The Dead Will Rise by Chris Nickson

Author:Chris Nickson
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781448310203
Publisher: Severn House
Published: 2022-11-14T00:00:00+00:00

SIXTEEN

Jane hurried. Quick strides, as if she was walking with a purpose. Not running; people remembered that. The man had been at least two hundred yards ahead of her, she needed to make up the ground. Her heart thudded. All the pain had gone, and in its place, a mix: fear and anticipation.

She reached into the pocket of her dress and grasped the knife hilt. Her new blade, still waiting to be blooded. She’d worked it every evening, stroke after stroke across the whetstone.

By the time she reached the hilltop, her upper lip was damp with sweat. She wiped it with the back of her hand and blinked.

He’d gone.

She stood and stared, as if she had the power to conjure him out of the ground. Nobody was walking. A single cart pulled by a horse moved along the road, rumbling slowly towards her.

Had she imagined the Irishman? He’d been in her mind. Could she simply have wanted to see him?

She stood, looking and thinking. Tracks snaked away on either side of the road, vanishing into woods. Old trees with heavy trunks and thick foliage. A perfect place for the Irishman to hide.

The carter drew close, giving a nod of greeting.

‘Did you see a man walking along here? Big, wearing a top hat.’

He scratched the back of his neck. ‘I saw someone. Wasn’t paying much attention, really. He went off down one of them tracks.’ He turned on the wooden seat and pointed. ‘That first one, over there, I think.’

‘Thank you.’

The man grinned. ‘Watch out for yourself, girl. He’s probably not worth chasing.’

She smiled back at him as the cart moved away. He was wrong. This one was definitely worth the chase.

Jane walked along the road, glancing at the track. It curled through the woods and out of sight. It was hard to believe anything as isolated as this could exist no more than two miles from the middle of Leeds. Jane glanced over her shoulder at the smoke that hung over the town. She grimaced at the pain in her body.

The Irishman might have spotted her. He could be waiting, ready to finish the job he started on Timble Bridge. She drew the knife from her pocket, keeping it tight in her hand. It would only be right if he was the first to feel it.

She crouched, keeping low and feeling her body ready to scream. The trees offered some cover. Every three paces she stopped, listening and peering around. Ahead, she could see a clearing and a house. Standing, prepared to flee at the slightest sound, she looked.

An air of neglect hung about the building. But all the windows had their glass, no slates missing from the roof.

The man might have turned down the track to this place, the carter had told her. But there was no sign of anyone. No hint of someone moving inside.

Then … the slam of a door at the back of the building. Another minute and she heard the regular rhythm of something she couldn’t identify.

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