Low Profile Read Online Free Page B

reinforcements, a dead cop being neither use nor ornament to anyone.
    He stumbled down the steps on to the gravel, where he lost his footing, tripped and rolled, coming up covered in gravel dust in front of the Fiat. He stayed low, using the cover provided by the cars before veering across the driveway to a row of thick, high rhododendron bushes that lined it. They were taller than him, and dense. He ducked between two, tripping again on a large stone but managing to keep upright, veered right, using the bushes as further cover, and scrambled towards the gates. He did not look back, knowing he had to get off the property and into his car and screech like fuck away.
    As he ran he heard a whirring, clanking noise ahead of him – and with dread, realized what this was.
    The gates were closing, trapping him in the garden.
    Henry crouched low, trying to keep his laboured breathing as silent as possible and at the same time to get a view of the front of Percy’s house from behind the bushes. It was still lit by the floodlights angled up from the ground.
    Then, with an audible crack of electricity, the exterior lights went out and the house and garden were plunged instantly into almost impenetrable darkness. As there were no street lights on the lane beyond the grounds, there was no ambient lighting other than from the occasional appearance of a bright, virtually full moon from behind clouds scudding across the night sky.
    Henry knew what ‘lights out’ meant.
    He had disturbed a killer in the act of murder, a killer who was probably now cursing himself for being so careless as to allow someone else to see his face. And although Henry had only seen it for a very short time, it was imprinted on his mind and he was certain he would be able to ID the man.
    Which was bad for Henry.
    Because ‘gates closed’ plus ‘lights out’ could only mean that a disturbed killer had one more job to do before leaving the scene: hunt down and kill the remaining witness.
    It took a few moments for Henry’s eyes to adjust to the darkness, but even then it was difficult to see through the gloom, a situation not helped by the fact that in his initial panic to escape he had thrown his torch at the gunman, a reflex action. In retrospect, not a particularly rational act, although if it had hit him it could have been the thing that gave Henry just enough time to dive to one side whilst the man was distracted.
    Still, Henry admonished himself, right now, a torch would have been very handy.
    He swore, squinting to see, but as the moon went behind a heavy chunk of cloud the blackness was almost total. He fished out his mobile phone and hid the illuminated screen with his hand.
    Hawke knew his own carelessness had compromised his task tonight and he had learned a great lesson from this for the future: kill and go. That was his usual MO, it had to be said, but tonight he had fallen into the trap of having too much fun and it had backfired somewhat. Because both his victims had assured him that no one else was expected to arrive at the house, he had allowed himself to dawdle – and, of course, someone had turned up. The Brits called it ‘sod’s law’.
    A fucking cop. One who had ducked and thrown a torch at him that had been better aimed than his own bullets, having struck him right in the centre of his forehead and gouged open his skin in quite a deep, crescent-shaped cut.
    A lucky throw which had stunned him temporarily, made him spin back into the living room. It would be the cop’s only piece of luck that night.
    But by the time he stepped back into the hallway, the cop had gone. Hawke rushed to the front door, saw the man enter the cover of the bushes, obviously heading towards the gates. On the wall by the front door was the control button for them and Hawke slapped his palm down on it and saw them start to close. Then he ducked back into the house, sliding his hand down a rack of light switches just