There, but for the grace of battering Number Five’s head off the concrete...
Logan lumbered over and unbolted LOT 1.
A little boy flinched away from him, cowering in the corner of his crate. Blond hair, a dark port-coloured birthmark reaching across his cheek and down one side of his nose. Stephen MacGuire. The wee boy abducted from East Kilbride.
Logan put a finger to his lips. ‘Shh...’ Keeping his voice soft and quiet. ‘It’s OK. I’m a policeman.’ He reached in, took hold of Stephen under the arms and lifted him out. Ow! Ow! Flames raced around Logan’s torso. Put him down. PUT HIM DOWN!
He lowered Stephen to the ground and promptly doubled over, both hands clutching at the hole in his side, eyes screwed shut, teeth gritted so hard his cheeks ached.
Deep breaths. Deep breaths.
OK. Not doing that again.
Dragging was bad enough, but lifting was horrific.
He straightened up and limped over to LOT 2. Undid the bolt. A little girl topped with an explosion of Irn-Bru-coloured curls glowered up at him, teeth bared. She lunged towards his fingers, mouth open.
He snatched his hand away before she could sink her teeth into it. ‘Yeah, you can definitely get yourself out of there.’
LOT 3 opened to reveal a small girl in pink dungarees with embroidered sunflowers on them. She clambered from her cage and stood there staring at him with her thumb in her mouth.
Logan unbolted LOT 5. Smiled down at the wee girl with the blonde curls and big green eyes. Kept his voice down. ‘Ellie Morton, I presume?’
For some strange reason, she was dressed up in a white smock with wings and a coat-hanger-and-tinsel halo. Ellie climbed out to join her fellow auction lots and the whole bunch of them stood and stared at him as if he was some sort of weird and amazing animal. Well, all except for Bitey McIrn-Bru, glowering away on the edge of the group, clutching a lumpy-looking teddy bear.
He nodded at the open crate with ‘LOT 6’ painted on it. ‘Where’s number six?’
Bitey bared her teeth again. ‘One of the tits took him!’
‘Shhh!’ Logan put a finger to his lips and hissed it out. ‘You have to whisper.’
The little girl in the pink dungarees pointed towards the door at the other end of the equipment shed.
‘Thank you.’ Logan limped over, opened the door a crack, and peered through the gap.
A cattle court, divided in two by a central walkway. Farm machinery on one side, people on the other. One, two, three... about a dozen of them in assorted animal masks, six in numbered masks, and a guy up on the central walkway in a grey one. The Animals were gathered around something, blocking Logan’s view — so probably LOT 6.
A woman’s voice cut through the air. Hard and precise. ‘Thirty-seven thousand.’
Then a different woman. Softer. ‘Thirty-eight thousand.’
Nineteen of them.
And he’d nearly died taking on just one.
Logan wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, leaving a harsh metallic taste behind.
What the hell was he supposed to do?
Couldn’t leave LOT 6 behind. Could he?
No, of course he couldn’t.
So what: charge in and get himself killed? Then all the kids he’d set free would be rounded up and handed over to whichever paedophile had bid the most for them? Yeah, that sounded like an excellent plan.
Logan eased the door shut again, then winced down in front of Bitey. ‘You’re the bravest one here, aren’t you?’
She nodded.
‘OK. Good. What’s your name? And quietly this time.’
‘Rebecca.’ She held up the bear. ‘This is Orgalorg.’
‘Rebecca. Right: I need you to look after the others, Rebecca, can you do that?’
A frown put wrinkles between her orange eyebrows.
He took off his peaked cap and plonked it on her head. ‘I’m making you and Organthingumy official deputy police officers.’
It was far too big for her, but she frowned up at him from beneath the brim and nodded. ‘Does that mean we can arrest people for being tits?’
Wow. Not so much as a smile. She was serious.
‘Er... Not today, but maybe tomorrow? Today you’re going to help me get these kids to safety.’ He winced his way upright again. ‘Everyone hold hands and follow me.’
Logan stuck his hand out and Rebecca took it, gave him the bear, then jabbed her other hand towards Stephen MacGuire.
He didn’t take it. He leaned over to one side and frowned at the courtyard instead. ‘But it’s raining.’
‘Don’t be a tit or I’ll arrest you.’
He did as he was told. Then Ellie took his other hand and Pink Dungarees took hers. All in one short-ish crocodile.
‘We have to be quick and super quiet, OK?’
They nodded and he led the way out the door and into the rain. Across the concrete, past the parked cars and the big barky dog. Through the gap between the cottage and the machine shed, where the concrete gave way to a small grass verge bordered by a barbed-wire fence.
Logan had a good long look at the farm buildings — no sign that they’d been spotted — then off into the night. Lights flickered in the distance, swimming in and out of view. Farms, houses, it didn’t matter. As long as it wasn’t here.
He gritted his teeth and lifted the wee girl in the pink dungarees over the fence. Hissed out a lungful of broken glass, then did the same with Stephen MacGuire. Had to pause for a couple of deep breaths as fire raged through his stomach. It was Ellie Morton’s turn next, who, let’s be honest, looked utterly ridiculous in her primary-school-nativity angel costume. It had developed a big smear of red by the time he lowered her on the other side of the fence.
He bent double, panting, left hand braced against his knee to keep him upright, right hand pressed against the stab wound to keep everything in.
God...
Come on. Only one more to lift over. Then you can go get yourself killed. At least then the pain would go away.
Right.
He straightened up in time to see Rebecca throw her teddy bear over the barbed wire, then climb the nearest fence post and jump down the other side.
She reclaimed the bear, adjusted her oversized hat and nodded at him.
He pointed over the wire, towards the furthest set of lights in the distance. ‘I want you to run all the way over there. Can you do that?’
They all stared at him. Nobody moved.
‘Look, I’m not abandoning you, I’m... I have to go back and make sure the other little boy or girl is OK. OK?’
Still nothing.
‘Please. Just stick to the shadows and don’t talk to anyone until you get there. If you see someone, hide.’
For God’s sake, why wouldn’t they go?
He winced down in front of Rebecca, smiling at her through the fence as he unbuttoned one of the epaulettes from his T-shirt. ‘You’re an official deputy police officer, remember?’
‘I can arrest people tomorrow.’
‘But today, you get these kids to safety and you call the police and you read them the number on this thing.’ He handed the epaulette between the strands of barbed wire. ‘You read them the number and you tell them “officer down”, OK?’
‘Officer down.’
‘Good girl. Now go. Run.’
Please.
Don’t stand there like a bunch of bloody garden gnomes in the rain.
Run.
Go.
PLEASE.
The tiny girl in the pink dungarees burst into tears.