Hunter Hunted

by Jack Gatland

  Declan nodded, trying to stop the worry in his stomach from rising to his face. ‘Do we know who’ll be leading us, sir?’ he asked.

  ‘Jesus, Walsh, it’s seven am,’ Bradbury exclaimed. ‘We only just learned about the attack. We’ll decide today and the transferred DCI will make themselves known to you by tomorrow, I’m sure.’

  ‘Yes, sir. Thank you, sir,’ Declan replied woodenly. ‘And with your permission, until they do arrive, I’d like to continue our lines of enquiry.’

  Bradbury nodded, already checking an iPad screen passed to him by an aide.

  ‘I worked with Monroe,’ Bradbury said. ‘Strong, obstinate bugger. If anyone can survive this, it’s him. And once that happens, then we can talk about the Unit’s future.’

  Declan nodded as Bradbury, surrounded by his aides and assistants, walked away, most likely trying to work out how to spin this in the inevitable press conference. Declan looked over to Anjli and forced a smile, but there was no humour in it.

  His mentor, his friend, had been critically injured in a baseless and cowardly attack by as yet persons unknown.

  And Declan Walsh was going to find them.

  2

  Crime Scenes

  Doctor Rosanna Marcos and PC Joanna Davey were hard at work when Declan arrived at the offices of the Temple Inn Crime Unit.

  ‘Feet!’ Doctor Marcos cried, throwing a small bag at Declan as he walked through the door. Opening it, he pulled out a pair of disposable shoe coverings. Placing them over his own brogues, he pulled out a pair of disposable latex gloves from a pack in his pocket, pulling them on as he continued into his workplace.

  The offices were modern for the building that they were in; downstairs was a forensics lab with an examination table, but the upstairs area was very much an open plan situation, set in rows of desks; seven with an eighth desk loaded with printers. Three of the desks were where Declan, Anjli and Billy Fitzwarren would sit, while the other desks sat empty for the moment. There were three closed off glass offices on one end, each with solid walls dividing them; the first was Monroe’s office, currently being examined by PC Davey, moving around the desk with what looked like an old school magnifying glass in her hand while Billy examined the laptop on the desk, his blue latex gloves irritably tapping on keys, while the middle was a briefing room with a plasma screen on one wall, and the third was a single desk with two chairs either side of it, utilised mainly as an interview room, although most of the interviews had been performed at other locations. All the rooms had ceiling to floor blinds on the glass that could open or close when needed, most of which were pulled down for privacy. However, in the middle of the interview room’s glass frontage the blinds were broken, the damage most likely caused by the shattered hole in the middle of it.

  The hole that Monroe’s head had most likely gone through.

  Declan stared at the hole, at the blood that pooled around the bottom. What force was required to slam a human head through such glass?

  ‘Bastard,’ muttered Doctor Marcos, staring down at the broken glass next to Declan. ‘They just left him there.’

  ‘Can you go through what you’ve worked out yet?’ Declan asked. Doctor Marcos nodded, pointing to Monroe’s office.

  ‘Alex was working in there,’ she said. ‘Something’s happened to the laptop and Fitzwarren’s trying to fix it, but I don’t think that was anything to do with this. He was in his office when the bastard arrived.’

  ‘That’s the second time you’ve said that,’ Declan commented.

  ‘What, bastard? Because they were. A right royal one.’

  ‘No, that you say it singular. Bastard, not Bastards. You don’t think this was more than one person?’

  Doctor Marcos shook her head. ‘Even from a cursory examination, I’m seeing one person, not two,’ she said. ‘And Alex would have been slow, still slightly drugged from earlier. Even Billy could have taken him.’

  ‘I heard that,’ Billy said, walking out of the office, Monroe’s laptop in his hand.

  ‘Oi!’ Doctor Marcos snapped, seeing this. ‘No moving things!’

  ‘Come on, this isn’t part of, well, this,’ Billy replied as he waved his hand around the office. ‘And I need to work on it separately. Use some specific tools.’

  ‘What’s the problem?’ Declan asked. Billy shrugged.

  ‘Don’t know yet, and I don’t want to restart it until I do,’ he looked down at the laptop. ‘Bloody thing’s frozen.’

  Declan looked back to Doctor Marcos. ‘So one man enters?’

  ‘Guard claims he saw a man in an overcoat walk past late in the evening,’ Doctor Marcos replied, glancing at him. ‘Actually, he said that from the style of coat and the walk, he didn’t really look up because he thought it was you.’

  Declan looked surprised at this.

  ‘I didn’t come back after Beachampton,’ he admitted. ‘I…’ he paused; only a momentary one, but enough to throw a stutter into his reply. ‘I went home.’

  If Doctor Marcos picked up on this, she didn’t respond, already walking to the main entranceway.

  ‘The bastard entered the office and DCI Monroe emerged to confront him,’ she explained, and Declan noted the more formal way she named Monroe now, as now all business, she forensically went through the events. ‘I think Monroe knew his attacker. He had enough time to run, or to call for help. He could have moved back into his office and barricaded the door, but he didn’t.’

  ‘The drugs in his system?’

  ‘Maybe. But I don’t think so.’ Doctor Marcos shook her head. ‘I genuinely think he was surprised at this arrival, but not threatened.’

  ‘He’s Glaswegian,’ Billy suggested. ‘He doesn’t do well with threats.’

  ‘Anyway, he’s facing, well, whoever it is, and then he’s struck.’ Doctor Marcos showed her forearms. ‘We have several welts on his arms, around here, as if he’s thrown them up to block a strike from some kind of baton, or staff,’ she pointed over to a spare desk, the sheets of paper that were on it scattered to the floor. ‘He’s then grabbed and thrown over that table. At this point they strike his face badly, and he bleeds from the lip and nose.’

  Declan was angering more now as he listened. ‘And then?’

  ‘Then he looks to attack his assailant with a keyboard,’ Doctor Marcos pointed to a broken one on the floor, a marker next to it. ‘It’s blocked but effective. The attacker loses ground. I think Monroe went to run at this point but was tripped, and fell over there.’ She pointed to the floor by the broken glass. ‘We have a small amount of trace blood there. And then I think the noise gains attention. Our attacker knows they don’t have long. They grab Monroe and physically slam his head into the glass window.’

  ‘And it breaks?’

  ‘Christ, no,’ Doctor Marcos shook her head, kneeling beside the impacted glass. ‘This is impact resistant. He slammed the poor bugger’s head into the glass three, maybe four times until it shattered.’

  She stood up.

  ‘Guard said he heard glass smashing and ran to see what it was. Thought it was an external window, it was so loud. The attacker would have known that his time was up. His target was, for all intents and purposes, dead. When they found Monroe, he was in a pool of blood. It must have looked horrific. Job done, our attacker leaves. Moments later, the guard arrives, calls an ambulance.’

  ‘Any idea how the attacker got out?’ Declan was already pacing the scene, trying to work out in his mind the battle that Doctor Marcos had just described. She rubbed at her chin as she considered this.

  ‘Probably waited downstairs in the examination room until the guard passed and then slipped out,’ she suggested. ‘We’re looking for CCTV that could help us.’

  Declan looked to Billy. ‘What’s frozen on the screen?’ he asked.

  Silently, Billy opened the laptop. On the screen Declan saw an image of Kendis Taylor, taken on a zoom lens camera, walking down a street on the phone.

  ‘It says that while in Syria for
The Guardian she was radicalised by an extreme terrorist faction,’ he explained. ‘But there’s no proof. Just conjecture. It says they believe she has a UK handler, but doesn’t mention his or her name or where they’re based.’

  ‘What’s the rest of it say?’ Declan stared at the screen. ‘It looks like there’s more on page two?’

  ‘That’s the problem,’ Billy closed the laptop back up. ‘The laptop is frozen. It looks like it was sent to Monroe but by who, how, or even when I don’t know.’

  ‘And you don’t want to restart it because?’

  Billy made a face at this. ‘Everyone always goes ‘turn it off and on’ as if that’s a magical answer, but if I turn this off, we might lose this file. I don’t know what server it was on, or where he downloaded it from. I’d rather see if I can back up the hard drive first.’

  ‘Kendis isn’t a terrorist.’ Declan spoke it as a statement. Billy shrugged.

  ‘Someone seems to think so, and whether she was or wasn’t, she was being watched.’

  ‘She wasn’t,’ Declan insisted again, more forcefully this time. Billy quietly nodded and walked over to his desk, pulling out a USB drive and slamming it into the side of the laptop with a little more force than was usually required.

  ‘You’re not the only one pissed at this,’ Doctor Marcos said. ‘We’re all angry.’

  Declan nodded. ‘I know,’ he said. ‘I just… the thing here with Kendis, it seems off somehow.’

  ‘Then prove it,’ Doctor Marcos walked off now. ‘Don’t just shout it at people.’

  Declan stood alone now, staring around the office. There was nothing he could do here; perhaps he could check into the external CCTV, see if there was anything that he could find.

  His phone buzzed. He hadn’t realised that he’d placed it on silent, and he pulled it out. There were three unread messages on it, all from Kendis over the last hour.

  We need to talk

  Call me when you get this

  Dammit this is important you dick

  Looking back to Billy, still working on the laptop, the image of Kendis still visible, Declan looked back to the phone. He didn’t want to call Kendis in the middle of this. He needed to convince himself that she wasn’t a part of it, even in some small way. Even though he’d known her all of his life, there had been a good decade where the two of them hadn’t spoken. Hell, he’d only called her after his father died because she’d been working with him.

  No. Kendis wasn’t a terrorist, no matter what anyone said.

  There was movement from the entranceway, and Declan turned to see Will Harrison, the special advisor to Charles Baker, enter the room. Overweight as ever, Harrison was in his early thirties, his hair cut short at the side, maybe a number two razor setting even, and left long on top in that ‘Peaky Blinder’ style that seemed trendy with people half his age. It was a style that didn’t match his shape of head or body and didn’t really match with his expensive charcoal grey suit. He was sweating, probably from the effort of walking up the stairs, and obviously didn’t want to be here, paling at the sight of Monroe’s blood. Seeing Declan however gave him purpose and shaking off whatever trepidations he had, he started striding over.

  ‘Oi! Shoes!’ Doctor Marcos yelled, and Harrison immediately stopped, as if realising the floor was lava and that he was on a small island. To ease the tension of the moment, Declan walked to him.

  ‘Mister Harrison,’ he said cordially. ‘What brings you here?’

  ‘Charles Baker is in his car out front,’ Will Harrison replied, slowly backing back out of the office, his eyes on Doctor Marcos, glaring at him beside the broken glass. ‘He asked to speak to you.’

  ‘Then he can come in and speak to me.’

  ‘He can’t,’ Harrison replied. ‘He’s a backbencher now. He can’t really be seen here before a Minister for State appears.’

  Declan sighed. He understood a little of how the Government worked, and things like this, the bureaucracy issues annoyed the hell out of him.

  ‘Fine,’ he said, indicating the doorway. ‘Let’s go chat to Charlie.’

  Outside in the car park, Declan saw the ministerial car waiting, the driver emerging as he saw Will Harrison exit the building. The driver opened the back door and Charles Baker climbed out, straightening his jacket as Declan approached.

  ‘Detective Inspector Walsh,’ he said, offering out his hand. Declan took it, shaking it.

  ‘Charles,’ he replied.

  If Charles was irritated at the informality of Declan, he didn’t show it, staring instead at the building behind him.

  ‘Terrible thing,’ he said. ‘Do you have a suspect yet?’

  ‘We’re still examining the scene. And you know we can’t discuss ongoing investigations with members of the public.’ Declan noted a small wince when he said this; Charles Baker might have the staff and the car, but he was still a simple MP these days.

  ‘I’m here as a friend,’ Charles insisted. ‘Your team saved my life a few weeks back. I want to help.’

  ‘And it’s appreciated,’ Declan replied. He didn’t like or even trust Charles Baker, and the last thing he wanted right now was to be in the man’s debt.

  ‘Have you seen Kendis Taylor recently?’ Charles continued. Declan paused before replying.

  ‘Why would you ask that?’ he asked carefully. Charles shrugged.

  ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ he smiled. ‘Maybe because you were childhood sweethearts, maybe because she worked with your father, or maybe because you gave her the story of when I was saved on the roof of Devington House.’

  ‘I didn’t give her anything,’ Declan lied. ‘She had been working on a piece on Andy Mac, if I recall.’

  ‘A piece that not only used my son as bait, but resulted in his death.’

  ‘I don’t think anyone knew he was your son at that point,’ Declan replied. ‘Yourself included.’

  Charles nodded, conceding the point. ‘I’m just saying that you need to be wary around her,’ he said. ‘Speaking as a friend.’

  ‘Oh, we’re friends now?’ Declan smiled. ‘What do you know that I don’t?’

  Charles looked around the courtyard as if considering what to say.

  ‘It’s nothing but conjecture, but I’ve seen things,’ he said. ‘Reports. And she visited Donna.’

  ‘Your wife? Why?’

  Charles shrugged. ‘I genuinely don’t know,’ he replied. ‘All I know is that she spoke to Donna and then, within a few hours Donna hanged herself.’

  Declan went to say something, to state that Donna’s suicide wasn’t connected to Kendis, but then stopped. He didn’t know this. And before he could continue, he saw a group of reporters and news teams enter Temple Inn from the Tudor Street entrance, all making a beeline towards Declan and Charles.

  And now Declan understood why Charles Baker hadn’t entered the crime scene.

  It was contained. It was controlled.

  You couldn’t do a press conference there.

  ‘Mister Baker!’ One reporter, his cameraman behind him, almost ran at them, microphone in hand. ‘Is it true that you’ve called for the police to have more support from Parliament? That you’ve asked for private firms like Rattlestone to gain more powers?’

  Will Harrison moved forward, blocking the reporters.

  ‘I’m sorry, but this is a personal visit, and we’d prefer some privacy. This is also an active crime scene, so please give us space.’

  ‘Why are you here, Mister Baker?’ Another reporter shouted. Again, Will spoke for Charles.

  ‘Mister Baker is visiting with friends,’ he said. ‘As you know, the Temple Inn Crime Unit saved his life a few weeks ago, and now with the cowardly attack on one of their own by suspected terrorists, he’s come to give support.’

  ‘And with that we must leave,’ Charles said, looking to Declan. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to bring the circus to town.’

  ‘And I almost believe that,’ Declan replied.

  As Charles and W
ill climbed into the car and drove off, the reporters seemed to dissipate, a single police detective not as exciting as the possible next Prime Minister on a joyride, and one glance at Declan’s furious expression was enough to ensure they kept away. Left alone, Declan turned to return to the Crime Unit, but was bumped into by a reporter as they passed. Looking up, watching them walk away, he realised it was Kendis, tapping into a phone. He moved to follow her, to call after her, but a vibration in his jacket pocket stopped him.

  That wasn’t where his phone was.

  Reaching into the pocket, he pulled out a small, cheap burner phone, obviously planted there during the bump. On it was one message.

  In danger. Need to meet. Keep this on. Text you place.

  Staring in confusion at Kendis, now walking out with the other reporters through the Tudor Road gate, Declan scratched at his head. His boss was critically ill, his one-time girlfriend, who he’d recently slept with was now believed to be a terrorist who was apparently in danger, and Charles Baker was telling everyone that they were friends.

  Ignoring the calls of the last reporters, Declan walked back into the Temple Inn Crime Unit, pulling off the plastic booties. He’d need new ones now he’d been outside.

  And the last thing he wanted was Doctor Marcos shouting at him again.

  3

  Visiting Hours

  It took another hour for Billy to get Monroe’s laptop working again; and when he did, the document was no longer there.

  ‘Maybe we can at least learn where it came from?’ Declan asked from his own desk, where he was currently working through the Temple Inn CCTV files to no avail. ‘Was it emailed? Did he find it on the internal network?’

  ‘There’s nothing on any internal networks,’ Billy leaned back in his chair, staring at the ceiling in frustration. Doctor Marcos had allowed them to sit at their desks once more, as long as they promised not to move around too much. ‘I’ve searched everywhere. If that document was real, then it was created by someone outside of the police.’ He stared at his own laptop where an image of Monroe’s screen, a screenshot from before the document had disappeared, was displayed. The image of Kendis, walking and taken from a distance was visible.