Huntress Read online

  “Mum,” Amy let out a sob. This was the last call she was going to make before she ditched her phone. “I just wanted to tell you that... that I’m okay and that I didn’t do it.”

  “Oh, Amy, the police have been here. They are saying that you have links to terrorism!”

  “It’s not true. I... I just got mixed up in something. I haven’t done anything wrong, I—”

  “Then come home.”

  Amy rubbed at her forehead. “I can’t, they won’t believe me. I’m going to prove I’m innocent, and then I’ll come home, I promise. But I... I can’t contact you again. I have to get rid of this phone.”

  “Amy, please...” The sobs were coming thick and fast now. Amy couldn’t stand to hear her mum cry.

  “Mum, please, I’m okay. I promise that I’m okay. Just... just don’t worry.”

  Muffled sobs came down the line, and Amy took a deep breath. “I love you, Mum, so much. I love you, okay?”

  She hung up and hurriedly turned the device off. The train jolted, and she nearly fell from the toilet seat she had been perched on to make her call. She stood up and looked at her reflection in the mirror. She ripped off a few sheets of toilet paper and tried to wipe away the tears and tidy herself up a bit. Calling home had been a stupid idea, but she just had to do it.

  “Kerry’s going to kill me,” she mumbled to her reflection.

  She made her way along the carriages back to her seat. The train thundered along the tracks towards a destination. Amy couldn’t even remember where it was headed. Every now and then the train would sway from side to side, and Amy would pause in the centre aisle and hold on to the seats on either side. Sometimes she wondered if it was the train swaying or if it was her. The people who passed her didn’t seem to have the same problem.

  Eventually she arrived back at her seat and fell into it. She had high-fived Kerry when they managed to snag a table seat upon boarding the train. Now she stared across the table at Kerry and swallowed with nerves. How things changed over the course of two hours.

  “I thought you’d fallen in,” Kerry joked.

  “I called my mum,” Amy admitted.

  Kerry stared at her in horror. “Tell me you’re kidding,” Kerry pleaded.

  “I’m not kidding,” she whispered softly. “I had to tell her. It was eating away at me. You know we never go more than a few hours without contacting each other.”

  Kerry grabbed her belongings from the table top and shoved them into her bag. She stood and pulled her coat down from the luggage rack.

  “I can’t believe you, Amy. I can’t believe you did that without telling me.” Kerry struggled into her coat. Her rage made it difficult for her to find the arm holes.

  “I had to speak to her,” Amy defended herself as she also packed her things away.

  Kerry stared at her hard. “You think I don’t want to call my mum? You think this is easy for me? Is it somehow harder for you than it is for me?”

  “I know, I’m stupid. What are we going to do?” Amy asked, fearing she already knew the answer.

  “We have to get off the train,” Kerry told her. “The train that we specifically waited for because it would be old and wouldn’t have CCTV. We made the rules together, Amy.”

  Amy looked at her notebook where the rules they had scribbled out stared up at her. This particular rule was underlined three times: If for any reason they felt their location had been compromised, they had to move quickly.

  “I know, I know,” Amy told her. “I messed up.”

  Kerry put her backpack on the table to balance the weight and started strapping herself into it.

  “Look, if we’re doing this, we have to work together, okay?” Kerry explained as she adjusted the straps. “It’s us against them. But that means we have to work together. You can’t go off and do things without telling me.”

  “I’m telling you now.”

  Kerry looked at her for a second before shaking her head and stalking off up the train carriage.

  “Kez, wait!” Amy called out as she struggled with her own bag. She eventually heaved the backpack into place and walked up the carriage towards the doors. The doors opened, and she saw Kerry slumped on the floor, dejected and staring at the wall.

  “I’m sorry, okay?” Amy told her. She held out her phone. “Here. Take this so I don’t do anything stupid again.”

  Kerry stared at her for a moment before taking the phone. “I’m really pissed off with you, Amy.”

  “I know.”

  “Four trains. Four trains left Kings Cross, going north, while we waited for an old train. And, when we finally got on a train with no CCTV, a train that we could have curled up and had a nice sleep on, you decide to call your mum.”

  Amy sighed and slipped to the floor as well.

  “We know they have your mobile phone number. When they see it was activated and you were moving at eighty miles an hour across countryside, it won’t take long for them to figure out that we’re in a train. So, not only do we have to get off the train, we have to get off the train line. And, if you’ll remember from our early research, it is the only bloody train line in the area. It isn’t like they have a choice of which one to search. It’s this one.”

  Amy rubbed at her face with her hand. “I know, I’m sorry. It was just a split-second reaction. I didn’t think. I’m sorry. I’ll fix this, I promise.”

  Kerry let out a sigh and shook her head. She turned her head to avoid eye contact. “Amy, you have to tell me what you’re thinking. Going off and doing something without talking to me first is not going to cut it,” she said as she stared at the wall of the train. “We’re in deep shit. We have to stick together. Spiky had a knife. Suddenly, we’re known terrorists, armed and dangerous. This is serious.”

  “I know,” Amy whispered. “I know contacting Mum was stupid—”

  “Whatever is on that USB stick, it’s something big, something important,” Kerry continued. “If we weren’t in a public place, I think Spiky would have killed us for it.”

  Amy slowly nodded. “I think so, too.”

  “So, on one side we have him—let’s call that choice ‘certain death’,” Kerry said. “And on the other, we have the intelligence services. Who have been told that we are dangerous terrorists. I can’t see us easily talking our way out of either situation if they catch us.”

  “No,” Amy agreed. “If Spiky can convince them that quickly that we’re terrorists and send them after us, he must have someone on the inside. Hell, maybe he’s on the inside. Either way, we can’t trust the authorities either.”

  Kerry nodded. “Agreed, and so we’ll call that option ‘prison’. Until we get to the bottom of what is on the USB stick and find a way to clear our names, being caught is a choice between death and prison. And you’re too pretty for prison.”

  Amy grinned at the half-joke.

  “Look, Amy, we need to have a plan. A plan for what we do in case we get split up,” Kerry said.

  Amy shook her head. “Don’t think like that.”

  “No, seriously, we have to. I’ve been thinking about what’s on that USB stick and why someone wants it so badly.”

  Amy rubbed her tired eyes. “It might be a recipe for sponge cake, it might be the nuclear launch codes... if such a thing even exists.”

  “Exactly. This is bigger than us. If there’s even a one percent chance that there is something on that USB stick that might harm someone, we have to do everything we can to get it to the right people. Whoever that may be.”

  “That’s phase two,” Amy said. “Phase one is to figure out what’s on it. Phase two is to decide what to do with it. If it’s an awesome sponge cake recipe, then I’m sending it to Woman Magazine to get a hundred quid.”

  Kerry chuckled. “Yeah, you do that, babe.” She reached into her pocket and pulled out the money they had taken from the ATM. She took half of it and gave it to Amy.

  Amy took it. She raised her eyebrow in surprise. “You never trust me with mon
ey.”

  “I’m trusting you with the nuclear launch codes.”

  “Or a really awesome sponge recipe.”

  “If you’re going to carry the USB then you should have some money, in case we do get split up.”

  Amy swallowed. The inference was clear: Kerry wanted her to carry on no matter what.

  “I won’t leave you,” Amy said.

  “You will. If I get caught, or something happens, I want you to take the USB and that money and carry on. I need to know that you’ll finish what we started. I’ll be able to deal with it all better if I know that you’re okay.”

  But I won’t be okay without you, Amy thought. She brushed her messy hair out of her face. She suddenly felt young, like they were back in high school and Kerry was telling her she could defeat the bullies alone.

  “I’m going to go back to ignoring you now,” Kerry announced. “Because I’m still pissed off with you for calling your mum.”

  Amy nodded in understanding.

  “I’m so—” Amy stopped at the glare Kerry sent her way.

  9

  Meeting The Parents

  Claudia rang the doorbell. She took a step back from the front door and looked at the house. Illuminated by the streetlamp, it was nice enough, though it could do with a lick of paint and some general upkeep. The street was the average suburban set-up, but Claudia had seen it all before, terrorism lurking behind respectability.

  It may have been close to eleven at night, but Claudia knew that for the occupant of the house, time stood still.

  The door opened. The elder woman looked at her wearily.

  “My name is Claudia McAllister, I’m investigati—”

  “Come in.”

  Claudia followed Amy’s mother into the house, closing the door behind her. On the telephone table by the door, she noticed a business card from the Stoneshire Police Force. She knew the local constabulary would have visited, she just hoped that they hadn’t completely destroyed her investigation. A lack of communication between MI5 and ground crews often meant that too much information was given to the suspect’s family.

  She walked into the living room.

  “I’m sorry for the late hour,” Claudia apologised.

  “I won’t sleep while my girl is out there, god knows where.” Amy’s mother sat in an armchair and anxiously played with the frayed arm.

  “Mrs Hewitt, I’m sorry to have to go over all of this again.” Claudia perched herself on the edge of a well-worn sofa.

  “Call me Julie, Mrs Hewitt was my mother. And I’ll tell you what I told the officers that came before you; my girl isn’t a terrorist.”

  “I’m afraid that I’ve heard that many times before.” Claudia pulled her phone out of her pocket. “May I record our conversation?”

  Julie shrugged.

  “Julie, I need your verbal permission.” Claudia wasn’t about to let a vital piece of information slip by because she hadn’t dotted the Is.

  “Yes, fine,” Julie said bitterly.

  Claudia activated the recording app and placed the phone on the coffee table in front of her.

  “Have you heard from Amy since she ran away?”

  Julie shook her head. “No.”

  Claudia knew a lie when she heard one. She also knew that she needed to get Julie to trust her if she was going to find out the truth.

  “We have evidence which suggests that Amy is in contact with a terrorist organisation. That is a very serious charge.”

  “And a completely ridiculous one. My Amy is kind and honest. She doesn’t have a mean bone in her body.” Julie reached into her cardigan sleeve to pull out a tissue and dab at her eyes.

  “In my experience—”

  “Are you a mother?” Julie’s eyes flashed with anger.

  Claudia bit her lip and shook her head. “No, I’m not.” She wanted to say that her lack of children gave her a perspective that a mother could never have. But she knew that would just antagonise the woman in front of her.

  “I know Amy better than anyone. We’re like best friends. If she was a terrorist, or had those kind of inclinations, I’d know about it. She’s a sweetheart, and she may sympathise with people, but she would never use violence. Never.”

  It was obvious that a change of tactic was required. Claudia realised that she would not reach Julie by appealing to her doubting nature. The bond between mother and daughter was just too strong.

  “Julie...” Claudia let out a soft sigh. “I’ll be honest with you; I am not the only person looking for Amy. But I am the only unarmed person looking for her.”

  Julie swallowed. Her eyes bore into Claudia’s with barely disguised panic.

  “Our information directly links Amy with terrorist activity. We must speak to her so we can find out the truth. I want to bring this to a non-violent conclusion. In fact, I promise you that if you help me to find her, I will protect her.”

  “She’s just a girl...” Julie’s voice was weakening with building emotion.

  On the table, Claudia’s phone started to ring and vibrate. She glanced at the screen to see it was Mark. She picked up the device and gestured towards the hallway. “May I?”

  Julie nodded. Her fingers grasped at the tissue, and Claudia hoped that a few moments to herself might encourage the woman to give up information.

  She walked into the hallway and answered the call quietly.

  “The car has been found abandoned,” Mark said without embellishment. “I’m sending you the location.”

  “Okay.” Claudia looked at the screen and clicked the link to the coordinates. Her map sprung to life, and she quickly analysed the location. While it was a residential street, it wasn’t that far from a railway station.

  She lifted the phone back to her ear. “They caught the train. It’s a local station, so it wouldn’t take them far. I’m guessing they are going to try to go to London.”

  “You think they’d take that risk?”

  “Yes, they are going to want to move quickly. They abandoned the car near a railway station for a reason, to get a train. Around here the trains don’t really go anywhere, other than London. See which mainline stations they could connect to from there and then use the facial recognition software on the CCTV feeds at the stations.”

  “Again, not entirely legal,” Mark told her.

  Claudia knew that every time they broke into the systems, they ran the risk of being caught. It was a risk worth taking in this case. “Without this lead, they could be anywhere,” she told him. “Oh, and don’t use the police photo fit that has been released. Use pictures from their social media accounts. They look nothing like those photo fits.”

  “No problem, I’ll get onto it now, and I’ll talk to you as soon as possible.”

  “Thanks, Mark.” Claudia hung up the call. She tapped the edge of the phone to her lip as she thought. It was usual for terrorists to use their considerable networks to move around the country. Catching a train was a risky move, hopefully one that would pay off for her.

  She took a closer look at a picture that hung on the wall. It was a sunny scene of Julie and Amy smiling, presumably while on holiday. It looked like it was a few years old. She cocked her head to the side and stared at Amy’s face, trying to get into her mind and figure out the girl’s next course of action.

  She took a breath and walked back into the living room. She placed the phone back on the table and continued recording.

  “Sorry about that.”

  “You’ve not found her?” Julie asked hesitantly.

  Claudia shook her head. “I’d not be here if we had.”

  “She was meant to be camping tonight,” Julie said. “If I close my eyes I can almost believe that she is there.”

  “Camping?” Claudia asked. Of course, the information had already been sent to her in the official pack, but there was nothing like information directly from the source.

  “Yes, they were camping tonight. Only in Kerry’s dad’s back garden, though. They were doing
a practice run for a camping trip they are organising for some younger kids. That’s why they had the bags with them, they weren’t planning on running away. It’s all just a big coincidence.” Julie chuckled and gestured to Claudia. “I suppose you don’t believe in coincidences?”

  “Not really, no,” Claudia admitted.

  “Well, it’s the truth.” Julie shifted in her seat and rubbed her forehead. “She’s never been in trouble before. She’s always been such a good girl.”

  “Is it just the two of you?” Claudia asked. She already knew the answer. As far as she could see, the house was littered with pictures of the two of them.

  “Yes. Amy’s dad died when she was little.”

  “I’m sorry for your loss,” Claudia said.

  “Don’t be. He was a monster. We’re all better off without him.”

  Claudia nodded and mentally ticked off that line of enquiry.

  “I bet this has something to do with that woman.” Julie shook her head angrily. “I thought she was trouble.”

  “Woman?” Claudia questioned, trying to keep the interest out of her tone. This certainly wasn’t in the information pack.

  “Cara whatshername.” Julie blew out a breath. She looked at the ceiling and shook her head. Despite the situation, Claudia couldn’t help but feel for her. Her entire life had been turned upside down in under twelve hours. But she also knew that stress eased the path to information, and she wasn’t above using that leverage.

  “Cara?” Claudia prompted.

  Julie turned to her with a frown. “Cara. She was a regular at Tom’s.”

  “The coffee shop?” Claudia clarified.

  “Yes, she came in every day. Amy was very taken with her.”

  “Taken how?”

  “She fancied her,” Julie said with a casualness that made Claudia ache for that kind of acceptance from her own mother. “Although she never mentioned her to me. Not until one day when she stopped turning up. Suddenly, Amy looked like the bottom had fallen out of her world. She’d never spoken of the woman before, but once she vanished it was Cara-this and Cara-that.”

  Claudia itched to point out Amy’s secretive behaviour could also be applied to terrorist activities but kept quiet. She needed Julie on her side, and pointing out flaws in her relationship with her beloved daughter was not the way to do it. Whomever this Cara was, she could be a link that the other hunters were unaware of.