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

‘Diligent,’ Frost nodded as he rose from his chair. ‘Keep it up.’ With that he walked over to Sutcliffe’s office, knocking on the door and then closing it behind him as he entered. Billy, alone in the office, kept searching, pausing as a line on the screen caught his eye.

The Friends of Brompton Cemetery organise Open Days, regular tours, and other public attractions.

Looking back to his pad, he wrote the letters F O B C down one side, while filling in the blanks next to them.

F riends

O f

B rompton

C emetery

There was no way that this was a coincidence. Searching through the records, Billy saw that the Friends of Brompton Cemetery was a group that was independent of the cemetery itself, the official website stating that it preserved the grounds as a model of a historic cemetery with an active role in modern society by restoring and maintaining the cemetery’s buildings, monuments and landscape. Pulling up the membership lists, Billy could see that many of the members had plots on the cemetery; joining the organisation probably gave them opportunities to get in to tidy the plots up when the cemetery wasn’t open.

One name however stood out as he read through it; William Harrison had upper level access to the cemetery because of his family mausoleum being there since 1854. Billy leaned back as he saw this, glancing up to ensure that neither Frost nor Sutcliffe had seen this on his screen. Closing the browser, Billy considered this.

Nobody knew how someone had brought Kendis Taylor’s body into the cemetery once it was closed; but Will Harrison had a bloody key.

All Billy had to do now was work out how to continue this line of investigation, while his superiors chased another subject.

The last thing Will Harrison had expected to see when he emerged into the octagonal entranceway known as the Central Lobby was the smiling face of DS Anjli Kapoor. But there she stood, a grin plastered across her face.

‘Alright, Will?’ Anjli said, waving her warrant card. ‘You remember me, don’t you? DS Kapoor?’ She glanced over at one of the eight sides of the chamber where two BBC journalists were comparing notes on something that had happened earlier that day. Will didn’t know what it was; so many things happened each day in the corridors of power. What he knew though, and the one thing that he knew that DS Kapoor knew, was that the last thing he wanted was the press to gain interest in any of the meetings in the Central Lobby. Especially when they had cameras there.

‘Mister Baker is in late night sessions,’ he said. ‘You’ll have to come back tomorrow.’

‘Who said I was here to see Charles?’

‘Then why are you here?’ Will was still smiling as he spoke, but it strained the lines on his face, an act for anyone watching.

‘We’re hunting a killer,’ DS Kapoor whispered conspiratorially and a little too loudly for Will’s taste. ‘And apparently a terrorist.’

‘I thought DCI Sutcliffe had taken over that case?’ Will asked politely.

‘Oh he is,’ DS Kapoor grinned, ‘but he’s a little distracted, what with being a subversive plant, placed there by someone with an agenda. Allegedly.’

Will nodded as if interested, but secretly wishing this conversation had been in one of the quieter side corridors where he could have called security and had the bloody woman removed, preferably forcibly.

‘Well, you’ll need to take that up with his superior. Bradbury, I believe?’

‘Oh, I will,’ DS Kapoor pulled out a notepad. ‘While I’m hanging around, do you mind if I ask you a couple of questions?’

‘Very much,’ Will replied. ‘But I don’t really have a choice here, do I?’

‘Not really,’ DS Kapoor looked to the news crew that was now watching them, and gave a little wave. ‘How deep is Baker linked to Rattlestone Securities?’

‘Rattlestone?’ Will shrugged. ‘No idea.’

‘Come on, his wife was a signatory on the board.’

‘Which means nothing,’ Will replied. ‘What his wife did was nothing to do with Charles. He wasn’t a controlling husband. He kept her away from his business, and we both know why.’

He was implying the conspiracy that had come out a couple of months earlier during the Davies Murder, where it was revealed that as well as having a secret love child, Charles Baker had been blackmailed for over two decades by Pearce Associates, believing during this time that he was the murderer of Victoria Davies, but had blanked it out. DS Kapoor simply nodded at this.

‘Understandable,’ she said. ‘Do you have any connections?’

‘Am I the one under investigation here?’ Will asked, his face sweating a little. He wasn’t the fittest of men at the best of times, but the lobby was hot, and the questions were intrusive.

‘How long have you worked for Baker?’

‘I’ve worked with Charles since the 2010 Election,’ Will replied, emphasising the word with.

‘Ten years then,’ DS Kapoor smiled, but it felt more like a shark testing out their prey. ‘Must be hard to always be in the shadows.’

‘I like the shadows,’ Will replied. ‘Is there anything more?’

‘You get all sorts of advisors here, don’t you?’ DS Kapoor was looking around at the busts as she spoke now. ‘The Thomas Cromwells, the Alistair Campbells, the Dominic Cummings’, all becoming part of the narrative rather than controlling it.’ She looked back to Will. ‘Which one are you? The quiet unknown like Geoffrey Norris, or a soon to be nail in their boss’s coffin one like Cromwell was?’

‘The role of senior advisor is one that—‘

‘Advisors always fall on their swords,’ DS Kapoor interrupted. ‘Do you have a sword?’

‘Does a letter opener count?’ It was a weak attempt at a joke, and DS Kapoor ignored it.

‘So, are you likely to end your days here walking out of the office with a box of your things, or rather executed for high treason?’

The second part of this threw Will, but he didn’t have time to reply.

‘I know Baker sent a text, telling someone to flick the