Isolated. M. A. Hunter

stopping and pointing the light into Natalie’s eyes; a single tear rolled the length of Natalie’s cheek, before dropping from her chin.

      Natalie snatched the torch and pointed it down towards her foot. Jane gasped as the beam highlighted the thin stake protruding from Natalie’s calf, the tip of it red as blood.

      ‘Oh, Jesus!’ the normally silent Jane exclaimed.

      ‘Oh, bloody brilliant!’ Louise echoed. ‘Look what you’ve gone and done to yourself now, Natalie. Well done!’

      Natalie didn’t take well to the sarcastic tone, but was in too much pain and panic to retort. ‘I think I should go to the doctor.’

      ‘No,’ Louise snapped. ‘If you do that, you’ll have to explain how it happened, and then they’ll want to know exactly what we were all doing here in the woods when everybody else is in bed. No, Natalie. Just pull it out, and clean it up when you get home.’

      ‘I can barely walk, Louise.’

      ‘That’s because it’s still in there so your leg can’t begin to heal. Pull it out and everything will be better.’

      ‘But there might be splinters left inside. It could get infected.’

      ‘Don’t be such a wet blouse, Natalie. It’ll be fine. Come on, we don’t have long. You don’t want your parents to find out you snuck out after they’d gone to bed, do you?’

      Natalie could easily imagine how angry her dad would get if he even suspected she’d snuck out. ‘No, of course I don’t.’

      ‘Well then, what are you going to do?’ Louise sighed, and her tone was more empathetic when she spoke next. ‘Listen, I’m sure it does hurt, but we can’t stay here and wait until it gets light. Why don’t you pull it out now, then me and Jane can help you get back to the fence, and we can all sneak back through and into our homes. Then, in the morning when we’re walking to school, we can pretend like you’ve done it then and get the nurse at school to look at it.’ She paused and checked her watch. ‘It’s nearly 2am, which means we’ll be at school in less than seven hours. Right? Surely it won’t get infected in seven hours?’

      Natalie had to admit there was some logic in Louise’s argument, and she knew that if she didn’t agree there was a chance Louise and Jane would just leave her here in the woods to hobble home alone.

      ‘Okay, okay,’ she puffed, the winding she’d sustained finally easing. ‘Shine the torch at it, will you?’

      Louise obliged, and as Natalie reached down to the jagged shard, the second she touched it a burning sensation shot up the length of her leg.

      ‘I can’t do it,’ Natalie admitted in defeat. ‘One of you is going to have to pull it out. Please?’

      Louise leaned down and studied the bloody branch before declaring, ‘Jane, you pull it out.’

      ‘What?’ Jane pleaded. ‘Why me?’

      ‘Because I’m holding the torch, obviously,’ Louise argued, though it was clear to both of her friends that Louise was as freaked out about the blood as the rest of them.

      Not one to cause a fuss, Jane crouched down, coiled her hand around the shard and yanked it out without even warning Natalie.

      Natalie yelped in agony, unable to hold back her tears any longer as Jane lifted up the shard of wood, no longer than a cigarette. Up close it didn’t look like it could have caused so much pain.

      Looping Natalie’s arms over their shoulders, the two girls supported their friend back to the main path and ten minutes later they emerged from the all-enveloping forest, back at the perimeter fence through which they’d crawled an hour earlier.

      ‘We’ll have to be quick,’ Louise warned. ‘The security guards will be due to complete their hourly perimeter check soon. Jane, you go through first. Then it’s back to our homes, into bed, and then we never speak of this night again.’

      ‘Wait,’ Natalie challenged, propping herself against the fence to take the weight off her bloody limb. ‘What about Sally?’

      Louise’s eyes grew dark as she lashed out and slapped Natalie hard across the face, almost sending her tumbling back to the ground. ‘Sally was never here. Is that clear? We must all swear a pact – here and now – that we were never in these woods tonight. So long as we sneak back into our homes, nobody will be any the wiser.’

      ‘But Sal—’ Natalie began to say, before Louise’s raised hand cut her off.

      ‘She was never here.’

      Chapter Two

      Now

       Chalfont St Giles, Buckinghamshire

      Jack races around to his side of the car and jumps in, with me following suit. ‘If we’re lucky we can be in Staffordshire before visiting hours finish at half four. I’ve got your name down on the list and Turgood knows you’re coming… Are you sure you want to meet him?’

      Ordinarily, nothing would appal me more than coming face to face with the monster who oversaw a ring of abuse that lasted years in the former St Francis Home for Wayward Boys, but after Jack’s revelation minutes earlier, nobody is going to stop me from confronting him today.

      ‘I’m sure,’ I tell him, offering what I hope is a reassuring nod.

      He stares at my trembling hands as I struggle to engage the seatbelt in its buckle and eventually I feel his warm hands on mine as he helps. I look into his face and see nothing but concern etched across those dark eyes. I nod again, more firmly this time, and he starts the engine.

      ‘You were looking for me,’ Jack says. ‘Earlier, I mean. When I arrived at the house, you said you needed to speak to me.’

      I stare at him blankly, racking my brain for whatever that could have been about. The revelation that Jack has found my sister’s face in pornographic material discovered on Arthur Turgood’s hard drive has rather ripped the rug from beneath my feet. I try to recall what I was doing in the immediate past before Jack showed up at Fitzhume’s country manor.

      As Jack races down the long gravel driveway, I catch a glimpse of a man in a dishevelled tuxedo stumbling along the road just beyond the gates and immediately recognise Richard Hilliard, the father of young Cassie, whose return was the reason for today’s gathering. I recall the slanging match between Richard and Fitzhume that I observed from the upstairs window of the manor and my subsequent encounter with Fitzhume slaps me between the eyes.

       So you admit you were the one who set all this up? You put your granddaughter’s life at risk in order to force Richard out of your family?

      ‘Fitzhume is responsible for Cassie Hilliard’s abduction,’ I blurt out like some paranoid Twitter user.

      Jack glances through the windscreen at Richard as we move past him. ‘I’m listening.’

      I take a deep breath to try and steady my rapidly rising pulse. ‘It all makes sense, don’t you see? Leroy Denton told us that the group had some rich backer who was calling the shots but he didn’t know who that was. I bet if you ask Hank Amos whether he reached out to Lord Fitzhume and demanded more money, I bet he’ll admit he did. That’s what set these wheels in motion. That’s why Fitzhume came to me now, not because it happened to be the anniversary of Cassie’s abduction, but because he didn’t want to pay a second ransom.’

      Jack doesn’t look convinced by my argument but switches off the car stereo so he can give me what’s left of his attention. ‘Amos said he didn’t know who the rich backer was either. Do you have anything evidential to support your theory? What makes you so certain?’

       Her life should never have been in any danger. They were paid enough to take good care of her.

      ‘Fitzhume