Val Mcdermid - Killing the Shadows

No one responded. Steve closed his eyes and clenched his fists. He needed this like a hole in the head. Kit appeared to be on the missing list, Fiona was God knew where in the Scottish Highlands doing God knew what, and he couldn’t do anything about it because the Susan Blanchard case was suddenly alive and kicking again. It was his worst nightmare. He opened his eyes and growled, “When was the last time any of you logged him in or out of his flat?”

“He went to the paper shop on Friday morning,” Neil said. “It was a miserable day, so when he didn’t come out again, I wasn’t too surprised. The light was on in the flat all day.”

“It could have been on a timer switch, couldn’t it?” Steve snapped. “So the bottom line is, we have no idea where Blake has been since yesterday morning? And we have no idea when he’ll be back?”

Again, none of them replied.

“Has anyone any idea where he’s gone?”

They exchanged looks. No one spoke.

“Brilliant.” Steve took a deep breath, trying to get a grip on his anger. He took a cigar from his desk drawer, unwrapped it and lit it. The nicotine hit seemed to go straight to his very soul, calming him with its familiarity. “Neil, I want you round at Blake’s flat. Talk to the neighbours, see if you can get anything out of them that City have missed. And you two go and have a coffee, get your heads on straight and get back here in twenty minutes. We’ve got a suspect to interrogate, even if City don’t.”

As they filed out, his shoulders slumped. This was rapidly turning into the worst day of his life. And it could get a lot worse before it got better.

Fiona rounded the outcropping of rock where she’d left Kit fifteen minutes earlier. He was sitting on a flat stone, leaning against the boulder, sipping a can of Coke. His face was still ghostly pale, but he appeared more alert than when she’d helped him the few yards from the Land Rover to his resting place.

“How did it go?” he asked.

Fiona rubbed her shoulder where she’d landed awkwardly. “Let’s just say it looks a lot easier in the movies,” she said.

“But it worked?”

She nodded. “I left the driver’s door open, I put it in first gear, wedged the rock halfway on the gas pedal and jumped. And as you predicted, the door shut behind me and the Land Rover carried on in a straight line. On to the bridge and down into the gorge. I don’t think he can have seen a thing.”

Kit managed a wan smile. “You did well, Fiona.”

“It was fucking scary, let me tell you.”

“Are you hurt?”

She pulled a face. “Shoulder. I caught it on a rock as I rolled. Nothing serious, I don’t think, but I’ll have a hell of a bruise. Now, we need to start making tracks.”

“I don’t know if I can do this,” Kit said. “I’m still so dizzy.”

“I don’t know if you can either,” Fiona said. “But I’m not leaving you here. If Blake has rumbled our little ploy, he’s going to come after us. And I’m not leaving you alone and vulnerable. Let’s get as far along the hill as we can. And if you can’t go on, we’ll find somewhere safe where you can lie up and wait till I fetch help. But this is far too near the bothy. We’ve got to put some distance between us and Blake.”

She folded out the Ordnance Survey map and together they studied it. After she had spotted the problem with the bridge, Fiona had driven the Land Rover back to the bothy, then as far as she could across the rough ground behind it, where she’d unloaded Kit. According to him, it was possible to walk from here to the main road near where she’d left Caroline. It was a distance of between five and six miles, she reckoned.

On her own, it would take her a little over two hours. With Kit in his present state, it could be more like four or five. But they had to make the effort. At least he didn’t seem significantly concussed, which would have put the whole idea out of the question.

She got him to explain the route to her, then went over it again for her own benefit. For the largest part of the trek, they would be more or less level, staying on the contour line above the forestry plantations. According to Kit, there was a rough path little more than a sheep track most of the way.

“OK, let’s do it,” Fiona said, stripping off the wax jacket and helping Kit into it. It would help conserve his body heat, and she suspected she’d soon have no need of the extra warmth. She tucked herself under Kit’s right shoulder and heaved him to his feet. With the stick in his left hand, he slowly started to drag himself along the track. Fiona walked on the heather by the side of the narrow path, her eyes on her feet to avoid loose rocks and treacherous roots. At least the weather was on their side, she thought. In Kit’s condition, a cold wind and even a shower of rain could be fatal. But the sky was more or less clear, the sun shining still, and hardly a breath of wind disturbed the cool air.

The rasp of Kit’s laboured breathing was all she could hear, the weight of his body against her all she could feel, and the low thrum of his anxious fear all she could sense. They wasted no energy on speech, concentrating simply on putting one foot in front of the other.

After half an hour, she called a halt at the first suitable point, a long low escarpment of striated schist a dozen shades of grey against the heather’s brown. She lowered Kit into a sitting position, then sat down beside him. “Five minutes,” she said. “There’s some high-energy bars in your jacket. Can you manage to eat one?”

Kit nodded, too tired for speech. He fumbled a bar out of his pocket, but his numbed fingers still couldn’t manage the unwrapping, so Fiona took it from him and opened it. “You’ll be OK,” she reassured him. “It’s just that nothing’s working properly yet. It’s the shock to the system.”

He ate slowly, munching every mouthful carefully before he swallowed. He offered the bar to Fiona but she shook her head. When he’d finished, she got to her feet. Time to make a move. By her reckoning, they’d covered about a mile, and it wasn’t enough.

Again they plodded on, Fiona taking as much of his weight as she could bear. The ability of the human body to respond to crisis was amazing, she reminded herself. What a fabulous drug adrenaline was. She knew she’d crash and burn when all of this was over, but she also knew that until then, her capacity for endurance would be more than she could have imagined possible.

Another half-hour, another break. She could see he was tiring fast, and knew that there was no way he could manage another four miles of such rough going. If she could get him another mile or so along the way, Fiona decided she would seek out a hiding place where she could leave him. Under her own steam, she could cover the remaining three miles in half an hour to forty minutes if she pushed herself. Help couldn’t be far away then, so near to Lairg. With luck, Caroline would have persuaded Sandy Galloway to mobilize some sort of local response. They could do the rest for her.

She got Kit to his feet and urged him on. The landscape was changing now, the heather hillside giving way to rock. The path had more or less disappeared and they had to pick their way more carefully. The route was still clear, but it was rougher going, with patches of loose scree that threatened to send them flying. After about twenty minutes, Kit said, “I need to stop. I just can’t…”

“No problem.” Fiona looked around for a suitable perch. A few yards ahead there was a pair of flat boulders that would do for a seat. She steered Kit towards them and helped him to settle. His breath was coming fast and shallow and a sheen of sweat glistened on his face. It wasn’t looking good. Fiona took deep breaths and tried to stay calm. They must be close to the halfway point, she thought. Time to start thinking about finding Kit a bolt hole She leaned back against the rock and stared at the hillside ahead of them.