LITMIR.BIZ

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Murders her, most likely while she’s asleep.’

      ‘Oh my God …’

      ‘It’s worse, I’m afraid. Somehow or other he knew we’d end up coming up here. Don’t ask me how …’

      ‘And that’s why he left the front door unlocked,’ Gemma interrupted. ‘To get us all into the house.’

      ‘Yeah.’ Heck felt fresh sweat on his brow. ‘To make us fish in a barrel.’

      ‘If you’re right,’ Hazel whimpered, ‘that means he could be here …’

      Heck nodded. ‘I know … now!’

      The door burst open, slamming the wall as a dim figure forced its way through.

      ‘Everyone down!’ Gemma shouted, throwing the shotgun to her shoulder. Heck dived to the floor, dragging Hazel with him. BOOM – the payload spread as it crossed the room, shredding the woodwork to either side of the entrance, and hitting the figure full-on, hurling it backward onto the landing.

      Heck scrabbled after it on all fours, wafting at dust. He levered himself to his feet and flattened his body against the fragmented jamb, angling his head to peek around.

      And seeing something incredible.

      There wasn’t one body lying out there. There were two, one on top of the other.

      The one on top was dead, though it would be more accurate to say it had never lived. It was the mannequin from downstairs. The shotgun blast had broken it in half. One of its arms had become detached. However, the body underneath it was fully intact, and far more animated. Even as Heck watched, it kicked aside what remained of the dummy and lurched quickly to its feet. Heck ducked back into the room, but caught a fleeting glimpse of heavy boots, dark waterproofs, a full-head leather mask, and in its gloved right hand, a six-shooter.

      The bedroom door was only partially intact, and when Heck banged it closed, it came loose around the hinges, which had been mangled by shot.

      ‘The bed! Get me the sodding bed!’

      The women jumped to their feet, though Hazel was too frozen with shock and horror to do much more. She goggled at the sight of Gemma unceremoniously throwing Annie Beckwith’s corpse to the floor, and inserting herself behind the heavy cast-iron bedframe as she tried to shove it across the room.

      ‘Give me a hand!’ Gemma gasped.

      Belatedly, Hazel joined her. The bed screeched forward, its un-wheeled feet chewing through floorboards. Heck added his strength too, and they slid it into place, ramming it against the door – and not before time. Half a second later, there were three detonations, and a trio of holes was punched through the planking. Three corresponding impacts struck the far wall, knocking out fist-sized chunks.

      ‘Heck … I may have killed us here,’ Gemma panted. ‘I wasted our last cartridge.’

      ‘We’re not bloody beaten yet!’ He pivoted around, grabbed at the curtains and yanked them down in a mass of dust and rotted fabric.

      The window beyond was deeply recessed, set into a stone wall that was at least three feet thick. But its four panes of glass, though heavy and grimy, relied on a central cruciform frame that was badly decayed.

      ‘Both of you get down,’ he said, tearing off his jacket and wrapping it around his fist. Behind him meanwhile, the door was assailed. Kicks and blows rained down with anger and exertion, then three more gunshots followed, ripping through the jamb.

      ‘He must have ammo to spare!’ Gemma shouted.

      ‘This whole thing’s been well planned.’ Heck drove his padded fist hard at the window, which exploded out in a cascade of jangling shards. A few teeth of glass remained in the aged frame, but he knocked these out too. ‘Okay … quickly!’

      Hazel hung back like a frightened rabbit. ‘What … what’s on the other side?’

      He didn’t answer, just grabbed her around the waist, lifted her up and placed her on all fours in the window embrasure, pushing her bottom until she vanished and he heard the double-thud of her feet alighting on a hollow surface.

      ‘You next, Gemma.’

      ‘No … you next,’ she said. ‘I’m the senior rank, and I screwed up. So it’s my arse.’

      ‘It’s your arse I’m thinking about. Be a hell of a shame to lose it.’

      ‘I could say the same about yours … now get out!’

      He leapfrogged into the recess, and scrambled forward on hands and knees, poking his head out and seeing a lower section of slanted roof about five feet below, covered in broken, lichen-covered slates. Hazel was already halfway down it on her backside. She’d shortly reach the eaves, from where it would be no more than a seven-foot drop. Heck scrabbled out in pursuit, landing hands-first on the sloped surface, shattering a dozen more tiles, hearing the woodwork crack underneath, but now rolling sideways, coming up hard against Hazel’s back, causing her to yelp.

      He glanced backward and up. ‘Gemma?’

      ‘I’m okay,’ she said, appearing in the window. ‘Just go!’

      Heck and Hazel leapt from the roof side-by-side, Gemma following half a second later. Without stopping to talk, they ran forward and away from the house. Heck looked back once, seeing a black aperture where the hatch to an old coal-cellar had been pried open – which clearly explained how the killer had first gained access to the property. Not that there was time to ponder this. They ploughed through icy fog, which seemed even denser than earlier, keeping their torches switched off; the gunman would hear them easily enough without them leaving him a beacon. And yet almost immediately they came unstuck. Within a few dozen yards, they were staggering across strips of ground cordoned by knee-high net-wire fencing, some planted with rows of vegetables, others filled with rubbish and old straw. Beyond these, they stumbled between chicken-sheds and other dilapidated structures which they had to veer around or scrabble over. As such, they lost all sense of direction, only keeping together because they clung on to each other.

      From behind them, there was an echoing thump.

      ‘Front door,’ Heck breathed. ‘He’s coming after us. Keep moving.’

      But now they hesitated. Low sheds lay on all sides. Alleys led in various directions.

      ‘Which way?’ Gemma said. ‘We can’t just run blind. If we come to that beck, or to a scree slope or something, and he’s right behind us …’

      ‘Keep heading away from the house in a straight line,’ Hazel advised, panting.

      ‘How do we know it’s a straight line?’

      ‘As long as all these paddocks and farm structures are here, we know we’re crossing Annie’s farmyard. Most of them are directly behind her house.’

      ‘And then what, Ms Carter?’ Gemma asked.

      ‘There’s a path up into the hills.’

      ‘You mean the Track?’ Heck said.

      ‘No, a smaller one. Annie once told me she didn’t like it when walkers used it, as it brought them down into the corrie behind her house.’

      ‘How steep is this smaller path?’ Gemma wondered.

      ‘It’s just as steep for him as it is for us,’ Hazel replied tartly.

      With no option, they hurried on, coming to a broad thoroughfare of beaten earth running straight through the middle of the allotments.

      ‘This is the main passage across the yard,’ Hazel almost shouted. ‘It leads straight to the hills.’ She took off quickly, the other two hurrying in pursuit.

      ‘And what do we do when we get up into these hills?’ Gemma asked Heck quietly. ‘How is that going to help us exactly?’

      ‘Hazel’s

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