The chase

The idea now, was to walk casually to the road and hail a taxi.

‘There won’t be a taxi, after midnight on Christmas Eve,’ I consternated.

‘Yes, there will! Trust me.’

‘I trust you, but I hear a dog barking in the distance. Could it be a tracker hound?’

Abe was worryingly quiet.

‘An option of which I hadn’t thought,’ he admitted. ‘Why would they need a dog? Our tracks in the snow should be enough.’

‘Not what I wanted to hear. What now? How long can we hide in this weather, before we have to give in, with frostbite or similar?’

‘Let’s move deeper into the forest!’

He took my hand – nice gesture – and pulled me down an embankment and into some trees, which was all very well, but the stray light from the city, that had been bouncing off the clouds and providing good visibility, was blocked out.

Theoretically, we know what total darkness must mean, except we have never experienced it. Theoretically, we know wild anim