LITMIR.BIZ

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but Erin couldn’t make out much of the conversation. She was suddenly too busy worrying about what the hell she was going to say to explain her presence here at the cabin. Angela obviously hadn’t told him it was being used by one of her employees. What would his reaction be? Embarrassment, probably. Irritation. Annoyance. Perhaps outright anger. But she couldn’t very well just hide up here out of sight in the man’s home.

      She was about to make her presence known – come what may – when the situation downstairs suddenly changed.

      Angela’s husband abruptly set down his glass and signalled to the two younger men by the window. Instantly, without a word, they also put down their drinks and stepped quickly over to where the bearded man was sitting. Before he could stop them, they’d grabbed his arms and turfed him out of his armchair. He sprawled on the rug. Then it got worse. Calmly, almost casually and out of nowhere, the two produced expandable batons, the kind the cops used, that telescoped out to full length at the flick of a wrist. The bearded man’s cries and protests were swiftly silenced as they began raining brutal blows on his head and body.

      ‘Not here,’ Angela’s husband said. ‘Get him outside.’

      Erin watched in growing horror as the two hard-faced men dragged their bleeding victim to the door and out onto the moonlit veranda. The bearded man tried to struggle to his feet.

      That was when it got worse again. She almost let out a scream as she saw the short-haired one take out a pistol from a concealed holster. Two loud stunning blasts filled the cabin as he shot the bearded man in the left knee, then in the right. The boom of the gunshots was followed by a howl as the victim crumpled and rolled in agony on the veranda.

      The silver-haired man simply watched impassively.

      Erin couldn’t believe what she was seeing. This was Angela’s husband!

      Nobody would ever believe her … unless …

      Erin scrambled back through the shadows into the bedroom. Grabbing her phone with a trembling hand, she activated the video recording function and crept back out onto the landing. If they saw her, they’d kill her. Even armed, she wouldn’t stand a chance against these men.

      The bearded man was dragging himself across the veranda away from them, wailing in pain and terror as he clawed his way forward, one hand behind the other. Angela’s husband continued to watch, the way someone would watch a bug crawl across the floor. At his signal, the ponytailed man stepped up alongside the victim, took out a pistol and fired a deafening shot through one of his hands.

      The wailing became a tortured screech. The other three men began to laugh. The other one shot him now, this time through the thigh. Then once more, blowing fingers off his other hand. The screaming became continuous.

      Erin could hardly keep the tiny video camera steady in her shaking hands.

      ‘Hell with this,’ Angela’s husband said. ‘I’m tired of this prick’s hollering.’ He reached under his jacket and came out with a large shiny revolver that glittered in the moonlight. He thumbed back the hammer, aimed at the back of the bearded man’s head and pulled the trigger.

      The blast and flame were far greater than the other gunshots. The crawling man was thrown forward on his face in an explosion of blood, twitched violently and then lay still.

      Angela’s husband twirled the revolver theatrically around his trigger finger, like a movie cowboy, and then thrust it back in its holster. ‘All right,’ he said to the others. ‘Stick this piece of garbage in the van. You can chop his ass up and get rid of it later.’

      ‘Okay, boss.’

      ‘Ah, shit, I got blood on my goddamn brogues.’

      ‘Sorry, boss.’

      ‘What the hell. Gonna take a leak,’ Angela’s husband announced.

      Erin watched, quaking, as the body was dragged down the veranda steps and away towards the trees. All three of the men had moved away from the cabin. This was her one and only chance to get out of here. She turned off the phone, stumbled back inside the bedroom and snatched her backpack. She threw the phone into it. Some of her other things were strewn about the room, but there just wasn’t time to retrieve them.

      With the pack on her shoulder and the pistol held out in front of her, she scurried barefoot down the stairs. She felt naked and vulnerable under the lights of the main room. One of the men had only to turn and glance back at the cabin, and she’d be spotted right away. If that happened, she knew the exchange of gunfire would be very brief – and that she wouldn’t survive it.

      She almost retched as she picked a path around the bloodslick on the veranda and the broad trail of it down the steps. Just a few yards, and she would be in the shadow of the trees. Her legs were shaking so badly, she was terrified she’d fall over.

      Angela’s husband had strolled casually over to a tree and was urinating against it with his feet braced apart and his back to her, left hand on his hip, whistling to himself. She passed within twenty feet of him, close enough to hear the patter of his stream on the ground. The other two had carried the body to a white van that was parked across from the cabin, just a pale outline under the shadows of the trees. She could hear their low voices. They were turning. Heading back. They were going to see her.

      She ducked into the dark bushes just in time and crouched there, holding her breath, petrified that the slightest rustle would betray her presence. One of the men walked by so close that she could smell the minty odour on his breath, like gum. It was the one with the ponytail. He paused, seemed to stiffen like an animal when it senses something. Through the leaves she could see his face half-lit by the moon and the glow from the cabin. The gleam of his eyes.

      ‘What is it, Billy Bob?’ the other one said.

      The one called Billy Bob stood still, so close that Erin could have reached out of the bushes and touched him.

      ‘Nuthin’,’ Billy Bob said, and walked on.

      Angela’s husband had zipped himself up and was strolling back towards the cabin, complaining in a loud voice about the goddamn mess. The other two exchanged glances. The one called Billy Bob grinned. They followed him back inside.

      And Erin clambered out of her hiding place in the bushes and ran like she’d never run before.

       Chapter Two

       The Galway coast

       Republic of Ireland

       Two days later

      It was cold for the time of year, and the steady breeze from the sea made him turn up the collar of his old leather jacket. The pale early evening sun was beginning to drop lower over the Atlantic horizon, casting his shadow long and dark over the empty, pebbly beach as he walked.

      Ben Hope was alone out here, and glad to be. He walked slowly, because he had nowhere in particular to go. He didn’t even know why he’d come to this place. Now and then he paused in his step to stare out to sea, as if somehow the iron-grey ocean would give him the answers he was looking for.

      He had lived here once. Spent many hours standing in this very spot, watching the waves roll in and crash against the rocks. It seemed a long time ago now. Just as he had in the old days, he bent and scooped up a handful of pebbles from the stony beach to fling into the surf. He watched them disappear one by one in the hissing foam.

      ‘Fuck it,’ he muttered to himself after the last pebble was gone. He turned his back on the water and started making his way towards the big house.

      As he got closer, he paused again and gazed at it. The Victorian building stood perched on rock overlooking the long, curved stretch of its own private beach. He knew the house very well indeed, as it had once belonged to him. But he’d been away long enough to have forgotten just how large and imposing it looked.

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