‘Is Nick with you?’
‘Yes, he’s right here. It’s a bit wet out.’
‘Fine. Just go back up to the house, grab some water and food, couple of torches, and wait for me. I’ll be along in, uh, half an hour or so.’
‘What do I tell Mairi?’
‘Just say you have to go back to the house. Act casual.’
Hope made an inarticulate noise, breath going out as a snort, going in as a sob, and rang off.
Hugh scrambled up the ladder and out of the hatch. The site was, aptly enough, windswept, a hilltop overlooking the synthetic forests to the east and in the other direction the hills and moorland to the west. Drizzle drifted in swathes. The cloud cover was not far overhead. He could see right to the coast, and through the rain he could almost make out the village, about thirty minutes’ fast drive away. He glanced around, and spotted his father talking with one of the dozen or so other workers on the site. He hurried over.
‘Excuse me, Nigel.’
Nigel gave him a worried look.
‘Something wrong?’
So his expression must be as much a giveaway as his voice.
‘Maybe. I need to get back to the house.’
‘Is everyone all right?’
‘Oh, yes, nothing like that. It’s just… a bit of an emergency.’
Nigel handed over the car keys.
‘Will you be all right?’
‘Yes, sure, Donald can give me a lift back. Want me to put in a word with the foreman?’
‘Yes please,’ Hugh said, though he didn’t think keeping the job was top of his list of worries at the moment. ‘Thanks, Dad. See you.’
Nigel wiped droplets of water from his eyebrows, caught Hugh’s elbow and turned him aside.
‘Is this it?’ he asked in a low voice, not looking at Hugh.
‘Could be,’ said Hugh. ‘Police have broken into our flat.’
Nigel swung around, facing him.
‘What could that be about? Not Hope, surely?’
‘I don’t know. Nothing wrong we’ve done, anyway.’
Nigel’s eyes and lips narrowed.
‘I’ll come with you.’
Hugh shook his head. ‘No. I need you to… be around, and not to know where I’ve gone.’
Nigel considered this for a second, then nodded.
‘Don’t do anything foolish,’ he said, as if Hugh were still a teenager, setting off for a night in Stornoway.
Hugh clapped his father’s shoulder and ran to the Nissan. He strapped in, backed out of the awkward space in which it was parked, and bumped down the unpaved track to the road. He turned on the headlights and drove as fast as he dared, swinging around bends, hurtling along straights. Across the moor and into the glen and along to the village. It took him twenty-five minutes. He left the car outside the front gate and sprinted up the drive and around the back of the house.
Hope and Nick stood in the open doorway, wearing wet-weather jackets, boots and hats, and each clutching a small backpack, as if they were going for a walk in the rain. Hugh skidded to a halt, brushed Hope’s cheek with a kiss and Nick’s head with a pat, then sidled past them and into the house. He stepped out of his boots, stripped off his overall and hard hat and slung them in a corner of the scullery, and ran upstairs to the bedroom. It looked untidy, with the dress that Hope must have thrown off to pull on her trousers crumpled on the bed. Hugh took from the dusty top of the wardrobe the air pistol and pellet box he’d left there as soon as he’d arrived. He fingered inside his shirt pocket to make sure he still had the printed-off map, then picked up from the dressing table the old Silva compass he’d left hanging by its lanyard on the mirror. The little radio was still in his trouser pocket, with a new AA battery in it, along with one spare.
His booted feet thundered down the narrow staircase. He rushed through the living room and into the hallway and pulled on his jacket and boots. He stuck the air pistol in the jacket pocket. He jammed on Nigel’s waterproof hat.
Hope and Nick watched him from the doorway.
‘Why are we in a hurry?’ Nick asked.
‘Something interesting to see,’ said Hugh.
‘Then we’ll need binoculars,’ Nick pointed out.
Hugh tied his bootlaces, stood up, and grabbed the smallest pair of binoculars hanging in the clump of instruments on the coat hooks. He zipped up his jacket, closed the door behind them all and went out into the thin rain.
‘Where do we go?’
Hope’s upturned, enquiring face was beaded with water. She looked a lot less agitated, and more trusting, than he’d expected. This was more than he deserved. He had expected calls and emails from social services, maybe a visit, perhaps some legal pressure, the sort of thing that could be evaded for long enough by a simple change of address. He’d already sounded out an aunt in Tolsta and a cousin in Garynahine. But at another level, he had contemplated the escape he now had in mind. Why else had he made the map, and brought the pistol? The plan had had the quality of a daydream. Now it seemed the only way out. It also seemed delusional.
He thought, for a moment, about the car at the foot of the drive, and then dismissed it. The vehicle was relevant to the social-services scenario, not to this. If the police were looking for him and Hope, there was nowhere to drive to. Four roads led out of the village. Two were dead ends, on different sides of the same small peninsula. The other two – the Stornoway road over the bridge, and the Timsgarry road up the glen – offered more possibilities but for the same reason would be the first to be blocked. And the car would in any case be tracked automatically.
His mind was made up.
‘We’re going for a walk up the hill,’ he said. ‘Let’s turn off our phones. Nick, do you want to see how people could find their way, before GPS?’
‘Yes,’ said Nick, doubtfully.
Hugh switched off his phone. Hope took out her glasses, looked at them almost helplessly for a moment, then dashed back into the house and came out without them.
‘Let’s go,’ she said, clutching Nick’s hand.
Hugh led them around the back of the house and up the slope to the fence. He lifted Nick over, pushed the top wire down for Hope, then vaulted the fence himself. He looked at the roads, saw no police cars, and set off up the steep, rocky, heather-covered slope. At this point he didn’t need the map; he remembered the route just fine, partly because it was the only sensible way to go. He watched Nick go a few steps ahead, and let Hope set the pace as she walked beside him.
‘Do you have a plan?’ Hope asked.
He had, but he wasn’t telling her.
‘To hide out in the hills. Shelter in that tunnel I told you about. At least until we know what’s going on.’
‘Hours? Days?’
‘Not days,’ Hugh said. ‘Maybe overnight.’
‘We won’t find out what’s going on without you turning your phone on. And then we’ll be located in minutes.’
Hugh slapped his hip. ‘I have a radio. If the police are looking for us, it’ll be on the local news.’
‘Why did they raid our flat? I mean, they must know we’re here anyway.’
‘Looking for evidence.’
‘Evidence of what?’
‘That terrorism nonsense.’
‘Oh, I know. I’m not kidding myself. I’ve been so worried about that. Ever since that call yesterday.’
‘What call yesterday?’
‘It was that woman who spoke to you before. Geena. She was using a friend’s phone, to get around the block. Same old thing about the magic gene. Her friend claimed he’d run a sim that showed you could see tachyons, or something. I just told her the same answer as I gave you. Not interested.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ Hugh tried not to sound as surprised and indignant as he felt.
‘I didn’t think it was worth bothering you about,’ Hope said. ‘But now…’