I stayed where I was. The torch swung left to right, the owner little more than a swipe of black paint, the beam of light leaking a fraction of the way up their arms, across their coat and down to their legs. They were all in black, their coat tight-fitting, the silver zips at the pockets glinting. Shadows moved either side of them; doorways lit up and darkened.

It was definitely a man.

He stopped.

As soon as he did, I instantly sensed something was wrong, the movement so sudden and unexpected that it had to have been deliberate. And then – out of the very corner of my eye – I saw another blink of light. I turned, looking along the barn, into the dark. From here, there was no way I should have been able to see the cottage I was staying in, not only because it was too far away, but because I’d left all the lights off.

Except all the lights were on now.

Someone was inside the house.

This whole thing was a trap.

34

I had a second to register that the man was wearing something on his head – was it a beanie? – and then he killed the light.

Darkness.

Absolute darkness.

He’d wanted me to follow him.

Which meant he’d led me out here on purpose.

I stood there, sealed in by the night, my bones throbbing with every heartbeat. I didn’t try to walk, to run, to hide, wary of making a noise; instead, I took a fractional shift to my right and looked in the direction of the cottage again. Its windows were minuscule squares of yellow, perforations in an infinite wall of black. I couldn’t see anything inside. From here, I couldn’t even see a hint of the nearest town any more, or the glow from the main road.

It felt like I was adrift on an ocean.

And then I heard a sound.

It seemed so out of place among these fields and barns, alongside the dying hulks of old machinery, that I didn’t identify it for a moment. But then there was a follow-up sound, a smaller, almost identical noise – electronic, like equipment was being turned on – and I remembered seeing a beanie on the man’s head.

Except it hadn’t been a beanie, I realized that now.

It had been a set of night-vision goggles.

I stayed where I was – the panic like a fire – trying to come up with something: a plan, a move, a way out. He would be able to see me, but I wouldn’t be able to see him. I had no idea if this was all purely a distraction – a ploy to keep me out here while someone went through my things at the cottage – or if he was planning something much worse.