Читать книгу The Hunt: ‘A great thriller...breathless all the way’ – LEE CHILD - T.J. Lebbon - Страница 11

I’ve only just begun. But in truth she had started all this years ago.

She’d spent a long time imagining what it would be like to exact some sort of revenge. At night, in between nightmares about her family’s final moments, and during the day when she strove to better prepare herself for what was to come, she would dream: pointing a gun and pulling the trigger; running them down with a car; tying them up and setting them on fire; slashing out with a knife. So many ways to kill those of the Trail who had killed everything about her, and sometimes she lost herself for hours picturing their deaths.

And they had recognised her. That had been a surprise, although she supposed that they were always looking for her.

But in truth it was nothing like she’d expected. She had felt not one sliver of regret when she killed, but neither had she felt a flush of satisfaction, nor the much sought-after contentment she had been expecting. Their blood still stained her hands and clothing, but it was as if she had watched someone else do the killing.

She put her hand to her mouth and tasted blood.

‘Are there more outside?’ That Chris Sheen wasn’t a gibbering wreck was something she could only be grateful for. But perhaps his reaction was a skewed echo of her own. She didn’t feel shocked or even pleased, maybe because her mind might be shielding her from events.

She wished it wouldn’t. Now that her revenge had begun, she wanted to experience every joyous moment.

‘Not here, not right now,’ she said. ‘Shut up and follow me.’

‘But my family will—’

‘Shut up!’ She pressed her finger against his lips. He flinched from the stickiness of their blood. ‘Follow … me.’

She looked at the phone she’d taken from the first dead man. The home screen was a picture of two little children, and she stared at their faces, frozen, swallowed away into memory. Her own children had been that young, and would never be older. He has a family. He has kids. How someone like him could have been anything like her, Rose could not conceive. She shook her head to dislodge the confusion. It was useless to her, and she was determined to keep her mind in the moment. She’d spent too long living in the past, and the future she so desired was here and now. This was everything she had been waiting for.

Chris touched her shoulder. She blinked rapidly for a second or two, then nodded at him.

‘Quick,’ she said. ‘And quiet.’ She headed back into the study and crossed to the French doors. She’d come in that way, and it would be quieter to leave that way, too. She picked up the loaded backpack she’d left just inside the door, slung it over her shoulder, then rested her hand on the door handle.

Neighbours would have likely heard the gunshots, but most of them would have no idea what they were. A car backfiring, someone hammering, a TV turned up too loud; for people living in Cardiff, and especially in nice neighbourhoods like this, the first thought at such a sound would never be, Gun! That would change when the bodies were found.

But as she slipped from the doors and looked across the front garden, Rose realised that things might not be so simple. When she’d shot the woman, the glass in the front door had shattered. And now across the street there were several people gathered around a car, examining a hole in one of its side windows.

They’d still not immediately think of guns and bullets. Their minds wouldn’t work that way. But it meant that she and Chris didn’t have long.

He followed behind her, close and quiet. That was good. She needed him more than he needed her, but she’d never tell him that.

As they approached the open gates at the end of the short driveway, she pressed the button on the key fob. A little way along the street, a white BMW’s lights flashed twice.

A couple of the people examining the damaged car looked up. One of them smiled and raised his hand to Chris, then his expression fell a little when he saw Rose.

‘Morning!’ Rose said. ‘Lovely morning.’

‘Yes, lovely,’ the man said uncertainly.

‘Don’t look at him or say a word,’ she whispered. She led Chris along the pavement to the BMW, climbed into the driver’s seat, dropped the backpack in the passenger footwell, and watched him get in beside her. He still had the kit bag clasped to his chest. Taking the gun from her pocket, she placed it between her legs on the seat. Then she checked the phone again.

‘They’ve seen my front door,’ Chris said.

‘Doesn’t matter.’ She scrolled through the contacts list. There were only half a dozen names registered. She smiled when she saw the photos beside two names. And then she saw other faces, knew them, hated them all over again. ‘Here they are,’ she said.

‘Who?’

‘The Trail.’

‘What’s that?’

She glanced across at Chris, sitting confused and scared and still shocked numb beside her. He didn’t need to know, not yet. Not until they got away from here and were closing on their destination.

Her destination. Because from this moment forward, she was taking charge.

She started the car and pulled away, making a three-point turn so that they didn’t have to pass Chris’s neighbours. Heading off along his street, she saw parents starting to leave home with kids. The school run. She missed that. She missed everything. For a moment her mind drifted again, flitting back to memories she could do nothing to temper and which seemed to become richer over time. Sometimes they were more real than her reality.

Your memories will be your downfall, Holt had said to her in Italy. You let the past distract you so much that it blurs your present. But memories were all she had left, and she never tried too hard to lose them.

‘How many people have you killed?’ Chris asked.

‘Three.’ Their dying expressions already felt familiar.

The phone in the door pocket beside her trilled. She didn’t answer. As soon as it rang off she knew that the alarm would be raised. They’re starting to panic, she thought. I can feel that. I can sense it. And she could. She knew the Trail so well – had lived and breathed them for the past three years – that their thoughts were hers, their emotions and actions so tied into her existence that she might as well have been monitoring their individual heartbeats, their pulses.

They wouldn’t yet know she was here or who she was. But soon.

‘Where are we going? You need to let me out, now. Let me go.’ Chris’s voice shimmered with panic. ‘You leave, I won’t say anything. Got to get out!’ He tried the door handle, but she’d clicked on the central locking.

Rose checked ahead. They’d pulled onto a small commercial street with a few shops on both sides, and the road was wide, not too busy.

‘Stop the car!’ He grabbed for the steering wheel. Rose nodded across at Chris’s window, eyes going wide. When he looked, she launched a fast, accurate punch at his temple. His head jerked sideways and struck the window, and he emitted a long, low groan, slumping in his seat. His eyelids fluttered.

She’d learned the theory, but had never done that before.

Rose checked the mirrors and looked ahead. No one had seen. And if someone did notice him now, he was sleeping on his way to work, that was all.

She could imagine the heat of the Trail’s networks buzzing with consternation. The phone rang again.

This time she answered.