Hunter Hunted

by Jack Gatland

  ‘I’ve already reached out to Bullman,’ Doctor Marcos leaned across, checking Monroe’s pulse with her fingers, as if not believing the machine beside her that showed his heart rate on the screen.

  ‘You have? Why?’ Declan was surprised at this. ‘I thought you didn’t get on with her?’

  ‘I saw her when she thought Monroe was in trouble,’ Doctor Marcos explained. ‘She felt guilty for letting him get into that situation. I’m hoping that guilt still exists, because God knows we could use someone needing to prove themselves right now.’

  Declan nodded, looking back to Monroe.

  ‘I can take over for a bit?’ he asked. Doctor Marcos shook her head.

  ‘I’ll do it,’ she said, watching Monroe as she spoke.

  ‘Does he know?’ Declan rose from the chair.

  ‘Know what?’

  ‘How you feel about him.’

  ‘Go home you silly boy,’ Doctor Marcos chided, but Declan saw the hint of a smile as she spoke. ‘I’ll let you know if anything happens.’

  Declan patted Doctor Marcos on the shoulder before walking out of the room. He stopped however at the door.

  ‘The moment anything does,’ he reminded her. ‘Make me the first call.’

  Doctor Marcos nodded absently, already forgetting that Declan was even there. Realising that there was nothing left to do in the ward, Declan nodded once more and left.

  He was so busy thinking about Monroe and Doctor Marcos, that he didn’t see the shaven headed man on the other side of the ward corridor door, watching him, and taking a note of the time in a journal.

  7

  Pocket Parks

  Kendis Taylor knew she was being followed. She didn’t know who he was, but she pretty much could guess who he worked for, and why he was there. Rattlestone were getting spooked, and they wanted to know who her source was. They wanted her discredited; that was pretty clear by the note passed through her door that day, and this apparent file that had been created and sent to Alex Monroe’s desk, right before they attacked him.

  Having left Nasir and Declan in the cemetery, presumably to decide which one of them was more loyal to her, she’d exited through the south entrance, turning left up the Fulham Road. She’d stopped at a bagel shop opposite the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, partly because she was hungry, but also to see who changed their rhythm behind her and saw a man, stocky and balding, in jeans and a brown leather bomber jacket turn and enter a creperie on the corner of Hollywood Road, making the cardinal sin for anyone secretly following of continuing to watch out of the window at their target rather than pretend to look at the menu. She smiled, waved to the man and moved into the road, waving again to stop a black cab as it passed. Leaping in and giving directions, she watched the balding man run back onto the street, frantically making a call, most likely trying to remember the registration number of the cab as he hunted for one for himself to follow. Turning out of sight on Redcliffe Road, Kendis quickly paid the driver a tenner and leapt out, popping into a stationery store on the corner and waiting until a second black cab passed, the balding man sitting in the back as he spoke into a phone.

  The threat now passed, Kendis walked back onto the Fulham Road and crossed over, heading south down Limerston Street to the King’s Road, leaping onto an 11 bus to Liverpool Street. She knew she’d made a mistake the moment she tapped her Oyster card to the reader; that careless error meant that now they’d see she used it, and they could follow the bus. This was easy to fix however and, after carefully watching the passengers of the bus, she sat across from a teenager in a shell suit, letting her Oyster card accidentally fall out onto the seat, rising and moving to exit through the middle doors as the bus arrived at Victoria Coach Station. She wasn’t looking directly at him, but through the window reflection she saw the teenager move past the seat, pausing momentarily to pick up the travel pass. He didn’t move to give it back though, and she smiled. There was about twenty quid on the Oyster and he was welcome to it all, as long as he took a few journeys that day. It would lead anyone following the card on a wild goose chase, while Kendis carried on with her business, heading eastwards down side roads towards Vauxhall Bridge Road, walking against the traffic on Rutherford Street and turning down Horseferry Road. She hadn’t seen anyone following her for a while now, so finally she relaxed, making her way to the meeting place.

  She wouldn’t have relaxed, however, if she’d known that Nasir Gill was already waiting for her.

  Malcolm Gladwell was the MP for Woodley, in Reading, but he didn’t travel home that much when Parliament was in session, instead preferring to stay in a small apartment in Westminster, at the junction of Page Street and Marsham Street. He felt a sense of nostalgia coming here; at one time it had been a Star Trek themed bar that he remembered attending in his early twenties before it closed, but he’d mainly picked the apartment because of the great running routes that were around there. Because of this, he’d often walk home for brief breaks between sessions, passing Westminster Abbey and the giant monstrosity of a building that housed the Home Office. Today was no exception; he had an eight pm reading on a Justice Bill addendum in the Commons, so had grabbed a late lunch, or rather a slightly early dinner at the apartment, while waiting for his guest to arrive.

  However, as he walked up to the apartment block’s entrance, he spied a piece of white paper taped to the door.

  Window Cleaning Half Price

  There was no number on it, but it didn’t need one for Gladwell to understand what it meant. He’d only created the meeting drop idea the night before, after all. Glancing around, ensuring that he wasn’t being followed, he turned away from the building and started east up Page Street, walking towards St John’s Gardens.

  Originally the burial ground for St John Smith Square back in 1731, this was another of these ‘pocket parks’ that had appeared in the mid-nineteenth century, when the gravestones were removed or placed around the sides, the burials were stopped and people conveniently forgot there were thousands of dead bodies beneath their feet. Laid out in a symmetrical pattern; paths to the middle from each corner and two additional paths from the sides joining them at a large, circular clearing, a small circular fountain in the middle with trees planted equidistantly around it, the park was a well-kept green space, surrounded on all four sides by eight storey buildings, created for locals and visitors alike to relax in, and take stock of their situations.

  Sitting on one of the benches that surrounded the fountain though was Kendis Taylor. Gladwell sighed audibly and walked over, sitting on the bench beside her.

  ‘When I gave you this way to contact me, I didn’t expect you to use it immediately,’ he stated irritably.

  ‘I’d hoped to find you at the cemetery,’ Kendis replied. ‘You said you volunteer there.’

  ‘I couldn’t today. I have a session,’ Gladwell explained irritably. ‘I was hoping to make it there tonight. What’s this about?’

  ‘They’re gunning for me,’ Kendis replied, passing Gladwell the sheet of paper with the call to martyrdom written on it. ‘I need to move on them now.’

  ‘There’s nothing I can do about it,’ Gladwell replied. ‘They’re apparently watching me too. That is, they were watching the pub last night.’

  ‘The Horse and Guard?’

  Gladwell looked at Kendis. ‘How many pubs do you think I go to in a night?’

  ‘Well, I know you were upstairs in The George with Baker and a couple of starry-eyed MPs beforehand,’ she smiled sweetly. ‘You might have been on a pub crawl.’

  ‘You checked into my movements last night?’

  ‘Let’s say I’m a little protective of my investments.’

  ‘I’m not one of your bloody investments,’ Gladwell replied. ‘I’m a completely anonymous source, and that doesn’t work when we’re not being anonymous. Christ, Taylor. If they were watching me, then they’d have seen you there too!’

  ‘Then I’d say it’s more dangerous for me to be around you, than for
you to be around me,’ Kendis tossed some breadcrumbs from a bun she held to a pigeon. ‘Besides, I saw who you were with in there. Interesting piece of political tittle-tattle, wouldn’t you say?’

  Gladwell took the bun from her, tossing it into a bin beside them.

  ‘Don’t do that,’ he chided. ’They’re vermin.’

  He sighed, looking up at the trees that towered above him. ‘Baker put your name forward last night. This is probably the start of a discrediting scheme.’

  ‘Then I need to discredit him first,’ Kendis leaned forward on the bench. ‘I need to gain leverage on him, put the piece out and make this public.’

  ‘It’s not Baker you need to worry about,’ Gladwell replied. ‘It’s his department. He’s not the genuine power there.’

  ‘I know,’ Kendis nodded. ‘Sir Hiss has been asking about me all week.’

  ‘I bumped into Harrison today, during lunch,’ Gladwell looked across the park as he spoke. ‘I’ve spent years keeping off their radar, and now I’m seeing them all over the bloody place. He knows my… Astronomy side, so I asked whether Baker’s intel was credible.’

  ‘On me?’ Kendis smiled. ‘Was it? Am I a terrorist?’

  ‘He made a fairly credible argument,’ Gladwell admitted.

  ‘But you didn’t shoot it down.’

  ‘How could I?’ Gladwell leaned forward to join Kendis, lowering his voice. ‘I regret the Balkans, I really do. But it wasn’t my mistake. Wasn’t even my bloody department. When we spoke to Baker about the leadership, when I placed him in contact with the 1922 Committee, he said he had no skeletons. I assumed that it had been someone else, that he hadn’t known about it, and took him at face value.’

  ‘And then you learned he had a secret love child and had been blackmailed by Francine Pearce for twenty years.’

  ‘Well, yes,’ Gladwell finally smiled. ‘He did shit the bed quite spectacularly there.’

  ‘Do you know who leaked the schedule?’

  ‘Of course. We both know. It had to be someone who could see an opportunity for Rattlestone.’ Gladwell shook his head. ‘And no, I don’t know all the names of power there. I just know that Harrison and Baker were brought on board a year before the Balkans, promising big things.’

  Kendis sighed. ‘I need to know where the smoking gun is, Malcolm.’

  ‘And I’m trying to find it,’ Gladwell hissed. ‘But meeting me in secluded gardens right before you’re possibly outed to the press as a terrorist sympathiser doesn’t help! God knows who followed you here!’ He looked around, glancing carefully at the others in the park as if expecting them to attack him at any moment.

  ‘I know how to avoid a tail,’ Kendis replied. She couldn’t help herself though, and she looked around as well; she paused as she saw the figure standing by the shelter. Looking back to Gladwell, she rose, pulling him up as she did so, patting at his jacket’s pockets. ‘Are you wearing a wire?’

  ‘Of course I’m not!’ Gladwell looked at the figure. ‘Who is it?’

  Kendis avoided the question. ‘Get home. I’m going off the grid for a couple of days. If you can find out where they keep the evidence, you know how to find me.’

  ‘And if they get to you first?’

  ‘Then speak to DI Declan Walsh.’ Kendis started walking away from Gladwell who, grateful for the end of this meeting, rose and trotted out of the park.

  Kendis however wasn’t leaving the park just yet; opening up her hand, she glanced down at the wrought iron key that she’d just taken from Gladwell’s jacket while patting him down. It had been a calculated guess to find it, especially after he’d commented about visiting the cemetery later; she needed to do what was needed and then return it back somehow, preferably before he realised it was missing. But now, she was walking over to the man watching her. A man who now looked incredibly embarrassed to be caught.

  ‘What the hell are you doing here?’ she hissed.

  ‘I thought you might need backup,’ Nasir explained.

  ‘How did you know that I’d be meeting Gladwell here?’

  ‘You mentioned it to me.’

  Kendis stared at her photographer. ’This is the first time we’ve ever done this,’ she replied. ‘So how the hell would I tell you that?’

  ‘I don’t know!’ Nasir snapped. ‘Maybe you mentioned it when you were working it out! I came here to help you, Kendis. If you don’t need me, then just tell me!’

  ‘Did you at least ensure that you weren’t followed?’ Kendis snapped back, already looking around the park more carefully this time, her paranoia levels rising. ‘You ensured you didn’t use your credit card, didn’t use your Oyster, didn’t make sure that anyone could bloody follow you electronically and find not only you, but me?’

  Nasir didn’t reply, his silence answering the question.

  ‘Christ, you’re an idiot,’ Kendis sighed. ‘Go somewhere. Anywhere. Use the same card. Make it look like you’re following me elsewhere. Lead them away from me.’

  ‘But what will you do?’ Nasir was apologetic, his tone nervous as he spoke. ‘You could get hurt.’

  ‘I’ve been hurt before,’ Kendis replied. ‘I’m a big girl. I’ve got a lead I need to check out in a graveyard and then I’ll disappear.’ She patted Nasir on the shoulder.

  ‘Just like you should.’

  And before Nasir could reply, Kendis was gone, running out of the park and back up Page Street, towards Victoria.

  Nasir stood alone for a moment, taking in the park's silence.

  And then he checked the photos he’d taken on his phone, deleted the ones that weren’t relevant, and left.

  Jessica Walsh wasn’t a child anymore. She was almost sixteen. You could join the army and be trained to kill people at sixteen. You could get married at sixteen. Ride a scooter or even fly a glider at sixteen.

  But Jessica Walsh was almost sixteen. And that meant that she still had to ask her mother’s permission for things. Like, for example, going out with her friends that evening to a local board game cafe.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Lizzie Walsh pondered. ‘Will that Owen boy be there?’

  ‘Doesn’t matter,’ Jessica replied. ‘We’re not dating anymore.’

  ‘One date doesn’t equal dating, young lady.’

  ‘You know what I mean,’ Jessica slumped into the sofa. ‘I’m not going with him. I’m going with Florence and Bianca.’

  ‘Until what time?’ Lizzie asked. Jessica shrugged.

  ‘About nine thirty?’

  ‘It’s a school night.’

  ‘Come on, mum. I’m distraught,’ Jessica did her best sad face. ‘My break up with Owen was traumatic, and I need cheering up.’

  ‘I thought you said that you weren’t dating him?’ Lizzie raised an eyebrow. Jessica sighed. It was a loud ha-rumph, and audibly annoyed sigh.

  ‘Nine,’ Lizzie countered. Leaping from the sofa, Jessica ran to the door, grabbing her jacket.

  ‘Nine fifteen?’ she suggested, opening the door.

  ‘Nine!’ Lizzie shouted back. Jessica smiled back at her.

  ‘You got it, mum!’ She said. ‘See you at nine fifteen!’ And with that, the door slammed shut. Lizzie made a loud sigh of her own now, reaching for her half-finished glass of wine.

  Still, at least Jessica wasn’t as bad as she was at fifteen.

  Chuckling, Lizzie finished the glass.

  Outside, Jessica was so busy texting on her phone that she didn’t notice the grey Audi across the road. She didn’t see the man inside, cleaning his rimless glasses with a lens cloth before placing them back on, watching her as she walked off.

  The man with the rimless glasses noted the time down in a notepad. And then, once he saw Jessica turn the corner, he started the car and slowly pulled out into the street, following her. He couldn’t help it; he gave a brief smile as he thought about what he was about to do to Jessica Walsh.

  8

  Raise A Glass

  ‘You look like a man who won the lottery but
lost the ticket,’ Anjli said as Billy sat down at the table opposite her. They were in the wine bar that they’d visited earlier that day, but now, out of work hours, they’d grabbed a drink to discuss the case rather than continue in the office.

  It still felt too real in the office.

  ‘Got some news,’ Billy said, gratefully accepting the gin and tonic that Anjli passed over to him. ‘It’s not good news.’

  ‘Go on.’

  Billy sipped at the drink, as if delaying the conversation.

  ‘Declan’s car, the Audi,’ he started. ‘The tracker wasn’t on last night.’

  ‘Why not?’ Anjli frowned. Billy looked to the table, as if ashamed to look her in the eyes right now.

  ‘Because I might have turned it off,’ he muttered.

  ‘Why the hell would you have done that?’ Anjli exclaimed, her voice so loud now that several of the other drinkers at their respective tables turned and glared at her. Billy, ignoring this, shrugged.

  ‘I was trying to help,’ he said. ‘Declan was being set up by Derek Salmon, and I knew that if he drove anywhere they’d find him with the tracker. So I hacked in and put a twenty-four-hour block on it.’

  He sighed. ‘I didn’t know that Farrow would tell him to take the train.’

  ‘And of course the lock carried on until this morning,’ Anjli nodded. ‘What time did it restart?’

  ‘About nine.’

  ‘And he was back in London by then.’

  Billy looked up to face Anjli. ‘I can find a way of tracking his phone,’ he said. ‘I might triangulate where he was—‘

  ‘He was with Kendis,’ Anjli replied. ‘He said he stayed overnight in Tottenham, but when he turned up this morning, you could tell that he hadn’t showered, and he had the slightest traces of women’s perfume on him.’