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Chapters (45)
  1. The Man With No Face
  2. Also by
  3. Title
  4. Copyright
  5. Dedication
  6. Epigraph
  7. Contents
  8. INTRODUCTION
  9. CHAPTER ONE
  10. CHAPTER TWO
  11. CHAPTER THREE
  12. CHAPTER FOUR
  13. CHAPTER FIVE
  14. CHAPTER SIX
  15. CHAPTER SEVEN
  16. CHAPTER EIGHT
  17. CHAPTER NINE
  18. CHAPTER TEN
  19. CHAPTER ELEVEN
  20. CHAPTER TWELVE
  21. CHAPTER THIRTEEN
  22. CHAPTER FOURTEEN
  23. CHAPTER FIFTEEN
  24. CHAPTER SIXTEEN
  25. CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
  26. CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
  27. CHAPTER NINETEEN
  28. CHAPTER TWENTY
  29. CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
  30. CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
  31. CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
  32. CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
  33. CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
  34. CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
  35. CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
  36. CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
  37. CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
  38. CHAPTER THIRTY
  39. CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
  40. CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
  41. CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
  42. CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
  43. CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
  44. CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
  45. CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

Afterwards, there was no recollection of how he covered the ground between the wall and the trees. He was certain there’d been no further shots. All he knew was that overhead the protective boughs of many trees spread themselves between him and the stars. He threw his arms around a trunk, the bark scraping his cheek. His legs were liquid. Looking back he could see the man with the rifle no more than twenty metres away, coming through the line of the trees. Bannerman pushed himself off and felt the ground falling away beneath him. He fell for what seemed like an age, down and down until suddenly all his senses became sharply focused by the ice-cold water that soaked his clothes and burned his flesh. He heard the sound of running water and felt it wash over him. Chunks of snow and stone were rattling down the bank after him. Oh, how easy now just to slip off into blessed unconsciousness. But the shock of the water had brought back some of his awareness, as well as his determination to keep going.

His fingers scrabbled in the dirt until he found a hold, and he pulled himself clear of the water and clung to the bank. He had never realized how quickly the cold could steal away your will to live.

A sudden roar filled Bannerman’s ears. For a second the night seemed alive with fire. Then almost as quickly it was over, a softness of earth showering down. The silence that followed was extraordinary. It was the last thing he would later recall with any great clarity. He had no memory at all of how he clawed his way to the top of the bank, and only a broken recollection of seeing the crater among the tree trunks. A whole tree half torn up by its roots. Scorch marks on the surrounding trunks. The remains of the man with the rifle, a white face, wide eyes, sandy hair matted with blood – the rest barely identifiable as human. And all he could remember of the next minutes was the urge to run, and keep running. He had not understood then, or now, what had happened. All he could hear was the voice in his head, glancing back at the trees behind him, the flames of the burned-out house dying in the distance, the sound of his feet dragging through the snow. The fence. The road. And then the lights that came out of a darkness that fell on him like a shroud, stealing him away, at last, into a black unconsciousness.

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