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that he might have given up and gone.
    And that was when she saw the glow of headlights coming from the road that ran through the woods, no more than fifty yards away. She had no idea who it could be. Very few cars used this route, especially at this time of night, because the road didn’t go anywhere, and there were only a handful of houses up here.
    But in the end, none of that mattered. What mattered was that it couldn’t be the man chasing her because the car was coming from the wrong direction, which meant the headlights represented safety.
    A twig cracked loudly a few feet away, and Amanda’s heart lurched. In the next instant, she was on her feet and sprinting through the woods, desperately trying to get to the car before it passed by. Screaming, too. Screaming at the top of her lungs, knowing that she must look a terrible sight to anyone driving through this lonely place at night, but no longer caring.
    Her lungs felt as if they were bursting as she tore out of the trees and onto the road barely ten yards in front of the car, with its blinding headlights.
    ‘Help me!’ she yelled, waving her arms, hardly hearing the screech of brakes as the driver tried to stop, realizing at the last second that he wasn’t going to be able to manage it in time.
    Amanda dived out of the way, crashing painfully into the tarmac, as the car passed by, inches away from her.
    And then finally, mercifully, everything went black.

Two
Today 11.00
    THE WOUND ON Amanda Rowan’s left forearm still throbbed. It was a good four inches long, running in a near dead straight line to just above the wrist and, even though the stitches had long since been removed, the cut was still deep and raw – a permanent reminder of the events of that bloody night. She examined it in the mirror as she did every morning and evening – a symbol of her vanity – but, once again, there was no discernible improvement.
    She turned away from the mirror and went over to the window, looking over the sprinkling of houses that made up the village she’d made her temporary home, hundreds of miles from the house she’d shared with her husband, which was now tainted beyond repair.
    The police had said that George and his lover – a woman fifteen years his junior – had been the victims of a serial killer known as The Disciple who’d been terrorizing the south of England for most of the previous year. Amanda had been the first person to have confronted him and lived, and as everyone, including friends, family and the police had been keen to tell her, she was extremely lucky to have escaped a killer who’d built a reputation for ruthless efficiency in his work.
    The twenty-four hours after the attack had been frenetic. First at the hospital, where they’d treated her, not only for shock and the stab wound on her forearm, but also the extensive bruising she’d received during her ordeal. After that it had been the exhaustive police interviews, when she’d had to go over and over what had happened, even though her first instinct was to bury it deep in the recesses of her brain. And then, finally, the inevitable media storm. Amanda’s case had an extremely compelling storyline. Not only was there the infidelity angle, the wronged wife returning home unexpectedly, but the fact that The Disciple had been so determined to kill Amanda that he’d chased her right through her neighbour’s house (thankfully, Mrs Naseby had been unhurt), forcing her to jump from a first-floor window, and that she’d only just missed being hit by a car during her escape, and still survived, was the stuff of media dreams. Everyone wanted to interview her. The
Sun
had even offered her a hundred grand for her exclusive story.
    But all Amanda wanted to do was get as far away as possible from what had happened. The police hadn’t been keen for her to go. Instead they’d offered her twenty-four-hour protection at a local safe house until they had The Disciple in custody, but Amanda was