Moaning more in shock than anything else, still unable to process the fact that his wife had just been murdered, he rolled over onto his back as the man with the rifle came round the front of the car and stood over him.

‘What did you have to turn up here for?’ said the man, in a tone that was more annoyed than anything else. He had a hard, expressionless face, with two thin scars running across it like train tracks, and straight away Tony knew this was a man who was never going to show him any mercy. As if to prove the point, the gunman pushed the end of the barrel against his cheek.

Flinching from the heat of the metal, Tony raised a hand and tried to cry out, knowing it was useless, and thinking in his last moments that he was going to miss Jackie, and that perhaps she hadn’t been so bad after all.

Then the shot rang out.

Keogh turned away from the driver’s corpse, unable to believe how badly wrong things were going. Two more civilians caught in the crossfire. Five dead in all, now, and one of his men missing. And still no sign of Amanda Rowan. The dogs were in the house but, though they’d found a pack of sausages wrapped in wet clothes, which must have been left to attract them to the scent, there was no sign of either her or the two kids. Either they were hidden extremely well in the house or, far more likely, they were gone.

He looked back across the woods, scanning them for any sign of movement, but they were utterly still.

‘You’re round here somewhere, Amanda,’ he whispered into the darkness. ‘And when I find you, I’m going to make you pay for this.’

Thirty-one

JESS COVERED CASEY’S ears and pulled her close as the third shot rang out, its retort reverberating through the trees like a thunderclap, making them all flinch.

They’d stopped in a small clearing twenty yards from the single-track road and about a hundred yards up the hill from the house where, barely five minutes earlier, they’d been sheltering. Jess’s mouth was bone dry and she felt sick. ‘What do you think just happened?’ she asked urgently.

‘I think the car that just drove down belonged to the owner of the house,’ whispered Amanda. ‘I think he must have disturbed the men who are looking for us.’

‘And they just killed him?’ The full force of the danger they were in hit Jess like a sledgehammer.

‘I’m going back for the owner’s car.’

‘What do you mean? You’re going to steal it?’

‘You heard what just happened. The guy didn’t even get a chance to get out of his car. The keys are probably still in there.’

‘You can’t go back there.’ Jess thought of the three shots, and wondered if the little boy who owned the Buzz Lightyear dressing gown was one of the dead.

Amanda’s expression was determined. ‘It’s our only chance. You two don’t have to come. You can wait here. When you hear me drive up, come out onto the side of the road and I’ll pick you up.’

It struck Jess then that she didn’t trust Amanda enough to rely on her to stop once she’d got the car on the track, especially if there were armed men and dogs chasing her. ‘I’ll come with you.’ She looked down at her sister. ‘Casey, you stay here and wait for us, okay? We’ll just be a couple of minutes.’

‘I don’t want to,’ said Casey, looking terrified. She was still clutching her jeans in her hands like some kind of comfort blanket. ‘What if something happens to you?’

‘Nothing will. I promise.’ Jess wasn’t at all sure she believed what she was saying. In many ways going back to the house was madness, but she wasn’t prepared to let Amanda go back on her own and, at least if anything did happen to them, the chances were that the men wouldn’t go after Casey.

She stroked her sister’s head. ‘We’ll be two minutes. Put your jeans on, and when you hear the car, get over to the road, and check it’s us before you show yourself. Okay?’

Casey nodded and Jess pulled away from her, blew her a kiss, and followed Amanda as they raced back through the trees, not daring to look behind them, and all the time she was praying she was doing the right thing.

They slowed up when they reached the laurel hedge and followed it until they reached the entrance to the driveway, moving as silently as possible. Amanda looked round the corner of the hedge, then turned and motioned for Jess to follow her. From somewhere in the house, Jess could hear shouting. It sounded as if the men were trying to get the dogs to stop doing something, but she couldn’t quite make out the words. They were close by, though, and Jess felt her legs shaking as she and Amanda crept onto the driveway and made their way towards the back of the car. The body of a man in a dark tracksuit lay on its back near the driver’s door, a pool of blood forming on the ground round his head. Jess turned away quickly.

‘Go round the other side and get in,’ whispered Amanda as she turned towards the driver’s side.

Jess continued round towards the passenger door, keeping as close to the car as possible, thankful that it was a concrete rather than a gravel driveway, so that her approach wasn’t quite as audible. Suddenly she saw a tough-looking guy appear in the kitchen. The light was on in there and she could see him clearly, only a few yards away. He had scars on his face and he was carrying a rifle and looking down at something at his feet. Then he turned and looked out in Jess’s direction.

Jess froze where she was, praying he wouldn’t notice her, because if he did, she was dead.

For what felt like a long time but was probably only a couple of seconds, the man stayed where he was, looking out, then he turned away. ‘Come on, they’re not here,’ she heard him call out to whoever was in there with him, his voice carrying through the broken kitchen window. ‘They must have made a dash for it.’

Creeping forward quickly, Jess opened the passenger door, flinching when she saw a woman lying with her back to her in the passenger seat, a great chunk missing from the top of her head. The windscreen and dashboard were covered in gore and thick splats of blood, some of which were still dripping, and a horrible smell of shit hung heavily in the air.

Amanda was leaning in the other side of the car, searching frantically for the keys. ‘I can’t see them,’ she hissed. ‘Are they over your side?’

Jess looked on the floor, trying hard to ignore the corpse in the seat. She couldn’t see them anywhere, and when she looked back up, the scar-faced man was no longer in the kitchen. A shadow appeared through the frosted glass panel in the front door, and she heard the sound of the dogs’ paws scrabbling against the woodwork.

Fear surged through her. ‘We’ve got to go,’ she whispered desperately. ‘They’re going to see us any second . . .’

‘Hold on,’ hissed Amanda. ‘Give me one moment.’ Turning away, she crept quickly over to the driver’s corpse while Jess stared at the door, waiting for it to open, racked by indecision.

‘I’ve got them.’ Amanda lifted up the keys and jumped back in the car. ‘Get rid of her and get in quick,’ she added, motioning towards the woman’s body as she shoved the key into the ignition with shaking hands.

A day ago the idea of handling a freshly murdered corpse would have been impossible to imagine for Jess. But now her survival instinct kicked in and she grabbed the dead woman by the collar of her lurid pink tracksuit top and yanked her out, dumping her on the driveway before jumping in the passenger seat just as the front door to the house flew open, and the scar-faced guy appeared in the gap, the rifle held out in front of him, the dogs already pushing past him as they made a dash for the car.

At the same time, Amanda switched on the engine and threw the car into reverse.

‘Duck!’ screamed Jess as the man raised the rifle and pointed it at straight at them. Without waiting to see whether Amanda followed her prompt, Jess threw herself down in the seat as the car accelerated backwards. A shot rang out and in the same instant the windscreen exploded, raining glass down on her as she squeezed her eyes shut and covered her head.