“I’m okay, Charlie.”
He shook his head. “Your face looks like you’ve been hit and you have blood on you. I don’t think you’re okay, Abby.”
“So wise for one so young,” she muttered, trying to find some humour.
She heard Alex as he answered the phone. His tone was tense, but he didn’t snap at the boy for answers.
“I’ve found her. She’s at your house.” Charlie spoke first; he was at that age where his voice was starting to break.
“Is she okay.”
“She’s hurt. She’s sitting against the door.”
She felt Charlie’s eyes on her. “Tell him I’ve lost my keys.” Another wave of nausea hit her and this time she wretched, willing for nothing to come up. It was not what Charlie needed to witness.
“She’s lost her keys. I think she’s been attacked, Alex. What shall I do?”
Charlie’s statement made fear fly through her veins. There was every chance that her attacker knew where she lived, and the possibility that he was heading over here. She had no idea how long she’d been unconscious for or how long it would take the man to be able to walk.
“Can you put her on the phone?”
Abby heard Alex’s words. Charlie passed the phone to her.
“Hey.” She couldn't think of what else to say.
“I’m running over now and Ste is on his way too. Don’t go inside. Stay on the front where you can be seen. What happened?” His tone was calm and authoritative.
“I went back to your house for my migraine tablets. I cut through the trees and someone grabbed me from behind. He used his knees to make me collapse to the ground and was trying to get me to say where Tilly was.” She took in a jerky breath, everything that had happened catching up with her. “He’d turned me round so I headbutted him and made his nose bleed. When he was holding his nose I kicked him in the balls and legged it. He was on the ground when I ran off, but I don’t know how long ago it was.”
“Where are you hurt?”
“My ankle and I’ve got grazes from the ground. The blood – it’s his – it’s all over me but it isn’t mine.”
“I’m nearly there, Abs. Thirty seconds and I’ll be with you.”
She saw him after the longest thirty seconds that she’d ever experienced and tried to get off the ground, but her ankle was having none of it.
He came to her, stopping his run when he got within two feet and crouching down. “Abby…”
She waited to be told off for leaving on her own, for doing exactly what Alex had said she shouldn’t do, but those words didn’t come. He lifted her up and carried her straight into his car.
“Hospital. Then your statement.”
She nodded, burying her head into his chest.
“Can you tell me,Miss Walker, what you were doing walking through that part of the fields?”
Abby tried to ignore the pain in her ankle that was definitely sprained. A bad sprain, the doctor had said, one that was going to stop her from climbing for the next two to three weeks.
What was helping her to ignore the pain as she hadn’t taken her pain meds yet, was the pain being caused by Detective Chief Inspector Garrison, who sat across the desk from her, looking not happy to be there.
“Walking back to Alex Maynard’s house to get my migraine medication.”
He made a note and nodded. She had no idea why it was someone of his status who was taking her statement, but Alex hadn’t seemed too surprised.
“Can you show me the exact route you took?” He pushed out a badly photocopied map.
Abby took a pen and drew the trail, circling where the man had grabbed her.
