Gone

76

Janice switched off the Audi engine and looked at the crowded pub car park. It was full of response cars and specialist trucks. There were people everywhere, moving around, their faces grim, their breath steaming the air. From somewhere over the forest came the din of a helicopter.

‘The team will want us to stay here.’ Nick peered out of the windscreen at a track that disappeared into the woods. ‘They won’t want us any nearer than this.’

‘Won’t they?’ Janice took the keys out of the ignition and pocketed them. ‘I see.’

‘Janice,’ Nick said warningly, ‘I’m supposed to stop you doing this. You’ll get yourselves arrested.’

‘Nick,’ Janice said patiently, ‘you are lovely. You are one of the loveliest people I have ever met, but you haven’t got a clue about this. Whatever your training, you don’t even know the half of it. You can’t until it happens to you. Now,’ she held her gaze, eyebrows raised, ‘are you going to help us or are we on our own?’

‘I’d lose my job.’

‘Then, stay here in the car. Lie. Say we escaped. Whatever. We’ll back you up.’

‘We will,’ said Rose. ‘Stay here. We’ll be OK.’

No one spoke for a few moments. Nick looked from Rose to Janice and back again. Then she zipped up her oilskin jacket and wound a scarf around her neck. ‘You bastards. You’ll need me if you’re going to do it properly. Come on.’

The three women headed down the track, the deafening clackclack-clack of the helicopter over the trees blotting out the sound of their footsteps as they ran. Janice’s shoes were the court heels she’d put on that morning in a vague attempt to look presentable for the meeting at her sister’s. Completely unsuitable, she had to half hobble along the path trying desperately to keep up with Nick, who wore flat walking boots as if she’d been prepared for this all along. Next to Janice, Rose puffed away, moving like a sturdy carthorse, her hands in the pockets of her neat woollen jacket, her face grim and old. The little pink scarf bobbed around her neck.

They came round the bend in the track and saw the first cordon – a line of tape suspended across the track. Beyond it orange tread-plates on the ground leading into the trees. A loggist stood on duty. Nick didn’t stop moving. She turned to face Rose and Janice, trotting backwards in front of them, shouting above the noise of the helicopter. ‘Listen. Whatever happens, let me do the talking. ‘Kay?’

‘Yes,’ they shouted. ‘Yes.’

They slowed to a fast walk. Nick pulled out her warrant card and held it out at face height. ‘DC Hollis, MCIU,’ she shouted, as they approached. ‘Relatives coming through. Mrs Bradley, Mrs Costello.’ The loggist took a step forward, frowned at her card. ‘The cordon log, please.’ Nick snapped her fingers. ‘We’re in a hurry.’

He fumbled out the clipboard, unsnapped a pen and held it out to them. ‘No one said anything,’ he began, as the women gathered round to sign. ‘I was told no one past this point. I mean, we don’t usually let relatives—’

‘DI Caffery’s orders.’ Nick handed him back the pen and pushed the clipboard at him. ‘If I don’t get them there in the next five my head’s going to be on the block.’

‘They definitely won’t let you past the inner cordon,’ he shouted after them, as they headed off. ‘There’s been an explosion. You really can’t go past that one . . .’

The helicopter banked away, rattling off into the distance, leaving the woods . . . quiet, the only noise the sound of their footsteps and breathing. They continued down the track, slower now as they tried to balance on the uneven tread-plates. Janice’s lungs were sore with the effort. The trail led them straight past the CSI team, who didn’t look up from swabbing and taping Skye Stephenson’s car to watch the three women pass. As they got further into the wood Janice became aware of black smuts floating down through the trees, like dark fairies. She kept glancing up at them as she walked. An explosion? What sort of explosion?

From far away across the sky the noise of the helicopter grew louder. It was coming back, low over the trees. The women stopped. They put their hands above their eyes to shield them from the light, and watched the dark crow shape blot out the sky above them.

‘What does that mean?’ Janice shouted. ‘Does it mean they’ve lost him? Is he out here in the woods?’

‘No,’ Nick yelled. ‘It’s not the same helicopter. Not air-support craft. It’s black and yellow, not blue and yellow.’

‘Meaning?’

‘Meaning it’s probably the HEMS ’copter from Filton.’

‘What’s HEMS?’ shouted Rose.

‘Helicopter Emergency Medical Services. It’s a medivac. There’s a casualty.’

‘Him? Is it him?’

‘I don’t know.’

Janice broke into a run, leaving the others behind. Her heart was hammering, and her shoes caught hopelessly in the tread-plates, so she stopped, kicked them off and continued in her stockinged feet. She passed whole new plantations of saplings enclosed in rabbit-guard tubes. She ran through soft orange beds of sawdust until she got to a place where the trees were thinner and patches of sky poked through. There was a clearing ahead. She could see the blue and white splash of police tape. That must be the inner cordon. And now she saw the inner cordon loggist, standing side on to her, squinting up at the helicopter. He was different from the earlier one. Bigger, more serious-looking. He wore riot gear and stood with his feet wide, his arms folded across his chest.

She came to a halt. Breathing hard.

He turned his head and eyed her stonily. ‘You shouldn’t be here. Who are you?’

‘Please,’ she began. ‘Please—’

He approached. Just as he was almost on her Nick appeared from behind, panting. ‘It’s OK. I’m MCIU. These are relatives.’

He shook his head. ‘Still shouldn’t be here. Only authorized personnel in here – and you’re not on my very, very short list.’

Rose stepped forward, not scared of him at all. She was bright red, breathing hard, every inch of her skin flushed and shiny. ‘I’m Rose Bradley. This is Janice Costello. It’s our little girls he took. Please – we won’t cause any trouble. We only want to know what’s happening.’

The officer gave her a slow, thoughtful look. He took in the stretchy trousers and the little smart scarf at her neck. He took in the piped woollen jacket and the hair damp with sweat and neglect. Then he looked at Janice – carefully, almost warily, as if she might be from a different planet.

‘Please,’ Rose begged. ‘Don’t send us back.’

‘Don’t send them back,’ Nick said, a note of pleading in her voice. ‘Don’t. Please. They don’t deserve it with what they’ve gone through.’

The officer tilted his head and studied the underside of the branches above him. He took slow breaths as if he was doing complicated sums in his head. ‘Over there.’ After a few moments he dropped his head and held out a hand, indicating a tangle of brambles that had formed a natural hidey-hole. A place a person could crouch and not be spotted. ‘You could have walked in there and I wouldn’t never have seen you. But,’ he held up a finger and fixed Nick’s eyes, ‘don’t take the piss, OK? Don’t take the piss or abuse my kindness. Because I’m a better liar than you are, whatever you think. And be quiet. For Christ’s sake, be quiet.’