The Hunted Child Read online

  ‘We need to get to work on him first,’ said the woman, and turned and shouted to her colleague. A trolley was brought out and Kirsten helped them put Mr. Waters onto it before watching them take it through the double doors and into the A&E facility.

  Satisfied that Mr. Waters was going to be dealt with, Kirsten made her way back to her car, jumped in and began driving. As she was exiting the hospital, she saw two police cars, blue lights on, come screaming past her. There was a sense of relief because she thought she was leaving the man exposed, but at least now he would have some protection.

  As Kirsten drove back into town, she began to wonder where Ollie and Innocence Waters had run to. They had maybe been right. It may have been the best thing to do, but either way Kirsten had lost them again. More worryingly, it seemed she couldn’t trust the actions of her own people.

  Chapter 12

  Kirsten was aware that her clothes had blood on them and pretty soon a lot of people would be asking questions about why there was a couple of dead operatives up at the harbour. She had maybe even been seen from the window of the coastguard station along with a gunshot. Hopefully, they’d been wise enough to keep their heads away from the windows. Regardless, they probably would’ve phoned through to the police. Kirsten had also used her activation code so that police help would be forthcoming. They’d find Mr. Waters, but would anyone know who the people were that were now dead at the marina?

  Kirsten’s car had a bullet hole on it and she decided to ditch it, initially preferring to cover the inner ground on the town on foot. She stripped off her wet jacket, allowing the light drizzle to now land upon her t-shirt underneath. Time was precious and she’d need to do a quick scan of Stornoway. It would have maybe been twenty minutes since she’d left in the car. From the marina, say another ten before that. The young people had only a half an hour on her. Where would they go?

  She decided to do a quick sprint around the streets, moving quickly but keeping an eye open for any police that were around. She could go to them by all means but any information she gave would be fed back to the relevant authorities. At the moment, her head was spinning. Who could she trust? She had spoken to Richard and he had organised everything, but he was Anna Hunt’s second. Had Kirsten been put out on a limb, and if so, why? Would the service want Innocence Walters dead?

  Sure, Anna had ordered her to be found. She had brought the family together, allegedly for safekeeping but did the service actually want Collins to get off with the murder he had committed? The service had no particular agenda against Collins. It was the police, who had constantly been trying to deal with the crime organised by the man, who would be delighted to see him inside a cell but to the service, he wasn’t anything. They had been called in to help simply to find the girl because of the nature of who the man was. Now it seemed the service was selling her out.

  Kirsten turned the corner of a street, saw a police car at the far end, and peeled back to walk round another way. She found herself jumping through hedgerows from one house to another, keeping herself off the street, but she saw no sign of the young people. They could of course, in that time, have made their way down and over to the castle grounds, a large expanse on the edge of Stornoway, with Lews Castle sat dominating the view from the harbour. The castle grounds were a weave of paths and with the new bicycle tracks that have been installed, you could be anywhere up there. Very easy to hide in, the sensible option and one that Kirsten would’ve picked. She’d been involved in enough police searches in the area to know that even with experienced search personnel, it was difficult to find someone up in those parts. Though, at the end of the day, it was a young man and his younger sister and maybe they wouldn’t have been that smart.

  Kirsten made her way to the main harbour and could see a number of boats bobbing about at the marina. She stood and scanned them, but saw no movement, only the harbour operative moving back and forward out checking something or other. Had he even been aware of what had gone on in the car park at the marina some half a mile away? Maybe not, the moment was still fresh although the gunshots had echoed through the air.

  At a time like this, everything was so fluid. Kirsten had to remind herself that she was again looking for a needle in a haystack but she continued for the next two hours running around the town and avoiding the police. When she stopped, daylight had broken and she took herself to a hotel nearby, checking in under a false ID she carried. She would have to ditch that soon too, but for now, she could tidy her clothes up a bit, get back out and purchase some new ones before she headed off again.

  Kirsten took to her room and when she stepped inside, she felt tiredness suddenly overcome her. She’d been up most of the night and while the adrenaline flowed when she shot the two men, there was now a weariness to her. Yes, she wanted to get back out there, wanted to find Innocence, but having scoured the town, she was wondering where to go next. She was used to tracking people, having to find them, but it was usually from their daily lives, not people out on the run, panicked and in a place they didn’t know. Kirsten stripped out of her clothes and made her way into the shower, letting the water run over her. She stood thinking.

  Who could she trust? That was the key question. Could she trust anyone in the service? Clearly not Richard or had his people been caught? Were there another couple of dead bodies? Guys going about their task who’d been intercepted? No, she didn’t like that. She’d have heard about it because they would have called in if they hadn’t picked up. If Kirsten hadn’t arrived somebody would be on the phone trying to get to her. That didn’t make sense.

  Maybe this was the agency policy? Was Kirsten getting paranoid? Or was she just thinking that Anna Hunt didn’t like her? When Kirsten stopped the sniper shooting at the first minister, Anna Hunt was livid, as she couldn’t take the credit. At the end of the day, that’s what Anna was about, wasn’t it? Maybe Anna was doing this, putting Kirsten out on a limb to get rid of her. Not happy with having her thunder stolen. It seemed extreme, after all, Anna was on her side? Well, somebody certainly wasn’t.

  She ran her fingers through her hair. She felt her hands shake. She’d killed two people this morning. People who deserved it, but even so, she still felt it. Part of her wanted to pick up a phone and tell someone, talk about it but she couldn’t. She would have to remain dark. Kirsten emerged from the shower after twenty minutes, found herself a towel, then stood looking in the mirror. She had to wipe it to take the condensation off it. When she looked, she studied her face. Kirsten saw her own weariness and thought about fighting it but instead, she made her way out and lay on the bed. Who did it?’ she thought. Who’s compromising me?

  Then Kirsten sat up shaking. She’d made a good call, not putting the young people in the boot. If they had, they would’ve been dead. After all, the man had got to the boot. He had his gun about to shoot in when he saw nothing, right before Kirsten took him out. At times, the margins were so very fine and yes, she should have been able to keep on top of that, but when it was lives you were talking about, Kirsten, at times, found it hard.

  She wanted to switch off, she wanted to take a day and let everything run through her mind but she couldn’t. Instead, she grabbed her jeans, put them back on, along with her t-shirt, and made her way back out into Stornoway. She let her hair hang long, but was quick to move into a shop and buy a baseball cap. She also changed her clothing, picking up a black heavy metal t-shirt and a black jacket to go round it.

  Where would they go? she thought, as she popped into the supermarket, picking up a croissant and a drink. She also picked up a packet of boiled sweets, shovelling them into her pocket. She needed sugar at the moment, needed to keep going. There was a call on her phone which she’d obviously missed when she was in the shower. It was from Anna Hunt. Kirsten thought about calling back; maybe this was the time to do it, but instead, she put her phone away again. Maybe she’d need to ditch the SIM card. She made her way out from Stornoway across the small bridge that led into the castle grounds. />
  Climbing up some concrete steps, she followed a short path that led up to Lews Castle and the college beyond. Kirsten stopped at a tree that she would recognise again, for the way in which it bent towards the top. She walked round and round the trunk of it before finding a crack, then she took her SIM card, the special one from the service and she pushed it into the side. Yes, it was time to go incognito but first she’d see what was happening. Carefully, Kirsten made her way into the shrubbery that was off the path beside the tree where she planted the SIM card. She sat herself down for a long stay and watched as people came past, some on their way to work, some students on their way to college.

  One after another, she took out the boiled sweets slowly sucking on them, waiting for someone to come to the tree. It took three hours before a man turned up, made his way over to the tree, and started to hunt around it. Kirsten watched as he took out a penknife and started cutting into the tree round about where she had placed the SIM card. Looking around she couldn’t see anyone else and deftly began to move out to the shrubbery. The man seemed preoccupied, desperate to retrieve what was inside the tree. He didn’t flinch as she got closer. With no one on the path around them, Kirsten reached over, an arm placed around man’s neck, pulling it tight.

  ‘You’re going to talk; who sent you? Who sent you for this?’

  The SIM card would be tracked by headquarters, and they’d have sent someone to find it. The man was saying nothing. Like a good spy, she wouldn’t have either. Pulling around the man’s throat, she asked him again who sent him. Kirsten was adept in submission holds in her mixed martial arts training. She could throttle someone until they went to sleep, but with her added training in the service, she could throttle them until they didn’t ever wake up. Her mind raced over; maybe this was the service coming after her. Maybe Anna wasn’t the issue, was it someone else? Had Richard gone rogue? Surely not Richard. He had no signs of it, no markers; more likely it was Anna driving the thing.

  Then this may have been an innocent man coming out to merely pick up the intel he’d been asked to do. Whatever was the case, the man wasn’t speaking and Kirsten increased the pressure on his neck until he slowly drifted off into unconsciousness. She stopped short of applying enough pressure to kill the man and instead dragged him back out into the shrubbery she had come from. In time he would come to, and tell the agency about the woman who had jumped him. Kirsten would be gone by then, although she was still unsure where. For now, she needed to think and so she continued on into the castle grounds. Who knew? Maybe she would spot them.

  Kirsten had not long been in the service, so the number of acquaintances she had was not large. She was under the direct remit of Anna Hunt, and therefore, she found it difficult to believe that this was happening to her without Anna’s permission, but the woman hadn’t answered any calls recently, it was all Richard. Maybe Kirsten should return the call. Maybe she would get Anna Hunt. She would need to use the special number though, the one Anna had given her that nobody else knew; the trouble was that exposed the phone she was on and the spare SIM card that was her own. Kirsten made her way back into town and bought a pay-as-you-go mobile and then returned back out to the castle grounds. There, she dialled the number that Anna had given her for any emergencies.

  As it rang, she waited to hear who would be on the other end. There was a click as if the thing was transferring and then she heard Richard’s voice. Kirsten closed the call before speaking. It was too great a risk, too much to show the man she had this number. It bounced obviously; wherever Anna was, she wasn’t contactable. Was she in with the minister? Had she started to travel up and was in a bad area? Kirsten didn’t know but reckoned that she could try later. But then again, maybe it was Anna Hunt. After all, Richard was the nice one. Richard was the one who sorted things out. Anna was the one who Kirsten was never quite sure what she was thinking.

  Chapter 13

  As Kirsten walked through the castle grounds, she knew she had to make a decision about how she was going to act with regards to her own service. Was there an order from up above to give this girl up, and if so, why? Kirsten thought that unlikely. Could someone within the service have connections to Collins? This was always a remote possibility, but then it begged the question, Who and at what level?

  Secondly, how far could she trust anyone? One thing she knew she had to do was discover how far this potential collusion reached. Did the police, for instance, have a changed attitude towards her? She was an officer in the service; therefore, they normally would cooperate to a large degree. However, if the service had given her up and flagged her as a bad egg, the police would be on alert and certainly wouldn’t have any dealings with her.

  As Kirsten knew most of the staff at the Stornoway police station, at least those who had been there over a year ago, she thought this might be the best way to test the water. Besides, she also needed access to a computer and accessing details from a police site would be much preferable than trying to log in via her phone. Anything traced would be to the police station or to a police operative and easily explained away. After all, the police were looking for the girl as well.

  Kirsten made her way from the castle grounds towards the police station that was in the centre of Stornoway. As she got closer, she noticed that there were people gathering. There was a number of police, coastguard, and mountain rescue staff and they seemed to be ready to conduct a search on the grounds. Pulling her jacket up around her and baseball cap down over her face, Kirsten turned away from the bridge that would take her across to Stornoway and instead headed out by another route until she was close to one of the supermarkets at the edge of town. From there, she walked back in, making her way to the police station.

  Most of the cars seemed to have emptied from the car park and she nonchalantly walked past it several times to work out who was in. Kirsten did think about breaking in via the rear door but she didn’t want to give anyone reasons for suspicion against her if they were cooperative, so instead she simply walked in to the front desk and rang the bell. A moment later, the hatch slid back and she recognised the constable she used to work with.

  ‘Hi. What’s the problem?’ asked the young constable.

  ‘Ellen,’ said Kirsten, ‘it’s good to see you. Any chance we can talk in the back?’

  The young constable looked up as Kirsten moved the baseball cap up revealing most of her face.

  ‘Kirsten, they said you were something to do with all that business up by the marina. Nasty work. I take it this is an official visit.’

  ‘I could do with talking to someone, access to a computer and things. If that’s okay.’

  ‘Of course, come inside and we’ll talk further.’

  Kirsten read the girl’s face and decided there was nothing to worry about. A buzzer went and she was able to access the inner corridors of the police station. The girl took her into the front room that had a hatch opened to the welcome foyer and sat Kirsten down before going to get her a cup of coffee. When she came back, Ellen sat down with a notebook and pen.

  ‘We’re to give you every assistance; that was the line we were given,’ said Ellen, ‘so what is it you need?’

  ‘Just give me access to a terminal. That’s what I need at the moment.’

  ‘Pretty rough out there,’ said Ellen. ‘They said your guys are going to clean that up, take care of it. We were expecting the murder investigation team over from Inverness. You went to that as well, didn’t you?’

  Kirsten nodded, ‘Yes, he’ll be sad to miss this one, Macleod.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Ellen, ‘Do you remember that time when he first came here? You were run off your feet.’

  ‘And a few times after that, but look, Ellen, I’d love to reminisce, but I’ve got to get on. Where can I use a terminal?’

  ‘You can use one in here, if you wish.’

  ‘I’d rather be in the depths of the building. Don’t want anyone opening that front hatch and seeing me inside.’

  ‘Like that, is i
t, Kirsten. Okay, come with me,’ and she led Kirsten through the corridors, up to a room on the first floor. ‘We usually get to do some work in here, away from everyone else. It’s a spare one, so feel free. I’ll log in the computer for you. If you don’t mind, just show me the card and that.’

  Kirsten nodded. She expected the girl would have asked her back in the front office, but she guessed that she hadn’t used any equipment at that point. It wasn’t as if she needed identifying to the girl. Ellen had known Kirsten for at least a year.

  Kirsten pulled out her service card and looked at Ellen, who made a note of some details on it and then activated the computer before leaving Kirsten with a screen that merely stated Police Scotland on it. She double-clicked on the internet access button and sat down, thinking what she should be looking up. She typed in Facebook and searched up Ollie Waters. There was the young man that had run away from her, taking his sister with him. Kirsten began scrolling through photographs but was becoming none-the-wiser. He hadn’t posted in several days which was understandable.

  If indeed the guy had a phone on him, if he was smart and hiding, he would make sure he bought a new one and throw it away every time he used it, and that was the real issue, wasn’t it, thought Kirsten. How smart are these two and where would they go? Why wouldn’t they have waited for her? Remember, they’d heard the gunfire and ran, but did they have a plan? That was the thing.

  The father might know in the hospital, but Kirsten would have to go back. As far as she knew, only Ellen was aware that she was in the backroom. Maybe she would tell her superior, but Kirsten would be gone again within the hour. She began looking up Mr. Waters on Facebook and Marion Waters, the mother. Kirsten decided to look on the department’s connection and tried to access through the computer but found herself locked out. It wasn’t unusual to be locked out from a foreign computer to their own servers, but she had the correct passwords and codes.