The Hunted Child Page 11

  She’d have to trust Justin. He would have analysed the pictures in front of him, seen the Facebook postings of Ollie and Innocence. He would have assessed the data, and that was why he was sending her where he was. The man had spent fifteen minutes on it. To Justin Chivers, that was the same as a three-hour search made by Kirsten. As she continued to drive and take the undulating road that made its way across the moor towards Cameron Terrace, Kirsten thought hard about what was going on back at headquarters. Somebody had said she’d gone dark. The only authorisation for that could come from Anna, but Anna had called her earlier in the day. Kirsten did not like where her mind was going with this.

  Someone in the office was playing. Someone in the office was surely connected to Collins. It could have been Anna; after all, she called her, which no one else would do if they’ve been told she’d gone dark, but then Justin had been the one organising everything. She hadn’t heard about any more bodies being found, any of her agents being disposed of, the ones who would have met her. If Richard had been genuine, they’d have come. Or had he told Anna, and she’d intercepted him, and instead sent her cronies instead.

  Kirsten would have to remain dark and find Ollie and his sister on her own. Once she had them, she could keep them safe until she sorted out what was truly happening.

  Chapter 15

  Kirsten continued in her hire car away from Stornoway that night, eager to check out the details given by Justin on the holiday home in Bernera. She had heard nothing else about Ollie and Innocence, and nothing had come through in the news. No news was probably good news, meaning they were still hiding out, so far not found, but Kirsten reckoned it wouldn’t stay like that for long. The sort of people after them had their ways and means of finding people.

  The night was dark when Kirsten crossed the small bridge onto Bernera, a small island off of Lewis. Then, she followed the road round making her way along the island before cutting back on herself. As she was rumbling along, Kirsten saw car headlights behind her, and so decided not to head straight for the holiday home, but instead see if the car was following her.

  She turned this way and that, one eye ever on the rear-view mirror. The good thing about a place like this was that most roads were single-track with only passing places, and it’s unlikely you would be going to many of the destinations unless you lived there. The far end of Bernera was Bosta Beach which had an iron age settlement, and was a spot for tourists to camp at. For this reason, the main road through the island was probably the busiest but this time of year, there weren’t that many people going there.

  Kirsten turned down one road and parked up at a house that was dark by the shoreside. She looked out into the choppy water, the wind now rising, and marvelled how it was never quite black despite the darkness, but a collage of deep blues and even a touch of silver despite the moonless night. Coming out from her car, she sauntered her way to the front door of the house, removing a pick and opening it with ease. Not everyone was an expert in getting through locked doors, but Kirsten had been at the front of the queue for training on it. As long as it was a relatively modern door, she had no problem getting inside. This particular door was not very well locked, and she could see no alarms on the house. Kirsten was not worried even if someone was in because she was only using the house as a decoy.

  As she made her way through the dark house into the sitting room, she looked out of the window and saw the car that had been following her pull up outside the drive. A man got out, difficult to see in the light, but certainly with a muscular build that wasn’t female. Kirsten watched him come to the front door, but by that time, she had moved to the rear of the house, exiting out the back. She made her way around to the front and began looking in the window and saw the man sneaking about inside.

  She went over to his car, checked the number plate, clocked it into her memory, and then got inside her own car, switching it on and driving off. As she rounded the hill from where she’d come down to the house, she saw the man running out of it, and starting up his car again. Kirsten continued around the island staying away from the holiday home she was intending to go to, instead making her way down to a small pier at the eastern side of the island. On arrival at the pier, she could see the large green building that housed many of the incoming fish stock and other paraphernalia around this particular harbour, but everything was on a small scale compared to Stornoway.

  When she left her car, she was able to quickly run the length of the building and stand in behind it before another car pulled up in the car park. Peering out, she watched again and saw the man coming towards the building, but he stopped before entering. Instead, he shuffled his way down towards her. Kirsten stood to one side, and as the man came past, she cracked him on top of the head, causing him to fall to the ground. He sat moaning. Before he could arise, Kirsten got back into her own car and drove off.

  She thought about going directly to the holiday home, but if there was one car here, there was always the possibility there was another, and so she continued her tour of the small island, and this time turning into a rather morose-looking house whose curtains were open, yet windows were dark. It seemed there was no one at home.

  Kirsten parked her car at the rear of the house, so no one from the road could see. Making her way around to the front door, she went to take out her lock-picking gear again but found with a touch that the door swung open. She was well aware of island hospitality and the fact that many didn’t lock their doors, but they didn’t leave them swinging open like this in the wind either. Kirsten’s heart began to thump. Somebody must be inside. Someone was up to something, and she was about to find out who and what. She crept in carefully, aware they probably would have seen her park the car from behind. Yet she was trying to be as nonchalant as possible, make out she hadn’t realised anything so far.

  Kirsten made her way up the stairs and stepped onto a small landing looking across at two bedrooms. There was a door just off to her right, and as she approached it, she saw a hand move from beyond it, coming around towards her face. Instantly, Kirsten moved to one side, stepped forward, and grabbed the waist of someone, before pushing them back into the frame of the door. The person cried out, but Kirsten didn’t stop, driving a knee up into their stomach. They bent over and she slapped her hand across their mouth, holding their hair, and driving them down to the floor onto their knees.

  ‘Do you not believe in electricity in this house?’ said Kirsten and delivered a kick to the stomach of what appeared to be a man who was not overly well-built. When Kirsten lifted him up, she found he seemed strong of will, for he refused to say anything back to her.

  ‘Now, that’s a bit cheeky, isn’t it? You come all this way, you try to jump me, and now you won’t even talk to me about who you are. What’s going on?’

  Kirsten then held the man up by his neck, pushing him up against the doorframe and staring into eyes that were not afraid. Well, at least not of her.

  ‘Tell me what’s going on. Why are you here? It’s an empty house.’

  The man shook his head, and Kirsten held him tight, wondering what exactly was going on. If she’d been followed to Bernera, what did that mean? Kirsten took a moment to steady herself. A man had come around with her, so clearly, they’d been tailing her onto this part of the island. Had they got more people to come in and start searching everywhere? If this was a house that Innocence and Ollie were using as a hide-out, it’s unlikely they would have put the lights on. Maybe these men were checking all the houses that seemed abandoned, those for whom the owner was not in. Kirsten’s plans had just changed. She needed to find them quickly because who knew how many people were out here searching.

  ‘How many people have you got on the go? Tell me,’ said Kirsten, but again, the man said nothing. She held him tight by the throat. ‘I told you to tell me, and enough of that.’

  The man shook his head, so Kirsten slammed him hard, causing his head to knock off the door frame. She let the man fall to the ground. She held him wit
h her foot, and tied him up with rope, his hands behind his back. Then she shoved cloth in his mouth and tied that tight, too. Next, she took the man outside to her car, opened the boot, and threw him in. She needed to know who he was, why he was doing this, but she was also buying herself some collateral. There’s always a chance that somebody might want the man, and you can maybe do a deal.

  Back in her car, Kirsten drove off, this time heading towards the holiday home Justin Chivers had indicated. On her way, she saw a car coming towards her and watched in the rear-view mirror as it spun around and followed her less than thirty seconds later. Once again, Kirsten went off on her detour, eventually losing the driver of the other car. She sped off round the single-track roads, and coming close to the holiday home again, Kirsten parked up a quarter of a mile away. She drove the car through a gate at a field behind a wall. In daylight, the car would be seen easily, but not at this time of night.

  Thankfully, there was no rain as Kirsten made her way along to the house. She found herself having to negotiate several walls before she saw the holiday home in the distance, a simple cottage affair, almost completely dark. Despite this, Kirsten did the last three hundred yards flat on her belly across treacherous ground.

  As she got close, she ran up, putting her back alongside a wall, and shimmied around towards the front door. The front door was awkward. Kirsten stared through its glass panels and saw a chime on the other side, which would be counterproductive to a stealthy approach. She sneaked off again, making her way around the outside of the building, arriving at the rear door. The lock for it was a basic key and Kirsten had it picked inside of twenty seconds. Slowly, she pushed the door open, watching carefully in case there was a chime on the other side similar to the front door. The rear door was of solid wood and no such pre-empting was possible.

  Kirsten stood at the back door listening to the sounds of the house, and then she closed it gently behind her. She heard snoring. Kirsten looked ahead of her and saw a small kitchen with a door at the far end. Cautiously, she tip-toed across before appearing out into the small hallway beyond. There appeared to be two rooms off it. Kirsten reckoned one must be a living room, the other a bedroom. There must be other rooms off the corridor because there was so far no toilet and no bath.

  Kirsten crept forward and thought she heard more snoring in the distance. Carefully, she made her way along in the main corridor and thought she could hear somebody in a far room. Kirsten reached the door and peered inside. On one side of a double bed was a man still dressed and snoring, his chest rising up and down in the dark. Beside him was a girl, much smaller.

  Kirsten reckoned she’d found them, but she heard a sound behind her and stepped away, keeping herself in the dark. Slowly, two feet made their way along the corridor. Kirsten saw the gun at the front end of a hand. She waited, letting the person get closer. She had to time it right, but if she did it, she might be able to keep everyone where they were for the next three or four hours.

  Kirsten edged forward, then waited for the foot to move again. She saw the gun protruding ahead, reached forward with her hand, and she instantly shoved the hand against the far wall while the gun dropped from it. Her other arm went up above the shoulder of the person, and her left hand was clamped over the person’s mouth. She wrapped her arms around the neck, and almost instantaneously, the man began to break down. His strength weakened the longer Kirsten held, and slowly he went to his knees until eventually, he passed out.

  Kirsten was waiting for this, but rather than disturb the two young people, she dragged the man into the kitchen and looked around for something to tie him up with. Once she had acquired some rope and was happy that the knots were secure, she tied a cloth into the man’s mouth as well, nice and tight. Then, she decided to wait, taking a seat in the kitchen beside the breakfast bar. She found something to eat, and slowly tucked into it, waiting for the man to wake up or for herself to be discovered. Everything had just been a little bit hectic so far. As the sun came up, Kirsten reminded herself to take it easy.

  Chapter 16

  Kirsten sat in the corner of the kitchen, all the lights of the house out, thinking through what had happened. She had a man in her boot who had been tailing her, probably aware she was looking for the young pair. Whoever he worked for clearly was having difficulty finding him. There was another figure in here, one who followed her or had been here, and Kirsten wasn’t sure if they worked for the same people. As she was in the house where Ollie and his sister were, she hadn’t the time to do any questioning of the man now lying at her feet bound and gagged, and also currently unconscious after Kirsten had given him a sleeping hold that had reduced him to a murmuring baby.

  She still had the question of who it was at base who had betrayed them, and at the moment, her gut feeling was a toss-up between two of them. Richard seemed such an unlikely candidate. Everything he’d done in the service was so by the book, unlike Anna Hunt. She was well known for going out on the limb, for wanting to advance. Maybe she was advancing in another field. Maybe the money was better. Maybe there were deals being done with people of influence. Either way, Kirsten was caught in the middle, but her remit was to go and find the girl, keep her safe, so that’s the first thing she would do, and for the last hour and a half she’d done that, sitting in the quiet kitchen waiting to see if anybody else would stumble across it.

  It all seemed very crass for Anna, as too much could go wrong. Kirsten wasn’t sure, but when she thought about the other alternative, it seemed even less likely. Richard was always jovial, a good stick, someone who understood what the field was like, and liked to help out if you were stuck in it.

  Kirsten desperately wanted the younger people to wake up, but knew they must be exhausted. She would like to boil the kettle, but she didn’t want the sound to wake them up prematurely. She had scavenged around looking for food, but there were only tins as befitting a holiday home and a few bags of tea. One of the tins was tomato soup and another, minestrone. Kirsten was thinking that she could boil these up once the younger people were awake. Of course, she’d have to convince them to come with her again. The last time, she’d left them, gone off with their father, and now he wasn’t coming back. Kirsten knew she’d have to move soon, but she was weary of trying to cross the bridge in darkness lest she got blocked. It was harder in daylight to stop anyone traveling about.

  If she could get close to another car, they’d have to keep following her. Either that, or it would turn it into a dangerous shootout, something she wouldn’t look forward to, but also something she reckoned would be unlikely. Everything thus far had been done in the dark. Everything in secret. The trick was she had to arrive somewhere where her pursuers weren’t accustomed to all their precautions and where they wouldn’t like doing public executions.

  Kirsten heard the stereo in the far bedroom, and then there was a muttering as footsteps ran on the wooden floors. The kitchen door opened. Ollie Waters walked in. He gazed this way and that in the darkness before switching on the light. He was shocked to see Kirsten sitting there with a gun pointing at him, and a man tied up on the floor.

  ‘Don’t say a word,’ said Kirsten. ‘Don’t move. Don’t get edgy.’

  Ollie Waters did not appear to be the calm type. ‘What the hell are you on? No,’ he said and bolted from the room.

  Kirsten swore, then ran after him into the bedroom where his sister had just woken.

  ‘I’m here with the service to look after you. You know that. It’s me. You were in the car with me, you and your father.’

  ‘And where is he?’ said Ollie. ‘He got shot. I heard the gunshot.’

  ‘He got shot?’ said the girl, looking distraught.

  ‘No, he didn’t . . . well, actually he did,’ said Kirsten, ‘But he’s okay. He’s in hospital. It was a good thing I didn’t take you. They were looking for you. They were going to kill you there.’

  ‘But that was your rendezvous. That was your people. Why should I come with you? I was doing all ri
ght protecting her, my sister, I was. Just go and leave us.’

  ‘Can’t do that,’ said Kirsten. ‘I’m going to take you in. I need to get you away, to somewhere safe.’

  ‘You tried that,’ said Ollie. ‘That nearly cost us my father. You’re not going to do that to my sister.’

  ‘Where are we going?’ said the younger girl.

  ‘Nowhere. She was just leaving.’

  ‘I need you now,’ said Kirsten. ‘Let’s go.’

  ‘No. We’ll stay here. You leave and take that person in the kitchen with you.’

  ‘That person in the kitchen was coming to kill you,’ said Kirsten. ‘Good job I was here,’ although she wasn’t too sure whether she had led the person to them.

  ‘We didn’t have any problems ‘til you, so just leave us alone.’ The boy grabbed his sister and started to walk out the door. Kirsten stepped forward and he swung a punch at her, one which she did well to dodge. As he went with another, she reached up, grabbed him, and restrained him by putting his arm up behind his back before forcing him down to his knees. ‘No, we are not going to remain here. We’re going into the station, the police station.’

  ‘How do you know you can trust them? You couldn’t even trust your own people,’ said Ollie.

  ‘You have a point there, but that’s why we’re going to the police station.’ Kirsten knew the people in there and she could trust them. How would she play it from there? She didn’t know, but at least in the police station, she’d have a fighting chance. Some people would probably be on her side.

  ‘Maybe we should go with her,’ said Innocence.

  ‘Get your hands off me,’ said the boy and Kirsten released him, shoving him forward slightly.

  ‘Look, Ollie, I know that you want to look after your sister, but you’re not capable of it. You need someone like me. I’m going to get you two to ground and fast. The sun’s going to be coming up soon and they’ll find my car, and then they’ll come here. I want to get you to that car first. Get on the move, get into the police station. I know they’re trustworthy. I worked with most of them.’