T.J. Lebbon - The Hunt - ‘A great thriller...breathless all the way’ – LEE CHILD

The man looked at his watch, glanced at the phone screen, and sighed. ‘Stay in the house. Don’t go out. Don’t call the police, or your wife and children will be executed. I’ll be in touch.’ Then he turned and opened the back door.

‘Wait!’ Chris said, darting across the kitchen for the man, reaching, fingertips brushing the fine cotton of his polo shirt before the intruder turned fluidly and stood, motionless. He stared at Chris, his eyes empty, face blank and terrifying.

‘I’ll be in touch,’ he said again. He exuded danger in waves. Chris took one step back, and the man left and closed the back door behind him.

Terrified, shaking, alone, Chris waited for whatever might come next.

Rose screamed herself awake, sprang upright on the uncomfortable bed and pressed one hand against her chest, feeling her thundering heart and assuring herself that she was still alive. Sweat had dampened her vest and underclothes. She’d kicked the blanket off during the night. The musty confines of the caravan were sliced by sheets of dawn sunlight shining through broken blinds, and birds sang cheerfully outside, as if her husband and three children had never been tied up and slaughtered in some dark, dank basement.

The familiar flood of reality rushed in, and Rose groaned at the awfulness of it all. Sometimes in sleep there was escape, and occasionally in dreams she enjoyed some form of vicarious peace. But not this past night. The memory of what she had found was so vivid and fresh that it was like discovering the scene all over again. Four years had passed, but most nights she found her dead family afresh.

Already the nightmare was dissipating, leaving brash images scorched into her memory. Adam, his eyes as wide and empty as the vicious gash in his throat. And her three children – Molly, Isaac, Alex – lying dead where she had not been able to protect them, hold them, whisper motherly words into their ears. She always remembered that, however hard she tried to forget.

She used the cramped toilet and dressed quickly, pausing now and then to glance from the windows. New habits persisted. It was dangerous to ever believe herself safe.

Outside, all was peaceful. The field where her caravan was parked remained empty right now – the farmer said he would be introducing some sheep in the next few weeks – and the grass was long, shimmering slightly in the morning breeze, jewelled with dew. The windows gave her good views in each direction, and she’d be able to see anyone approaching. Down the sloping field was the farm, still and silent this early in the morning. East lay the orchard, fruit-heavy trees dipping low limbs across the landscape. And to the north, a family of foxes played close to the hedge bordering the field and a woodland beyond, young cubs leaping, rolling, snapping at each other like puppies. She was always pleased to see them. If someone was close by, the foxes wouldn’t be anywhere in sight.

Rose went through her morning exercise routine. One hundred press-ups, sit-ups and crunches, along with chin-ups, planks, and squats. Her body had grown lithe and lean. The exertion kick-fired her metabolism and got her blood pumping, and the distraction steered her away from her horrible dreams. For a time, at least.

After eating a breakfast of fruit and yoghurt she pulled the pistol from beneath the mattress and tucked it into her belt.

She brewed coffee and switched on her laptop. The caravan was small and basic but suited her needs perfectly. She’d bought a new fridge and decent bedding, but the van’s outside was as mouldy and worn-looking as when she’d first seen it. Five hundred pounds and it was hers. The farmer took a chunk of cash from her each week for ground rent and silence, and he was happy to ask no questions. That was fine. She never stayed in one place for more than a few weeks.

Drinking strong coffee, humming quietly, she started scanning her usual news sites. But the memory of her nightmare was strong. She closed her eyes and breathed in coffee fumes, because every time she thought of her family the grief was rich, deep, and sometimes crippling. She dreaded forgetting them, though sometimes remembering was almost too much.

But her dreams and memories fed her fury. She knew that her current existence was a form of self-imposed limbo, and everything she did now would lead to an eventual resolution. Perhaps then she could lay her nightmares to rest, and true grieving could begin.

There was no news that drew her attention today. The usual political infighting, celebrity inconseque‌ntialities, far-away conflicts. She looked for murders or unexplained deaths. She sought news on kidnappings and shootings, unidentified bodies found strangely mutilated in city or countryside. Anything that might lead to the Trail.

As usual, nothing.

But something felt different today. Her nightmare clung on, and even though she had found nothing obvious on the net, perhaps today was the day to check again.

Rose gulped down the rest of her coffee in one and then opened a new browsing window.

She didn’t like doing this too often. She accessed the net via a proxy server in London, had a rolling defence protocol that would lock her out at the first sign of being tracked, used no identifying markers or traceable elements, yet she knew that they had far more expertise at their disposal than her. Rose liked to amuse herself by thinking about some of the online contacts she’d made and how much stuff she had access to that would give the heads of the CIA and MI5 panic attacks. But accessing the Trail’s own network was like dipping her toe into a river of alligators. It was only so long before she was noticed and they came for her.

She would only allow that to happen on her own terms.

She slipped by several firewalls and surfed communications she could not yet decipher. It was pretty standard traffic that she’d seen before, so she withdrew and re-entered under another address, creating an avatar that would easily be mistaken as a particularly intrusive trollbot, if anyone noticed it at all. Most trollbots’ aims were to spread viruses or collect information. Hers was simply to observe. She’d given it a variety of source links which flickered and rolled every three seconds – a sex-drug site; a Nigerian billionaire with money to get out of the country; a guaranteed tip to increase cock size. She hoped that, draped in the paraphernalia of a million other trolls, hers was all but invisible.

While her laptop worked, she made more coffee. It was her one vice, and had been for three years.

For almost a year after escaping the Trail and finding Adam and her children murdered, she’d drowned herself deep in London’s underworld. Her first thought had been to go to the police, but even then the shadow of the Trail remained over her, and the promises of harm they had levelled against her extended family and friends had felt even more real. They had proven themselves sickeningly brutal.

Then came the revelation that she was wanted for her family’s slaying. In a way, that was the worst abuse of all – the way they had framed her, made a mockery of her love and grief. A madness had taken her. A blazing fury and a smothering grief. It was incomprehensible how quickly she had changed from a family woman with a good job and a nice house to … someone else. And so she had cut her hair, dyed what was left, and submerged herself in the chaos of the capital. It was ironic that she went to so much effort disguising herself when in truth she was already lost.

Those shadowy places were more about the people than the locations – lost, dispossessed, cast adrift by society, or fallen by the wayside of their own volition. No one had seemed interested in her, and she had taken notice of no one. Occasionally she worried about being recognised, though in truth grief had changed her more than a haircut and new clothes ever could. She was a hollow person, and her body projected that physically. Sunken cheeks, stick-like limbs, deep eyes like pools of dark ink.