He awakes with a start from a confused dream full of oriental girls with impossibly long legs. For a moment he lies still wondering what has disturbed him. As he listens he becomes aware of a distant engine. Over the week, he has become accustomed to the noises that vehicles make as they climb the hill and swing round the bend in front of the house. He listens intently, ears straining. It is a car or van, he is sure but the sound is not normal: it sounds as if it is travelling slowly. Without knowing why, he is suddenly certain - this is it. They had come, whoever they were.
He gets up and taps on Aranya's door quietly but insistently until she acknowledges his knock. He tells her to get dressed, pick up her emergency pack and come down to the kitchen. Under no circumstances must she turn on a light. He says he'll wake Sunita but Aranya tells him that she is with her and has heard his instructions. He returns to his own room to dress and, as he does so, Sunita flits across the landing. She is only just visible in the faintest of moonlight and he notices, without paying attention to the fact, that she's stark naked.
It is two very frightened girls who join him in the kitchen a few minutes later. He is pleased to see, though, that they have done as instructed and are dressed in jackets, jeans and trainers. The sound of the engine is clear in the still night as the vehicle climbs the hill to the house. He unlocks the back door and tells them to go over back fence, turn right and wait at end of garden. After a final mental look round, he locks the door and crosses the garden. He finds Sunita climbing over the fence. He puts out a hand to steady her and she gives a little cry of surprise.
"Sorry," she whispers. "I didn't hear you."
He escorts them to edge of field and through hedge, grateful that he had the foresight to mark the passage with the bandage, a patch of ghostly white against the dark hedge.
"Right," he says in a quiet, calm voice. "Can you find your way to the car? Do that and wait there. I'll be back in a moment."
"What are you going to do?" Aranya asks anxiously.
"See what the opposition is. Don't worry. Get going now."
He returns through the hedge and crouches down. Although he is fairly sure the invader's attention won't be on the field, he is taking no chances.
With a swoop of headlights, the vehicle reaches the top of the hill and stops. Doors slam and there is the sound of feet crunching on gravel. Torch beams swing around wildly. He gives a disdainful smile, 'Bloody amateurs,' he thinks. Amateurs or not, they are still dangerous.
Two men in dark clothes and balaclavas come around the side of the house. They try the back door and windows, making a lot of noise. When they find that all is secure they curse. Two more men appear and the four consult in hoarse whispers. 'It's a bit late now,' Mac thinks. 'They've made so much noise even the cows will be awake.' One man, obviously the leader, sends a man back to the front of the house and tells the others to break down the door. He reminds them in no uncertain terms that girls are not to be hurt under any circumstances but to kill anyone else in the house. Mac cannot place their accents but they are not English.
He has heard enough - four men, probably armed, definitely dangerous even if they are amateurs in the kidnapping game. He steals away, collecting the bandage way-marker as he passes.
At the gate to the lane he finds the girls, shivering with fear and cold.
"Right," he says, "we've about 5 minutes, maybe less. I want you to get into the car and fasten your seatbelts but don't close the doors. Okay?"
"Mac," says Sunita, through chattering teeth. "What if I get in the same door as Aranya. Less doors to close that way."
"Good thinking. Do that," he says, encouragingly.
They climb into the car and Mac inserts the key in the ignition, puts the car into first gear and releases handbrake.
"I'm going to count down from 3," he says, "Then I want you close your door and hang on tight."
The doors slam, he starts car and slips the clutch all in one fluid motion. The car is moving down track at once. He turns onto the road and sees the van parked in the road outside the house. He shakes his head. They are very unprofessional and have obviously not scouted the surroundings before attacking.
He waits until they are round the first bend before he turns on the headlights. Despite his need to put as much distance between them and their adversaries as possible he has to go slowly as it is very dark. With the headlights on he puts his foot down and drives hell for leather to the village. At the edge of the village he slows down and trundles sedately past the sleeping houses.
"Why have you slowed down?" Aranya asks.
"Less noticeable," Mac grunts. "Most people don't hear cars at 'normal' speeds, they only notice the unusual."
"Where are we going?" Sunita asks.
"Nowhere. Be patient."
They leave the village and Mac is particularly alert. About a mile further on, he sees what he is looking for and abruptly turns up a narrow farm track. When they are out of sight of the road he kills the headlights, turns the car round, switches off engine and winds down the window.
"What happens now?" the girls ask.
"We wait."
Five minutes pass, then ten. Finally they hear the sound of the van, it doesn't slow down through the village. They see the lights as the van rushes past end of track without pausing and screeches round a corner.
Mac shakes head, "Amateurs."
"Now what?" the girls ask again.
"We wait some more,"
"How long?"
"Half an hour, an hour - I'll know."
"Then what?"
"Stop asking questions. Get some sleep if you can."
He takes out a packet of cigarettes. He smokes only occasionally now and this seems the right occasion. Aranya asks for one. He lights two and passes one back to her.
The moon passes behind a cloud. They wait in the cool dark of the night, their only light the glow from their cigarettes. After fifteen minutes Sunita complains of being cold. Mac closes window a bit but says he has to hear. Time crawls by. Sunita dozes off and Mac opens window again. Aranya shivers but says nothing. She is watching him intently. Mac just sits patiently listening to the night, not stirring, not fidgeting, completely still. Aranya tries to emulate him. She can't understand how he can do it. In the end she leans over and asks him in a whisper.
"I don't know," he replies. "I just listen to the night. Let yourself absorb it. Open your window and try."
"But Sunita will freeze."
Mac just grunts but he takes off his jacket and passes it back. Aranya puts it over Sunita and opens her window. She tries to 'listen to the night' as he said. She hears the different noises the wind makes as it rustles the leaves in the trees, rushes through the tops of the ripening corn, rattles the hedgerows. She hears the hoots of owls; one nearby, one further away and one very distant. She is aware of the far off noise of a car - but they are discrete sounds, soothing and peaceful, to be sure, but, she is sure, not what he calls 'listening to the night'. She lets her mind wander, shivering slightly as the breeze gusts lightly through the open window, and sinks into a kind of reverie - a state half way between waking and sleeping. Without being aware of it the focus of her attention shifts and she no longer hears the individual sounds but hears the whole interplay of the different sounds as a single phenomenon. She is aware that underneath the immediate noises lie whole layers of subtler sounds all of which are telling her something though she is not sure what. She feels herself drifting into these layers of meaning, losing herself. Suddenly she has the distinct sensation of drowning. It overwhelms her and she experiences a momentary panic. The moment is lost. It has scared her.
She leans forward and whispers, "They're gone".
Mac turns to see her eyes; large and brown and luminous, and he knows that she has, truly, been listening to the night.
"Yes", he says. "They've gone."
Her face is very close to his. Her eyes are deep, black pools of mystery in the faint moonlight. Her lips, slightly parted, are dark and the light makes them seem to dominate her face. He is very, very tempted to kiss her.
"You did listen to the night, didn't you?"
She nods. "I got scared. It was like drowning."
He nods in sympathy. "It can feel like that at first. You have to learn to control it - to use it. You did very well to feel it first time round. I had to practice for ages."
He can see the slight darkening of her cheeks and knows she is blushing. He turns back to the front, sighs and stretches.
"Now what?" she asks.
"We go back," he says simply. "They won't be back tonight." There is certainly in his voice.
He winds up his window, starts the car and they drive slowly back to the house.
The front door stands wide open and there are lights on all over the place.
"Looks like they left in a hurry," he says with a mirthless grin.
They enter the hall stepping delicately over items strewn everywhere. It seems that the raiders, finding the house empty, have deliberately vandalised the place. Every drawer and cupboard has been emptied and the contents scattered. The cushions have been pulled from the chairs, the dining table upended, the books torn from the shelves.
The girls regard the devastation with ashen faces. Sunita is near to tears.
"Why?" Aranya murmurs, uncomprehendingly.
Mac says nothing except, "Bloody amateurs." His face is a mask.
In the kitchen the back door swings on its hinges and the contents of the fridge and freezer are spread all over the floor and work surfaces. Mac finds the kettle, fortunately undamaged, fills it with water and plugs it in.
He leads the way upstairs. Here the chaos is even worse. Their clothes have been ripped off the hangers and thrown into heaps, the drawers removed and discarded, the beds stripped and overturned.
"Do you feel up to rescuing some things and packing a suitcase?" he asked gently.
Aranya, pale but grim, nods. She looks very young and very scared. Sunita is openly crying. He squeezes her shoulder gently as he moves past her.
"Good girl. Keep your chin up. I'll make some tea."
His own bedroom is in even worse state, not only are his belongings all over the place, the raiders have actually vandalised them. His suit is slashed, his shirts ripped, his bedside clock smashed. Bleakly he salvages what he can - it makes a depressingly small pile - and packs his small suitcase.
Returning to the kitchen, he rescues some teabags and sugar and manages to find a few drops of milk in the bottom of an overturned carton. He makes three mugs of tea a takes them through to the sitting room. There he clears the junk off the seats and coffee table. The drinks cabinet as, surprisingly, untouched. He snorts and mutters, "I bet they intended to take it with them. Fucking amateurs."
He adds a generous measure of brandy to the tea then calls the girls. They come down lugging suitcases. They have both been crying, the tracks of tears streaking their cheeks. They look very young and vulnerable.
'It's not fair they should be exposed to this,' he thinks with anger. 'They've done nothing to deserve it.'
He hands them the steaming mugs. Sunita takes a deep swig and starts choking and spluttering, spilling the mouthful back into the mug.
"What have you put in it?" she gasps.
"Medicine," he grins. "Drink up. Doctor's orders."
Aranya sniffs her mug. "Brandy," she says and takes a sip.
Mac goes upstairs and brings back some blankets. The girls are huddled together on the sofa. They look at him enquiringly. He tries to smile encouragingly, no mean achievement with the black rage he is feeling. 'Careful, old son,' he tells himself. 'Now is not the time to lose it.'
"Well, it looks like the holiday is over," he said to the girls.
They make a poor attempt at a smile, more to acknowledge his attempt than out of humour.
"We'll stay here tonight and first thing in the morning we head off. We'll go to Birmingham and book into a hotel. And then we'll see if we can get some answers."
Aranya looks at him mournfully, "What I can't understand is why. Why us? Why this?" she gestures at the mess.
"I'd like to know the answers to these questions too," he says quietly. "Try to get some sleep."
"There's no way I could sleep," Sunita whimpers. "I'm scared."
Aranya puts her arm round her sister and draws her close. "I am, too, dear," she murmurs.
"It's okay," Mac says reassuringly. "I'm here and I'll watch over you and protect you."
Sunita smiles up in gratitude. "Thank you," she says simply. "I'm glad you're here." There is a world of meaning in those simple words.
She snuggles into her sister's comforting embrace and, to Mac's amusement, as asleep within a few minutes. He and Aranya exchange wry glances.
"I'm going to put out all the lights and load the car," he says quietly.
"I'll come with you,"
"No. Stay here. Your sister needs you. I'll be back soon."
He loads the car then stands a long while in the front garden. 'Listening to the night,' Aranya thinks as she watches him through the window. It suddenly occurs to her that she and Sunita owe their very lives to this man - a person they would not have given the time of day to a week ago. A week? Was it really only a week? She feels suddenly lost, adrift, rudderless on an uncharted sea. Only a week and her world has changed - possibly for ever. Only a week and she is totally dependent on this stranger; on his skills and abilities. She looks at him standing silently in the dark and, with a rush of real affection, realises that she trusts him utterly. The realisation is so momentous that she gives an involuntary gasp. But the night's events have overloaded her tired mind and she knows she will need time to fully understand what this means. In the meantime she knows with certainty that Mac will keep them safe - or die trying.
"Okay?" she whispers as he comes back in.
"Yes," he replied. "Sleep now."
She closes her eyes and, to her surprise, drifts off.
A hand shakes her. Panic surges. They were here! They had come back! Then Mac's soothing voice registers on her sleep-befuddled brain.
"It's okay. Don't panic. It's only me."
"What… Who…" she struggles to wake up, suddenly aware of muscles cramped and aching from sleeping on the sofa. The arm around Sunita is numb and she winces as she gently withdraws it, shaking it vigorously to restore the circulation.
Mac smiles at her. "I'm afraid there's no shower or bath but there's hot water for a wash," he says.
She smiles her gratitude and he is struck that, despite the trials of the night and the lack of sleep, she still looks stunningly beautiful. She totters off upstairs and he admires her tight little bottom as it retreats.
When she returns Sunita is awake and yawning hugely. "Hi, sis," she says spotting Aranya.
Then the memory of the previous night floods back. She looks around at the scene of devastation, her eyes wide. "Oh my God. It really happened," she whispers. "It was all real not a just a horrible dream. Oh my God."
Her voice rises in panic and Mac comes rushing through from the kitchen. He kneels in front of her and grips her shoulders.
"Sunita," he says sternly. "Look at me." The girl's face swings round and she stares at him with unfocussed eyes. "Look at me, Sunita. Look at me!" He grabs her jaw and forces her to face him. "This is Mac, Sunita. You are safe. I am here. Look at me."
Sunita blinks and her eyes come into focus. "Oh, Mac," she cries and flings her arms around his neck, sobbing furiously. He holds her gently, patting her back and stroking her hair and murmuring comforting words until the sobbing has subsided.
At last she draws away and smears the tears across her cheeks with the back of her hand. "Oh. Mac, I'm so sorry. But I was so scared. I woke up and remembered and…"
"It's okay. You've every right to be scared. I was scared," he says patting her hand.
"You were scared?"
He nodded. "Of course I was. I was scared that something nasty might happen to you." He pats his pockets. "And now I'm scared that you'll be cross because I haven't a hanky to give you to wipe away those tears."
She looks at him incredulously for a moment then, seeing the twinkle in his eye, starts to laugh. It verges on the hysterical but it acts as a cathartic for she is much calmer when it is over. He pats her hand again.
"Upstairs and wash quickly now for breakfast's nearly ready."
"Breakfast?" she cries. "Oh, you are a darling" kissing him soundly on the lips and dashing off.
He kneels there, stunned, for a moment.
"She's quite something, my little sister," says Aranya quietly.
He rises and turns to find her grinning at him.
"Er, yes," he agrees.