Текст книги "Stay Alive"

Автор книги: Simon Kernick

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Текущая страница: 4 (всего у книги 21 страниц)

Eight

Today 15.45

AMANDA WAS JUST putting on her jacket when there was a knock on her front door.

She didn’t get many visitors and there was no way she was going to open the door without knowing who was on the other side of it, so she crept back upstairs and peered down from her bedroom window like a suspicious old lady.

A short young man with neatly trimmed red hair stood on the doorstep. It was DC Andy Baxter, her liaison officer from Highlands CID, who lived a few miles up the road, and who liked to come by to check all was well with her more often than Amanda thought was strictly necessary. Today – probably because it was a Saturday – he was dressed in jeans and a windproof jacket, rather than his usual suit and tie.

Amanda moved back out of sight. Although she liked Andy – he was an easy-going enough character – she’d only seen him yesterday, and she was beginning to think he was developing a crush on her; not that he’d ever show such a thing, with her husband dead only a few weeks. But the point was, she didn’t think she could handle sitting with him drinking tea while he made small talk. It was possible, of course, that he had some news, but if it was that important, he’d almost certainly have phoned ahead. She’d wasted enough time today already, trying and failing to start her book, and she needed to get out and breathe some fresh air. Andy was an unwelcome delay.

She waited in the silence of the bedroom. He knocked on the door again, then for a third time a minute after that, before finally conceding defeat. Even so, Amanda waited a good minute before she looked back out of the window to check that he’d definitely gone, and saw him walking back to the road to where his car was parked and getting inside. He drove for twenty yards and turned round in the front car park of the local pub – a dank little place that looked like a scout hut called The Crooked Ship, which she’d never been inside – before driving back towards the road up to Inverness.

Moving quickly, Amanda hurried back downstairs and over to the front door. It took her a good thirty seconds to release all the dead bolts, locks and the two chains that ran up the frame and kept her barricaded and safe in the cottage. The locksmith had thought her mad when he’d come round to fit them all, but then he hadn’t known her story. Being attacked by a killer with a knife in your own home is going to make anyone paranoid, especially a single woman living by herself.

When she was outside, Amanda took a deep breath. It was a mild afternoon and the sun was trying to come out from behind a cluster of light clouds, and she suddenly felt good about the world for the first time in what seemed like a long while. She crossed the road, nodding at an old lady in a headscarf who was posting a letter, before joining the footpath that ran round the back of the pub, which would take her in the direction of the river.

The camera Keogh had planted in Amanda Rowan’s garden was motion-sensitive, and it kicked into life for the second time in three minutes, the feed on his laptop showing her opening her front door as she emerged from her house. He’d been thinking she wasn’t there, because a few minutes earlier a red-headed guy, whom Keogh could tell straight away was a copper, had knocked on the door several times and got no answer. But it seemed she was trying to avoid the guy, because she looked about quickly, as if she was checking the coast was clear, before triple-locking the door behind her and walking past the camera and through her front gate.

She was a good-looking woman, Keogh had to admit. Slim and lithe, with shoulder-length jet-black hair and a lean, angular face that suggested a mix of good breeding and plenty of time down at the gym. He would have gone for someone like her once, and she would probably have gone for him. No longer. Not with his face all cut up. Still, it seemed a shame that she had to die, and for just a quick second he experienced a twinge of guilt as some long-ago conscience came back to haunt him. He ruthlessly forced the guilt from his mind. This was business. And it was a business he was good at.

Keogh picked up the VH1 radio and spoke into the mouthpiece. ‘The target’s on the move. Get ready.’

Feeling a small but perceptible twinge of excitement, he switched on the Land Rover’s engine and pulled away.

Nine

Today 16.03

WALKING RELAXED AMANDA. It gave her space to think and, as she made her way down the footpath that would take her through thick pine forest down to the nearby river, she thought of her experience with The Disciple, and the dramatic effect he’d had on her life. She could picture her husband vividly, tied naked to the tub chair in the spare room, drenched seemingly from head to foot in blood, the ruined, tortured body of his lover lying almost at his feet. It was an image that would be etched on her brain for as long as she lived.

If she was brutally honest, she and George had never had a good marriage. They’d met online on a dating website. Amanda had always sworn blind that she’d never resort to online dating but, after a long period of single life, followed by a rocky five-year relationship, which had gone on at least four years too long, she’d finally relented. She’d had a good dozen dates, most of whom had been totally unsuitable, before she and George had hooked up. He wasn’t particularly good-looking. A big man, running to fat, with a ruddy complexion that owed more to good than clean living, and thinning hair, the first impressions weren’t good, particularly as – like so many men on those dating websites – he didn’t look a great deal like his photo, and was almost ten years older than her. But he had kind eyes, and a strong demeanour, and he’d made her feel good.

For the first date, they’d gone for a drink in his local in Old Street, and in spite of Amanda’s misgivings, they’d quickly hit it off. A second date had followed, this time in the far plusher surroundings of BamBou in Charlotte Street (she’d told him she liked Thai food), and a month later he’d proposed to her. He called her the best thing that had ever happened to him – the woman he’d been seeking the whole of his adult life.

Amanda should never have said yes. She didn’t love him. She liked him – he made her feel secure – and, she had to admit, the fact that he was an investment banker with plenty of money didn’t hurt either. But there was no passion, no desire. No hunger.

However, after years and years of trying to find the right man and failing, she wanted to settle down. She wanted to have children, too, and knew that at thirty-five the clock was beginning to tick loudly. George would make a good father and a solid husband. He was long-term material.

But it hadn’t worked out like that. George hadn’t been able to get her pregnant. He had a low sperm count. So they’d tried IVF and that hadn’t worked either. He’d also turned out to be a boring workaholic who wanted her to be a homemaker rather than a career woman, even if there was no one there to make a home for. They’d ended up moving out to the country, and she’d given up her job as a market research analyst in the West End. To be fair, she hadn’t been too bothered about that, but country life – especially country life in the middle of the woods, with none of her friends around – had bored her senseless. And when the dream of children had disappeared, followed closely by the discovery of his affair, so too had any hopes of saving the marriage.

And now there was no marriage to save. George was gone. And, though she could never admit it to anyone, she felt a guilty sense of liberation.

It was when she came out on the road a couple of hundred yards west of the village, just before the start of the forest, that Amanda saw it. The black four-by-four that had driven past her cottage a couple of hours earlier parked twenty yards ahead of her. There was another car parked behind it, and a uniformed police officer was leaning in the Land Rover’s window talking to the driver. It was clear he’d been stopped, and she wondered why, although she was relieved that he had been. She didn’t like the idea of suspicious-looking men driving round the area, not after everything that had happened to her.

To reach the footpath at the beginning of the forest, she needed to pass both cars and, as she approached them, she experienced a feeling of unease. Something didn’t feel quite right, and for a moment she considered simply turning round, heading back home, and triple-locking the door behind her. Even though this was the main road to Tayleigh, the nearest town, very little traffic passed along this way. It made her suddenly feel very vulnerable.

But Amanda didn’t turn round. Instead, she told herself to stop being so paranoid. There was no way The Disciple knew she was here and, whoever it was in the four-by-four, he wasn’t going to do anything with a police officer breathing down his neck.

As she drew level with the cars, the police officer turned round and smiled at her. He had a chubby baby face that didn’t quite sit right on his broad muscular shoulders, and there was something about his smile she didn’t like. It looked almost like a leer.

Working hard to hide the tension she was feeling, Amanda smiled back and continued walking, keeping her head down and deliberately avoiding looking over at the four-by-four’s driver, wanting to get off this road as soon as possible. The moment she was out of sight, she’d run down to the river. Her ankle was still a little tender from where she’d jumped out of Mrs Naseby’s window, trying to escape the man who’d murdered her husband, but she was still quick enough on her feet to put some real distance between her and the four-by-four.

‘Don’t move an inch.’

The voice – hard, aggressive and foreign – came from the bushes off to the side of her. Turning, Amanda saw a man emerge from the bushes, barely five feet away. He was small and wiry with olive skin and jet-black hair, and he held a gun out in front of him, pointing it directly at her ribs. Bar the incident three weeks earlier, Amanda had very little experience of criminals, but she could tell immediately that this man was the type who’d pull the trigger without hesitation, and from this distance he wouldn’t miss.

‘Turn away from me, and walk across the road to the cars,’ he continued, his voice far too calm, as if he accosted people like this every day. ‘Hurry.’

Amanda did as she was told, the shock of what was happening, and the knowledge she was trapped, stopping her from making a run for it. At the same time, the big police officer turned away from the driver’s window, his smile replaced by a cold, dead-eyed expression. Grabbing her violently by the arm, he pulled her towards him, at the same time producing a set of wrist restraints from his pocket.

‘Do as you’re told and you won’t get hurt,’ he said in a thick Scottish accent, yanking Amanda’s arm behind her back as he manoeuvred her towards the back of the four-by-four.

‘Who are you?’ she asked, conscious of the quiver in her voice. ‘This must be some mistake.’

‘There’s no mistake, Mrs Rowan,’ said the driver, who was getting out of the car now. He was in his late thirties, and spoke with a London accent, and he would have been strikingly good-looking if it weren’t for the two long thin scars running almost dead straight across his face and neck, one of which ended in a tangle of uneven tissue at his nose. But it was the syringe in his gloved hand that grabbed Amanda’s attention. They were going to drug her with something and abduct her, and the terrifying reality was that she had absolutely no idea why.

‘We just want a quiet chat, that’s all,’ said the driver, who had the air of a man in charge. He walked over to her, holding up the needle, while the big policeman expertly flicked the first of the restraints round her wrist before pulling her other arm behind her back. The third man – the one with the gun – walked over to the four-by-four’s boot and pulled it open.

Which was the moment Amanda heard another car coming round the corner towards them.

The others heard it too and turned in its direction.

Amanda knew instantly that she had just one chance to break free and that, if she didn’t take it, she was as good as dead, because whoever these men were, they meant her serious harm.

Feeling the policeman’s grip loosen ever so slightly, she yanked herself free in one single, sudden movement, catching him completely by surprise. Fuelled by adrenalin and panic, she kicked out at the driver, her walking boot connecting with his upper thigh and unbalancing him. He lunged at her with the syringe, but she was already pulling away, dropping into a crouch to make herself as difficult a target as possible.

She wasn’t quick enough. The policeman grabbed her by the collar of her jacket and yanked her back towards him with such force that he cut off her breath. But this time Amanda wasn’t coming quietly. She kicked and struggled, screaming, desperately fending off the needle as the driver tried to stab her with it, hearing the car screech to a halt only a few yards away.

The driver’s door flew open and Andy – her liaison officer – jumped out, his face a mask of indignation. ‘What the hell’s going on here?’ he yelled.

‘This lady’s under arrest,’ the policeman shouted back, pulling her round so they were both facing him.

Andy produced his warrant card, and held it up high, coming towards them calmly and confidently ‘And I’m a police officer as well. Highlands CID. What the hell have you arrested her for?’

Out of the corner of her eye, Amanda saw the guy with the gun move away from the car and shouted a desperate warning. ‘Andy, watch out! He’s got a gun!’

Almost in slow motion, Andy turned towards the car, the confidence seeping out of his expression as he saw the gunman striding confidently towards him from the other side of the road, gun arm outstretched as he took aim. For the first time Amanda saw that the gun had a long, cigar-shaped silencer on the end, like something out of a movie.

Andy lifted a hand in surrender, his voice rising higher as he spoke. ‘Please, I’m a police officer . . .’

The gunman smiled. Then, when he was only five feet away, he pulled the trigger.

A fine cloud of blood sprayed out of the side of Andy’s head, and his eyes squeezed shut, almost as if he was counting in a game of hide and seek. For an interminably long moment, he tottered unsteadily on his feet, then collapsed to the ground.

The whole drama, from Andy getting out of the car, to having his life snuffed out, had taken barely five seconds, but it had given Amanda enough time to work out her next move, and in the sudden silence that often comes after a single act of terrible violence, she reached behind her with her free hand and grabbed the police officer by his balls through the material of his trousers, twisting them round with an intensity born of desperation.

It worked. He let go of her immediately, crying out in pain, and Amanda tore free from his grasp, sprinting past the front of the four-by-four, trying to keep the driver and the cop between her and the gunman.

A shot rang out, whistling somewhere past her head as, crouching low, Amanda swung a hard left into the welcoming embrace of the forest, sprinting for her life.

‘No!’ she heard the scar-faced driver scream. ‘She’s got to be taken alive! Get after her!’

And as she tore through the thick undergrowth, hearing the sounds of pursuit all too close behind her, knowing she had to keep her balance or she was dead, two questions ripped through her fear.

What have I done? And why do these people want me?

Ten

JESS HAD TO admit she’d enjoyed the trip so far, although her arms were beginning to ache now.

The river was beautiful. It meandered gently through thick patches of woodland and rolling green fields, with majestic mountains rising up in the distance behind, and with just the occasional isolated house appearing amidst the silent, natural beauty. Because that was the amazing thing about this place. The silence. Jess had never experienced anything like it before, coming from London where there was always some kind of street noise, even in the dead of night. Here, you could hear literally nothing, bar the call of the occasional bird and the soothing flow of the river, for ages at a time. So far, they hadn’t seen another soul. There’d been a couple of minor rapids earlier and, though she’d never admit it to anyone, Jess had been nervous going through them, imagining the canoe capsizing and her having to swim for shore. Or, even worse, Casey and Tim’s canoe capsizing, and Casey being lost beneath the water. But of course, everything had been fine, and now the two canoes cut through the flat, still water, side by side, while Jess marvelled at how isolated it was out here.

She turned to Casey, who was taking a rest from paddling the other canoe, and letting their Uncle Tim do the work. ‘Having fun?’ she asked her sister.

‘I love it,’ grinned Casey, her whole face lighting up. ‘How about you, Jess? Are you having fun?’

‘Course I am. I’m spending time with you, aren’t I?’ She winked at her sister.

‘I liked the rapids earlier the most,’ continued Casey. ‘They were like the flume ride at Thorpe Park, only better.’

‘That’s because they’re real,’ said Tim. ‘We’ve got another one coming soon. That’s the last one, then it’s just an easy run into Tayleigh, and hopefully a quick pint at The Farmer’s.’

‘I don’t think so,’ said Jean. ‘We’re being picked up by the canoe owner. I’m sure he won’t want to hang about while you have a beer.’

‘He might if I buy him one,’ said Tim, who liked a drink.

‘No,’ said Jean, with a finality that brooked no further argument. But there was a lightness to her tone that told anyone listening that she was just bantering with her husband, and loved him really.

Jess had a boyfriend, Joe. They’d been together four months and had had numerous ups and downs. Jess thought she loved him, although she wasn’t sure, and when she heard the easy way Jean and Tim talked to each other, it made her vaguely jealous.

‘I don’t want this to end,’ said Casey, looking round at the scenery, her eyes lighting up.

‘We can come back any time you like,’ said Jean.

‘Tomorrow?’

Jean laughed. ‘Maybe not tomorrow, but I’m sure we can come next weekend if the weather’s good. Right Tim?’

‘Course we can,’ he answered, turning round in his seat and smiling back at Casey.

Jess felt happy then, for the first time in a while. Things finally seemed to be working out. Casey had left all her friends behind in London, and Jess had been so worried that she wouldn’t settle in up here, but she should have known better. People warmed to Casey. She could settle in anywhere, which meant Jess could now concentrate on getting her own life together, finishing college, and hopefully going off to uni.

‘Tim, can we pull into shore up here? I need the toilet,’ said Jean, who’d had to stop for toilet breaks twice already today. ‘Sorry girls, I’m a slave to my bladder,’ she added, giving Jess a little bit more detail than she actually needed.

‘There’s a spot just up here, look,’ said Tim, pointing to a small sandy strip a few yards across, just upstream on the right.

As they rowed the two canoes over, bringing the noses to a halt in the sand, Jess heard a popping sound coming from somewhere up in the trees ahead. She frowned, wondering what it was, but nobody else seemed to hear it and Jean clearly had more important things to worry about as she scrambled out the back of the canoe and disappeared behind a nearby tree.

‘Does anyone else need to go?’ asked Tim. ‘We’re still a good hour from Tayleigh.’

Casey said she was okay, but Jess was feeling a bit of a twinge and didn’t fancy getting uncomfortable later. ‘I do,’ she said, getting up unsteadily in the canoe and jumping off the end onto the sand, careful not to get her Converses wet. Stretching, she walked up the bank, looking for a tree as far away from Jean as possible.

Which was when she heard the sound of someone coming fast through the trees and turned to see a woman in dark clothing running down the hill towards her, barely twenty yards away, a look of utter panic on her face.

For a moment, Jess couldn’t believe what she was seeing. But the woman kept coming, getting closer and closer, if anything her pace quickening as she caught sight of Jess.

Five yards separated them now.

‘Run!’ the woman snapped, making no attempt to stop, her voice like the staccato crack of a branch. ‘Now!’

Jess wasn’t used to taking orders from someone she’d never met before, especially one who’d appeared out of nowhere, but as the woman ran past her in the direction of the boats, Jess caught sight of two more figures coming through the trees further up the hill, and it looked like one of them was carrying—

Jesus. It was a gun.

Jess had always been a fast runner. At school, she’d excelled in the sprints, and had always been quick off the mark. She was quick off the mark now. Turning in one rapid movement, she sprinted for the boats, already a good few yards behind the mystery woman.

Jean, meanwhile, appeared from behind the tree she’d been using, still pulling up her baggy shorts, a surprised expression on her face.

‘We need to go!’ Jess yelled at her. ‘There are men with guns in the woods!’

‘Oh my God!’ cried Jean, but she didn’t need telling twice, running for the canoe at a good pace for a big woman.

The mystery woman reached Jess and Jean’s canoe first and, as Tim and Casey looked on aghast, she pushed it back into the water, then jumped in, grabbed one of the oars and began paddling wildly. Jean jumped in after her, grabbing another paddle, while Jess, realizing that Tim and Casey were making no effort to paddle backwards into the water, grabbed the nose of their canoe and shoved it into the river as hard as she could.

‘What’s going on?’ Casey cried out, clearly terrified.

‘We’ve got to get out of here, okay,’ Jess answered, trying and failing to stay calm, wanting to pick Casey up and hug her tight, but continuing to push the canoe, which was still hardly moving at all. ‘Paddle, Tim, for God’s sake!’ she yelled.

‘What the hell’s happening?’ he demanded.

‘Just do it.’ With a last big heave, Jess jumped in the boat, pushing Casey down between the seats so she was out of sight and grabbing her oar.

‘Jess, what are you doing?’ she sobbed.

Jess didn’t answer. She was paddling backwards like crazy and looking towards the bank where the two men she’d seen earlier had now appeared on the sand, no more than twenty yards away. One of them, a small guy dressed in black, definitely had a gun in his hand, but the other – a much bigger guy – looked as if he was wearing a police uniform, and didn’t appear to be armed.

‘It’s the coppers,’ shouted Tim, indignation in his voice. ‘She’s running from the coppers.’

‘They’re not policemen!’ shouted the woman in the other canoe, still paddling wildly, and for the first time Jess noticed she had an English accent. ‘They’ve just killed a policeman.’

Tim didn’t sound convinced. ‘What the hell are you talking about? You’re running from them, lass, and no mistake.’

And then the gunman on the bank raised his weapon and pointed it in the mystery woman’s direction.

‘Get down everyone!’ yelled Tim, panic in his voice.

Out of the corner of her eye, Jess saw Jean scramble down in the other boat, almost upending it in the process, while the mystery woman continued to paddle backwards, keeping her head down. Jess didn’t hesitate: she rolled back in her seat, grabbed Casey in a bear hug and the two of them fell to the bottom of the canoe as a shot whistled somewhere overhead.

A second shot rang out but Tim was still in his seat, paddling wildly, managing to turn the boat round so it was facing downriver, and then he too scrambled onto the floor, keeping his head down as a third shot cracked across the river. Except this time it sounded as if it was further away, and Jess let out a very small sigh of relief as she hugged Casey close, feeling the wetness of her sister’s tears in the crook of her neck.