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The Family Man: An edge-of-your-seat read that you won’t be able to put down
T.J. Lebbon
You take ONE risk. Now, those you love must pay …Dom Turner is a dependable husband, a loving father. A man you can rely on. But it only takes one day to destroy a seemingly perfect life.Emma thought she could trust her husband, Dom. She thought he would always look after her and their daughter Daisy….Then one reckless act ends in two innocent deaths – and Dom’s family becomes the target of a terrifying enemy.There’s nowhere to hide. They’re on the run for their lives. And if Dom makes one more wrong move, he won’t have a family left to protect.
T.J. LEBBON
The Family Man
Copyright (#u30773458-33cf-5d92-a07d-dd2f9f82c138)
Published by Avon an imprint of
HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street,
London, SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Publishers 2016
This ebook edition 2016
Copyright © Tim Lebbon 2016
Cover design © Headdesign 2016
Tim Lebbon asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9780008122911
Ebook Edition © August 2016 ISBN: 9780008122928
Version: 2016-07-04
Praise for The Hunt (#u30773458-33cf-5d92-a07d-dd2f9f82c138)
‘A pacy thriller that had me on the edge of my seat!’
Sun
‘A great thriller … breathless all the way.’
Lee Child
‘A breakout new voice in thrillers.’
Sarah Pinborough
‘Cleverly executed and full of suspense.’
My Weekly
‘The plot is fast moving and keeps you on the edge of your seat all the way through.’
Crime Book Club
‘The pace of plotting and the well-realised location of the rugged and hostile terrain of Snowdonia add to the feel of a tension fuelled thriller.’
Crime Fiction Lover
‘Guaranteed to get your heart pounding.’
Crooks on Books
Dedication (#u30773458-33cf-5d92-a07d-dd2f9f82c138)
For Pic
‘The battle line between good and evil runs through the heart of every man.’
– Alexander Solzhenitsyn
Table of Contents
Cover (#u5acb21af-4137-5961-827d-03cd57009c88)
Title Page (#u89eb32d1-24f8-51bf-b390-b65ebec2ee81)
Copyright (#ua144b9dd-aa9d-5fa9-abf9-2f9d0f975aa9)
Praise for The Hunt (#ud9340893-e0e4-59e8-b6cb-9738b796f5d9)
Dedication (#u1b1a3440-9786-5b3f-ae89-d6b7eb3ca889)
Epigraph (#u87298d40-6631-5cc6-a952-34edb2ef2a3c)
Author’s Note (#u11f3a399-04f9-5cce-a742-d3c1dff62c89)
Chapter One: The Space Between Breaths (#ue1172151-1cc7-500f-86f1-725e1055958f)
Chapter Two: One Thing (#u5b2864f8-f1c1-561a-9509-357c775b2dff)
Chapter Three: Dangerous (#u5951b8a7-95e5-5f5b-90cb-2da2be610c84)
Chapter Four: Not You (#u14ad2773-cdb1-585c-b429-9ec0bf4021b6)
Chapter Five: Loony Tunes (#uea95517f-504d-5fef-abe2-a8f1555ede8c)
Chapter Six: Pillbox (#u6d03d00f-b777-5e28-aa85-c1d38adad0ae)
Chapter Seven: A Quiet Life (#u449cf7e1-63c0-57a4-876e-b9aa19b15ce0)
Chapter Eight: Manson Eyes (#u3b040ccc-e40c-54f6-867a-d3b698e08b3c)
Chapter Nine: Soft Bitch (#u28263594-b4be-51de-8e80-7f5f6f2bfb61)
Chapter Ten: Attenshun (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven: Carry on (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twelve: Nothing Would Happen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirteen: Bluebells (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fourteen: Little Things (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fifteen: Windy Miller (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Sixteen: Splinters (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seventeen: Jane Smith (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eighteen: Rocks (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nineteen: Cat (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty: The Team (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-One: Hired Help (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Two: Night Watch (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Three: Gone (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Four: On the Move (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Five: Amateurs (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Six: Tumble (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Seven: Superglue (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Eight: The Hottest Day (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Nine: One More Scar (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirty: Trouble (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirty-One: Armed Response (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirty-Two: Option Three (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirty-Three: Stacked Odds (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirty-Four: The Beach (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirty-Five: The Hollow Woman (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirty-Six: Surprise (#litres_trial_promo)
Keep Reading … (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)
By the Same Author (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
Author’s Note (#u30773458-33cf-5d92-a07d-dd2f9f82c138)
Author’s Note: Some of the towns and locations in this novel exist in real life. In fact, I live very close to Usk and Abergavenny and they’re both very beautiful places. I have also visited Brusvily in France many times, and it is equally lovely. But I’ve taken the monstrous liberty of changing things about these places to suit the novel – layout, landscape, the names of shops and pubs. It’s a terrible indulgence, and I beg your forgiveness.
Chapter One (#u30773458-33cf-5d92-a07d-dd2f9f82c138)
The Space Between Breaths (#u30773458-33cf-5d92-a07d-dd2f9f82c138)
When it regained consciousness, he had already glued its mouth shut.
This excited him. It was like locking the life inside, not letting it bleed out. Usually there was some sort of leakage as something died beneath his hands – blood, breath, tears. This already felt different. He decided that he would use the glue again.
He turned away as it started to twist and moan. The bindings were tight, and he knew that there was no chance of it working its way free. Not in the short time it had left. But for a moment he wanted to observe unseen, not meet its gaze. He liked the power this gave him.
Circling around behind the chair, he paused to watch. Perhaps it could smell him. It could certainly hear him, because his breathing was deep and heavy, calm. But now that it could no longer see him, the panic was deeper, the desperation more divine.
He watched for a while, coughing once, uttering a long, low whistle, excited at how these sounds affected its behaviour – a pause, and then more frantic efforts to break free.
He glanced around the room. The house was old and abandoned, everything neat and ordered but layered with years of dust, perhaps the home of a dead person with no relatives. It was out of time, and he was confident that he would not be interrupted. The traditional life represented here by a bulky TV, a table for dinner, and family photographs, was not his life.
Far from it.
A loud snort drew his attention back to his victim. Blood and mucus shot from its broken nose, and then it breathed more easily.
