Bolt-hole Read Online Free PDF Page B

behind the bike and a stunned Shaw.  Within seconds a car door slams, followed by the sound of grit flying up as the tyres on the police car lose traction on the wet road.  Shaw isn’t stupid; I can’t be sure of course, but I suspect she’s already pieced it together and I’m the prime suspect in the attack on Musgrove.
     
    I’m exhausted both physically and mentally but keep pushing myself on, knowing that my freedom depends on it.  I picture Musgrove’s face: although I know he must be dead, my capture would be a victory for him and there’s no way I can let it happen.  Within sixty seconds I reach the heavy iron gates at the entrance to the park.  I frantically pull and push, desperately trying to get through, but after a wasted few seconds I see the heavy chain and padlock, not in use on my previous reconnaissance trips and now blocking my way.  Without conscious thought I scale the gate, a good metre above head height, and then lower myself down on the far side just as Shaw’s car arrives.  For a fraction of a second I lock my gaze with her through the windscreen of the car.  Etched in her face is what seems like a mixture of disbelief and sympathy.  I look away – I suppose with a sort of embarrassment – and then head into the darkness of the park. 
     
    The full moon flits from behind the thick cloud cover and provides just enough light to pick out the route through the children’s playground and then up the steep, heavily wooded hillside.  In the near distance I can hear more sirens as reinforcements join the hunt, and briefly glance over my shoulder to see the pursuing officers decamp and give chase some twenty-five metres behind me on the far side of the gate.  I pass the thicket of dense rhododendron bushes where I’d planned to ditch my already redundant bike, and then head up the steep winding path.  The rain is torrential and drives into my face while the wind whistles aggressively through the trees above my head, almost as if it’s bombarding me with insults.  The narrow path is covered in mud and wet leaves, and even in my cross-country trainers with their heavy-duty tread, I slip continuously and often resort to scrambling on all fours.  Some way behind, I can hear the police presence, with their heavy breathing and the distorted voices and crackles from their radios. 
     
    I leave the path and run through the adjacent ice-cold, knee-deep stream, hoping to hide my scent from the tracker dogs that no doubt will soon follow.  I picture the TV images from those fly-on-the-wall police documentaries, of a hapless criminal viewed brilliant white against a black background with the infrared camera as a police dog takes a bite out of his genitals.  There’s no way I’m going to let it happen to me.
     
    After a few minutes of hard running the sounds of the chasing officers begin to fade.  Despite the freezing water sapping my strength, I surge forwards with renewed belief, now so close to my temporary bolt-hole and potential safety.  But then, without warning, from over the brow of the hill comes the sound of helicopter blades, and the police chopper flies at speed just above the treetops directly over me with a great shaft of light projecting downwards.  Shit, Shit, Shit, surely they must have seen me.   The helicopter turns and starts a second pass, but just a second before the beam of light illuminates my presence, I dart behind a fallen tree trunk and scramble into my bolt-hole, cracking my forehead on the low ceiling as I enter.  My head begins to throb and blood drips into my eyes, but this discomfort is the least of my worries.
     
    I lie motionless in the hideaway, barely daring to breathe for what seems like hours, though when I check my watch I find that it has been less than thirty minutes.  The helicopter continues to sweep overhead, clearly audible above the driving rain and swollen streams but never seeming to linger directly over the bolt-hole.  There is the