Page 49 of No Quarter

The tunnel moved between two walls. Broken pieces of wood and plaster littered the floor as Valerie scrambled over it on her hands and knees. Her head still ached badly, and she started to worry that if Peter Torben decided to stop and fight, she might find it difficult to protect herself.

But she pushed these doubts aside and kept moving, determined to find the dangerous criminal before he could escape. The tunnel led to a wall at the end, and with it came another hole, but it didn’t lead to another room. It led to the outside.

Valerie peered through it, her eyes adjusting to the light as the cool autumn air washed over her.

The hole emerged onto the tin roof of the shoddy extension, and she could see Peter Torben, half-naked and covered in dirt and cobwebs, climbing up further. Pieces of timber had been hammered into the side of the building to hang onto, and it appeared that Torben had placed them there deliberately to make his escape. He moved up the side of the building like a spider, all muscle and sinew.

Valerie gritted her teeth and gripped her gun tightly. She would not let him escape. She would do whatever it took to bring him down once and for all.

With a surge of adrenaline, she took off after him. She leaped up and grabbed onto the first piece of wood. She swung herself up and clung to it tightly as she continued to scramble toward Peter Torben.

He looked down at her with a mix of surprise and fear in his eyes, but he didn’t stop moving. He kept going as Valerie struggled to keep hold of her grip on the pieces of wood. She felt as though it was going to give. She didn’t have long. She clung on with one hand and reached for her gun again, aiming it to the side of Torben on the wall of the house.

She squeezed the trigger. A loud bang sounded and the brickwork near his head fractured into pieces.

“Don’t move,” she said, panting hard from exhaustion. “You’re not getting away this time.”

Torben snarled back at her, hatred burning in his eyes as he made his final desperate move.

He let go, falling down toward Valerie, his arms outstretched. His body smashed into her, and there was no hope for her to hold on.

Valerie let out a scream as they tumbled down through the air. As they fell, Valerie angled her body to protect herself as much as possible, and she landed on the tin roof of the extension.

Peter Torben landed several feet away from her, smashing against the same surface. He groaned, and Valerie could barely breathe, having had the wind knocked from her. Her head throbbed, and she felt for a moment as though she was going to pass out.

Then she saw the snarling features of Peter Torben bearing down on top of her. She reached for her gun, but it was gone, lost in the fall. Instead, as her attacker stood over her with clenched fists, she clenched her own and stood up as fast as she could, uppercutting him square on the chin.

He let out a groan and staggered back. Valerie still could barely breathe.

I need air, she thought as she tried to power her legs. But she’d given all she had. Between the attack in the woods andthe fight with Torben on the rooftop, she was exhausted beyond comprehension.

Peter Torben shook his head like a boxer shaking off a knockdown and then stopped for a second. At his feet was a large piece of brick that had splintered off the wall when Valerie had given her warning shot.

He reached down and picked it up. Then, panting heavily, blood dripping from his mouth, he stepped forward and raised the brick above his head.

Valerie put her hands in front of her face to defend herself. But it would do no good.

Torben let out a growl of hate and then a large piece of wood cracked across his back. It broke in two, but it only made the man angrier.

He turned around to face the person who had hit him. It was Will, and he was standing there now with only a small piece of broken wood in his hands.

“Oh dear,” Valerie heard him say.

Then she watched in horror as Torben reached out, grabbed Will by the collar and began striking him mercilessly in the face. Valerie tried to pull herself to her feet, but she could only crawl on hands and knees toward her friend. She watched in horror as the man then began to strangle Will.

“Hey!” a voice then shouted.

At first, Valerie couldn’t see anyone, but then she recognized the large brown hands scaling up onto the tin roof from below.

Charlie pulled himself up onto his feet and then ran full speed toward Peter Torben.

The man didn’t seem to be afraid. But he should have been.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Valerie sat in the interview room of the Buford police department once more. She was battered. She was bruised. She needed a full night’s sleep. But she was still in one piece.

She sat alongside Charlie, both of them staring down one Peter Torben, cuffed and lawyered up on the other side of the table.

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