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

But as she slipped from the doors and looked across the front garden, Rose realised that things might not be so simple. When she’d shot the woman, the glass in the front door had shattered. And now across the street there were several people gathered around a car, examining a hole in one of its side windows.

They’d still not immediately think of guns and bullets. Their minds wouldn’t work that way. But it meant that she and Chris didn’t have long.

He followed behind her, close and quiet. That was good. She needed him more than he needed her, but she’d never tell him that.

As they approached the open gates at the end of the short driveway, she pressed the button on the key fob. A little way along the street, a white BMW’s lights flashed twice.

A couple of the people examining the damaged car looked up. One of them smiled and raised his hand to Chris, then his expression fell a little when he saw Rose.

‘Morning!’ Rose said. ‘Lovely morning.’

‘Yes, lovely,’ the man said uncertainly.

‘Don’t look at him or say a word,’ she whispered. She led Chris along the pavement to the BMW, climbed into the driver’s seat, dropped the backpack in the passenger footwell, and watched him get in beside her. He still had the kit bag clasped to his chest. Taking the gun from her pocket, she placed it between her legs on the seat. Then she checked the phone again.

‘They’ve seen my front door,’ Chris said.

‘Doesn’t matter.’ She scrolled through the contacts list. There were only half a dozen names registered. She smiled when she saw the photos beside two names. And then she saw other faces, knew them, hated them all over again. ‘Here they are,’ she said.

‘Who?’

‘The Trail.’

‘What’s that?’

She glanced across at Chris, sitting confused and scared and still shocked numb beside her. He didn’t need to know, not yet. Not until they got away from here and were closing on their destination.

Her destination. Because from this moment forward, she was taking charge.

She started the car and pulled away, making a three-point turn so that they didn’t have to pass Chris’s neighbours. Heading off along his street, she saw parents starting to leave home with kids. The school run. She missed that. She missed everything. For a moment her mind drifted again, flitting back to memories she could do nothing to temper and which seemed to become richer over time. Sometimes they were more real than her reality.

Your memories will be your downfall, Holt had said to her in Italy. You let the past distract you so much that it blurs your present. But memories were all she had left, and she never tried too hard to lose them.

‘How many people have you killed?’ Chris asked.

‘Three.’ Their dying expressions already felt familiar.

The phone in the door pocket beside her trilled. She didn’t answer. As soon as it rang off she knew that the alarm would be raised. They’re starting to panic, she thought. I can feel that. I can sense it. And she could. She knew the Trail so well – had lived and breathed them for the past three years – that their thoughts were hers, their emotions and actions so tied into her existence that she might as well have been monitoring their individual heartbeats, their pulses.

They wouldn’t yet know she was here or who she was. But soon.

‘Where are we going? You need to let me out, now. Let me go.’ Chris’s voice shimmered with panic. ‘You leave, I won’t say anything. Got to get out!’ He tried the door handle, but she’d clicked on the central locking.

Rose checked ahead. They’d pulled onto a small commercial street with a few shops on both sides, and the road was wide, not too busy.

‘Stop the car!’ He grabbed for the steering wheel. Rose nodded across at Chris’s window, eyes going wide. When he looked, she launched a fast, accurate punch at his temple. His head jerked sideways and struck the window, and he emitted a long, low groan, slumping in his seat. His eyelids fluttered.

She’d learned the theory, but had never done that before.

Rose checked the mirrors and looked ahead. No one had seen. And if someone did notice him now, he was sleeping on his way to work, that was all.

She could imagine the heat of the Trail’s networks buzzing with consternation. The phone rang again.

This time she answered.

Chapter Six (#ulink_81860529-9a40-5052-98b4-bce4fd8c71c6)

please (#ulink_81860529-9a40-5052-98b4-bce4fd8c71c6)

Gemma had no idea why they hadn’t blindfolded her as well. Maybe they needed a witness to what was happening, needed one of them to see just how serious this woman was. Or perhaps they just assumed she’d be no trouble.

Right then, they were correct. She was so scared, she seriously doubted she could even stand.

‘Please,’ Megs said.

‘Will you shut her up?’ the woman muttered. She’d said the same thing a dozen times, tone of voice hardly changing, but Gemma felt the air charging. Danger hung heavy. Violence simmered.

‘Megs, you need to keep quiet,’ their mother said.

Gemma’s heart hammered, vision blurred. She had never been so terrified, and she wished she could hold her little sister and make her feel better. The comfort would go both ways. But Megs was tied in a kneeling position next to their mum’s right leg, and Gemma herself was also tied, next to her mother’s left leg and with thin, strong ropes holding her against the van’s wooden seat. Her mother was on the seat, the two of them on the floor, all so close but with little comfort to be had.

‘Please,’ Megs said. She must have said it a hundred times, so many that the word had lost meaning.

‘Come on, Megs,’ Gemma said again. ‘It’ll all be fine, it’s just a game or something, a reality TV show. We’ll be famous!’ It was difficult sounding so positive and in control when she was so scared, but Gemma had always been protective of her little sister.

The windows in the van’s rear doors were covered with plywood boards, and a small, naked bulb provided the only light inside. It swung on a loose wire, light and shadows dancing around the vehicle’s interior. The space revealed was battered and well-used, the walls scabbed with rust, floor dirty, scratches and dents scarring the exposed metal bodywork.

‘If you just untie her, she’ll calm down a bit,’ Gemma said.

‘Really?’ the woman asked, raising an eyebrow. While they were being taken from the house, Gemma had heard her called Vey. The strange name only added to Gemma’s fear. Who called anyone Vey?

Were they going to be killed?

‘Where’s my dad?’ That he wasn’t here with them terrified Gemma. He’d always said that she had a vivid imagination, and she imagined him arriving home from his run and finding the house empty, meeting someone left behind to kill him. Her dad, in his sweaty, tight running kit that she often took the mickey out of, opening the door and being met with a fist or a gun.

The unreality of things hit her. That helped.

‘You just keep still and quiet. Be a good little girl.’

Gemma couldn’t remember the last time she’d been called a little girl. She was fifteen in six weeks, and already almost as tall as her mum. She hadn’t been a little girl for a while. Vey doesn’t know how to talk to kids so doesn’t have any, she thought, and she filed that in her memory bank. She called it ‘the box’, and imagined it as a concertina file like the one Mum and Dad used to store their household bills and other stuff. She closed her eyes briefly to open it and slip in this new piece of information. She didn’t bother with alphabetical order, just filed it in one of the cardboard folds.

The van bumped gently over a series of sleeping policemen. We’re still in the town, Gemma thought. She’d seen a film once where someone had been kidnapped, thrown into a car boot, and then tracked where they were being taken by listening to noises from outside, counting turns, making a mental map of the route they were taking. It was ridiculous, and she’d lost her way after the first couple of turns. But the box was still mostly empty. Every scrap of stuff she put in there might help her.

And concentrating on that might distract her from the terror that threatened to smother her.

She had just stepped into the shower when they came. A shout from downstairs, a scream from Megs, and then the door to the bathroom had swung open and the tall man entered. ‘Get dressed,’ he’d said, not even glancing her up and down.

Through her shock, Gemma had plucked a bowl of pot pourri from the small shelf beside the bath and flung it at the man. He’d caught it casually and thrown it back at her, dried flowers and bulbs showering the bathroom. The bowl had smashed on the tiled wall, and one heavy shard sliced across her shoulder. One foot had tangled in the curtain and she’d tripped from the shower, reaching out for balance but failing, tearing the curtain from its rings, falling to the floor with a heavy thud that vented the air from her lungs and winded her.