15

'No!'

Matt's cry was worthless, coming eons too late and going unheard by anyone but himself. Seconds later, he was once more out of his car and running to the scene of the collision, still struggling to believe that the driver of the 4x4 hadn't seen Deacon before he had run into him. Had he been on the phone perhaps, or fiddling with his radio? Whatever the case, reality was in the motionless form at the side of the road, its outline just visible to Matt in the glow of the vehicle's reversing lights as it backed up.

The 4x4 stopped, slightly slewed across the lane, a few yards from Deacon's body, and, as Matt drew nearer, the driver's door opened and someone stepped out, but instead of immediately hurrying to see what – if anything – could be done for the casualty, he stood stock-still, with one hand on the door, watching Matt's approach.

Shock, Matt supposed, slowing as he reached the scene.

'What the hell were you doing?' he demanded. 'Didn't you see him?'

Deacon lay partly on his side, face down in the frosty grass of the verge, with one arm outflung and both legs hideously misshapen, the thigh bones curving impossibly.

'Ring for an ambulance!' Matt instructed, and then knelt down, wishing he had a torch. The moon was free of cloud now, but Deacon was in the shelter of the hedge and his face and upper body lay in shadow. There was no way Matt was going to move him; Kendra's brother was in a pretty good approximation of the classic recovery position, and experience with racing falls had taught him that you don't touch if you don't have to.

Putting a hand lightly on Deacon's chest, he felt the shallowest of rise and falls, and, giving up on the silent bystander who still hadn't moved, he unzipped his jacket and reached into the inside pocket to find his own phone, only to remember that it was lying on the passenger seat of the MR2.

A beam of light fell on Deacon's face, and, with renewed hope, Matt looked up. The 4x4 driver had found a torch and was coming closer.

'Is he dead?'

'Not yet, but he will be if we don't get an ambulance here!' Matt told him, urgency rendering his voice sharp. 'I haven't got my phone.'

The torchlight transferred to Matt's face, catching him full in the eyes.

'Get that bloody thing out of my face!' he snapped, blinking.

'He's wearing your jacket,' the voice beyond the light said in a faintly accusing tone.

'Yeah, well he was cold,' Matt replied unthinkingly. 'Look, have you got a mobile or not?' He was beginning to think he was dealing with a second case of mental imbalance. Surely everyone had a mobile phone these days; certainly you'd expect the driver of what appeared to be a fairly modern Land Rover to have one, so why on earth didn't he use it to call for help?

The driver ignored his question, and the light stayed, infuriatingly, on Matt's face.

He stood up.

'Phone . . . ? All right, I'll get mine. Look, don't just stand there! Have you got anything to put over him? He needs to be kept warm but, whatever you do, don't move him.'

'You've fucked everything up now!'

The driver's voice was vehement, but so low that, for a moment, Matt wasn't sure he'd heard the words aright over the noise of the wind. He paused in the act of turning to run back to his car.

'You what?' he demanded, squinting against the torchlight which was still shining in his face.

'Giving him your fucking jacket! What did you go and do that for?'

'I told you – he was cold. He only had a tee shirt . . .' As he began to speak, recognition came to Matt. The slightly gruff tone, the Land Rover, the fact that the man had recognised what was, after all, a fairly new coat – the man with the torch was Niall Delafield.

Suddenly, the full, chilling significance of his remarks was borne home to Matt. Delafield had meant to hit the running figure; and not because he'd thought it was Deacon but because, in that distinctive jacket and having just passed the MR2, he had mistaken him for Matt.

Almost involuntarily, he took a step back, glancing down at the motionless body at his feet. What to do now? The very fact that Delafield had drawn Matt's attention to his mistake augured badly for the future. By not attempting to pass the deed off as an accident, he had, in effect, signalled his intention of finishing the job.

'Look – he's still breathing. If we can get him an ambulance, he might still be all right.'

'Do I look like I care? He's a fucking fruitcake – he'd be better off dead. Tidier all round.'

Matt took another step back. He was loath to leave Deacon to the mercy of Delafield, but he had no choice. The lad needed an ambulance and his erstwhile minder was clearly not going to call for one. Added to which, if he was reading it right, his own situation was looking increasingly precarious. For both of their sakes, he needed to get to his phone, but all at once the car seemed a frighteningly long way away.

'You can't just leave him,' he said, mentally poised to run and trying to disguise the fact. 'After all, you ran him down.'

'Ah, yes. A shame, that,' came the answer, and Matt sensed rather than saw the accompanying shrug. 'Just stepped out in front of me with no warning. Off his head, poor bloke; suffering a psychotic episode, no doubt. Who's to argue? There'll be no witnesses . . .'

Matt swallowed, his mouth dry.

'They'll know you're lying. The forensic people can tell exactly what happened.'

'Why don't you let me worry about that?' Delafield suggested calmly. 'Time they get their act together, I'll be long gone.'

There didn't seem to be anything more to say, so Matt ran.

He'd expected Delafield to give chase, and hoped that his own fitness would give him the edge he needed over the bulkier man; what he didn't expect was for Delafield to give chase in the Land Rover. Matt had barely covered twenty yards when he heard the powerful engine roar, and twenty more when the headlights caught him, sending his running shadow leaping fifteen feet ahead of him down the road.

How the hell had he got the damned thing turned round so quickly in the narrow lane?

Matt ran harder than he'd ever run before, desperate to reach the relative safety of the car and the phone that represented a lifeline for Deacon and himself.

Slipping slightly as he decelerated on the gritty surface of the lane, Matt grabbed the car's door handle and pulled it open, glancing back at the oncoming Land Rover as he did so. In that instant he realised that, as before, Delafield had no intention of slowing. He was aiming the 4x4, like a lethal weapon, squarely at the front of the MR2, and Matt had no illusions about which vehicle would come off best in the encounter.

Casting one regretful look at the mobile phone on the passenger seat, he abandoned the idea of retrieving it and concentrated, instead, on his own personal survival. His instincts were shrieking at him to get away from the car, given the speed at which the Land Rover was travelling, to go behind it was clearly suicidal, and to move to the side a moment too soon would make him an easy target should Delafield swerve to follow him.

He had only fractions of a second to play with and, in the end, he left it one crucial moment too late – his dive to the right being thrown off course by the reflex action of the open door as the Land Rover ploughed into the nose of the silver sports car.

Tarmac, hedge, and sky barrelled crazily round Matt and he fetched up on his back at the side of the lane with his head and shoulders resting on the grass verge. From there he had a grandstand view of the Land Rover as it mounted the bonnet of his car like some giant copulating metal monster. The sound was horrific as the sleek bodywork collapsed under the strain and the windscreen imploded, showering the interior with glass.

The impact had driven both vehicles several yards down the road, the Land Rover finishing up with its front wheels dropping into the seating compartment of the MR2, a chilling affirmation of the wisdom of Matt's decision. For a moment, there was relative silence, broken only by the small sounds of settling machinery. The Land Rover engine had stalled, but any hopes Matt might have entertained that the danger was past were swiftly routed as Delafield attempted to restart it. Obediently, the 4x4 hiccupped back to life and, with a creaking groan of distressed metal, Delafield began to rock it to and fro in an attempt to break free.

Pushing himself up into a sitting position, Matt saw to his dismay that the manoeuvre showed every sign of success; with each pull backwards the Land Rover rose higher, and it looked to be only a matter of time before it would have all four wheels on the tarmac again. While it couldn't be said that Matt's brain was functioning at full power after being thrown across the lane, his self-preservation instincts were unimpaired and they were unequivocal in urging him to put as much distance as he could between himself and the Land Rover as quickly as was humanly possible.

Scrambling to his feet, Matt was relieved to find his limbs were all in working order – if a little bruised. He glanced up and down the lane in momentary indecision and came to the rapid conclusion that his best hope was to head back down the lane towards Rockfield, though he knew he had little chance of reaching it on foot before the Land Rover caught up with him. Even a practically unachievable goal was better than no goal at all, which was what he would face if he went the other way, past Deacon Brewer's inert form and on into the no-man's-land beyond.

Seconds later he was sprinting past the revving 4x4 – still riding high on the mangled remains of the MR2 – and away round the bend in the lane. With the wind in his ears, Matt couldn't hear anything except his breathing and the slapping of his soft-soled shoes on the road, and the sensation that the Land Rover had broken free and was bearing down on him began to prey on his mind to the extent that he had to keep checking over his shoulder. He had covered the best part of two hundred yards and glanced back half a dozen times when he finally saw the sight he'd been dreading – the oncoming lights of a vehicle.

There was never any doubt in his mind that it was the Land Rover; quite apart from the fact that traffic was rare on this road, this vehicle was dragging a section of metalwork beneath it, scraping over the tarmac with a horrendous screech, and sparking like the fifth of November.

Whatever was caught under it didn't seem to be slowing the Land Rover much, and, desperately, Matt searched the dark line of the right-hand hedge for a thin patch as he ran. He was instinctively looking to the right because that way, albeit a good mile or more distant in the valley bottom, lay the farmhouse and stable yard of Rockfield. However, as the roar of the pursuing vehicle grew ever louder, he would have taken any route that offered.

Finally, just when Matt had begun to think his luck had run out, a gap appeared in the blackthorn and, stepping up onto the verge, he launched himself through in a flying leap designed to clear any wire that might span the opening.

There was indeed wire, its barbs making themselves felt in a burning pain down the length of his right leg as he caught his toe in the top strand and sprawled untidily onto the spiky stubble headland of the field beyond. The lights that had chased him down the lane followed him still, shining above his head as the Land Rover bumped up onto the verge and ploughed into the fence in its turn. At this point, the wire – which Matt had been roundly cursing just moments before – now earned his gratitude, as the three strands combined to bring the heavy vehicle to a halt, its engine stalling and its headlights illuminating nothing but empty acres of ploughed earth and a couple of startled pheasants.

'Fuck!' Delafield said plainly into the sudden silence that followed, and, keeping low, Matt raised himself onto all fours and scuttled closer to the hedge, where he paused to catch his breath, taking in the lie of the land while he waited to see what Delafield's next move would be.

On this side of the hedge the wind was bitingly cold and Matt could feel the chill of evaporating sweat on his body. Above, the moon was sailing in a sky that was now clear of all but the wispiest ribbons of cloud, and it was plain to Matt that any attempt to cross the huge open field would leave him horribly exposed. Looking to his right, he could see a dark cluster of farm buildings on the skyline, but he'd driven past them many times and knew there was no farmhouse amongst them. The barns and stables might offer a place to hide, in the short term – always supposing he could reach them unseen – but they offered little in the long term.

While Matt racked his brains for a plan of action, the Land Rover engine turned over twice and came back to life. Twanging free of the wire, the 4x4 reversed and moved off up the lane, but slowly – as if searching for something. That something turned out to be a gateway and there was clearly no gate to hinder its progress, for, as Matt watched with a sinking heart, its headlights blazed out across the field once more, some twenty yards further on, and began to swing round in an arc that would inevitably bring them towards his position by the hedge.

It was time to be moving again.

Standing up, Matt bent the top strand of wire down as far as it would go and stepped carefully over. Back on the tarmac, the need to make a decision about which way to go became imperative. His idea of heading for Rockfield had lost some of its feasibility but, then again, he didn't have a better one, so he set off at a run along the lane once more, hoping that the next field might perhaps be less accessible to the Land Rover and gain him a little leeway.

Slowing down as he reached the first gateway, he peered round the gatepost and saw the Land Rover in the far corner but heading back. It looked as though Delafield was doing a sweep of the whole field, driving round the perimeter to avoid the uneven plough.

Matt hesitated. The long metal gate to the field was opened right back against the hedge and he toyed with the idea of shutting it, to buy him some precious time. On the other hand, it would be a clear signal of his whereabouts, so, resisting the temptation, he stepped back and ran on.

Pounding over the tarmac, Matt was grateful for the endurance fitness that his profession required, but aware that a prolonged game of catch-me-if-you-can with a motor vehicle could have only one ending. He had to get off the road and out of sight; after all, surely Delafield couldn't afford to remain in the area for too long, with the evidence of what he'd done laid out for any chance passer-by to see. On the other hand, where could he go? As the only witness, did Delafield think that removing Matt would solve his problems? Matt couldn't believe he'd be that short-sighted. He must know that he'd burnt his bridges, so his determination to silence Matt could only be to buy himself time in which to make a clean getaway.

Spotting a gap low down in the hedge to his right, Matt stopped, threw himself to his stomach, and began to wriggle under the bottom strand of wire. A knobbly root made the manoeuvre extremely uncomfortable, but that was forgotten when, halfway under, Matt felt his jacket snag securely on one of the barbs. His attempt to tear his way free was unsuccessful – the thick leather withstood all the force he could bring to bear from his restricted position and all he succeeded in doing was to gouge a painful furrow in the skin of his back. Neither did it seem possible to shrug the garment off, his arms necessarily being in front, in order to help pull him through the narrow gap.

Directing a stream of invective at whomever it was who had invented barbed wire, Matt fought back panic and tried to think rationally, an attempt that was routed when he heard the roar of the Land Rover, plainly back on the road and bearing down on the spot where he lay.

Shit! Would Delafield see him? What portion of his legs still protruded from the untidy line of blackthorn? Should he throw everything at the struggle to get under the wire or should he lie still and hope that he wouldn't be seen in the shadow of the hedge? In spite of the risk, Matt chose the latter, aware that nothing draws the eye like movement. Even so, it was as much as he could do to lie perfectly motionless as Delafield drove closer, and he found himself imagining the agony of having the 4x4 run up on the verge and over his outstretched legs. He'd had brutal evidence that the deed was well within the ex-army man's capability and it would be a sure-fire way of ensuring that Matt ran no further.

By the time the Land Rover thundered past, Matt was shaking like a washing machine on spin cycle. He let out the lungful of breath he'd been holding, but there was no time to celebrate his narrow escape for, seeing the empty road ahead, Delafield would soon realise that he had overshot the mark and almost certainly return, no doubt driving more slowly and searching the banks and hedges for any sign of Matt.

Reaching awkwardly behind with one hand, he managed to locate the part of his jacket that had caught on the wire and, by dint of wriggling backwards an inch or two, unhook it. Even as he started to crawl forward once more, he heard a screech of tyres as the Land Rover's brakes were savagely applied further down the lane.

Moments later, Matt was out the other side of the hedge and getting to his feet. With relief, he found he was in a different field. This one was laid to pasture, if the short-cropped turf could be called that, and, in the pale light of the moon, he could see a number of irregularly shaped dark objects a little way off. At first he thought they might be cows, but, as he stood up, the movement attracted their attention and he could see by their size and the length of their necks that they were, in fact, horses – carthorses, to be exact – feeding from a big circular hay rack.

As the Land Rover began its return journey, Matt walked calmly towards the group of horses, talking in soothing tones as he went. The equine giants watched him with interest but no apparent alarm, jaws still winding in long streamers of hay, and one of them even fluttering its nostrils and uttering a low whickering sound.

'Hello, lads,' he said, reaching a hand up to caress the nearest lowered nose. He thought they were probably shires. A good two hands, or eight inches, taller than the thoroughbreds he was used to, these draught horses were bigger in every way – long roman-nosed heads set on massively crested necks, barrel-shaped bodies, stout legs feathered with a mass of long hair, and hooves ten or twelve inches across.

Matt counted five horses in total as they gathered round him in anticipation of possible titbits. Glancing in the direction of the lane, he could see the lights of the Land Rover approaching the field gate. He dropped to a crouch as the beams swung towards him, illuminating the galvanised metal feeder behind which he hid, and haloing the horses, who blinked uncomfortably. Confident that he couldn't be seen, Matt stayed still and, after a minute or so, heard the vehicle back away and continue up the lane.

Letting out his breath in a shaky sigh, Matt considered his position. Fairly safe for the moment, he could conceivably stay where he was all night, if necessary, or at least until Delafield gave up the search. However, it wasn't only himself he had to think of – although in a bad way, Deacon had been alive when Matt had last seen him, and he couldn't square it with his conscience not to do everything possible to get him some help.

Thinking about the option of returning to the lane once more, and not liking it at all, Matt stroked the neck of the nearest horse and noticed – for the first time – that three of them were wearing headcollars. He continued to stroke the animal, thoughtfully. If one was contemplating riding, a headcollar wasn't much use without a rope, but was he really contemplating it?

He rather felt he was. On the back of a horse, he could move a good deal faster and would feel a lot less vulnerable than on foot.

Looking around him, he saw that the hay the horses were pulling at was in the form of three or four bales, which the farmer had dumped into the feeder wholesale, binder twine and all, probably earlier that day. At any other time, Matt would have deplored such carelessness, worried for the safety of the feeding animals, just now, though, he sent a blessing winging in the man's direction. A length of orange twine, whilst not ideal, could be fashioned into a makeshift rein that might just provide the means for his getaway.

It proved necessary to climb into the feeder to retrieve the string, but, even so, in less than two minutes he had attached a piece to either side of the headcollar of his chosen horse and was preparing to climb onto its broad back. This he did with the help of the feeder, talking quietly all the while, and trying not to allow his tension to communicate itself to the animal who, for all he knew, might never have been ridden before.

In the event, it wasn't an adverse reaction he had to worry about as much as no reaction at all. Beyond turning an ear in his direction, the horse took no notice whatsoever of Matt's presence and continued to eat hay unperturbed.

It took a fair amount of unattractive kicking and hauling to coax the animal away from his feed, but, eventually, Matt managed it, and even succeeded in bullying the animal into a reluctant trot. His plan – if plan it could be called – was to ride the horse down the field in the hope of finding a way out at the bottom. Failing that, then at least he would be close enough to make his way to Rockfield on foot.

For twenty or thirty yards or so, the animal trotted, head up and showing a strong inclination to turn back to his companions if Matt would let him, but then fate, in the shape of the other four horses, took a deciding hand.

Matt didn't realise they were following until one of them kicked up its heels and cantered past, causing his mount to veer sideways. Slipping a little, Matt grabbed a handful of rough mane to steady himself. The shire's back felt acres wide compared with the lean thoroughbreds he rode everyday, and his legs didn't reach far enough round its girth to grip effectively. Being herd animals, the sight of one of their number running got them all going, and soon the other horses joined in the fun, running alongside Matt's horse, bucking and snaking their heads.

Matt cursed. Steering a horse with string attached to its headcollar was never going to be a very precise art and relied a good deal on the willing co-operation of the animal; with five horses on the run in a ten-acre field on a windy night, he might just as well have tried to convey his wishes by Morse code for all the notice the shire took of them. Caught up with the exhilaration of this wild charge, the five heavy horses got faster and faster, thundering down the field towards the boundary fence in the valley like massive warhorses going into battle.

Matt hauled on the orange twine until it felt as though it would cut through his fingers, but to no avail. Carried along with the others, the horse he had chosen swung right to follow the line of the fence before turning inexorably back up the hill again. Even the option of baling out was taken from him, as the five animals stayed closely bunched together, and to have landed amongst their pounding hooves would have been tantamount to suicide. Helpless to do anything but hold on grimly, Matt found himself carried back up to the top of the hill, but any hope that the horses would slow and stop by the feeder were dashed as they raced by, apparently still full of running, heading for the other side of the field.

For one awful moment, Matt thought he was going to have to endure a second circuit and quailed at the thought. The shire's back might have been broad and well covered, but his withers were prominent and bony, and Matt feared they were doing untold damage to an extremely delicate area of his anatomy. Instead of swinging right-handed along the top hedge, however, the lead horse made for the very corner of the field, chivvied all the way by one of the others, mouth open and teeth bared.

As the five animals converged, funnelled into a rapidly decreasing space, Matt renewed his grip on the shire's mane and prepared for a rough ride. There were slip rails in the corner, but Matt didn't discover them until the first horse launched itself into the air and the second horse didn't, smashing through the top pole and almost coming to its knees. Matt's own mount made an ungainly leap over the remaining pole, throwing him forward onto its neck, and the next moment they were all streaming along the unploughed headland of the adjacent field, galloping hard. It occurred to Matt that there was now a certain purpose about their progress; they seemed to know where they were going. Regaining his seat, he saw, looming close, the dark bulk of the barns he'd seen earlier, and the next moment the five horses charged through the open yard gate and came to a slithering, bone-shaking halt in front of the stables.

Matt slid thankfully to the ground. Presumably, the horses were on occasion stabled in this yard, and had come here now, instinctively, in expectation of being fed. That being so, he had little hope of being able to persuade the somewhat stubborn shire to carry him any further, even if he had wanted to, but he had no intention of subjecting the horse to the danger of confronting Delafield and the Land Rover.

A shadow raced across the yard and, looking up, Matt saw a bank of cloud moving across the moon. In theory, he knew the darkness should benefit the hunted rather than the hunter but, even so, some age-old subconscious dread made him shiver and look around warily.

He wasn't given long to suffer, and the danger – when it came, – came, not creeping stealthily, but with lights blazing, as the Land Rover appeared junketing down the short track from the lane, its headlights strafing vertically as it traversed the deep potholes.

Matt took one look and then ran for the nearest barn. It was a huge structure, boarded partway up each side and then open to the elements under the arched roof. Running in through the full-height opening that served as access, he found it three-quarters full of hay bales and began to climb, hoping against hope that Delafield had pulled in as part of his general search, and not because he'd witnessed Matt arriving with the horses.

The hay smelled warm and earthy, a familiar smell to Matt, and he climbed swiftly, feeling his way in the deeper darkness of the barn and expecting, any moment, to be picked out by Delafield's torch. The Land Rover engine was silent now, and the only sounds from the yard were the horses' hooves tramping restlessly in the gritty mud.

The first few layers of bales were stepped but, as Matt climbed higher, he came upon a sheer wall of hay that apparently spanned the width of the barn. Jamming his fingers and the toes of his shoes in between the bales, he was able to continue upward until, right at the top, he hit a very real problem. Just a few inches short of the metal cross-beams, the last layer of bales had no weight on top to hold them in place and, as Matt reached to haul himself up and over the edge, the bale under his hand tilted precariously and threatened to fall.

Hanging on with his other hand, Matt tried to push the loose bale back into its place, but it had tipped beyond the point of no return and, with a jolt of fear, he watched its inexorable slide towards him – fifty-odd pounds of dead weight destined to test his powers of adhesion to the limit. Pulling his body as close to the side of the stack as he could, Matt turned his head sideways and pressed his cheek to the bristly wall. Although it wasn't a sheer drop to the barn floor, the thought of landing upon the stepped lower levels, after a fall of twenty-five feet or so, didn't appeal overmuch.

Finally toppling, the heavy bale caught him a glancing blow on the shoulder as it fell, loosening the grip of one hand and swinging him away from the stack, before it dropped into the gloom, bouncing off the stepped bales below to land with a dull thud on the barn floor.

Matt grabbed wildly at another handhold to save himself and then clung tightly for a few seconds, before making use of the gap left by the dislodged bale to complete his climb. In the darkness under the corrugated roof, he laid spreadeagled, face down, while he waited for his rocketing pulse to steady and his breathing to slow. Somewhere in the darkness of the roof space, he heard the anxious fluttering of a number of birds, but his stillness apparently reassured them and they settled once more. Matt drew in a deep, calming breath and let it out slowly, but he would have been far happier if he could have been sure that the falling bale hadn't alerted Delafield.

He waited in silence for what seemed an age, the barbed-wire gash on his leg smarting and his ears straining to hear any small sound that might denote the other man's presence down below. Such was his level of tension that, when he did hear the hollow thunk of a footfall on a loose plank, it was almost a relief. Then, without warning, a strong beam of light played along and over the edge of the stack, partially illuminating the arched roof above Matt and, caught unawares, he shrank backwards, unsure if he'd been seen.

Whether or not he had, he was never to know, for his quick movement was the last straw for the roosting pigeons, and they erupted into noisy flight, their wings sounding like a salvo of pistol shots in the silence.

When the pandemonium had died down, Matt held his breath, praying that Delafield would ascribe their panic to reaction to his torchlight, but it seemed not.

'Ah, so you are up there, Shepherd.'

Matt didn't answer. He could be bluffing.

After a moment or two, there was a low chuckle and a slow handclap.

'Absolutely right. Don't give away your position. Well, I guess I'll just have to come and get you.'

Matt's heart rate leapt up a few notches. Was the man mad? Surely no one with half a brain would start to climb, knowing that the person who waited above could start throwing bales down at any time. Or perhaps Delafield didn't believe that Matt had the stomach for such potentially lethal tactics. If that was the case, Matt thought grimly, he was going to find that he had been sadly mistaken. In his eyes, the ex-army man had forfeited any right to mercy when he'd run Deacon down and, although Matt was in no way a violent man, he had a healthy desire to look after his own interests.

As tense seconds multiplied and no further sound came from the floor of the barn, Matt realised that the drawback of his position was that, while Delafield had no clear idea of where he was hidden, the same was true in reverse, and it wasn't a comfortable feeling. Was he still in the barn, or had he perhaps started to scale one of the outer walls of the stack?

Matt edged forward and hitched an eye warily over the rim.

Niall Delafield was over halfway up the hay wall, less than fifteen feet below Matt and climbing fast, his torch in his waistband.

Not giving himself time to waver, Matt got to his knees, took hold of the outermost bale by its string, and rolled it off the edge.

Delafield was lucky. The bale wasn't directly above him and only brushed him in passing. It was enough to make him hesitate, however, and whilst he clung there, looking up, Matt tipped another over.

This time it did the job. Landing squarely on the climber's head and upper arms, the weight of it loosened his precarious hold and both he and the bale plummeted to the bottom of the stack, bouncing and rolling over the stepped section on the way.

Matt stifled a decidedly unphilanthropic urge to cheer. As far as he could see in the poor light, Delafield was lying face down and still. Matt watched intently for half a minute or so, but could detect no movement at all, and the only sound was the wind whistling through the open-sided building and the odd restive hoofbeat from the horses outside.

Still he waited. He didn't trust Delafield. It had been a nasty-looking fall, but the floor of the barn was carpeted with the fallen chaff of many seasons, and the bales that had broken the man's fall were essentially soft. How incapacitated he was would depend on whether he'd fallen awkwardly, and Matt just wasn't sure. What he did know was that he'd have to take his eyes off Delafield as soon as he started the descent, and that would make him horribly vulnerable.

He thought hard, trying to second-guess Delafield. If he were faking injury, would he really have waited that long for Matt to come down? Considering what he'd done, Matt was astonished that the man had stayed in the vicinity this long. How long had it been since he had run Deacon down? Fifteen minutes? Twenty? His determination to silence Matt seemed out of proportion to the extra getaway time it would gain him. If Delafield had made no attempt at all to catch him, it would still have taken Matt a good ten minutes to reach the main road and flag down a car. This way he risked discovery at any moment. Surely he didn't think he could fool the police with some elaborate cover story?

Coming to a decision, Matt moved back from the edge of the stack, turned round, and wriggled under the cross-beam into the next bay. With his back to the yard, he moved cautiously across the bales to where the corrugated roof curved down to within inches of the hay. Turning round, Matt sat back and pushed hard with his feet until he dislodged the outermost bale, sending it tumbling away into the darkness. Moments later he heard the soft thump of its landing and eased himself under the edge of the roof, sincerely hoping that fate didn't have something similar in store for him.

Because the stack had been constructed properly, with interlocking layers, the top bales were the only unstable ones, and Matt was able to begin his climb from the gap he had made with no fear that the first bale would topple under his weight. The hay on this exposed edge was damp and musty smelling, and some of the seed had germinated, sprouting soft grass. Months of rain and wind had started to decay the bales and finding secure hand- and footholds was nowhere near as easy as it had been inside. The bitter wind buffeted Matt, cutting through his clothing as if it were lace, and he was truly thankful when his feet found the top of the boarding, a third of the way down. From there, clinging on for dear life, he let himself down to the full extent of his trembling arms and, praying that he didn't land on some item of farm machinery hidden in the long grass at the base of the boards, he let go.

Dropping some six feet or so, Matt landed on his feet and fell sideways. His first discovery was that the long grass wasn't, in fact, grass at all, but nettles, and his second was that his recently injured ankle wasn't really up to such stunts.

Picking himself up, rubbing at his smarting hands, he set off in a limping run towards the end of the barn, his mind on the Land Rover parked on the other side. Climbing over a rusting metal gate that spanned the gap between two barns, Matt moved cautiously to the corner nearest the yard and peered round.

An unseen hand grasped the front of his jacket and jerked him forward so that his face connected painfully with the metal upright. In the next instant his feet were swept from under him and he went sprawling in the mud.