No Place Like Home

notices up. Private property – no right of way. Which admittedly was a bit of a stretch. You know there’s no law of trespass in Scotland? Only the area around one’s house is sacrosanct. People have a “right to roam” through these woods, but we were hoping to discourage it. Had the opposite effect, unfortunately.’
‘Great. So now the locals hate us.’
Andrew grimaced, reaching up to another bird.
‘But this is extreme, surely? An extreme reaction to a few notices? It seems like the kind of thing seriously disturbed people do before – well, let’s face it, before moving on to human targets.’
Andrew barked a laugh. ‘This isn’t the mean streets of London. You don’t get many murderers to the square mile up here. I think we’re safe enough.’ He looked down at the small pile of dead crows at his feet, then back at Bram. ‘Sorry. That was crass. I don’t imagine Kirsty sees things that way. How is she holding up, after Bertie being shot?’
‘Oh, she’s okay, thanks.’
Of course, everyone up here would know about Kirsty’s past, even relatively new arrivals like the Taylors. It was the kind of thing, he imagined, that was still talked about, still mulled over in the Inverluie Hotel bar, people putting forward their own pet theories, arguing, speculating.
‘Dreadful thing, what happened – back in the nineties, wasn’t it?’ said Andrew, cutting down another bird and tossing it onto the pile.
Bram wasn’t about to discuss this with Andrew. ‘Well, I’d better get back. I left–’
It all happened in a heartbeat.
A crashing and a whooping, and a figure moving, at pace, in the trees to Bram’s right.
Crack!
Thunk!
Crack thunk crack!
Something hit the tree right next to Bram.
‘Jesus, they’re shooting at us!’ Andrew dropped to the ground.
Bram just stood, frozen.
He could see him in glimpses through the trees, a figure in grey and black, running away. As Bram watched, he turned, just for a second, and Oh God! Some kind of monster? The contorted, hairy, grinning face of something not human –
A mask.
It was a mask.
And David’s voice was in his head: Are you a man or a mouse, Bram?
He fumbled for his phone, taking a few stumbling steps into the wood, his fingertips stabbing at the screen. By the time he’d brought up the camera function the bastard was almost gone.
Almost, but not quite.
He pointed and tapped, pointed and tapped.
Andrew was lying on the ground with his arms over his head. Whimpering. Bram sank to the path next to him, his legs suddenly unequal to the task of holding him up. Had that really happened? Had someone really just tried to kill them?
Police.
He needed to call the police.
He stabbed 999.
‘Police,’ he squawked at the operator. And then, when he was put through: ‘We’ve just been shot at. Someone in a mask with a gun. We’re in the woods, we don’t know if he’s going to come back or–’
‘Okay. What’s your location?’
‘Woodside. We’re in the wood at Woodside, it’s a new house, next to a house called Benlervie. Four miles outside Grantown-on-Spey. Postcode…’ His mind went blank. ‘Andrew, what’s the postcode?’
He set a hand on Andrew’s back.
Slowly, Andrew sat up. His hair was mussed and his expression fixed, confused, as if he’d just woken up. ‘They shot at us.’
‘What’s the postcode?’
Andrew blinked. ‘PH27 3TY.’
Bram repeated it into the phone.
‘And what’s your name?’
‘What the hell does that matter? Bram Hendriksen and Andrew Taylor. Please. Just get here. Someone’s trying to kill us!’
‘Can you get inside your property and lock the doors?’
‘No! We’re in the woods! To the west of the house? Andrew?’
‘North-west,’ Andrew muttered.
‘North-west of the house called Woodside!’
‘All right, Bram. Can you get under cover and stay there, until the armed response unit arrives? Leave the phone on but keep quiet.’
Because the bastard might come back to finish the job. He might come back. Or –
What he if was heading for the house?
Bram was up and running before he had completed the thought process.
Kirsty. Max. Phoebe.
The armed response unit, from what Bram could see by peeking round the edge of the curtain in the TV room, consisted of four guys in bulky uniforms, presumably bulletproof vests. They trotted in single file across the grass to the wood and disappeared into it.
‘I don’t believe this,’ Andrew kept saying. ‘I don’t believe it. And right after I’d said I thought we were safe from whoever’s been shooting the animals. Do you think they heard me? Do you think they were listening to our conversation?’
Bram grimaced. ‘Maybe.’
Andrew had called home and told Sylvia and the kids to stay inside. Now he was sitting slumped on the sofa, the mug of tea Bram had made him ignored on the side table. When Bram had taken off, Andrew must have run after him. When he’d reached Woodside, the first thing Bram had done, of course, was lock the door behind him, and Andrew had nearly given him a heart attack by pounding on it as Bram was heading upstairs to check on everyone.
They were all in the TV room now with the curtains closed. Kirsty was curled in one of the armchairs in her pyjamas, Phoebe squashed in beside her. Kirsty had hardly said a word when Bram had told her what had happened. She had just pulled him to her as if she never wanted to let him go.
They’d told Phoebe an edited version – that someone had been in the wood again, and some birds had been shot. But she was picking up on Kirsty’s distress, latching onto her mother like a little limpet.
Max was pacing, staring at the screen of his phone.
That reminded Bram. He pulled out his own phone. ‘I tried to get a photo, but… not much good for identification purposes.’ He frowned at the blurry image.
‘Can I see?’ asked Andrew.
Bram held out the phone, which showed the trees and, if you looked very carefully, a blurry arm in some sort of grey garment and a leg in black. Useless. ‘And that’s the best one. I think he