face, lank hair and the fear flowing from his trapped eyes gave him the look of some small, helpless animal. Harlan recognised him instantly, even though he no longer looked much like his picture in the newspaper. The boy was Jamie Sutton. The Prophet was sat on a deckchair in the centre of the cave, facing Jamie, his back to Harlan. His hands were clasped at his chin as if in prayer.
Harlan padded towards the Prophet. He raised a finger to his lips as Jamie’s eyes flicked at him. Ten feet. His heart hammered so loudly he was certain the Prophet must hear it. Five feet. A bead of sweat dripped from his chin and exploded on the floor. Gasping, the Prophet started to stand and turn. With the speed of a striking snake, Harlan sprang at him, wrapping an arm around his throat. With his other arm, he locked in the choke-hold. The Prophet rammed his head back against Harlan’s face, bringing a stream of blood from his nose. Tucking his head down, Harlan cranked his arm tighter against the Prophet’s Adam’s apple. His breath grating like sandpaper in his lungs, the Prophet staggered around, flinging ineffective elbows at Harlan. Finally, his arms dropped to his sides and his legs began to buckle. In a last-ditch attempt to dislodge Harlan, he flung himself backward. As Harlan slammed into the sandy floor, pain crackled up his spine and all his breath was driven from him. But still he clung on grimly, wrapping his legs around the Prophet’s midriff to prevent him from twisting free. The Prophet rolled onto his front, and exerting what strength remained in his powerful, thickset body, managed to rise to his hands and knees. Arms burning, Harlan squeezed and squeezed. Suddenly unconsciousness stole the Prophet’s resistance away. He collapsed. But Harlan continued to squeeze, driven on by the force of what was inside. It was only Ethan’s face flashing through his mind that stopped him from crushing the Prophet’s windpipe.
Breathing heavily, Harlan released his grip. The Prophet’s face was colourless, except for a bluish tinge to his lips. Harlan felt for a pulse and found one. He quickly turned his attention to the boy. As he reached for the shackle, Jamie flinched away from him. “It’s okay, Jamie,” Harlan reassured him. “I’m here to help you.” Jamie stiffened, trembling slightly, but remained motionless as Harlan examined the clasp. There were brownish-red, infected- looking sores where it had rubbed the skin off the boy’s ankle. It was secured with a padlock. “Where’s the key?”
Jamie pointed to the Prophet. Harlan stooped over him to search his pockets and found a bundle of keys in the first one he put his hand into. He tried them on the padlock until he found one that fitted. Jamie grimaced as Harlan removed the clasp. The instant he was free, he scuttled naked to a pile of dusty clothes in a corner and began pulling them on. His body was mottled with bruises, streaked with scratches, and crusted with excrement. His ribs and backbone were prominent from starvation, like a concentration camp victim.
Rage pushed up inside Harlan, almost choking him. He grabbed the Prophet’s wrists and dragged him to the mattress. The shackle didn’t fit around the Prophet’s meaty ankle, but Harlan squeezed until the metal clasp bit deep enough into his flesh that he could click the padlock shut. The Prophet stirred and groaned, but didn’t open his eyes.
Harlan turned to Jamie, who was crouched now by the cave’s entrance, tense as a rabbit near a wolf. Gently taking hold of the boy’s wrist, he guided him into the tunnel out of sight of the Prophet. “Listen, Jamie, before we can leave this place I need to ask you something. Have you seen anyone else down here other than that man in there and me?”
Jamie shook his head.
“Are you sure? This is very important. There may be another boy like you here somewhere.”
Jamie nodded. He pulled at Harlan’s arm, urging him onward. Harlan shook his head, prising Jamie’s hands away. He jerked his chin at the cave. “I need you to wait here while I talk to him.”
Eyes like full moons, Jamie shook his head again more vehemently. His lips quivered, but no words came. He seemed to have been struck mute by the trauma of his experiences.
Harlan gave him a steady, reassuring look. “Don’t worry. You’re safe now. I’m not going to let anything happen to you, I promise. Do you believe me?”
Jamie didn’t nod — his trust in adults had been destroyed too completely for that — but he stopped shaking his head.
Harlan handed Jamie his torch, then returned to the cave. The Prophet’s colour had improved, but he still hadn’t regained consciousness. Taking out his knife, Harlan crouched to slap him. “Wake up!” The Prophet’s eyelids flickered. Harlan hit him again hard enough to split his lip. As the Prophet’s eyes popped wide, Harlan pressed the knife against his throat. “Where’s Ethan Reed?”
“Wha…Who?” the Prophet said, groggily.
“Don’t give me that. You know who the fuck I’m talking-” Harlan broke off as, out of the side of his eye, he glimpsed the Prophet pulling something out of his jacket pocket — something that caught the light with a glimmer. He moved his arm to block the Prophet’s thrust, but he wasn’t fast enough. He felt the knife blade grind against his hipbone as it went in. There was an intense sensation of pressure, more like he’d been hit with a hammer than stabbed. He slashed at the Prophet’s hand, opening a bone-deep gash across the back of it. The Prophet jerked the blade free and made another thrust. It bit nothing more substantial than air, as Harlan flung himself sideways. Scrambling upright, the Prophet lurched after Harlan, but the chain whipped his foot from under him. Nostrils flaring like an enraged bull, he sprang back upright and stood at the full extent of the chain, knife held ready to strike.
Harlan faced him, teeth gritted, hand clutched to his side. He could feel blood seeping warmly through his clothes. A dull throbbing ache was spreading outwards from the wound. He looked at the Prophet’s knife. It had a tide-mark about halfway up its five or six inch blade. Deep enough to have pierced internal organs. Why the fuck didn’t you search all his pockets? he thought with bitter self-contempt. How could you make such a fucking rookie mistake? The pain was fast intensifying, growing hotter. Soon, experience told him, it would feel like boiling fat was being pumped into the wound. He’d been stabbed once before back when he was a uniformed copper, just a flesh wound, but the pain had quickly become almost unbearable, making him shake uncontrollably. He knew he had to move fast, try and make it back to his car before that stage of shock overtook him. But his desperate desire to find out where Ethan was held him in place. He glanced around for something he could use to knock the knife out of the Prophet’s hand. His gaze fixed on the deckchair. Wincing, he picked it up.
“Come on then!” snarled the Prophet, echoing Robert Reed’s last words.
When Harlan heard that, he knew. If he attempted to tackle the Prophet, one of them was going to die. Either way, that wouldn’t help Ethan. But if it was himself, the Prophet might have time to break free and recapture Jamie. No matter what, he couldn’t allow that to happen. Better to call in the police, let them deal with him. Besides, the Prophet was already facing life in prison. So, unlike Jones, he had nothing to gain by hiding the truth.
Holding the chair up like a shield, in case the Prophet threw the knife at him, Harlan backed out of the cave. Once he was inside the tunnel, he dropped the chair, and limped to the boy. It felt like there was a nail lodged in the wound, pushing deeper into his hipbone with every step. A look of relief came into Jamie’s eyes when he saw Harlan. But the anxiety returned to them as Harlan pulled up his sweatshirt. The wound was about two inches long, its clean edges yawning apart to a width of about half an inch. Dark red blood seeped steadily from it. Already his left trouser leg was soaked down to the knee. He pulled off his sweatshirt and cut it into two strips. One he folded into a thick pad and pressed against the wound. The other he tied tightly over the pad.
“Let’s get the hell out of here,” Harlan said to Jamie, taking back the torch.
Moving as fast as he could bear to, Harlan made his way back along the tunnel. When he came to the T- junction, he paused, shining his torch into the left-hand tunnel. “Ethan!” he shouted. His voice echoed back at him, but there was no other response. Still, he hesitated to continue, wondering if he had the strength to check out the tunnel. The tremors in his legs and the waves of dizziness crashing over him told him he didn’t. Jamie tugged at his hand, urging him to take the tunnel that led to the first cave. Heaving a painful sigh, Harlan allowed himself to be pulled along. Clearly knowing the way out, Jamie moved ahead of Harlan, pausing every few paces to glance back, his eyes shining like saucers in the torchlight. Harlan’s left leg dragged ever more heavily. Several times he staggered and almost fell. But when they reached the cave, and his nostrils caught the stench of the corpse, some hidden reserve of strength welled up inside him. Picking up his pace, he waved Jamie onwards. Beyond the cave, a cool draught of night air blew in from the tunnel’s entrance, soothing his feverishly hot face. He gulped down lungfuls of it.
When they reached the hole, Jamie scrambled out of it as if the Devil was nipping at his heels. Harlan dragged himself up after him and grasped the trapdoor. As he strained to lift it, pain exploded like a grenade in his hip. His grip on the metal sheet started to slip, but Jamie rushed forward to help. Between them, they managed to flip it shut. Harlan locked the padlock and fell breathless on the ground. He lay on his back, shivering like grass in
