The Hunted Child

by G R Jordan

  Kirsten followed her, closed the door, and held the girl’s hand in the dark. The door was opened once more, and a head wearing a baseball cap looked inside. The figure had a boiler suit on as well, and Kirsten recognised Andrea Lumley giving her a grin.

  ‘I said I’d drop you off. Now just sit tight until we get out.’

  The next twenty minutes were in the dark, traveling along roads and bouncing about in the back of the van. It wasn’t the most uncomfortable journey she’d ever had, but Kirsten certainly preferred it when you got a nice seat. The girl’s hand was constantly clutching Kirsten’s, and she swore she could hear Innocence at times start to pray. Ollie, however, was saying nothing, but his heavy breathing gave away how worried he was.

  The van eventually stopped, and Kirsten heard someone get out and walk around. It was probably Andrea Lumley checking the area, making sure no one was waiting for them. After a few moments, the door slid back, and Lumley looked in.

  ‘I think it’s clear,’ she said. ‘I had a good look around. The front door’s open if you need to make a run inside.’

  ‘Right, let’s go,’ said Kirsten, and took Innocence’s hands, and moved out into the daylight, struggling to see against the light. She shaded her eyes, made for the front door, opened it, and took the girl straight upstairs and into a back bedroom. Her brother was following, and she told Ollie to wait with her while Kirsten went back downstairs and met Andrea Lumley at the front door.

  ‘Is there any food or that in?’ said Kirsten.

  ‘Check the kitchen, there’ll be enough to keep you for a few days, if you’re that long.’

  ‘Thanks for your help, Sergeant,’ said Kirsten.

  ‘Not a problem; just get them off my island as quick as you can. I’ve got enough of a headache with what’s been going on.’

  Andrea Lumley smiled, giving Kirsten a nod before disappearing off in the van. Kirsten spent the next two hours by the windows, looking out and watching all that was coming and going, but she saw nothing. In her mind she wondered, was this the safe house? Or was this just another trap from Richard?

  Chapter 18

  Innocence Waters and her brother had been sleeping, but Kirsten could not afford herself that pleasure. As she walked around the downstairs of the house looking out of each window, there were no lights on in the house. She kept everything as dark as she could, while the siblings huddled together wrapped up in blankets upstairs.

  Kirsten hadn’t closed any curtains either, wanting to be able to see out the windows to see anyone approaching. As it got towards midnight, she began to watch the road closer. She saw a number of cars go past and was registering them in her head. Some she had noted earlier on in the day heading off into town, but a few weren’t familiar. Of those she’d seen before, it would be common to get a few. They may have been out in town all day, but some of them she was seeing several times. It had quieted down after ten p.m. Now after midnight, there were only three cars that came past. However, these were three cars that Kirsten had not seen originate from beyond the house, rather they’d come from the Stornoway area.

  They said in the spy game that when the hairs in your neck pricked up, when you felt that something wasn’t right, that was the time to listen, time to go with your instincts. So, Kirsten made her way up the stairs, knocked gently on the bedroom door. Opening it, she saw Ollie holding on to his sister as they slept on the bed. Gently, Kirsten woke them, allowing them to come round before sitting them down to talk.

  ‘Listen,’ she said, ‘I’m not happy. I’m not convinced that we’re safe here. We’re going to move but we’re going to have to do it quietly and we’re going to have to go not very far away. I’m going to leave you in charge, Ollie.’

  His eyes widened. ‘Are you sure that’s safe? I mean, who knows we’re here?’

  ‘I don’t know and that’s what’s bothering me. I’m hoping only the right people, but I’ve got a feeling the wrong people do too, so I think we need to move. Grab what stuff you’ve got. Bring a blanket with you too, Ollie. I’m not sure where I’m going to put you is going to be that warm.’

  Kirsten looked out the bedroom window. The night was dark, the moon hidden behind many clouds, but thankfully, it wasn’t raining. Kirsten asked the two young people to stay upstairs while she made her way back downstairs and looked at the rear window to plan a route to somewhere. She could see a barn in the distance. This being the Isle of Lewis, it probably was open. She could put the young people there. She also noted that in front of the barn was a car and trusted herself to be able to start it if necessary.

  In her head, Kirsten saw an attack coming that night, but probably one person, stealthy while everyone was asleep. It would be quietly done, something that wouldn’t upset the neighbours until the morning when they found the remains. If indeed they did. Maybe they were planning to carry Kirsten and the young people away. Maybe they needed evidence for their reward. In any case, she needed to move them as quickly as possible.

  Kirsten made her way back up the stairs. With the two young people in tow, she made her way out of the rear door, keeping them down low in the grass. As she reached a hedge, she picked up Innocence and threw her over before climbing through herself. With Ollie behind them, together they walked up to the barn, but Kirsten jumped back when a beam of light came on. She headed out in the shadow, keeping Innocence and Ollie down tight waiting to see if anyone would move, but there was nothing. Maybe the owners were used to this sort of thing with stray cats and other nocturnal animals.

  Carefully, she edged her way round and found a side entrance into the barn. She opened it and took Ollie inside along with Innocence. Once she shut the door behind her, she used the pen torch to scan the interior. There were lights, but she told Ollie not to switch them on. She led them to the rear of the barn where a large stack of hay had been built up. Climbing up the stack, Kirsten moved some bales out of the way and set them up as a wall before telling Innocence and Ollie to get behind them. She watched them lie down, and put the blanket over them before moving the bales back.

  ‘Whatever you do, don’t come out. I’ll come and get you.’ Innocence reached up trying to touch Kirsten. She took the girl’s hand holding it close to her cheek. ‘I’ll be back for you. Stay safe; your big brother will look after you.’

  Ollie’s face didn’t give the picture of reassurance; rather he looked quite perturbed about what he was having to do. ‘Don’t you have a weapon or something?’ he asked. ‘Something you can lend me just in case I have to defend Innocence?’

  ‘You’re more likely to kill someone you know if you don’t handle a weapon correctly than to kill the guys coming for you,’ said Kirsten. She didn’t really believe that, but neither did she want Ollie having a gun and firing off willy-nilly into the night, letting everyone know where he was.

  Kirsten made her way back across the field, again keeping low, and entered the rear of the house. She went upstairs and stood beside a bedroom window looking out at the main road. Taking her weapon out, she checked the silencer, and then waited, wondering if her instincts were correct.

  There was barely a sound downstairs, but Kirsten thought she heard the door close, possibly the rear one. She was mightily impressed with how they had come so close to the house with her looking out, and yet she hadn’t seen them. For a moment her heart skipped a beat.

  Had they been watching all the time? Had they clocked her leaving? No, they wouldn’t do that. They wouldn’t risk Innocence getting away. They’d have come over and taken them right there and then.

  Quietly, she moved to the edge of the bedroom door listening for anyone coming up the stairs. As she pressed her back to the wall, she continued to control her breathing, realising that she was starting to feel the adrenaline kicking in. There was a slight creek on the stairs, and then another one, getting closer. Slowly, she moved along the wall crouching to get a good angle for the door. They probably wouldn’t come in slowly; they’d come in quickly, scanning and firing,
and she needed to be ready.

  Her eyes were adjusted to the dark. She thought they might slap the lights on as well to try and confuse her. Patiently she waited, going over in her head, again and again, what to look for. If a gun was trained on her, she would fire.

  The door burst open. She saw a weapon and a pair of hands go away from her, then to the middle of the room, then come towards her. There was a masked person behind it and Kirsten fired almost instinctively. She watched the body fall backwards causing an almighty thump on the ground.

  She waited for a moment before stepping forward and firing another shot into the head. Then she raced back to the wall again.

  Would there be only one? Would more come?

  She kept her mind off the body that was lying on the floor ahead of her, focusing instead on what she could hear. Inside her, something was knocking, telling her she had just killed a man, telling her she should feel something about it; but her training was kicking in, ignoring the moment, looking instead for what was coming next, driving her emotions to the rear. There’d be a price to pay for this at some point, but not now. Now she needed to be alert.

  Kirsten stepped up to the door, peered out quickly, and saw no one. She then stepped to the other side of the door before peering back and then looking down the stairs. Again, there was no one. She stepped out gingerly onto the landing looking down. When she did, something caught her eye coming out from the bedroom across the landing. She threw herself to the ground as a shot pummelled into the wall behind her. Kirsten raised her gun and fired once, then twice, and heard somebody spin and fall to the floor. She had no idea if the person was still alive or not, but she had to react quickly because she heard someone moving downstairs.

  Reaching the top of the stairs, she saw them at the bottom, and she ducked quickly as they fired before firing back, hitting one square in the temple. Kirsten glided down the stairs into the hall, again, listening and looking around her. She saw nothing until a mirror extended out into the hall.

  It was small and often used by people sneaking out of buildings. She’d used them herself, but she knew what was going to come with it, and before anybody could peer out, she fired a shot down the hall as she ran for the door into the living room. She tried to fire a second again but to find that her gun was no longer working. She threw herself into the front room as she heard a shot bounce off the woodwork behind her. Kirsten hid behind a sofa in the room aware that someone was going to be coming in soon. Sure enough, although he was moving stealthily, she could hear him, just the little giveaway steps on the floor.

  Kirsten looked under the sofa, and saw the man coming closer. Her gun was useless so she knew she’d have to fight her way out of this one. The element of surprise was gone to a large degree, but maybe she could fool him again. As he came close across the living room floor, her plan was formulating in her head. She needed to hit him hard and hit him fast.

  She watched his feet from underneath the sofa step across until they were almost in the middle. The man was less than two feet away clearly scanning around the room looking for her, wondering if she’d disappeared out another door. As he turned sideways to her, she drove herself at the sofa almost lifting it up, careering it into the man’s knees. He fell sideward taken by surprise, and Kirsten reached up and grabbed the gun hand. A shot went off into the far wall, then another, and she thought to knock the hand down. The gun fell out and as Kirsten reached out for it, the man came over the top of the sofa, jumped on top of her, and throttled her from behind.

  She was prone on the floor and he was on top and she was struggling to get him off. Her diminutive size caused her problems at times, especially with much larger opponents. Here on her back being strangled, Kirsten was struggling for any hold to get out of the situation.

  Desperately, Kirsten reached out trying to find the gun in the dark on the floor. It was just beyond her reach, but the man on top of her was keeping his grip on her throat and she can feel herself slowly succumbing. The windpipe was being strangled, and she was struggling to breathe, struggling to refuel her muscles with oxygen to be able to fight the man off.

  Kirsten thrashed this way and that, but the man wasn’t having any of it, and she realised her only chance would be the gun. She was able to drag him forward slowly, but every effort was weakening her. She couldn’t reach out and get a hold of his head because he was keeping it perfectly behind her his arms extended on her neck, but she stretched hard, almost touching the gun.

  Then the man stretched for the gun, keeping one hand on her throat but reaching over with his other hand, his head now moving from its position clear of Kirsten. She didn’t hesitate, reaching up and grabbing his hair, pulling it tight before trying to jab two fingers up in towards his eyes. She caught the corner of one causing him to spin off her, but he was now lying over the gun.

  Kirsten drew what reserve she had and flung herself at the man before he could orientate himself. He rolled her over, pushing her shoulders back onto the floor now, throttling from above. She reached inside with both hands, knocking the man’s hands from either side and as he fell forward on top of her, she nutted him straight into the face.

  She then threw him off to one side before seeing his hand reach for the gun. Kicking it clear, she booted the man’s hand three times. Kirsten jumped on the man because he was still in motion, still trying to get up. Strangling his neck, her thoughts then begin to drift. A part of her would have liked to just keep holding on and dispatch the man. After all, he’d been coming to kill her. Instead, once he was knocked out and was off to sleep, she released him. That wasn’t her. She’d kill if she had to, but she couldn’t take any pleasure in it.

  Making sure the man was going to stay down for a while, she searched his pockets before finding the keys to a car that she couldn’t see. Exiting the house from the front door, Kirsten looked around. All the guns had been shot with a silencer, so nobody in any other house seemed to be moving. She ran down the street pressing the open button for the car but found nothing. She turned and ran back the other direction before seeing a car parked further up the street. The orange lights of the indicators came on as she pressed the open button and she jumped inside the black car. She put the keys in the ignition and started it and quickly drove over to the house with the barn holding her protectees inside. Kirsten hauled the straw away and was relieved to see the two young people were still there. She knew they’d be a flight risk, but they’d always have been safer doing that than being back in the house.

  ‘What happened?’ asked Innocence.

  ‘Let’s just say we have to move house again, and this time, I’m not letting anybody organise it for us. You’re going to have to rough it.’

  Chapter 19

  Kirsten wiped the sweat from her brow as she drove along the Eye Peninsula making her way through the short stretch of land that connected Point to the Isle of Lewis. It was called the Braighe and she’d been over it many times during her stint as a constable in the Stornoway Force, but never as today was she so glad to see it at three a.m. in the morning. On the left-hand side stretched out the sandy edge of the Braighe and she could just about make out the water rolling in on a low tide.

  Kirsten drove with her headlights on as she was coming towards town and besides that, all the lights were switched off by the roadside during the nights on this part of the island, a cost-cutting exercise. As she made her way into Stornoway, she thought about the two young people in the backseat, both with their heads down keeping out of the way, who she wanted to store safely while she shook some feathers and tried to work out what was going on. There was nowhere open to buy supplies and Kirsten took the car out on the Barvas Road, a route heading across the moor to the west side of the island.

  At certain times of the year, people would go out to the moor to cut peat, leaving the rectangular-shaped black playing cards stacked together. They would dry them by turning them up and making them into little houses before burning them through the winter on their stove. K
irsten had never gone peat cutting but she knew the practice and had seen the people working the banks.

  Some people had accommodation near their bank, nowadays usually an old and small caravan. In the old days, they were what was known as shielings. They were concrete houses but now only a few people would stick a caravan out there. There was always the difficulty of getting any services to them.

  Driving along the Barvas Road, she spotted one of the caravans in the distance, realised there were no cars around her and killed her lights, taking a turnoff onto the moor. She had to stop and open a gate to get through and drive down the bumpy track and eventually ended up by the caravan. Kirsten told Ollie and Innocence to remain in the car while she checked the caravan, making sure no one was inside before breaking open the door. She ushered them inside and was glad to see there was at least some blankets even if the overall smell was quite mouldy.

  Walking around to the front of the caravan, she found the gas, switched it on, and managed to light the fire inside, giving them some heat, but she warned them not to switch on any lights. Of course, that’s if the battery would allow, she thought because it may have been a while since the caravan was last used.

  Content that the pair of them were now warm and safe, Kirsten drove without her lights on back onto the Barvas Road before making her way back into town. Arriving at the police station, she approached the front desk, getting a smile from the sergeant behind it.

  ‘Are you back again?’ said the man. ‘They told me you were. How are you doing?’

  ‘Not so well, Jim. Not so well on it. Listen, I need to talk to Andrea Lumley and fast.’