Jonas watched Coffin walk a tightrope strung between compassion and craziness. The wind thrummed the high wire, and the huntsman wobbled – and Jonas swayed a little closer to the broom. From the corner of his eye he could see Steven gripping the fence, tense with anticipation. Jonas’s hand twitched—
Coffin grunted. He dropped his hand from the stocking mask. He picked the hose out of the overflowing bucket, walked out, and locked the kennel gate behind him.
‘Shit,’ said Steven.
Jonas slumped back against the fence, sick with disappointment. He’d hesitated. On the off-chance that Coffin would be rational, he’d put all his eggs in one basket case.
Lucy, I blew it.
He covered his face with his hands and his body let go of the tension in a long, shuddering breath. He felt fingers in his hair, smoothing him like a loved pet.
‘One man went to mow,’ sang Charlie cautiously. ‘Went to mow a medal. One man and his dog…’ He waited for one of the others to supply the part that Teddy had sometimes sung. Jess or Steven often did. But today there was only a yawning hole in the air.
And then Jonas felt his heart jolt as if he’d touched a live wire.
One man and his dog…
Bob Coffin had got rid of the hounds. That meant he had shot them.
And that meant he had a gun.
53
REYNOLDS HELD A press conference in the Red Lion’s skittle alley, and released the information about the green woollen gloves. It wasn’t huge, but any breakthrough was enough to keep the story in the news, and Davey swelled with pride as he heard DI Reynolds say that this latest information had come from him.
‘Davey’s memory of events is becoming clearer all the time,’ he added, ‘and he’s making a tremendous effort to help his brother in whatever way he can.’
Lettie stroked his back and Nan said, ‘Well done, Davey,’ and Davey went to bed so excited about the green-woollen-glove breakthrough that he could hardly sleep. He was sure that by that night the police would have received a tip-off. Steven could be home by tomorrow!
But by the next evening Davey had learned another valuable lesson – that sometimes truth has to be its own reward.
I love them.
Funny how it’s the big un what understands that. Appreciates what I done. I always thought he was a bit mazed, but turns out he’s the one with the brains, after all!
Anyway, it’s good to know that someone’s on my side. Made me happy when he said that.
But that poor little Charlie. Can’t be having ’em sickly and shitting that way. That’s not right. Them’s my responsibility and I got to take better care of ’em. Else I’m as bad as them what left ’em alone.
Old Murton always told me, if you can’t feed it, don’t keep it. And he were right about most things.
So if I want to keep ’em, I got to try harder to feed ’em.
54
THE HUNTSMAN WAS late.
There was no bang as he left the cottage in the morning, no squealing rumble as the big shed door was pushed aside on its metal runner, no soft explosion in the incinerator, no sssssshh of the knife that would separate bone from cartilage from tendon for them to eat.
Within minutes of his being overdue, the children grew restless, and before the hour was up they were nervous and fractious.
‘Where is he?’ Jess Took kept saying. ‘He’s never late.’
But he was.
Jonas and Steven exchanged worried looks.
Charlie sang ‘Ten Green Bottles’ quietly, while Pete clung to the chain link at the front of his kennel, craning to see up the walkway and occasionally murmuring, ‘I thought that was him’ under his breath.
‘He’s never late,’ Jess said again, as if words alone would make it true.
Steven turned his back to her and spoke softly to Jonas. ‘How long should we wait?’
Jonas frowned. ‘Before what?’
Steven opened his mouth, then closed it again. Before what indeed? Before escaping? Before calling for help? If those things had been realistic options then they would have worked already.
‘Maybe we should save our water a bit,’ said Jonas.
Steven nodded and passed the message down the line. Then he did something he hadn’t done for weeks – he started to test the boundaries of his prison, kicking at the wall, pushing a stalk of grass into the padlock, tugging at the ends of the wire fence as if he might unravel the chain link like an old jumper.
The .22 pistol was a waste of time.
What worked well when pressed between the eyes was completely useless when trying to hit a galloping pony at fifty paces. Bob Coffin thought he’d winged a couple but not even badly enough to be able to hunt them down and kill them. The deer didn’t even let him get within firing distance.
Bob Coffin threw the pistol on to the passenger seat of his old diesel and slammed the door hard.
Time was there was a never-ending parade of old, broken-down livestock coming into the yard, and the Park Rangers would let him know when a pony or deer was dead on the moor. Then the flesh room was always packed with fresh meat.
Not now the hounds were gone.
He’d stolen the last cow. Just walked into Jack Biggins’s field by night and taken the first one he’d come to. It was so easy it didn’t even feel like theft.
But when he’d tried it again over at Deepwater, the herd had gone off like a bovine car alarm – mooing and lowing and milling about him until he’d feared they would knock him down and trample him. But he’d needed the meat, and clung on to the cow until a skin-and-bone collie with one white eye had scattered the beasts and then bitten his ankle as he scrambled back over the five-bar gate.
He had a sheep, but it would last no time.
After that, he didn’t know what he would do.
Jonas saw Steven wince as a sharp point of wire pricked his finger. The boy didn’t give up, though – he shook his hand, then bent to his task again, even though it was hopeless.
Jonas thought of the grim truth – that Bob Coffin was their captor and tormentor, but he was also their lifeline. If he fell down and broke his leg, they were all dead; if he had a car accident and was taken to hospital, they were all dead; if he simply lost interest or got scared, or took a long weekend by the seaside, they were all dead.
Now the huntsman was somewhere else and they were here.
Helpless as infants.
As he watched Steven, Jonas cursed himself. A strip of leather and a small padlock, and he’d simply resigned himself to his fate, along with the children he was sworn to protect. He should have remembered the gun and realized the danger they were in. He should have been planning an escape for weeks, not waited until there was a crisis like this one. He’d been afraid, and frozen by that fear, and it had stopped him thinking.
He’d better start again right now.
Jonas ran his fingers along the chain that tethered him to the fence. He examined every link minutely, tried their strength with his hands and his teeth. He picked a link in the middle of the tether, and scraped it repeatedly across the cement, making a graze in the grey of the floor, and a shiny new corner on the metal.
That might work. Although an escape plan that relied on the erosion of metal was an escape plan that should have been formulated long before they were each left with half a bucket of water and no food.
The link became shiny but it didn’t get thin. It seemed hopeless, but Jonas beat down the feeling that he was wasting his time. Right now this was the most important thing in the world. The only thing left within his control.