Wrong Time, Wrong Place

8

Only when her lungs felt close to bursting did Ash finally slow down to a walk.

It felt like she’d come a long way but she’d seen no break in the forest. It seemed to be going on for ever. Behind her, in the distance, she could still hear the dogs barking, but it sounded like they’d stopped. She guessed that they’d found her fleece. Since then she’d yanked off her bra from beneath her T-shirt and hung that from a branch, before changing direction again. She was doing everything she could think of to put the dogs off her trail.

But she couldn’t keep removing items of clothing. She didn’t have enough of them. And as soon as she stopped doing it, the dogs would be on her. Ash was going to have to come up with a different plan because the people hunting her were clearly determined.

The naked girl who’d run into them earlier was obviously connected to some kind of criminal activity. She was possibly even a criminal herself. Ash now regretted the fact that they’d stopped to help her. If they’d just sent her on her way and kept walking, like it was nothing to do with them (which it hadn’t been), none of this would have happened. They could have been sitting round a warm fire, enjoying a glass of wine and the cold meat and salad supper Ash had brought up with her from London. Guy could have wittered on about what a fantastic place Singapore was to do business in. Tracy could have bored them all talking about her massages and her tennis and her cocktail hours on the balcony of some sundrenched hotel. And she and Nick could have exchanged knowing glances and dreamed of ripping each other’s clothes off as soon as they hit the bedroom.

Oh God, Nick.

It was all gone. Everything. The most shocking thing was how quickly it had all happened. It couldn’t have been more much than an hour since they’d been walking along the ridge towards home, with just the wild scenery for company. Now the lives of the three people she’d shared the day with were over. The man she’d been married to for seven years had been snatched away from her in the blink of an eye by another man he’d never met before, and never done a thing to. There hadn’t even been a chance for her to hold him in her arms and say goodbye.

Ash felt the tears sting her cheeks. That murdering bastard. If only he knew what he’d done. But he didn’t. He didn’t know and he didn’t care. And it was certain that he, and whoever else he was with, wanted to do exactly the same thing to her too.

The barking was getting closer again, and by the sound of it the dogs were moving fast. They’d probably be heading for the abandoned bra, but Ash couldn’t rely on that fact. She needed to keep moving and hope that she came across a house, or farm, or anywhere she could summon help. It wasn’t much of a plan, but the alternative was climbing a tree, and that wasn’t going to work either.

Still panting from all the running she’d done already, she set off again, picking up speed, trying to work out whether she should get rid of her T-shirt next, or one of her socks.

The barking was still coming towards her, and it was getting closer.

She accelerated, going as fast as she could. The forest was beginning to open out now with more space between the trees and fewer bushes to hide behind. The treetops had thinned out too, making it lighter and easier for Ash to be spotted. She looked up, silently cursing the moon, then looked back down, watching out for traps.

One of the dogs howled, no more than fifty metres behind her. Fifty metres and closing.

Ash was flying now. She didn’t think she’d ever run this fast, not even when she was a thirteen-year-old girl and the champion sprinter in her year at school, capable of doing a hundred metres in just over twelve and a half seconds. Her long, gangly legs used to ‘eat up the track like spaghetti’, as her mum would say. But that didn’t matter now because she was never going to be able to go fast enough. The dogs were going to catch her. In a few minutes’ time it was all going to be over. Every experience she had ever had, every emotion she’d ever felt, was going to disappear for ever, wiped clean. It would be like she’d never existed.

The hole appeared without warning, and her foot went straight into it. She tripped and landed painfully on the hard ground.

Suddenly she was rolling down an incline, hitting stones and exposed tree roots before landing with an icy splash in water.

She was in a fast-moving stream about ten metres across. Rolling further into it, she allowed herself to be taken by the current, keeping all but the top half of her head underwater as she half-crawled and half-swam downstream. The water was freezing but she didn’t care. This was her chance of escape.

Behind her, Ash heard the dogs stop, barking wildly. She dipped her head below the surface, holding her breath, pushing herself into the middle where the water was three or four feet deep and she could swim properly. A minute passed and she came up, gasping for air.

The stream was running faster now, and she could hear a roaring, growing steadily louder, coming from further ahead. That was when she realised with a jolt of panic that she’d read in a brochure at the lodge that close by was a waterfall more than twenty metres high.

She must be heading straight for it.

Cursing, she fought her way across to the opposite side of the stream from the dogs, but she was soon out of her depth, and fully clothed and wearing shoes. It was suddenly a terrible struggle. The roar was getting louder, and she was being swept along faster. Currents of water were whirling and flowing around her, and the cold was beginning to have a real effect.

For a moment she thought about giving up. Just letting the water take her to where it would. If that meant death, then so be it. At least that way the effort was over.

But Ash was a fighter. She always had been. When she put her mind to something she didn’t give up.

An exposed rock appeared in front of her, and she grabbed hold of it. She took a couple of desperate, panting breaths before using the rock as a lever to push herself over to another rock closer to the bank. A huge sense of relief filled her as she felt solid ground beneath her feet. She waded out, glancing backwards. She could still hear the dogs but they sounded quite a long way back now, and because they were on the other side of the stream, she hoped they’d no longer have her scent.

Close to exhaustion now, and shivering with the cold, Ash crawled under a thick holly bush a few yards from the water’s edge, trying to get as far under it as possible. Finally, she lay still and let her breathing slow.

In those moments, she once again thought about death, about how a person’s world could change in the blink of an eye, or the deep slash of a knife. One minute she was a happily married woman living a problem-free life. The next her husband was lying dead in their holiday home, and she was alone and terrified in the woods while at least one killer hunted her down for a reason she simply couldn’t understand. Why could they possibly want to kill her? She didn’t even have any idea who they were.

Ash lay there for what felt like a long time. A minute? Two? Five? It was difficult to tell, and she didn’t dare look at her watch. However long it was, she heard no further sound from her pursuers or the dogs. Had they given up and gone? Or were they still out there waiting for her to make her move? God, she was so very, very cold. She couldn’t lie like this for ever. At some point she would have to find shelter. Otherwise she risked dying from exposure.

A twig snapped a few yards away, and Ash froze.