So it seemed he had been the intended target of the ambush, which meant two things. One, Jock would still be alive if it hadn’t been for him. Two, his days up here in Scotland – days that he’d grown to enjoy – were over, and once again it was time to move on.

There were, however, more immediate concerns. The killer hadn’t seen Scope yet, but he would as soon as he looked round. It looked as if he was working alone, too, since there was no sign of anyone else. Roughly fifteen feet separated them. Scope was unarmed. He didn’t even have his lock knife on him. If he rushed the guy now, he’d never make it, and it was too dangerous to try to creep up on him. There wasn’t enough furniture to cover his approach, and if he were spotted halfway across the room, he’d be an easy target. The killer struck him as the sort who would neither hesitate, nor miss from close range. His whole demeanour was too confident for that.

It left Scope with a simple choice. Go back the way he’d come in, and when he was out of earshot, call the cops and leave it to them. Or deal with it himself. The advantage of calling the cops was obvious. He wouldn’t have to risk his neck, nor would he run the other risk of getting himself into trouble. He could just take off and that would be the end of it.

But there was also a major disadvantage. Round here, miles from the nearest town of any size, it could take hours before an armed response unit turned up, and by that time the man who’d killed Jock would have long since disappeared, leaving few if any clues behind. Jock’s death would go unavenged. And, in the end, Scope just couldn’t have that.

He took a step backwards into the hallway, wanting to get to the kitchen and find a knife, but as he did so his foot hit one of the boxes of junk. Not hard. In fact it barely touched it, but in the heavy silence of the cottage, it was enough to attract the attention of the killer, who swung round fast, gun outstretched, catching sight of Scope immediately.

Even as he pulled the trigger, Scope was turning and diving headfirst into the semi-darkness of the hallway. A second shot rang out as he rolled across the floor, hitting another box. He jumped to his feet, keeping low and trying to make himself as hard a target as possible, as two more rounds flew past him, putting holes in the frosted glass of the cottage’s ancient front door. He could hear the guy coming behind him now and he swung a hard left at the bottom of the staircase, almost tripping up on a box full of oil paintings, and ran headlong into the darkness of the kitchen, slamming the door shut behind him.

He was trapped now. There was no way he’d make it out of the window before the guy caught him, but he didn’t panic. In situations like these, his subconscious always dragged up the words of wisdom he’d been given by a drill instructor during his first days of military training. ‘As long as you’re still fighting, you haven’t lost.’ It had sounded like cheap bullshit at the time, but they’d always served him well. And they did now.

Grabbing a couple of plates and a frying pan still full of congealed fat from the stove, he leaned against a kitchen unit and waited the two seconds it took for the door to come flying open, before flinging the plates straight at the guy, followed a split second later by the frying pan.

Surprised by the ferocity of the assault, the killer managed to fend off the two flying plates, while getting off a wild shot that rattled one of the window frames. But the frying pan caught him under the chin, sending him staggering as he tried to right himself and pick out his target.

Scope didn’t give him time. Crouching down, he sprinted the ten feet across the kitchen and dived into the killer, grabbing his gun hand and forcing it straight upwards as the two of them staggered backwards into the hallway. Scope tried to drive his head into the killer’s face, using his momentum to land a telling blow, but the killer had quick reactions and he turned his head away, so that Scope’s forehead slammed into the side of his head, hitting hard skull. The two of them went crashing to the floor, upending the box of paintings in the process, Scope ignoring the pain as he concentrated on slamming the killer’s gun hand repeatedly into the floor as he tried to get him to release the weapon.

But this guy was good. He was clearly winded by the fall, but he wasn’t letting go of the weapon. Instead, he shoved a knee into Scope’s groin and reared upwards, slamming a fist into his right cheek. Scope’s head reverberated from the pain and he felt a flash of nausea as the killer came close to knocking him off altogether. But then, in one sudden movement, he counter-attacked. Grabbing the killer’s other arm by the wrist, and forcing it back down to the floor so he had him temporarily pinned down, he waited the half-second it took for the killer to rear up again, and in that moment he drove his forehead into the bridge of his nose with every bit of strength and anger he could muster. The killer yelled in pain as his nose broke, and Scope butted him again in the same place. Then, changing tactics, he jumped up, dragging the other man to his feet, and smashed his gun hand into one of the kitchen units. This time the gun went off, sending a shot into a cupboard, before clattering to the floor when the man’s grip on it weakened. But, if Scope thought his opponent was finished, he was mistaken, because in the same moment the killer pulled his other arm free, reached inside his jacket and yanked out a bloodied stiletto with a six-inch blade.

Scope leapt backwards as the stiletto sliced through the air, narrowly missing his stomach, then threw himself to the floor, grabbed the gun from where it lay a couple of feet away, and swung back round, his finger on the trigger just as the killer fell upon him, knife raised for the death blow.

There was no hesitation. Scope pulled the trigger three times in quick succession, every shot hitting his opponent in the upper body at point-blank range.

The knife clattered to the floor as the killer let out a heavy grunt and rolled over onto his side. He lifted one gloved hand weakly as his body was racked with spasms.

Slowly, Scope got to his feet, still holding the gun. He looked round. There was no other noise coming from inside the cottage, so he’d been right about the killer being the only one here. But he needed to find out who else was after him and where they were, and there was only one person who could provide him with that information.

Kicking the stiletto well out of the way, Scope reached down and turned the killer over onto his back. He looked in a bad way. Two of the bullets had punctured his chest, the other had hit him in the belly, and there was blood dribbling down from his mouth. His eyes were wide with a mixture of fear and shock, but the most important thing was that he was still alive and conscious. Once again he tried to lift an arm, but Scope kicked it down again and pointed the gun between his eyes.

‘Why did you want to kill me?’ he demanded.

The killer started choking and rolled back onto his side, spitting out a thick glob of blood onto the floor, but Scope wasn’t about to show him any mercy, and he pulled him back round, this time pushing the suppressor into his cheek.

‘I asked you a question. Why did you want to kill me? Did someone pay you to hunt me down?’

The killer looked confused.

‘Answer me, you piece of shit. Were you paid to hunt me down?’

The killer gave a slight, almost imperceptible, shake of his head. ‘I don’t even know who you are,’ he managed to say, his words little more than a strained hiss.

Scope frowned, caught out by his answer. ‘You’re lying.’

‘No.’

‘Then why the hell are you here?’

But he never got a reply. The killer started to choke, and his whole body went into spasm. This time it was Scope who turned him on his side so that he could cough up the blood blocking his airways, but it was too late. After a couple of seconds, the coughing, like everything else, just stopped. Scope grabbed him by his jacket collar, lifting him up, wanting to glean any last bit of information that could tell him what was going on, but the guy was gone.