‘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?’
