Relentless Read Online Free PDF Page B

university this way before. All I knew
was that I was a long way from my car.
Panting loudly, I ran across the road and headed back in the
direction of where I thought the car park was situated. I must
have looked a sight. I could feel the blood from the wound on
my face now running down onto the collar of my shirt, staining
it. The arm wound, meanwhile, was bleeding even more heavily.
    It burned, as if someone was inserting white hot needles into the
skin, and I looked at it for a moment as I half-staggered, half-ran
down the street, my mouth open, sucking in air. For the first
time, I felt sick. What was happening to me? What had I done to
deserve this?
An attractive woman of about thirty in a long gypsy skirt and
halter top stepped out of her house, took one look at me and
immediately rushed back in again, shutting the door behind her.
This was London. The place where it's always best to mind your
own business and step away from trouble. A friend of Kathy's
had been mugged once, about five years ago, outside Oval
tube station at four o'clock hi the afternoon. She'd tried to
hold onto her handbag and her two attackers had kicked her
to the ground and spent several long minutes wrestling it from
    her while raining down resistance-sapping blows. During
that time she estimated that some fifty people walked past.
Most had hurried away. A couple slowed down to get a better
look. No-one had intervened. Kathy had sworn that had she been one of those passing she would have done something. 'I
wouldn't have been able to live with myself if I hadn't,' she'd
told me. 'If you turn your back, it's the same as admitting that
Pyou've been defeated, and I could never do that.' This was
Itopical of Kathy. She was a woman with principles, a woman
;mho cared. But where was she now? And, more importantly, had
fit been her blood on the carpet back in the library with that
madman?
I had to locate her. Get to her soon.
i: Still running, I rummaged in my pocket for the phone. Please
ver this time. Please.
Another car came past. This time the driver slowed, and as ou%eyes met, his widened dramatically. I kept going, ignoring
    the pain in my lungs. Behind me I heard the car stopping, and
him getting out.
'Mate!' he shouted. 'Mate! Are you all right?'
I didn't want to speak to him. I didn't want to speak to anyone
other than my wife. I had to get to her. I tugged out the phone,
but heard the man's footsteps coming behind me.
No, not again. Was he one of them? The bastards seemed to
be everywhere. In my home - my fucking home. At my wife's
work.
I accelerated, and as I came to a crossroads I stumbled into
the road, the phone in my hand, ignoring the shouts of the man
behind me. I heard the roar of a car to my right. A blast of a
horn, and then an angry screech of tyres. Out of the corner of
my eye I saw a huge white shape bearing down on me and I
knew I was going to get run over. I could just make out the blue lights on its roof and then it hit me with a bang that was all but
drowned out by the sound of the skid. I tumbled over the
bonnet, bounced off it once, then seemed to slide off the other
side, falling onto the road in a fetal roll a few feet from the front
passenger door.
The door opened and I came face to face with a pair of
well-polished black police-issue boots. 'Hello hello hello,' I said,
and then, for some wholly inexplicable reason, I started laughing,
the movement making my body sear with a dozen different
pains.
For the moment, I could stop running, and I felt a surge of
relief that lasted as long as it took for the police officer to bend
down, pull my arms painfully round behind my back, and tell me
I was under arrest on suspicion of murder.
    DI Mike Bolt's team of National Crime Squad detectives
operated out of the middle third of a nondescript 1970s two
storey greybrick building with a corrugated-iron roof that made
a terrible racket whenever it rained heavily. It was situated on a
bland, sprawling industrial estate just off the A4 in