David didn’t know what to do; José’s wife was wiping her hands on a cloth, still at the door to the kitchen. Wiping her hands over and over, full of nerves.

The tension was heightened by a noise. José Garovillo looked up; the scrunch of the gravel outside the house was distinctive.

A red car was pulling up.

Amy had a hand to her mouth.

‘Oh no…’

José was gasping.

‘But no! I told him not to come. I am sorry, I told him you were coming but I asked him to stay away. Barkatu. Barkatu. Fermina!’

The very tall man climbing out of the car was unmistakable: Miguel Garovillo. A second later he was pushing the farmhouse door and was inside the house, tall and wild and glaring – at Amy and David. And gazing at the map in David’s hand. A little twitch in his eye was quite noticeable, likewise a slender scar above his lip.

‘Papa!’ said Miguel, his voice rich with contempt.

The son had his hand raised; for a ghastly moment it looked like he was actually going to clout José, to beat his own father. José flinched. Fermina cried out. Miguel’s black eyes flashed around the room; David saw the dark shape of a holster, under the terrorist’s leather jacket.

Fermina Garovillo was pushing her son away, but Miguel was shouting at his father, and at Amy and David, shouting in Basque, his words unintelligible – the only thing that was obvious was the ferocious anger. José shouted a few words in return – but weakly, unconvincingly.

And then Miguel shouted in English. At David. His deep angry voice vibrated in the air.

‘Get the ffffffuck out of here. You want the whore? Then take her. You take all this shit out of here. Go now.’

David backed away. ‘We’re going…We’re going…’

‘First time I hit you. Next time I shoot you.’

Amy and David turned and ran into the yard and jumped in the car.

But Miguel followed them outside the house. He had taken out his gun, he was holding a black pistol in the air. Holding it – as if to show them. David got the strange jarring sense of something inhuman about him: a giant. A violent jentilak of the forest displaying his strength and anger. The gun was so very black. Glinting in the watery sunlight.

David urgently reversed. He spiralled the wheel – and at last they turned, revving in the mud, and then they rocked down the track, skidding out onto the road.

For half an hour David drove fast and hard, into the green grey foothills, just driving to get away.

When the panic and shock had subsided, David felt a rising anger, and a need to stop and think.

He pulled over. They were halted at the edge of a village, with a timberyard on their left. The distant Pyrenees seemed a lot less pretty now; the pinetops of the forest were laced with an insistent and smothering mist. A church, surrounded by circular gravestones, sat on a hill above them.

Everything was damp, everything around them was faintly, ripely, perceptibly rotting away in the damp.

David cursed.

‘What. The. Fuck.’

Amy tilted her face, apologetically.

‘I know. I’m sorry.’

‘What?’

‘Sorry…’

‘It’s not your fault.’

‘But…’ She shook her head. ‘But it is. Maybe you should go home, David. Miguel is my problem.’

‘No. No way. This is my problem too.’

‘But I told you what he is like. Murderously jealous. He…really will…do something. He might even…’

‘Kill me?’

She winced.

David felt the surge of a rebel spirit.

‘Fuck him. I want to know the answers.’ He started the car and negotiated the road slowly for a few minutes. ‘I want to know it all. My grandfather wouldn’t have sent me here – sent me into all this – unless he had a reason. I want to know why.’

‘The map.’

‘Exactly. The map. You heard what José said, saw how he reacted – there is something – something -’

He was searching for a way to describe the complexity of puzzles; his next words were interrupted.

‘Don’t stop.’

‘What?’

‘Drive on.’

‘What?’

David felt the cold possibility constrict around his heart.

Amy confirmed.

‘Miguel. In the car. Right behind.

9

Her eyes were locked on the mirror. David copied her gaze.

‘Jesus.’ He squinted. ‘Are you sure? Is it the same one?’

‘Numberplate. It’s him.’

The road ahead was narrow, the fog was thickening as they climbed the mountainside.

‘But…’ David gripped the steering wheel tightly. ‘Was he there all along? Following?’

‘Who knows. Maybe he followed us. Or…’

‘What?’

‘He is ETA. This is real ETA territory.’

‘So…’

‘They watch the roads all the time. He has friends and contacts all over. Maybe someone made a phone call. We were just parked there by the village. What do we do?’

The fear was tangible. But David felt the rising defiance – again. He thought of his beloved mother and father: who left him alone. He thought of his loneliness: he’d had to fight his way through college, on his own, with just a distant grandfather in Phoenix. He had made it through all that shit, he had dealt with all that, so he wasn’t going to be frightened off, even by the most demonic of murdering terrorists. Not now. Not when he knew his grandfather’s mystery was linked to his own background, his own identity. This revelation of his Basqueness.

And he didn’t like being hunted.

‘Let’s lose this bastard.’

Pressing the throttle, he accelerated up the narrow, sharply curving road; the noise of the engine was painful as they shot between the stony hedgerows and the muddy slopes. Then he checked the mirror.

The red car was closing.

‘Shit.’

David could taste the savour of alarm; he ignored it, and changed down a gear or two – then he surged on, as fast as he could.

‘David -’

On their left was a sudden cliff-edge. The slope was brutal – a fall of three hundred metres, or more. Just a few metres the wrong way and they would spin helplessly over the precipice.

David steered back to safety – but then – thump.

The red car had smacked into them. The bump from behind was firm, deliberate, and destabilizing. David gripped the wheel desperately, and kept them gripped to the road – then he flicked a frightened glance at the mirror. He couldn’t see for sure, but it felt like their pursuer was…smiling?

‘Don’t worry, it’s alright -’ he said to Amy.

Why was he saying this? He was terrified. And yet he was feeling a rush of fury as well. Not now. Don’t give up now. If he gave up – what had it all been for? All those years of doing nothing, sitting in that sterile office, being a lawyer; struggling to make relationships, so scared that people would leave him – leave him alone, again.

His heart swelled with angry revolt; he was going to save Amy, and save himself – he could do it.

The accelerator crushed to the floor, he raced the car as fast as he dared. He felt a certain confidence as he did this – despite his grinding fears. He’d had to learn to drive when young, to get himself around. He was pretty good.

But this was a different kind of driving: they were skidding madly round bends, higher and higher. And they were being chased.

Then the road began to zigzag, turns getting tighter, until at last it slashed around a sheer rock wall, totally blind – David caught his own breath, his heart thumped, this was it – but the corner was clear.

David scoped the mirror. The red car had slowed for a moment, he’d outpaced their remorseless pursuer. He had a few seconds’ grace.

As they roared along, he tried to think. If they stopped the car and got out and ran, maybe they could hide…but the red car was surely too near. Miguel had a gun, maybe he would chase them across the rocks. Teasing them – then shooting them. A simple execution in the forest.