If Brandon Eisenberg was a little twitchy at the thought of letting loose a six-litre V12, on damp roads, with a girl behind the wheel, he manfully constrained the bulk of his dismay. The car was a brand-spun four-door Aston Martin Rapide, with oodles of torque and a top speed in excess of 180 mph. About the same as an average sports bike, but at roughly twenty times the cost.
Nevertheless, when I slid into the cream leather bucket seat and fired up that rasping great engine, I could entirely understand the appeal. The interior still had that fresh-off-the-cow, new-car smell.
Parker had ordered Erik Landers to stay behind and man the phones, just in case the kidnappers did decide to call. But at this moment Landers was eyeing the gleaming dark-green Aston and not exactly looking overjoyed at the prospect of being left behind.
‘We’ll be right behind you,’ Eisenberg said, nodding to Caroline Willner. He leant into the open doorway and added more quietly, ‘Let’s go find this kid alive, huh?’
‘We don’t even know we’re on the right track,’ Parker warned from the passenger seat. ‘This could all be a wild goose chase.’ He had argued against taking civilians along, as much as Gleason, but to no avail. The rich were too used to getting their own way.
Eisenberg shrugged. ‘It’s better than waiting around here.’ He straightened, glanced across at his stony-faced bodyguard who was standing by the Navigator. ‘Quit whining and get your ass moving, Gleason.’
I shut the heavy door on her furious scowl and snicked the gears into first. The transmission dropped in, firm and precise, and then we were rolling.
I waited until we were out onto the road before I booted it, catching Parker in mid sentence. He went abruptly silent as the big car squatted down and wriggled its hips, wrestling to put all that grunt down through the fat rear tyres, while a giant hand punched us back in our seats.
‘I know I said you’d get us there fast, Charlie,’ Parker said when he could speak again, ‘but try to get us there alive, too.’
I took my eyes off the road just long enough to flash him a small hard smile. ‘Just wanted to show you that all those driving courses you sent me on haven’t gone to waste.’
‘OK! I’m convinced.’
It took a couple of miles of three-figure speed and slingshot overtaking manoeuvres before he began to relax, I noticed. Parker had not driven much in Europe, whereas I’d experienced the German autobahns at full throttle. And the Aston had the kind of road-holding and handling characteristics – not to mention the sheer power delivery – that made driving gods out of men.
‘Even if the riding club is the right place,’ he said then, ‘where do we start looking?’
‘We take a ride round the cross-country course and look for disturbed earth,’ I said.
If he’s buried her …
I clung to the thought that Dina was not yet dead, that we stood a chance of getting to her in time. But burying her alive, when she had a phobia of enclosed spaces, and was horrifyingly aware of what had happened to the last victim, might be enough to send her over the edge.
The guilt was a solid mass, pressing down on me, threatening to crush my chest until I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, for the weight of it on top of me.
I pressed my right foot down a little harder and was rewarded by another surge of speed. The chasing Navigator, with Gleason behind the wheel, was already nowhere to be seen. Parker had all the company vehicles chipped for additional power and torque, but against this kind of supercar engineering, she may as well have been pedalling it.
‘So, what’s with the mention of Orlando, and the fall?’ Parker asked, unconsciously bracing himself against the centre transmission tunnel.
The half of my brain that wasn’t occupied with controlling the Aston flipped back to the day of the abortive kidnap attempt on Dina at the riding club, when I’d used Cerdo to kick out at Ross. If I’d known then that the one with the PlastiCuffs – the one I’d put on the ground first – was Lennon, the ringleader, I would have made sure he stayed down. Permanently.
Hunt had been there, as had Orlando. She’d been out on the cross-country course with that fine-boned little Arab horse of hers. It didn’t look robust enough to survive a round with fixed timber fences and, indeed, the horse had come back with a swollen knee from clattering against something solid …
‘It could be that we’re looking at this wrong,’ I said quickly. ‘It may not be the fall, but just a fall. Orlando had a fall, the last time she did the course. I wonder where?’
‘You’re reaching, Charlie,’ Parker said, doubtful.
‘Ross gave us this practically with his last breath, and for all we know, finding it out was what got him killed,’ I said, blasting past a slow-moving RV and just managing to dart back into my lane through a disappearing gap between that and an oncoming Kenworth. ‘If you can suggest a better place to start looking, I’m all bloody ears.’
The Navigator stood no chance of catching up with us now. Well, good. It was one less thing to worry about – two less things, if I counted Eisenberg as well as Caroline Willner.
‘OK, OK,’ Parker said, and I realised he’d gone quiet again during the last manoeuvre. ‘But for the moment, please, just drive.’
I totally ignored the signs welcoming careful drivers on the driveway leading to the riding club, spraying the verges with gravel on every turn. It certainly didn’t make for a stealthy approach.
So much so, that when I pulled up close to the stable yard, the Aussie instructor, Raleigh, was waiting for us by the gate, arm in a black sling, looking highly pissed off.
‘Hey, Pom!’ he shouted as soon as we climbed out of the car. ‘What the bloody hell d’you think you’re doing, driving up here like that, mate? You trying to scare half the horses to death or what?’
‘Where’s Hunt?’ Parker demanded, and though he didn’t raise his voice, he didn’t need to. He had an innate air of natural command that had Raleigh’s attention instantly diverted.
‘W-what?’ He jerked the thumb of his unbroken arm over his shoulder. ‘He’s out on the cross-country course. Said as he knew the course was out of use for a few days while the new sod beds in, he’d come to fix up one of the fences that Orlando busted last time she went round. I told him he didn’t need to, but he’d brought his mate over with a ute and all the gear.’
I felt the jolt of it go through Parker. It must have done, because it hit me hard enough to make my nape prickle.
‘How long ago?’ My turn to fire off a question. I clearly didn’t have Parker’s touch, though, because Raleigh just gaped at me. I reached under my jacket and pulled out the SIG. That seemed to get his notice. I felt my voice rising. ‘How long ago did he go out on the course?’
‘I dunno. About an hour, maybe. I’ve been busy in the yard,’ he gabbled. ‘Now look here, Pom, what the bloody hell’s this all about?’
‘Where?’ I snapped instead. ‘Which fence?’
I saw his colour start to rise in temper, and was close to losing my own when Parker stepped between us.
‘Dina’s been kidnapped and we believe Hunt may have her,’ he said, the tone of his voice leaving no room for not taking this seriously. ‘We need to find him, and we need to find him now.’
Raleigh’s colour ebbed away. ‘Jeez, mate. I dunno. He said it was over on the far side somewhere. I wasn’t really taking note. Look, there’s a map in the tack room.’ He wheeled away. ‘Come have a look for yourself.’
We hurried after him and found that, in keeping with the riding club’s upscale facilities, the map was actually a large framed satellite image, with the track of the course plotted and the obstacles clearly identified at every point. I was impressed and dismayed in equal measure.
‘Wow, I didn’t realise it was this big.’
‘Yeah, I spent a couple of years in the UK, studying course design – Badminton, Burghley, Gatcombe,’ Raleigh said, justifiably proud. ‘If you take the difficult route, it’s well up to international standard.’
‘My God,’ Parker murmured. ‘Where do we start?’
But one fence caught my eye. Leapt out at me in stark clarity. I stabbed a finger on the course map.
‘That one!’
‘You’re reaching again, Charlie,’ Parker warned tightly.
‘No, I’m not,’ I said, already starting to move. ‘Look at the name of it.’
As soon as I’d seen it, Ross’s cryptic dying warning made perfect sense.
The fence was called The Coffin.