No Going Back by Casey Kelleher (black male authors TXT) 📗

inside her bag before he could quiz her further. All the while not daring to look at him, because she knew that Holder would see right through her.

‘Anyway. I’m sure you’re not here to offer to do the cleaning. So, what’s up?’ Lucy said, glad to change the subject and take the attention away from herself. ‘My alarm hasn’t even gone off yet. I take it something has happened?’

‘It has,’ Holder said, leaning back against the doorway and trying to read Lucy. She played her cards close to her chest. He got that. She liked her privacy, but she was acting as if she was on edge about something. But Holder knew well enough by now not to push her. If Lucy wanted to talk about whatever was going on, she would eventually.

‘You might want to go and get dressed, because we’re needed back up at the hospital.’

‘Shelby Cooke? Is she all right? Has something happened?’

‘You could say that. She woke up a little while ago to find that someone had taken her baby.’

‘Someone has abducted Riley? Shit!’ Lucy said, shocked at what her colleague was telling her. ‘Do we think that it’s related. To the attack?’

Holder shrugged. ‘It’s too early to say. But DS Morgan wants everyone down there ASAP. This is big, Lucy. The press is already all over it. Someone leaked the story. Suffice to say, he is not a happy man.’

‘Oh my god, poor Shelby,’ Lucy said, running back upstairs and dragging some clothes on, all the while thinking of how distraught Shelby Cooke must be right now. And again, wishing that she hadn’t let loose last night and drank so much.

The case they were working on had just taken a dreadful turn for the worst, and from what they were already concluding about the attacker, Lucy prayed that he didn’t have Riley. Because his motives could only be sinister.

30

Jay-Jay stared out from behind a small cluster of trees just across from the hospital entrance.

He’d done his research well, spending the first part of the night in the internet café on Wandsworth High Street, making sure that he’d done all his homework properly when it came to Pete Baker and his family. He hadn’t wanted to go back to the squat after that. He had been too fired up thinking about what he needed to do. So he’d decided not to wait, that he would put his plan into immediate action. Coming here to the hospital early, way before visiting hours, way before anyone else was around. And as it turned out, it was genius.

Because he knew in his gut, that by coming here today he would change things forever, but until just a few minutes ago, he’d had no idea on how big a scale that would turn out to be. Now he was just going to wait it out and see if the cavalry arrived. Which he was in no doubt that it would.

And to be fair, Shelby Cooke had made his research easy for him.

The woman put her entire life out there on social media for all and sundry to see. Jay-Jay couldn’t understand that. Why would you want to tell hundreds of nosey strangers your every move? What you had for breakfast, where you’d spent your day. Just feeding people information about you. So that they could sit back and silently judge you. And Jay-Jay had judged the family.

Shelby Cooke was a spoiled little daddy’s girl from what he’d seen. Pretentious and fake, her entire account was her posing in some obscenely overpriced designer outfit or a skimpy barely there bikini. Each post fishing for compliments. Or the other posts where she was having a rant. Publicly moaning about something meaningless and pathetic, as if she was entitled to take centre stage. As if it was only her opinions and thoughts that mattered.

And Jay-Jay was under no illusions now, that was exactly what Shelby Cooke was. He’d scrolled through the hundreds of photos and posts, memorising each family members’ face. Ashley Cooke looked like a wide boy. Just the kind of man that he’d imagined would owe money to the likes of Sam and Russ Boland. He had trouble written all over him. Pete and Janey Baker looked like your average middle-aged couple.

Jay-Jay hadn’t been expecting that. He’d expected someone a bit more flash looking. Although, from what he’d seen of the house they lived in, it was worlds apart from the squalor of the Griffin Estate. Expensive cars, nice holidays. All the evidence pointing to the fact that Pete Baker had done well in his life and was now reaping the benefits. The only photo Jay-Jay hadn’t been able to see had been one of the baby. Which had surprised Jay-Jay, seeing as Madam Shelby liked to share even what she ate for bloody breakfast with the rest of the world. Though he guessed that she was probably playing the long game, aware that the media would be jumping on the first photo that she posted of her newborn, especially now that the police had linked her attack to the murder in Richmond Park. She might look like your typical bimbo, but in that sense, Jay-Jay guessed that she wasn’t completely stupid. He glanced at his watch. Wondering how long he’d have to wait around until he saw a face he recognised. He didn’t have to wait much longer.

A Range Rover Evoque screeched into the car park, skidding across the front parking bays right outside the hospital’s main doors. Jay-Jay watched in fascination as the two men and a woman got out of the vehicle and ran inside, recognising them all as Pete and Janey Baker and Ashley Cooke.

He pursed his mouth, his eyes fixed on the main door as the security guards approached them, and all four took the stairs.

Seconds later he heard the blast of sirens, quickly followed by the sky lighting up with flashing blue lights as a fleet of squad cars sped into the car park