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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

He had reached a decision. All these days of torment, of discovery and self-doubt, were behind him. Tomorrow he was leaving. Tomorrow he was walking away from all this. He didn’t care about the remainder of his fee, or his reputation. He didn’t care about anyone or anything. He was simply leaving. It seemed so easy now. Now that he had finally admitted to himself that killing the child in cold blood was not an option. He had discovered in himself, quite unexpectedly, a potential for love. Or, at least, a hate less corrosive. No longer was he haunted by the compulsion to follow her, to confront himself with the failure that was his own humanity.

Tomorrow morning a taxi to the airport, a flight that would take less than an hour, and he would be back in London. Safe and sound.

CHAPTER THIRTY

CHAPTER THIRTY

You could not see the house from the road. It lay somewhere behind a high stone wall in secluded darkness. The avenue was broad and well lit, sloping gently uphill, past the mansions that wealthy men had built here in this exclusive quarter of the city over more than a hundred years.

The taxi drew up at the gates of the Jansen place and Bannerman climbed out. It was a cold night and the sky was hard and clear.

‘Wait,’ he told the driver. He pressed a buzzer set into the carved stone gatepost and leaned forward to the speaker grille. ‘Neil Bannerman for Monsieur Jansen.’

Almost at once a soft hum filled the air and the gates swung soundlessly inwards. Bannerman climbed back into the taxi and they drove through the gates along a driveway that ran between ancient trees whose intertwining branches formed a canopy overhead. There was nothing to be seen in the darkness beyond this tunnel of trees and the reach of the headlamps.

Then, quite unexpectedly, they came out into a wash of naked moonlight lying across a flat snow-covered lawn. The drive divided the grass into two squares beyond which the arched windows of a three-storey mansion rose into the night sky. Not a single light showed in any one of them. This, Bannerman thought, was the end of the road. And he felt his excitement rising. A tiny stab of apprehension.