The Hunger Trace (32 page)

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. She recognised the plea in his voice, the inability to go back and withdraw an action.

‘It’s completely off the bloody scale. I mean, did you
really
think . . . ?’

Still on the floor, he let his chin drop onto his chest, like a little boy. She thought he might cry, but he flung out his arm and punched the table. The noise of it shocked Louisa, made her jump. ‘Get out,’ she said. ‘Just get out.’

He got to his feet, and scrambled into the hall. The latch defeated him for a moment, but he soon worked it out, and was gone, leaving the door open, the rain sidling into the house, discolouring the rug. Louisa stood in her living room, with the outside spilling in, and a blank noise in her head.

She slammed the door.

A few hours before, Maggie had seen two red circles in the dark of that late February afternoon. The lights engorged as her eyelids drooped, sending a long shudder of warmth through her. They were just brakelights. But in her mind they were also the lamps of that pub by the Thames. And they were the only things keeping Maggie’s anger at bay as she tried to drive east.

She had followed the red lights all the way out of Derbyshire, watching as those crimson eyes had multiplied into the distance with the incline of the road. She had been micro-sleeping for the last thirty minutes, releasing the brake every once in a while to roll forward a few pointless metres. The travel reports had warned against the M1 but the A-roads proved just as bad. Up ahead, there was an accident, a road closure, something. She did not know where she was, but she hadn’t travelled far. Newark? Grantham? Sleaford? The journey felt longer because she had set off in daylight.

Maggie knew that a hundred miles to the east there was a red-bordered triangular road-sign with the black silhouette of a stag on a white background. She knew she would not see that sign tonight. Drivers up ahead had started to attempt three-point turns, and the ominous fact was that they could manage the manoeuvre safely, for there was no oncoming traffic.

She thought of the deer in their thick winter coats, exhausted by the rut, back in their single-sex groups. The two stags she wanted were in their fifth head. The man from Norfolk had sent pictures – front, flank and rear. All she wanted was to see them in the flesh. One little thing. She felt Drum Hill, and the tendrils of its bad fortune, reining her in. She needed a drink.

After another half hour, Maggie turned off the main road and found a restaurant connected to a small hotel. A huge pylon stood in the field just beyond the car park. She could hear the electricity fizz, could feel the pressure on her skull. The size of the pylon dwarfed the hotel and the cars, and made her suddenly aware of the view of the place from above.

She walked into the restaurant, took a booth, and ordered two whiskys. ‘Will you be eating, madam?’ the waitress said.

‘No thanks,’ Maggie said, handing back the greasy, laminated menu. She remembered once when she was a teenager, she and her friends had gone into a restaurant like this on the outskirts of London and sat in there for three hours, abusing the offer of free top-ups on coffee. The waiter had been forced to go to the shop to buy more. They were wired and choking on laughter, and they all had headaches.

‘I’m afraid you can’t have alcohol unless you’re eating,’ the waitress said.

Maggie took the menu back. ‘Probably for the best,’ she said. ‘Soak it up.’

She ordered curly fries and decided to stay in the hotel for the night. She thought about calling home to tell someone, but she knew they would all be out. There was nobody, really, to tell.

At dawn she lay on one of the single beds, kept awake by the flatline of the pylon and the hiss of the rain. Who stayed in these hotels? People on work conferences, tired lorry drivers, murderers, falconers. Maggie gave up on sleep. She turned on the TV in the top corner of the room, and watched the future: a shadow of low pressure was moving down from Iceland, over the east of England, to bruise its heart.

*    *    *

Miles away, Louisa opened her eyes. She had slept with the lamp on, and woke because it went out. Her digital clock was dark and numberless, a collection of possible eights. Powercut. The rain on the roof sounded like an engine left running. It was tireless, unremitting, mirthful. She smelled smoke, and remembered that this could signify the onset of a stroke. Later in the day, she would recall that thought, and wish it had been true, wish that the blood had simply drained from her brain. She rose from the bed, got dressed, and went downstairs.

The smell passed in and out of her senses as she moved through the house. In the living room she stood still and tuned in to the world. Outside, the lawn and surrounding fields had flooded. She had been right, she thought, to put Iroquois indoors, for her bow perch was almost completely underwater. The water itself provided the strongest source of light, a dull glaze like a dirty glass table.

The wind outside changed direction and she caught the smell of smoke again. There was a base tone to it, which her mind identified before she was truly ready. She steadied herself on the back of the chair and then hurried to put on her boots. The pulse thumped in her head, and with every beat her vision greyed, closed in from the sides.

When she got outside, she saw the dark arm of smoke rising above the stables and whipping back around it. The centre of the roof had already caved in. Louisa ran forward until four brief, crackling explosions stopped her. She screamed and raised her hands to shield her face. Fire had caused the right half of the shed to collapse – her Harris hawks, a lanner, and Caroline. She could smell the sweetness of feathers, the wood smoke, and the flesh. She thought she might be sick, but she did not have time. The other side of the shed remained intact, but smoke rolled in a fossil black tail from the vent pipe. Louisa kept running.

Two slats of wood dropped away and she saw Iroquois, bating in bursts, the leash pulling her down. And then she saw Diamond through the smoke. A blue flame crackled in front of the hawks. She did not know if the screams she heard were real or imagined, or even if they were her own. She ran towards the door. The heat did not get through to her – she was shivering – but the smoke was overwhelming. She could not get any closer, so she sprinted back towards the house, realising as she did so that the sprinkler hose would not reach, and buckets of water would be futile. She went inside, took her shotgun from under the sofa and ran back out, loading cartridges and pouring extras into her pockets.

She tried once more to approach the shed, but could only get within ten metres. The flames fingered Iroquois’s perch, took hold of the leash, spun up through the fibres and across the bird. Iroquois’s figure appeared black within the orange light, and she opened her wings, dipped her head into the brunt. The sight put Louisa on her knees. She stood again, shouldered the shotgun and fired into Iroquois’s breast. She fired two more rounds blindly into the blackened, crumbled half of the shed before reloading and turning the gun on Diamond. She aimed, but he bated. Smoke obscured the view. The fire advanced towards his block perch, but Louisa could barely see the bird. There was another blue fizz of wire igniting, and a dark shape arrowed through the roof and into the sky. It was Diamond, his severed leash still smoking like a blown-out wick. He tanked towards the woods. Louisa’s first instinct was to raise the gun, but she caught herself, called and whistled. She ran across the waterlogged field, stumbling and splashing. It was useless. She stopped and watched Diamond clear the coppice, his wings becoming a distant tremble, before he was gone, beyond the range of Louisa’s inadequate vision.

Louisa walked back through the wisps of ash to the centre of the field. She hit the ground, her knees slipping through the standing water and unstable earth, so that she fell forward onto her arms. She stayed like that while the shed folded in on itself like a rotting fruit.

Adam found her an hour later, dragged her home and called the fire service. At the time, Louisa did not wonder how he’d found the nerve to drive up the hill. She took whisky and Valium and fell into a disturbed sleep for a few hours.

When she came downstairs, Adam was still there, sitting in the living room. ‘Is there anything I can do?’ he said.

She stood in the middle of the room. ‘Like what?’ she said. ‘Give me a back rub?’

He blinked slowly.

‘Where is he?’ she said.

‘Who, the fireman? They’ve gone. It’s extinguished.’

‘I mean the boy.’

‘I told you. I saw him down in the village. He’s fine.’

‘Did you speak to him?’

‘No.’

‘Look alright, did he?’

‘Louisa, what are you talking about? You’re not making any sense.’

‘It’s not the time for it.’

He stood and moved towards her, but she backed away. ‘I could call the radio station, see if they’ll put word out about the missing bird,’ he said.

‘I don’t want their help. I don’t want anyone to know. I don’t want anyone touching him.’

‘I see.’

‘I don’t think you do,’ Louisa said.

Adam’s face showed a flicker of frustration, but he held it in check. Louisa retrieved her soiled coat from the kitchen floor and put it on.

‘What are you doing?’ Adam said.

‘I’m going out,’ she said.

‘You’re not fit to drive, duck. Let me give you a lift.’

‘Go home.’ She was already out of the door when she said it.

Louisa waded through the mud and water to Maggie’s house. The back door was open, so she went in. She knew Christopher wasn’t there. She shouted from the hallway, then went upstairs and looked around. The place was empty. She did not know when Maggie was coming back, and she did not feel like she could wait. She dialled Maggie’s mobile from the house phone, but it was switched off.

She went through to Christopher’s room, took a suitcase from the wardrobe and began pulling his clothes from the hangers, and throwing them in. Back in the living room, she made the call, pulled in an old favour. There could be no refusal, all things considered.

Half an hour later, she sat in her van, ready to seek him out. The mud hung heavy on her clothes, patches of it drying like cracked skin. Christopher’s suitcase lay on the middle seat. The smell of smoke now mixed with a chemical stink, something the firemen had used.

What had it been like for the hawks to see the flames coming slowly in ultraviolet, the world gradually blotted out with brightness and no way to get free? She closed her eyes and thought of the videos Christopher had shown her. She thought of him dropping a cigarette, too stupid or scared to put it out. She thought of him dousing the beams with petrol. How quickly would the fire have killed them? She found herself hoping they’d been suffocated, but she knew Iroquois had not been killed by the smoke. Iroquois had burned, the lines of her big body quivering in the heat as she thrashed. Louisa opened her eyes, closed both of her fists and smashed them into the dashboard over and over. As the plastic cut her hands, as the tissue compressed and burst the vessels inside, Louisa was possessed by a rage she had not felt since she was a child. She let it grip.

She found him in the Hart, an hour after most of the lunchtime crew had gone. He looked as she expected him to look – pale. Before him on the bar stood a coffee, a glass of water, and a pint of lager. ‘Erm. Oh, hi. Hangover cure,’ he said, quietly. ‘Caffeine, lion’s blood and hair of the dog.’

‘Get in the van,’ she said.

‘I heard sirens this morning. Erm. What happened? I thought you’d, erm, called the Feds on me.’ He smiled.

She took him by the collar of his coat and pulled him off the stool. He stumbled slightly. ‘Okay, okay,’ he said. For a boy of his size he came away easy.

She did not speak in the van, and did not look at him. His evident fear awoke no compassion in her; the sleeping tablets made her separate. Christopher looked at the luggage. ‘Erm. I’ve got a suitcase like that. Are you going on holiday?’

‘No.’

‘Is it just a natural barrier against me and my wandering hands? I can understand that. Erm. Where’s Adam? Have you made up? Erm, I hope I haven’t created a triangle. Where are we going?’

She did not answer. They hissed along the tree-lined roads, past the burnished woodlands sagging with the weight of water. The railway crossing was flooded, but the van ploughed through without difficulty.

As they left Detton, Matlock, and Cromford behind, the lawns got neater and the cars more modern. After an hour of driving, Louisa pulled into a cul-de-sac, much flatter and roomier than the one which Adam had forced her back down all those months ago. The houses were the colour of crabs, their fleshy brightness hardly dimmed by the saturation. Louisa noted the water draining off the steeply cambered road, and the predominance of pea-shingle. She thought of the stables. How had the fire moved across the floor? The pictures came back into her mind – the heat, and the darkening shapes within.

‘What’s this soulless place?’ said Christopher.

Louisa remained silent.

‘I’ve been to dwellings like these before, with Maggie. I helped her with one of those goats. Erm. I didn’t help her, really. I had a disc problem.’