Beyond Evil

Chapter Fifty-Three

Charlie and Ted followed the road as it ran alongside the hillside, looking out for wherever the group might have taken Donia. It had been a fruitless search, just tracks and hedgerows and stone walls that hugged the valley sides. They were about to curve back towards the valley floor when Ted shouted, ‘Stop!’

The car skidded as Charlie stamped on the brake. ‘What is it?’

‘Back up.’

Charlie moved the car slowly backwards, looking up the long slopes, trying to see whatever had caught Ted’s attention.

Ted shouted for him to stop again. ‘There,’ he said, and pointed.

Charlie looked past him, followed his finger, and then he scowled. He looked round for somewhere to park and headed towards a small leafy track that ended in front of a metal gate. He turned off his engine and the night turned silent again.

Charlie tried to see along the track, but it disappeared into woods that climbed up the hill. It hadn’t been the track that had caught Ted’s attention though.

There was a small cottage a couple of hundred yards away, high up on the hill. The moonlight shone from an old slate roof and weak yellow light shone as tiny yellow squares. It had been more than the cottage though, because there were jagged stones set against the bright silver of the moon, and there was movement between them, cast into silhouette. Charlie could tell that it was a group though, and that something was happening.

‘This way,’ Charlie said, and started to climb the gate. It clanged against the post as he jumped over, Charlie wincing as the noise echoed around them. Ted followed him, and once they were both on the other side, Charlie pointed at the trees that ran up the hill. ‘We need to go through there, to stay hidden.’

The hill was steep, and as they disappeared into the shadows of the trees the loss of the moonlight made it harder to see. Stray branches and roots snagged at their feet, and unseen dips and hollows almost sent them tumbling. Charlie’s ears were keen, listening out for the sound of someone approaching, sure that the rattles of Patrick’s car must have attracted their attention, but all he got was the soft rustle of leaves and the creak of branches straining under their own weight. Ted’s breathing seemed laboured, and he shouted out as he stumbled to the floor.

‘We need to go quieter,’ Charlie whispered.

Ted didn’t respond, just scrambled himself upright and walked on ahead, his footsteps faster now, so that all Charlie could hear were the rustles of his feet as he rushed to keep up. The view ahead was just gloom and darkness, the brightness of the moon just slipping through in places, lighting up their faces as ghostly apparitions moving through the trees. Charlie’s white shirt caught the light, so he buttoned his jacket and pulled up the lapels.

Charlie was breathing hard too, his legs aching from the climb, his lungs fighting back against too many long nights bar-hopping and the escape from Donia’s flat. Neither of them was in suitable gear; Charlie’s suit was torn and ragged, his feet clad in leather-soled brogues.

Charlie stopped. He put his arm out. There was something ahead. Mumbles and murmurs, but the voices were fast and sharp, as if they were angry. They couldn’t be far away. Charlie tilted his head to the edge of the woods. They needed to get a better view.

They moved slowly to the edge of the treeline. Charlie sheltered behind a dead tree, the top gone, as if it had once been caught in a storm, so that all that was left was the trunk and two large branches sticking out to the side. He peered out over the field towards the cottage. They were more level with it now, near the top of the slope, and the cottage was framed against the glow coming from the moon. As he focused on it, Charlie saw again what had attracted his attention. There was a small cluster of standing stones, spread out into some kind of haphazard semicircle. There were people gathered in the middle of the stones, around a large rock that was flat against the ground, fifty yards from the house and in the middle of the field.

‘We need to get closer,’ Charlie whispered, and pointed towards the hedgerow at the top of the field. ‘We’ll go along there. It will get us nearer to the cottage.’

The hedgerow was twenty yards away, but it provided some shelter from the moonlight, so that Charlie thought they could get closer without being seen.

He ducked back into the shelter of the trees and crunched his way to where the hedgerow joined the wood. Ted was behind him, making his way more slowly, carefully.

Charlie stopped to let him catch up.

‘They won’t harm Donia,’ Ted said, looking towards the stone circle. ‘Not yet anyway.’

‘What do you mean by that?’

‘Think about it. They’ve got her because you’ve got something they want. If they kill her, they won’t get it.’

‘And just in case you’ve forgotten, they don’t seem too humane,’ Charlie hissed. ‘So let’s not pretend there’s going to be any kind of amicable handover.’

‘So what are we going to do?’

‘We’re going to find out what’s going on, and then call it in.’

‘The police will think it’s some kind of prank,’ Ted said. ‘Anarchist nut-jobs in the woods, and my name won’t help it too much.’

‘The police already know about Donia. They just don’t have a location.’ Charlie stepped out of the shadows of the trees and into the darkness of the hedgerow. He looked along and tried to work out the landscape.

There was a ditch that ran in front of the hedgerow, and as he jumped into it, he knew that it wasn’t waterlogged. They would be able to go along its length until they were just a short dash from the house. It would at least give them a chance to see what was going on so they could report it.

They moved slowly, hunched down, trying not to make a noise. It was hard to work out what was going on. There were around six young women standing around the central stone, and three or four men. They were struggling with something, but Charlie couldn’t make out what it was.

They got to the far side of the ditch, where it met the wall that ran up from the house. There was some shouting, an increase in activity. They tried to keep low in the ditch, just to watch. He could see an outline of someone through a window at the side of the cottage. He thought he recognised the frizz of her hair. Donia.

Charlie gripped Ted’s arm when he saw, and was about to say something, when he heard something that made his stomach pitch and cold shivers ripple up and down his skin.

A long, shrill scream came from the group and echoed around the valley.