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

Rose still had no idea how she had reacted so quickly. Her hand snapped out, fingers closing around the object in Grin’s hand, snatching, and then she ran. Losing herself in those rainswept streets had been easy, and the shouts and pursuit she’d expected never came.

The phone had worked for seven minutes before its connection was cancelled. In that time, she had hidden away and managed to scratch two numbers into her arm with a shard of broken glass.

Then she had ditched the phone in a trash-filled alley and fled. She’d somehow gathered herself, suffering a terrible couple of days of relative sobriety. She’d retrieved the necessary documentation and money she’d once hidden, at the time barely believing she would ever use it again. Italy was somewhere Adam had always wanted to visit with their kids, and it had seemed far enough away from London, remote enough, to lose herself once again.

That chance meeting in a city of millions had allowed the dormant seed of an idea to sprout. Revenge. And later, in the Italian heat, alcohol hiding her once more, she’d traced and retraced those healing scars on her forearm. Numbers that might lead to something else, like a code to discovery.

But even in Italy she had not been able to drag herself from the depths. She’d tried again and again, spending a day sobering up, but quickly following those brief moments of sick reality with long periods of even heavier drinking and deeper oblivion. She so wanted to find some way back. She dreamed of Grin’s face opening beneath her pounding fists, a heavy rock, a wielded knife. But even approaching reality allowed the true, awful memories to flood back in.

She had been unable to find the strength to handle that. Not until Holt.

The laptop chimed.

Rose poured a new mug of strong coffee and sat down at the small table. Lifting the mug to her lips, she paused and stared down at the screen.

One of the inboxes she monitored had received a new email. It was only the fifth time in three years that such a mail had been sent and received. It was still marked in bold. Unread.

‘They’ve chosen another one.’ She sat back for a moment, stunned, chilled even through the rush of warm coffee. She knew that if she opened this email and read it, and they discovered it had been seen and read, everything might fall apart. The Trail would abandon their systems and networks and build again from the ground up, and she would lose everything she’d been working on, and hoping for, since bringing herself back to the world.

But the content of this email was everything. She could open it, screen-grab it, and mark it as unread again in a matter of moments.

She did not hesitate for a second before risking it all.

Chapter Three (#ud1915dbd-74a0-59c7-a83e-f6f10a277af6)

fifty minutes (#ud1915dbd-74a0-59c7-a83e-f6f10a277af6)

Don’t call the police, or your wife and children will be executed.

Chris stood motionless for a while, leaning against the sink and staring across the kitchen at the pinboard beside the fridge. There were photos on there, tickets for a show they were going to see in a few weeks, a couple of forms to fill out for a trip Gemma was going on with Scouts. Some discount coupons for the local cinema. A few of Terri’s hair bobbles tied together.

Had the man really said that?

Chris closed his eyes and the world swam. He remembered the words coming from the man’s mouth – how they’d sounded, the shape of his lips, the dreadful meaning – yet he still doubted.

He took in a few deep breaths and smelled the coffee. His coffee, that the intruder had brewed.

He took the phone from his pocket and placed it on the worktop. As he stared at it, it rang.

Grabbing the phone, dropping it, watching it hit the floor and break, case going one way and phone the other, Chris let out a hopeless cry. He went to his knees and picked it up – still ringing, not broken – and stroked the screen to unlock.

That voice again, cool and calm and inviting no discussion. ‘Fifty minutes. Be ready.’ Chris stood again, holding the phone in both hands. Fifty minutes. Be ready. Fifty minutes until what?

The back door was closed now, but he could still see the bloody smear drying on the jamb.

Everything but his family suddenly felt so distant. His work, their friends, his hobbies, all so far away from what was happening here and now. This was so surreal that his mind had picked him up and shifted him back a pace, making acceptance of the unbelievable situation easier. He’d felt something like this before. When his father had died three years earlier, there had been none of the disbelief and hysteria he’d been prepared for all his life. A distance had fallen around him, allowing him to cope with the situation and only starting to lift as grief eroded it away. It was a defence mechanism of sorts – perhaps purely natural, or maybe engineered by modern society and family needs – and for a while he’d felt an incredible guilt. But then his mother had told him that everyone deals with bereavement and grief in a very different way, and unnecessary guilt had no place in his heart. He’d loved her more than ever for that. He still did.

He dreaded the idea of her having to grieve again.

Chris looked down at his phone. Don’t call the police or your wife and children will be executed. The words hung in the air around him as if taking on substance. Everywhere he looked he heard them. He stared at the screen display, thinking, trying to work through the situation. Clicking on the timer, he set it at forty-eight minutes and pressed start.

Several minutes had passed since the man left. Standing in the kitchen, uncertain, he edged towards the back door, lifting the wooden blind aside to look out into the back garden. Maybe he should follow. Or call the police. That was his natural instinct, anyone’s first instinct when something terrible like this happened. And how would they know? He should call them, tell them about the intruder and his missing family, and by the time they arrived …

He looked at the time on his phone. Forty-four minutes and counting.

Something moved in the garden. Chris squinted and looked again, scanning left to right across the well-maintained lawn, colourful borders, and the kids’ stuff scattered here and there. Megs loved to play in the inflatable pool when it was warm enough. She said she wanted to swim the Atlantic when she was older.

‘Shit,’ he whispered, starting to shake. Fear gripped him. Terror at what was happening to his family, and confusion about why.

Movement again, and this time he saw the cigarette smoke rising from beyond the garden’s rear hedge before it dispersed to the breeze. There was a narrow, private path behind there serving the several houses that shared this side of their street, and no reason at all for anyone to be standing there.

Placing his hand on the door handle he pushed it down, slowly, and opened the door.

A pale shape appeared behind the garden gate. Chris couldn’t see much from this far away, and the gaps between the gate’s slatted wood were only an inch across. But the smoking person was watching him.

He slammed the door again and retreated into the kitchen. ‘Fuck, fuck, this isn’t happening,’ he muttered, pacing back and forth. He was chilled from the sweaty running clothes he still wore. He should change, get warm, get ready for …

… for the countdown to zero? Was he really just going to wait here like the intruder had told him?

Bollocks to that.

He held the menu button on his phone and said, ‘Call Nick.’ The phone called his elder brother, ring tone buzzing again, again, until passing on to answer phone. Chris hung up, pressed again and said, ‘Call Angie.’ She had five kids, an irregular boyfriend, and debt up to her ears, but his youngest sister was always a rock amongst stormy seas. It rang three times before she answered.

‘Chris.’

‘Angie, it’s me, something’s happened, something awful, and I need you to—’

‘I can’t talk right now.’

‘What? Something’s happened to Terri and the kids and you have to do something for me, but quietly, carefully. I need you to call the police.’

Silence. He could hear Angie breathing.

‘Angie?’

‘I can’t talk right now.’ Her voice broke, just slightly. Then there was the sound of fumbling before the call was disconnected.

Chris stared at the phone again, trying to make sense of his sister’s words. Angie having a bad day? She had a lot of them, but she’d never been like that to him, ever. He’d pulled himself out of the kind of lives his siblings lived, made a career for himself, made money. But they were still all the same really. They still loved each other. ‘Angie,’ he said, and the image came to him of her sitting alone in her kitchen, staring at the phone and shaking, while a stranger stood beside her own back door.

Chris snorted, shook his head. Pressed the button again. ‘Call Jake.’ He’d know what to do. Chris’s best friend was a gruff bloke and could be a bit of a dick sometimes – his delightful ex-wife could attest to that – but he valued their friendship, and they were always there for each other. It was picked up after two rings.

‘Jake, thank God. You’ve got to help me, mate, I’m in some scary deep shit here.’

‘Get the fuck out of my life,’ Jake said, and then he hung up.

Chris blinked at his phone. He tried to retain Jake’s tone, the sound of his voice, but his words scorched away any ability to recall. Had he really just heard that from his best friend?

‘This is … ’ Chris started, and he laughed. Once, loud, an unbelieving outburst. But there was nothing at all to laugh at here. The bloody dab on the door was testament to that. ‘What do I do?’ Chris whispered. ‘Just what?’