Cold Death Read Free Page B

matter and then dismissed him when he had tried to probe deeper. He’d tried to catch his attention for the most part of the day but his dad had deliberately avoided eye-contact.
    Something was not right, but he couldn’t think what. He thought he knew his father, but it felt recently as though he didn’t know him at all. All these years and the only time he had seen him lose his temper was several weeks ago when his dad had come to his aid when he was getting a good hiding from three family members of someone he had just put into prison. In fact on that occasion he remembered having to drag his dad away before he did one of the guys some really serious injury such was the viciousness of his onslaught.
    This recent incident had brought all that flashing back and was unsettling him again. He clutched the steering wheel tighter willing his Audi faster up the hill. Upon cresting the brow of Blue Bank he eased off the accelerator and began cruising along the moorland road that passed through ‘Heartbeat’ country. Thirty yards in front it looked from the movement of nodding heads as though his parents were chatting happily. He wondered if his mum, like Beth, had sensed something was not quite right.
    Because his concentration had been elsewhere he never saw the silver BMW until it shot past, so close that it rocked his car, almost catching the wing mirror.
    For a split-second he lost control of the car, veering towards the grass verge, which he quickly corrected by braking sharply and swinging back into a straight line.
    “The bloody idiot!” Hunter shouted, halting his tirade, remembering that Jonathan and Daniel, his two young sons, were in the back.
    It appeared to him that the recklessly speeding BMW was on a collision course with the rear of his father’s car. He dropped into third gear and put down his foot, squeezing the accelerator further, trying to make ground so that he could take note of the car’s registration number.
    Hunter watched the BMW swing onto the opposite carriageway and pull alongside his father and mother’s car.  At first he thought the car was going to overtake but then the BMW snaked smashing its front end against the side of his parent’s car.
    Their brake lights flashed on and Hunter could see blue smoke burning from beneath the wheels as the tyres protested on the wet glistening road. Chippings flew up from the surface as their car lurched sideways and began to bounce crab-like. It hit the damp moorland grasses at the road edge, throwing up huge tufts and began sliding out of control. Their car bucked into a ditch, bounced back out, and flipped over into an uncontrollable spin, roof and chassis rebounding into the moorland heather, only finally coming to a halt when it thumped into a peat bog.
    Hunter stamped the brake pedal and the Audi slewed sideways onto the grassed verge.
    He flung open his door ready for the sprint towards his parent’s crashed car.  It felt as if everything had gone into slow motion.
    He was conscious of Beth fishing around in her handbag trying to find her mobile, whilst on the back seat he caught a quick glimpse of the boys, straining against their seat belts, both pale-faced and displaying looks of horror. Switching his gaze he saw fifty yards ahead the BMW’s brake-lights flash on and it skewed to a halt.
    He stopped mid-pace as the driver’s door flew open.
    Hunter heaved a sigh of relief. He had initially thought this was going to be a hit-and-run; that this had been a deliberate act. Now that the car had stopped he guessed it was just bad driving and the driver was coming to help.
    That was until he recognised the man who emerged. It was the bald headed man he had seen earlier back in Staithes arguing with his father.
    The man took a long hard stare at Hunter, and with outstretched hand he reached across the roof of the car and pointed towards his parents upturned car. He fashioned two fingers together and cocked his thumb into a makeshift pistol, and