This time of night, Ben doubted that anyone was out hunting. Not for animal quarry. It was the sound of violence. It had drawn him a thousand times in the past, and like a magnet it drew him again now.

He got into the car, rolled down the windows and set off in the direction of the shots.

Chapter 13

Ben sped out of Albarracín, heading into the hills on a narrow, winding road with his windows cranked all the way down so he could maintain his bearing on the source of the gunfire. As he left the town behind him and the rocky escarpment rose tall against the night sky he killed his headlamps. The moon was bright enough to drive by its light alone, and he didn’t want his approach to be seen by whoever was doing all the shooting up there.

The road became a track. The lights of the town receded into the distance behind him. Loose gravel and stone pattered under the Alpina’s wheels and rattled against its underbody. Over the engine note he could hear the reports growing closer. POPPOPPOP … POP-POP. Whatever was happening up there on the escarpment it was still in full swing, and it no longer sounded like distant fireworks.

Spotting the dark shape of a stationary van up ahead on the track, Ben took his foot off the gas and let the Alpina roll to a halt a few yards behind. It was an ancient Peugeot J7 utility commercial from way back sometime in the seventies with battered, dirty bodywork and rusty skirts. Its lights were off and both its front doors and the side sliding door were open, and it appeared to be empty. He waited a few seconds to make sure, then got out of the car with his Browning in his hand and walked towards it.

There had been a pause in the shooting. Ben stepped around the driver’s side of the van and looked in the open door. The keys were still in the ignition, as though its occupants had got out in a hurry. The bonnet was warm and the engine ticking as it cooled.

Ben stepped back from the van and looked around him. It appeared as though whoever had left the vehicle here had headed on foot up a pathway that led off the main track, too narrow and steep and rocky to drive up. He knelt and examined the ground by the moonlight, and soon found fresh footprints in the dry, dusty dirt. He reckoned on at least five sets of prints, maybe six. Stones were dislodged and blades of coarse, sun-yellowed grass were snapped and bent where they’d hurried by.