Wrong Time, Wrong Place by Simon Kernick Read Free Book Online Page B

It could be miles to the next house, and she wasn’t at all sure how much longer she could keep going. She was sick. She was being hunted down. She needed help.
    The front door to the cottage opened. Ash instinctively jumped out of sight behind a tree.
    A well-built older lady with her silver hair in a bun stepped outside. She had a basket in her hands and was wearing a navy dress and an old-fashioned white pinafore. Even from a distance, Ash could see she had a kindly, round face.
    But Ash had had her world torn apart these past few hours and the experience had made her very careful. The old lady hadn’t seen her soAsh waited and watched as she walked round the side of the cottage and passed out of sight, singing softly to herself as she went.
    Keeping inside the treeline, Ash crept towards the cottage, stopping when she saw the old lady bent over, feeding half a dozen chickens in a coop. She was cooing at them in a lilting Scottish accent as she threw the feed, looking as if she hadn’t a care in the world. The sight of her made Ash’s eyes fill with tears.
    Slowly, awkwardly, she stepped out from the trees. ‘Excuse me …’
    The old lady jumped, then turned her way, putting a hand to her mouth, her bright blue eyes widening. ‘Gosh, my love. You scared me.’
    ‘I’m sorry.’ Ash took another unsteady step forward, trying to stop herself from breaking down. ‘I’ve been hurt.’ The tears were streaming down her face now.
    The old lady opened her two beefy arms and Ash fell into them, sobbing into her shoulder, breathing in comforting smells of lavender and baking.
    ‘There there, my love,’ the old lady whispered into her ear, her grip surprisingly strong. ‘You’re going to catch a death of cold out here. Let’s get you inside, into the warm.’
    The old lady put down her basket, ignoringthe frantic clucking of the chickens, and led Ash into the cottage through a side door. Ash found herself in a surprisingly spacious, if tired-looking, kitchen.
    ‘You sit down there, young lady,’ she said, pointing at a wooden table with stools in one corner, ‘and I’ll get you a blanket.’
    Ash leaned back against the stone wall, wrapping her arms round herself in an effort to stay warm. The kitchen was cluttered with pots and pans, cooking utensils and dog-eared recipe books, and there was a faint damp smell that was mixed with the smell of fresh bread. A tray containing a newly baked loaf sat on the ancient cooker. On the opposite wall, an equally old picture of the Cheshire Cat from Alice in Wonderland grinned at her. Ash even managed a small grin in return. For the first time since this nightmare had begun, she found herself able to relax.
    ‘What happened to you, my love?’ asked the old lady, returning with a thick spotted blanket.
    Ash saw no reason not to tell her the truth. Wrapping herself in the blanket, she gave her a brief description of the previous night’s events, starting from when they’d run into the girl. She kept the drama down to a minimum but toldher that her husband and two friends had been killed.
    The old lady looked shocked, which was no great surprise, and put a hand to her mouth. ‘And this all happened round here, you say? Here in these woods?’
    Ash nodded numbly. ‘Yes.’
    ‘I’ve lived here all my life, my love, and I’ve never heard of anything like this. I don’t understand where this naked girl could have come from. There’s nothing here but national park and the shooting estate over near Wood End, but that’s owned by one of those banker types in London you never see. It all seems very strange. Men chasing this girl, then chasing you and your friends, trying to kill you. Whatever happened to the girl?’
    ‘I don’t know.’
    The old lady was right. The whole thing was strange, like something out of a cheap horror film. For a moment, Ash wondered if she actually was going mad. But then she pulled herself together. It had happened. All of it. Just as she