The fact that both policemen were injured and needed help was neither here nor there to Sarah. She felt no pity or regret at what had happened to them; they were a casualty of her own survival, nothing more, nothing less. She went over to the conscious policeman, stooping to unhook the radio from his jacket.
With a speed that took her by surprise, he grabbed her wrist. But he was weak. She broke his grip without much effort and then tore off the radio — he made no move to stop her. She threw the radio down and stamped her heel into it with a crunch of broken plastic.
With some nervousness, she took a step toward the Hunter. Although they were born killers, it was rare for them to attack people. There had been stories of them going rogue, turning on their masters and anyone else who happened to cross their paths. She had no way of knowing if this Hunter could be trusted after what it had done to the policeman. From the appearance of its bare skin stretched over its ribs, it was badly malnourished and hardly in the best condition. She wondered how long it had been fending for itself up here.
"Where did you come from?" she asked it softly, keeping a safe distance.
The animal angled its head toward her, as if trying to understand, and blinked once. She ventured closer, tentatively reaching out her hand, and it leaned forward to sniff at her fingertips. The top of its head was almost on a level with her hips — she'd forgotten just how big these animals were. Then it suddenly leaned toward her. She tensed, but it merely rubbed its head affectionately against her palm. She heard the deep rumble of a purr kick in, as loud as an outboard engine on a dinghy. That was uncharacteristically friendly behavior for a Hunter. Either it had been slightly unhinged by its Topsoil life or it thought, for some reason, that it knew her. But she didn’t have time to ponder that now — she needed to decide her next move.
She had to get as far away as she could and, as she rubbed the rather flaky and scabbed skin under the cat's incredibly wide muzzle, she recognized that she owed the animal a debt of honor. She would have almost certainly been caught if it hadn't come to her rescue. She couldn't leave it behind.
"Come on," she said to the cat, and made for the Common. Her bruised head began to clear slightly as she saw the open path ahead. They ran together toward the metal arch that marked the entrance.
Sarah was crossing the road in the direction of Main Street, but drew to a halt once she happened to glance back to make sure the cat was still with her. It was sitting on the pavement by the gate, looking down the road that branched to the right, as if it was trying to tell her something.
"Come on! This way!" she said impatiently, thrusting a finger in the direction of the town center and her hotel. "We don't have time for this…" she trailed off, realizing just how difficult it was going to be to get the animal through the streets and into her room without being noticed.
The Hunter remained steadfastly facing off to the right, just as it would have done when alerting its handler that it had scented quarry. "What is it? What's there?" Sarah said, jogging back toward it and feeling a little ridiculous attempting to converse with a cat.
She looked at her watch, weighing her options. It wouldn't be long before someone discovered the scene back at the Burrowses' house, and then the Common and the whole town of Highfield would be bristling with police. But she took consolation from the fact that nightfall had only just begun. She was in her element; she could use the darkness to her advantage. She had to put as much distance between her and the house as she could, and taking the busier streets might prove to be a mistake. Not to mention that her battered face would make her stick out like a sore thumb.
She tried to see what lay in the direction the cat was pointing: Perhaps it wouldn't do any harm to set down a false trail and, if necessary, take a more roundabout route back to the hotel. As she debated with herself, the Hunter pawed the pavement, eager to be on the move again.
"All right — have it your way," she said, suddenly making up her mind. She could have sworn the cat grinned at her before it bounded off so quickly that she struggled to keep up.
Twenty minutes later, they entered a street she didn't know and, from a signpost, she saw that they were heading toward the municipal dump. The cat hung back briefly by an entrance at the end of a long line of billboards, then turned into it. As Sarah followed, she could dimly make out an area of rough ground, overrun with weeds.
The cat galloped past a derelict car and toward one of the corners. It seemed to know precisely where it was going. It skidded to a halt and stuck its nose into the air to sniff as Sarah fought to catch up.
She wasn't far behind it when caution urged her to swing around and make sure nobody was following them. But when she turned again to where the cat had been, it was nowhere to be seen. As good as her night vision was, she had absolutely no idea where the animal had gone. All she could see were small clumps of bushes sprouting from the muddy soil. She took her key-ring flashlight from her bag and played it before her. Several yards away from where she was searching, she spotted the cat's head as it popped rather comically from out of the ground.
It ducked down again, disappearing from view. She went over to investigate and found there was some kind of trench there, much of which was covered by a sheet of plywood. She stuck a hand in to try to feel what lay below — there seemed to be a sizable hollow there. She heaved the sheet aside, groaning from her aching ribs as she made the opening just large enough for her to get in.
Stretching a leg tentatively into the darkness, she completely lost her footing on the loose soil. Her arms flailed helplessly as she tried to grab something to stop her rapid descent, but nothing presented itself. She fell almost twenty-five feet and landed in a sitting position with a loud crunch. Cursing quietly, she waited for the pain to subside, then switched on her flashlight again.
To her astonishment, she found she'd fallen into a pit filled with what appeared to be a mass of bones. The floor was thick with them, all picked clean of flesh and shiny white under her light. Scooping up a handful, she selected a tiny femur and examined it. And as she looked around her, she spotted several small skulls. All bore teeth marks and, from their size, could have been rabbit or squirrel. Then she noticed a much larger skull with pronounced canines.
"Dog," she said, identifying it immediately. Stuck to the skull was a chunky leather collar, darkened with dried blood.
She was in the cat's lair!
The newspaper article she'd read in the hotel suddenly came back to her.
"So you're the one who's been snatching dogs!" she said. "You're the beast of Highfield Common," she added with an amazed chuckle, addressing the darkness where she could hear the cat's regular breathing.
She got herself up, the skeletons cracking and splintering beneath her feet, and began down the gallery that led off the bone pit. Its sides were battened with timbers that to her practiced eye didn't look too sound — there were signs of wet rot and the green of excessive dampness on them. Worse still, there weren't enough of these props to brace the roof, as if someone had been randomly removing them without any thought for what effect it might have. She shook her aching head. She certainly wasn't in the safest of places, but she needed somewhere to recover from her injuries.
The gallery took her lower, and then she emerged from it into a larger area. She glimpsed some duckboarding on the ground, its surface covered with spreading tendrils of white rot. On this was a pair of dilapidated armchairs positioned side by side. In one of these, the cat was sitting perfectly still, as if it had been waiting for her for some time.