In High Places

by J Holland

Genres: Conspiracy Thrillers; Military Thrillers

Synopsis

Ever since the death of his wife, Lina, in a Kabul bombing, Aubrey Savage has been determined to fulfil his promise to her: to find out what happened to her brother, Jarrah, a disavowed MI5 agent who has been missing for two years. An ex-SAS officer, Savage is used to noticing the small things. So when he offers a lift to a terrified runaway bride on the moors, he knows there's more to her story than meets the eye. But when she is snatched away immediately, leaving behind a holdall and a Glock that he recognises to be that of an MI5 agent, he is thrust into a deadly world of corruption, and a threat that's all too close to home...

Release date: April 18, 2019

Publisher: Quercus Publishing

Print pages: 375

Sample

The last thing Lina had said to him was, ‘Find Jarrah for me, Aubrey. Find my brother.’

Savage couldn’t move his legs. The stench of burning rubber and metal was thick and vile, clogging up his throat, scouring his lungs with every breath.

Something floated down through the debris-filled air, still partly alight, a wavering red line against a dusty, smoke-filled sky. A shred of some bright material. Silk, perhaps, from one of the dozens of glorious bolts of silk on display in the nearby bazaar, their colours a vivid temptation for women in the ubiquitous black hijab. They had stopped by a cloth seller’s stall after finishing their morning coffee, ducking under the low awning to admire its array of fabrics out of the scorching Afghan sunshine. The smiling cloth seller had greeted them in Arabic, suggesting a foreigner’s price for the tall, blond Englishman in his jeans and white, short-sleeved shirt, then instantly lowering it under Lina’s dark scrutiny.

The burning shred touched his cheek and Savage lifted an instinctive hand, brushing it clumsily away, as yet unaware of pain.

Find Jarrah for me, Aubrey. Find my brother.

Memory came back slowly, piecemeal, and with it a creeping sense of dread.

Savage had been leaning inside Abdul Walid’s van, keeping his head below the level of the dashboard so as not to be seen, hunting through tatty documents in Arabic, and empty snack packets and drinks cans in the glove box and on the filthy floor of the van. He’d been looking for evidence that Jarrah had been there, that he had met with Abdul in Kabul, perhaps even worked as a courier for him as part of his cover. That was what they’d heard from their sources: that he and Abdul had been thick as thieves in the months before he disappeared. Any evidence would have been useful. But Savage was hoping for a handwritten note or document, anything with Jarrah’s name on it.

Then he’d felt an enormous, soundless impact.

It had lifted Savage off his feet, and the van with him, flinging them both several feet away, joined together in a tunnel of unholy fire. He’d watched the van – or what was left of it – roll silently over him inside a burning cloud that had obliterated the dazzling azure of the skies above Kabul. Like some unspeakable apocalypse straight out of the Old Testament.

That was roughly when he’d lost consciousness.

How long had he been out?

Blood ran down his cheek and bubbled into his mouth, the iron-rich taste baffling. It took Savage another moment to realise it was coming from a wound high up under the hairline. There was something embedded there, he realised, fumbling at the wet, jagged edge of the wound. Some kind of metallic shrapnel.

He knew that smell too. The familiar stink of exploded ordnance.

‘Bomb,’ he mumbled through bleeding lips, and slowly began to pick himself up out of the hot, smoking wreckage of Abdul Walid’s van.

The marketplace had been obliterated.

The leather goods stall and its nearest neighbours no longer existed. Where they had stood was a thick cloud of dust and debris. And scattered, burning bodies.

Aubrey Savage noticed the scarecrow first, drenched and bowed on its wooden stake, its shambolic straw head hanging low. And so nearly missed the woman in the lay-by a few hundred metres further along, bent over the open bonnet of a classic MG in the pouring rain. Passing, he caught a glimpse of a wild, pale face, dark hair streaming bedraggled down her back, and thought at once of a romantic line from Keats that made him feel like a nineteen-year-old student again.

I met a lady in the meads, Full beautiful, a faery’s child . . .

The car had drawn his attention before the woman, of course. Its ghostly gleam was impossible to miss on a moorland road at dusk.

Diamond White.

Early-1970s from the partial registration, and almost exactly like the classic MG he’d owned in his pre-army days.

A fantastic little car, but increasingly unreliable with age. He was not surprised to see it broken down in this near-horizontal downpour, either. Those old MGs hated the rain. Distributor cap had got wet, in all probability.

An easy fix, Savage thought, peering back at the car in his rain-flecked wing mirror. A two-minute job, if you knew what you were looking for.

But did she know?

As the woman straightened to stare at him, he checked the wing mirror again, and then laughed, astonished.

Savage was not given to helping damsels in distress. Too much bloody trouble, in his experience, and he was not in a mood for interaction with the opposite sex. Not today, and certainly not given where he was headed, a meeting too-long avoided. But this woman intrigued him. Enough to make an exception to one of his rules. At first glance, he had missed what she was wearing, her outline lost against the white car under a rain haze. But her outfit, in this remote location, a lonely spot on the moorland road between Postbridge and Princetown, coupled with this appalling weather, made a Good Samaritan response almost obligatory.

He turned his beast of a camper van in the opening to a five-bar gate marked Private, and headed slowly back to the lay-by – if it could be called a lay-by; a mere semi-circle of gravel at the side of the lonely road, surrounded on both sides by grasslands and high, rolling moor to the horizon. He had been planning to park up in Yelverton again that evening. Maybe grab some fish and chips for supper.

But at the back of his mind, he was dreading what lay ahead. Anything that might put off his visit for even half an hour was a welcome distraction.

The driver stood there in the gloom, backed up against the open bonnet, hands behind her back, staring at him through the rapid flick of his windscreen wipers. He guessed her to be somewhere in her early twenties, heavily made-up, her mascara running.

She looked scared.

No, Savage thought, studying her face more closely. Not scared.

Terrified.

Of him?

It was possible, he supposed. He was a big guy in his thirties, drastically short hair a hangover from his army days, out on his own. He might well seem a potential threat to a woman alone, especially on an empty moorland road like this.

Smile, he told himself.

Savage turned off the engine and jumped down from the cab, forcing his mouth to crack into that unfamiliar grimace he called a smile. The ground was boggy and waterlogged, despite the dry weather they had been enjoying in the South West for three days previously. He had come down the motorway from Bristol to Exeter, spent a day looking round the cathedral city, then driven in a leisurely fashion around the lonely side roads and lanes of Dartmoor.

He’d been drifting, in other words.

Putting off a long-delayed visit that part of him was reluctant to make.

But today, rising with the sun in a fuel station car park near Yelverton, he had drunk a strong cup of coffee, and admitted to himself that the day had finally come.

It had been nearly a year since Lina had died. He had made her a promise. A promise that her death had done nothing to diminish. It was time to keep it.

‘Hello?’

She watched his approach, wide-eyed, silent.

Was he so intimidating? He was a stranger, of course, and a man. And the light was failing around them. Dusk fell rapidly on Dartmoor. He recalled that from previous visits. Soon it would be full dark.

‘Engine trouble?’

He had spoken mildly enough. But the woman continued to stare at him as though in fear for her life, and said nothing in return.

‘Best not to keep the bonnet open too long. Not in this weather.’ Blinking away rain, Savage glanced past her into the engine cavity. ‘Do you know what the trouble is? Would you like me to take a look?’

‘It just stopped.’ She had a thick, Devon burr, the sort of countrified accent he associated with cream teas and long, sunny afternoons spent outdoors. ‘I didn’t know what to do.’

He could not resist. ‘On your way to church? Or did you change your mind?’

Again, the wide-eyed stare.

‘Sorry?’

He nodded to her sleeveless white dress. It was sodden, and see-through in places, and could have been a clubbing dress, he supposed. But its simplicity of styling, and the discreet sequins on the bodice, both suggested a more symbolic purpose. The sleek white silk clung to her slender frame, stopping just above the knee. Her tights and white shoes were splattered with mud.

‘That’s a wedding dress, isn’t it?’

She didn’t answer his question, her eyes evasive. ‘Look, if you can get it started again, I’d be dead grateful.’ Her wary gaze kept shooting back the way she had come, as though expecting someone else to appear. But the road to Princetown remained empty under the glowering skies. ‘I’m in a hurry.’

There was a fine black tattoo on the inside of her left wrist. It looked like a letter, elaborately drawn.

P?

He tried to see but she clasped her hands behind her back, her look suddenly defensive. Not his business, anyway.

‘OK,’ he said. ‘I’ll check it over for you. It could be the distributor cap. Sometimes they get dirty or crack on these older models. But you should wait inside the car. You’re getting soaked.’

‘I’d rather not, thanks.’

The young woman made a face, rubbing her bare arms, and he could see now that she was shivering. Her close-fitting dress had been ripped open along one side seam, and recently too, white threads still hanging down.

There wasn’t much room in an MG. Had she torn her wedding dress deliberately, to make driving easier?

That certainly suggested she was in a hurry.

Desperate, even.

‘Why not wait in my camper, then?’

‘I’m wet.’

‘I don’t mind. There’s a clean towel in the back if you want to dry your hair while you wait.’ He stuck out a hand, trying not to stare at the sodden clinging silk of her dress. ‘I’m Aubrey, by the way.’

‘Dani.’

They shook hands in a perfunctory way. Her grip was loose and slippery.

‘Go on, honestly. This could take a few minutes.’

‘Thanks.’

Dani wrapped both arms about herself and dashed to the passenger side of the van, climbing inside out of the rain.

Savage bent to inspect the engine, wishing he had a torch. Daylight was already fading under the dark clouds.

He ran a hand over the cooling engine, looking for the most obvious faults. But everything seemed to be in its rightful place, and the oil was at a good level when he checked it. It was a pleasure to see an MG engine again, after all these years. And so well-maintained. Not her car, he guessed. It just stopped. Not what he’d have expected to hear from the knowledgeable and conscientious owner who had kept this classic car in such excellent condition. The groom’s car, then? Or was it hired for the day?

Had she stolen the wedding car itself to make her getaway?

None of your business, he reminded himself. You stopped to help restart a broken-down car, not get involved in some love story gone wrong.

He fiddled about under the pouring rain. It was not the distributor cap. The inside of the cap was clean, as were the contacts, and there were no cracks to let in water and cause a possible engine misfire. He lowered the bonnet two-thirds of the way, and then gently dropped it so it clicked shut.

Going round to the driver’s side, he stooped to adjust the seat setting to his rangier build, then climbed inside the MG and closed the door.

Rain streaked the windscreen and pattered noisily on the roof, the car interior a gloomy little cave. The dashboard was clean and tidy too, as were the vinyl seats and foot wells. Directly opposite, the brunette was sitting stiffly in the passenger seat of his camper van. Her head was bowed, hair falling down to hide her face. Dani – perhaps short for Danielle – was staring at her lap. Probably trying to make a phone call.

Then he realised her mobile was still poking out of her handbag on the seat next to him, beside a zipped-up sports holdall.

So what was she doing over there with her head bent?

Crying? Praying?

He heard the rumble of a diesel engine coming flat-out along the moorland road, and waited. A moment later, a dirty white Ford Transit flashed past at speed, the long-wheelbase version, and the diminutive MG shook in the wake of its passing. White Van Man, and a typical example of his species. Doing somewhere in the region of eighty miles per hour, at a rough guess, on a country road barely fit enough for sixty.

Savage shook his head.

The key was still in the ignition. He turned it, listening for the familiar roar.

Nothing.

He waited a moment, counting under his breath, then tried again. The engine turned but did not start. Was it flooded? That did not seem feasible. She had been here a while. Only then did his gaze rise to check the fuel gauge.

The needle was flat to the red.

Gathering up her things, Savage climbed out and locked the MG. Then he ran back to the camper van through the rain. Handing over her handbag and sports holdall, both now glistening with raindrops, he said, ‘Mystery solved.’

‘Did you get it started?’

‘Not yet.’

He passed her the MG key too, then started the camper van engine. She looked at him anxiously but there was really no need. His van ran on diesel and was therefore unaffected by the damp weather. It started first time. He set the windscreen wipers going again, peering ahead through the gloom, then over his shoulder. A few cars had passed while he was checking under the bonnet, but now the road was clear. No other headlights in view.

‘Don’t worry,’ he said easily, ‘it’s a simple enough fix. When did you last fill her up?’

‘I’m not sure.’ Her expression was carefully blank as she took a moment to consider the question. ‘Last week?’

Definitely not her car.

‘Is that fuel gauge accurate?’ He knew the gauges on those older models often stopped working. ‘Or does it always read as empty?’

‘I . . . I think it works OK.’

‘Then you’ve run out of fuel, that’s all.’

He glanced at his mobile on its dashboard mounting. It was slightly askew, as though hurriedly replaced. Had she taken his phone and tried to make a phone call with it? Unlikely she’d have got through the password. He wondered who she had been hoping to call.

‘There’s a filling station down in Yelverton,’ he said. ‘Unless you know of a nearer one?’

She looked uncertain. ‘I don’t think so.’

It was a long, winding drive back to Yelverton through narrow country lanes. But he could hardly leave her stranded at the roadside in this appalling weather, with night coming on. And he seemed to recall, from studying the maps online, that the next fuel station in the other direction was even further. Dartmoor National Park was an excellent place to visit. But it was not known for its wide selection of filling stations. Hence the need to keep an eye on your fuel gauge, he thought drily.

‘I can’t lend you a spare fuel can, I’m afraid. Mine’s been used for diesel. But the garage is bound to sell them. You can fill it up at the pump, then I’ll drive you back here. Shouldn’t take more than half an hour. Forty minutes, tops. How’s that?’

‘Thank you,’ she said.

She was plucking at the damp hem of her dress with nervous fingers. Her voice was husky, tinged with reluctance. Dani did not want to return the way she had come.

Scared of being caught?

But why?

Who might be coming after her?

Dani didn’t look like the sort of woman who would have any difficulty telling a man she no longer wanted to marry him.

In fact, she looked like trouble.

Savage checked his mirrors, then pulled out onto the lonely road in the dark. The van shuddered, coughed and then roared as he moved up through the gears, gathering speed. Her handbag was clutched on her lap, he noticed, the sports holdall lodged safely down beside the gearbox. She had one foot on the holdall, as though afraid it might slide about when he cornered. Which was always possible.

They passed the scarecrow again, unlikely in its field of rough, moorland grass. This time, he barely glanced at its bowed figure.

‘So, Dani,’ he said, ‘want to tell me why you’re running away from your own wedding?’

‘I’m not running away.’

Savage said nothing. Not because he was impolite, though his sister might have disagreed with that, but because he knew that saying nothing was often the best way to get information out of a reluctant informant. And there was something about Dani that suggested there was more to this than a simple lovers’ tiff. He needed a good story to take his mind off the important visit he had still not managed to make, but which loomed ahead of him like an obstacle in an otherwise clear road.

‘I had second thoughts, that’s all. Not a crime, is it?’ Pulling down the sun visor to check her reflection in the mirror there, she wiped streaks of mascara off her cheeks with unsteady fingers. ‘I’ll be fine once I . . . After I’ve had a break from him.’ There was stress in her voice that did not match her words. ‘A breathing space, that’s what they call it. Some time away.’

‘In his car?’

‘It’s not his car.’ She glared at him, then her shoulders slumped. ‘It’s my dad’s, OK? I was in a hurry, so I took it. Dad won’t mind. So long as I don’t bang it.’

‘He must be very understanding.’ Savage thought of his own father, and his hands unconsciously tightened on the steering wheel. He pushed the thought aside, focusing instead on the dark, low-hanging clouds ahead, shot through with the last vestiges of dull rainy light. Dartmoor was brooding on every side of the narrow road, its broad, bare expanse slipping inexorably into night as they drew closer to Yelverton. ‘So you had second thoughts and drove off in your dad’s MG, leaving your man at the altar?’

She had found a tissue in her bag and was making hurried repairs to her make-up. ‘Something like that, yeah.’

But in fact nothing like that, he interpreted.

What was she leaving out?

‘What’s his name?’

She did not answer for a moment, then said in a cold, determined voice, ‘I don’t really want to talk about it.’

‘And I don’t really want to drive back to Yelverton. I was on my way to Princetown for a night’s rest off-road. Maybe some fish and chips while I listen to the radio. I’m planning to visit someone tomorrow morning and want to be fresh for that. But I was brought up to be helpful, so here we are. Alone together on a dark road.’

Now it was her turn to be silent. Considering, perhaps, that she knew nothing about him. That she had run from one difficult man to one who could turn out to be something worse. A rapist, or worse. Out of the frying pan into the fire. And with no other cars in sight, possibly for miles.

He softened his tone. ‘Look, it can get lonely, living in a van. I understand perfectly if you don’t want to tell me what’s happened. It’s none of my business, I get that. But I’d appreciate a little conversation, at least.’ He glanced at her, but she had turned her head, looking out of the side window. ‘In return for the ride?’

‘OK.’ Her voice was muffled. ‘If you put it like that.’

‘Thank you.’

She rubbed a little porthole on the misted-up side window with her fist. ‘Terry.’ Her tone was flat, matter-of-fact. She did not sound very excited. Perhaps she really had changed her mind about marrying him, and it wasn’t just a case of last-minute nerves. ‘His name is Terry Hoggins.’

‘Your boyfriend?’

Again, she hesitated. A split-second. The liar’s hesitation. ‘Yes.’

He thought about the letter P tattooed on the inside of her wrist. Was that the initial of her real boyfriend, perhaps? Or perhaps he was reading too much into a simple preference for keeping her business to herself.

‘And your dad? What’s his name?’

No hesitation this time. ‘Geoff.’

‘No second name?’

‘Geoff Farley.’

‘Into classic cars, is he?’

‘Sorry?’

‘Your dad. Geoff. You said that was his car. It looked pretty well-maintained to me. Which is a labour of love with those old MGs. So I’m guessing he must be interested in classic cars.’

There was something off about her responses. About the whole business. He was not sure he wanted to pry too much, though. His stomach rumbled. He was still thinking about supper. There was a good chippy in Yelverton. He remembered it from last time he’d visited the moor. The kind with freshly cooked fish and a large glass jar of pickled eggs on the counter. If it was still there, of course, and being run by the same people. It was some years since he’d been to this part of the world, after all.

Peter had taken him to the chippy with Jarrah, the three of them eating their chips afterwards on a town bench. The Three Musketeers. Watching the world go by, with a paper wrap of chips. As much world as could be found on a quiet evening in a small Dartmoor town, that is.

‘I guess.’ She shrugged, considering the question without much interest. ‘We’re not that close.’

‘You live with Terry, is that it?’

‘That’s right.’

‘Except you decided you didn’t fancy being Dani Hoggins.’

Dani did not answer.

She had found a lipstick and was applying it with deft, automatic strokes. Coral pink. She made a face at herself in the mirror like a goldfish, then looked satisfied, tossing the lipstick back into her bag.

‘What about you?’ she asked suddenly. ‘You married?’

Savage stared straight ahead into the dark curtain of rain, saying nothing. And not merely because he didn’t like any of the options available to him in response to that particular question. There were lights coming up the other side of the hill. Another car, moving fast through the empty landscape. Its headlights dipped as it crested the hill, then suddenly switched to full beam, dazzling him through the pouring rain.

He swore, braking and instinctively half-closing his eyes.

‘Idiot!’

He flashed his headlights, but it made no difference. He was being deliberately blinded, the cab of his camper van almost floodlit as the other driver came on at speed. The car looked like an old Land Rover Defender, sandy-coloured. It was wobbling all over the road.

Savage hugged the verge, wondering if there was going to be a collision. Not a head-on. But a glancing blow, perhaps.

Fleetingly, he caught a glimpse of a furious face behind the wheel.

Round-framed glasses, reflecting his own headlights. Ginger hair, possibly. Hard to say if it was male or female, but if pushed, he would have guessed a young male. Though that could simply have been down to the suicidal pace and uneven driving.

There was someone else in the car, a dark formless shape in the passenger seat. Perhaps wearing a hoody. Certainly there was no face visible.

Dani moaned and sank her face in her hands.

The car shot past them.

Savage blinked and shook his head, the halo of those blinding lights still ghosting in his vision. There had been some wording on the back of the Defender, an advert of sorts. But he hadn’t been able to make out what it said in that swift, dark glimpse.

He checked his wing mirror, and frowned.

The driver had slammed on the brakes. He’d stopped a few hundred feet beyond them, and was now attempting to turn his Land Rover on the narrow road.

‘Friends of yours?’ he asked, slowing his own pace. He was not interested in racing a couple of Dartmoor locals, especially given that the driver looked drunk. Drunk or high. Whichever, it was probably best to pull in to the side of the road and have an actual conversation with these guys, let them get whatever it was out of their system.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Whoever they are, they’re coming back.’

‘Don’t stop.’ She sounded terrified again. ‘Keep driving.’

‘Look, they’re not going to—’

‘Please don’t stop.’

Something in her voice made him slacken off the brake. But it made no difference. Thirty seconds later, the Land Rover Defender roared past them again, engine straining, loud in the night.

Was he hoping to taunt Savage into racing him?

Fifty feet ahead, the driver braked violently, just before the bend. Red brake lights lit up the near-horizontal rain, and a rough expanse of moorland grass beyond the road, picking out the eyes of some startled pony in the distance. The Land Rover shuddered to a halt, finishing slewed halfway across both carriageways, effectively blocking the path ahead.

Savage swore, braking hard.

The camper van skidded on the wet road, the wheel nearly wrenched out of his control as he fought to keep it from colliding with the other vehicle. He was vaguely aware of the Land Rover’s passenger door opening, and a tall figure getting out. Then the van was bumping along the sodden verge, missing the Land Rover but crashing instead against thorn bushes and other unseen obstacles as it slowed, eventually subsiding into a boggy stretch which, thankfully, did not turn the van over as he had feared.

He threw off the seatbelt and fumbled with the door handle, jumping out into the relentless downpour.

‘You bloody fool,’ Savage began, striding back towards the Land Rover. But the car was already moving again, straightening up as it headed for him, its headlights on full, blinding him again. ‘What the hell . . .?’

He jumped back onto the verge behind the van to avoid being hit, and the Land Rover accelerated past him. A few seconds later, he heard it stop. A door opened, and he thought he heard a muffled noise. A shout of some kind? Not a man. It had been too high-pitched for that. The door shut again with a thud before he had even rounded the back of the van. Then the engine revved violently.

He stared after the car as it roared off towards Yelverton. It rounded the bend at an insane speed, then its red tail lights vanished as it headed down the hill. With astonishing swiftness, the road became quiet again, insistent rain the only sound audible for miles in both directions. As though nothing had ever happened.

Going back to the driver’s side of the van, Savage furiously wrenched it open. ‘Some friends you’ve got,’ he began, then stopped, staring at the empty space where Dani had been sitting.

Her door was hanging open, rain pouring down beyond it.

She was gone.

Savage stood there, fists clenched impotently, staring at his passenger’s empty seat. Then he ran round to the other side of the van. There was no sign of her there either. He walked round the van again, stared up and down the desolate, black, rain-drenched road calling her name, then realised he was achieving nothing.

He went back to the cab for a torch and his raincoat.

Kitted out for a search, he walked along the verge for some ten minutes, his hood up, the raincoat affording him little protection against the driving rain, and shone the torch beam across the barren moorland on both sides, calling out, ‘Dani?’ at intervals. Then he reversed his steps, doing the same in the opposite direction, in case she had become scared and run away despite the dark and the rain, heading back towards the remote pull-in where they had left the MG.

He gave up the search, which had been perfunctory anyway.

Dani had been desperate enough to ignore the weather conditions and make a run for it across the moors, of course. He’d seen terror in her eyes when the Land Rover appeared over the hill. Then she’d hidden her face in her hands, like a fugitive ducking the beam of a prison searchlight.

But that was not what had happened.

One of the doors to the Land Rover had opened while he was standing about outside in the rain like a fool.

He had heard it clearly.

Then the door had slammed shut again.

And somewhere between those two sounds, he’d heard a muffled cry. The kind of angry, frightened cry someone might make if they were being bundled into a car against their will.

Savage returned to the camper and shone the torch over the road surface in front of the bumper. If there had been any signs of a struggle here, the relentless rain had erased them. Or perhaps he was wrong. Perhaps she had taken one look at her boyfriend and all had been forgiven between them.

Perhaps those guys had been rescuers. Not aggressors.

But why disappear into the night afterwards in that loud, dramatic way?

Rescuers would have stopped to interrogate him. To ask why he was picking up random women in lay-bys. Maybe to warn him off too. Or to thank him. To shake his hand for having saved their errant bride from a drenching by the side of the road. For being a Good Samaritan and stopping to help, rather than passing by on the other side.

He crouched down, rain dripping down his face, to survey the damage to the front and nearside of the camper. There were scratches and a bad dent to the front bumper, and the lower part of the van was mud-black in places, fragments of thorn bush caught underneath. It looked cosmetic though, nothing serious. His only problem might lie in coaxing the lumbering camper van off the soft verge, which had become part-marsh under all this rain, and back onto the road.

Standing beside the open passenger door, Savage looked at the empty seat again. He was filled with impotent rage at his own stupidity.

Whoever had been in that ancient Land Rover Defender, they’d driven out along this desolate road in search of Dani, the missing bride. Like tracking down a piece of lost property. And as soon as they had discovered their runaway, they’d taken her back again. Without so much as an introduction, or a conversation about the rights and wrongs of it. Lo