bone, but with all the muscle on his upper body the blow just glanced off and he pawed the guitar out of her hands as he rushed her like an angry bull. He lashed out and backhanded her across the face, and she shrieked and went sprawling back across the bed. He grabbed her by the hair, hit her again.
Then he clambered on top of her, driving the air out of her with his weight, straddling her hips and pinning both her arms behind her head with one strong hand. She fought back, spat in his face, but he was heavy and powerful and there was little she could do to resist him. With his free hand he started ripping at her clothes, fumbling at the fastening of her jeans and yanking down the hem of her waistband. Started grabbing at his zipper.
He had her jeans down past her hips and she was screaming for him to stop when the bedroom door burst open and a woman and a tall man walked in. The woman was holding a stack of plastic CD cases.
Sabrina’s attacker twisted round to look at the two of them, and muttered angrily in a language she didn’t understand. The woman froze, taking in the scene, then stepped across to the bed. Her arm shot out and she grabbed a fistful of the stocky guy’s hair. Jerked his head back harshly, making him cry out in pain, and dragged him off Sabrina.
Sabrina rolled off the edge of the bed, pulling up her jeans and trying to cover herself up. Her hands were shaking so violently that she could barely do up the button of her jeans. Across the bedroom, the woman still had the man’s hair bunched up tight in her fist. His eyes were popping with pain. She wrenched his head back and forth a couple of times in disgust and then let him go.
Cowering by the side of the bed, Sabrina was on the point of thanking the woman for saving her from being raped. But then the woman turned to stare at her, and the cold look in her eyes made Sabrina recoil.
‘Who are you?’ Sabrina asked her.
The woman’s stare bored into her. ‘Shut up,’ she said in English. Then she turned to the men and made a sharp gesture as she headed for the door. The tall man followed.
The stocky guy knew what to do. He scooped Sabrina up in his arms and dragged her out of the bedroom, ignoring her screams. She was powerless in his grip, and could feel the suppressed fury pulsing out of him. The woman led the way down the open-tread staircase, across the glass-roofed rear atrium and through the tall glass doors onto the rear terrace overlooking the lake. Rain was slashing down onto the concrete, driven diagonally by the howling wind and hitting so hard it was bouncing. In the pale light Sabrina could see beyond the terrace and garden to the grassy slope down to the lakeside. The wind was churning up the water, and white-crested waves were rolling up the shore and breaking against the little wooden jetty where Adam kept his rowing boat.
Sabrina’s bare feet hardly touched the ground as the powerful man hauled her out across the terrace. The woman turned to him, her blond hair plastered across her face by the wind, and issued stern, authoritative commands. He just nodded. Then the woman gestured to the tall man and led him away, up the flagstone path that skirted around the side of the house towards the front yard and out of sight.
The man dragged Sabrina closer to the lakeside. They were on the grass now, and she could hear his boots squelching on the sodden ground. Her hair was in her face and the rain stung her eyes and she could barely see. She writhed in his arms. It was like being clasped by a machine. His hand was pressed hard over her face, muffling her cries of protest. As he walked, half-dragging and half-carrying her, he stumbled on the rough ground and his fingers slipped an inch and she could open her mouth.
She bit hard, felt her teeth break skin and flesh.
He ripped his hand away and slapped her, then again. And again. She could feel his blood on her face. Heard the rasp of his voice close to her ear as he spoke to her in that strange language. Then he laughed.
She knew what the woman had told him to do. His job was to drown her in the lake.
She felt her heels drag on the stones as they neared the shoreline. His feet splashed into the water, and the icy shock took her breath away and made her heart stutter as he dumped her body into the waves. She screamed again, but it turned into a gurgle as he pressed a big flat palm against her face and drove her head down under the surface.
The water roared in her ears and filled her nose. Bubbles streamed out of her mouth. She flailed desperately with her hands, managed to fight free of his grip. Broke the surface and filled her lungs with air before he pushed her back down under the icy black water. She battled to hold her breath as her fingernails raked at his hands and wrists. But he was just too strong.
She knew she couldn’t hold on much longer. In a few short seconds the water was going to come pouring into her lungs and he was going to hold her there until she drowned.
She was going to die. This was it.
Then suddenly she was gasping and wheezing and tasting air as her head burst free of the surface again. The man had let go of her. Through the coughing fit that racked her body she saw him go down on his knees, the water surging up to his neck and over his shoulders.
She blinked the water out of her eyes. A dark figure was standing behind the man, with an arm locked around his throat. A brutal twist, and Sabrina heard the crack over the roar of the wind as the stocky guy’s neck snapped like a branch.
Then a hand was grasping her tightly by the arm and pulling her out of the lake.
Ben hauled the coughing, spluttering woman up onto the shore. In his right hand was the automatic pistol he’d taken from her attacker’s belt.
To come to an idyllic lakeside retreat to talk to a retired physics professor and find a gang of armed killers trying to murder a woman – Ben wasn’t even trying to figure it out. The questions could come later, after he’d got himself and her out of this.
It had been on the approach to the house, the Audi’s windscreen wipers batting away the thundering rain on full speed, that he’d spotted the beige Citroen Picasso parked at the gate. Innocuous enough, but a woman’s scream of terror was a sound that could carry a long way, even through a stormy night. He’d killed his lights and engine and coasted the last few yards to the house, left the Audi hidden among the trees and come in over the wall. He could still hear the screaming as he’d sneaked through the grounds. Crouched behind a flowery shrub, he’d wiped the rain out of his eyes and watched the blond female and the tall man walk away around the side of the house and head back towards their car.
He’d been more interested in the woman. Everything about her cool, imperious bearing said that she was the leader. As she walked, she’d kept glancing at something in her hand. Hard to tell from that distance, but Ben had thought it looked like she was holding a pile of CDs.
Then, as Ben had sat watching, his attention was quickly diverted to the second guy, the squat one with the muscles. It was becoming increasingly obvious that he didn’t have good intentions towards the woman they’d dragged from the house.
In situations like that, it was hard to remain a passive observer.
Wishing there’d been time to conceal the attacker’s body, Ben helped the frightened woman up the bank to the cover of the long grass, laid her down and crouched beside her in the shadows. Any minute now, the other two were going to be wondering what was keeping their friend so long, and they’d be back.
She shrank away from him, fear in her eyes. Water was dripping from her hair, and her clothing was soaked. Ben could feel his own wet shirt clinging to him, and the wind chilling his skin. He knew he had to get the woman inside the house quickly. Even in summer, hypothermia was a dangerous reality.
‘I won’t hurt you,’ he said softly. ‘What’s your name?’
‘Sabrina.’ She wheezed, coughed up lake water. ‘Who are you?’
‘Sabrina, you’re going to have to keep your head down. Don’t do anything unless I say. Understand?’
The sound of car doors. Shouts carrying on the wind, right on cue.
‘Slatan?’ The woman’s voice, harsh and edged with anger. The name and the accent sounded Bulgarian or Estonian to Ben.
He peered up over the long grass. The rain was moving on quickly. The wind tore a hole in the dark clouds
