‘Where is he?’ Commander Redmond demanded

‘We told you; we don’t know!’ Louise shouted for the umpteenth time in the last hour as she ran her hand through her long blonde hair.

‘Not you. Somerville!’

‘I don’t know,’ Arron said as he remembered the lie Lewis had constructed before he left. ‘I went to bed after my patrol, and when I woke up, he was gone.’

‘Where’d he go, though? You know him; you live with him,’ Commander Redmond said as he rattled the iron bars of the cell in frustration.

Behind him, Arron heard Louise and David sigh. When Commander Redmond found out that Lewis had gone missing, he dragged the three of them to the castle and threw them into the tiny cell. In his thinking, he had assumed that at least one of Lewis’ patrol partners would know where he had gone.

‘Maybe that girl he was talkin’ to last night knows where he went. Rose or Rachel or whatever her name was,’ Commander Redmond continued, thinking out loud.

‘Robyn,’ Arron corrected automatically.

‘Robyn, that’s the one,’ he continued, appearing not to have heard Arron. ‘I’ll get her in here; maybe she’ll spill the beans on Hargrove.’

‘There might be one thing,’ Arron said quickly. Lewis had told him to keep an eye out for Robyn. ‘He did mention a cabin in Fir Forest where he grew up a couple of times.’

‘Fir Forest?’ Commander Redmond asked, breaking off from his mutterings about his new plan.

‘His parents used to own the cabin before his father died,’ Arron said.

‘So, you knew where he was going all along!’ Commander Redmond shouted as he thrust an arm through the bars, his hand flailing as it tried to grab Arron, who was quick enough to jump back.

Glancing at Louise, he saw that she was looking at him venomously. The look on David’s face wasn’t all that different from hers. What has he done? He was fairly sure all three of them knew about the cabin in the forest, but neither of them had said anything.

‘I don’t know if they still own it, though,’ Arron said, desperately trying to talk Commander Redmond out of concocting a new plan. ‘His mother moved out of there when his father died.’

‘Where’s his mother now?’

‘I don’t know,’ Arron lied. He thought maybe he should just stop talking before he managed to dig himself an even deeper hole.

‘You!’ Commander Redmond shouted as he looked to his right.

A moment later, the sound of hurried footsteps filled the corridor as the guard who had been standing at the door appeared outside the cell.

‘Yes, Commander Redmond?’ he asked as he tried to flatten his messy brown hair nervously. He couldn’t have been much older than the three of them in the cell, Arron thought.

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‘Get me everything we have on Hargrove’s family. If they so much as owned a horse in the last twenty years, I want to know about it,’ Commander Redmond said.

With a nod, the guard hurried off. From the look on his face, he was more than happy to be able to spend less time around Commander Redmond.

‘Don’t worry, your friend will be behind these bars soon enough,’ Commander Redmond said. ‘Although I imagine it won’t be for long. They’ll have his head for helping that girl get away.’

If it was possible, Louise’s look grew sourer when Arron looked at her. ‘I guess you don’t need us anymore then,’ she said, turning to Commander Redmond.

‘No,’ he replied, unlocking the cell door. ‘You’ll report to the office when you leave the castle to receive your new patrol partners. We can’t have any of you disappearing to find that criminal.’

Throwing open the cell door, Commander Redmond watched as it bounced off the wall with a bang before striding off after the guard he had sent to find Lewis’ file. As his heavy footsteps disappeared down the corridor, Arron stepped out of the cell, with Louise and David behind him.

‘Let’s get out of here,’ he said quietly. When neither of them replied, he shrugged his shoulders and followed in Commander Redmond’s wake.

The walk up to the ground level of the castle passed with only the sound of their footsteps on the stone floor. It seemed as though David and Louise were more than happy to follow his lead without a word.

‘It’s good to be out of there,’ Arron said happily as they stepped out into the weak Frost sunlight that filled the courtyard of the castle.

The words had barely left his mouth with the fog of his warm breath when David grabbed him by the arms, pinning them behind his back. As David turned to face Louise, her fist connected with his nose.

With a crack, he felt a burning pain. A trickle of warm blood ran down his chin, dripping onto the thin layer of snow that covered the cobbled courtyard.

Trying to wriggle free of David’s grasp, Louise caught him across the jaw with a second right hook. Staggering backwards, he was held up by David.

‘I thought we were friends,’ Louise whispered as she leaned close to him. ‘You had better hope that they don’t find him, or Commander Redmond might find out that you were in on his plan.’

‘But I wasn’t,’ Arron said in confusion as his head pounded.

‘He doesn’t know that, and I’m sure Lewis will agree if you get him caught,’ she said as she turned away. ‘Let’s go.’

With a shove, David let go of him, following Louise across the snowy courtyard in the direction of the office. Holding a hand up to his bloody nose, he watched them walk away. What has he done?

‘Somerville! What are you doin’ hangin’ about?’ the voice of Commander Redmond shouted from behind him. Turning around, he saw the huge man walking towards him, a folder tucked under his arm. When Commander Redmond saw the blood on his face, the aggression in his stride faded. ‘What happened?’

‘Just a disagreement,’ he replied quietly. Commander Redmond was the last person in the world he wanted to see right now, although David and Louise were a close second.

‘You did the right thing,’ Commander Redmond said reassuringly as he guided him in the direction of the infirmary. ‘If your information helps catch those two criminals, then you could move a long way up the food chain. You have a lot to gain from this.’

Silently, Arron nodded. He didn’t really care for Commander Redmond’s politics if it meant selling out his best friend. Then he thought about what had just happened in the courtyard. If he were in a higher position, he would be able to get his own revenge on David and Louise for what they had done to him.

‘Let’s get this mess cleaned up, and then we can discuss your new position,’ Commander Redmond said as he opened the door to the infirmary, barking for a nurse to come over.

‘Alright,’ Arron agreed before the young black-haired nurse led him over to a chair and sat him down. On the other side of the room, he saw Commander Redmond drop into a flimsy-looking chair and open the folder he had been carrying.

From the inside pocket of his jacket, he produced a pair of small wire-framed half-moon glasses. Pushing them up his nose forcefully, he began to read through the wonky glasses. Arron was saved from laughing at the sight as the nurse moved in front of him, her hand dabbing at the blood on his face with a wet cloth.