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

‘Oh, we will, as soon as she’s back from the crime site,’ Sutcliffe looked to his watch again. ‘Shall we reconvene—‘

He stopped as the door to the interview room slammed open and a woman filled with righteous anger stood there. In her late fifties or early sixties, her short blonde hair peppered with flecks of grey, this wasn’t a woman who worried about her appearance. She wore a smart charcoal grey suit worn over a white blouse, her makeup was minimal and she was flushed, possibly from running.

‘What the hell is going on?’ she asked, looking to Declan. ‘Are they interrogating you?’

Declan kept quiet as Sutcliffe rose from his chair, turning to face the intruder.

‘And who the hell are you?’ he asked.

‘I’m DCI Sophie Bullman,’ she replied. ‘And I’m DI Walsh’s Federation Representative.’

‘We don’t need a Federation Rep in here,’ Sutcliffe looked back to the table. Billy however shook his head.

‘He has the right, sir,’ he said, glancing at Declan as he spoke. ‘If Declan—I mean if DI Walsh wanted DCI Bullman to rep him, she’d be within her rights to stay here.’

‘Who called you?’ Sutcliffe asked. Bullman smiled.

‘I was in the area,’ she said.

‘You’re a West Midlands copper, aren’t you?’ Sutcliffe continued. ‘You worked with Walsh on the Beachampton case.’

‘Actually, she worked with Monroe on that case,’ Declan added from the chair. ‘We barely met.’

‘The world’s a big planet,’ Bullman said to Sutcliffe. ‘Birmingham’s only a couple of hours away. In the globe scheme of things, anywhere in England is in the area.’

‘I’d like DCI Bullman as my Federation Rep, please,’ Declan said.

‘Is he under arrest?’ Bullman folded her arms.

‘Not as yet—‘

‘Is he suspended from duty?’ Bullman interrupted, glancing at Declan. ‘I mean, is he suspended again?’

‘Not as yet—‘ Sutcliffe repeated and was interrupted at the same moment.

‘Then why the hell is he stuck in this room and not sitting at his desk solving this crime?’

‘There was an incident at a shopping centre,’ Sutcliffe was angering now. ‘He’s a suspect in a potential murder.’

‘Bullshit,’ Bullman stepped to the side of the door, indicating for Declan to leave. ‘If he was, you’d have taken him somewhere with a cell. This is just targeted harassment. Go on, Walsh. Shoo.’

Almost wanting to not miss the ensuing conversation, Declan reluctantly rose from his chair, but Sutcliffe stopped him.

‘We have information that leads us to the fact that Walsh here is more than he says,’ he said as he looked out of the door towards Frost, now watching in. ‘That he could indeed be the mysterious handler that we see in a photo that the press have, who was witnessed leaving the house of Kendis Taylor the same morning of her death and from his cell phone location records, we know he was in The Horse and Guard pub with Taylor the night before it exploded.’

‘So I’m supposed to be in a pub and here attacking Monroe?’ Declan snapped back. ‘Because we all know that’s a narrative you’ve been playing with.’

‘You could have done both,’ Billy muttered into his chest. ’We could only track the phone, not you.’

Declan looked through the open door at Frost’s desk. On the screen was a photo of the baseball capped, sunglassed man, positioned next to the police ID photo for Declan. You didn’t have to be Columbo to realise that the jawlines were similar.

‘Circumstantial,’ Bullman replied, and Declan realised that if she kept defending him, it’d fall badly on her. She was a good detective; he’d seen that when she came to Beachampton to save DCI Monroe.

He couldn’t have her tarred with the same brush.

‘It’s true,’ he said reluctantly.

Sutcliffe turned to face him in shock. ‘Say that again?’

‘I was with Kendis the night before her death,’ Declan admitted. ‘But we weren’t planning a terrorist attack. We were having an affair. And that’s why I left the house in the morning.’

There was a moment of silence at this revelation.

‘And the fancy dress cemetery visit?’ Sutcliffe asked as Bullman now stared at Declan with what looked like disappointment.

‘Kendis was working on an expose of Rattlestone,’ Declan explained. ‘She told Charles Baker’s wife about this, and she died shortly after. It scared Kendis. And Rattlestone needed to discredit her.’

‘Lies,’ Sutcliffe clapped his hands together. ‘But a nice confession nevertheless.’ He looked out to Frost, rising from his desk. ‘Gather your coat, you’re taking Mister Walsh to a more secure location!’

He looked back to Billy.

‘Do you want to do the honours?’ he asked.

Sadly, Billy nodded.

‘Declan Walsh, I am arresting you for the murder of Kendis Taylor, and under the operation of police powers under the Terrorism Act 2000, I’m arresting you for suspected terrorism…’

Declan didn’t hear the rest. The whooshing noise had returned.

Kendis was dead. Nasir Gill was dead.

And now Declan Walsh was a murderer and a terrorist.

16

Run Rabbit Run

‘I need to piss.’

Declan didn’t mean to say it like he did, but he knew that this was his only chance before they dragged him away to god knows where.

‘What?’ Sutcliffe looked back from the door. ‘What did you say?’

‘I said I need to piss,’ Declan repeated, looking to Billy, who’d stopped reading Declan his rights and was now looking back to the DCI for advice. ‘Look, I came here this morning, we had a meeting, then the pub which exploded, I went to a shopping centre and then was brought back here. It’s been a long day and I haven’t relieved myself.’

Sutcliffe opened and shut his mouth a couple of times. ‘And this matters to us how?’

‘Because if your lad there takes me to wherever we’re going, it’ll be longer,’ Declan explained. ‘And then who knows how long it’ll take. If this had been a normal station, you could have put me in a cell, and I’d have peed in the toilet there, but this isn’t a normal station and there isn’t a cell.’ He pointed to the back of the office and the door that led out.

‘There’s a toilet right there,’ he said with a smile. ‘I’ve