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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

The hall was dark and he padded to the living-room door, scratching his head. ‘Hello?’ he called. There was no reply. He pushed open the door and saw that the curtains were still drawn. Above the fireplace a painting of hunters on a snow-covered hillside was swung out from the wall where it was fixed with hinges. A wall safe concealed behind it stood open. He had taken no more than two steps into the room when something struck him hard on the back of his head. The pain shot down his spine like long needles, and the floor swung crazily towards him, striking him with a sickening force that hammered the breath from his lungs. The moan that escaped his lips sounded strange, disembodied, as though it had come from someone else. It was far, far away in some other world into whose darkness he was now falling.

*

Kale looked down at the still body on the floor. He was breathless and tense. For just a few seconds it crossed his mind that he should kill this one too. But he quickly dismissed it. There was little point in drawing more attention to the incident than was necessary. Still, it irritated him. It was untidy, the only loose end in the affair. He’d been told the flat would be empty, and he had taken that on trust. He was a fool. He should have checked first. He pulled the body over to have a look at the face. It would be as well to remember it. Already the right cheek and temple were bruising where they had struck the floor. It was a wide, hard face that you would remember with little difficulty. Some blood was oozing from the mouth where the man had bitten his lip on impact. Kale let the body drop back and kicked the prostrate form viciously in the side. It was unnecessary, but there was a grim satisfaction in it, and it released a little of his tension.

He stepped over the body and crossed to the safe, lifting out the black briefcase and closing the door. He swung the picture back against the wall and pushed his gun into his coat pocket. Then he recrossed the room and slipped quickly down the hall to the front door. He closed it behind him, carefully replacing the key below the mat.

*