Chapter 114: Chapter 114: The Girl Who Was Hunted - Chapter Thirty

BETH I can’t believe it, but we have left our pursuers behind us under the trees. We are in the parking lot of a diner, closed now for the night, but just off the main highway. The forest closes behind us, but ahead, dissolves away to more open ground. In the night, I cannot make out any detail.

Bending over, clutching my sides against a stitch, I heave in great lungfuls of air.

“Don’t relax too much,” says Charlotte. “We’re not stopping here. It’s the first place they’ll look, a parking lot like this. If we follow the highway, we’ll make best speed. We can hide off-road if we need to.”

She’s bending over into a trash bin.

“Charlotte, what are you doing?”

“Looking for something to eat.”

“Eat? Out of the trash bin?”

“It’ll be okay. These places always empty the bins overnight, so this’ll be today’s. So long as it’s still in the box so the flies can’t get at it, it’s fine. And you’d be surprised what people throw away.…”

Appalled, but fascinated, I watch her; this girl, apparently so like me. But right now, she feels alien, as the depth of the differences between us comes home to me. “How do you know this stuff?”

Still searching through the bin, she says “When I was a kid, trying to run from the home, the first couple of times, I got picked up by the police when I was caught shoplifting for food. After that, I found other ways to eat….”

She roots among cardboard and greasy papers, then emerges with a box. “See, here you are. There’s most of a meal in here. It’s cold, but it will keep us going.”

“I don’t think I can.”

“Do want to eat or not?”

“Is it good?”

“No, it’s lousy. I hate junk food, but we’ve got to have something inside us. Your body can’t run on empty.”

Reluctantly, I reach into the box; deep fried chicken. I bite in, fighting my instinct to gag. She’s right; the food is perfectly edible, but I’m eating trash and my stomach heaves at the thought.

There is a distant rumbling, the sound of car engines. “Come on,” she says, grabbing my arm again.

“Time to go.”

*****

MICHAEL James jerks bolt upright, “There’s the signal again! It’s only a mile or so away, on the road, back the way we came.”

My foot to the floor, I make a screeching turnaround, then accelerate, engine screaming, following the trace.

In under a minute, cornering, the headlights swing onto two figures, running ahead, one lagging behind the other, being dragged behind by the arm.

“Look there… running…. It’s them, both of them, Beth and Charlotte….”

Drawing closer, the one to the fore - it’s Charlotte, still racing away - twists her head around, red hair flying... She U-turns, now running away from us, still towing Beth behind her. Beth staggers and trails, but Charlotte pulls her along, gripping her by the wrist.

“Fuck! They don’t realise it’s us.”

“Beth! Charlotte!” Richard hangs out of the window, shouting and waving. “It’s us….”

Charlotte, her face swinging round again, slows, turns, still dragging the weary Beth behind her, and now running towards us. She’s yelling something, gesticulating wildly with her free hand, trying to tell us something, but….

Headlights swing from the side and front. A car screeches in from the opposite direction, moving directly towards them, and a second drives in from off-road. Charlotte, head twisting, looks from one side to another; for the shortest of moments, indecisive.

Slamming on the accelerator, foot hard down, wheels squealing, I speed towards the two fleeing women.

The car coming in from the side will reach them before we can. The other may do so. Charlotte suddenly breaks loose from Beth, pushing her towards us, waving her arms and yelling instructions.

The two women split, going in different directions, Beth hobbling towards us, Charlotte dashing into the off-road darkness. One car swerves to follow her, the other keeps coming towards us and the frantically running Beth.

James pushes his laptop aside. “Shit! We can’t follow both.”

“Neither can they…” I concentrate on my driving, closing in on Beth.

Richard is still hanging out of the window, calling to his wife.

“Get ready to pull her in,” I yell at James and Richard “Richard!” Beth’s voice is desperate, her face visibly tear-streaked even in the weird headlamp-lit darkness.

At the last moment, I brake hard, metal shrieking, gravel thrown up from the tyres. “Get her in!”

Richard slams open the door, reaching for her. The car is still moving, the on-coming vehicle screaming down on us. As Richard pulls Beth bodily into the car, lifting her off her feet, shots fire, the dust jumping by the wheels.

“They’re going for the tyres…”

I slam onto the gas, and the car pulls away, slamming us back in our seats.

Charlotte...

I accelerate into the off-road darkness, scanning for her running figure, but there is no sign of her, and now shots are coming at us from two vehicles.

Driving crazily through the dark in pursuit of Charlotte, swinging the car from side to side as I go, so that the headlights have a chance of catching her, we give chase, but there is nothing. In the night, hiding, she could be anywhere; behind a tree, or a rock, or simply flat to the ground looking away from the light. The sound of gunshots follows us, bullets skittering from the ground.

James sounds sick. “We can’t stay. If we lose a tyre, we’ve all had it, and we’ll be no use to her then.”

Incredulously, “You’re saying we should go? If they catch her again, what do you think are her chances of escaping a second time?”

“We’ve got Beth. Let’s get her to safety. We’ll come back. How far away can she be? And if we come in daylight, with the police, perhaps she’ll see it’s us and come out of hiding.”

“Can you navigate me to a road?” In the darkness, on the broken ground and trying to outrun our pursuers, I have no idea where we are, or where anything else is.

Richard is on the phone, talking urgently to someone. Tapping off, he says “I’ve spoken to Will. He’s going to saturate the area with patrol cars. If we can get back to the highway, we’ll have company very quickly.”

“And perhaps Charlotte will break cover then,” adds Beth.

“We’re only a minute or so off the main road,” says James, pointing. “That way, if you can.”

Still being tailed, it’s not easy to turn, but as we approach the highway, already, blue lights flash, uncanny in the black night, and our pursuers drop back. Some of the blue flashing cars pursue them into the darkness.

Surrounded by police vehicles, I slow down, pulling up on the verge. James is peering at his computer screen again. He sighs. “We’re down to just the one tracer and it’s travelling with us.” He turns to the back seat, where Richard is cradling his violently trembling wife. “Beth, where have you got it?”

“Sorry, James. I’m not with you.”

“We found you because Charlotte planted tracers on herself and her car. She didn’t tell you?”

Beth shakes her head dumbly, eyes wide. “She set herself up? To find me?”

James’ skin is pallid, his speech slow. “She started with seven trackers. There’s only one left, and it’s here in the car. It’s got to be on you. Did Charlotte give you anything?”

“Um, yes, a couple of hair combs. There were lice in the room they were holding us in.”

James and I meet eyes for a second. “I’m sure she found that convenient,” he says. “May I see the combs please, Beth.”

She removes them from her hair, which drops down in plaits, passing the combs to James.

He examines them closely, using the light from his mobile to examine them. They are standard enough fare; cheap plastic hair combs, set with fake plastic gems, of the kind that can be bought in any market or budget goods store for a few coppers. “Mmm.… she did a good job of disguising the tracer, at least to the casual eye. She replaced one of these pewter type gems with the tracer; slotted it into the socket. No-one would notice it on a casual inspection.”

“Beth,” I ask. “was she wearing a necklace when you saw her? With a locket? The kind you can put a photo in?”

“She was when they first brought her in, but when they made her change all her clothes, they took it off her.”

“Changed her clothes? Was that before or after she gave you the combs?”

“Some time later.”

“It looks as though they caught on that she had the tracers, but didn’t realise that she’d already planted one on you.”

“What now?” asks Richard. “I’d like to get Elizabeth home.”