Chapter 12

‘Lydia! Lydia!' His urgent call sends adrenaline flooding through my system. Oh my God, have they found us?

I scramble out of the shelter and find him crouched on the floor beckoning me. What?

‘Come see this,' he says, his words insistent and fast.

I cross to him and get down on my knees to peer at the patch of ground.

‘Start scraping the soil away as if you've found something,' he says leaning forward to speak very quietly into my ear.

I have no idea what is going on but he's no fool, there must be some reason for his insistence, so I do as I'm told. He has that coiled spring tension about him, it's vibrating from him in waves. I scrabble in the dirt for a full minute and I'm aware of his watchfulness. Every bit of him is alert, as if he's ready to spring into action.

‘Keeping doing that.' He stands up and moves away, head down as if he's looking for something. Suddenly he grabs something and hurls it over my head. It's too high to hit me but what the… It does hit something, and that something comes crashing down nearby.

‘Got it,' says Tom with satisfaction.

I realise it's a drone and my stomach cramps in fear. I hadn't heard it over the sound of the rain and the rushing water.

‘They found us.' He grabs my hand and hauls me to my feet. ‘We've got to go.'

I pull away and run to the shelter, grabbing his rucksack and pushing it towards him, along with the sleeping bag.

‘Fuck's sake, we've got to go,' he shouts. ‘Leave the rucksack.'

‘No!' I shout back as I frantically wriggle into the straps and pull it onto my back.

‘Fuck's sake,' he repeats, but he copies me.

‘This way.' He yanks my arm and I follow as he leads me into the trees. We run under the low branches. The canopy above is thick. Clever Tom. If they have another drone can't see us in here. But they know where we are.

My heart is pounding so hard I can hardly catch my breath, but I keep running. Tom is holding my hand and pulling me along, guiding me around logs and tugging me over tree roots. I stumble multiple times but manage to stay upright. I don't even ask where we're going, he seems to know what he's doing. In a rare moment of insight, I realise I trust him. He will look after me. Despite my comments yesterday, he didn't leave me behind, he walked at my pace. And last night, hell, he definitely looked after me.

We come out of the trees onto a small, single-track lane, the houses of the village just ahead of us.

‘This way,' says Tom. And we run down the middle of the lane.

‘Is this … a … good … idea,' I pant. ‘More lik…ely to catch us … on road.'

‘They've got to get the drone first. That's eleven grand's worth of kit. They'll not leave it behind. But they'll come after us, as soon as they've picked it up. They could be anywhere up to eight kilometres away.'

‘What's that in real distance?' I manage to puff out.

‘Around five miles. I guess it depends on vehicle access and they'll want to be high up to fly it without too many obstructions.'

He looks at my puce face. I think I might be sick any second. I'm not a natural athlete and I've never run this far or for as long in my life. Amazing what adrenaline can do.

Thankfully, he slows the pace to a fast walk, although I'm still struggling to breathe.

‘H-how … can you be sure?'

‘Because they found us pretty easily … they knew where we were. I didn't spot the drone at first and then when I did, it was quite high up, that's why we didn't hear it.'

‘So you pretended there was something on the ground so that it would come lower.' Wow, that is smart thinking. ‘How did you even come up with that?'

‘They're trying to film a TV series. I just thought like the director.'

‘Obviously,' I say.

His mouth tugs at one corner. ‘It's what I … want to do. Make films. I've been making short films for a while. Come on, we need to pick up the pace again.' And then, contrarily, he stops dead.

‘What?'

‘They know where we are.'

‘Well duh!'

He looks up at the sky and I follow his gaze but there are no black specks in the sky. Just a couple of birds freewheeling on the thermals.

‘I wonder. How did they know where we were? They need footage to create drama. They can't leave it to chance, not if they're filming a pilot. They need to get it right.' He frowns, still talking to himself. ‘What would I do, to manage things?' He looks at me. ‘I think they might have put a tracker on us.'

‘That's… Really?' Isn't that cheating?'

He snorts out a laugh. ‘It's reality TV, anything is possible. They're only interested in making engaging TV programmes. Viewers want to see us hunted down, fleeing for our lives. That's where the drama comes in. But if they don't know where we are and we don't have any near misses, it's not much of a programme.' He pauses as if going through it all in his head.

‘They have to be tracking us somehow. How else did they find us so quickly?'

My skin crawls with the thought that there's a tracking device somewhere and they've known all night where we were. They could have been watching us the whole time.

‘Question is, where would they put it? They wouldn't want to risk us finding it or losing it or ditching it. And it would have to be something…' He looks at me again. ‘I've just had an idea. I wondered why they'd changed the teams at the last minute. As a team, you and Tansy would have made good eye candy.'

‘Is that a back-handed compliment?' I ask, but he ignores me.

‘What's the one thing you wouldn't leave behind?'

‘My rucksack,' I say without hesitation.

‘Bingo. And me and Rory brought our own. That's why they split us up. So that they could track you and Tansy, who are both using rucksacks they gave you.'

He spins me round and yanks my rucksack from my back.

‘Oy,' I protest but he's already running his fingers over the fabric. As I'm grateful for the rest, I leave him to it.

‘The sneaky bastards.' He points at a little silver rivet attached to the waterproof fabric and picks at it with his fingernails. ‘Bugger. It's not coming off anytime soon.'

I have a go but the innocent little disc is stuck fast. In the meantime, he's picked up a stone from beside the wall.

‘We can disable it,' he says and he's about to smash the rock down onto the tracker, when I yank the rucksack out of reach.

‘What!' he screeches.

After the mad panic of the morning my brain has decided to go back online.

‘I've got a better idea. I've got some scissors. I'll cut it off.'

I elbow him out of the way and dig into my rucksack and produce a pair of sharp tipped scissors.

‘Bloody hell, Lydia. I thought you meant a pair of nail scissors, not bloody shears.'

‘I've got those too,' I say flippantly, as I carefully cut around the tiny device. ‘What if we use them to send the hunters on a false trail? They bloody deserve it.'

He stares at me in stunned admiration. At least that's what I'd like to think it is. It could be bafflement.

‘What time is it?'

‘Just after eight.'

‘Come on,' I say, pocketing the tracker and feeling a spurt of happiness. I feel back in control instead of blindly having to follow Tom because all of this outdoor, countryside stuff is so alien. Turns out Swallows and Amazons hasn't equipped me as well as I might have hoped. ‘We need to get a move on. There's a bus in ten minutes.'

Now there is definite admiration on his face. I really rather like it.

We charge into the village heading straight for the bus stop and, miracle of miracles, the bus is on time.

I hop on and ask the driver, ‘Where's the next stop?'

He isn't fazed by the question, I guess he's used to tourists.

‘Clappersgate.'

‘Two singles to Clappersgate.' I hand over one of our precious tenners.

He huffs. ‘Got nothing smaller.'

‘Sorry, no.'

‘I haven't got change now. Usually walkers get on at next stop. They might have some change. Get theeselves on.'

We settle into seats in the middle of the bus where we can sink below the window out of sight. Both of us are glancing round as the bus idles. My hands are clenched tight in my pocket. We sit for an anxious minute. God, is this is a terrible mistake?

‘Come on, come on,' mutters Tom, his left leg jittering up and down. ‘Maybe we should have already ditched the trackers.'

‘Then they'd know we'd found them. This way if we leave them on the bus, they might go all the way to Kendal. Probably follow the bus before they realise we're not on board.'

‘Unless they catch us first,' says Tom through tightly clenched jaws. "We're sitting ducks right now. I think we should get off. Leave the trackers.'

‘No.' I need to rest but I can't bear to admit it to Tom. We haven't eaten this morning and the adrenaline crash is making me feel very shaky.

‘Lydia, don't be ridiculous. They could catch us at any minute. If we leave the tracker here, we can hide in the village and they'll follow the bus.'

I'm just about to agree when glory be, the bus engine fires up with a rumble, the windows rattling in their frames as we finally trundle out of the village at surprising speed.

We exchange looks.

‘We're not out of the woods yet, you know,' says Tom, still obviously annoyed with me. ‘They could still catch us.'

‘We managed a whole day yesterday,' I say, trying to be positive and take my mind off the thought of being caught.

‘Some of us are taking this seriously,' Tom snaps. ‘I want to win the hundred grand. Thanks to me, we got away this morning.'

‘You?'

‘Yes, you were fannying about worrying about sleeping bags and rucksacks.'

‘Which turned out to be a smart move because we found the tracker,' I snap back.

‘Which is still on us – so we're not home and dry just yet. They could catch up with us at any moment.'

God, he's such a fucking smart arse.

A few bends later and I'm wondering if the driver once had Formula 1 ambitions. He's throwing the bus about and I'm hanging on to the metal seat rail in front of us for grim death. I should have asked how far the stop was.

Tom's knuckles are white as he clenches the rail too, occasionally turning round and checking behind us.

It's more nerve-racking than I could have thought possible.

I look out of the windows again. Sweat is pooling between my shoulders and trickling down my back.

Suddenly the bus lurches to an abrupt halt.

‘Clappersgate.'

‘Thank fuck for that.' Tom pushes me down the front of the bus. ‘Hurry up.'

Jeez, he's cranky.

I realise there's no one at the stop and I pause by the driver digging in my pocket for my ten pound note. Tom digs me sharply in the ribs. ‘Your lucky day. Enjoy,' says the driver cheerfully and the doors open with a bang.

‘You don't want us to p?—'

Before I can finish Tom chips in, ‘Thanks, mate,' and hustles me off the bus. With a wave the driver closes the doors, rams the poor old bus into gear and it sways right out into the middle of the road before disappearing around the bend, taking our little friend with it.

‘That was a bit rude,' I say.

‘Fuck's sake Lydia. We need to get off the road,' he snarls.

I glare at him but he's already hurrying across the road. He turns. ‘Get a move on.'

I follow him, seething, as he ducks beneath a public footpath sign and climbs over a stile. He doesn't stop to wait for me. I only just make it over the wooden step and almost over balance. I catch my footing but he's already gone, walking at speed down a track sandwiched between two stone walls.

‘Bastard,' I mutter to myself and pick up my pace but there's no way I can keep up with Tom. Today my rucksack feels even heavier than it did yesterday, despite the fact we're down a groundsheet and a couple of cooking utensils, which were abandoned in our haste to leave our campsite.

Ahead of me, every now and then I can see the bus dipping in and out of view as it careers along with the same breakneck recklessness that got us here. I feel a slight fondness for the driver and his need for speed. Hopefully he'll lead our hunters all the way to Kendal and I'll be vindicated – not that I'll know, but it would be so nice to be able to say ‘Told you so' to Tom right now.