The Cassandra Sanction

Chapter Forty-Six

Nearly two thousand miles away, Steve Ellis awoke in what at first seemed like unfamiliar surroundings that, for just a few moments, left him disorientated and anxious. He sat up in the bed, blinking, and then let out a relieved sigh as sleep melted away and, with it, the already-fading dream that he now realised must have unsettled him.

A drowsy squint at his watch made him sigh again, but this time with irritation at himself for sleeping in so late. Jesus, it was almost eleven o’clock in the morning. Through the small window of his bedroom, the sun was already high in the sky, burning pale over the hills that surrounded the isolated cottage.

He forced himself out of bed, groaning and muttering at the stiffness in his back. What an old crock he’d become. And what a slob, too, malingering in bed all bloody morning. But that’s what you got for sitting up half the night watching the stars. Some habits just wouldn’t die. The lightweight astronomical binoculars were the only piece of kit he’d managed to bring with him in his rush to leave home, but — being of his own design and manufacture, naturally — they were more than up to the job.

Under the circumstances, nightly skywatching should have been the least of his preoccupations. But with each week he spent in this place, he was feeling more relaxed in the confidence that as long as he stayed put, he was safe here from the people who wished him harm. Of all the infinite number of places he could have gone to ground, how was anyone ever to guess he’d holed up more than two hundred miles north of home, in the middle of nowhere overlooking an empty valley deep in the heart of the Lake District? It didn’t get much more remote than this within British shores. No landline phone or mobile reception, no TV, no neighbours, the nearest village almost an hour’s walk away. Even the taxicab that had brought him here from the railway station had had trouble finding the damn place.

The cottage belonged to Rex, his former brother-in-law, with whom Steve had kept in contact all these years since his younger sister Sally had grown to be such a grouching, sullen old bitch that Rex had finally had the good sense to divorce her. Rex’s knees had become too dodgy with age these days to allow him to negotiate the slope leading up to the cottage, so he very seldom used it any more and kept it on only as a financial investment. When Steve had called him up late that night at home in Preston, hiding his panic with a hastily made-up story about wanting to get away from it all for a while, Rex had said he could stay there as long as he wanted, gratis.

Good old Rex. He might be an awkward bugger at times, but Steve had raised a few glasses to him since that day.

Steve padded stiffly to the tiny bathroom. It was cold. He urinated, then peered in disapproval at the crumpled, white-bearded face in the mirror. He wasn’t getting any prettier, but who gave a toss? Then he wandered into the low-beamed living room, which was cold as well.

Better get used to it, old boy, he thought. Just in case you live long enough to be around when it all starts to kick off. One day, everyone was going to wish they had a good old-fashioned fire and lots of nice fossil fuels to keep themselves warm. The warmists were going to love it.

Once he’d got the wood burner in the living room going, Steve went to the kitchen to brew himself a pot of strong tea, then returned near the fire to drink it in the rocking chair by the window, idly scanning the sky in case he might spot an osprey or a goshawk or even, wonder of wonders, an eagle. There wasn’t an awful lot to do here except enjoy the absolute peace and quiet. The only things he missed from home were his workshop and his internet connection, the latter partly because he would have liked to keep up with his blog, and partly because even a prehistoric old fart like him had finally had to cave in and admit that the web was the best research resource going. How had they ever managed to cope back in the sixties, seventies and eighties?

Seeing nothing except a couple of buzzards, he let his thoughts wander. He wished he could phone Catalina Fuentes and find out if the poor girl was all right. He felt very protective towards her, and couldn’t bear to imagine the same dreadful thing happening to her as had befallen their colleagues. Dear God, what an awful bloody mess.

When he’d finished his tea he got up and wandered back into the kitchen, contemplating lunch. All these dark thoughts had depressed him a bit, and he decided he could do with a nice cold can of bitter, to wash down the rest of the corned beef hash left over from last night’s dinner. One thing about being a single guy, at least he could cook and fend for himself. Fried bread, bacon and eggs, even omelettes. Yup, he was a regular master chef.

But when he opened the fridge, he saw to his dismay that there was no beer left. Must’ve polished the last one off yesterday. Damn. He patted his belly. Maybe staying off the beer for a day or two wouldn’t be such a bad thing. But now the thought was in his head, it wouldn’t go away. He struggled with it for a while, but then human frailty got the better of him. The village shop was only a cycle ride away, and the exercise would give him an appetite.

He shoved another log on the wood burner to keep it ticking over in his absence, then locked the cottage and went outside into the chill. In the shed was the old mountain bike that Rex hadn’t used for years, which Steve had cleaned up and appropriated for his forays to the village shop, returning with carrier bags full of groceries and clanking beer tins dangling from the handlebars. He got his leg over the bike and pedalled off down the gravelly slope.

He’d explored most of the area during these past weeks, and knew his way around pretty well. As usual, he turned off the road to take a route along a bouncy, rocky lane that cut about half a mile off the normal route to the village. Drystone walls and tufty dead grass flanked its verges, and the rolling, craggy hills loomed up all around, breaking here and there for patches of golden autumnal woodland. There wasn’t a living soul in sight. It was glorious.

The only problem with the shortcut was the steep hill he had to negotiate about a mile from the cottage. As he approached, he pedalled harder to gain momentum and changed down a few gears. These newfangled bicycles seemed to have about a thousand of them. He fixed his gaze on the brow of the hill ahead, gritted his teeth and kept on pumping. By the time he was halfway up the incline, he was sweating and his heart was thundering away, but he was determined that today he’d reach the top without having to get off and push.

Not bad for an old crock, he thought, and grinned to himself.

Sensing the soft engine purr and tyre patter of a vehicle coming up behind him, he glanced back over his shoulder and saw the black Land Rover Freelander following him slowly along the path, spitting little stones out from under its chunky tyres. You didn’t meet a lot of traffic on these lanes. He tightened in closer to the verge to let the Land Rover pass, but it didn’t. He waved his arm to say, come on, overtake me.

Again, the vehicle stayed back, slowly keeping pace with him up the hill. He could dimly make out a pair of figures in the front seats.

The vehicle’s presence irritated Steve, because he didn’t like being watched while he puffed and panted and generally showed his age and condition. What was the matter with this guy? Worried about scratching his paintwork on the drystone wall? There was plenty of room on the narrow lane to overtake a bloody bicycle, for heaven’s sake.

That was when he was gripped by a sudden thought that made the bicycle wobble under him and turned the sweat on his brow to ice water. He twisted in the saddle to look again, panic rising now. The two figures seemed to look back at him, their faces obscured by the tint of the glass. Was there a third man with them in the vehicle, or was he just imagining it? He tried to pedal faster, but his legs were trembling and the muscles in his thighs seemed to have liquefied. His breath started wheezing. The brow of the hill suddenly seemed impossibly far away.

But the breach in the drystone wall was coming up on the left. Beyond it was a stand of trees, behind which stood a little stone bothy that Steve had often visited on his rambles. In his panic-stricken mind, the tumbledown old stone building suddenly seemed to him like an ideal refuge.

In a flurry of arms and legs he dismounted from the bike without stopping, letting it fall away under him and somehow managing to land on his feet without tripping over it and going flat on his face. The bike clattered to the ground in the path of the Land Rover and he heard it crunch to a halt as he bolted for the gap in the wall. His breath rasped shakily in his throat and his feet tore through the long grass. He thought he heard the sound of car doors opening, but he didn’t dare to look back. He stumbled onwards until he reached the trees, and only then did he throw another feverish glance over his shoulder.

Three men had got out of the Land Rover. All of them were looking straight at him. As one, they reached inside their coats and pulled out stubby black objects that he realised were guns.

Steve let out a groan of terror as he went on running. He had no idea how they’d found him. But they’d found him, all right.

He thought of Rex.

Rex was family.

Family were traceable.

Which meant he was traceable.

God, how could he have been so stupid?

Keep going! screamed the voice in his head. Keep running! He was certain he could hear the crackle of twigs behind him as the three men pursued him into the trees. A branch whipped across the side of his face, but he hardly felt it.

The bothy lurched closer with every step. He could see its craggy wall through the autumnal foliage. It had no windows, and a single oak door that was old and flaking, but thick and solid. If he could somehow wedge it shut from inside—

Steve burst out of the trees. Now he was just a few breathless paces from the door. It was slightly ajar. He reached a hand out in front of him to shove it open—

But his hand met only empty air when the door swung open before he got to it.

A man stepped out of the shadows of the doorway to meet him. Tall, clean-shaven, wearing a long dark coat. Holding a gun.

‘Hallo, Steve,’ he said. And the gun came up to point at him.

All Steve Ellis could do then was close his eyes.