Each Day I Wake: A gripping psychological thriller: US Edition

by Seb Kirby

  Quinn’s driver stepped out of his vehicle, gun in hand, but was told to stand down by Quinn who’d followed us into the courtyard.

  I told Janet and Brogan to get into the car and made Montague kneel. I pressed the gun against the back of Montague’s head. “If you make any kind of move, I’ll shoot.”

  Montague began bargaining for his life. “You don’t need to do this, Tom.”

  “Don’t call me Tom. You’re no friend of mine.”

  “OK. OK. What you need to know is I would have gone through with the bargain. You only had to give me the copies and the login.”

  “So, now I have my wife and Brogan and I still have the diary.”

  “You don’t think Quinn is going to let you get away with that?”

  “We’ll see.”

  I climbed into the driver’s seat and started up the engine, leaving Montague kneeling on the cobblestoned yard.

  As the Ford pulled out into the traffic on the Commercial Road, I could see Quinn getting into the BMW and starting to follow.

  We pressed on along the Commercial Road, passing the Troxy and the Half Moon Theatre in a blur of speed with Quinn close behind.

  We were heading for Canary Wharf with Quinn following all the way.

  It would have been a good time for a police car to pull us over for speeding but that didn’t happen even though we ran red lights at intersections and caused oncoming vehicles to swerve out of the way as I sped the Ford on and the BMW followed. I would have welcomed police attention. But these days on the streets of London everyone is on their own. Policing is an after the event affair.

  As I looked back in the rear view mirror I could see Quinn, sitting in the front seat, using his phone. I shouted to Brogan. “Quinn will be gathering support, using his sat nav to let his men know our exact location. It won’t be long before they’ll have us surrounded.” I paused. “Brogan, you know Canary Wharf, where do we go next?”

  We’d reached the point where Commercial Road intersected Westferry Road. Brogan shouted. “Take a right.”

  I swung the car hard right, along Westferry Road. Looking behind, I could see that Quinn was still following. “What’s down here?”

  Brogan shouted back. “West India Quay. North Dock”

  My blood ran cold. West India Quay North Dock. The place where I almost died. The place where all this had started.

  Was it coincidence or ironic fate?

  I didn’t have time to reflect on it.

  The BMW was now close enough behind for Quinn, gun raised, to lean out of the passenger window, attempting to fire.

  A large roundabout loomed ahead. I swung the Ford left off the roundabout along West India Avenue. Ahead was Cabot Square. To negotiate the Square at this speed involved another sharp left followed by a sharp right.

  There was shattering sound as the first shot impacted the Ford’s rear window, filling the back seats with broken glass. The second shot took the rear passenger-side tire.

  The wheel became unstable in my hands. The car took on a life of its own, lurching left and right with increasing amplitude.

  I tried to brake but this just threw the car further out of control.

  The Ford didn’t make the hard right turn to remain on Cabot Square. It left the road at Wren Landing narrowly missing pedestrians walking the pavement the Square and crashed through the small clump of shrubs that decorated the Landing. It ploughed on across the short paved apron that led up to the North Dock.

  I pumped the brakes but this failed to slow our progress. One of Quinn’s bullets must have holed the braking system.

  There was a sickening cacophony of broken glass and twisted metal as the Ford impacted on the concrete sidewall of the bank building to our right.

  We were not wearing safety belts. There had been no time to deploy them. Our bodies crashed forward, my head hitting the driver’s wheel. I could feel the thud behind me as Janet crashed into the back of my seat. Brogan held his arms before him as he was thrust forward in the front passenger seat.

  The Ford hurtled on towards the metal barriers that were meant to prevent access to the North Dock at this point. But the barriers were no match for our hurtling momentum. The Ford crashed through the barriers and hit the water in the Dock at full speed.

  There was a further thunderous jolt as we hit the water. My brain rattled. I was losing consciousness as water rushed in and the Ford began to sink.

  I was taken back to the moment I’d been pulled out of this same stretch of water with no knowledge of who I was or where I’d been. Images of all that had taken place in that time flashed through my mind. I was certain these were going to be my last thoughts.

  I struggled with the driver’s door. The impact of the crash had bent the metal out of shape. It would not open.

  I began drifting out of consciousness, water filling my lungs.

  I was half aware that someone was pulling at my body, lifting it from the seat.

  It was Brogan.

  He’d smashed the glass in the driver’s door and had pulled me from the Ford, swimming strongly upwards to break the surface of the Dock.

  He held my head up out of the water as I took in huge gulps of air, every breath a spike of pain.

  Brogan swam towards the walkway around the dock, pulling me along with him all the way. When we reached the edge I was pulled out by one of the clump of passers-by that had come forward to seek to help. One of the passers-by started to apply CPR.

  I tried to shout Janet! But my voice failed.

  I was certain I had lost her.

  I blamed myself for allowing her to come to London when I knew there was so much danger here. Janet had been the one who had brought me back from the brink of nothingness, filled my life again with the hope and the wonder of being, with her, the person that I was. Now she was gone.

  I coughed up water. My lungs burst with pain.

  I turned my head.

  I saw that Janet must have been thrown clear of the crashed car and had been rescued from the water by a brave bystander. Paramedics had arrived. She was being given oxygen before being stretchered into a waiting ambulance.

  As I was being carried towards the ambulance, I looked as best I could for any sign of Quinn or his men. I could not see them. They must have known that this was no longer the time and place. Yet I knew they would try again.

  Brogan joined us in the ambulance as it left for the local hospital.

  As the ambulance sped back along the Commercial Road, lights and sirens flashing, I turned to the paramedic who was treating Janet.

  I didn’t need to speak.

  He gave me the best news I’d heard in my life. “She’s breathing normally. She’s going to make it.”

  EPILOGUE

  Six months later

  I’m sitting next to Janet in the coffee bar overlooking Lichfield city square. It’s Saturday morning and the outdoor market, presided over still by the statue of Boswell, is in full swing. I’m part of all this now.

  I’ve recovered my past, well, most of it, anyway. I think back now with a welcome distance to those dark times when I came round in the hospital not knowing who I was. I have Janet and that means more than the world to me.

  Much has happened in the last six months.

  DI Ives accepted that I’d acted in self-defense in the killing of Mason and that I’d played a major role in stopping a serial killer.

  The evidence found at Mason’s house was convincing. The videotapes shocked even Ives. They showed that Mason had been killing for over ten years. In the basement, Ives found the tiny shamrock badge that Mason could pin to any item of clothing and which functioned as a video camera linked by Bluetooth to the smartphone in his pocket. It returned images of near HD standard with good quality sound.

  In addition to the films he’d made of Cathy Newsome, Rebecca French, Margot West and Felicity Jenkins there was sickening footage of eight other girls that he’d abducted, molested and killed. The bodies of four of them had now b
een found but before that the police had made no meaningful connection between the killings. They had been unaware that they were dealing with a serial killer before I’d become involved. My visions had at least accomplished that. The bodies of Rebecca, Margot and Felicity were still unaccounted for.

  It emerged that Mason had been called in for questioning by no fewer than three different police authorities on separate occasions when the disappearance of a number of the girls was being investigated but no one had put the evidence together to recognize a pattern in his behavior. Nor had the police made any connection between this and the more recent disappearances.

  Yet Ives was reluctant to admit that he had been wrong about me. He left DI Lesley to give me what amounted to the closest thing to an apology I ever received. “We had every reason to suspect you, Mr. Markland. You can’t blame us for that.”

  I struggled to convince Ives that he should place us in witness protection. “Mason is dead. You have nothing to worry about.”

  When I told Ives that the protection was needed because of threats made by Montague and Quinn, he wanted to know more. Ives was unconvinced that any case could be brought against them for what they had done to Janet and Brogan. “I know Mike Quinn. He’ll have covered his tracks. It’ll be his word against yours.”

  When police were sent to investigate Montague and Quinn they denied everything. The deserted warehouse where Janet and Brogan had been held was clean. Without evidence, the police could not intervene. I knew then that the only way to stop Montague and Quinn was to further the case against them over their wrongdoing at OAM.

  What Ives did agree to was a detailed investigation of Della’s diary. He tasked DI Lesley with this. Brogan was insistent that the diary contained evidence that Della had been murdered but Lesley did not agree. The diary showed that Della had been threatened and that she must have had more than one close encounter with the serial killer when Mason visited her as a client but that was as far as this went. Brogan tried to insist that other threats against her mentioned in the diary pointed to Montague but Lesley would have none of this. The post mortem results showed too little to justify that Della’s death was anything other than an accident.

  When I raised the issue of the death of Geoff Tunny, I was also told that there was no evidence that this was anything more than a regrettable and avoidable incident. If he hadn’t run into the busy street, he would still be here today.

  When I told Ives about Montague and financial wrongdoing at OAM, he told me it was outside his brief. He passed this part of the case over to CI Ambrose, an officer tasked with law enforcement for the Financial Conduct Authority, the FCA.

  The information stored on Tunny’s pocket drive gave details of the complex financial transactions that Montague had employed to make OAM appear solvent and profitable in order to lure further investors to his Ponzi scheme. The details given in Della’s diary of financial wrongdoing were trivial in comparison. CI Ambrose told me it would take time to analyze the wealth of data obtained by Tunny. This placed us in danger since no protection was available before the possibility arose that charges could be made.

  We couldn’t return to the house in Lichfield. Instead, we stayed with friends, moving every three or four days, concerned that if we remained too long in any one place, Quinn would find us.

  As Ambrose dug deeper into the data, it became clear that Evan Hamilton was a key witness. Hamilton was reluctant to be involved at first, fearing he would be prosecuted for the bug he had authorized to be placed in Montague’s computer. But, in order to pursue the case, Ambrose was prepared to obscure the details of how Tunny had acquired the information about OAM and Hamilton decided to cooperate. Hamilton told of the threats he’d received from Quinn to prevent The Herald investigation into OAM from getting into print.

  I met with Marshall Brogan and we tried to start over again. He showed no gratitude that I’d rescued him from Quinn and he remained unapologetic about implicating me in Della’s killing. He was right that our first meeting in Canada One had been the trigger for the whole series of events to unfold. But he now understood that the attack that had consigned me to the North Dock was the work of Mason who had been there that day at the meeting as part of The Herald team visiting the building to interview Montague. I tried to thank him more than once for his heroism in pulling me out of the crashed Ford but he failed to respond. Yet I sensed that he now regarded me more as his equal. We parted as the blood brothers we had always been.

  Once CI Ambrose understood the extent of the case against Montague and OAM, we entered witness protection with round the clock police protection.

  News that the FCA was in the process of bringing a case against OAM leaked out to the press, causing a clamor amongst investors seeking to recover their money. When OAM couldn’t meet its obligations, the panic intensified. Despite Montague’s protestations to the contrary, the City was left in no doubt that OAM was being run as a Ponzi scheme.

  Despite our witness protection, these were still dangerous times. There were death threats via social media. We were left in no doubt that Quinn was searching for us. We seldom left the apartment the police had placed us in. Despite this, with Hamilton’s help in keeping me informed with online messages and links, I resumed work ‘from home’ on The Herald investigation into OAM.

  The threats stopped when Tyrone Montague and Albert Emery were arrested and charged with financial misconduct by the FCA. Ambrose made great show of the arrest, making sure that the media were briefed to expect Montague and Emery to be seen being taken away in handcuffs. Images of the arrest went round the world in the news media.

  The Herald led with the inside story of the wrongdoing at OAM. I shared the byline with Evan Hamilton and Jason Blair.

  Quinn escaped arrest.

  I held Janet’s hand. “It’s over. We can get back to our lives again.”

  She smiled back. “Those are the best words I’ve ever heard.”

  I looked back out towards the square.

  There amongst the crowds of shoppers, looking up at us, were the unmistakable figures of Mike Quinn and his driver, Malcolm, heading our way.

  I turned my head away. When I looked back they were nowhere to be seen.

  Janet looked concerned. “What’s wrong?”

  I stared back into her eyes. “It’s nothing. Just something I imagined I saw out there.”

  From the author

  Thanks for reading EACH DAY I WAKE. If you enjoyed it, please leave a review. This is one of the best ways a reader can help an author spread the word about a book. It doesn’t have to be any more than a few lines (but don’t hold back if you get the urge to write more). Just return to the book page ( http://smarturl.it/ediw1 ), scroll down to the Customer Reviews section and click ‘Write a Customer Review’. Thanks for you help.

  Read more from Seb Kirby

  TAKE NO MORE

  Top 20 bestselling thriller; 123 reviews with an average of 4.0 /5.0 stars at amazon.com

  'An artistic voyage in crime - thrilling and original'

  Julia Blake is a conservator, working with classic art. Her expertise includes imaging beneath the surface of paintings to discover what lies beneath.

  Take No More begins when James Blake, Julia's husband, returns to their home in London to find that she has been shot and killed. What had brought her back to London unannounced? Why has someone committed this shocking crime?

  Blake determines to find her killers. He has little to go on - just her last message to him sent from her mobile phone: 'help me' with an attachment showing Michelangelo's painting ‘Leda and the Swan’.

  As the prime suspect of the crime, James flees England and sets out on a trail of deception and danger across the sweeping landscapes of Venice and Florence into a dark underworld of crime, conspiracy and corruption, a trail that will lead him to the killer - and the truth behind the mystery.

  Available as a Kindle ebook, in print or on audio:

  US Edition: http://smarturl.it/
tnm

  UK Edition: http://smarturl.it/tnm1

  And, please check out the other books in the series, available as a Kindle ebook or in print:

  REGRET NO MORE

  US Edition: http://smarturl.it/rnm

  UK Edition: http://smarturl.it/rnm1

  FORGIVE NO MORE

  US Edition: http://smarturl.it/fnm

  UK Edition: http://smarturl.it/fnm1

  For further news and information on books by Seb Kirby, please visit http://sebkirby.com

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Cover design is by Jane Dixon-Smith (http://www.jdsmith-design.com).