The men didn’t have time to react. The barn wall disintegrated into jagged pieces of planking. The old flatbed farm truck burst out into the yard with a roar and went straight over two of them, crushing them into the mud. The other men dived for cover and opened fire as the truck lurched away, but their shots went into the three large plastic-wrapped bales of hay loaded on the back. One of the men swore and spoke urgently into a radio.

The truck skidded out of the farmyard and onto a country road that snaked steeply upwards into the hills. Darkness was falling now, and the truck’s headlights cast a weak yellow glow over the craggy rock face on one side of the narrow road and the vertiginous drops on the other. ‘Doesn’t this thing go any faster?’ Leigh shouted over the straining whine of the diesel.

Ben already had his foot flat to the floor but the needle in the dusty dial wouldn’t climb higher than the sixty-kilometres-per-hour mark. In the mirror he saw what he’d been hoping he wouldn’t. Powerful car headlights, gaining on them fast. Two sets.

Leigh saw the concern on his face. She wound down the passenger window and looked back, her hair streaming in the cold wind. ‘Is it them?’ she asked.

The gunshots that rang out answered her question. The truck’s wing mirror shattered. ‘They’re going to take out the tyres,’ Ben said. ‘Take the wheel, will you?’

‘What are you doing?’

‘Keep the pedal hard down,’ he said. He opened the driver’s door. As Leigh grabbed the wheel, he heaved himself out of the cab. The wind filled his ears and tore at his clothes. The rock wall flashed by only two feet away, brightly lit by the pursuing cars. Ben inched his way along the side of the thundering truck.

More shots boomed from behind. They couldn’t see him for the hay-bales loaded on the flatbed. The truck was swerving from side to side, veering dangerously close to the rock wall. A protruding shrub almost scraped him off but he held on desperately. He swung wildly with all his strength and reached the flatbed.

The big round bales were eight feet high, three of them one behind the other, their black polythene wrapping crackling in the wind. They were held in place by strong ropes, taut as piano strings. Ben hung on to the side of the truck with one hand as he grabbed his pistol from his belt.

Four ropes. Only two rounds.

The truck swung away from the wall, its wheels clipping the edge of the precipice on the other side. For an instant Ben was hanging in space, fully exposed and blinded by the lights of the cars behind. He heard the crack of a shot and pain seared through his arm as a bullet passed through his left sleeve and scored the flesh. He pressed the muzzle of the.45 against the nearest rope, said a prayer and pulled the trigger.

The pistol kicked and the rope parted. The two smoking ends fell limp. Nothing happened.

Wrong rope.

A burst of bullets screeched off the steel framework of the flatbed by his ear. He pressed the gun to another rope. Last shot.

He fired.

The flailing rope almost whipped the gun from his hand. The bales gave a jerk as they were suddenly cut loose, and began to roll backwards. They hit the road and were lit up red in the truck’s taillights as three tons of hay leapt like bouncing bombs towards the two wildly braking cars.

Tyres screeched as the cars swerved, but the road was too narrow for any chance of escape. The first car impacted with a crunching explosion of hay, glass and buckled metal. The bale burst all over the road and the car skidded sideways, rolled and flipped. Then the second car slammed into it from behind and sent it spinning off the edge of the precipice. Ben caught a glimpse of it tumbling down the sheer drop as the second car skidded violently and smashed into the rock face on the other side of the road, bounced and lay still. The truck rumbled on. Ben’s left sleeve was bloody. He stood on the flatbed and watched as they left the wreckage behind them in the darkness.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Austria

Clara was safe. That had been his first priority. Kinski had dealt with it quickly, and there was no way anyone could get to her again. No way anyone would find her at Hildegard’s place.

And now, down to business. If they thought this was going to stop him, they could think again. Kinski was a big man but he could move fast. People stepped aside when they saw him coming down the corridor, eyes front, pressing forward with long determined strides. The look on his face was clear: get out of my way. Kinski wasn’t to be messed with when he wore that face. They’d seen it before, but never this intense. They parted like minnows for a shark.

He didn’t slow down for the door of the Chief’s office. He shouldered it aside and marched straight in.

Kinski had marched straight into his Chief’s office a hundred times before. Every time, he’d been confronted with the exact same thing. The same clutter of piled-up folders and papers, the same stale coffee smell from a thousand cups that never got finished and sat cold around the office. The same grey, harassed, tired-looking Chief slumped at his desk. The Chief was part of the furniture, almost part of the building itself. It was a tradition to see him sitting there, something you’d never expect to change.

Today, Kinski burst into the office and everything was different.

The man behind the desk looked about half the Chief’s age. He had dark hair slicked back, and wore neat gold-rimmed glasses. His suit was pressed and his tie was perfectly straight. He was slender and clean-looking. Everything that the Chief wasn’t.

The office was tidy and smelled of air-freshener. The desk was clear of papers, just a small notebook computer whirring quietly to one side. There was a brand-new filing cabinet in place of the rusty, overflowing, scarred old hulk that had sat for the last decade and a half in the corner of the office. Even the windows had been cleaned.

‘Where’s Chief Schiller?’

The younger man looked up and met Kinski’s hard gaze. ‘Who are you?’ he asked.

‘Kinski. Who the fuck are you?’

‘I’m Gessler. Chief Gessler to you, asshole. The next time you come into my office, you knock. Understood?’

Kinski said nothing.

‘So what the fuck did you want anyway?’

‘Where’s Chief Schiller?’ Kinski said again.

‘He’s gone,’ Gessler replied.

‘Gone where?’

Gessler ripped off his glasses and glared at Kinski. ‘What am I, a fucking travel agent? How the hell should I know where he’s gone? Sitting on a beach somewhere south of the equator. Sipping on a long cool drink and watching the girls go by. What else is there to do when you retire?’

‘He retired? I just talked to him yesterday. He didn’t say anything. I knew it was coming up, but-’

Gessler shrugged. ‘He got an opportunity, he took it. Now, Detective, did you actually have a reason for barging into my office? If not, I suggest you fuck off and find something useful to do.’ Gessler smiled. ‘OK?’