Free The Dark Fear by Katherine Pathak Page B

twigs. Selfishly, he didn’t want to be left on his own out there. James slowly shifted forwards, commando-style, until he was crouching behind a fallen log. He stopped and listened, intently.
                  It felt like he was huddled there for an eternity. Then he heard heavy footfalls approaching. They got closer and closer to the log. James sensed his bowels loosening.
                  ‘Mr Irving! Are you still here?’
                  James tentatively raised his head. ‘What’s happening?’
                      Newton reached out his hand and helped him up. ‘I believe they’ve scarpered down towards the train tracks. I saw a couple of them in the distance but didn’t get enough of a view to provide a description.’
                  ‘And they were armed? What the hell were they doing shooting guns in here?’
                  Newton began marching back in the direction of Langford Hall. ‘In the more remote parts of the estate we get this a lot, I’m afraid. Young men from gun clubs come to practise - sometimes it’s only with air rifles, at others it’s the real thing.’
                  ‘What were those men shooting today?’ James felt his legs begin to wobble beneath him, as the shock set in.
                  ‘I believe it was air pellets, but they can still do a great deal of damage to people and livestock.’
                  ‘Will you call the police?’ James suddenly realised he was deferring entirely to Newton. There was absolutely nothing stopping him from calling 999 on his mobile. It just seemed as if they were in the estate manager’s territory and somehow under an entirely different jurisdiction.
                  ‘I’ll call from the Hall. Mr March will want to know about it first.’
                  Before he did that, Newton escorted James back to the lodge. ‘Have a hot bath and a glass of whisky, that will sort you out,’ he announced, guiding James over the threshold. ‘I’ll ring later to see how you are.’ With that, the man was gone.
                  James climbed the stairs, as if on autopilot, immediately turning on the taps of the old fashioned roll-top bath. He sat on the edge whilst it filled up, noticing his right leg jumping up and down of its own volition. Then he thought about Dani and how Alex Galloway had been shot dead in the car-park just across the road.
                  James removed his clothes and carefully climbed into the hot water, feeling it envelope and soothe his numbed limbs, wondering if he hadn’t made a really terrible mistake.
                 
                 
     

Chapter 14
     
     
    S haron Moffett flicked through the post-mortem report. Alex Galloway had a severe furring of the left coronary artery. The pathologist reckoned he was about three months away from a major heart-attack. But this was just additional information. The man had died as a result of a point blank gunshot wound to the forehead. The effects were predictably devastating to the brain.
                  Their search team had found the bullet amongst the undergrowth at the side of the path. It was currently being analysed by the forensic lab. Sharon read through DC Calder’s statement again. He’d estimated a height of 5’11 for their perpetrator. Calder sensed the man was of a heavy build but couldn’t be sure due to the puffiness of his jacket.
                  It wasn’t much to go on. There was no CCTV camera at the car-park, or along the road which ran parallel to the bents. Calder hadn’t been able to recall any of the other vehicles that were parked up there on the evening of the killing. He said that only Galloway’s white Land Rover had been overly conspicuous.
                  The bullet was really all that their team had. Sharon hoped to God they