Ben pulled into a space beside the track, next to a gap in the tree line. Harri stopped a short way back. The trees in the forest beside them were misshapen giants, and the shadows they cast were black and endless, havens in which nightmares lurked.
Harri shuddered as she watched Ben jump out of the Land Rover. He ran to the boot, opened the tailgate, and grabbed a black backpack that was hidden beneath the woolen blanket Harri had seen earlier. He jogged to the passenger door and pulled it open. Elliot struggled against the man, and Harri could hear the poor boy’s voice even at a distance.
“Let go of me! I don’t want to do this. I want to go home!”
“What do we do?” Sabih asked.
Ben dragged Elliot out of the car, and Harri felt her anger rise, not just at him, but at herself. How could she have been so wrong about this man? She switched on the full-beam headlights, and Ben froze in the dazzling glare. Elliot broke free of the man’s grasp and raced into the woods.
“Elliot!” Ben yelled, before giving chase.
“He’s a lunatic.” Sabih had said those words before, the night they’d encountered Alan Munro, and Harri saw something change in him. He needed to prove something to himself.
He jumped out of the car and sprinted after Ben. Harri followed, and they ran through the gap in the tree line and were soon in the forest. The moonlight was blocked by thick canopy, and only a few fingers of shimmering silver managed to reach the mossy ground. This was all they had to guide them through the woods. Sabih opened up a gap and Harri followed, dodging broken branches, jumping large logs, and scrambling over fallen trees. Leaves whipped at her face, and she heard Ben calling Elliot ahead, but there was no sign of the boy.
“Ben! Stop!” Sabih yelled.
Harri saw Ben, maybe thirty yards ahead. He turned and registered their presence but carried on running. Sabih leapt over a rotting tree trunk and sprinted on. Harri tried to follow, but her shoe got caught on a stump and she tumbled over the trunk and fell onto the moist earth on the other side. She landed heavily and tears filled her eyes, but she fought the pain, got to her feet, and ran on.
Sabih was up ahead, not far from Ben, who broke from the tree line and raced into a clearing. Sabih followed and Harri was a few yards back. As she reached the clearing, an open circle perhaps forty yards in diameter, Harri saw Sabih was about halfway across, but to her surprise, Ben, who was almost at the other side, stopped and turned to face her former partner.
“Don’t!” he yelled, but Sabih wasn’t listening.
He tackled Ben and knocked him to the ground. Harri picked up the pace as the two men rolled around exchanging wild blows. Ben’s backpack bore the brunt of many of Sabih’s punches, and Harri worried about what was inside. If there was any cobalt-60…
“Sabih!” she called out, but he didn’t hear her.
He was lost in the heat of the moment, but Harri was worried he was also acting out the past, using Ben to rewrite his history with Alan Munro.
Movement in the trees caught Harri’s attention, and she looked to her right and saw Elliot Asha crouched by the trunk of an ancient oak. His fingers were curled around calloused bark, and in the moonlight his face was as gray as a ghost’s. His eyes were on the fight, but when he sensed Harri watching him, his gaze shifted and met hers. He seemed sad beyond reckoning, and Harri couldn’t hold his stare. She looked back at the two men scrabbling in the dirt.
Sabih slapped Ben and managed to get on top of him. He drove a flurry of punches into Ben’s face, and Harri was taken aback by the ferocity of the blows and the look of furious determination on Sabih’s face.
“You stay down, you lunatic!” he yelled. “You don’t hurt people. You don’t do that!”
She’d seen Sabih take on suspects before, but this was different. He wasn’t an angry person, and it took a lot to tap into his rage, but there it was. She had little doubt now he was picturing Alan Munro as he fought Ben, but a few more of those punches would probably kill the man.
“Sabih!” Harri shouted. “Stop!”
He hesitated and glanced at Harri. His expression shifted and his fury subsided. He pushed himself up and stepped away from Ben, bewildered, as though suddenly waking from a nightmare.