Dan Smith - The Child Thief

‘Those aren’t the prints. Not the right ones, anyway. Those are the tracks he left when he looked for firewood.’

‘How do you know that?’ Dimitri asked me. ‘How can you be sure?’

‘Because they come and go?’ Petro suggested. ‘And because you can see places down there where wood has been snapped away from dead branches.’

‘That’s right,’ I said.

‘Well, we can’t wait any longer,’ Dimitri said. ‘We have to go. We’ve delayed long enough. I shouldn’t have listened to you; we should’ve gone last night. If we’d gone last night we’d have found her by now.’

I didn’t answer him.

‘Already he stopped back there.’ Dimitri looked behind us. ‘And now this? An hour he was here, making this? We would have found him, right here.’

‘Maybe,’ I said. ‘Or maybe we’d have lost our way in the dark.’

‘ He didn’t get lost coming here.’

‘No. But he wasn’t following tracks. We made the right decision.’

‘And he had a fire,’ Dimitri went on. ‘We’d have seen it.’

‘The fire is right back here, away from the shelter. It would have been almost invisible in the trees.’

‘I would have seen it,’ Dimitri said.

‘We probably wouldn’t have even got this far,’ I told him.

Dimitri stared at him. ‘You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?’

‘What?’

‘ This . Being out here. Tracking. It’s what you like to do. All that hunting. I know you go out alone, sometimes for days. It’s in your blood – the only thing that makes you happy.’

‘You don’t know anything about me.’

‘I know you’re a brutal Russian who fought in more armies than you can probably remember. Killed more men than hunger. This excites you. You’re enjoying this. It’s probably the only thing that makes you feel alive.’

I stared at him, angry and guilty because there was a scent of truth in his words.

‘And you’re enjoying making me look stupid.’

‘If you look stupid, it’s nothing to do with me. Even if we had got this far last night, this fire would’ve been deep in these trees. Why d’you think he came in here, where the trees are so thick? We could’ve walked within five metres of it and not known it was there.’

‘We would’ve seen the tracks.’

‘In the dark?’ I pushed my doubts aside. ‘At best we’d have ruined the trail, killed any chance of following, and at worst we’d be lying frozen in the snow, dead, while he walks away with your daughter.’

‘You’re punishing me,’ Dimitri said. ‘Punishing me for what happened yesterday.’

‘Punishing you? You’re punishing yourself, Dimitri. What happened yesterday was shameful, but has no bearing on this. You think I’d delay finding Dariya because of what you did yesterday? This isn’t about you.’

He said nothing.

‘Don’t ever doubt that I will do all I can to find your daughter,’ I told him.

Dimitri nodded.

‘OK, then, come and look at this.’ I grabbed his coat and pulled him, but Dimitri knocked my hand away.

‘Don’t pull me around.’

‘Then stop being an ass. Now, come with me.’

I took him round the shelter and into the trees on the other side from where we had come into this place. I stood on the edge of the disturbance where our prey had dragged the snow into a pile to make his shelter and I pointed at the ground.

‘You see,’ I said. ‘Still alive. And my guess is they set out just before dawn – like we did.’

In front of us, leading out into the trees, the trail continued. Two sets of footprints. One large, one small.

We followed the prints which led on and on through the trees, avoiding the open spaces. The trail remained within the forest wherever possible, staying where the snow was most shallow, and we were glad not to have to venture out where it would be much deeper. On the open steppe, the snow would be over our boots, maybe higher in the places where the wind had swept it into drifts and whipped the land into a pale desert of dunes and ripples so beautiful and white one could hardly believe this weather could kill a man in just a few moments.

We’d been walking most of the morning and were all tired now, wondering if we were gaining on our quarry. Dimitri was silent, and I knew his mind would be focused on Dariya, so that all other thought would be consumed. I’d hoped we would find her early, while all the tracks were fresh and we were well rested from a good night’s sleep, but the child thief had been more resourceful than I expected and I was worried there was too much distance between us.

The shelter had surprised me. That the child thief had found a good spot for a fire, well hidden, concerned me. Whoever we were following was knowledgeable and able to survive outside in conditions that would close around most people in no time at all. And yet, with all his ability, he had left an easy trail to follow, and that troubled me. Putting myself in the place of the kidnapper, I knew that covering the tracks would be difficult. The only sure way to erase them would be under another snowfall, but even then it would need to be heavy. Under light snow, prints are still distinguishable. It would be possible to create false trails, but that would take time and I guessed the man must have decided to move quickly, keep ahead of us until he found a place to adequately erase the signs he left behind. It made no sense, otherwise. There hadn’t been any attempt to confuse potential pursuers.

We had come a few kilometres from the village, and there were other settlements in the area where we were travelling. North of our position now, the village of Uroz hid in a shallow valley much like our own, but it might as well have not existed at all. For us, there was only the snow and the trees and the wind. Nothing else. Whoever we were following, he had stayed clear of anywhere there might be people. He had skirted around Vyriv, seizing an opportunity, and then continued into the wilderness.

‘We should stop,’ I said.

‘Stop?’ Dimitri was by my side and I sensed his tension increase. He needed an enemy and, although I was helping him, I was the closest he had.

‘Rest for a moment, regain our strength. We’ve been walking all morning.’

‘I’m not tired,’ Viktor said. ‘I can walk further.’

‘Me too,’ Petro agreed as the boys came to join us.

I pulled the scarf away from my mouth and nose, allowing the cold air to bite at my face.

‘We can’t wait. We don’t need to rest,’ Dimitri said. ‘What we need is to find Dariya. How can you even—’

‘Is anybody thirsty?’ I asked. ‘We need to keep fresh.’

Dimitri turned and walked away from me. Just a few steps to show his displeasure.

I looked at Viktor and Petro. ‘Thirsty?’

They shook their heads.

‘All right then. We’ll go on.’ I pulled the scarf back over my face and began moving again. I could feel the cold creeping into my joints. My knees were stiff and there was a faint pain with each step, but my resolve was strong.

I went on ahead, walking alongside the marks in the snow, watching the land in front, squinting into the distance, trying to see any sign of movement in the trees. I knew the kidnapper would be well out of sight, but I watched anyway. Something might have happened to slow him down, and if that were the case, I needed to be vigilant.

Behind me the others followed in single file, keeping the disturbance to a minimum.

I turned when I heard footsteps quicken behind me and I nodded to Petro, who fell in step with me, walking by my side. His back was straight despite his pack and the heavy rifle he carried over his shoulder. As if he were showing me how strong he was.