Wrong Time, Wrong Place (4 page)

Ash stumbled, losing her balance, and fell forward, letting go of the knife in the process. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Tracy, who was still on her feet, dash for the stairs. Then Ash was rolling round to face her husband’s killer, at the same time scrabbling about for the knife.

A drop of Nick’s blood fell from the killer’s knife blade, splashing her face with a disgusting warmth as he loomed over her. He grabbed Ash by one wrist and yanked her roughly to her feet.

Operating entirely on instinct, she threw a wild punch, catching him full in the face before he had a chance to drive the knife into her. Ash
kept fit. She worked out three times a week and had recently started doing boxercise. She thanked God for all these things now because the punch was a good one. It knocked him into the banister and made him loosen his grip on Ash’s wrist.

Pulling free, she turned and ran, following Tracy.

But Tracy had stopped at the top of the stairs and was looking down them with an expression of pure terror. ‘There’s another one coming!’ she screamed. ‘He’s got in the front door!’

Ash didn’t even have time to look, let alone take in the fact that there were possibly two of these psychopaths rather than one, and that the other had come through a door that she knew was locked. She didn’t even look back towards her husband, because there was no time for that. Her survival instinct had kicked in. She sprinted the length of the landing, towards the door to the bedroom she and Nick should have been sharing that night, yelling at Tracy to come with her.

Ash hit the door at a run, flinging it open without even giving a thought to who might be behind it. She could hear Tracy right behind her and she hauled her in. As the dark figure of the killer moved towards them she slammed the
door shut, noticing with huge relief that there was a key in the lock. Pressing her whole body against the door, she turned it with shaking hands. She could hear him outside, his breathing calm and steady, as he tried and failed to turn the handle.

A split second later the door shook on its hinges as he slammed into it from the other side. It was only a small lock and she knew it wasn’t going to hold for more than a few seconds.

They were trapped.

The door shook again, and this time she heard the sound of wood splitting.

Looking round desperately, Ash spotted the sash window. It was the only way out. Vaulting the bed, she dashed over and flicked the catch on the lower window, yanking it upwards as hard as she could. The drop to the patio below was a good fifteen feet, but they had no choice.

‘Come on!’ she screamed at Tracy, who was still staring at the door. ‘Move it!’

Tracy ran over, took one look through the window, and turned to Ash. She started to say something, but Ash wasn’t listening. As the door shook once again, almost giving way this time, she grabbed Tracy by the collar and
pushed her into the gap. ‘Go! Go! Go!’ she screamed, clambering out after her.

Tracy jumped, letting out a long shriek, at just the moment when the door flew open and the killer came striding into the room. He made straight for Ash with the bloodied knife raised, like something out of one of those horror films that had always scared her as a teenager.

Ash threw her legs out of the window and slid through it, grabbing at the window ledge with both hands as she swung round, hoping to lessen the distance between herself and the ground before she jumped. But as she let go a gloved hand grabbed her wrist. Suddenly she was dangling helplessly in mid-air. The killer began to lift her back up with an almost unbelievable strength, while bringing his knife hand down in the direction of her throat.

Knowing she had just seconds left, Ash pulled and struggled with all her might, wriggling like a fish on the line, and the next second she was falling through the air.

Ash hit the tarmac feet first and a stinging pain shot up her legs. She rolled over and leaped to her feet. Tracy was already staggering towards the trees a few yards away. Ash caught her up and grabbed her by the arm, dragging her along as she tried to put as much distance
between them and the house as possible.

‘I’m hurt,’ whined Tracy, slowing down. ‘I think I’ve broken my ankle.’

‘I don’t care!’ hissed Ash, staring her right in the eye as they fought their way into the forest. ‘Run on it. You’ve got no choice.’

For a long moment, Ash thought about leaving Tracy behind, knowing she’d be far quicker on her own. But she stopped herself, because she knew she’d never be able to live with the guilt if she bolted now.

She took a quick glance over her shoulder and thought she saw a figure moving just inside the trees. It spurred her into running even faster. This time Tracy kept up, although she was limping badly and her face was taut with pain. What was truly terrifying Ash was the fact that these men, whoever they were, hadn’t uttered a single word. They were going about their murderous work as if it was the most natural thing in the world.

Ash had no idea why the four of them were being targeted. It had to be something to do with the girl, but she wasn’t even with them now, so why were they still coming? Whatever the reason, Ash had an awful feeling that they weren’t going to stop until she and Tracy were dead.

They were tearing through the branches now, ignoring the bushes and brambles that slashed at them, concentrating everything on escape. These were big woods. There would be plenty of places to hide. They could find somewhere, then wait for morning and raise the alarm.

Ash felt the first stirrings of hope. They were moving fast and there were no sounds of pursuit. Tracy was in pain, but adrenalin and fear were driving them both on, deeper and deeper into the forest.

Then her friend let out a terrible scream and Ash’s hope vanished.

6

TRACY WENT DOWN
hard, rolling over in the dirt. For a split second Ash thought her ankle was in fact broken, but it was worse than that. Much worse.

A mantrap, the type used by hunters, had slammed shut on one of her legs, its metal teeth digging deep into the flesh. Tracy wailed in pain as she sat up and tried to pull it off. Ash immediately crouched down and tried to help. But the damn thing wouldn’t budge. It was stuck fast.

‘Help me, Ash, please …’

‘Hush, Trace,’ whispered Ash, still pulling on the rusty clamps. ‘You’ve got to be quiet.’ But it was hard to keep the panic out of her voice. She knew that even if she did free Tracy, there was no way she was going to be able to run any further. Her leg looked in a bad way. Blood was seeping through her jeans in a dozen places.

Tracy knew it too. Ash could see the terrified hopelessness in her eyes.

‘Please don’t leave me.’

‘I won’t,’ Ash told her with a determination she didn’t feel. ‘You’ve just got to be quiet. They might hear us.’

She stopped what she was doing and listened to the silence, trying to work out how far they’d come from the lodge. She could no longer see its lights, and guessed they’d made a few hundred metres. The leaves here were thick, and there was a large knot of brambles a few feet away, which they could probably hide under without being seen. If she could just move Tracy and keep her quiet.

The mantrap was attached by a thick piece of rusty wire to a bolt sticking barely an inch out of the ground. Ash started to dig the bolt out using her bare hands, figuring it was quicker to move Tracy with the mantrap still attached to her than to keep trying to remove it from her leg.

‘Oh God,’ whispered Tracy. ‘It hurts so much.’

Ash gave her a reassuring smile, truly feeling for her then. ‘It’s going to be OK, I promise.’

As she lifted her head and listened again to the quietness of the forest, trying to pick up any sound of pursuit, she heard it.

The baying of dogs.

And it was coming closer.

Tracy and Ash exchanged glances. Tears began to stream down Tracy’s face now as the realisation that this was the end of the line took hold. ‘Oh God no. Please, Ash. Please don’t leave me. I don’t want to die.’ Her voice was rising, affected by the same panic that was also rising up in Ash like an unstoppable force, making her whole body shake, as if it was about to go into spasm.

‘I won’t,’ hissed Ash, redoubling her efforts to dig out the bolt, even though she knew it wouldn’t do any good. ‘I swear it. I won’t.’

The dogs, and there were at least two of them, were getting closer. Ash could hear their progress up the hill. She knew that they’d be on them at any moment. Ash had to make a decision. Did she stay here with Tracy and suffer the consequences, or did she try to save herself?

She looked at Tracy.

Tracy looked back, her face crumpled in the moonlight, because she knew what Ash was going to do. What she had no choice but to do.

Ash had always told herself that she wouldn’t be able to live without Nick. That if anything happened to him she’d want to die too, because life without him would be meaningless. But when it came down to it, that was bullshit. She
wanted to live. To see the world. To watch the sun set. To smell the flowers. To make the most of everything out there that she’d previously taken for granted.

‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered, and jumped to her feet. ‘Please forgive me.’

Tracy let out a howl of terror so intense and painful that for a moment it even silenced the dogs. Ash couldn’t bear to look at her. She knew that she was sentencing an innocent woman to death. But what else could she do?

Ash took off at a sprint, keeping hold of her emotions, focusing her mind and watching the ground closely for any sign of another trap. There’d be a time for mourning, and for guilt, later. Right now she had to do what it took to survive. She was hugely thankful that she’d invested so much time and effort in keeping herself in shape. There was no way she’d be able to outrun dogs, but they’d be delayed for a short time at least with Tracy, and there were ways and means of putting them off her scent. As she ran, she pulled off the fleece she’d been wearing all day. She kept it down by her side, looking out for a good place to drop it.

A scream pierced the cool night air, shrill and terrible as it echoed through the trees.

And then it abruptly stopped. Cut off in midstride.

Ash knew that it meant Tracy was dead, and that they’d be after her now.

She dropped the fleece and changed direction.

7

THEY KILLED THE
girl quickly. Stuart picked her up from behind, held her steady, and then cut her throat in one swift movement, while Rory held the dogs and watched, shaking his head.

‘This is a big problem,’ he said. ‘We’re going to get a lot of shit for this. Eastern European whores are ten a penny, they don’t get missed. But these are tourists. The boss is going to be mighty pissed off.’

‘We’ve just got to make sure they disappear,’ said Stuart, stepping away from the girl as she twitched on the ground. The mantrap round her leg made a scratching sound against the soil.

That, thought Rory, was the problem with his younger brother. He didn’t realise that you couldn’t just kill your way out of trouble. You had to plan it. ‘You fucked up, Stuart. Don’t ever do that again.’

‘I won’t. The little bitch tricked me, but it was a one-off.’

Rory gave a curt nod. ‘It better be.’

In the five years they’d been guarding the whores who were delivered to the estate, they’d never once had a problem. The girls tended to be young and they were usually too scared and confused even to think of escape, which was just the way it should be. Rory prided himself on his ability to run things smoothly, but they’d grown far too complacent lately. He hadn’t even been there today when the girl got out. Then Stuart had totally messed up by delaying it a good ten minutes before he called him, which had given her the chance to cover some distance. Just their luck, she ran into what must have been the only bunch of tourists for twenty miles.

The tourists had to die in order to protect the secret. Rory had to make sure it didn’t get out into the wider world. If anyone else had made that kind of mistake, Rory wouldn’t have hesitated to put him in the ground with all the other bodies from the last five years. But Stuart was family, and you didn’t do that to family.

On the ground, the girl stopped twitching. Stuart gave her a kick just to check that she was dead, although with half her head hanging off she was always going to be.

Rory let out a deep breath, and looked into the wall of trees ahead. ‘Three down, one to go.
Let’s find her and then we can go home for the night.’

He released the dogs, watching as they tore off into the darkness. Then he pulled out his knife, stepped over the girl’s corpse, and headed after them.

8

ONLY WHEN HER
lungs felt close to bursting did Ash finally slow down to a walk.

It felt like she’d come a long way but she’d seen no break in the forest. It seemed to be going on for ever. Behind her, in the distance, she could still hear the dogs barking, but it sounded like they’d stopped. She guessed that they’d found her fleece. Since then she’d yanked off her bra from beneath her T-shirt and hung that from a branch, before changing direction again. She was doing everything she could think of to put the dogs off her trail.

But she couldn’t keep removing items of clothing. She didn’t have enough of them. And as soon as she stopped doing it, the dogs would be on her. Ash was going to have to come up with a different plan because the people hunting her were clearly determined.

The naked girl who’d run into them earlier was obviously connected to some kind of criminal activity. She was possibly even a criminal herself. Ash now regretted the fact that
they’d stopped to help her. If they’d just sent her on her way and kept walking, like it was nothing to do with them (which it hadn’t been), none of this would have happened. They could have been sitting round a warm fire, enjoying a glass of wine and the cold meat and salad supper Ash had brought up with her from London. Guy could have wittered on about what a fantastic place Singapore was to do business in. Tracy could have bored them all talking about her massages and her tennis and her cocktail hours on the balcony of some sundrenched hotel. And she and Nick could have exchanged knowing glances and dreamed of ripping each other’s clothes off as soon as they hit the bedroom.