Hunter Hunted by Jack Gatland (best value ebook reader .TXT) 📗

forced his own smile as Billy and Frost left the room, slowly turning his head, fighting the pain to look at Doctor Marcos.

‘I need to speak to Declan,’ he said. ‘I need to speak to him now.’

13

Tick Tick Tick

Declan stared up at The Horse and Guard pub, shaking back the fear that this could be the moment that ended his career, that had him named as some kind of extremist terrorist handler rather than the slightly more innocent, but no better explanation of a man and a woman having an illicit affair.

‘You want me to do this?’ Anjli, climbing out of the passenger side turned to ask. Declan shook his head.

‘No,’ he replied. ‘It’s fine.’

It was a small pub, completely detached and at a corner of the Fulham Road and a gated entrance to a small cul-de-sac. To his back was a brick wall made of old, blackened bricks, as if built during Victorian times but recently renovated to fit the local aesthetics, easily eight feet high that ran the length of the red brick, six-storey apartment complex behind it. To his right, and further on from the complex was a church, now equally cleaned of the dirt and soot that came from a hundred years of pollution, its sandy coloured bricks gleaming in the sun and now converted into a very expensive house, with likely some kind of swimming pool or cinema or even both in the onetime crypt.

Looking back to the street in front of him, Declan saw it had two personalities; on the right-hand side of the cul-de-sac was a series of design studios, accountants and estate agents, the two-storey buildings above painted white, straight edged and well maintained, while the left-hand side, the side that held The Horse and Guard pub was built in a different style, the bricks stained, the corners rounded, and a ten-foot gap in between veterinary clinics, junk shops, beauty salons and the pub; blocked off with a tall fence, covered in the same black-painted style as the rest of the building, covered in posters that told of exciting televised sports and even more exciting food available inside. And at the front was a metal hatch that led to the beer cellar, one side open, as if waiting for a delivery.

Declan stared at the pub for another long minute.

‘Are you really sure that you don’t want me to do this?’ Anjli asked again. Declan smiled.

‘I’m good, I promise,’ he replied. ‘It’s just that there’s something, a half remembered moment…’ He stopped. ‘There was someone else there. Kendis seemed distracted. She was happy to sit and talk, and then I went to the toilet…’ he furrowed his brow as he tried to remember. ‘I think I went to the toilet, and when I came back she was different. Wanted to leave there and then. I thought at the time she just wanted to go somewhere quieter, but I’m now wondering if I missed something.’

‘Can you remember the person?’ Anjli asked. Declan shrugged.

‘There were a few people in there, and I wasn’t on a case,’ he admitted as he closed his driver’s door and, checking the traffic, crossed the road, heading towards the building. ‘Maybe the CCTV will show what happened.’

‘Maybe the CCTV will show you though,’ Anjli was walking to catch up with him now. ‘How do we explain that?’

Declan stopped. ‘At that point you arrest me,’ he replied, ‘as I’ll be a suspect at that point.’

‘Come on, Guv!’ Anjli protested, and Declan couldn’t help but smile. She only called him ‘Guv’ when she was trying to be official. ‘They can’t think you’re a terrorist!’

‘They can and they will,’ Declan retorted. ‘That’s why we need to finish this first.’

Declan stopped before entering though, looking back across the road, down towards the onetime church and the shops that faced it. Parked up on the pavement opposite the church and facing them was a black Ford Focus car, currently stopped on the single yellows that fronted the shops beside it. Inside, the shaven headed man that had been watching them now looked elsewhere, as if unaware that Declan was even staring at him.

‘That car’s been following us all day,’ Declan whispered. ‘It was across the road at Putney, and I think he was at the hospital.’ He started towards the car, picking up speed as he walked determinedly past the shops, Anjli following him, pulling out his warrant card as he did so.

‘Oi! Police!’ he shouted. ‘Out of the car now!’

Ignoring Declan, the shaven headed man now pulled out his phone, making a call. As Declan ran to the side of the car, tapping on the glass, the man looked up, pointed at the phone as if to say ‘hold on I need to take this’ and then looked away. Declan was about to bang on the window again when he noticed the journal on the passenger seat. It was open, tossed aside the moment that the man had grabbed the phone and there was a collection of jumbled notes visible on the pages. The first couple were about Declan; the times that he was at Kendis’ house, who he spoke to, and also when he arrived at the hospital.

But it was the last two notes that Declan saw that made him step back.

The first was a simple note; it read

N GILL New Change 1pm take out

The second was more worrying, as it read

Monroe awake clean up ASAP

‘Get out of the car now!’ Declan screamed at the man as he reached into his pocket and pulled out his pen. It might have seemed like a pointless gesture, but the pen was a tactical one, from his days in the Military Police, and was titanium built with a steel tip on the end; a steel tip that Declan spun in his fingers to face the car as he gripped the pen hard, slamming the steel tip against the driver’s window, the impact shattering the glass into tiny pieces as he did so.

‘I