The Hunt: ‘A great thriller...breathless all the way’ – LEE CHILD

‘Out,’ Rose said. She touched the gun.

‘What, or you’ll shoot me?’ But he could see that she was getting edgy now, hand resting on the gear stick, foot caressing the gas pedal. Itching to go.

Chris opened the door and stood from the car, hanging on to the metal for a moment as dizziness threatened to drop him. He slung the rucksack over one shoulder, and Rose threw the Adidas bag out at his feet. He was hoping she’d say something else to reassure him, or to help. But even before he could close the door the car skidded away, raking his legs with shards of gravel as it tailspun back onto the road and up towards the ridge. He saw her silhouette lean over and slam his door shut.

Chris stood there swaying in the midday sun, cooled by the mountain breeze. He had never felt so far away, and so alone.

The helicopter appeared to the north, higher up against one of the mountains, describing a gentle descent towards the ridge where the road disappeared. He couldn’t see the BMW right then, but he knew that Rose was accelerating up towards that ridge, too. They might just reach it at the same time. He wondered what would happen then.

Hunt, he thought. That’s ridiculous. That’s crazy.

Then the helicopter changed course, its shadow flitting and leaping down the mountain’s craggy side like some wild animal.

Coming right for him.

Chapter Eight (#ulink_6d4d7ead-b677-50bc-afdd-1f02f264ef50)

holt (#ulink_6d4d7ead-b677-50bc-afdd-1f02f264ef50)

Of course, he only wanted to fuck her.

She couldn’t imagine why any man would show interest in her otherwise. She was a physical mess, an alcoholic, dirty, her hair now long again and knotted, clothes unkempt and worn through in several places. When she did look up from her feet it was to search for the next drink. She only saw as far as the morning after, and never took much notice of how hard that would be. She was a failure, a wreck, a hollow woman with a dead family and nothing left to live for. Existing was now simply a habit.

There was before, a beautiful utopia of love and friendship, joy and pleasure, and a contented pride in everything her children did, every single day. And then there was after, a smoke- and booze-filled miasma of crippling, unbelievable grief. In between was the unbridgeable gap of her pursuit and their murder.

How could anyone be attracted to what she had become?

But he sat next to her at the small corner table all the same. He didn’t speak for a long time, just continued to drink from a smoked glass. He topped up from a bottle in his bag, and she liked that. His expression when he tipped the bottle against his glass made her smile. Smiling was an unfamiliar expression, and it made her facial muscles ache.

The bar had seen better days, but worse days too. Apart from the regular clientele – her, a grizzly bear-sized African man with one arm, a couple of old women who looked like vultures and must have been sisters – it sometimes entertained more adventurous tourists on their way back from a trek in the Italian mountains, or perhaps some local workers looking to expand their horizons across the area. She’d seen several fights here, one randy couple having a drunken, clumsy screw out by the basic bathroom, and four alleged Mafia men playing cards. The barman made his own wine, and offered it for sale only to people he knew would appreciate it. Rose drank at least a bottle each night. She supposed the joint had its charm.

‘Drink?’ he asked.

‘Single malt.’

‘But of course.’ He sounded French. That surprised her, though she wasn’t sure why. Maybe because she’d expect a Frenchman to have more class. He called to the barman and ordered her drink, and the same for himself. When the two glasses arrived he tipped his into hers and slid the glass in front of her.

‘My name’s Holt,’ he said.

‘Jane Doe.’

‘I thought I recognised you.’

She drank her double in one, then dribbled half back into her glass, keen to give the appearance of making it last. Stupid, really. He’d been watching her drink for half an hour, and she’d managed three in that time. He topped up his own glass from his bottle once more, and she paid close attention for the first time. And frowned. The fluid didn’t have that vaguely oil-like consistency of a spirit, not even vodka, and it was completely clear.

‘You’re drinking water?’

‘Please don’t tell anyone,’ Holt said. ‘My reputation won’t survive. And Celso will eject me from his bar.’

She snorted laughter and took another drink. She couldn’t tell whether it was really single malt, but she didn’t give a fuck. It burned on the way down. That was all that mattered.

He might have been one of them. They’d found her at last and he’d come out here to deliver the killer blow. She’d been expecting it, and fear of the Trail had no bearing on why she continued to hide. It was life she was trying to elude, not them. And right then she didn’t care if he was Trail. The difference between death and this excuse of an existence was negligible.

‘You mutter when you’re drunk,’ he said.

‘I do not.’

‘You might think you don’t, but you do. You ramble. You’re just too drunk to even notice, or remember when you eventually surface.’

‘I never surface. There’s nothing to surface to. I just drink, sleep, wake, repeat.’

‘Well, if you want to do anything about what happened, that’s the first thing we have to change.’

He tipped his glass back and drained his water, and Rose stared at him open-mouthed.

‘How much do I say?’ she whispered.

‘You talk to your dead family,’ Holt said.

Rose dropped her glass and sobbed, so violently that Holt must have thought she was having a fit or a stroke. She pressed her hands to her face and squeezed, trying to hold in all the memories of her dear dead loved ones, afraid that they’d be gone forever if she let them go.

Holt’s arm rested hesitantly around her shoulders. There was no pressure there, nothing other than a desire to comfort. No one had shown her such kindness since …

Since she had run. Escaped. Since she’d fled normality, left the world, and let herself be consumed by the stark underside of life. There was no kindness this far down.

She rested her head against his shoulder and started to cry. That was when he told her the rest about what she mumbled in her drunken stupors – the sorrow, the guilt, the fury.

Lowering his voice he whispered close to her ear, ‘You tell Adam how much you want to kill them all.’

Rose’s crying paused, a dammed flow burning as it readied to burst through again.

‘I can help,’ Holt said. ‘I know all about killing.’

Chapter Nine (#ulink_14df6e2a-0ba4-598e-a8e3-5d70d7e86283)

trail (#ulink_14df6e2a-0ba4-598e-a8e3-5d70d7e86283)

He was still wearing his running kit from that morning. It had dried during his journey here in the car, and he could smell the odour of his early run. When he’d sweated that out, everything had still been normal.

For a moment he considered waiting where he was, rucksack and bag at his feet while he waved his arms over his head, motioning the helicopter to land on the widened area of road. He’d talk with them. Negotiate. Offer them money, or whatever else they wanted, so long as they released his wife and the girls. They must have made a mistake, anyway, and picked on the wrong family. He’d swear silence.

Then he remembered the woman’s cold, calm smile in the van as she’d waved a gun towards his blindfolded loved ones. And he knew that Rose had left him with very little choice.

Shrugging on the rucksack, slinging the holdall over one shoulder, he jogged across the lay-by and leaped the ditch beside the road. It only took a couple of seconds to see where he should be headed; an outcropping a few hundred feet up the hillside, a worn gully leading up to it, stream splashing down over rocks and past scrubby trees. Most of the way he’d be hidden from sight from the helicopter, so long as he stayed low. He’d worn his black running tights and a black technical tee shirt that morning, so it could have been worse. On a road run it would have been hi-viz gear all the way.

As he ran, that sense of unreality gave him pause several times, and he stopped and snorted disbelief. But he could hear the helicopter growing closer, rotor sounds whup-whupping across the valley and echoing from the mountains.

Don’t stop, he thought. Run fast, keep low. Not far, then I can see what’s going on. Hide, watch, figure out how fucking mad Rose is. Was she in with them in some weird way? An agent provocateur whose job it was to guide and steer him, as she’d said they would have done to him in the city?