The Long Dark Road

by P. R. Black

  Then she heard the horses. About twenty of them appeared, and a great cry went up, similar to the crowd effect on monochrome newsreel footage of a primeval football match, complete with caps waved in the air, as the steeds and riders appeared. The horses’ flanks shone in the torchlight, and one or two bridled. As they trotted into the light, kicking up the stones of the gravel path like machine gun tracer fire, the riders became apparent in the light.

  They wore red, traditional hunting gear and white jodhpurs. The only difference between this and a Boxing Day hunt was that they all seemed to be wearing sabres, and underneath the riding caps they had Dick Turpin-style masks fitted.

  The riders hailed the roar of the crowd at the marquee with these swords. Georgia could make out worried expressions on the faces of the women on the lawn; one or two dropped jaws.

  The horses all lined up, in better order than the women, at the foot of the lawn, only one or two shying among the former betraying signs of anxiety.

  Someone broke away from the throng at the marquee, a short, pugnacious figure who appealed for calm with his hands – and then demanded it, at the end of a loudspeaker.

  ‘Right, gentlemen!’ yelled Sir Oliver Chessington. ‘Here we are, for the feast of St Walburga’s Eve. If you’re new to this event, I implore you – enjoy your night, get involved in the festivities, and have fun. If you’re not new to this event… have your fun before the new guys figure it out.’ He allowed the laughter to spread through the crowd, then appealed for calm again.

  ‘Now it’s incumbent upon me to make sure the up-and-coming youths of this country – men of prospects, one and all – to have their fun. I was told I should say, “Give youth its head,” but I’m not that kinky, folks.

  ‘There were also some suggestions that we should allow some women to ride this year, equality and employment rights legislation being what it is these days, but,’ he said, hastily, cutting across some good-natured boos from the marquee, ‘as I said, I’m not that kinky. As for our riders, who can say? They’re here to have fun, and have fun they shall. So, without further ado, let’s get this show on the road. Now I’m going to fire a live round in the air. If someone gets killed as a result, do feel free to register a complaint with the maître d’ before you expire. Right! Let the Hunt of St Walburga begin!’

  Sir Oliver raised his hand, and fired a pistol. It spat out a clear yellow flame straight up into the night sky; she saw the bullet arc into the air, white-hot, on its weird trajectory before fizzling out. She saw his hand buckle under the recoil, and the sound was incredibly loud, even carrying from a distance of maybe forty or fifty yards, and she cringed as if it had been fired at her.

  The clenched fists of men bunched up as the marquee yelled encouragement. Whatever the man in the hunting tweed said to the women at this moment was lost amid the rest of the noise, but it had an effect; they all turned, and sprinted the length of the lawn, high skirts flapping, arms pistoning, towards the woods at the bottom of the lawn. The yells of the male spectators became feral; most of the heads in there were grey, Georgia saw. An actual scuffle seemed to break out among them. They were drunk, sagging against each other, jostling, almost exclusively white save for the red blotching.

  One of the unfortunate women tripped on the lawn, sprawling face-first. This caused a chorus of mirth to spread through the spectators, a pratfall worthy of sustained applause. One of the other women, bless her, stopped to help the other girl up, and then they ran after the others as they began to disappear into the thick woodland.

  The hunters on horseback stayed put. This tension seemed to whip the spectators into an even greater tumult. The front row of them were growling; one of them drooled openly, not even pausing to palm away the spit. The women were long gone, vanished into the dark forest.

  Sir Oliver Chessington, a sly smile playing across his lips, checking a pocket watch for an unbearable minute or two. A born showman, he slowly raised the hand that still sported a pistol, sparking fresh enthusiasm from the guests. Then he looked straight at the line of hunters, and fired a second shot.

  Then one of the masked figures put a bugle to his lips.

  They released the dogs. A wave of hounds – mainly beagles, with the odd short-haired pointer and one or two English setters – flowed down the same path the horses had taken, tails erect, yammering and barking as they picked up the scent. They poured across the lawn, yelping, heard above the shouts of the crowd.

  Then the horses followed, one of them blowing a bugle, a mass of muscle and sinew tearing across the fields. The riders held sabres aloft, yelling in the wake of the hounds.

  ‘Now then,’ Sir Oliver said, as the riders began to follow the dogs into the woods, ‘while the lads have their fun, let us men have ours.’

  Sir Oliver pointed towards the landscaped archways and gates, where Georgia was positioned. He seemed to be pointing right at her, and she gasped. Turning, she saw that he was pointing towards a procession of people bypassing her, having come from the main door of the hall. She had not noticed or heard them, during the start of the hunt. It was another trail of women, this time dressed in more conventional, though perhaps not quite formal attire.

  They walked towards the yelling, applauding, wolf-whistling phalanx of older men. A fair few of them broke ranks and actually ran forwards towards the women.

  Georgia darted towards the far side of the arboreal gate; even in the low-level torchlight, her white blouse would have drawn attention like a spotlight. But it was too late. Someone spotted her; someone who was apart from the line of women now closing ranks with the men from the marquee. Someone else in a white blouse; the red-headed girl who’d kindly held the door open for her.

  She pointed towards Georgia now. ‘Yeah, that’s her. The one I was talking about. There she is.’

  Adrienne Connulty was with her, darting forward daintily, despite wearing thick wedges. They added height, removed her petite quality, made her intimidating.

  Adrienne spotted Georgia, and then stopped abruptly, recognising her at last. ‘What the fuck?’ she cried.

  Georgia did not hesitate. She kicked off her heels, and ran barefoot along the back path, skirting the back edge of the marquee and the walled lawn, heading for the woods.

  33

  I passed the audition. Now all I have to do is stay sober and make notes.

  From the diary of Stephanie Healey

  Georgia ignored the pain in her feet – before she got to the rougher ground, anyway. The same way she tried to ignore the burning in her lungs, the torn tissue somewhere in her throat, its bitter blood taste. The woods stretched out before her, a thicket of impenetrable darkness. From within, she heard cries, the yelping of the dogs, and then a single scream.

  Not that way. She turned, wincing as a stone dug into her foot at the softer skin somewhere above her heel, struggling to visualise the layout of the hall and its grounds – something she had tried to do earlier, in her room. There was a spiked gate at the west side, running along a single-track road; not an easy climb, but the only option she could think of. She began to move towards it.

  Then she glimpsed a high-vis vest, tearing towards her. ‘Hey!’ the security guard yelled. ‘Hold it right there!’

  That decided it. The woods; the woods, with its shouts, bugling, horses, dogs and screams.

  She travelled beyond the realm of pain in her feet. On flat, even ground, she was a lot faster than the large but unfit man labouring behind her. She reached the treeline, beyond the arboreal gates and around the edge of the wall, appearing in the flickering torchlight. She remembered how well the white gowns of the women had caught this light, how much attention she would surely draw out here.

  The woods closed in like a grasping hand.

  The boughs of sycamores and oaks bursting into life, as well as the thick hairline of the Douglas firs and other conifers, sturdy and verdant all the way through the year, had been planned out almost to the inch – so there was room for her to pass through
, even the odd path to take. The ground was moist, although it hadn’t rained since she had arrived in Ferngate, and it stung her where her feet were surely cut. She ducked this way and that, hoping to cover her tracks, or at least baffle whoever was following her.

  A quick check over her shoulder showed that no one was following. She wondered if this might not have been the worst thing to happen; that they might not have wished to follow anyone into the woods, for all the money in the world. Then she ran off, trying to visualise the woods. They housed pheasants, she had read, getting fat ahead of the shooting season in the summer, but she heard no birds or animals in there. Except for one whinnying horse, and the constant yelping and barking. Again, there was a high spiked fence at the very back, but she might have had at least a mile and a half to cover before she got there.

  That’s it, she thought. That’s all I’ve got. She would be lucky to double back towards the wall, now, especially if an alarm had been raised. Especially if the site foreman, chief groundsman or whatever the hell you called the man in tweed was around. She’d never get there in time.

  She saw that there were silvery lights rigged on the trees at certain intervals, will o’ the wisps that lit the way in stages, showing the ground’s undulations and delineating the flat, steady pathways. Georgia did not trust these, and stole in among the trees. A million unpleasant things were underfoot – stones, moss, soft things, pliant things, then sharp things – but she had to ignore them now. There was no option.

  A branch snatched at Georgia’s shoulder and she cried out; in the darkness she hadn’t even been aware it was jutting out. She might run at full speed into a branch, about eye level; she crouched low, scratching at a cut on her shoulder.

  Then she heard someone approaching, off to her left.

  Georgia’s instinct was to hide, and she did, as best she could, behind stunted oak. She saw a weak, flickering white flame, seeming to reverberate off the tree trunks. A face came into view – a young blonde girl, surely no more than twenty, if that, her fine white hair as tangled as the vegetation she fought through. The girl did not see her. Her white dress – more of a smock, now that she saw it, crudely truncated at the legs – had a nasty tear at the shoulder. She’d possibly had the same experience Georgia had had a few minutes before.

  Then came the barking. Two beagles tore after the girl and quickly ran her down. She cried out, a hand flung over her face, the other held out to ward off the dogs, as she went to ground, fast. Her dress tore, audibly.

  Georgia got up to help, instinctively. Then she heard the horse coming down the pine-needle pathway. She ducked back into cover just in time, an overgrown fern tickling her forehead and stinging her eyes, before the black horse came into view.

  The beast was pulled up short, flanks gleaming, an immense breed that might have been better ridden into battle, with its own breastplate. ‘Heel!’ its rider called. ‘Donna! May! Heel!’

  The two dogs backed off immediately, tails wagging, then circled the girl on the ground. Her shoulder was bare, the tear in the dress having been widened by the activity of the dogs. One of the creatures still had a flap of white material in its jaws.

  The girl was sobbing, and still held her hands over her throat.

  The rider dismounted and strode over. He removed his mask.

  It was Detective Inspector Neal Hurlford.

  His sword was sheathed; but he still took great care over it, one hand holding it steady as he approached. ‘Heel,’ he said, almost a growl in itself.

  When Hurlford closed on the girl, she sat upright, sniffing. His voice was gentle, even fragile, at this point. ‘Are you all right? It’s all right, I’m not going to hurt you. I promise. You won’t get hurt. Come back with me, it’s over now. We’ll have a nice night. OK?’

  The girl did not respond, but got up, suddenly looking shame-faced at her terror. She took his hand meekly. Georgia wanted to scream at her: Run! Get away! But she didn’t. She hid, not daring to move, taking quick breaths from the diaphragm.

  Hurlford whispered something to the girl, one hand on his back. Then he led her back to the horse. The dogs stood to, as he helped her climb up, just ahead of the saddle, before he joined her. Tears rolling down the girl’s face caught the silvery light as the horse turned – a careful manoeuvre for such a huge beast.

  Then one of the dogs’ noses snapped up, and looked right at Georgia. Its tail stiffened; it bounded over, yelping, and its running mate joined it. Georgia’s hands mimicked those of the girl who’d been pursued, covering her throat.

  ‘Heel!’ Hurlford called. ‘Not that one! Heel! Home, Donna! Home, May!’

  The dogs withdrew – reluctantly at first, then finally taking after their master as Hurlford turned back the way he had come on his horse, with his prize sitting in front of him in the saddle.

  Georgia didn’t even wait for the hoofbeats to disappear – she took to the path, heading in the opposite direction. She was aware she caught the light as she passed through the ghostly, insect-dappled silvery pools in her white blouse, but surmised that this was the quickest way to the edge of the estate, and a way out of the forest.

  She grew more assured as the sounds of pursuit grew more distant; grew more confident that she wasn’t being followed, and that she’d soon be on the road and back to her car in no time. The keys were still in a pocket at the back of her skirt; she had that advantage, at least. If she had to hit the road after that and get back home, so be it. Georgia hadn’t quite found what she was looking for, but she had found something that the people with the reins in Ferngate would not have wanted her to know. That was worth having. It might be worth using.

  Then dogs barked, more than two, and all of a sudden, she knew the game was up. As quickly as that.

  They closed in on her before she had a chance to determine which direction they were coming from. A sudden snapping of branches and a rustling of leaves wasn’t enough information to make out in any detail, far less act upon effectively. Her blouse was seized at one arm, the material shredding; she wasn’t sure what kind of dog the jaws belonged to, perhaps a springer spaniel, but she couldn’t be sure. A smaller, more powerfully built dog had her by the backside, its teeth sinking in painfully, and she gave up. There were two other dogs around her, both beagles, both causing a fine row but not brave enough to challenge the other dogs for the spoils.

  Two sets of horses’ hooves beat out a complicated rhythm on the path.

  ‘There’s only one!’ called out one of the masked riders, as he brought his horse to a stop. ‘I was sure I saw two go in here.’

  ‘One will do,’ said the other rider, getting off his own steed. ‘And I believe I’ve got first dibs, old chap.’

  ‘That’s a matter of debate!’

  ‘You’ll get yours, old son, don’t worry.’ He approached, and called the dogs off.

  Georgia got to her feet. ‘Fucking animals,’ she hissed, rubbing at her backside.

  The tall, slim rider laughed. ‘Yeah, we’ve got them all. Horses, bulls, and bitches.’ Then he stopped short, seeing Georgia’s face. He removed the mask.

  ‘I’ll be buggered,’ said Riley Brightman. ‘Scottie? Get yourself over, would you? We’ve got a live one, here.’

  34

  I’m imagining that place if it was a nature reserve; somewhere bird-watchers and botanists would go. A lazy boat pond, mayflies, herons splashing through the shallows. Somewhere you’d lie with your lover’s head in your lap, and snap off the heads of buttercups, making living flesh glow, rather than making it livid. It could have been that kind of place.

  From the diary of Stephanie Healey

  Scott Trickett removed his mask, too, and walked through the phalanx of yelping dogs, oblivious to them. ‘You have got to be joking. Seriously?’

  Georgia said nothing. She backed away, hands held at her sides, as wary of the dogs as she was of the two approaching men.

  ‘What are you doing here, Georgia?’

  ‘Stay away from
me, and let me go in peace.’

  ‘She’s not on the staff, is she?’ Trickett asked. He reached out, and flicked a stray flap of her blouse.

  ‘She’s pretending to be on the staff,’ Riley said. He had grown very still. ‘She’s being a nosy parker in fact. Isn’t that right?’

  ‘Don’t come near me, and don’t touch me,’ Georgia said, chin upthrust. ‘I’m going to walk out of this estate, and if you try to stop me…’

  ‘What will you do?’ Brightman asked, incredulous. ‘Call the police?’

  ‘Yeah. For a start.’

  ‘You’re trespassing,’ Scott Trickett said. ‘You might have seen the signs around the estate, no? Either way, you’re an intruder. On private land. This is the same as us creeping into your modest detached house on a red-brick estate. It’s not allowed. We’d be within our rights to shoot you. Know what would happen to us, after we shot you? Fuck all.’

  ‘Close your mouth,’ Georgia said.

  ‘Call the police if you like. There’s loads of them here.’ Trickett jerked a thumb in the direction of the horses.

  ‘Shut up,’ Brightman said.

  ‘Don’t tell me to shut up,’ Trickett growled. ‘Not in private. Not in company. Not even in your own imagination.’

  Brightman said nothing to this. There was something in this acquiescence, in this restructuring of what Georgia had imagined the two bandmates’ relationship amounted to, that struck her with sudden, solemn tones of doom.

  ‘Is this what happened to Stephanie?’ Georgia asked.

  ‘I don’t know about you, but I’m getting bored of this tune,’ Trickett said, turning away in exasperation. ‘For God’s sake. Get it into your skull, once and for all – we’ve nothing to do with your junior squaw. We don’t know anything about it. She’s out having a swim, off the coast of Denmark or something. She’s cuddled up with a pickled shark in Iceland. Give us peace!’