Trusted Like The Fox by James Hadley Chase Read Free Book Online Page B

breath. He was surprised how quickly she moved. Most girls didn’t know how to run, but this little fool seemed to have wings on her feet.
    Before he had run more than a hundred yards, he was panting, and twice he stumbled. This sign of poor stamina increased his fury. He’d make her pay when he caught her, he snarled to himself; she’d be sorry she’d made a monkey out of him!
    He kept on, his teeth gritted, his elbows close to his sides. It dawned on him that he might not catch her if he didn’t put on a spurt, but although he made a desperate effort, he could not increase his speed.
    Then suddenly she glanced back over her shoulder and saw him pounding along behind her. She threw up her hands, swerved, lost ground. He heard her thin wail of fear, and encouraged, he stretched his legs and somehow closed the distance between them. Now only twenty yards separated them, and he thought he had got her. The desire to close with her, to strike her, to teach her that he wasn’t to be played with filled him with vicious anticipation, but she just managed to dodge his questing hands, swerve, and run on. Her feet now seemed scarcely to touch the ground, and with a feeling of frustrated fury, Ellis saw the distance between them once more lengthen.
    Blood pounded in his head, breath whistled through his open mouth, his lungs seemed to be bursting. He couldn’t see where he was going, but he kept on, running blindly, furious, determined to catch her. Then suddenly he seemed to step into a void, and with a startled yell he plunged head first into a deep trench that had been cut half-way across the fairway.
    He hit the bottom of the trench with tremendous force, his legs twisting under him. The shock and violence of the fall stunned him, and for a few moments he blacked out, then a sharp, sickening pain in his right leg made him cry out. He caught his breath, tried to sit up, but the pain pounced on him again. Frightened, he lay still, sweat pouring off his face. He waited, trying to regain his breath, horrified at the possibility of a serious injury. He stared at his right leg. It was bent back at an awkward angle, and he knew then that it was broken. Black despair seized him. It was all up with him now. He was finished — trapped like a snared rabbit, stuck here until they came for him. He cursed at the top of his voice, in English and then in German. His face was dark with frustrated rage and fear, his eyes wild, the veins in his neck like thick cords. He pounded the sandy soil with his clenched fists, and then dug his fingers into the ground until tiny particles of sand, wedged under his finger-nails, drew blood.
    To be caught like this! To be pinned down in this damp trench until someone stumbled across him. They’d find the broken window and they’d know he had done it. They’d send for the police and he’d be recognised. Then he’d be finished — kaput !
    After a few moments he exhausted his rage, and gained control of himself. Sitting up, he gingerly touched his leg. It was painful and was already beginning to swell. In a link while, it would be bad. The thought of lying in this trench all night, the pain getting worse, flung him into a panic. He began to shout for help, not caring now if they did catch him so long as he wasn’t left alone in the dark with the pain getting worse and the leg swelling as each hour crept past.
    His shouts, dwarfed by the great stretch of open ground around him, were snatched uselessly away into space by the rising wind. No one heard him.
    He took hold of his broken leg and tried to straighten it. The moment he moved it pain bit into his body like the teeth of a savage animal, making him cry out. He fell back against the side of the trench, sick with pain and fear, and lay still, the sweat of exertion growing cold on his face and neck, and the pain sucking away his strength. He felt himself dragged down, helpless, through a cold, silent darkness.
    “Are you hurt?” Grace called down to