mouth as he coughed. ‘Tell them who did this.’
Hailey moved like an automaton, eyes blank, movements mechanical.
She picked up the Scorpion and wiped the butt and frame.
Then she did the same with the MP5.
Walker watched in bemusement.
She wrenched the Sig from his hand and did the same.
Then, as he watched, she gripped each of the weapons in her own hands.
She held each to her breast for fleeting seconds, as if it were some kind of suckling child. Then she dropped each on the table behind her.
The sirens were really loud now.
Hailey knelt close to him. Between the bodies of her husband and her daughter.
‘My witness,’ he gasped, the smile fading slightly. ‘Tell . . . who . . . did this.’
Hailey spun the Steyr in her fist, pushed the barrel up under her chin.
If Walker had possessed the strength, he would have tried to stop her.
She fired.
Blew the top of her own head off.
‘No,’ Walker gasped.
Hailey’s body fell sideways, across that of Becky.
The sirens were even closer.
Walker heard urgent footsteps rumbling through the hotel, towards the dining room. Voices were raised. Shouts heard.
He saw uniformed men.
He raised a hand – but barely an inch.
Blood was still jetting madly from the wound in his thigh, but now even that was beginning to abate.
His heart was stopping.
He felt so cold.
And afraid.
He closed his eyes . . .
EXTRACT FROM THE
. . . All four members of the band Waterhole were killed in the massacre, which also claimed the lives of sixty-three other guests.
Police say that the attack seemed motiveless, and as yet they have no idea why it was carried out, or why Waterhole were singled out.
Fingerprints found on four weapons discovered at the scene of the massacre have been identified as belonging to Hailey Gibson, who, police believe, murdered her own husband and daughter as well as so many other party guests, before finally taking her own life.
All the casualties have been identified except one man in his early thirties, thought to have been the last of Gibson’s victims. He was dead upon arrival in hospital, and his identity still remains a mystery . . .
Just when all seems fine and I’m pain-free,
You jab another pin, you jab another pin in me . . .
Metallica
He who despairs over an event is a coward,
but he who holds hope for the human condition is a fool.
Albert Camus
Shaun Hutson is a bestselling author and is recognized internationally as a master of the dark urban thriller. He lives with his family in Buckinghamshire.
‘The man who writes what others are afraid even to imagine’
‘The energy of his storytelling is overwhelming’
‘Soon descends into a dark world that most people hope they will never have to enter . . . Hutson is regarded as being one of the best authors of urban thrillers and, on this form, you can see why’
‘A spiralling vortex of mayhem and mystery . . . A tense thriller that never loses its grip and will keep Hutson fans reading well into the night’
SLUGS
SPAWN
EREBUS
SHADOWS
BREEDING GROUND
DEATHDAY
RELICS
VICTIMS
ASSASSIN
NEMESIS
RENEGADES
CAPTIVES
HEATHEN
DEADHEAD
WHITE GHOST
LUCY’S CHILD
STOLEN ANGELS
KNIFE EDGE
PURITY
EXIT WOUNDS
COMPULSION
Acknowledgements
In view of the fact that I nearly got lynched by several readers because there were no acknowledgements in the last novel (are you lot only buying them for
I would, as usual, like to thank a very large and disparate (in some cases, desperate) group of people and places for help, inspiration and sanity-saving connected with the writing of this novel.
Many thanks to my new publishers for their support and belief. Extra special thanks to Peter Lavery for his
