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

He dreaded the idea of her having to grieve again.

Chris looked down at his phone. Don’t call the police or your wife and children will be executed . The words hung in the air around him as if taking on substance. Everywhere he looked he heard them. He stared at the screen display, thinking, trying to work through the situation. Clicking on the timer, he set it at forty-eight minutes and pressed start .

Several minutes had passed since the man left. Standing in the kitchen, uncertain, he edged towards the back door, lifting the wooden blind aside to look out into the back garden. Maybe he should follow. Or call the police. That was his natural instinct, anyone’s first instinct when something terrible like this happened. And how would they know? He should call them, tell them about the intruder and his missing family, and by the time they arrived …

He looked at the time on his phone. Forty-four minutes and counting.

Something moved in the garden. Chris squinted and looked again, scanning left to right across the well-maintained lawn, colourful borders, and the kids’ stuff scattered here and there. Megs loved to play in the inflatable pool when it was warm enough. She said she wanted to swim the Atlantic when she was older.

‘Shit,’ he whispered, starting to shake. Fear gripped him. Terror at what was happening to his family, and confusion about why.

Movement again, and this time he saw the cigarette smoke rising from beyond the garden’s rear hedge before it dispersed to the breeze. There was a narrow, private path behind there serving the several houses that shared this side of their street, and no reason at all for anyone to be standing there.

Placing his hand on the door handle he pushed it down, slowly, and opened the door.

A pale shape appeared behind the garden gate. Chris couldn’t see much from this far away, and the gaps between the gate’s slatted wood were only an inch across. But the smoking person was watching him.

He slammed the door again and retreated into the kitchen. ‘Fuck, fuck, this isn’t happening,’ he muttered, pacing back and forth. He was chilled from the sweaty running clothes he still wore. He should change, get warm, get ready for …

… for the countdown to zero? Was he really just going to wait here like the intruder had told him?

Bollocks to that.

He held the menu button on his phone and said, ‘Call Nick.’ The phone called his elder brother, ring tone buzzing again, again, until passing on to answer phone. Chris hung up, pressed again and said, ‘Call Angie.’ She had five kids, an irregular boyfriend, and debt up to her ears, but his youngest sister was always a rock amongst stormy seas. It rang three times before she answered.

‘Chris.’

‘Angie, it’s me, something’s happened, something awful, and I need you to—’

‘I can’t talk right now.’

‘What? Something’s happened to Terri and the kids and you have to do something for me, but quietly, carefully. I need you to call the police.’

Silence. He could hear Angie breathing.

‘Angie?’

‘I can’t talk right now.’ Her voice broke, just slightly. Then there was the sound of fumbling before the call was disconnected.

Chris stared at the phone again, trying to make sense of his sister’s words. Angie having a bad day? She had a lot of them, but she’d never been like that to him, ever. He’d pulled himself out of the kind of lives his siblings lived, made a career for himself, made money. But they were still all the same really. They still loved each other. ‘Angie,’ he said, and the image came to him of her sitting alone in her kitchen, staring at the phone and shaking, while a stranger stood beside her own back door.

Chris snorted, shook his head. Pressed the button again. ‘Call Jake.’ He’d know what to do. Chris’s best friend was a gruff bloke and could be a bit of a dick sometimes – his delightful ex-wife could attest to that – but he valued their friendship, and they were always there for each other. It was picked up after two rings.

‘Jake, thank God. You’ve got to help me, mate, I’m in some scary deep shit here.’

‘Get the fuck out of my life,’ Jake said, and then he hung up.

Chris blinked at his phone. He tried to retain Jake’s tone, the sound of his voice, but his words scorched away any ability to recall. Had he really just heard that from his best friend?

‘This is … ’ Chris started, and he laughed. Once, loud, an unbelieving outburst. But there was nothing at all to laugh at here. The bloody dab on the door was testament to that. ‘What do I do?’ Chris whispered. ‘Just what?’

Filling the kettle, turning it on, he was moving on auto-pilot as he tried to think things through. He glanced at his phone timer again. Less than thirty minutes to go.

He clicked on the Facebook app and entered his password. Account temporarily suspended .

‘What?’ he whispered. ‘You’re kidding.’

He exited Facebook and opened his email account. It usually went straight to his inbox, but instead it came up with his password entry. His heart fluttered. Didn’t matter, that happened sometimes, once every few weeks he had to enter it again. Security measures, he supposed.

But even as he tapped in his password he felt the weight of dread.

Password not recognised. Please enter again. Be aware that password is case sensitive .

He entered it again, carefully, but already knowing what would happen.

Forgotten password?

How the fuck? How could they have done this? Maybe it was him, typing with clumsy, scared fingers …

… But no. It wasn’t him at all.

The kettle boiled and Chris poured water into a mug with one hand. The other hovered over the phone, thumb stroking the ‘phone’ symbol, finger hovering over the 9.

It’s a joke. A prank. A scam, scumbags scaring me to try and get some cash out of me. Or a reality TV show. Or … Anything but what it seemed. It had to be. Because things like this didn’t happen in real life.

He tapped 9 … 9 …

The piercing electronic whistle was almost unbearable, screeching through the house from his phone, the small flatscreen TV on the kitchen worktop, and whining in from the living room where the big plasma TV had burst into life. Chris juggled the phone and almost dropped it, face screwed up against the sudden, unexpected sound. He pressed his right shoulder and left hand to his ears, still clasping the phone in his right hand and looking at the screen. Ready to hit the last 9 that would move events on apace and, perhaps, reveal more of what was really going on.

The keypad on his phone’s screen had been replaced by something else. Winded, stunned, he barely even noticed that the deafening sound had ceased.

He thought it was a photo, but then he saw Megs nuzzle her head against Terri’s leg, and Gemma stretched her tied legs and shuffled to change position.

‘Oh no … ’ he breathed. His throat was dry, voice hardly registering.

Terri was sitting on a bench in what looked to be the inside of a dirty van. The walls were rough and spotted with rust patches. A naked light flickered somewhere out of sight. His wife was tied to the bench with ropes around her legs and waist. She was blindfolded, and wearing loose jogging bottoms and a tee shirt. Megs was kneeling beside her, also blindfolded, sobbing softly. Gemma was tied up on the floor on Terri’s other side.

There was a dark stain across the right shoulder of Gemma’s school shirt. It seemed to match the patches on the walls, as if the truck also bled.

‘No,’ Chris said again, louder. ‘Terri. Terri! Girls?’ But they couldn’t hear.