The Hunted Child Read online

  G R Jordan

  The Hunted Child

  A Kirsten Stewart Thriller

  First published by Carpetless Publishing 2021

  Copyright © 2021 by G R Jordan

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise without written permission from the publisher. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or distribute it by any other means without permission.

  This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

  G R Jordan asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

  G R Jordan has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party Internet Websites referred to in this publication and does not guarantee that any content on such Websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

  Designations used by companies to distinguish their products are often claimed as trademarks. All brand names and product names used in this book and on its cover are trade names, service marks, trademarks and registered trademarks of their respective owners. The publishers and the book are not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book. None of the companies referenced within the book have endorsed the book.

  First edition

  ISBN: 978-1-914073-54-0

  This book was professionally typeset on Reedsy

  Find out more at reedsy.com

  There is a passion for hunting, something deeply implanted in the human breast.

  Charles Dickens

  Contents

  Foreword

  Acknowledgement

  Novels by G R Jordan

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Read on to discover the Patrick Smythe series!

  About the Author

  Also by G R Jordan

  Foreword

  This story is set in the areas of Inverness, Ullapool and the Isle of Lewis. Although incorporating known cities, towns and villages, note that all events, persons and specific places are fictional and not to be confused with actual buildings and structures which have been used as an inspirational canvas to tell a completely fictional story.

  Acknowledgement

  To Susan, Jean and Rosemary for your work in bringing this novel to completion, your time and effort is deeply appreciated.

  Novels by G R Jordan

  The Highlands and Islands Detective series (Crime)

  Water’s Edge

  The Bothy

  The Horror Weekend

  The Small Ferry

  Dead at Third Man

  The Pirate Club

  A Personal Agenda

  A Just Punishment

  The Numerous Deaths of Santa Claus

  Our Gated Community

  The Satchel

  Culhwch Alpha

  Fair Market Value

  The Coach Bomber

  The Culling at Singing Sands

  Kirsten Stewart Thrillers (Thriller)

  A Shot at Democracy

  The Hunted Child

  The Express Wishes of Mr MacIver

  The Contessa Munroe Mysteries (Cozy Mystery)

  Corpse Reviver

  Frostbite

  Cobra’s Fang

  The Patrick Smythe Series (Crime)

  The Disappearance of Russell Hadleigh

  The Graves of Calgary Bay

  The Fairy Pools Gathering

  Austerley & Kirkgordon Series (Fantasy)

  Crescendo!

  The Darkness at Dillingham

  Dagon’s Revenge

  Ship of Doom

  Supernatural and Elder Threat Assessment Agency (SETAA) Series (Fantasy)

  Scarlett O’Meara: Beastmaster

  Island Adventures Series (Cosy Fantasy Adventure)

  Surface Tensions

  Dark Wen Series (Horror Fantasy)

  The Blasphemous Welcome

  The Demon’s Chalice

  Chapter 1

  Innocence stumbled along with the crowd, struggling to see beyond the shoulders of the people around her. At only twelve, she was not a tall child and with the sheer volume of people packed into the streets for the parade, it was difficult for her to make out anything except her immediate surroundings.

  On the other side, a building that was only three or four stories high seemed to loom over her in the dark of the night sky. Brightly coloured lights were hanging from lamp post to lamp post, some static and penetrating the darkness, others providing a mesmerizing display which Innocence was forced to stop and watch. She wasn’t panicked that her family were not around her; after all, her father had said that they should meet up in front of the supermarket if anything should happen. Many people had been kind to her, seeing her walking along and the general mood of the crowd was one of celebration.

  Inverness was not a city known for its parades and unbeknown to Innocence, the current festival had been thought out over the last year as a way of generating much more hope and excitement within the town. Edinburgh had its Fringe Festival; in Shetland, they paraded with flaming torches along the street, but here in what many deemed as the capital of the highlands, there hadn’t been a symbolic parade for the tourists to flock to.

  Someone had said a life celebration. It was modern, fresh, and certainly in keeping with the current wave of political correctness. If you’re celebrating life, you could celebrate anything, as had been pointed out in many a meeting, thereby allowing people to join for any reason whatsoever. Someone had asked if it would be too flippant and not have enough focus, but when it all came down to it, people just loved a good party.

  The parade started in the city centre and wound its way out, over four miles of walking. There were floats filled with musicians and dancers, but the crowd was also encouraged to walk along with them, a feat that would make the parade unique. People were wearing garlands of all different sorts, indicating what they were celebrating.

  To Innocence, the only thing she wanted to celebrate was Caledonian Thistle, the football team that her father took her to every Saturday when they were playing their home games. She’d been bitten by the bug and knew she would love to go and see the giants in the Scottish game such as Rangers or Celtic, or even travel further afield to the likes of the San Siro and Wembley. Innocence was delighted when she could stand up from her seat watching her team at the stadium on the edge of town. They’d passed it briefly and she had stood dancing at it, singing at the top of her voice, although no one was quite sure what she was doing. It hadn’t been long after that that she’d lost the family, but they’d be in the crowd here, dancing around as well.

  The parade was now back in the town and a woman handed her a bottle of water which she drank to parch the thirst that had built up. This had not been a problem, although it would be for her younger brother. No doubt, Mum was struggling with him on her shoulders.

  As the street parade continued, Innocence felt the vibration of her mobil
e phone in her pocket and, taking it out, saw a message from her father. It seemed the family had to leave the parade and he was wanting Innocence to head back to the car park in front of the large supermarket. When they had met up, she and her older brother would be allowed back into the town, but her father wanted to know they were safe and together before he left them. It was a drag, but at the end of the day her father was right, as she knew finding her brother in this crowd again would be difficult.

  Carefully, Innocence pushed against the wave of people that were walking through and made her way over the footbridge at the River Ness.

  Pausing in the middle, she looked around at the lights of the town, hearing the thundering samba beats from a group of men on a float, loud music in the air, and savouring the smell of food from many stallholders on either side of the street. With a sigh, she turned and looked to cut up through several back alleys on her way back to the supermarket.

  Her father always warned her about walking through the back alleys, especially at this time of night, but with the number of people in the town, Innocence thought people were unlikely to be lurking here. As she crossed the street to enter a back passage, she saw two men standing behind a car parked on a double yellow line at the side of the road. As she went to walk closer right into the passage, the two men moved together telling her she didn’t want to go this way.

  Looking at them, Innocence wasn’t about to argue, and cut off to the left away from them. What the men didn’t realise was that if you went along a bit there was a back passage up behind one of the shops. Not a thoroughfare so to speak, but she could nip up there, past the refuse bins and right back into the passage the men had been guarding. Innocence did so, holding her nose as she smelled the rubbish that was awaiting collection sometime later in the week.

  Continuing her walk along the dark passageway, she thought she would be hard to see in her black jeans and curly top, and she grinned, twirling her long black hair as she made her way along. As she came to the edge of the passageway, Innocence could hear people and she slowed up before carefully peering out through the opening. It was barely wide enough for her to get through and certainly any man or woman would struggle but Innocence was able to position her head as she went into the alleyway in front of her.

  She almost gasped. In front of her, kneeling on the ground, was a man in a green parka. His face looked swollen as if it had been beaten and there was blood pouring from his mouth. On either side, he was being held by two larger gentlemen wearing black jackets. They looked strong to Innocence—the sort of people you see outside nightclubs, warding you away.

  Before them was another man. He wore a smart suit and was taking off his large overcoat and handing it to a fourth man. Innocence wondered what was going on, but she was wise enough to remain in her little alcove, barely appearing around the corner.

  The man who had taken his overcoat off was then handed something by one of the other men. Innocence could see it had a long point to the front of it. As the man raised it up in the darkness, she could make it out fully and realised it was a gun with possibly a silencer on the front of it. She watched as the two men beside the man on the ground moved away to one side. She saw the individual on his knees begin to shake.

  ‘I don’t care about the money. The trouble with you, Johnny, is that you don’t understand the meaning of loyalty. I thought I could come here tonight, convince you of it, make you understand the need for it, but I don’t believe that you’ve changed.’

  ‘I have,’ said the man on his knees, sobbing through his words. ‘I have changed. Don’t. Don’t. Mr. Collins, don’t.’

  ‘I gave you time, Johnny. That’s what hurts. I was prepared to forgive. Do you understand that? I was prepared to let you come make amends, but you didn’t. You turned around again and betrayed me. See these boys standing around me? They know what betrayal costs. Maybe you didn’t. Maybe that was my failing, that I never explained the full price of what your actions could come to. I’m sorry, Johnny, it must come to this, but there needs to be made a point. You see Alan here? He’s thinking of doing a similar thing. Alan needs to understand the price of disloyalty and you should look at it as a privilege. I normally just send people out to dispose of the rubbish. I don’t usually take it out myself.’

  ‘Please, don’t. No!’ cried the man on the ground. As his voice raised, one of the men from the side stepped in and hit him hard right in the face, silencing him.

  ‘Well, it’s not the time to talk it through now,’ said the man with the gun. ‘We’ll raise too many suspicions. Too many people to hear you, especially now you’re a blubbering wreck starting to lift your voice when I told you not to.’

  ‘I’ll be quiet,’ said the man in a hushed whisper. Innocence could still see the tears coming from him. She wanted to step out and tell these people that this was wrong, but she was twelve, not five. She began to understand what was happening and was now looking on in horrid fascination. You saw this sort of thing in movies or books, but not here. She’d cut through this back alley many a time in her life. Just a little bit up, if you looked on the right-hand side, there was that funny poster of a clown. The shop it was in had gone bust, but the poster was still there. Many kids would walk past it, and stop and look. That was what you saw in these alleys. Not some man with a gun.

  ‘This will make the point, Johnny. Make the point to people. Been too much disloyalty lately, but you’ll be setting a good example.’

  The next moments seemed to be in a blur for Innocence. She heard the gun fire, but not with a loud bang. Instead, with almost a quiet nonchalance. Then Johnny fell over, his head violently bursting and redecorating the ground around him. Innocence had never seen anybody die, not even an elderly relative pass away. She’d managed to grab the odd movie where people have been shot, but most of those tended to fall about, give a last moment, some dying speech. Johnny was never going to speak again. As she looked at his body, which even in the dark was obviously broken apart, Innocence could not help the involuntary scream that exploded from her mouth.

  ‘What the hell?’ shouted the man with the gun. For a brief moment, he turned, looking at Innocence. A shaft of moonlight lit up the man’s face in a picture that Innocence felt would stay with her for life.

  ‘Get her,’ shouted the man. ‘Get her.’

  While Innocence was feeling a shock like she’d never felt before, there was also an instinct that kicked in. As soon as she saw what happened to poor Johnny, there was no way she could fight, no way she could prevent what had just happened, but she could flee.

  She turned back down the smelly alley she’d come along, knowing that to follow her would be difficult. As she cut past the bends to the other alley, she heard something ping off the wall. Continuing to run, she realised somebody had shot at her. Breaking free of the alley, she entered the main road and panicked about what she would do next. A glance to the left saw the two men who had blocked the alleyway turning at something coming towards them. It would be the boss, the man who had shot the guy on the ground.

  Innocence needed to get away, needed to get out of here. She looked left and right for a policeman, but there was none to be seen. The samba beat could be heard in the distance, and Innocence ran for the bridge across the River Ness. When she got onto it, there were people milling both ways, but she could hear behind her a commotion, people probably being shoved out of the way.

  Being small, Innocence was able to negotiate her way past the legs of people running here and there. She thought that was maybe why no one had caught up with her by the time she got to the other side of the bridge. Here, the procession was in full swing. Although the samba beat was now coming from afar, there were plenty of other people packed together, dancing and playing music. Innocence cast a glance behind her and saw the bridge with people shouting and complaining and a group of men who were forcing their way past.

  Without a lingering look, Innocence dove into the maelstrom that was the crowd and made her way right to t
he other side of it. The flow was incessant, and she continued to walk forward unable to see much around her. Shoulders were level with her head. She wondered if at any moment one of the men from the alleyway would just appear in front of her placing a hand on her, meaning to take her away, and maybe do to her what they’d done to Johnny. She was shaking now but she wasn’t a stupid girl. She could think. This was the safest place for her, wasn’t it? In amongst the crowd, they couldn’t see her. She would stay here. Follow the samba beat.

  Innocence sniffed, forcing back a tear. Maybe she could go to a policeman, find a policewoman but not with these people on her tail. What if they talked the policewoman out of it, told her she was one of theirs. Innocence wanted to be sick, the image of poor Johnny now lying on the ground coming to her. When she turned this way and that way, all she could see in front of her face was the image of the man with a gun, the moonlight acting like a stage light and highlighting the villain of the piece.

  Chapter 2

  Kirsten Stewart rolled over in her bed, swearing in her mind at the phone that was playing a happy tune. She remembered the music from a concert last summer. At the moment, it was the evilest sound in the world. She glanced up at the clock at her bedside. Who was calling at 3:00 a.m.? It had to be only one person, didn’t it?

  Throwing the covers back, Kirsten swung her legs out of the bed and sat up on the edge of it before grabbing the phone; she tried to look to see who it was, but she had no contacts in. She simply pressed the button already knowing who it would be.

  ‘Kirsten, need you in. Inverness base straight away.’

  ‘Urgent?’ asked Kirsten.

  ‘I need you now. I don’t need you pretty; I just need you now.’