Belinda Bauer - Finders Keepers

The sound of Davey had faded away or stopped – he couldn’t tell which – and the forest seemed unsually quiet.

He’d sat in this car a hundred times, but had never felt so vulnerable. They’d talked in abstract terms about ‘fishing’ and ‘bait’, but now he realized that he really did feel as exposed as a worm on a hook. He kept eyeing the trees around him, even though he and Davey had agreed that the bait should not ‘act all suspicious’. He wondered if Davey could see him acting all suspicious, but he couldn’t help himself.

Every second took a week, and every leaf that trembled on the hot breath of summer was a killer in the dim greenish shade. There was a big beech tree behind his left ear – maybe fifteen metres off – wide enough to hide even a fat kidnapper. Shane tried to ignore it, but couldn’t stop twisting his head to look. Once, when he turned suddenly, he caught movement behind the tree. He was sure. Just a shadow but it was there. He knew it was. He strained his eyes until they watered, but didn’t see the dark motion again.

Sunlight stabbed through the trees in biblical rays, making the shade even darker, and turning the light into patterns that painted faces on the bark.

He looked at his watch. Fifteen minutes. Only! The watch was crap; his father had got it free with ten gallons of petrol. It must be wrong. It must be Davey’s turn by now.

He fiddled with the dashboard controls. The clicks of the indicator and wiper switches sounded too loud – as if they might attract the wrong kind of attention – so he stopped and the thick silence fell about him once more.

Shane started to feel truly scared. He knew his job was to sit there and wait and make the kidnapper come to him. He understood that. But he just couldn’t . Not with that shadow moving behind the big beech.

He sucked in his breath as he heard a rustle in the woods. A proper rustle this time – the big sound of somebody moving towards him. Or away from him. It was hard to tell. It was off in the direction of where Davey—

Shane let the breath go and laughed out loud with relief. Shi–it! It was Davey. Come to be the bait. He knew his watch must be wrong. He laughed out loud.

‘Hey Davey! You sound like a hippo!’

Davey stopped.

‘C’mon, you tosser. Your turn!’ Shane gave two sharp jerks on the twine and felt Davey at the other end.

A twig cracked behind the beech and Shane scrambled out of the car. Fuck this for a game of soldiers, as he’d once heard his father say. His shift was over and it was Davey’s turn to be the bait. See how he liked sitting there waiting to be snatched by a perv.

Shane hurried through the ferns and fallen logs towards Davey, winding up the twine as he went, casting nervous looks back at the big beech, grateful to be leaving it behind in the clearing. The Mazda disappeared behind him.

‘Davey, you tosser !’ How far had he bloody gone? There was no way he would have made it back to the car in time if Shane had been jumped by the kidnapper. No fucking way! He’d have been all on his own. The thought made Shane so angry that as he reeled in the twine he knew he was going to beat the shit out of Davey when he saw him. Bollocks to the reward. He was sick of always being the one doing the dirty work.

‘Davey!’

No answer.

‘It’s not funny , you dickhead!’

Shane stopped dead and frowned. He’d run out of twine. His fingers followed it to the point where it had been wrapped several times around the branch of a silver birch sapling, before trailing down to the remainder of the reel, which lay at the foot of the tree. Shane picked it up.

Underneath it was a square yellow note.

Steven was watching Em’s heart beat like a butterfly trapped under the pale skin of her left breast when Shane burst through the bedroom door.

They couldn’t understand him at first. He was so hysterical and breathless and they were so flustered and cross. Even as Shane babbled and tugged at the length of green twine knotted around his wrist, Steven was aware of Em putting her feet back into her turquoise sandals, her perfect breasts hidden once more under her top. Under her top where his hands had just been…

But once they did understand what he was saying, Steven didn’t think he’d ever moved so fast. He was running before he’d finished stamping his feet back into his still-laced trainers. Em’s hand was in his so she could keep up, but he could have towed her trailer up the hill and not been slowed. Every time Shane flagged, Steven shoved him between the shoulder blades or pushed the back of his head.

‘Run!’ he yelled. ‘Keep running!’

At Rose Cottage, Em stopped dead and their hands tore apart.

‘The police!’ she panted.

‘No!’ Steven yelled.

‘Steven! Don’t be so stupid !’ Em ran up the little stone steps before he could stop her.

He heard her hammer on the door and shout.

He didn’t want Mr Holly there. Pretending to help. Pretending to care. Taking charge.

Leading them away from where Davey might be?

He would have run on alone, but he couldn’t leave Em here with him .

Torn between his brother and the girl he loved, Steven Lamb dithered on the narrow lane, to the sound of Shane’s doubled-over wheezing.

Em came down the steps with Mr Holly behind her, wearing jeans and a T-shirt and thick green gardening gloves.

Steven yanked the protesting Shane upright and started to push him onwards up the hill.

When they finally stopped beside the burned-out Mazda, the silent heat of the woods was oppressive.

‘I was in here,’ Shane panted. ‘He was over there.’

They followed him through the ferns and between the trees to the little silver birch and the yellow note.

Steven picked it off the forest floor.

‘ You don’t love him .’ The relief left him wobbly.

‘Shit,’ he said. ‘He’s just messing about! I’m gonna kill him! We had a fight and—’

‘No,’ said Jonas Holly harshly. ‘It’s not a joke.’

They were surprised into silence by his words. Now they all watched as he frowned at the trees to the north, as if trying to remember something – or to see something that nobody else could.

‘Wait here,’ he said calmly. ‘Stay together. If I’m not back in ten minutes, go for help.’

And with that he ran into the woods.

‘Shit!’ Steven felt his little brother disappearing from him as fast and as surely as if he was falling down a well. If Mr Holly thought he knew where he was, then Steven needed to know too. And if the policeman was somehow involved , then what the hell was he doing letting him get away?

Doing nothing was not an option.

Steven grabbed Em’s hands. ‘You two go for help right now ,’ he said urgently. ‘I have to go after him.’

‘But Stevie, he said—’

‘I don’t care, Em! He murdered his wife. He might have killed those children too. Tell the police. I have to go after him. I have to find Davey!’

Em’s open mouth held a million questions, but Steven let go of her and ran after Jonas Holly.

‘Steven!’ she shouted, but he never looked back and was soon swallowed up by the trees.

Davey Lamb wasn’t a girl, he wasn’t nine years old, and he wasn’t special like Charlie Peach. Davey Lamb was fit and strong and tried to fight every bit as hard as he’d once boasted to Chantelle Cox that he would. Twice he’d even broken away and reeled into the woods – trying to outrun his attacker on rubbery legs that let him down and tripped him up. The trees spun around him and the floor of the forest was cool and rough against his cheek. And the arms that pulled him upwards once more were strong and relentless.