Gillian knew she had just seconds to prepare, aim and shoot the rabbit as it crossed the five metres or so to safety. By the time the rabbit bolted, the rifle was raised and was tracking ahead of the rabbit. Once her aim was steadied she instinctively calculated where the rabbit would be when the bullet arrived.

The rabbit darted across the opening, zigzagging to throw off any potential predator, and Gillian fired. The rabbit heard the shot and leapt into the air using all four legs for propulsion, another natural and instinctive manoeuvre to avoiding being caught. Unfortunately for the rabbit, Gillian had anticipated a leap and had aimed high. The rabbit caught the round in mid jump, and the velocity of the bullet carried it even higher and into the bushes.

Gillian did not bother collecting the rabbit. There wouldn’t be much of it left anyway after falling prey to a .308 calibre shell.

***

Having deposited the rifle back in the hunting lodge where Uncle Nick made his home, Gillian wandered through the woods in direction of the manor house, where she lived with her parents. Gillian didn’t know how many acres the manor house, grounds, hunting lodge, woods and fields covered but she knew it must be over three hundred, given the time it took to drive around it in the Land Rover.

Gillian was a rather solitary child, her strict parents believing that her prospective friends were beneath her and lacked the necessary status to be real friends. Instead she was obliged to attend a private school with equally privileged kids, most of who were intellectually stunted. Gillian put it down to in-breeding.

At school Gillian was considered to be brilliant in maths and the sciences. She was competent in the humanities and average at sport, except of course anything that involved hand to eye coordination.

Gillian was on the county teams for Target Archery, Field Archery and shooting. She had medals in all three events, two of them at national junior champion level. She even had an outside chance of competing in the upcoming Commonwealth Games in Kuala Lumpur in 1998.

Despite all of her success she was mostly miserable, and her times riding, shooting and fishing with her gamekeeper uncle provided her happiest memories.

Gillian heard a noise behind her, but before she could turn around a strong arm was around her throat. The man holding her lifted her off her feet and she began to black out from a lack of oxygen reaching her brain. The man dragged her into the bushes, took his right arm from around her throat and pushed his right hand inside her clothing, grabbing at her developing breasts. She tried to scream but now his left hand was over her mouth. Once her blouse and bra were pulled aside revealing her post pubescent torso, the man came around in front of her and stared at her exposed flesh before pushing her to her knees.

A few minutes later the assailant uttered a guttural groan and looked down at Gillian one more time before slapping her, replacing his genitalia and running off. Gillian was left sobbing and trying to rearrange her clothes to restore her dignity. Whilst the man had not raped her, he had forced her to commit an act that was equally disgusting. Gillian wiped her mouth on her sleeve, trying to erase the taste of him. During the whole episode the man had merely grunted. He had never uttered a word. His face had been concealed the whole time by his balaclava. Even so, she knew exactly who he was. It was Les Vaughan from the village; unemployed, part time poacher and renowned wife beater.

Gillian knew she should report the incident to her parents, but they were not the type of people with whom she felt able to discuss this sort of thing. She needed Uncle Nick, but he wouldn’t be back from the races until tonight. So she headed wearily back to the lodge to clean herself up and so avoid being questioned by her parents.

***

Once she had cleaned herself, Gillian took her fleece from the hook in the hall of the lodge and left, locking the door behind her. She had walked only a few yards when she heard a squealing sound. When she investigated she found a large hare trapped in a poacher’s wire snare. The harder the hare pulled, the tighter the wire noose around its leg became.

Gillian was scared. She knew that when the poacher heard the noise he would come running to collect his prize. She needed to get away as quickly as possible and so she ran back to the Lodge, locking herself in.

She was in the lodge for only a minute or two when she had an epiphany. She knew what she must do. She decided that she would never again allow herself to be a victim. She knew if she did nothing about the assault she would regret it for the rest of her life. If freedom from vermin like Les Vaughan meant facing her fears, then so be it.

***

Les Vaughan heard the sound of a hare screaming. It had obviously been caught in one of his snares. He headed in the direction of the noise. His shotgun was broken, the barrel hanging over his arm to avoid any accidents. He clubbed the hare with a lead filled sap and set about cutting it free. Hare wasn’t the best of game meat, but it would be fine in a casserole.

“Hey, Les, I knew it was you,” Gillian shouted from twenty yards away, looking over the branch of a tree.

“Oh. I see you enjoyed it so much you came back for more!” Les laughed and gestured with his groin.

“You aren’t going to get away with it,” Gillian shouted, with some bravado.

“Oh yes I am, you little bitch! You say anything and I’ll kill you and then your whole family. Understand?” Anger underpinned the threat, making it sound real.

“I wasn’t going to tell anyone, Les, I was just going to stop you getting away with it.” There was a hint of triumph in her voice that Les failed to pick up until he saw the rifle resting on the tree branch and pointing in his direction.

In one swift move he flicked the shotgun closed and cocked both barrels, raising it in Gillian’s direction, but he was too late and he knew it. A look of horror crossed his face in the fleeting seconds before what had been his face was destroyed by a .308 calibre round as it hit him above the bridge of his nose before exiting at the back of his head, with a goodly proportion of Les’s brain following it.

Gillian walked over to the lifeless body of her attacker and stamped on his genitals.

“So that’s what it’s like killing another human being,” she thought to herself.

***

Nick Davis was almost forty. His only marriage had failed years ago and the only worthwhile thing in his life was his niece. He loved her with all of his heart; she was more like a daughter than a niece. She was beautiful and clever. She would do well for herself, he thought, better than any Davis had before her, and he intended to make sure of it. To see her so distressed as she described the earlier attack she had endured made him feel simultaneously angry and helpless.

He was disgusted by what she had been subjected to, and reflected that if she hadn’t killed Les he would most certainly have done so himself, but Nick would have taken his time over it. Les would have suffered; he would have made quite sure of that. There was, however, one more thing he could do to protect his niece.

Nick had taken Gillian home, and on the journey he explained what he was going to do. She just smiled at him and hugged him.

“I love you, Uncle Nick,” she said, kissing him on the cheek. Nick blushed, knowing that anything he had to do to protect his niece would be worth it.

***

The next morning Nick stood by as the scene of crimes officer declared that it looked like a suicide, and that it had probably happened yesterday afternoon when Nick was at the races.

The man in charge seemed to be Sergeant Grahame, who was everyone’s idea of the avuncular country policeman. In Nick’s favour, Les Vaughan had been responsible for about half of the Sergeant’s workload since he was a kid.