Rae

The drive back to Bedfordshire was silent. Sprig sat between me and Cash in the front, stoically staring ahead, while I flicked between gazing morosely out of the window and stealing glances at Cash’s solemn profile.

I’d known the moment it had dawned on him that we’d lost a fox. All day he’d been riled up, full of fire, but the light in him had faded in the blink of an eye. In all of us probably, but I’d found myself unable to look away from Cash, even when he’d turned his back on me.

Sprig had followed him outside and filled him in on what he’d missed. The vixen had escaped, but the terrier men had released a second animal—a juvenile—from a cage as a consolation prize. I’d wondered if Sprig would spare him the gory details, but a moment later, Cash’s fist had connected with the weathered wooden doorframe, splintering it.

We’d left soon after. His explosion of temper had stuck with me, though. Shadows had always lurked behind Cash’s gorgeous gaze, but they seemed to grow darker with every day that passed. As if purging his secrets to me had irrevocably opened old wounds. Had I done this to him? Recruiting him back to sabbing had been a no brainer—we’d needed him as much as he couldn’t let the life go—but the sense that I’d poured petrol on a smouldering fire wouldn’t quit.

I wanted to comfort him. To hustle him home, light a fire, and mourn what we’d lost today together, as lovers…friends, whatever. But when we reached camp, Cash jumped ship and disappeared. When he didn’t come back, it was clear he’d gone home.

Depressed, I handed my gear back to Meg, then retreated to the van, crawling into the back and into my makeshift bed. I stuck a flash drive into the TV and Breaking Bad illuminated my makeshift bedroom. The volume was low, and I left it that way. After a day of chaos, I wasn’t in the mood for noise.

Despite my best efforts to avoid it, the day replayed in my head. My team had been lucky, our efforts to save the vixen had paid off. Sprig and his partner hadn’t been so fortunate. They’d evaded the quad bikes only to witness the worst of the carnage. Selfishly, I was glad it hadn’t been me. Or Cash. Though I had no idea how his day had panned out. We’d left Buckinghamshire without a debrief, and he hadn’t stuck around to rectify that.

I poked at my phone, considering calling him, but didn’t quite have the nerve. What would I say? “Sorry losing the fox upset you. What else did you see today to fuck you up?” Right. Like I hadn’t messed with his head enough.

Sighing, I tossed my phone aside and sank into the bed he’d built me. My stomach growled painfully, but I didn’t get up to fetch dinner, even when the scent of cooking reached me. I was halfway to restless sleep when Fletch slid the van door open.

“Supper.” He thrust a bowl at me. “And don’t get sulky about it. No good comes from your guts thinking your throat’s been cut.”

Fletch was one of those people who could throw two onions and a tin of beans into a pot and come back with magic, but even his special soup wasn’t enough to draw me out of my funk.

I took the bowl from him and set it on the side. “Thanks. I’ll eat it later.”

Fletch looked as though he might argue, then thought better of it. He leaned in the doorway, just about shielding me from the cold wind. “I just spoke to old Fred from the Bucks lot. We need to sit down and coordinate things a bit better with them.”

“Coordinate? How about they keep a better watch on what’s going down on their land?”

It came out harsher than I’d intended.

“Easy.” Fletch spread his hands. “They don’t have a permanent crew like we have. Most of them work full-time on top of what they do, they ain’t got time to be stalking country manors. Besides, we didn’t notice Goon sneaking off in the first place. Things are what they are.”

He was right, and I knew it, but resentment grumbled in me all the same. When things went wrong, assigning blame was easier than facing up to the loss of another animal.

Fletch cleared his throat. “Did you get anything to hand to the RSPCA?”

I shuddered. “Not personally. Sprig’s partner—a Bucks guy—picked the fox up. They were going to drop it off for testing in the morning.”

“Well that’s something.”

“Is it?”

“Yes. If we can prove how the animal died we’re further forward than we were before.”

I wanted to protest. To argue that it didn’t matter how many times we proved that foxes were being chased down and killed by hunters with dogs, no one gave a fuck. But I was tired. And beaten. I just wanted to sleep.

“There’s something else I want to talk to you about,” Fletch said.

I groaned and flopped back on my bed. “Can it wait? I’m not blogging until the morning and I’m fucking knackered.”

“Understandable, but I was hoping you’d check in with Cash before you call it a night. He looked upset when he left, and you two seem to get on well.”

Get on well. Was that what we were calling it these days? As if I didn’t know the whole camp knew me and Cash had been fucking. “He was upset, we all were, but I don’t think he wants to talk to me about it.”

Fletch sighed. “Fair enough, but someone needs to buddy up with him. I heard he pulled Goon from his horse and squared up to him. Took a few hits from the crop. Maybe you’re right and it shouldn’t be you—you sound like peas in a pod—but someone needs to run with him. Keep him in check if he’s prone to lash out. I got no qualms giving Goon a hiding, but we all know we’re never that lucky, and I don’t want no one getting hurt.”

Wishful thinking. Getting hurt was part of the life, but I was with Fletch on this one. Cash had been angry today, and fury like that was dangerous in the field if it wasn’t channelled properly. He’d been hurt already by the Goon squad. I couldn’t handle it happening again.

Fletch left. The door thunked closed behind him and seemed to bring with it more doubt and worry. Misery was par for the course after a bad day at the office, but I’d never felt so helpless. My heart ached to reach out to Cash. I sat up and retrieved my phone. A message lit up the screen.

Unknown: We can meet

***

I’d become the king of bad ideas. Some weirdo had somehow got my number, and the lunatic buried deep inside me was active enough to engage them. For a week we messaged back and forth, and I couldn’t deny it kept my mind off texting Cash.

Unknown: I can help

Rae: With what?

Unknown: Taking down the hunt

Rae: ???

There was no reply for a while. I had a to-do list a mile long, but I abandoned it in favour of taking my phone to Fletch and Meg and fessing up.

“This is fucked-up.” I said. “I’ve only had this number a month or so. How would anyone off-camp know it was connected to sabbing?”

Phone technology was beyond Fletch. He backed off to scrub his cooking pot, leaving Meg to deal with me. She handed me a mug of hot chocolate and beckoned me to sit on the couch she’d fashioned out of pallets and cushions.

“Start from the beginning,” she said. “I can’t make head or tail of you when you rant at me.”

“I’m not ranting,” I snapped, then checked myself. “Sorry.” I tried again. “I’m just pissed off. These numbers are supposed to be safe. Where did we get the last bunch of SIM cards?”

“One-Stop in Amersham.”

I raised an eyebrow. “But we bought SIMs from there a few months back. I thought we rotated throughout the year?”

“We do, but Drey forgot and we thought it best to make use of the ones we had.”

“Meg, they cost a quid each. Junk them and buy new ones.”

“When?” Meg protested. “And how? I don’t have a car anymore and you’re the only one insured to drive Cash’s van.”

“What’s wrong with the bus—?” I shook my head to clear it. “Whatever. Doesn’t matter now. One way or another, this number is compromised.”

Meg took the phone from me and scanned the message thread. “Do you use the phone for your blog?”

“Only to toggle the data. You think someone’s hacked into my blog and grabbed this number somehow? Is that even possible?”

“I have no idea,” Meg said. “But the alternative is that someone told the Amersham shop owner to look out for us and sell us a certain handful of SIM cards, and that seems a little far fetched. This isn’t The Wire.”

She was trying for humour, but it was lost on me. It all seemed fucking far-fetched, but what did we know? None of us were cyber experts. We just knew that whichever way we turned, someone was out to get us.

“The next question is,” Meg went on when I didn’t speak. “Is who’s on the other end? If it was genuinely someone who wanted to join us, there’s easier ways of contacting you.”

“Unless it’s someone with a lot to lose if they get caught associating with us.”

Meg nodded. “That could be it. It wouldn’t be the first time someone has approached us from the inside.”

“You mean from inside the hunt?”

She shrugged. “Why not? Perhaps they’ve seen something they can’t live with. They can’t all be as bad as Goon.”

I didn’t believe it. How could anyone who got out of bed on a Saturday morning to destroy living creatures possibly have a conscience? But Meg was a bigger person than me, so I let the theory pass. “What if—?”

For some reason, I couldn’t finish the sentence. I opened my mouth. Shut it again.

Meg raised an eyebrow, and understanding dawned on her face. “You’re wondering if it’s police trying to infiltrate us?”

“Do you think it could be?”

“Absolutely. It’s worked for them before…up north. They shut a whole unit down by romantically involving an agent with an activist.”

She knows.

Motherfuckers.

I’d always wondered how much she and Fletch knew about Cash. “You think this is like that? Someone’s trying to hit me up, thinking I’m some sad little queer who can’t get laid?”

It was my turn to bodge a joke that apparently wasn’t funny. Meg frowned. “We don’t know it’s a man, or that they’re trying to…um, woo you. They could be luring you out for a meet to arrest you. Or kidnap you if it’s Goon’s lot.”

“Why, though? When they could just lift me in the field?”

Meg had no answers, and despite having none of my own to offer, I was irrationally pissed off with her for it. I stomped back to the van, but my bed didn’t seem as welcoming. Wired, I sat in the open door and chain-smoked, glaring moodily out over the camp. Most of my colleagues had gathered at Fletch and Meg’s trailer for a drink, but Sprig was sulking outside his own tent, too. Fuck knew where Drey was.

I took a deep drag of my last cigarette. Drey. I didn’t know the dude that well. He was an old friend of Fletch’s and seemed to come and go with the weather. I’d never doubted him, but he’d bought the compromised SIM card. And he wasn’t here now. What if he was the weak link? The betrayal? He’d been around longer than me, so it didn’t make sense, but nothing did right now. Someone was after me. Was it a stranger? Or a wolf in sheep’s clothes? A friend with a knife ready to stick in my back?

My mum always said I was dramatic. Nosy, and like a dog with a bone when my curiosity was piqued. Years later, university lecturers had said those qualities would make me a hell of an investigative journalist. It was funny how life turned out.

And how it didn’t.

I stared at the short message thread between me and the would-be interloper. Flicked back and forth between that and the text conversations I’d shared with Cash. Both made my heart beat too fast, but for very different reasons, none of which I was in the mood to deal with right now.

With a heavy sigh, I stubbed my smoke out. I was about to retreat to my bed when Fletch morphed out of the shadows.

He held out his weathered hand. “Show me them messages again.”