Mo Hayder - Gone

‘Yes?’ Caffery flashed his warrant card. ‘What’s happening? Sounds like the dogs’ve got a knock over there.’

‘I’m the Bronze commander for today.’ He put his hand out. ‘Good to meet you.’

Caffery took a long, deep breath. He made himself return the card to his pocket and shake the hand calmly. ‘Yes. Very nice to meet you. What’s happening here? Have the dogs got him?’

‘Yes. But it’s not good.’ Sweat was popping out on the guy’s face. The Silver and Gold commanders on an exercise like this would be at HQ, organizing the operation from the safety of their seats, while this poor bastard, Bronze, was at the bottom of the pile. The tactical commander, the guy on the ground, he had to take Silver and Gold’s orders and translate them into action. If Caffery was in his shoes he’d be sweating too. ‘We know where he is, but we haven’t effected an arrest yet. It’s not a good place at all. There are air shafts all over this place – they feed the Sapperton tunnel.’

‘I know.’

‘Well, he’s got a belay rope in one of them. Went down like a fucking rabbit.’

Caffery let all his breath out at once. Flea’d been right. All along she’d been right. And suddenly he felt her – like he’d hear a shout in the darkness. A tug at his instinct. As if she was near by. He looked around at the empty expanse of trees. There hadn’t been anything yet from the PC in Bath sent out to check her house. Flea was definitely here somewhere.

‘Sir?’

He turned and there, as if Caffery had magicked him up from the strength of his anxiety for Flea, stood Wellard. Also dressed in dark-blue cargoes and an opened riot helmet. He was panting, his breath white in the freezing air. He had bluish circles under his eyes and Caffery knew from his face that the guy was thinking about exactly the same thing. ‘You haven’t heard from her?’

Caffery shook his head. ‘You?’

‘No.’

‘So what are we supposed to think about that?’

‘I don’t know.’ Wellard put a finger to his throat. Swallowed. ‘But, uh, look, what I do know is the tunnel. I do know about that. I’ve been down there before, I’ve got the schematics. That shaft he’s gone down is between two rockfalls. He’s a rat in a trap down there. Really. No way out.’

They turned expectantly to the Bronze commander. He unbuckled his helmet and used his sleeve to wipe the sweat off his forehead.

‘I’m not sure. He’s not responding to our challenges.’

Caffery laughed. ‘What? Someone with a megaphone yelling at him? Course he won’t.’

‘Best to establish communications first. Bring in a negotiator. His wife’s on her way, isn’t she?’

‘Fuck the negotiations. Get a rope-access team in there now.’

‘I can’t do that. It’s not that simple – we need risk assessments.’

‘Risk assessments? Do me a fucking favour. The suspect knows the area – we think he brought one of the vics here. She could still be alive. Tell that to your Silver and Gold. Use the words “grave and immediate danger”. They’ll get the drift.’

He pushed past the commander, headed along the track, his feet squelching in the mud, cracking the ice on the puddles. He’d gone a few yards when a noise louder than the helicopter, the dogs and the megaphone put together lifted from under his feet. The ground seemed to move beneath them. The bare branches quivered with the shock and a few dry leaves fluttered down. A flock of rooks took to the air, cawing.

In the silence that followed, the three men stood facing the air shaft. There was a pause, then, from inside the trees, dogs began to howl. A high-pitched, terrified sound.

‘What the fuck was that?’ Caffery turned and looked back down the track at Wellard and the commander. ‘What the fuck was that?’

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?