3 DECEMBER
14 HOURS, 50 MINUTES UNTIL DAWN
4.30 P.M.
Jodie
The path through the woods was scattered with the remnants of autumn: a mush of dirty red leaves with dark-brown mud pushing up in between. Her shoes sank into it, making her balance uneven. The ground either sucked at her or else slid beneath her feet, but she moved as quickly as possible, keeping just behind Scott, her hands out to catch him in case he should slip.
Jodie had never thought of herself as practical or sensible, and she was surprised by how calm she felt. Despite the man with the knife, and despite the fact that her hands were cuffed in front of her.
A voice in her head kept telling her what to do, and at the moment it was instructing her to concentrate on her footing, to remember every detail she possibly could and, most of all, to look after Scott. His hands were cuffed as well, but the man had also put a black bag over his head, so he couldn't see the slippery ground they were walking on. The bag seemed to have taken away his resolve and strength. He was subdued: a man stumbling to his own execution.
He needs you
, the voice kept saying.
Look after him. One thing at a time.
The voice was reassuring and sensible, and so she encouraged it and clung to the advice it offered. If it went silent there would be space for panic to rise in its place; if it kept talking, she wouldn't have to think about what was happening to them, she could reduce it to instants and obstacles, and occupy herself with taking care of one problem after another.
One thing at a time.
Observe. Remember the route. Look after Scott.
She glanced to her right and saw a thick black tree trunk sprouting out of a ridge of earth. The ground was sodden, like potters' clay. Elephantine roots spread down to the path, while thin branches hung down from above like old hair. She would remember that tree. Newer leaves on the ground seemed to point to it. Bright red darts.
If necessary
, the voice cautioned,
you should pretend you remember nothing.
This practical, reasonable voice hadn't been there to begin with. At first, there had been only fear and panic. After the attack on the waste ground, she'd come properly awake lying on hard, ridged metal, breathing in the pungent stink of diesel. Her body was cramped, twisted; her wrists and shoulder hurt; the side of her head felt like it was expanding and contracting.
She had opened her eyes to see rust and rope, and it all juddered as the road passing beneath them jolted the van's suspension.
This isn't an ambulance.
She had been dimly aware there had been an accident, so it would make sense for her to be in an ambulance. Her memory returned slowly, drawing increasingly black lines beneath the underlying impression that something was terribly, terribly wrong. The baby. The man in the devil mask.
Then she had seen the drawing on the side of the van, painted on the white metal inside, and she had started to panic. Rape, she thought. Torture. And worse. Her mind ran a sieve into the depths of her imagination and dredged up horrors she was shocked she could even think of.
There was a gag tied round her head, so she couldn't call out, but she leaned back a little and could see the roof of the van, and then the top of the seats at the front. She made out the back of the driver's head, and a topsy-turvy city-scape of sky through the windscreen, which bounced around as they drove. She could still hear the baby crying, too. The upside-down man turned his head, reached out to the passenger seat and told the child something soothing.
At that moment, the panic had threatened to overwhelm her. It felt like she might have gone mad for a few minutes.
But that section of time wasn't important any more, and as the voice instructed she put it out of her mind. What mattered was negotiating the landscape: the precarious ground, the soft mud and leaves that slipped under her feet. Trees thrust out on either side like black antlers, jutting against each other, one ridge of wet earth fighting another for supremacy.
The land went up steeply, then went down. For long stretches, it was practically a mudslide. In the gaps between the trees, there was more mud, and more trees, further away. Above it all, the mountains in the distance.
It was freezing - so, so cold. She could hardly feel her face any more. In an attempt to generate some heat, she tensed and untensed her muscles. It must be worse for Scott. He was an odd sight, dressed in tracksuit bottoms, white T-shirt and his bulky coat, staggering along in front. She reached out and touched his shoulder, hoping he understood: I love you. But the coat was smooth and cold. He probably couldn't even feel her.
Jodie took her bunched hands away, but left them close.
She thought back, remembering the van stopping, and how she had been sure it meant something awful was about to happen. Instead, she was left on her own for a time. The next thing she'd known, the double doors at her feet opened and early evening light streamed into the van.
'Get inside.' The man's voice was quiet and reasonable, almost mannered. 'Lie down. If you run or fight, I'll drive away and hurt her.'
Jodie looked up carefully and saw Scott clambering into the van, his hands cuffed in front of him like hers, a grim expression on his face. She was surprised and confused. The van tilted and rocked as he moved, lying down awkwardly beside her. The man outside was a brief silhouette against the sky, then he slammed the doors shut.
'It'll be okay,' Scott whispered. His voice was so serious that she knew he was terrified. 'I'll get us out of this.'
After a few moments, the engine rumbled into life, and they were on the move again. Jodie glanced up at the driver's head, and then at Scott. Unable to reply because of the gag, she rolled over - one and a half turns - bringing her back against his front in the way they slept sometimes. She felt the bundle of his tied hands pressing into her but nevertheless was comforted by his warmth. He kissed her head through her hair, tensed himself against her. They were in it together, and they would get out of it together.
That was when the voice had first appeared. She remembered being quite calm. Now that Scott was here, it felt as though she understood her predicament better, and that allowed her to relax into it, accept its parameters. Fighting wasn't an option, and escape was unlikely. Observation, then, was key. Her thoughts had moved on to what it might mean that she and Scott were in this together. Most importantly, it implied that what was happening wasn't random; the man in the devil mask had a plan and he was following it. Successfully, too. She didn't know what his intentions were, but it was obvious he knew exactly what he was doing.
No plan is perfect
, the voice had told her.
No plan is continuous.
There would be links between the stages - spaces and gaps where he relied on luck more than at other times. If they were clever, and if the luck went their way instead, they might be able to exploit that. Their lives might be saved or lost in the possibilities offered by a small number of intervals.
It had summoned up reserves of anger and determination inside her.
You will get out of this alive.
Yet so far there had been nothing. His plan had ticked successfully along from one point to the next. There had been one more stop, when the man took the baby out of the van. After another short journey, he'd parked. When he opened the van doors they had found themselves on a road by the edge of the woods.
'If you run,' he said, 'I'll kill the one who runs slowest.'
It had been almost surreal. He was standing there in the early-evening light on what was normally a busy road, wearing a devil mask and holding a knife with a long, cruelly thin blade. Their hands were bound in front of them. The scene was unequivocal. And yet no cars had passed them the whole time.
'We're going in there.' He'd gestured at the path into the woods, and she had thought: Possibilities. He couldn't control them both for ever. There would be some kind of chance; there had to be. But then he had put the bag over Scott's head and made him go first, walking a little behind the pair of them. There had been no opportunities at all. There had been nothing.
In front of her, Scott stumbled, tripped. She had enough time to see it happening, but not to stop it: as she reached out - 'Careful!' - his feet went from under him and he fell hard. Mud and leaves scattered out in front.
'Shit.'
A rock went off to the right, clattering down the slope. It rolled quickly, hit a tree with a sound like a gunshot, and then came to rest further down against a row of old stones. There were a lot of those in the woods, jutting out of the ground like giant half-buried jawbones. Old structures, mostly demolished.
She crouched down beside Scott.
'Are you okay, baby? Are you hurt?'
He shook his head as best he could, but didn't say anything. She heard that he was crying.
'Come on, sweetheart. We'll be okay.'
She helped him to his feet, fighting back the urge to join him in tears. There was no place for that at the moment. Only one of them should cry at a time. Feeling desperate and panicked and scared was acceptable, as long as one of them remained strong for the other. That could be her for now; she could do that.
As they struggled up, the man didn't help them: he just stood back and watched from behind that inscrutable
fucking
mask. One hand held the knife; the other hung onto the shoulder strap of the bag he'd brought with him. For a while, she had wondered what might be in that bag. The voice had told her to stop.
'Be careful,' he said. 'And be quiet. There are people in these woods who will hurt you for a lot longer than I will.'
Jodie brushed at the mud on Scott's coat, but it didn't work: it smeared down the sleeve and made her hands dirty.
The man was right, of course, and he didn't need to remind her - there were so many stories about this place. It was dangerous territory and by her best estimation they were now a long way off the map. Her brain teased her with images. The two of them tied to trees. Blood in the dirt. Their bodies, brown and dry as rope by spring.
Even if there were bad people here, the man didn't seem too concerned. But then he had the face of a devil, and he was carrying a knife and God only knew what else. He moved like he belonged in these woods. She certainly couldn't imagine anyone or anything more frightening was moving around out here.
He gestured with the knife: keep moving.
They set off again.
You aren't frightened
, the voice told Jodie, but this time it was wrong. She was frightened - and not just of the man and his knife and whatever he had in the bag. She could make as many observations as she wanted, but the truth was they were heading straight into the heart of these woods, to a place this man had chosen. He knew the paths; he knew the dangers and pitfalls they had to avoid; he was at home here. Whereas Jodie had never felt so utterly isolated, so far away from anything she knew.
Her mind worked itself around the voice and, rather than listening to its attempts at comforting her, she thought about myths and fairy-tales. About stories of travellers who took forbidden routes and found themselves facing monsters and doorways to death. She thought about the River Styx, with its creaking, skeletal ferryman who took passengers across to the afterlife. About Dante wandering where he shouldn't and discovering the circles of Hell.
That was exactly it, Jodie realised. The Devil was taking them into Hell. And - despite Scott's quiet tears up ahead; despite everything she'd told herself - she allowed herself to cry.
3 DECEMBER
13 HOURS, 50 MINUTES UNTIL DAWN
5.30 P.M.
Mark
One of the many problems with the 50/50 file was the sheer size of the thing. There were summaries, but I was forcing myself to read it from the beginning, so that the facts and theories I learned would have context and make sense. In effect, I wanted to approach it as the rest of the team had. But it was a big file and it was taking time. The text was difficult to read, the photographs hard to look at.
I had to keep taking short breaks, usually via the canteen to pick up coffee for me and Mercer. I was on my way back, carrying two plastic cups, when I felt my mobile buzz in my pocket.
'Shit.'
I put the cups down on the floor and fished out my phone to read the text. It was from my parents.
Hi Mark. Thinking of you. Hope your first day has been good. Hope you're well. We worry. Ring us when you have chance. Love m&d xx
I checked my watch, surprised to see that my first day was officially over - although of course it wasn't. The investigation had 'all-nighter' stamped right the way through it.
I wondered whether I should text back. My parents always worried. They hadn't wanted me to be a policeman in the first place, and even though I was nearly thirty they were still concerned that something was going to happen to me. Since Lise died it had become worse, and I'd had to stop returning their calls sometimes, simply because I couldn't take it. And now I'd moved across country ... I guess it was only natural they were worried, and on some level I appreciated it, but the fact remained I couldn't handle it well. I needed to be on my own. It felt like they
wanted
me to grieve and break down, and were worried something was wrong when I didn't, but the truth was that I just had my own way of dealing with things. Talking about what happened wasn't part of that, not yet.
I decided not to reply. Instead, I slipped my phone back into my pocket and returned to the office, putting Mercer's coffee on the desk beside him, then resuming my position at the computer.
'Thanks.'
He didn't look up when he said it, but that was okay.