Fifth Victim

As soon as I’d seen it, Ross’s cryptic dying warning made perfect sense.

The fence was called The Coffin.

CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

The Aston Martin may have been an utterly brilliant car on the road, but it wouldn’t have gone more than a few metres off it. Last night’s rain had turned the ground slick. The grass was so soft in places that just to walk on it broke through to liquid mud underneath.

Raleigh insisted we take the club runabout – the GMC pickup he’d used as a tow vehicle to collect Dina’s horses. It was sitting on the yard with half a dozen fence posts and a bale of straw stacked in the back. We drove out of the yard making a beeline for the far side of the course, and The Coffin. If the size of some of the other fences we passed on the way were anything to go by, it was going to be just as scary as its name suggested.

Back when I’d had horses of my own as a teenager in Cheshire, I’d never ridden beyond inter-county level, with the fences smaller and less well nailed together than these. But even so, coffins had never been my favourite.

They were a three-part obstacle with a straightforward rail in that tricked you into approaching too boldly, but the landing surface dropped away unexpectedly. At the bottom of the slope was the lined ditch that gave the fence its name, then usually a single stride back uphill to another rail.

Get the first element wrong and there was very little chance of recovery. It was a test of rhythm and control on the part of the rider, and bravery and fitness on the part of the horse.

The Coffin on the riding club course was possibly at the furthest point away from the stable yard and any chance of disturbance or discovery. Without Ross’s garbled warning, we would never have had any reason to look for it.

The natural landscape had that slightly too-perfect look about it that made it certainly artificial. The whole place had been reshaped to provide changes in elevation, and planted with trees to make the approaches to obstacles sudden and surprising. When Raleigh had been let loose to design this course, it seemed they’d given him an open chequebook and he’d taken full advantage of the fact.

Now, we bumped over the rough ground, slithering despite the four-wheel drive, following a set of similar tracks to our own.

‘Should be just past that next bunch of trees up on the left,’ Parker said, tense, reading from the pocket version of the map, which Raleigh had given us. ‘Stop here, Charlie, and we’ll go in on foot. We don’t want to spook him.’

I pulled the pickup a little closer to the shelter of the trees and cut the engine. The sudden silence was broken as Parker pulled out the Glock he carried and racked a round into the chamber.

He glanced across, a question in his eyes, and I realised that this was the first time I’d been into a situation alone with him. On a rational level he completely understood that I was up to the job, but purely on an emotional level, that was another matter.

‘You don’t have to worry about me, Parker,’ I said tightly. ‘Just stay out of my line of fire.’

He nodded, a flicker of a smile lingering around his eyes, and we both climbed out, dropping down lightly onto the grass. Parker reverted to hand signals immediately, indicating we split up round the trees to approach from different angles, then loped away, moving with a stealth and speed that did not fit with his suited attire.

I skirted the copse as fast and quiet as I could, keeping my own SIG out and ready. I could smell fresh earth and wet leaves, hear birds squabbling in the branches overhead, the drip of residual water from the leaves. Apart from that, it was quiet as the grave.

So, into that peaceful background rustle, the crack of a single gunshot somewhere ahead of me was loud and shocking.

CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

I abandoned any attempts at stealth and ran. As I knew from experience, the noise of an unsuppressed gunshot would cause a temporary hearing shift in those at close proximity. It should be more than enough to mask the sound of our approach.

I hoped Parker was taking advantage of that fact, too. And I realised, much as he had reservations about me, I was just as unsure of him. I’d been in so many tight spots with Sean that it was as though we worked by some kind of psychic link, knowing instinctively what the other was thinking, how they would react, what they would or would not do.

Parker, by the very nature of his position, no longer spent much time in the field. Hell, he didn’t even carry his sidearm with a round ready in the chamber …

As I neared the far side of the trees, I slowed, moving at a sideways crouch and leading with the SIG, straining to hear above the pounding of my heart. I took a couple of deep breaths to steady my aim, and edged closer, forcing myself to trust that Parker was mirroring my advance.

And then, beyond the branches, I caught sight of colour and movement. A man, standing in the back of a pickup, shovelling earth through the open tailgate. He was working fast and furtive, head down with the effort of his labours, putting his back into it.

Hunt.

I stilled, eyes sliding around me. Raleigh had said he wasn’t alone, so where was Lennon? And what about the gunshot we’d heard? Had Hunt decided to give Dina the mercy of a quick and relatively painless death rather than the long slow agony of suffocation?

I clamped down hard on that thought. If she was dead, then I had failed utterly.

Soft-footed now, cautious, I moved forward, right arm straight and left locked in to support it, keeping the SIG canted up so the centre of Hunt’s body mass stayed firmly in my sights. He had stripped down to a plain white shirt and rolled back his sleeves. The shirt was glued to his back with sweat, and was thin enough that I could tell he wore no protective armour underneath it.

Mind you – this time, neither did I.

As I cleared cover, I saw that Hunt had backed the pickup down to one end of the ditch element of the obstacle, and was currently filling it in with frantic haste. He bent again, his back still towards me. I reached the first rail part of the fence. It came up to my waist, telegraph-pole thick and forbidding.

And as I looked over it, down the slope, I saw a piece of cloth sticking out of the new earth in the ditch. Not just cloth, but the leg of a pair of trousers. More than that, a half-bent knee. I froze.

Dina?

And as the thought formed, I dismissed it. The leg was the wrong size, the wrong shape. Male …

‘Hello, Charlie!’

Disappointingly, Hunt’s voice did not sound in the least surprised at my sudden appearance. What surprised me about him, however, was the fact that all trace of his British accent had disappeared.

He’d straightened while my attention had been momentarily distracted by the body, and instead of the long- handled shovel, he was now gripping a silvered semi-automatic, probably a Colt, with self-assurance and familiarity. I remembered the almost casual way he’d shot McGregor in the gut during Dina’s abduction. Another good reason to kill him.

‘So, absolutely nothing about you is for real, huh?’ I said. ‘Not even your voice.’

‘Fooled you, though, didn’t I, Charlie? You swallowed that bullshit tale about Oxford and fox-hunting without a flicker.’

I remembered my doubts about his accent, the first time we’d met. I’d put it down to elocution lessons, or snobbery. My mistake.

I focused on him, avoided looking round too obviously. Where the hell is Parker?

‘I don’t suppose you believe for a moment that I’ve come alone,’ I said cheerfully, not lowering my own weapon.

He laughed. ‘Why not?’ he asked. ‘You’re certainly arrogant enough.’