Snow was easing off but lay in abundance everywhere, and the natural dips and crevices underfoot were rendered smooth and wholesome by its blanket. On the beach below a couple were throwing a ball for their idiot dog, and emerging from the woodland alongside the estuary was another couple: a woman in a long dark coat and a young man, walking quickly, the boy throwing frequent glances over his shoulder. Harkness stopped, leaned on his stick and couldn’t help a smile. Sometimes, you didn’t need to go hunting. Sometimes you just had to drop anchor and wait with open arms. Louisa Guy was wearing a long dark coat, as if she were headed for another funeral. Yeah, well, life’s little ironies. He began walking again, each careful step probed beforehand with the walking stick.
He didn’t want any more accidents.
She thought Lucas might be near the end of his rope.
Which was fair enough; she was damn near down to her fingernails herself.
Frank Harkness was behind them. With any luck, somewhere ahead, Emma Flyte would be returning, accompanied by police.
But how a couple of unarmed Welsh bobbies would stack up against Harkness, she didn’t want to think about.
Their brief excursion into the outer air had been bewildering, bright and light. Back under the wooded canopy, everything felt damp and soul-sapping.
She was hungrier than she could remember ever being. Lucas—a teenager—must have felt worse.
And frightened.
“Who was he? Did you recognise him?”
“I’m just being careful. We can wait back here for Emma.”
“What if she doesn’t come back?”
“She’ll come back.”
Of that much, Louisa was sure. Whatever else was going on, Emma would do what she’d said she’d do.
Lucas didn’t answer, or not in words. But the noise he made was half whimper, half growl, like a dog that’s not yet been kicked once too often.
Louisa felt a pain tear up her side: a cramp. Oh god, not now. “I need to slow down,” she told him. “Give me a minute.”
“You’re the one who said to hurry!”
He was dancing up and down on the spot.
She took a deep breath, looked around. They’d already come past last night’s shed, hidden among the trees. Maybe half a mile further to town? She didn’t know. Distances were boomeranging in her mind; she’d spent days in strange country, and was losing her perspective.
“Come on!”
“Lucas,” she said. “Calm down. Take it easy.”
“They have guns!”
But it was no longer the middle of the night; no longer deserted. There was nobody in sight, but day was staking its claim. There’d been a couple down by the shore; Emma had seen a dogwalker earlier. The track was empty in both directions, but still: it held the possibility of people in a way that it hadn’t during the hours of darkness.
But she wasn’t sure that made total sense. No way was she going to try it out on Lucas.
Who had moved on a few yards. “Come
Yes.
She moved on, but stopped again almost immediately, and looked to her right.
There, beneath a thick cluster of bushes.
It looked like a patch of snow, but how would snow work its way that deep, with all this overhead cover?
“Oh, fucking hell, what is it
She said, “Stay there.”
“What are you—?”
But she tuned him out.
There were patches of snow either side of the track. There were occasional packets and parcels at head height and above, on top of bushes and nestling in the crooks of tree branches, but not in a lump on the ground, pulled almost out of sight of the path. Which meant it wasn’t snow. A shiver ran through Louisa despite the coat she wore—Emma’s coat—despite the competing sources of warmth: tension. Adrenalin. Fear. What might have been snow, but wasn’t, was her own white ski jacket. That information reached her in a sneaky, underhand way, taking root in her brain before her eyes had finished processing.
Tucked further out of sight, the earth scuffed up to cover blonde hair, was the body.
She’d thought she heard something: a snapping branch, a breaking limb.
A suppressed gunshot.
Emma’s eyes were open, but all life had fled.
Louisa heard movement behind her, and turned to find Lucas at her shoulder, wide-eyed with horror.
“Don’t look,” she said, but it was too late. And she might anyway have been talking to herself: don’t look, don’t see. Don’t know that you’ll be remembering this forever.
But Lucas had fled.
There were five of them; the original couple plus three more, all male, and looking for trouble in a way Lars was familiar with. You came off worst in a scuffle—couldn’t call it a fight—and first thing you did was round up a posse, plan a rematch with the odds on your side, as if that would make for a fairer result. Though it would, in fact, depend on the posse. Lars didn’t think this bunch would give him trouble.
