Dan Smith - The Child Thief

‘It’s not important,’ I said to Petro. ‘It doesn’t matter any more. We have other things to worry about now. These are their tracks.’ I indicated the disturbance in the snow. ‘But it’s hard to tell what happened here.’

Petro watched me, perhaps wondering what it was that gave me such a pained expression. ‘Maybe he’s tried to confuse us. Leave a trail in each direction so we don’t know which way he went.’

‘Mm. Maybe. But I don’t know.’ I shook my head. ‘It’s as if he wants us to follow him.’

‘What?’

‘It’s just a feeling.’

‘But you still think Dariya’s all right?’

‘She’s a fighter,’ I said. ‘Who would think an eight-year-old girl would have such fight in her? Look at all this mess. I think she tried to run from him, push him away maybe, run out into the snow. She went that way.’ I pointed at the tracks that led away in the direction Viktor and Dimitri had gone. ‘That’s why it’s so messy – they were both running. But he caught her and brought her back to this spot before heading across the steppe.’

‘If that’s what you think, then why send Viktor over there? Why don’t we just go on ahead?’

‘Because I need to be sure there’s nothing that way,’ I said. ‘And because there’s blood. I’m afraid of what we might find over this ridge, and I don’t think Dimitri should be here.’

‘Maybe this isn’t her blood; maybe it’s his blood. She might have hurt him.’

‘Let’s see if we can find out,’ I said as we began following the tracks, cresting the ridge that led out onto the open steppe. ‘These marks were made by people moving quickly. See how the snow is dragged and pushed rather than pressed underfoot?’

Petro followed, both of us walking twenty metres or so out onto the steppe where the land swept away on all sides, open and clear. Here, out in the open, we came to another area where the snow was disturbed.

And here there was more blood.

Like before, it was concentrated mainly in one place, but there were also spots of it splattered around the surface of the snow.

I could sense Petro waiting for an answer.

‘I don’t know what to say,’ I told him. ‘There’s no way of knowing whose this is. No way. But it looks like someone had a fight. Like a bloodied nose or… I don’t know… like someone’s been spitting blood.’

‘Maybe he hit her.’

I shook my head and turned to look at the place we’d just come from; survey the line of trees behind us. ‘It looks wrong.’

‘What?’

‘It’s not right. As if someone intended to make this mess here. Back there, that looks to be where something happened, but here?’ I searched for an answer. ‘This here looks de liberate .’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘I’m not sure I do either, but whatever happened here, they went that way.’ I stared out at the land ahead. ‘I’m sure of it.’

‘Doesn’t he get tired?’ Petro asked.

‘Are you tired?’

‘A little.’

‘Then he will be too. Don’t worry; we’ll catch him.’ I took my binoculars and scanned the clear expanse of white, broken only by a single line of tracks. To the left and right, the country looked almost identical. In the distance, perhaps four hundred metres away, there was a low hedge, almost buried on this leeward side. The snow had drifted against it, piled thick and heavy, and I could just about make out the place where the tracks led to it. Beyond that another stretch of open steppe before more trees.

And as I watched, something caught my eye. A movement. Not much, but enough to make me look again. A slight disturbance in the natural order.

‘You see something?’ Petro asked.

I focused on the spot, inspecting every inch of the land, then began to sweep the binoculars from side to side, looking for anything that broke the clean lines of the snow. A bird in flight low over the steppe, or on the ground searching for food. A rabbit, a wolf, anything. Perhaps a man leading a child.

I watched, expecting more movement but seeing nothing.

‘Is there something there?’ Petro strained to see into the distance. ‘You see something?’

I took the lenses away from my eyes and stared out at the steppe hoping to sense movement again. ‘I don’t know. I thought I saw something. Maybe a bird.’ I continued to watch a while longer. ‘Must be all this snow playing tricks on my eyes.’ But I was sure there had been something.

If it had been a man leading a child, perhaps I’d had a glimpse of their movement as they entered the treeline in the distance, beyond the hedge. At this distance, with the snow as it was, maybe that’s what I had seen. Not something close to the hedge, but something further away. That would explain why I couldn’t see it now.

Petro looked up at the sky, turning, seeing the grey clouds moving in from the west. ‘I think it might snow,’ he said.

‘You’re right; we need to go,’ I agreed, telling Petro to move forward with me, away from the blood, before I called to the others to join us.

‘Dimitri doesn’t need to see more blood,’ I told my son. ‘Keep this to yourself for now.’

Viktor and Dimitri arced in from where they had been searching.

‘Anything?’ I asked.

‘Nothing,’ Viktor said.

Dimitri shook his head. ‘No sign.’

‘Looks like they went this way, then. He’ll be headed for those trees, trying to keep out of the open.’

‘We’re wasting time,’ Dimitri said. ‘Let’s go.’

‘And he’s still not trying to cover his tracks,’ Viktor said.

‘No way of doing it,’ I told him, and I wondered if the man knew we were following him; wondered why he wouldn’t try to hide himself. ‘It looks like it might snow again. Maybe he’s hoping it’ll cover his tracks. In the forest that would take longer, but out here his prints will be gone in minutes.’

‘Then we have to move faster,’ Dimitri said. ‘We haven’t time to stand around.’

‘Or maybe…’ And then I understood why the child thief hadn’t tried to cover his tracks. I understood why the disturbance in the snow had been staged here, on this side of the ridge.

The child thief had expected someone to follow him. This was his game. We were following him just as the man who had come to the village yesterday had been following him. But we hadn’t just been following, we had been led. Whoever had taken Dariya had brought us to this place: left a clear trail and enticed us out into the open to stand on a ridge, four dark figures against a perfect white background.

And as the realisation struck, so Dimitri jerked beside me. A sudden movement and he fell to his knees, a plume of blood puffing out behind him. He tottered for a second, his head turning to look up at me, his eyes wide in wonder, his mouth open as if he were about to speak, but all that emerged was a rush of breath. And then the sound of a crack reached us, carried by the wind, and Dimitri fell forward onto his face.

‘What the hell—’ Petro started to say, but I stepped over Dimitri, grabbed Petro’s shoulder and shoved him to the ground, shouting at Viktor to get down.

‘Lie flat.’ I dropped onto my stomach, pressing low. I felt the air over my head change in a way that was impossible to understand and I heard the zip of something moving through it at speed. Somewhere behind us a bullet smacked into the field and, once more, a sharp crack cut into the late morning.

‘What’s going on?’ Viktor asked. ‘What the hell is going on?’

‘He’s shooting at us,’ I said. ‘He’s shooting at us.’

‘What? Who?’

‘Drew us out into the open. That’s why he didn’t cover his tracks. That’s what I saw. He was waiting for us to come out into the open.’