just Danielle, who went still at my sudden movement. She was carrying an armful of towels. I gave her a sheepish smile and went back to trying to get the peaty soil out from under my nails.
“My partner’s on her way,” I said as I finished up at the sink. “Sorry for making your kitchen filthy.” I’d tracked mud all across her floor and then dripped both blood and water on her kitchen chairs.
She shrugged off my apology. “My husband’s dogs do more harm. Is there anything you need? Here’s an old towel for you,” She passed it over, “and I reckon we ought to see to that gash of yours.”
She turned out to be a dab hand at dressing wounds, claiming that she’d had a great deal of practice with her animals getting into trouble. Regardless, she did a very tidy job of patching me up, including cleaning out the cuts on my battered hands. I rubbed the towel she’d given me over my hair and patted down my trousers.
“If you’d like a shower, you’re welcome to it,” she said as she was finishing.
“Is that a hint?” I said, summoning a smile. I’d sweated a lot under my coat, and I felt grossly sticky.
She cracked a grin. “When you’re around manure all day, you lose your sense of smell.”
“I bet,” I chuckled. “Thank you. A shower sounds divine. Could I have some water first?”
She bustled into motion to get me a big glass of water and then put on the kettle for a cup of tea after that. I downed the water in hungry gulps, feeling almost immediately better afterwards. She sat herself down opposite me at the table as we both drank our tea. It was an odd place of limbo, where everything seemed too normal, sat in a clean, safe kitchen rather than running for my life. But I expected that was just the shock speaking, and I’d settle again soon, probably after sleeping for twelve hours straight, if Hogan would allow me to.
A heavy banging on the door made me jump so badly, I knocked my mug over, and tea splashed across the table. My instinct was to apologise, but I was frozen, listening hard.
“Don’t worry about it,” Danielle was saying, already with a cloth in hand to mop it up. “I’ll make some more after I’ve--” She stepped away as if to go to the door, but I saw movement in the kitchen window; a dark figure looking in for just a second.
I swore, and Danielle looked at me in shock. “Don’t get the door,” I ordered quietly, “and come away from the window.” I was already half out of my chair and was instinctively crouching.
“Are your doors locked?” I asked urgently.
Danielle hesitated. “Yes, yes, I think so.” She looked spooked but composed. Most farmers were good in an emergency; focused and steady as they looked for solutions. You couldn’t panic when the life of a valuable animal was on the line and counting on you for a decision.
“Good,” I said quietly. “Have you got any weapons?”
She blinked. “My father’s shotgun is upstairs. It’s very old.”
“Can you work it? Have you got cartridges?”
“Yes, I think so.”
“And there’s no-one else in the house?”
She shook her head. There was another banging on the door. I tensed before gesturing for Danielle to move out of the kitchen and into the hall where there were fewer windows. I snagged the house phone off the table and dialled Kay’s number again.
“It’s Darren,” I said quietly as soon as she picked up. “They’re here. They’re at the house. I’ve got a civilian here. You’ll need more officers and a firearms team. Jake is still armed.”
Kay didn’t say much, just acknowledged what I’d said before she added, “Stay safe, I’m on my way.”
I hung up and looked over at Danielle. “Help’s on the way. We just have to hunker down until then.”
Almost as if to prove me wrong, even as Danielle nodded at me, there was the sound of a window shattering near the front of the house.
“Go, go,” I hissed, waving for Danielle to go upstairs.
She did as I said, moving up the side of the stairs nearest to the wall and I copied her, the old stairs not seeming to creak so much that way.
She led the way into what looked like a guest bedroom, all beautifully decorated, and beelined for a big wooden chest at the end of the bed. She fished a key for the lock out of a chest of drawers and opened up the chest. It was full of neatly folded linens and these she tossed out onto the bed, digging out an old wooden shotgun and a box of cartridges from the bottom.
“Good, good job,” I said, taking the gun when she offered it and trying to remember the day I spent with my father once years ago, attempting to clay pigeon shoot.
I remembered the basics of handling the shotgun and got it opened up, squinting down the barrel. There was some build up in there, either from dust or residue never cleaned out after it was last used, but we hardly had time to clean it. I slotted the two cartridges in and cocked it with a satisfying clunk.
“Have you fired it before?” I asked Danielle.
“Only when I was a girl. My husband and daughter like that kind of thing, they’d be much more useful right now.”
I patted her on the shoulder. “You’re doing great,” I assured her, putting the shotgun to my shoulder. I winced at the pain in my injured arm and knew that would only worsen if I ended up actually firing the thing, since I remembered the kick from a shotgun being painfully powerful, especially from a heavy one like this.
I heard a crash from downstairs, like several things being knocked over at once, and braced myself. Jake and his partner were in the house now, and I k
new they’d be up here soon.
“Alright,” I said quietly, more to myself than Danielle. “We can do this.” I looked over at her. “Sorry for bringing this mess into your home. I wouldn’t have come in if I’d ever imagined that they’d follow me here.”
Danielle’s eyes widened. “They were the ones that-” She gestured to my side and arm.
“Afraid so.”
“Why?” she said incredulously.
“They’re mixed up in a case I’m— I was investigating.” That was the extremely simplified version. The more complicated account was that I thought the sister of one of the attacker’s downstairs killed my running partner with rat poison., and I was trying to get her locked up until kingdom come.
She looked bemused and shook her head. There was another clatter from downstairs and disgruntled noises. I heard a back door open and hoped that they’d thought we’d run out the back. We weren’t so lucky. Both of us were stiff with tension as one, and then two pairs of boots started to clomp up the stairs.
I gestured urgently for Danielle to hide under the bed as I put myself into position behind the room’s semi-open door, the shotgun ready to use. I didn’t know if it would even work after all this time and so nodded in approval when Danielle grabbed a sharp fire poker from the real wood fire before she slid under the double bed. At least, if the shotgun jammed, it was bulky enough to use as a club.
Waiting was awful. My side felt worse every minute, making me want to curl over it, but I stayed upright and alert. I could hear them moving around the landing, violently throwing open the bedroom doors.
They didn’t talk much, but I swore that it was Jake’s cold, rough voice I heard say, “He’s not getting away again.”
I swallowed thickly and briefly took my hand off the shotgun to wipe my damp, stinging palms on my trousers, trying to get a good grip on the smooth wood. I couldn’t afford for this to go wrong, not for my sake or Danielle’s.
DI Mitchell Yorkshire Crime Thrillers: Book 1-3 Page 20
