‘Et voilà,’ Billy said, and pulled the Mitsubishi to a sudden stop on the grass in front of the cottage.
As she climbed down from the four-by-four, Karen saw how run-down the place was. A wooden fence around an overgrown garden was rotten and had collapsed in several places. The slate roof was almost green with moss, and the trees that crowded the flaking whitewashed walls cast their gloom all around it. A stream splashed and tumbled over the rocks behind the house, catching the sunlight and cascading down the hill beyond, before losing itself among the gorse and heather.
The rest of the valley was a shambles of rock spoil from the hills above, and thick tangling heather that grew abundantly in wet, black, peaty soil.
Billy stood scratching his head. ‘He’s not at home.’
Karen rounded the SUV, disappointment clouding this sunny morning. ‘How do you know?’
‘His Land Rover’s not here.’
She followed him up an overgrown path to the front door and he pushed it open into a gloomy interior. It breathed dampness and old woodsmoke into their faces. A tiny square hall stood at the foot of narrow stairs that rose steeply to dormer rooms in the attic. On their left, old, overstuffed furniture gathered itself around a long-dead open fire in a small sitting room. On their right, a kitchen smelled of stale cooking, and on a scarred wooden table the remains of an abandoned meal had turned mouldy.
Billy’s voice was hushed and barely audible. ‘I don’t like this.’
He turned and almost ran out of the house. ‘What? What is it?’ Karen called, then hurried after him as he started purposefully away through the heather and rocks, following what looked like a deer path. By the time she caught him up, they had reached the summit of a small rise and found themselves looking down into a sheltered hollow. Eighteen beehives lay smashed and scattered among the rocks.
Billy stopped abruptly. ‘Jesus,’ he whispered through breathless lips. And he ran on down into the hollow, moving among the remains of the hives, pulling out long-abandoned frames where honey and wax exposed to the weather had turned hard and black. Karen watched him with a growing sense of trepidation as she saw his panic mushroom. All the bees were gone, the hives destroyed by some hand determined to make them unserviceable. He looked up at her, and she saw how pale he had grown, his tan looking yellow now, like jaundice.
He strode up the hill, passing her without a word and barely a glance. She turned and followed him back to the cottage, struggling to keep up. By the time she got to the front door he was on the landing at the top of the stairs. He vanished into the room on his left and she ran up after him. The door to the right stood ajar. Through it she saw an unmade bed, and smelled the sour odour of bodies and feet. Straight ahead, a door opened into a small, dirty toilet and shower room. The room to the left had clearly once been Sam’s laboratory. Billy stood in the middle of it looking helplessly around him at the chaos of smashed equipment. The floor was littered with broken glass. Shelves had been pulled off the walls. A small freezer lay on its side with the door open. ‘His laptop’s gone,’ he said.
He turned to push past Karen and run down the stairs. She heard him banging about the house, opening cupboards, pulling open drawers, and she walked slowly back down to the hall and out into the garden. On the surface, it was still a beautiful day. But somehow, now, it had turned ugly and she felt a chill in her bones. Something dreadful had happened here, and Sam was gone. And, along with him, the last chance of finding her father.
She swivelled around as she heard Billy coming out behind her. He was out of breath, his face taut with tension. ‘Everything’s been taken,’ he said. ‘Everything. All his records, his diary, his computer.’
He gazed at her without seeing her for several long moments, lost in thought, then half-turned to look up at the cottage.
When he turned back he said, ‘Could you get my rucksack from the back of the Mits? It’s got my iPhone in it. I want to take some pics of this.’
‘Sure.’ Karen felt glad to be useful, more than just a bystander. She walked briskly to the Mitsubishi and lifted the tailgate. The rucksack was right at the back of the boot space, and she leaned in to retrieve it. As she pulled it towards her, a sound behind her made her turn. In time to see a shadow cross the sun before light and pain exploded in her head. Darkness subsumed her before she even hit the ground.
It was still dark when consciousness returned, bringing with it a headache like none she had ever known. She screwed up her eyes tightly, hoping it would pass, but it didn’t. It felt as if someone were hitting her repeatedly with a mallet. They say you can get used to anything, even pain, and after a few minutes, sensations beyond that pain began slowly to impinge on Karen’s awareness.
She was curled up in a foetal position, hands bound behind her back, legs tied together at the ankles. Her mouth was full of something soft and wet. Something else was stretched taut across her lips, preventing her from opening them. She gagged, and fear of choking or drowning in her own vomit only just prevented her from being sick.
She realised there was daylight beyond the darkness, that there was something pulled over her head and tied at the neck. She could feel it against her face. Soft, caressing. And the air it contained was hot, rich in her own carbon dioxide. Almost suffocating.
For several minutes she struggled against whatever bound her wrists and ankles, but there was no give at all, and she quickly gave up, exhausted. Desperately, she tried to draw more air through nostrils that had begun to stream. She felt tears burning her eyes and cheeks, and was overcome by an abject sense of helplessness.
The sound, very close, of a car door opening suddenly brought with it a rush of fresh air, and momentary hope. Strong hands grabbed her arms and pulled her into a semi-upright position, leaning back against something solid. Fingers at her neck loosened whatever it was that covered her head, and a hand tugged her hair as it grasped the cover to pull it away.
She had not thought it possible for the pain in her head to get worse, but the sudden exposure to bright sunlight seared her brain like a branding iron. She wanted to cry out, but her voice was muffled and choked by whatever was stuffed in her mouth. Tears coursed from her eyes and she blinked furiously, to see Billy standing beneath the open tailgate of the Mitsubishi, looking in at her. His face was devoid of expression, his eyes cold and dead, and he regarded her dispassionately, as if examining some inanimate object.
She tried hard to speak, to beg him to let her go, but heard only the pathetic muffled sounds that issued from her throat and nose. He paid her not the least attention, taking his iPhone from his pocket and examining it for some moments, tapping and swiping the screen, before holding it in front of him, in landscape mode, and taking several photographs of her. She heard its faux, electronic shutter-click five or six times before he switched it off and slipped it back in his pocket.
Without meeting her eye, he leaned in to retrieve her head cover and pulled it roughly over her head again, plunging her once more into suffocating darkness. She tried to struggle as he secured it at the neck, but it was pointless. He took her by the shoulders, half-turning her and tipping her over on to her side. The vehicle shook as he slammed the tailgate shut.