Read Online The Dead Lie Down (Adam Lennox Thrillers: Book One) by G I Tulloch - Free Book Online

twisted her head round and registered the stone gatepost beside her. Listening
to the phone over her laboured breathing she suddenly realised that the line was
already dead.
    She looked around almost expecting the speaker to approach out of nowhere but no
one in the throng appeared to show any interest in her or her outburst, except
for one small man in an overcoat who seemed to leer at her in a most unseemly
fashion. Hello London.
    And it was then she noticed him.
    An unremarkable individual in black sweatshirt, denim jeans and trainers with
close-cropped hair, leaning against a lamppost fifty feet away. As their eyes
met he smiled. Bel felt her blood run cold and her pulse skip a beat. He lifted
a mobile phone in salute and with his other hand mimicked the action of a
gun.
    She scanned the street assessing various exits. Strangely this was a situation
that was not unfamiliar to her. Years ago she had been plagued by a stalker
admirer who would tail her wherever she went. She had become extremely practised
at evasion tactics.
    She looked back and saw him move away from the lamppost. She took off across the
road and turned right onto the pavement, weaving her way through the pedestrians.
Advice from previous occasions came back to her. Stay in a public place; make
sure there's a way out, look out for opportunities to disappear suddenly from
view.
    She took the next turning, ruing the lack of department stores to disappear
into, or toilets to hide in. She was still in open country, wide streets with
precious little cover, old buildings with immense facades towering above her.
She crossed the road again if only to give her better visibility of her pursuer.
She reached the pavement and glanced around, recognising him in an instant, and
judging that he hadn't gained any ground. So what was he doing? Was this just to
scare or was it a waiting game? Her brain seemed to be in overdrive now,
assessing her situation. She spotted a side street ahead and at the last minute
turned into it, flattening herself into a service doorway. She felt that
everyone within a hundred yards must be able to hear her heartbeat, and despite
trying to control her breathing it seemed to rasp from her lungs like a terminal
asthmatic.
    He came at a leisurely pace and crossed the junction away from her. For a moment
she wondered whether he had missed her change of direction but he turned at the
last moment and smiled again, before drawing his finger slowly across his throat
in that well known mannerism.
    She took off at the run this time. She was extremely fit by normal standards and
jogging was not a stranger to her but, she thought to herself, doing it in skirt
and heels was a handicap she wasn't used to.
    It took her three changes of direction and two near traffic accidents to put her
in what she felt was a defensible position. Still running she swerved into an
alleyway and once again sought the cover of a service doorway, thanking the
powers that be that there wasn't a posse of office workers taking their smoking
break. She waited for the sound of running feet, praying that when they came
they would pass by and carry on.
    They came. They did carry on, briefly, but within a few yards he stopped to take
stock of his surroundings, and turning, he saw her and smiled. She glanced left
and right, but left was a dead end and right he had covered. She waited.
    He strolled towards her, hands in pockets, the smile never leaving his lips. She
tensed, anticipating an attack of some sort. He stopped within three feet and
took his hands out of his pockets before stepping towards her.
    "Miss Trent," he said quietly, "you can run but you can't hide."
    He reached out a hand towards her but before he could touch her, a foot
travelling as fast as she could propel it, caught him in the groin, causing him
to double over involuntarily before she took the edge of her hand and hit him
behind the ear. He slumped to the ground
    She
was