Scott Mariani 3 Book Bundle. Scott Mariani

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СКАЧАТЬ heard it again–the sound she’d heard before. This time it was clearer, louder. It was the metallic scraping of steel against steel. It was in the house. The living-room. A knife-blade dragging slowly, deliberately, down the bars of her birdcage.

      She ran for the stairs. Her foot pressed against something soft, warm and wet. She looked down. It was one of her canaries, lying broken and bloody on the step. Her hands flew to her mouth.

      Through the half-open door of the living-room she heard a laugh, the rasping chuckle of a man who was plainly enjoying his little game with her.

      On the table by the foot of the stairs, the Anubis statue was standing where she’d left it. She snatched it up again in a trembling hand. She could hear footsteps coming towards her. She dashed back towards the stairs. Her mobile phone was in the bedroom. If she could get to it and lock herself in the bathroom…

      Her head jerked back and she cried out in pain. The man coming up behind her was tall and muscular, with cropped steely hair and a face like granite. He yanked her hair again, twisted her around and punched her hard in the face with a gloved hand. Anna fell to the floor, her legs kicking. He bent down towards her. She lashed out with the Anubis and caught him across the cheekbone with a crunch.

      Franco Bozza’s head snapped sideways with the blow. He put his gloved fingers to his face and studied the blood with an impassive look. Then he smiled. All right, the game was over. Now to business. He grabbed her wrist and twisted it harshly. She screamed again, and the statue fell from her hand and bounced down the stairs. She crawled away, and he watched her go. She was almost at the top of the staircase when he grabbed her again. He slammed her head against the banister rail and her vision exploded into white light. She slumped on her back, tasting blood.

      He knelt over her, taking his time. His eyes were shining as he slid a hand inside his jacket and drew out the blade from its sheath with a smooth hiss of steel on synthetic fibre. Her eyes opened wide as he playfully drew the blade from her throat to her abdomen. Her breath came in rapid tremors. He kept her head pinned back with a fistful of her hair.

      ‘The information the Englishman was after,’ he whispered. ‘Give it to me. And I might let you live.’ He calmly held the knife against her cheek.

      She managed to speak. Her voice sounded tiny. ‘What Englishman?’

      She felt the coldness of the steel, and then she screamed in agony as he pressed the blade into her flesh. He took the knife away, looking at the three-inch gash. Blood streamed down her face. She shook her head from side to side, struggling against his grip. He held the knife against her throat. ‘Tell me what he wanted from you,’ he repeated in his rasping undertone. ‘Or I will slice you into small pieces.’

      Her mind raced. ‘I gave him nothing,’ she insisted, blood trickling between her lips.

      Bozza smiled. ‘Tell me the truth.’

      ‘I am,’ she protested. ‘He was looking for a document–an ancient script.’

      Bozza nodded. This was what he’d been told. ‘Where is it?’ he whispered.

      She paused, thinking hard. He pointed the knife at her eye and looked at her enquiringly. ‘Over the fireplace,’ she whimpered. ‘I-in the frame.’

      His cold eyes looked into hers for a moment, as though assessing whether she was telling the truth. With deliberate movements he wiped the blade clean on the carpet and laid the knife down on the floor beside her head. Then he drew back his fist and smashed it into her face. Anna’s head lolled to the side.

      Bozza left her lying on the stairs, sheathing his knife as he went down to the living-room. He ripped the frame down from the wall, broke the glass against the corner of the mantelpiece and shook the fragments out. He pulled the medieval script away from its mounting, rolled it up into a tight cylinder and slipped it into the deep inside pocket of his jacket.

      So Manzini hadn’t given anything to the Englishman. Usberti would be pleased with him. He’d found the woman quickly and efficiently, and he had found what his boss had sent him to bring back.

      Now he’d bring the woman round and enjoy her for a while. He loved the looks on their faces when they realized he wouldn’t let them live after all. That terror in their eyes, that delicious moment when they were so powerless in his grasp. It was even better than the slow torture and the screaming climax that came afterwards.

      He stepped back into the hallway and his eyes narrowed. The woman was gone.

      Anna staggered into her study. She could hear the sound of breaking glass downstairs as the frame was torn apart. Blood was dripping down her throat from her gashed cheek, the front of her blouse sticky and warm with it. Her head was spinning but she managed to focus on the desk. Her outstretched hand dripped spots of blood across her research notes. Her fingers closed around the notebook in its plastic wrapping. Clutching it tightly, half-blind with pain and nausea, she staggered back along the corridor towards the bedroom.

      From the foot of the stairs Bozza saw the bedroom door close. He followed, climbing the stairs in his easy, unhurried walk. As he approached the bedroom door he was reaching for the plastic pouch on his belt.

      The woman’s bedroom was empty. On the far side of the room was another door. Bozza tried the handle. It was bolted from inside.

      Locked in her bathroom, Anna jabbed panic-stricken at her phone, smearing the plastic with bloody fingerprints. With a sick lurch she remembered it was out of credits. She dropped the phone, giddy with horror. She knew this madman wasn’t going to let her live. She was going to die horribly. Could she kill herself before he got to her? The window wasn’t high enough. She would only be crippled and he’d soon catch her again.

      The door flew open with a crackle of splintering wood. Bozza strode across the room and slapped her to the floor. Her head cracked against the tiles and she passed out.

      Her outflung hand was clutching something. He uncurled her bloody fingers, took it away from her and studied it.

      ‘Trying to hide this, were you?’ he whispered at her inert body. ‘Brave girl.’ He slipped the plastic-wrapped notebook into the pocket of his jacket, then took it off and hung it neatly over the back of a bathroom chair. Underneath he was wearing a double-sided shoulder holster, a small semi-automatic and spare clips under his left armpit and the sheathed knife under the right. First drawing out the knife and laying it down on the edge of the sink, he unzipped the pouch on his belt and took out the tightly folded overall. He pulled the rustling plastic garment over his head and smoothed it down carefully as he always did.

      Then he picked up the knife up from the sink with a clink of steel against ceramic, and walked slowly over to Anna Manzini. He nudged her body with his foot. She groaned, stirring painfully. Her eyes half-opened. Then widened in horror as she saw him looming over her.

      He smiled. The knife glittered, and so did his eyes.

      ‘Now the pain will begin,’ he whispered.

41

      Ben turned the Renault into Anna’s driveway, its worn tyres crunching on the gravel and its headlights sweeping the front of the villa.

      ‘Look, she’s got visitors,’ said Roberta, noticing the shiny black Lexus GS parked in front of the house. ‘I told you we should have phoned СКАЧАТЬ