Blood Falls Read Online Free

Joe saw the Granada looming up behind them and he winced, bracing himself for a terrible impact.
    If Danny Morton had been at the wheel he probably would have ploughed into the builders, but his driver was slightly more merciful, leaning on the horn until the two men jumped out of the way. The Granada slowed, giving Joe a few more precious seconds. Now he had to make that time count.
    All Saints Road was another quiet, leafy residential street. It ran straight for a couple of hundred yards, then gently curved to the right. By the time he reached the bend Joe had managed to coax the ailing Peugeot up to sixty miles an hour: an insanely reckless speed.
    Thankfully the road was clear. The junction with St John’s Roadwas coming up fast. Tall trees and a four-storey building obscured his view before the turn, but he knew he would have to take a calculated risk.
    He worked the brake, slowing to fifty, then forty, then he changed down to second gear and went back to the accelerator, the engine screaming as the Peugeot lurched onto the wrong side of the road. St John’s Road was now dead ahead. A car passed from left to right, but there was nothing coming in the other direction.
    Praying it stayed that way, Joe steered a wide arc to take the junction without reducing his speed. The Peugeot slithered and squealed its way around the corner. Joe was glad of the noise – the ‘calculated’ part of the risk being that anyone travelling along St John’s Road would hear him coming and take avoiding action.
    The only traffic heading north was a cyclist, a young man wearing thick glasses and a lime-green helmet, wobbling to a halt just a few feet short of the junction. Joe raised a hand, not in thanks, but gesturing towards All Saints Road in warning: There’s another one coming .
    In a concession to the rules of the road, Joe flicked on the right indicator, kept the car in second gear and braked a little more before his next turn: into the car park for Clifton Down railway station. As he turned he checked the mirror and saw the Granada nosing out of All Saints Road, the bewildered cyclist mercifully still intact just beyond it.
    The car park was long and narrow, on a steep downward slope, with parking bays on the right-hand side and the entrance to the station at the bottom of the hill. Joe threw the Peugeot into the first vacant space and jumped out, leaving the key in the ignition.
    He sprinted down the hill, attracting odd looks from a group of students loitering outside the Roo Bar. Once past the pub he veered left, staying close to the boundary wall. He was now in another car park, this one reserved for the university; more importantly, he was out of sight of anyone in the public car park.
    Breathless, he couldn’t help but slow his pace as he ran up theslope. At the top he glanced back and saw the Granada parked behind the Peugeot. Leather Jacket was standing between the cars, hands on hips. There was no sign of Danny Morton.
    Joe emerged into Whiteladies Road, hoping he could lose himself in the lunchtime crowds around the Clifton Down shopping centre. There were lots of people about but they all gave him a wide berth. Catching his reflection in a shop window, he immediately saw why.
    He was hot and dishevelled, the grimy T-shirt clinging to his skin, his face flushed and dotted with white paint. At just under six feet tall, with broad shoulders and a muscular physique, he looked like a sweaty, rampaging thug.
    Time for Plan B, he thought, as the ideal solution rumbled to a halt on the other side of the road. Joe darted between the traffic, took one more look to make sure Morton hadn’t caught up, then dug in his pocket for some change.
    The bus had pulled up at the stop opposite the railway station. Joe didn’t know exactly where it was heading, except that south on Whiteladies Road would carry him towards the city centre. Good enough for now.
    The cool, damp weather had caused the windows to steam up. Joe took a seat