Louise Voss & Mark Edwards 3-Book Thriller Collection: Catch Your Death, All Fall Down, Killing Cupid

Still, he hesitated.

‘Come on.’

‘All right. But I wish you’d tell me.’ He got into the driver’s seat and Kate jumped in beside him. She dropped the envelope Mrs Bainbridge had given her on the back seat.

‘It’s Mrs B,’ she said. ‘When you scared her earlier, she called someone, and they’re on their way now.’

His eyes widened. ‘What, the police?’

‘No – I wish it was. Listen, Mrs B was given a number to call if anyone ever turned up and started asking questions about Leonard. That’s what she did earlier, after you went into her garden.’

‘What? Who did she call?’

‘I don’t know exactly. But she almost shoved me out the door and told me I had to make myself scarce. She said I was in danger if I didn’t get away.’

Paul had inserted the key into the ignition, ready to start the engine, but now he removed his hand from it. ‘But these people might be able to give us the answers we’re looking for. We should stay and wait for them.’

He pushed open the door and got out.

‘No! Paul, don’t.’

She muttered a curse, then chased Paul as he marched across the main road towards Mrs Bainbridge’s house. She could see why he was reluctant to run away, but he hadn’t witnessed how palpable and contagious Mrs Bainbridge’s fear had been. There was so much Kate and Paul didn’t know, and whoever was on their way, they didn’t sound like people willing to sit down and provide them with answers over a nice cup of tea.

Paul had almost reached the house, Kate a few steps behind, when a black Audi pulled up. At the same time, Mrs Bainbridge came out of her front door and made ‘go away’ gestures to Paul, her face pale with fright.

The Audi stopped a few metres from Mrs Bainbridge’s house and a man got out.

Kate felt her knees buckle and she almost fell. He was older and was wearing sunglasses, and she hadn’t thought about him for sixteen years. She flashed on an image of him in the garden at the CRU, turning to watch her as she walked past.

Sampson. That was his name. Stephen had warned her to stay away from him, that there was something predatory about him. She didn’t need to be persuaded: he gave her the creeps. His chiselled good looks were cold and evil.

‘Kate,’ he said, unsmiling but intense. ‘Good to see you again.’

‘Sampson.’

Paul looked at both of them and took a step forward, saying, ‘Listen, Mr Sampson, or is that your first name? I wonder if . . .’

Sampson pulled out a gun and pointed it at Paul’s chest.

Paul immediately put his hands up at shoulder height, the blood draining from his face. Sampson took a step towards him, the gun held steady. Kate watched Sampson’s finger tense against the trigger. She shouted, ‘Paul!’ and then somebody screamed, and the bang was quieter than she’d always imagined a gunshot to be. She realised she had closed her eyes, and when she opened them she expected to see Paul’s body sprawled on the asphalt. But Paul was still standing. So was Sampson. The body on the ground was small, and old.

With surprising agility for an elderly woman, Jean Bainbridge had run in front of Paul, just as Sampson squeezed the trigger, blocking the bullet with her body. She had saved Paul’s life.

Kate felt a pain go through her like she’d been shot herself. At the same moment, Paul launched himself at Sampson.

Paul was lucky: Sampson was momentarily off balance. Paul struck him in the stomach and Sampson gasped, swinging up the gun to hit Paul around the head, but Paul lifted his arm and blocked the blow. The gun fell from Sampson’s grasp and Kate stepped forward and kicked it away. It span across the road and under a parked car.

Sampson moved towards the gun, and Paul shouted, ‘Run!’

They sprinted towards the tennis club, Paul ahead again, looking back over his shoulder to make sure Kate was with him, reaching back so she could grab his hand. He could see that Sampson was on his belly, trying to extract his gun from under the parked car. Paul yanked open the door of his own car – thank God they hadn’t locked it – and leaned over and shoved open the passenger door. A second later he started the car and they skidded out of the car park.

There was Sampson, on his feet now, gun in hand. Paul drove straight at him. Sampson fired but the bullet bounced off the bodywork, and then he had to jump backwards onto the pavement to stop Paul from knocking him over. Paul swerved around Mrs Bainbridge’s body and watched the mirror anxiously, as Sampson ran towards his Audi and climbed in, giving Paul and Kate just a few seconds’ lead before he managed to accelerate after them.

‘Fuck, he’s coming. Which way shall I go?’ There was no response. ‘Kate?’

She turned to him, her eyes wide with shock. ‘He killed Mrs Bainbridge.’

Paul reached and touched Kate’s arm. She was trembling. Or was that him? ‘Who the hell is this guy?’

‘He was at the CRU.’

Very quickly, they left the village behind, the streets of Penkridge giving way to countryside. They passed a nature reserve sign and Kate wondered frantically if they were doing the right thing, leaving the safety-in-numbers of civilisation behind. It was too late to turn back now though. Paul swung the car left. The road was clear ahead, but that would help Sampson catch them as much as it would help them get away. Sampson’s Audi was much faster than Paul’s seen-better-days Peugeot 205. They would need to outmanoeuvre him. But Paul, who didn’t know these roads, had no advantage. His hands, sweaty with stress, slipped on the wheel as he spun it and turned right onto another quiet country road, putting his foot down. Kate watched the speedometer rise until they were doing eighty.

The Audi was still close behind them.

‘Have you got your seatbelt on?’

‘Yes, of course. Paul, we have to . . .’

‘Hold on tight.’

Kate looked up and saw what Paul had spotted a moment before: an enormous, bright green four-wheel-drive tractor trundling around the bend ahead. Paul floored the accelerator, moved to the wrong side of the road – the right – and headed straight towards it. Kate gasped and closed her eyes.

It all happened in a couple of seconds. Paul drove straight at the tractor, waving his arms at the driver, motioning for him to change lanes. Behind him, Sampson was still on the left, a second behind them, obscured behind the tinted glass of his car windscreen.

Kate pushed herself back in her seat and whispered a rapid prayer.

The tractor driver pulled on the steering wheel of his huge, unwieldy vehicle, heaving it onto the left side of the road. Paul spun the wheel again, tyres squealing, swinging to the right and shooting past the tractor – which was now directly in Sampson’s path. As they cleared the tractor, they both heard another screech of brakes, the angry stabbing of a car horn.

‘We’re still alive,’ Kate said quietly.

Paul twisted his head and took a glance backwards. ‘No sign of him, not yet. But he won’t be held up for long.’ They drove around the next bend, moving steadily upwards until they came over the crest of a hill. Farmland stretched to either side of them, sheep grazing in silence behind low stone walls. Some poor creature lay in the road, its fur matted with blood: roadkill.

‘Do you have any idea where we are?’ Paul asked, as they continued at high speed along the empty road. ‘Apart from the middle of nowhere.’

Kate snapped out of her trance. ‘I think this is Cannock Chase.’

‘How far till the next town?’

‘I don’t know. I think if we keep heading north we’ll reach Stafford, I saw a signpost back there.’

She looked out the back window and saw the black Audi appear over the crest of a shallow hill and start closing on them.

‘He’s catching us. Paul, he’s catching . . .’

‘I know, I know. I’m going as fast as I can. The road atlas should be on the back seat. Can you try to find out how far it is till Stafford?’

Kate retrieved it and started flicking blindly through the pages trying to find the road they were on. She couldn’t even find the right page. Why the hell didn’t Paul have Sat Nav in this cruddy old banger?