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  ‘Are you aware of any reason why someone might want to hurt you?’

  Amanda looked puzzled, as if she couldn’t believe he’d ask her a question like this. ‘No. I don’t have any enemies. I’m just an ordinary person.’

  ‘What about your husband? Do you know why anyone might target him?’

  ‘No.’ Her tone was tinged with just the faintest hint of exasperation. ‘We’re ordinary – sorry, we were ordinary people. We’ve got money, yes. My husband has – God, I’ve got to stop doing that – had a very good job. We’ve done well, and we’ve put money aside, but we’re not billionaires. And his job’s boring . . . He doesn’t have any enemies, as far as I’m aware.’

  Bolt knew this was true. Before they’d come here, he and Mo had checked up on Amanda and her husband, and there was indeed nothing in either of their backgrounds to suggest that they had any enemies at all.

  They asked a few more questions, went over events once more, before Bolt finally brought the interview to a close. Amanda looked exhausted, and he thanked her for her time, and put his business card down on the bedside table, wanting to tell her that she’d get over her loss, but just managing to stop himself. It had been ten years since Mikaela had died, but he still hadn’t got over his loss, and he doubted he ever would.

  When they were back in the hospital car park, Mo turned to him. ‘I know we’ve got to cover every angle, boss, but this has got to be the work of The Disciple. You agree with me, don’t you?’

  Bolt nodded slowly. ‘Yeah, I think it is, but we’ve got to look at the possibility that it might be a copycat killing. It’s in the public domain that The Disciple tortures and murders his victims. It’s also known that he’s likely to have tattoos. So someone could be wanting to make it look like the work of The Disciple. It’s happened before. Remember that case of The Night Creeper? He killed four women, and they thought he’d murdered a fifth, but it turned out to be someone trying to make it look like his work.’

  ‘Course I remember, but let’s be honest. Under the circumstances, it’s unlikely. Firstly, this fits his MO perfectly. I know there are some aspects of it out in the public domain, but not that many. No one knows he paints Satanic symbols on the walls, or that he disables his male victim with a knife wound, like he did to George Rowan. They don’t know he ties the male victim to a chair – usually with duct tape – and makes him watch. The point is, I don’t think a copycat killer could possibly have faked it that well, not unless he had inside knowledge of the investigation, and that’s hardly likely, is it? Just because the killer acted recklessly, that doesn’t mean it’s not The Disciple. He may be less in control than we think. Which is a good thing.’

  Bolt smiled as they reached the car. As was often the case, Mo had convinced him. They’d worked together a long time and he trusted his colleague’s judgement. ‘I know, you’re right,’ he said, getting in the passenger side. ‘And I really hope he is out of control, because after this we’re definitely going to need to get a break soon.’

  Their break came two hours later at the end of a tense press conference at Reading Police Station, jointly chaired by Bolt and DCI Black. Like Mo Khan, the media were already convinced that the latest killings were the work of The Disciple, and the reporters wanted to know how close the investigating team were to catching him, now that he’d struck on four separate occasions. Bolt hadn’t wanted to give too much away, and his answers had been carefully worded. But they were clearly too non-committal, because the questions from the floor became steadily more hostile. What were the police actually doing to find The Disciple? Why were there so few clues to his identity in an age when there’d been so many technological advances in crime fighting? Was it time to change the people at the top of the investigation?

  Eventually, mercifully, it ended, and as Bolt left the room with Black, Black’s mobile rang. He took the call, motioning for Bolt to hang on, his whole demeanour growing steadily more excited as he spoke to the person at the other end.

  ‘What is it?’ asked Bolt as Black came off the phone.

  ‘The SOCO team have found traces of two different blood types in the bedroom where the murders took place,’ explained Black, ‘both reasonably fresh. Which wouldn’t normally mean anything, except for the fact that Mr Rowan and Miss Hanzha share the same blood type. So someone else bled in there in the last twenty-four hours.’

  Bolt smiled. ‘And since Mrs Rowan was out all day, it’s likely to be the intruder.’

  Which, for the first time, meant they had DNA.

  Eight

  Today 15.45

  AMANDA WAS JUST putting on her jacket when there was a knock on her front door.

  She didn’t get many visitors and there was no way she was going to open the door without knowing who was on the other side of it, so she crept back upstairs and peered down from her bedroom window like a suspicious old lady.

  A short young man with neatly trimmed red hair stood on the doorstep. It was DC Andy Baxter, her liaison officer from Highlands CID, who lived a few miles up the road, and who liked to come by to check all was well with her more often than Amanda thought was strictly necessary. Today – probably because it was a Saturday – he was dressed in jeans and a windproof jacket, rather than his usual suit and tie.

  Amanda moved back out of sight. Although she liked Andy – he was an easy-going enough character – she’d only seen him yesterday, and she was beginning to think he was developing a crush on her; not that he’d ever show such a thing, with her husband dead only a few weeks. But the point was, she didn’t think she could handle sitting with him drinking tea while he made small talk. It was possible, of course, that he had some news, but if it was that important, he’d almost certainly have phoned ahead. She’d wasted enough time today already, trying and failing to start her book, and she needed to get out and breathe some fresh air. Andy was an unwelcome delay.

  She waited in the silence of the bedroom. He knocked on the door again, then for a third time a minute after that, before finally conceding defeat. Even so, Amanda waited a good minute before she looked back out of the window to check that he’d definitely gone, and saw him walking back to the road to where his car was parked and getting inside. He drove for twenty yards and turned round in the front car park of the local pub – a dank little place that looked like a scout hut called The Crooked Ship, which she’d never been inside – before driving back towards the road up to Inverness.

  Moving quickly, Amanda hurried back downstairs and over to the front door. It took her a good thirty seconds to release all the dead bolts, locks and the two chains that ran up the frame and kept her barricaded and safe in the cottage. The locksmith had thought her mad when he’d come round to fit them all, but then he hadn’t known her story. Being attacked by a killer with a knife in your own home is going to make anyone paranoid, especially a single woman living by herself.

  When she was outside, Amanda took a deep breath. It was a mild afternoon and the sun was trying to come out from behind a cluster of light clouds, and she suddenly felt good about the world for the first time in what seemed like a long while. She crossed the road, nodding at an old lady in a headscarf who was posting a letter, before joining the footpath that ran round the back of the pub, which would take her in the direction of the river.

  The camera Keogh had planted in Amanda Rowan’s garden was motion-sensitive, and it kicked into life for the second time in three minutes, the feed on his laptop showing her opening her front door as she emerged from her house. He’d been thinking she wasn’t there, because a few minutes earlier a red-headed guy, whom Keogh could tell straight away was a copper, had knocked on the door several times and got no answer. But it seemed she was trying to avoid the guy, because she looked about quickly, as if she was checking the coast was clear, before triple-locking the door behind her and walking past the camera and through her front gate.

  She was a good-looking woman, Keogh had to admit. Slim and lithe, with shoulder-length jet-black hai
r and a lean, angular face that suggested a mix of good breeding and plenty of time down at the gym. He would have gone for someone like her once, and she would probably have gone for him. No longer. Not with his face all cut up. Still, it seemed a shame that she had to die, and for just a quick second he experienced a twinge of guilt as some long-ago conscience came back to haunt him. He ruthlessly forced the guilt from his mind. This was business. And it was a business he was good at.

  Keogh picked up the VH1 radio and spoke into the mouthpiece. ‘The target’s on the move. Get ready.’

  Feeling a small but perceptible twinge of excitement, he switched on the Land Rover’s engine and pulled away.

  Nine

  Today 16.03

  WALKING RELAXED AMANDA. It gave her space to think and, as she made her way down the footpath that would take her through thick pine forest down to the nearby river, she thought of her experience with The Disciple, and the dramatic effect he’d had on her life. She could picture her husband vividly, tied naked to the tub chair in the spare room, drenched seemingly from head to foot in blood, the ruined, tortured body of his lover lying almost at his feet. It was an image that would be etched on her brain for as long as she lived.

  If she was brutally honest, she and George had never had a good marriage. They’d met online on a dating website. Amanda had always sworn blind that she’d never resort to online dating but, after a long period of single life, followed by a rocky five-year relationship, which had gone on at least four years too long, she’d finally relented. She’d had a good dozen dates, most of whom had been totally unsuitable, before she and George had hooked up. He wasn’t particularly good-looking. A big man, running to fat, with a ruddy complexion that owed more to good than clean living, and thinning hair, the first impressions weren’t good, particularly as – like so many men on those dating websites – he didn’t look a great deal like his photo, and was almost ten years older than her. But he had kind eyes, and a strong demeanour, and he’d made her feel good.

  For the first date, they’d gone for a drink in his local in Old Street, and in spite of Amanda’s misgivings, they’d quickly hit it off. A second date had followed, this time in the far plusher surroundings of BamBou in Charlotte Street (she’d told him she liked Thai food), and a month later he’d proposed to her. He called her the best thing that had ever happened to him – the woman he’d been seeking the whole of his adult life.

  Amanda should never have said yes. She didn’t love him. She liked him – he made her feel secure – and, she had to admit, the fact that he was an investment banker with plenty of money didn’t hurt either. But there was no passion, no desire. No hunger.

  However, after years and years of trying to find the right man and failing, she wanted to settle down. She wanted to have children, too, and knew that at thirty-five the clock was beginning to tick loudly. George would make a good father and a solid husband. He was long-term material.

  But it hadn’t worked out like that. George hadn’t been able to get her pregnant. He had a low sperm count. So they’d tried IVF and that hadn’t worked either. He’d also turned out to be a boring workaholic who wanted her to be a homemaker rather than a career woman, even if there was no one there to make a home for. They’d ended up moving out to the country, and she’d given up her job as a market research analyst in the West End. To be fair, she hadn’t been too bothered about that, but country life – especially country life in the middle of the woods, with none of her friends around – had bored her senseless. And when the dream of children had disappeared, followed closely by the discovery of his affair, so too had any hopes of saving the marriage.

  And now there was no marriage to save. George was gone. And, though she could never admit it to anyone, she felt a guilty sense of liberation.

  It was when she came out on the road a couple of hundred yards west of the village, just before the start of the forest, that Amanda saw it. The black four-by-four that had driven past her cottage a couple of hours earlier parked twenty yards ahead of her. There was another car parked behind it, and a uniformed police officer was leaning in the Land Rover’s window talking to the driver. It was clear he’d been stopped, and she wondered why, although she was relieved that he had been. She didn’t like the idea of suspicious-looking men driving round the area, not after everything that had happened to her.

  To reach the footpath at the beginning of the forest, she needed to pass both cars and, as she approached them, she experienced a feeling of unease. Something didn’t feel quite right, and for a moment she considered simply turning round, heading back home, and triple-locking the door behind her. Even though this was the main road to Tayleigh, the nearest town, very little traffic passed along this way. It made her suddenly feel very vulnerable.

  But Amanda didn’t turn round. Instead, she told herself to stop being so paranoid. There was no way The Disciple knew she was here and, whoever it was in the four-by-four, he wasn’t going to do anything with a police officer breathing down his neck.

  As she drew level with the cars, the police officer turned round and smiled at her. He had a chubby baby face that didn’t quite sit right on his broad muscular shoulders, and there was something about his smile she didn’t like. It looked almost like a leer.

  Working hard to hide the tension she was feeling, Amanda smiled back and continued walking, keeping her head down and deliberately avoiding looking over at the four-by-four’s driver, wanting to get off this road as soon as possible. The moment she was out of sight, she’d run down to the river. Her ankle was still a little tender from where she’d jumped out of Mrs Naseby’s window, trying to escape the man who’d murdered her husband, but she was still quick enough on her feet to put some real distance between her and the four-by-four.

  ‘Don’t move an inch.’

  The voice – hard, aggressive and foreign – came from the bushes off to the side of her. Turning, Amanda saw a man emerge from the bushes, barely five feet away. He was small and wiry with olive skin and jet-black hair, and he held a gun out in front of him, pointing it directly at her ribs. Bar the incident three weeks earlier, Amanda had very little experience of criminals, but she could tell immediately that this man was the type who’d pull the trigger without hesitation, and from this distance he wouldn’t miss.

  ‘Turn away from me, and walk across the road to the cars,’ he continued, his voice far too calm, as if he accosted people like this every day. ‘Hurry.’

  Amanda did as she was told, the shock of what was happening, and the knowledge she was trapped, stopping her from making a run for it. At the same time, the big police officer turned away from the driver’s window, his smile replaced by a cold, dead-eyed expression. Grabbing her violently by the arm, he pulled her towards him, at the same time producing a set of wrist restraints from his pocket.

  ‘Do as you’re told and you won’t get hurt,’ he said in a thick Scottish accent, yanking Amanda’s arm behind her back as he manoeuvred her towards the back of the four-by-four.

  ‘Who are you?’ she asked, conscious of the quiver in her voice. ‘This must be some mistake.’

  ‘There’s no mistake, Mrs Rowan,’ said the driver, who was getting out of the car now. He was in his late thirties, and spoke with a London accent, and he would have been strikingly good-looking if it weren’t for the two long thin scars running almost dead straight across his face and neck, one of which ended in a tangle of uneven tissue at his nose. But it was the syringe in his gloved hand that grabbed Amanda’s attention. They were going to drug her with something and abduct her, and the terrifying reality was that she had absolutely no idea why.

  ‘We just want a quiet chat, that’s all,’ said the driver, who had the air of a man in charge. He walked over to her, holding up the needle, while the big policeman expertly flicked the first of the restraints round her wrist before pulling her other arm behind her back. The third man – the one with the gun – walked over to the four-by-four’s boot and pulled it open.

>   Which was the moment Amanda heard another car coming round the corner towards them.

  The others heard it too and turned in its direction.

  Amanda knew instantly that she had just one chance to break free and that, if she didn’t take it, she was as good as dead, because whoever these men were, they meant her serious harm.

  Feeling the policeman’s grip loosen ever so slightly, she yanked herself free in one single, sudden movement, catching him completely by surprise. Fuelled by adrenalin and panic, she kicked out at the driver, her walking boot connecting with his upper thigh and unbalancing him. He lunged at her with the syringe, but she was already pulling away, dropping into a crouch to make herself as difficult a target as possible.

  She wasn’t quick enough. The policeman grabbed her by the collar of her jacket and yanked her back towards him with such force that he cut off her breath. But this time Amanda wasn’t coming quietly. She kicked and struggled, screaming, desperately fending off the needle as the driver tried to stab her with it, hearing the car screech to a halt only a few yards away.

  The driver’s door flew open and Andy – her liaison officer – jumped out, his face a mask of indignation. ‘What the hell’s going on here?’ he yelled.

  ‘This lady’s under arrest,’ the policeman shouted back, pulling her round so they were both facing him.

  Andy produced his warrant card, and held it up high, coming towards them calmly and confidently ‘And I’m a police officer as well. Highlands CID. What the hell have you arrested her for?’

  Out of the corner of her eye, Amanda saw the guy with the gun move away from the car and shouted a desperate warning. ‘Andy, watch out! He’s got a gun!’

  Almost in slow motion, Andy turned towards the car, the confidence seeping out of his expression as he saw the gunman striding confidently towards him from the other side of the road, gun arm outstretched as he took aim. For the first time Amanda saw that the gun had a long, cigar-shaped silencer on the end, like something out of a movie.