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Authors: Shaun Hutson

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She nodded.

Should she mention Farrell?

‘Humour me, Martin,’ she said as he slid behind the wheel and placed the key in the ignition.

‘Is Julie going with you?’

‘She’s going to stay and look after the house.’

Connelly tapped the wheel gently and looked up at Donna.

‘If you want company ...’

He allowed the sentence to trail off.

‘I’ll speak to you when I get back, Martin,’ she said sharply.

The agent nodded, started the engine and pressed down hard on the accelerator. The back wheels spun noisily for a second before the car pulled away.

Donna stood in the driveway, watching as the tail lights disappeared around the corner.

As she headed back to the house a cool breeze ruffled her hair and she shivered.

That involuntary movement might have been more extreme had she realized she was being watched.

It took the two women less than thirty minutes to check through the books in Chris’s office.

There were atlases, dictionaries and at least a dozen books on weapons but not one about paintings.

‘Paintings,’ muttered Donna irritably.

‘Donna, try his number,’ Julie suddenly said.

The older of the two women hurried back into the bedroom for the card the tall man had given her, then picked up the phone and jabbed out the digits. Julie wandered into the room, watching intently.

Donna heard the hiss and buzz as the number was connected, then all she heard was the single unbroken tone of a dead line.

‘Nothing,’ she said. ‘We should have known.’ She tried once more, got the same monotonous sound and dropped the receiver back onto the cradle.

‘His name’s probably fake, too,’ Julie offered.

‘Maybe, but
he’s
real enough and whoever he is he wanted
something
in Chris’s room.’ She looked at Julie, her brow furrowed. ‘But what was it?’

Thirty-One

The roar of the Porsche’s engine filled the garage as Martin Connelly left his foot on the accelerator a second before easing off. Through the open window he could smell the acrid stench of carbon monoxide fumes. He took his foot off the pedal and sat back, switching off the engine. It gradually died away.

Connelly rubbed both hands over his face and sighed wearily.

‘I’ll call you when I get back,’ he said, raising the pitch of his voice slightly, imitating Donna’s words. He swung himself out of the car and slammed the door hard.

Connelly walked to the garage door and pulled it down behind him, locking it from the inside. There was a connecting door through to his house; he didn’t switch on the fluorescents inside the garage as he locked up. The only light coming into the garage was from a tiny skylight window above him. Glancing up, he saw that night was now in command of the sky. The blackness outside was almost as total as that surrounding him in the garage.

He could smell the drink on his breath. He’d stopped off at a pub on the way home for a couple of vodkas. Neat. No fucking about. He promised himself a couple more when he got in. The agent selected a key on the bunch in his hand and slipped it into the lock of the door which joined the house and the garage. He stepped through into the hall.

The arm which snaked round his throat took him by surprise, both by its speed and its strength.

Connelly was practically lifted off his feet by his assailant.

He tried to cry out but a powerful forearm was wedged hard across his windpipe.

The tip of a knife was pressed against his neck just below his left earlobe.

The touch of it made him squirm; he felt his bowels loosen slightly.

‘Keep still,’ the voice behind him rasped.

In front, the shadows in the hallway seemed to be moving independently, dark shapes detaching themselves from the umbra and gliding towards him.

Two more figures stood close to him; because of the darkness he couldn’t see their faces. They stood like sadistic spectators at some violent exhibition.

‘Where’s the book?’ said one of them.

‘What book?’ Connelly managed to rasp as the arm loosed its grip slightly.

The respite was only temporary, however. The grip was re-applied with even greater ferocity.

The leading figure stepped forward a pace and drove a fist into Connelly’s stomach with incredible force. The blow tore the wind from him and left him wheezing, wanting to drop to his knees but still supported by that choking grip.

The knife was pressed slightly harder into the soft flesh beneath his ear.

‘You stupid bastard,’ said the first man contemptuously. He leaned forward so that his face was only inches from Connelly’s. The weak light coming through the hall window illuminated parts of the visages, but otherwise Peter Farrell remained bathed in shadow. ‘Do you want to play games?’ He snapped his fingers and the knife was handed to him.

He pressed the point to the tip of Connelly’s nose and pressed gently, hard enough to make an indentation but not with sufficient force to draw blood.

‘I don’t know where the book is, I swear to Christ,’ Connelly gasped, still held by that vice-like grip.

‘Liar,’ said Farrell. He began tracing the tip of the blade around the agent’s cheek, pausing at the corner of his eye. ‘I could have your eye out with one turn of this knife. You know that?’

‘I don’t know where the fucking book is, I swear to you,’ Connelly gasped, his eyes bulging madly in their sockets.

‘You were his agent. You knew what he was working on.’

Farrell trickled the knife point down to Connelly’s bottom lip and pressed. Gently at first.

‘No,’ Connelly said, fearing that to move his mouth would cause the blade to cut it.

Farrell withdrew it slightly.

‘Did he tell you what he was working on?’

‘Some of it. He was very secretive about his work.’

‘And you never asked?’

Farrell pressed the point against the underside of the agent’s chin.

‘Tell me what you
did
know,’ the big man demanded. ‘Tell me what you knew about the book.’

‘I told you, he never spoke about what he was writing.’

Connelly’s words were interrupted as Farrell pushed the blade up harder beneath his chin, hard enough to break the skin. Blood welled up from the puncture and ran down Connelly’s throat, staining his shirt collar.

‘Find the book,’ Farrell said quietly, drawing the blade across the agent’s cheek, stroking his earlobe gently with it. ‘Find it. Someone will be watching you, not all the time, but you’ll never know when. If you go to the police I’ll personally come back here and cut your fucking head off. Understand?’

Connelly closed his eyes, aware that blood was still running from the cut beneath his chin.

‘Understand?’ snapped Farrell angrily.

‘Yes,’ Connelly croaked.

Farrell whipped the blade to the right swiftly and powerfully. The cut sliced open the lobe of Connelly’s left ear. The fleshy bud seemed to burst, blood spurting from the gash. As the pressure on his neck was eased the agent fell forward, one hand clutching at the bleeding lobe. Crimson liquid streamed through his fingers.

Farrell looked down at the injured man as he opened the door, allowing his companions out first. He saw the blood puddling on the hall carpet as Connelly tried to staunch the flow.

‘We’ll be in touch,’ Farrell said.

Then he was gone.

Thirty-Two

At first she thought she was dreaming, that the sound was the residue of a sleep-induced image. But as Julie sat up she realized that it wasn’t.

She listened intently for a moment, the silence of the house closing in around her, then she heard it again.

Below her.

Movement.

Soft and furtive, but nevertheless movement.

She shot out a hand and pushed Donna hard, shaking her when she got no response. The other woman rolled over slowly and looked up, her eyes heavy with sleep.

‘What’s wrong?’ she murmured, rubbing her face lazily with one hand.

‘I heard something,’ Julie told her, keeping her voice low. ‘I think there’s someone in the house.’

Donna blinked hard, her head suddenly clearing. She swung herself onto the side of the bed and sat there, her feet just touching the carpet, ears alert for the slightest disturbance.

‘There,’ said Julie as she heard another sound beneath them.

Donna nodded and got to her feet, moving swiftly and quietly across the room towards one of the wardrobes.

‘Call the police,’ she whispered to Julie, who needed no prompting and had already reached for the phone beside the bed. She frowned and flicked at the cradle. The line was dead.

‘Nothing,’ she said, a note of panic in her voice. ‘They must have cut the lines.’ She replaced the useless receiver, her attention now divided equally between listening to the sounds from below and watching her sister.

Donna slid the wardrobe door open, pulling the light cord inside. In the dull glow she was hunkered over what looked like a safe, a metal cabinet encased in oak. She took a key from the top of the cabinet and inserted it into the small lock, pulling the door open.

‘My God,’ Julie murmured as she stared at the contents.

There were four pistols inside the gun cabinet. The light reflected dully off their metal lines.

A .38 Smith and Wesson. A 9mm Beretta 92S Automatic. A chrome-plated .357 Magnum and a Charter Arms .22 Pathfinder revolver. Stacked at the bottom of the cabinet were boxes of ammunition.

Donna took the .38, pushed open a box of shells and flipped out the cylinder, thumbing the high-velocity ammunition into the chambers.

Julie looked on in disbelief, jumping involuntarily as Donna snapped the cylinder into position. She got to her feet and Julie found the image before her disorientating: her older sister, hair still ruffled, dressed only in a thin, short nightdress, gripping a gleaming revolver in her hand. It would have seemed absurd but for the seriousness of the situation.

‘What are you going to do?’ Julie asked, moving across the room, pulling her dressing gown on, glancing warily at the pistol Donna gripped expertly in both hands. ‘You can’t shoot whoever it is, Donna. This isn’t a film, for Christ’s sake.’

‘I know. And whoever is down there isn’t going to back off when someone shouts cut, are they?’

The two women locked stares, Julie blenching as she saw the determination in her sister’s eyes.

‘Come on,’ said Donna, moving slowly towards the bedroom door.

Julie hesitated a moment.

‘Do you want to wait until they’re up here?’ Donna asked challengingly.

Julie shook her head. Both of them paused by the door, listening.

The sounds were still coming from downstairs.

Donna heard a creak, a sound she recognized well.

One of the hinges on the sitting-room door squeaked.

The intruder was moving into the hall.

It wouldn’t be long before he made his way up the stairs.

Thirty-Three