but trust me okay? We’ll be quickly through it.’
Jenny looked at him.
‘I’m knackered, okay?’ he smiled apologetically, ‘I just want to hit some flat, sturdy road as quickly as possible. Just half a mile through this and we’re back to civilisation.’
She looked up at the trees, and the orange sun, bleeding through the leaves at the top, and the shadows lengthening across the field they had just crossed in long forbidding purple strips.
‘The longer we leave it, the darker it’ll get in there.’
‘All right,’ she said unhappily, ‘let’s go through as quickly as we can, okay?’
He smiled, ‘Of course.’
He led the way, stooping through a barbed wire fence. He held the wire up for her as she doubled down and squeezed through the gap. Her blouse caught on the back, somewhere between her shoulder blades.
‘Ouch,’ she whimpered.
‘I’ve got it,’ said Paul, unhooking her deftly.
‘Thanks,’ she muttered.
The ground was overgrown with nettles and brambles, and fallen branches, all apparently competing to snag her skirt, scratch her calves or sting her ankles.
They made very slow progress. Half a mile began to seem like a lot more than she remembered it being. They spent almost as much time fighting through the undergrowth as they did traversing any noticeable distance.
Paul stopped. ‘I need a rest. How about you?’
I’d rather get the hell out of here.
‘No, I’m good,’ she replied.
He sat down on a log anyway. ‘Sorry, need to just catch my breath. We’ve been walking for hours.’
‘Okay.’ She looked around for somewhere else to sit - there was nowhere, so she squatted down against the base of a tree.
They sat in silence for a couple of minutes, he scowling down at his palm pilot, she trying her phone again and again. She was getting a signal, but the service was giving her that damned message. The mobile networks had to be overloaded with anxious people trying to get in touch with loved ones.
It was Paul that broke the silence. ‘So, crazy fucking day or what, eh?’
She nodded. It was that all right.
‘I can’t believe that traffic policeman shot a guy dead,’ he said, shaking his head.
‘No, neither can I.’
‘You just don’t expect that kind of thing, you know, here in good ol’ Britain.’
‘No . . . I suppose not.’
He turned his palm pilot off. ‘I can’t get the GPS signal in here. And the charge is running down.’
Jenny looked up at him urgently. ‘We’re not lost are we?’
He grinned. ‘Nope, I know where we are. Don’t need it now. Like I say, it’s just a little way through the woods, and then we’re right on the M6 again.’
‘Oh, thank God for that. I don’t think I could cope being stuck in here after dark.’
‘You ever camped out in a wood at night?’
‘Never. I don’t ever plan to either.’
‘I did a paintball weekend with my work mates last year. Night-time sessions with those cool night sights and everything. Very hardcore, very intense. As much fun as you can possibly have in a wood at night.’
Jenny nodded unenthusiastically.
‘So, did you say you got kids or something?’ he asked.
She nodded. ‘They’re at home in London, on their own. I just want to get back to them as quickly as possible.’
‘No dad to look after them then?’
Why is he fishing for details?
Jenny felt uncomfortable with that, stuck out here, alone with him. She sure as hell wasn’t going to tell this guy that she had recently split from her husband of eighteen years. He’d probably take that as some sort of encouragement.
That’s not fair. Has he given you any reason to think of him like that?
She looked at him - he hadn’t.
To be honest, there were many other blokes she’d worked alongside in the past, whom she would not trust for a moment in a situation like this. This guy, Paul, so far had kept his eyes, his hands and any sexually charged innuendoes to himself. He’d shown his little gadget more interest than her.
But you never know, do you?
Oh come on, she countered herself, if he was that kind of bloke, right here . . . right now would be the moment he’d start getting just a little bit too familiar, probing the lay of the land, so to speak and . . . and asking questions like ‘no dad to look after them’, perhaps?
Maybe he’s just making conversation?
Yeah? And maybe the next thing he’ll ask is, ‘you got a fella out there worried about you?’, or how about, ‘you’re looking a bit cold, it is getting