LITMIR.BIZ

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up here there’s a big estate, the Colishaw Estate. That’s an “estate” as in a large area of privately owned land. Not a housing estate.’

      ‘I think I’ve got that, thanks.’

      ‘The Colishaw Estate runs shoots. That means they breed a lot of pheasants. There are deer on the estate too. Not to mention rabbits and hare and partridge.’

      ‘Is this a nature lesson? If so, could we possibly do it tomorrow?’

      ‘Obviously, it’s a big target for poachers,’ said Cooper patiently.

      ‘Right.’

      ‘The professional gangs used to be a big problem, but they don’t bother so much any more. There’s no money in it now. But the local men still get down there.’

      ‘Chasing the pheasants and rabbits.’

      ‘You don’t exactly chase them.’

      Cooper pulled the Toyota on to the verge near a patch of woodland, where signs warned ‘Private Property’. There was little traffic on the road, and the night was totally black but for the stars in a clear sky. The Toyota’s sidelights illuminated a wall and a length of barbed wire.

      ‘There’s an old hut down there,’ he said, pointing into the wood. ‘It’s always been a favourite for poachers to lie up in. It’s well away from where the keepers patrol, even when they bother. Jackie Sherratt was a notorious poacher. He used to use it all the time. He must often have taken his son Lee there. As part of his training.’

      ‘Sherratt? Hold on. You think –?’

      ‘It’s possible. I think Lee could have chosen the hut to lie up in. No one will have thought of checking this out. It’s too distant from Moorhay. But a lad like Lee wouldn’t think anything of moving this far.’

      ‘Don’t tell me – you want to check it out?’

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘Right here and now?’

      ‘Why not?’

      ‘Are you crazy? It’s the middle of the night!’

      ‘I’m going down anyway,’ said Cooper. ‘You can wait here if you like.’

      He got out of the car, pulling a sturdy torch from the glove compartment.

      ‘We can’t do this.’

      ‘I can,’ said Cooper. ‘You’ll obviously have to go by the book, won’t you?’

      He climbed over the wall and began to walk into the wood, finding the start of a narrow path that had been invisible from the road.

      ‘Hold on, for God’s sake,’ said Fry, slamming her door.

      He smiled and keyed the electronic locks.

      ‘Can’t be too careful.’

      They set off close together, sharing the light of the torch. Cooper had always felt a part of the world he worked in, especially when he was out working in the open. But Diane Fry, he thought, would be for ever a stranger to it. He was alert for any sounds in the wood, but she seemed completely absorbed in herself, as if the darkness meant not only that she couldn’t see, but also that she could neither hear nor smell what was around her, nor even feel the nature of the ground underfoot. Cooper was listening hard. Any countryman knew that the sounds that animals made could tell you whether there was a human presence in the area.

      At that moment, he could hear the echo of a faint screech deep in the wood, a fleeting sound like the scratching of a nail on glass, or chalk across a blackboard, but with a plaintive falling note at the end.

      ‘Little owl.’

      ‘Eh?’ said Fry.

      ‘Little owl.’

      ‘What are you talking about? Is it Cowboys and Indians? You Big Chief Little Owl, me squaw?’

      ‘I’m talking about the bird. Can’t you hear it?’

      ‘No.’

      They both listened for a moment.

      ‘It’s gone now,’ said Cooper.

      Fry seemed genuinely reluctant to go into the woods in the dark. He was surprised by her behaviour. Afraid of the dark? Surely not Diane Fry; not Macho Woman.

      ‘Are you nervous?’ he asked.

      ‘Of course not.’

      ‘We could leave it until tomorrow, if you like. I could suggest it at the morning briefing, and see if anyone can be bothered to put out an action for it. We’re not getting overtime for this, after all. It doesn’t make good business sense, does it? If you want to look at it like that.’

      ‘Since we’re here, let’s just do it, then we can go home.’

      ‘On the other hand, if he is down there, he’ll probably have moved on somewhere else by tomorrow.’

      ‘Can you just shut up and get on with it?’

      

      Diane Fry found the darkness disturbing. The deeper they moved into the wood, the more she wished that she had brought a torch of her own, that she had refused to go along with the idea, that she had stayed in the car after all. Or better still, that she had never stupidly agreed to play squash with a jerk like Ben Cooper. She had known it had been a mistake from the start. She should never have let herself get involved, not even for one evening. And now it had ended up like this. With a stupid escapade that she could see no way of getting herself out of.

      In front of her, Cooper was walking with an exaggerated carefulness, lifting his feet high in front of him before placing them cautiously back on the ground. He pointed the torch downwards, shielding its light with his hand so that it would not be visible in the distance. At one point he stopped to rest against a tree. When he straightened up again, Fry felt him stagger as if he was drunk. She grabbed his arm to support him, but felt no resistance in his muscles. Peering into his face by the dim light, she saw that his cheeks were drawn, and his eyelids were heavy.

      ‘You’re exhausted,’ she said. ‘You can’t go on with this. We’ll have to turn back.’

      ‘Not now,’ said Cooper. ‘I’ll be all right.’

      He shook himself vigorously and they set off again. Soon, a darker area of blackness began to form up ahead. Cooper switched off the torch and signalled her closer so that he could whisper into her ear. His breath felt warm on her cheek, which was starting to feel a faint chill in the night air.

      ‘That’s the hut. You stay here while I take a look through the window at the side there. Don’t make a sound.’

      Fry began to protest, but he hushed her. Then he was gone, creeping through the trees towards the side of the hut. Soon his shape had vanished into the gloom, and she found herself on her own. Immediately, she felt the sweat break out on her forehead. She cursed silently, knowing what was about to come.

      

      As soon as she was alone, the darkness began to close in around her. It moved suddenly on her from every side, dropping like a heavy blanket, pressing against her body and smothering her with its warm, sticky embrace. Its weight drove the breath from her lungs and pinioned her limbs, draining the strength from her muscles. Her eyes stretched wide, and her ears strained for noises in the woods as she felt her heart stumble and flutter, gripped with the old, familiar fear.

      Around her, the night murmured and fluttered with unseen things, hundreds of tiny shiftings and stirrings that seemed to edge continually nearer, inch by inch, clear but unidentifiable. Next, her skin began to crawl with imagined sensations. It was as if she had stood in a seething nest of tiny ants that ran all over her body in their thousands, scurrying backwards and forwards, scuttling in and out of her intimate crevices, tickling her flesh with their tiny feet and antennae. Her flesh squirmed

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