She watched, grim-faced, as Donald came out of the house with McCleod, who was leaning on her walking stick. Donald was carrying a shotgun. He’d obviously decided he didn’t care about trying to disguise Hanlon’s death in the way he and McCleod had done when they’d decided to kill Kai. Killing Hanlon now was the main thing.
Hanlon looked around her. There was certainly plenty of Jura to hide a body in. Not like at sea where it could wash up anywhere.
She did a quick mental calculation. It would take Donald about twenty minutes to get to where she was now, by which time she’d be about twenty minutes ahead of him, half an hour realistically. The chef certainly was in no shape to follow her.
Above her, and in the distance, rising up majestically, the sun glinting on the silvery grey scree, were the peaks of the Paps of Jura that ran along the spine of the island. All she had to do was head towards them, using them as a marker, until she reached where the ferry came in.
He could hardly shoot her there.
She narrowed her eyes and started to move, the muscles in her legs like iron rippling under the skin. Home and dry, she thought, home and dry.
Ten minutes later, Hanlon was cursing under her breath. Until now she had thought nothing of the burns that criss-crossed Jura except as picturesque. Now she was more than just aware of them. This one she was looking at was a major headache. It wasn’t the burn itself so much, it was what it had done to the hillside. The stream, as it flowed down from the hills towards the house, had, over time, cut a deep gorge into the ground and there was no way she could realistically cross it.
She had come across it totally by surprise. It was hidden by a fold of the hill and screened by a line of trees and then suddenly, unexpectedly, there was a cleft in the earth maybe thirty metres deep and twenty wide with the brown powerful waters of the stream and giant boulders worn smooth over the aeons, far below.
Uncrossable. Except of course down at the road where there was a bridge that she must have crossed a dozen times on car and bike without noticing. It hadn’t been important. It was now.
Uncrossable, unless you had a rope and plenty of time, neither of which she had. And while she stood here, wasting precious time, an armed killer would be coming for her.
The side of the bank was treacherous, mud and stone and practically vertical; you’d need a rope to get down. She looked around her in desperation. She had to get across the gorge to get to the higher ground. Only up there would she be safe. Here she was horribly exposed.
To her left, below, maybe half a mile away, she could see the sea. Bordering that was the road that led north to the Mackinnon Arms and now she could see, slowly making its way along the road, a quad bike. She knew who would be driving it. Hanlon’s heart sank. Between her and the road the land was open, boulder-strewn fields of grass and rushes, dark patches of emerald green decorated with yellow, gorse bushes, and yellow-green splodges of bog. Nothing at all that would stop or hold up the quad.
Hanlon cursed. The idea that she would be untrackable disappeared. It was obvious what her choices were now she had hit the hidden obstacle of the impassable gorge. She would be forced along parallel to it. Donald and McCleod would have known that she couldn’t cross it and would be forced inland, towards the mountains, until there was a ford or crossing place.
She took her phone out of her pocket. No coverage. No calling for help. She put it back.
Well, she couldn’t outrun a quad bike but, screened as she was at the top of the huge field by bushes and the trees, there was still a slim chance that Donald wouldn’t see her. At least she wasn’t being pursued by Murdo Campbell, whose tracking skills had so impressed her the other day. How could she have been so blind? No, she thought, that was unfair on herself. McCleod had been remorselessly cunning. And if it hadn’t been for Morag’s phone call, she’d probably be dead.
She crouched down by a gorse bush, momentarily wondering at its vivid yellow flowers and the deep emerald green of its spiky foliage. The snarling noise of the powerful quad bike engine grew louder and louder and then she saw its olive-green shape on its squat tyres come into view. It was about a hundred metres away.
Donald, she found it easy to imagine a look of calm concentration on his face, stamped on the brake and clambered laboriously off. You wouldn’t know by his expression that he was hunting down a woman with a view to killing her. It was probably the same look of quiet absorption that had made him such a good chef in top London restaurants.
The shotgun was slung over his shoulder and as Hanlon watched he broke it open and loaded two shells. He clicked it shut, and looked down, checking the safety catch. A good chef, in no hurry, making sure of his equipment, making certain everything was in place. That wasn’t good, but what she next saw made her heart sink.
Bounding effortlessly up the slope of the hill was Wemyss. Hanlon could see McCleod’s Volvo parked at the bottom of the field. The dog stopped by Donald, who ruffled his fur and gave him a biscuit from his pocket. Wemyss wolfed it down gratefully. He
