DEADLINE: a riveting debut crime thriller from an exciting new voice in fiction by Erkut Sogut

Author:Erkut Sogut [Sogut, Erkut]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: CA Publishing House Ltd
Published: 2022-03-02T16:00:00+00:00

24

As soon as she’d made it to the tree line, Joska had darted left and then right, and kept running until she thought her lungs would burst.

Over the uneven terrain, and having to dart in between trees, it was slow going and when she turned around, she could still vaguely see the outline of the hotel on the edge of the wood.

She sat down on a fallen trunk, panting, and tried to catch her breath. As she brought her breathing under control, she felt herself beginning to calm, felt her mind coming back to her. She was no longer a trapped animal in flight – if she was going to get out of this alive, she had to start to think.

She bent over and tightened the laces on the sneakers. They were too tight around the toes, but that was better than having a giant pair of clown shoes flapping about her feet. She took a closer look at them, at the red and green stripe cast diagonally across the stark white, the golden bee embroidered onto them, and longed for her running shoes.

Beggars can’t be choosers, she told herself. Well, thieves, actually.

She heaved herself back up to standing and crept back the way she’d come. There was little point in keeping on running until she had her bearings, until she knew what she was running from, and that would be harder the further she got into the trees.

She thought back to what she’d seen in that room. It had been dark, gently lit by firelight, but that had been the only gentle thing about it. The majority of the people in the room had been women, but they were clearly in the service of the few men who were situated in the room on various furniture. Joska was no prude, but it was another thing entirely to be confronted by such a clear display of control and coercion. How many of the women in that room were there by choice?

And the worst thing was that she recognized some of the men. She had seen them at parties her dad had hosted. One man she remembered very clearly. He was tall, with a head like one of the statues on Easter Island and when she had met him, it felt like he’d gone out of his way to make her feel uncomfortable.

“My dear,” he had said, as he picked up her outstretched hand and planted a kiss across her knuckles.

Joska shrank back and pulled her hand back, but he held on, subtly tightening his grip.

“You must get your looks from your mother, eh Ander?” he brought his hand up to the side of her face and traced a line from her temple down across her cheek, resting it on her shoulder. “Oh, to be young again.”

Joska shuddered at the memory. She had felt his eyes on her the whole evening. Her dad had let her down that night. She knew he would never see her come to harm, but whatever that man had, her dad wanted so much that it had clouded all judgement.

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