Clouds lingered over the moon, wispy and faint, as though smudged by a heavenly hand. Harri followed the lane from the main road and drove through the patchwork landscape. To her right the high ridge of Hen Cloud and beyond it the massed cliffs of the Roaches. To her left, the silver shimmer of Tittesworth Reservoir.
She and Sabih had chewed over the investigation but had fallen silent once she’d turned off the main road, as though even from six miles away their voices might alert Ben to their presence.
Harri switched off the headlights as they rounded the last bend before Longhaven, and she coasted to a halt in a turnout about a quarter of a mile from the cottage.
“Ready?” she asked.
Sabih nodded, and the two of them got out. A dog barked in the distance, and a small creature shrieked a death cry from somewhere on the ridge. Harri shivered at the cool wind that touched her neck. She zipped up her black bomber jacket and thrust her hands into the pockets of her matching black jeans. Sabih was also clad all in black. They’d clearly had the same idea about being stealthy. He fell in beside her, and they walked swiftly towards the Ashas’ cottage.
Harri glanced at her former partner and saw a familiar look of anticipation. She missed this, but unless she found the man who filmed her chasing Alan Munro, she had to accept there was no way she was ever getting her job back.
They were about to start up the drive, when the front door opened. Harri grabbed Sabih and pulled him down, and they took cover behind the drystone wall that marked the edge of the garden.
“What?” Sabih whispered.
Harri signaled him to look, and they peered over the top of the wall. She saw Ben dragging Elliot out of the house and was suddenly aware of how loud everything was—her breathing, the crunching of loose stone underfoot, the pounding of her heart. She prayed Ben wouldn’t hear, but she needn’t have worried. He was too focused on the reluctant boy.
“I don’t want to go,” Elliot protested.
“You don’t have a choice,” Ben told him. “Everything has its time and this is yours. You can’t fight it. I told you one day you’d have to leave.”
“Please,” Elliot said pathetically. “I don’t want to go. This is my home.”
Harri looked at Sabih with concern. Where could this strange man be taking this child at such a late hour? Why was he talking about leaving?
“Come on,” Ben commanded. “Get in the car.”
He badgered Elliot into the passenger seat before running around the car to get behind the wheel. The engine growled, the wheels spat up stones, and soon the red lights tore down the lane, speeding away from the cottage.
“Come on,” Harri said, and she and Sabih sprinted to her car.
A couple of minutes later, she was pushing the little hatchback to its limits. She raced along the winding road, and Sabih held the handgrip and gasped at every violent turn. The Golf lurched around the bends, rocking onto two wheels in places, as Harri tried to close the gap.
When they reached the junction with the main road, Harri scanned left and right, before spotting a set of taillights heading east. She pulled onto the main road, turning towards Buxton, and followed what she hoped was the Land Rover.
As Harri accelerated, Sabih took his phone from his pocket and placed a call.
“What are you doing?” Harri asked.
“What we should have done the moment we saw him acting like that with the kid,” Sabih replied. “Checking someone’s car is one thing. This is something else. That child might be in danger.”
He was right. Harri had thought about intervening at the cottage, but she’d been caught by surprise. And could they charge him for harsh words spoken to a child? Her instincts told her this was beyond harsh words, and a nagging dark feeling in the pit of her stomach signaled something bad was about to happen.
“Yeah, who is this?” Sabih said into his phone. “Julia? It’s Sabih Khan. I’m in pursuit of a suspect. Benjamin Elmys. We’re on the A4015, heading towards Buxton. I need backup and a wagon.”
He paused.
“Hold on,” he said.
A hundred yards ahead, the taillights glowed an angry red, and the vehicle slowed, before turning left onto an overgrown track. As it made the turn, Harri saw the unmistakable Land Rover silhouette before it vanished into the trees.
“He’s heading north, towards Lud’s Church,” Sabih said. “Pinpoint my phone. Powell should have access. Okay. Thanks.”
Sabih hung up as Harri turned onto the overgrown track. She killed her headlights and relied on the overcast moon to show her the way.
If Ben had spotted them, he gave no indication. He sped through the brambles and branches that reached across the track, and the Land Rover bounced around violently as it shuddered over the potholes that marred the surface.
Sabih fiddled with his phone, texting Powell and others. They’d send a couple of blues from Leek, which would take ten or fifteen minutes. She and Sabih just had to make sure nothing bad happened to the child before then.