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

by Anjli and Bullman by him.’ He looked around the room. ‘She comes back here this morning, after I visited…’

‘How can you be sure?’ Brightman asked.

‘Because he wasn’t dead then,’ Billy replied.

‘She may not have killed him, but she might still have been in the apartment,’ Brightman suggested. ‘Perhaps they were having an affair?’

‘No, she was sleeping with—‘ Frost stopped himself. ‘That is, the rumours were that she was sleeping with someone else. Possibly Malcolm Gladwell.’

‘The MP? That’s a bit soap opera, isn’t it?’ Billy looked back to the box on the sideboard. ‘So either way, she’s here or she comes in later. They have a row, and they fight. She grabs a letter opener from a box on the sideboard. He grabs a taser device that frankly shouldn’t be allowed.’

‘He works in politics,’ Frost was examining the torch now, his blue gloves glowing with a blue light as the end of the taser torch sparked. ‘I’ve seen people carry worse. You never know the crazies you meet out there.’

He stood up. ‘Bloody idiot.’

‘Sir?’

‘If you’re right, he should have taken her down well before she stabbed him. One shot is enough to restrain. He could have called—well, he should have called for help.’

‘Not if it was a surprise attack,’ Billy replied. ‘They were talking, she stabbed him, he got a shot in before he died.’

‘Multiple shots,’ Brightman added. ‘If he did do this, he spent a good minute repeatedly tasering her before he bled out.’

Billy stepped back, looking around. ‘Well, there’s one thing this proves,’ he said. ‘If that’s the same weapon, Declan Walsh didn’t kill Kendis, but Will Harrison might have. When I spoke to him, he admitted he had a key for Brompton Cemetery, so he could have been in there that night.’

‘We need to see where Harrison was on that night,’ Frost reluctantly admitted. ‘But I’m not counting Walsh out of anything until we have him under questioning.’

Billy nodded, staring down at the bodies. There was something wrong here, out of kilter, as if someone had placed them in this way. Just like Kendis Taylor had been placed back in Brompton Cemetery.

Frost walked out of the apartment and Billy ran to catch him up.

‘What’s the matter?’ he asked quietly. Frost looked to him, as if weighing up whether he could speak.

‘Look, Guv, I’ve already shown my loyalty to the department,’ Billy added. ‘And if Monroe comes back, I’m first out the door. So I’m tied to you, no matter what. So explain what the issue is.’

Frost looked back to the room. ‘I saw her enter,’ he mumbled. ‘I saw you leave, and I was so busy wondering if I should follow you, I delayed in stopping her.’

‘Why were you here?’ Billy looked confused. Frost sighed.

‘I was following you,’ he explained. ‘I heard about your little trip with Sutcliffe last night.’

Billy froze, as if caught in the headlights of a car. ‘I was going to speak to you about that,’ he said. ‘This kind of eclipsed it.’

‘He offered you a job, didn’t he?’ Frost asked. Billy nodded.

‘I didn’t say yes,’ he replied, ‘but you have to understand, I couldn’t turn him down or he’d know something was wrong.’ Billy looked around the room, leaning forward.

‘He knows you’re making a play for him,’ he whispered. ’Said that you’re—look, these are his words, not mine—not the sharpest tool in the box, and that you’re nowhere near as in to Rattlestone as he is. Said that when this is done he’d jump me up to Detective Inspector in his squad as there’s going to be a vacancy, if you know what he means.’

‘Treacherous bastard,’ Frost muttered. ‘You did good in letting me know. Anything else?’

‘Yeah,’ Billy pulled out his phone. ‘He sent me something last night.’

Frost looked at the messages that Billy now showed. It was from Sutcliffe’s number.

Tomorrow, after we arrest Walsh stay by my side. We’ll block Frost from the questioning. He’s too close, and we can pin this all on him.

Are you sure, sir?

He needs to be removed from the equation. Forcibly, if possible.

‘Bastard!’ Frost hissed. ‘He’s as deep in this as I am! How dare he throw the blame on me!’

‘Deep?’

‘Look, you’re a bright kid. You’ve probably worked it out. I work for—well, I worked for Will Harrison,’ Frost said. ‘So does Sutcliffe. And a lot of the police, in small ways. Rattlestone’s integrated everywhere. And Will was the voice behind it.’

‘I thought Baker was?’ Billy was confused. Frost smiled for the first time that morning.

‘That’s what you’re supposed to believe,’ he replied. ‘But it was always Harrison and Gladwell.’

‘Malcolm Gladwell?’

‘Yeah. He’s at the top of the chain, it looks like.’ He looked back at the apartment. ‘Harrison swung for him and missed.’ Frost considered the text message again.

‘We need to keep this under wraps until we capture Declan today, Okay? We can screw over Sutcliffe afterwards. You’re sure of this location for the meeting?’

‘Absolutely,’ Billy nodded. ‘Fitzrovia, two thirty.’

Frost nodded back in reply. ‘We capture Walsh and then work out what he did or didn’t do,’ he explained. ‘And in the meantime, we let Sutcliffe take the blame for everything.’

Charles Baker was sitting at his desk, his head in his hands, when Malcolm Gladwell burst into his office.

‘Was it you?’ he screamed. ‘Did Harrison tell you where the safe was?’

Slowly, his eyes red rimmed with tears, Charles looked up at Gladwell with a face that was drained of all emotion.

‘What the hell are you on about now?’ he asked. ‘And can it be sorted later?’

Gladwell paused, rattled by the answer. ‘It wasn’t you? That broke into my mausoleum? Changed the password?’

‘What bloody mausoleum? What bloody safe?’ Charles was completely lost. ‘What the hell are you talking about?’

‘You’re not making a run for head of Rattlestone?’ Gladwell was now thrown off balance.

‘Do I look like I’m in any state to do that?’ Charles hissed. ‘Will and Laurie are dead! They say he killed Kendis and possibly Donna! When the press gets hold of this, I’m