He’d used a payphone to make the deal; had disguised his voice. They shouldn’t have his name—if they’d found out who he was, it wasn’t so they could congratulate him while handing over the money. No, it meant they had no intention of paying him . . . All of that, crashing through his mind as soon as the man called him
His hands were gripping his calves now, and he could feel the muscles taut beneath the skin. Last night, those muscles had melted . . . Adrenalin should have given him wings: that was the evolutionary code. In fear for his life, he should have moved like a gazelle. Instead he had struggled on legs heavy as tree trunks, while the man hadn’t even bothered to give chase. When Lucas glanced back he was still by the signpost, a grin on his face.
And way behind him, beyond the next hill, an approaching glow, as if a rocket were launching.
Lucas had tried to run, but the snow wouldn’t let him, sent him sprawling after three steps. Before he’d regained his feet the car broached the crest of the road, headlights on full, and then it was heading into the dip, pausing at the crossroads to collect the man, and then on the move again, up the rise, gaining on Lucas without even trying. The snowy road lit up and noise flooded his head, the engine’s roar, and the crunching of snow beneath wheels. They meant to run him down. He’d be like one of those rabbits you found by the roadside, clipped by traffic: almost intact but for one comical section, cartooned flat. He’d be a punctuation mark in the snow. When the woman appeared from nowhere, reaching out from the ditch, he’d thought this was how it happened: that the last moment of your life involved being snatched clear of it. But when he hit the ground and the car screamed past, he knew he was alive.
The car stopped, and the man from the crossroads peeled out, came running back.
The woman rose and swung her arm just as he arrived. Whatever she was holding hit his head with an organic-sounding
She turned back to Lucas. “Run.”
He didn’t need encouragement.
The road ahead was blocked by the car, so he ran back down to the crossroads, finding it easier now, his limbs adjusting to this new reality. At the signpost he’d turn right: there was a footpath, leading into woods. With enough of a start, he’d find a hiding place there. These thoughts fell into place like a puzzle solving itself. All he need do was keep moving . . . He dared a look behind. The lit-up car was an island in the darkness, around which shadows danced, one of them the woman who’d just saved him. Something flashed in her hand. As Lucas watched she swung out again but missed her target and slipped in the snow. Before she could reach her feet—
All thought fled as a shape appeared at the living room window.
Lucas froze in place. The shadow hovered, and pressed itself against the glass. When it moved Lucas rolled onto the carpet, then crawled to the door. He crouched beneath the diamond-shaped glass in its upper half, an ear pressed to the wood, while someone shifted on the doorstep, snow creaking beneath their weight. The key safe, he thought. Its absence had left a mark on the outside wall. If you knew what you were looking at, it was a neon sign screaming
He clenched every muscle in his body, and when the doorbell rang he was ready for it, and managed not to yelp.
But the whisper behind him almost made him jump out of his skin.
“
And then a hand was clamped across his mouth.
In the car, things were not going well.
“Where are we?” Shirley asked, having just woken up.
“We’re in Wales.”
“Yeah, mastermind. I can see that.” (There was no way she could see that.) “I meant where exactly?”
They were on the B4298, and it didn’t help her mood being told.
“So . . .” She tailed off.
“So are we nearly there yet?” River prompted.
“I didn’t say that.”
“But you wanted to.”
“We can’t go much further,” Coe said.
“It’ll be fine.”
“No it won’t. It’s snowing, I’ve twice lost traction. Visibility’s a yard and a half. We’re going to end up in a ditch.”
“Whose idea was this?”
“I didn’t notice you coming up with a better one,” River said. “So . . . Not going much further. What would that mean?”
Coe said, “Stopping.”
It had been slow going even once they’d passed the jackknifed lorry. The canyons carved by preceding cars should have made their passage simpler, but in fact had them skidding on compressed snow. Shirley’s turn at the wheel had been particularly lively, accompanied by an uninterrupted stream of invective, directed mostly, but not exclusively, at other road users. River had wondered whether she’d dipped into a pocket stash when their attention was elsewhere, but decided that if she had, the invective would have been less inventive. Coke had a way of making its adherents imagine themselves masters of the universe, while robbing them of original thought.
“Yeah, mastermind,” she said now. “It would mean stopping.”
