But Jane and Tara found no such campsite.
They’d walked in what they were certain was the right direction for a good hundred yards, increasingly tired and irate again. And still the unlit reaches of fog extended on all sides of them. The whistling persisted somewhere ahead, but how far ahead they had no clue. And now, very abruptly, it ceased. Despite their own heavy breathing, the silence was ear-ringing.
‘Hello!’ Jane shouted again, with more than a touch of her normal petulance. ‘Newsflash … there are people lost out here!’
They waited but there was no response.
‘Come on, mate! You must have heard us by now!’
The whistling recommenced somewhere behind them. Strangers in the Night again. But now at a slower pace – deliberately slower, for effect.
‘Is this guy taking the piss, or what?’ Jane said, glancing backward.
‘It must be the acoustics,’ Tara replied. ‘This landscape’s really weird like that. I’ve heard stories about people hearing voices that have come from miles away.’
‘Great, Tara. That’s all I needed to know.’
‘But listen …’
‘Now what?’
‘It’s moving.’
The whistling continued – very clear, very precise, a slow and highly tuneful rendition of Strangers in the Night, but as Tara said, it was drifting from left to right, as though the whistler was strolling casually in that direction.
‘Another atmospheric effect?’ Jane wondered tartly. ‘Or some dickweed playing stupid games?’
‘Why would someone be playing games?’ Tara asked, though it was a question she was posing to herself as much as Jane.
‘Let’s just find the bastard.’
They pressed on, heading right. As they did, the whistling steadily reduced in volume, as though the whistler was retreating from them.
‘Hey, wait up!’ Jane bawled hoarsely. ‘You fucking idiot! We need help!’
‘Jane, that’s not the way you do it,’ Tara hissed.
‘Wait ’til I get hold of him, then you’ll really hear something.’
The whistling stopped. They slid to a halt.
‘Christ,’ Tara said. ‘It’s like he just heard us.’
‘Good, that’s the idea.’
‘Jane, I’m not sure about this …’
The whistling recommenced – closer than it had been, but now on their left.
‘What the hell?’ Jane said. ‘Why is he walking around us?’
‘Maybe he isn’t … maybe it’s like I said, the acoustics.’ But from the tone of her voice – a breathless quaver – Tara knew she wasn’t making a convincing case.
‘Okay,’ Jane said tersely but quietly, as if she too was suddenly unnerved by this curious behaviour. ‘Let’s go back to the wall.’
‘The wall?’
‘Put it between him and us … whoever he is.’
‘I don’t know the way back to the wall. I don’t know the way anywhere. We’ve got turned around at least two or three times now.’
‘This way.’
‘Why?’
‘It’s as good as any.’ Already walking, Jane scrunched the shoulder of her friend’s orange cagoule in a talon-like grip. Tara fell into step beside her. Fleetingly, their fatigue was forgotten. It was all about covering distance now. ‘Let’s just accept that he’s an arsehole,’ Jane said under her breath; then louder, over her shoulder: ‘You arsehole!’
‘Jane, no!’ Tara’s voice dropped to a whisper. ‘Look … he’s as blind as we are up here. Let’s just walk away … right away. We keep it down and he won’t even know we’ve gone.’
They strode quickly and quietly, the only sound their short, sharp breathing. They’d covered maybe a hundred yards unimpeded, their concern ebbing a little – when they head the whistling again.
No more than twenty yards to their right.
Almost on a level with them.
‘Oh shit,’ Tara whimpered.
They sped up until they were almost running, as a result of which Jane tripped, falling full length. Tara stooped and groped around for her in the murk. ‘You alright?’
‘I’m alright, for Christ’s sake! Just keep going … we have to keep moving.’
But the whistler was moving too, circling around behind them, still treating them to Strangers in the Night, though now at a raised tempo.
‘Okay, okay,’ Jane said. ‘He goes left, we go right.’
She hooked onto Tara’s cagoule again. They moved away, following a diagonal line. Both were now saturated with sweat, their lungs pumping. They again tried to move stealthily, only to find themselves on a loose, stony surface, which clattered and scraped under their soles.
‘Oh, bloody hell!’ Jane squealed.
It was scree; masses of broken rocks ramped sharply uphill in front of them.
‘This way!’ Tara said, pulling Jane in a different direction, but stones continued to crack and tumble beneath their boots, creating a racket that would carry across the night. ‘He’s stopped whistling at least. Probably lost track of us.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous. He can’t not know where we are with all this hullaballoo.’
‘Maybe he’s just had enough then?’
Panting hard, the blood pounding in their ears, they forged on. They were on higher ground now, the chunks of debris larger. Soon they were having to pick their way between them rather than scrambling over them, though this at least was a quieter process. In fact, colossal boulders now lay in their path, which afforded a sense of protection. They slid between them in single file, their waterproofs hissing on the rugged stone.
‘Don’t worry, this is all good,’ Tara whispered. ‘Crooked passages. He can’t come on us by surprise in one of these. We can lie low. Get down, wait a few minutes …’
‘We should press on,’ Jane said, in front, slapping her hands along the surfaces to either side.
‘Let’s at least stop, see if we can hear anything.’
They halted again, their breath furling in semi-frozen plumes. It took several seconds for the noise of this to subside, and then there were several seconds more of nothing – before they heard the whistling.
It was just above their heads.
They glanced upward.
He was only vaguely visible – an apelike silhouette crouched on top of the boulder on their left. His huge, misshapen head, almost certainly hooded, was inclined down at them. He stopped whistling half a second before he dropped. It was impossible to judge how big or heavy he was, but when he crash-landed on top of Jane, who, though stocky of build was only five feet four, she collapsed beneath him with a muffled shriek. Tara, standing rigid and helpless, didn’t quite see what happened next, though she heard it: a succession of heavy blows. She thought a brawny arm was rising and falling, and maybe that was a jagged stone clutched in its gloved hand. With each impact, Jane gave a low, tortured moan.
‘Stop … please,’ Tara stammered.
The