‘How’s he doing?’ Sam asked, flicking his eyes to the rear-view.
Amy was watching, her concern in full control of her face. ‘He’s okay. I think he’s still awake.’
‘Good. Keep him that way.’
A few moments of silence passed. Amy, gently squeezing her husband’s hand, turned her attention to her driver. ‘What the hell is going on?’
‘I was going to ask you the same thing.’
Sam navigated another corner, turning onto a quiet residential street. The change was startling. Just a few yards from the festival-like streets, the city morphed into a labyrinth of set-back houses, hidden by the branches of trees that lined the roads. A strip of cars lined both sides of the road, each owner undoubtedly charged a fortune by the council just to secure a parking space. As Sam slowed the car, he glanced back into the mirror. Amy was staring at him.
‘What were you doing at my flat?’
‘Saving your life, by the looks of things.’ Sam tried to sound playful. He quickly glanced in the mirror again and saw that Amy had raised both hands to her eyes and was crying.
‘Oh my god. We were nearly killed.’
‘It’s okay. You’re safe now.’
‘Those men. They had guns.’ Amy ignored him; the delayed panic had finally leapt out on her. ‘They shot Andy. They had a gun to my head.’
‘Amy.’
‘They were going to shoot me. They were going to shoot me.’
‘Amy!’ Sam’s voice rose, even causing Andy to stir slightly. She snapped back, her eyes locking on his in the mirror. ‘You killed them?’ she offered, as if the fragments of the evening’s events were slowly being pieced back together.
‘I killed one of them. To protect you.’
They drove in silence a little while longer, each road merging into the next like the background of an old school cartoon. After a few more moments, Amy let out a deep sigh. She had wrestled the calm back and looked at her husband lovingly.
‘Where are we going?’
‘To someone who can help,’ Sam said sternly, the car turning to the right.
‘Andy needs a hospital.’
‘No hospitals.’
‘My husband needs to go to a fucking hospital,’ Amy barked, leaning forward in anger.
‘Amy, listen to me. Whoever those men were, they weren’t there by accident. That didn’t look like a break-in to me.’
‘They wanted me to forge a report.’ She spoke thoughtfully, trying to weave her way through the shock to the memory.
‘A report?’
‘Yeah. They told me if I didn’t forge it, they would kill Andy.’ She felt the sadness erupt through her body again and her eyes watered.
‘What was the report on?’ Sam asked as he slowly pulled the car to a stop on the side of the road. The building they had parked in front of was a small community hall. A notice board was erected just outside the drab whitewashed bricks, a few pieces of paper pinned sloppily and flapping in the calm spring breeze.
‘It was to do with Harding.’
‘Harding?’
‘Yeah.’ Amy looked at Sam with confidence. ‘They wanted me to write a report to say that I had concerns about his mental well-being. That he was suicidal.’
‘And was he?’
Amy shook her head.
Sam let out a deep breath and turned back to the building. The community hall was a dingy building, built many years ago and neglected ever since. A few social clubs used it for meetings of various descriptions, but Sam hadn’t taken the time to memorise them.
It wasn’t important.
What was important was that the light in the main hall was still on. He pushed open the door and went to step out when Amy reached forward and grabbed his arm, her grip tight and her face full of worry.
‘Why were you at my flat?’
Sam ran a hand through his brown hair. ‘Because I don’t think Harding committed suicide.’
Amy sat back in the chair, the weight of the situation beginning to crush down on top of her. She watched as Sam closed the door behind him and then walked purposefully towards the community centre. She had no idea what was going on or what she was going to do. Her husband was lying next to her, barely conscious and with a bullet wound tunnelled through his leg. Masked men had broken into her house and had threatened her with death. She had looked down the barrel of a gun.
She had come so close to dying.
As she contemplated it all, expecting the fear to take control once more, she realised that she in fact felt safe.
Because of Sam Pope.
She watched as he made his way to the door, rapping a fist on the hard wood and waiting impatiently for the door to open. Eventually it did, and Amy watched with interest as a black man, roughly the same height as Sam, stepped out onto the step, a look of surprise on his face.
Sam Pope shook his best friend’s hand before greeting him.
‘Theo. I need your help.’
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The community centre was a small rectangle room with faded floorboards and drab white walls. A few of the walls were covered by notice boards, with A4 fliers promoting local clubs and social events, all scrambling over each other like eager puppies. The roof was stained from years of smoking, and the evidence of some serious leaks caused some of it to sag and bruise. Despite it all, Sam knew that this was a positive place—a place where his friend Theo had turned around the lives of many kids destined for a life on the street.
A life of crime with no way back.
Theo had been approached a few times, as had Sam, by private contracting firms wanting men of their particular skillsets out in the field once more. However, this time they wouldn’t be fighting for a flag.
They would be fighting for cold, hard cash.
Wincing at the painful memories that began to tap dance through his mind, his hand instinctively went to his pectoral muscles, a finger pressing through the shirt to the scars. A painful reminder of the bullets that ripped through his body.
Project Hailstorm.
When he allowed that memory to filter from the darkest reaches of his mind, he chortled. He hadn’t exactly been fighting for a flag then, either.
‘Hold him still.’
Theo’s order cut through Sam’s train of thought, bringing him back into the dimly lit room. Theo was stood over the table that took pride and place in the centre of the room. As the clock pushed past midnight and into the early stages of Monday morning, Sam wondered who would be sat around it come noon.
Perhaps the local pensioners for a game of bingo? A young mums’ club? Right now, the table was occupied by Andy Devereux, his body tense and intermittently jerking, as Theo poured an antibacterial liquid over the bullet wound. They had ripped his other shirt sleeve, rolled it tight, and told him to bite down on it.
As the burning liquid flowed through the corridor that had been ripped through his muscles, he was thankful for that small mercy as he roared in anguish. At the head of the table, gently stroking his dark, neatly cut hair, was his wife. Amy was whispering empty comfort, telling him that he had to be strong.
Sam sighed, feeling the man’s pain, having been through the same. However, he had been trained. Conditioned.
Andy Devereux was an accountant. The only thing he was trained for was sorting out the finances for major banking firms. Sensing the agony of the man as Theo began to thread the needle through the skin, Sam reached out his hand and allowed Andy to clamp onto it.
He squeezed until his knuckles turned white and Sam’s cracked.
Amy shot Sam a teary, thankful smile.
‘Nearly done.’
Sam admired how calm Theo was under pressure. The man had treated bullet wounds and explosion wounds in the heat of battle. Sam himself had covered him whilst he tried to save the life of Private Simon Mulligan, who lost both his legs to a car bomb. Sam remembered firing on two approaching assailants as Theo had tried his best to stop the bleeding.
It ha
d been in vain.
Yet Theo laid down his own life until Mulligan’s had ended.
Now here he was, disturbed in the middle of the night by an old friend, a damsel in distress, and her recently shot husband. And without batting an eyelid he had gone straight to work, stopping the bleeding, cleaning the wound, and now patching Andy up.
The patient had calmed down; the few shots of scotch that Theo had made him knock back had done well to numb some of the pain. With his hands, shirt, and jeans covered in blood, Theo flashed a white, reassuring grin as he pulled the final stitch, snipping the thread and then tossing the needle into the rubbish bag which was overflowing with bloodstained towels.
‘Good as new. Well, almost.’
Amy thanked him before he nodded to Sam and headed to the bathroom to clean up. Amy stroked her husband’s hair lovingly as Sam watched. Without turning to face him, she spoke.
‘Thank you.’
‘For what?’ Sam asked, grabbing the nearby mop and slapping the wet cloth into the blood that had stained the cheap floorboards.
‘For saving our lives.’
Sam stopped mopping and turned to face Amy. Her eyes were red, a combination of tiredness and fear that had bled them dry. She offered him a grateful smile. He could see how terrified she was.
All he could offer was a smile back.
‘Don’t mention it.’
Silence filled the room again. In the rooms beyond, the running water of the taps echoed from the bathroom. Sam slopped some more water, pushing the mop through the blood and trying his best to scrub the evidence of their being there away. Whoever it was that he had stopped back at Amy’s, he was sure that they would be back. Different henchmen, but whatever it was they originally wanted, they would now want to tie up the loose ends.
That included him.
Sam placed the mop back into the blood-soaked bucket and slid it to the corner of the room. As he walked back, he could see Amy shaking slightly; the events of the night were replaying in her mind. The gunshot that sliced through her husband’s leg. The barrel that was pointed at her. The bullet Sam had placed between her captor’s eyes. It was all replaying, causing another wave of shock to course through her.
Sam approached cautiously. ‘It’s going to be okay, Amy.’
Even he struggled to believe it. She nodded in appreciation and wiped her eyes with the backs of her sleeves, silently cursing herself for her fear.
‘Back at my flat. Those things you did. You do that a lot?’
Sam didn’t let the question hang for too long. ‘What—kill people?’
‘Yes.’ Amy nodded, a hint of fear in her voice.
‘I was trained extensively over a number of years and served this country for over ten of them. In that time, I acquired skills that made me one of the deadliest weapons we had at our disposal. Hand to hand, long distance, extraction, recon… you name it, I’ve done it. And yes, killing people was just part of the job.’
‘How many?’
Amy instantly regretted the question as she saw Sam’s face twitch uncomfortably.
‘Enough.’
‘If more people come after us, will you kill them? Do you feel you need to?’
Sam chuckled, looking up at the ceiling in disbelief. He understood she was grieving and obviously searching for a strain of normality. But she was analysing him, even after he had saved her life. Amy looked at Sam apologetically.
‘No, I don’t need to.’ Sam dipped a hand into his pocket and pulled out his mobile phone. ‘I need to make a call.’
DS Mayer popped the two paracetamol onto his desk and then reached for the glass of water. Knocking them back, he placed the glass back down before massaging his temples in frustration.
What the hell was going on?
Two men had been found dead in the flat of Amy Devereux, the neighbours calling as soon as they heard the blast of the gun thunder through the building. Upon arrival, the officers had found no sign of Amy or her husband, yet two masked men, described by his officers as intruders, had been gunned down. Annoyingly, DSI Pearce had found his way onto the scene and had pitched in with his own opinion that someone had come to their aid.
The CCTV of the hallway confirmed everything. It showed the two masked men knocking on the door, surprising Andrew Devereux with a sharp blow to the head before storming into the flat. It showed Amy returning home, her arms wrapped around a number of folders. Then the most surprising part of the video.
Sam Pope.
When it was first reported to him, by DSI Pearce of all people, he didn’t believe it. The quiet loner from the archive room. Mayer was aware of a military background, but Pope wouldn’t have been the first or last member of staff to have served.
What the hell had he been doing there?
Even more worrying was a few minutes later, the door opened and Pope ventured into the hallway with Andy Devereux’s arm slung over his shoulder as the man woozily hobbled alongside. His entire trouser leg was a thick red and they were closely followed by a panicked-looking Amy Devereux.
Then they were gone.
Now, sat at his desk with his head in hands, he ran his palm across his balding skull. With Inspector Howell signed off through compassionate leave, Mayer knew this was his chance to make a play for the role, to lead the Metropolitan Police with distinction and slip seamlessly into a more senior role.
But how could this have happened?
It was such a mess.
Two men dead. Amy and her husband missing, possibly kidnapped.
Sam Pope apparently killing two men.
With a deep sigh, he turned towards the phone on his desk, reaching out with his meaty hand, when suddenly it burst into a shrill ring. Slightly caught off guard, Mayer snatched the receiver and pulled it to his ear.
‘Mayer.’
‘Sir.’ Mayer recognised the voice. ‘It’s Sam Pope.’
Mayer sat up straight, his hand slamming against the table. Whatever was happening, the biggest piece of the puzzle may have just dropped into his lap. He knew the pressure would be building for him to get a handle on things, and now having Pope call him was the first piece of good news he had had all evening.
‘Pope.’ He tried to maintain his calm. ‘Are you okay? What happened?’
‘Sir, Amy Devereux was under attack. Two men had her and her husband at gunpoint in her flat. I intervened and now I need your help. Her husband has been shot.’
‘Jesus,’ Mayer muttered. ‘What were you doing there?’
‘I’ll tell you everything, sir. But right now I’m not sure it’s safe for us to go to a hospital. The men who attacked Amy, they were professionals.’
‘And you killed them?’
‘I had to, sir. To save Amy and her husband.’ Sam spoke with complete conviction. If he was apologetic for his actions, Mayer detected nothing.
‘Where are Amy and her husband now?’
‘I have a friend of mine who has treated the wound, but like I said. I need your help.’
‘Of course. Is Mrs Devereux okay?’
‘A bit shaken. Scared for her husband. But she is unharmed.’
Mayer sat forward on his chair, carefully picking his words, knowing he would be able to extinguish this fire earlier than anticipated. ‘Yes, it must be quite a shocking evening for her. But of course we can help.’
‘Thank you, sir.’
‘Where are you? I’ll have an unmarked car come and collect you all swiftly.’
‘We are currently at Bethnal Green Community Centre.’
Mayer balled his fist in celebration. ‘I’ll dispatch to you immediately. They’ll be with you in a few minutes.’ Mayer keyed in the location to his mobile phone before sending it to an unassigned number. ‘You just keep them both safe. You’ve done a hell of a job, Pope. We’ll find out why the hell those men wanted Mrs Devereux to forge that report on Harding and we will ensure her husband is safely delivered to a hospital. You have my word.’
Mayer stood up, a smug
expression filtering across his face as he looked out the window at the dark, cool evening that had engulfed the city.
The entire situation had been calmed.
‘Sir?’ Pope spoke, his voice cold and calculating.
‘What is it?’
‘I never told you that they were trying to forge a report.’
The silence sat uncomfortably between them, with Mayer’s fist once again balling, this time with frustration. He could feel his unkempt nails digging into his palm. He turned from the window, took a quick glance at the corridor to ensure he was alone, and lowered his voice.
‘Look, Pope. Just don’t do anything rash, okay? We can sort this out and…’
The line went dead.
Furiously, he slammed the receiver down, cursing himself for letting it slip. What was becoming clear was that Sam Pope was not who Mayer had thought he was and could potentially become a problem. His fears were soon quelled when he glanced at the response on his phone.
‘Two minutes.’
Mayer sighed, knowing that the men he was sending round would make sure Pope was silenced and that Mrs Devereux would cooperate. It was getting messier than he had promised, but he would ensure that the job was done. With a newfound sense of calm, Mayer closed the door to his office and picked up his phone, his hand nervously shaking as he found the contact number for Frank ‘the Gent’ Jackson and clicked call.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
It always rained back then.
When Frank Jackson was ten years old, he used to sit by the window of his bedroom and stare at the downpour. From the thirteenth floor of the council estate, which shot up through Canning Town’s skyline like a jagged grey tooth, he could see the poverty-stricken streets below. Bags of rubbish lined the streets like ghastly bushes. An ever-changing roster of homeless people lay in shop doorways or rummaging in the alleyways, all of them willing to do whatever for their next fix.
The world ignored them all, allowing those below the breadline to do as they pleased as long as they never tried to climb out.
Frank knew his family were poor.
The Night Shift: A high octane thriller that will have you gripped. (Sam Pope Series Book 1) Page 10
