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

‘Baker’s got an unpleasant taste in characters,’ Sutcliffe muttered. ‘Walsh confessed to us before he escaped.’

‘Not to being a terrorist, sir,’ Billy countered. ‘Just to seeing Kendis Taylor.’

‘Who’s a terrorist,’ Sutcliffe argued. Billy went to speak again, but Bradbury raised a hand.

‘This is the problem,’ he said to Sutcliffe. ‘You were put in charge, against my wishes I’ll add, to helm this department. How’s that going for you?’

‘I’ll admit, it’s been challenging,’ Sutcliffe shifted in his seat. ‘There’s a lot of loyalty there.’

‘And yet one of his old partners sits beside you,’ Bradbury looked to Billy. ‘How do you see things?’

Billy was now the one to shift. ‘The Guv’s right,’ he said. ‘There’s a lot of misguided loyalty. I don’t know why DCI Monroe ran from the hospital with Doctor Marcos, but it doesn’t look good for him. Declan running hasn’t helped his case, either. Anjli’s going rogue, and the DCI from Birmingham, Bullman? She seems to enable it.’

‘But you’re loyal,’ Bradbury said.

‘I’m loyal to the law, sir,’ Billy replied.

Bradbury pulled out a sheet of paper, looking down at it. ‘Doctor Marcos has been leaving messages for Walsh,’ he said. ‘Land lines, voicemails, emails, everywhere. Same three phrases. Royal Bastard. Gallifrey. Dentist. Do you know what it means?’

Billy nodded. ‘I do, sir,’ he said. ‘It’s the location and time tomorrow for a meeting. If we plan it right, we can get them all.’

‘Them all?’

‘If Doctor Marcos is sending Declan cryptic messages, sir, I think we can safely agree that she’s playing for the wrong team,’ Billy looked to Sutcliffe, who nodded.

‘The boy’s right,’ he said, reaching for his phone. ‘I’ll contact my team and…’ he started checking through his pockets. ‘My phone…’

‘Did you leave it in the car?’ Billy asked as Sutcliffe rose, still searching his coat. He looked to Bradbury. ‘If we’re done here?’

Bradbury nodded. ‘Go find your phone, Detective Chief Inspector,’ he replied, looking to Billy. ‘I need to speak to DC Fitzwarren quickly about a Detective Sergeant exam you’ve applied him for.’

As Sutcliffe left at speed to find his phone, Bradbury looked to Billy.

‘Now, how about you tell me what’s really going on,’ he said, coldly.

Sutcliffe had just reached the foyer as Billy, running, caught up with him waving a phone.

‘It was on Bradbury’s floor, under the chair,’ he said as Sutcliffe, taking the phone, opened it up, checking the apps.

‘You didn’t look at it, did you?’ he asked. Billy frowned.

‘It’s passcode and fingerprint locked,’ he replied. ‘I couldn’t if I wanted to.’

Sutcliffe nodded at this, putting the phone away. ‘I have a meeting to get to,’ he said. ‘You can get home from here?’

‘I’m returning to the office,’ Billy replied. ‘I have a lead I want to follow up on.’

Sutcliffe muttered some kind of approving sound and walked over to the Mercedes, getting into the back seat. Billy watched it leave, walking over to a waste bin on the pavement.

There, he rubbed at his thumb, rolling off a thin sheet of silicone.

This removed, he tossed it into the bin and started walking towards Blackfriars Bridge.

Declan arrived back in London after midnight.

Originally, Declan had considered driving to his old Tottenham apartment; he still had the lease, and it ran out later that week, but there was the police part of this mind, that soft, practical voice that told him what to do that pointed out that if they’d looked for him in Hurley, they’d look for him in Tottenham. The best thing to do right now would be to go to ground, to work out what the next stage was in his plan.

He needed to revisit the crime scene.

He’d driven into Chelsea, parking Karl’s borrowed Peugeot on Kempsford Gardens, facing the north entrance of Brompton Cemetery. He sat for a moment, the engine off, staring at the wall across the road, still finding it hard to believe that it wasn’t even two days ago that he’d met with Kendis in there for the last time.

When she was still alive.

He knew the cemetery didn’t open until 7am, a good six or so hours away, so he settled into the seat, pulling the lapel of his coat up as he closed his eyes. But, after half an hour of small shifts in posture and occasional loud noises outside, he gave up sleeping for the moment and exited the car, stretching his legs. The streets were quiet at this time of the morning, and so Declan risked a walk, a patrol of sorts of the cemetery, as if by doing this, he might get a better idea into what was going on.

Moving out onto the Brompton Road, Declan turned left, walking with the wrought iron bars of the cemetery to his right, looking through them at the gravestones and markers that were only feet away from him as he continued on. A few yards on he turned right at the crossroads, now heading south on the Finborough Road, where modern designed red brick apartments stood next to four-storey Victorian terraces. Passing the now closed Finborough Arms, Declan followed the road to the right as it split off, now walking down Ifield Road as he considered everything he knew so far.

Kendis had been scared, and had received a call to martyrdom letter through her door, a sheet now believed to have been sent by the now dead Nasir Gill. Who it also seemed worked for Rattlestone and had been taking photos of Kendis during the day.

Somehow, she’d found her way back into Brompton Cemetery that night. Why? Walking around it now, Declan could see that there was no way that you could simply stroll in. Only someone with a key could get in. So who had a key? He remembered a line she had said, when they met.

‘Don’t belittle the dead. Some of Westminster’s biggest and brightest have plots here. That’s the one for the Gladwells. Over there is the Harrison family.’

Malcolm Gladwell, who she’d met with earlier in the same day, and could have been her