He had killed to protect Amy Devereux.
He had become London’s most wanted man to get to the truth.
Now, as Pearce shot through another red light, he felt himself feeling the same way. Something was rotten about the whole bombing, right to the core. Mayer was involved, that was obvious, and the fact that he had officers and armed squads at his beck and call didn’t bode well. In fact, they had held Pearce for over an hour, questioning how Sam had overpowered him—the bruise that was forming on his face was testament to the right hook. They asked about the dead body and if Pearce had been in on it.
It was easy enough to deflect, with Pearce using his seniority to pull rank and let himself go, but he would undoubtedly be pulled in by his own boss.
Adrian Pearce. Just as corrupt as the rest of them.
He would have chuckled had he not have been so horrified by what had come over the radio just before he left the building. A house had been subjected to a barrage of gunfire and an explosion had levelled it.
It was the address that Sam had shared with him for his friend.
As he sped through the London night, his windscreen wipers swung in repetition, clearing his view through the downpour. As he entered Bethnal Green, another voice crackled across the radio, discussing the man and woman they had found under the devastated kitchen.
Amy and Andrew were alive.
Theo Walker was being rushed to hospital with multiple burns and severe blood loss. There were mutterings over the radio of the loss of a leg, but Pearce couldn’t hear through the commotion. What had scared him most was that Officer Khambay’s voice had filtered through the airwaves and had taken responsibility for taking Amy and Andrew to safety.
Which was where he was heading.
Turning onto the road, he was immediately met with the blurred sight of flashing lights and an array of emergency vehicles. Rows of drenched, terrified neighbours watched in dismay as the fire service checked the building for the structural damage of the grenade whilst an ambulance passed him, its sirens wailing cries of help into the night sky as it raced Theo to hospital.
Pearce uttered a silent prayer for him.
He then saw a police car begin to move and swung his car in front of it, quickly stepping out into the rain and squinting into the bright headlights. He held up his badge as he approached.
‘Detective Inspector Pearce,’ he yelled above the furore of the crime scene.
The door to the car flung open and two officers stepped out. The large man with a bandage wrapped across his face was Khambay, who glared with anger through his bruised eyes. The other officer, a stocky woman with short-cropped hair, accompanied it with her own sneer.
‘What the fuck are you doing?’ Khambay snarled, wincing at the pain that shot through his broken nose.
‘How dare you speak to a superior officer like that?’ Pearce barked, stepping forward to assert his authority.
Khambay shot a glance to his partner, who stepped to the side, slightly circling him. He squinted through and saw Amy Devereux in the back seat, her arms protectively around her husband.
As Pearce was about to square off with the two officers, a voice dripping with authority cut through the wet night sky.
‘What the hell is going on here?’
Superintendent Michelle Bellows stepped forward, her hat covered by the plastic sheet whilst her high-vis raincoat rested over her petite frame. A career woman in her mid-forties, she had always respected Pearce and had been one of the reasons his marriage eventually failed. He still felt she harboured some desire to bed him again, but her professionalism would always trump her attraction.
She was firm but fair.
And at that moment, Pearce couldn’t have been happier to see her.
‘Ma’am, these officers were about to transport the two survivors of the blast to a medical facility. However, I need to speak to them about an ongoing case,’ Pearce said, stepping forward and lowering his voice, much to the agitation of the two officers. ‘If it wasn’t urgent, I wouldn’t intervene.’
‘The bombing?’ Bellows asked, a perfectly shaped eyebrow arching upwards.
Pearce smiled. She was good.
‘Yes, Ma’am. I need to question them somewhere safe and neutral.’ Pearce looked over his shoulder. ‘I will take them to a medical facility as soon as possible once I have completed it.’
‘Can’t it wait, Adrian?’ she asked, catching him off guard by using his first name.
The rain pelted against his body, the cold filtering through his bones. ‘Ma’am, Mrs Devereux is Samuel Pope’s therapist. She may have some information on how to find him.’
Bellows looked beyond Pearce at the car, the request processing through her mind like a bank transaction.
‘I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important.’
‘Okay, Adrian.’ She sighed.
‘Thank you, ma’am.’
Superintendent Bellows turned to an irate Khambay who stood, arms folded and rainwater dripping from the brim of his helmet. Beyond them all, the firefighters were yelling as they knocked through one of the obliterated walls of the house whilst a few other officers were discussing the events with the local residents. Bellows shook her head at the very thought of a gun and grenade attack in the centre of London. Pearce was glad she wasn’t fully up to speed with why that house had been targeted.
‘Officers, please transfer your passengers to DSI Pearce.’
‘Ma’am…’ Khambay began, met with a raised hand and a stern look.
‘Just do it.’
Khambay shot a glare that could kill at Pearce as he nodded to his colleague to open the back door. She did and Amy stepped out, shivering in the pouring rain as it pelted her small frame. She reached in, helping her husband to drape an arm over her shoulder, and guided him out of the car. A fresh bandage was wrapped around his thigh, a few specks of blood eagerly pushing through. Amy walked slowly, allowing her husband to hobble along until they reached the car. She mouthed a ‘hello’ to Pearce as she passed and he reached across and pulled open the door. As Andy lowered himself into the back seat, Amy marched to the other side and joined him.
Pearce turned back to Bellows. ‘Thank you, ma’am.’
She nodded before turning back to the chaotic scenes behind her. Pearce opened the driver’s side door only for Khambay to wrap his meaty fingers around the top of it.
‘Watch your back, Pearce,’ Khambay muttered through gritted teeth. ‘You just made a big mistake.’
Pearce pushed Khambay’s hand from the door and squared up to him. He flashed a glance to the burly sidekick, who was sneering under her soaked cap. The streetlights bounced off the shimmering bonnet of his car and his mouth broke into a smile, two rows of perfect white teeth.
‘Don’t worry. I’ve been making them all day.’
Pearce stepped into his car and slammed the door, watching as Khambay marched back to his own vehicle, already reaching for his radio. Undoubtedly he would be followed, so Pearce threw the car into gear and sped off, his tyres screeching loudly into a night already filled with the echoes of agony. As they spun around the far corner and allowed the devastation of the street to disappear, Amy broke down into tears.
‘He’s dead,’ Amy muttered, to herself.
Andy reached over and squeezed her hand as Pearce watched them in the rear-view mirror. The two of them had been through so much, all to hide the truth of what happened.
Sam Pope had killed to protect them.
Theo Walker was willing to die to save them.
As he spun off the side road and onto the motorway, Pearce pressed his foot down as hard as he could, the engine roaring to life as they sped towards safety. He had no idea where he was heading or how many men they would send after him.
All he knew was that he was going to keep them safe.
He was willing to break the law to do it.
‘Don’t worry,’ he assured them, glancing into the mirror once more. A sea of car lights twinkled b
ehind them. ‘We’re going to be okay.’
He hoped they believed him, as he shot through London as the rain continued its unrelenting downpour, trying it’s damn hardest to wash the city clean.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Inspector Howell stood in the conservatory of his four-bedroom house, staring out at the immaculate garden that surrounded it. The rain lashed down on the rows of beautiful flowers his wife fawned over, colours bursting forth like fireworks. The spring had been mild, with intermittent storms, and he couldn’t help but feel this one was linked to his mood.
It had been twenty minutes since Sam Pope had called him, adamant that his nephew had been murdered.
Jake.
He felt a lump stick in his throat and he lifted the glass in his hand, knocking back a large swig of scotch which quickly vanquished it. The alcohol was warm and comforting and he nervously reached for the decanter, pouring himself another generous helping. His nephew had been dead for almost two weeks and it wasn’t getting any easier.
He hadn’t been able to focus on anything. His wife, Amanda, had tried to help him grieve. He had pushed her away. His sister, who had argued against a career in the police for her son, had kept silent, but every glare was laced with blame. It was never meant to be this way. He had wanted to watch Jake rise through the ranks, become a highly ranked officer or branch off for a career in a specialist area. He’d win accommodations for his bravery and dedication, meet a woman and settle down.
Have the family that Howell himself never had.
The rain patted against the window like chattering teeth, and he took another swig.
How the hell had it all gotten so out of hand?
He had been given daily updates since he had taken his leave of absence; the manhunt for Sam had been the headline. The man’s past was being dug into, with various records of one-man missions in faraway lands, dangers that one could only imagine. A long list of deceased, all sent to the afterlife by the squeeze of his index finger.
The man was dangerous—more deadly than they had ever imagined. Sam could have been an asset, but he had dropped out of his police training three years before when his own demons had cost him his family.
Since then, he had hidden in plain sight.
Now he was at the top of the list.
Howell stared at his phone, knowing he should have called for backup the minute Sam had agreed to drive to his luxurious house, but he had resisted.
He needed to hear him out.
Howell needed to know what Pope knew.
As his stomach twisted like a coiling snake, a burst of light washed over the gated entrance to his drive. Howell took a deep breath and pressed the intercom button, watching as the gate slowly slid open, welcoming the truth into his home from the dark, wet night. The car, most likely already reported as stolen, slowly crawled up the driveway, parking just in front of his pristine Range Rover.
Sam stepped out, the rain lashing against him with fury. Howell watched as the most wanted man in London trudged towards the door, a small bloodstain pressing against the shoulder of his ill-fitting shirt. As Sam approached the front door, Howell knocked back the last of his drink, rubbed his lips with the back of his hand, and marched to let him in, ready to hear the truth. He pulled open the door and ushered Sam inside straight away.
‘Don’t stay out in the cold, son. You’ll catch your death.’
‘Sir.’
Ever the soldier, Sam respected authority before stepping into the open hallway, the wooden floor leading to a carpeted staircase that disappeared to apparent luxury above. The rain dripped from Sam onto the wooden floor, slithering into the thin lines. The décor was modest, painted by a professional, and an enormous oval mirror took pride and place on the wall. Sam looked beyond the friendly face of the inspector towards the door at the end of the corridor. A large open-plan kitchen peeked through the doorway: fresh tiles and marble worktops.
‘First things first: up the stairs, second door on the right. Help yourself to some fresh clothes in the chest of drawers. Some of them belonged to Jake and….’
Howell’s voice cracked and a sudden wave of sadness washed over him as he mentioned his nephew.
Sam knew not to pry, and placed a hand on the grieving man’s shoulder. ‘Your nephew was a good man who died protecting the public. I’m sorry for your loss, sir.’
‘Thank you.’
Sam forced a smile and nodded and headed towards the stairs.
Howell took a deep breath before calling after him.
‘Sorry, Sam. Shoes.’ He pointed at the drenched shoes on Sam’s feet. ‘Not on the carpet, eh?’
Smiling, Sam slid them off and Howell nodded appreciatively. As he ascended the stairs to change into anything not wringing wet, he heard Howell make his way to the study and drop two ice cubes into a glass.
With each step, he took in the details. It was what he was trained to do. He already knew he was fifteen steps from the front door, that there were three windows within the hallway, one of which would be too high for an escape route. Years of training, drilled into him day after day. He had already spied a knife set, sat proudly on the kitchen unit, which was approximately eleven steps from the bottom of the stairwell.
The study was to the right, and the sound of Howell mixing a drink led him to believe there would be a number of implements and bottles which could be fashioned into a weapon.
He was trained to survive.
To take everything in and use it to stay alive.
As he entered the second door on the right, he peeled off the white ill-fitting shirt he had taken from the man on the party boat.
A deep, ugly wound glared from his shoulder, like a closed eye just waiting to burst open.
Across his chiselled chest, the two bullet scars stared wide-eyed and proud.
Sam Pope. Going through the wars once again.
He swiped a pair of underwear and socks, balling up the wet remains of his clothes and sticking them in the bin under the desk next to the drawers. The room was sparse, a clearly barely used guestroom. Sam, in his quick absorption of details, found little hints of a family life.
Howell was a police man through and through.
Slipping into a pair of jeans which hung slightly and a black T-shirt which wrapped tight around his arms, Sam took a deep breath, ran a hand through his damp, flat hair, and headed downstairs to try to figure a way out of it all.
Forty-five minutes later and Howell stood by the drinks trolley, fixing himself another scotch with shaking hands. The study was warm and relaxing, with three large floor-to-ceiling bookcases proudly lining the walls, each one filled to the edges with books. Sam had noted a random mixture of thought-provoking non-fiction interspersed with thriller novels from the likes of Lee Child and Robert Ludlum. Sam compared it to the list of books he had made in the hopeless promise to his son that he would read more.
He had already broken the promise not to kill.
Shaking the thought of his son from his mind before he became distracted, he held the empty glass in his own hand. Sam had never been a big fan of scotch, but he found the warmth it offered most welcoming, especially after his earlier plummet into the freezing Thames. Howell had sat him down on the leather sofa which sat opposite a large oak desk and had stood rested against the edge whilst Sam relayed everything. Sam spoke, leaving out the details of his attacks on Morton and others, but ran through everything.
How the eyewitness accounts didn’t add up. That Harding didn’t seem to be grieving at all, but ended up allegedly committing suicide with grief. That Mayer had sent two men to intimidate and potentially kill Amy Devereux, putting a bullet through her husband, and how Sam had just happened to be in the right place at the right time.
He told Howell how he had killed the man with a bullet between the eyes.
Howell finished his drink and fixed another, his kind offer waved off by Sam as he continued, explaining about the dirty cop and the mystery man who had confronted him be
fore Sam had sent Amy and her husband to his friend whilst he had led them on a goose chase.
His dealings with Pearce.
Killing his attacker in the station.
The potentially long list of police officers all on the take, all at Mayer’s beck and call.
Then the reason why Jake was killed.
Howell shuffled uncomfortably as Sam explained his theory that Jake was murdered in a planned attack on Derek Earnshaw, who Jake had been assigned to when Frank Jackson’s men threatened him after he rejected planning permission.
When Howell questioned how Sam knew of the High-Rises, Sam merely offered that he kept his ear to the ground.
Before Howell could finish his next drink, Sam relived the moment he had leapt from the police station into the crashing, freezing water of the Thames, before heading to Earnshaw’s only to find him and his wife dead. Despite all the evidence to the contrary, it was no suicide.
‘Who else knows about this?’ Howell finally said, his back to Sam as he fixed yet another drink, the horrors of the reality causing him to shake.
‘Just Pearce. My friend who is looking after Amy,’ Sam confirmed, exhaling deeply as the weight lifted from his shoulders.
‘What a mess.’ Howell shook his head.
‘I’m sorry to bring this all to you, sir,’ Sam offered. ‘But I didn’t know where else to turn. I thought you should know the truth.’
Howell turned, a hurt-filled smile betraying his mood. He took another sip before shaking his head, muttering under his breath. ‘Mayer. Fucking hell.’
‘I know, sir,’ Sam agreed, sitting forward and twirling the small glass tumbler in his hand. ‘It’s hard to believe it, but it’s true.’
The Night Shift: A high octane thriller that will have you gripped. (Sam Pope Series Book 1) Page 18
