Hunter Hunted

by Jack Gatland

  ‘That car’s been following us all day,’ Declan whispered. ‘It was across the road at Putney, and I think he was at the hospital.’ He started towards the car, picking up speed as he walked determinedly past the shops, Anjli following him, pulling out his warrant card as he did so.

  ‘Oi! Police!’ he shouted. ‘Out of the car now!’

  Ignoring Declan, the shaven headed man now pulled out his phone, making a call. As Declan ran to the side of the car, tapping on the glass, the man looked up, pointed at the phone as if to say ‘hold on I need to take this’ and then looked away. Declan was about to bang on the window again when he noticed the journal on the passenger seat. It was open, tossed aside the moment that the man had grabbed the phone and there was a collection of jumbled notes visible on the pages. The first couple were about Declan; the times that he was at Kendis’ house, who he spoke to, and also when he arrived at the hospital.

  But it was the last two notes that Declan saw that made him step back.

  The first was a simple note; it read

  N GILL New Change 1pm take out

  The second was more worrying, as it read

  Monroe awake clean up ASAP

  ‘Get out of the car now!’ Declan screamed at the man as he reached into his pocket and pulled out his pen. It might have seemed like a pointless gesture, but the pen was a tactical one, from his days in the Military Police, and was titanium built with a steel tip on the end; a steel tip that Declan spun in his fingers to face the car as he gripped the pen hard, slamming the steel tip against the driver’s window, the impact shattering the glass into tiny pieces as he did so.

  ‘I said do it now!’ the shaven headed man screamed as Declan grabbed at him. Anjli was already running towards them—

  And then the world exploded.

  It wasn’t, but it felt like it; The Horse and Guard pub’s ground floor erupted in a brief flash of light and sound, as a detonation occurred; the windows exploded outwards into the Fulham Road as flame and smoke burst through, an ear-splitting foom and blast of hot wind slamming through the air a split second later. Anjli, closer to the exploding pub than Declan was found herself thrown to the pavement, blown off her feet by the force of it. Declan meanwhile slammed against the Ford Focus, stumbling to his knees as the shaven headed driver now wrenched the car into first gear and, spinning the steering wheel, sped off down the street away from the explosion. His ears ringing, Declan caught the licence number of the vehicle before he fell back to the road, jotting it on his hand with the pen before turning to face The Horse and Guard pub.

  There wasn’t much of the original external decor left; the windows were now shattered and the pub sign engulfed in flames. Staggering to his feet, he ran towards it. He didn’t know if the pub had been open, or whether anyone had been inside when it exploded, but he knew he had to try something, anything to help.

  It was Anjli though who pulled him back.

  ‘Don’t be a fool!’ she cried out. ‘They’re dead. Anyone in there? No hope.’

  Declan pushed Anjli aside and ran to the door on the corner, pausing as a piece of burned paper lying on the ash covered floor beside it caught his eye.

  CLOSED FOR DELIVERY

  Declan allowed Anjli to pull him back, staggering back to the Audi, now covered in debris and broken glass, already pulling out his phone.

  ‘Call it in, we need ambulances on the scene,’ he commanded as he turned back to the phone. ‘Dave? Declan Walsh. Yeah, hello mate, long time. Look, my computer whiz is busy and I need a favour. Could you run a plate for me? Cheers.’

  As Declan gave the licence plate currently on the back of his hand to the voice on the end of the line, he looked across to Anjli.

  ‘He did this,’ he said. ‘The man shouted to do it now, right before the bomb went off.’

  He turned back to the phone call.

  ‘It is? Brilliant. Thanks.’

  He disconnected the call, moving back to the now burning pub, peering down into the beer cellar.

  ‘Anyone in there?’ he shouted. There was no answer, but there was no smoke, either. Anyone down there would be injured at best. And the fire brigade could sort that.

  Now in a hurry, he ran back across the debris-strewn road, cars at either end stopping as drivers climbed out of their cars to stare at the burning pub, and pulled open the driver’s door of the Audi.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Anjli exclaimed. ‘You can’t leave the scene of crime!’

  ‘That car is licensed to Rattlestone Securities,’ Declan replied. ‘And the guy had two notes I could see written. One of them was that Monroe was awake, and they needed a clean up ASAP.’ He winced as he looked back at the flames. ‘Call Doctor Marcos, get her to find a way of getting the Guv out of there before they come for him.’

  ‘But he’s still critical!’

  ‘Better critical than dead!’ Declan snapped. ‘I need to get to New Change shopping centre by St Pauls. The other note said that Nasir Gill is there in—‘ he looked to his phone, ‘in about half an hour. All the order said was ‘take out’.’

  ‘As in kill?’

  ‘They’re a secret police made up of coppers and spies,’ Declan climbed into the car. ‘I don’t think they’re considering taking him to Wagamamas.’

  ‘What about the pub?’

  ‘It was closed for deliveries,’ Declan replied through the open window, starting the engine. ‘With luck, this means that nobody was upstairs. At least it wasn’t open, and it’s not connected to the buildings beside.’

  Anjli went to reply, to state that even closed there could have been several staff inside, but the Audi was already driving off, blue lights flashing as it drove eastwards to St Pauls.

  Sighing, Anjli looked back to the pub as, in the distance, she could hear the sirens of fire engines. ‘Well, I reckon the CCTV records are probably gone,’ she muttered to herself before turning to the road, walking into the middle of it and waiting for the emergency services to arrive. Pulling out her phone, she dialled a number.

  ‘Rosanna, it’s me,’ she said when it eventually moved to voicemail. ‘When you get this? Call me. Or get Monroe out of there now, whichever’s easiest.’

  Disconnected, she considered calling this in, but she still didn’t trust Sutcliffe or Frost to cause some kind of issue there. She guessed that this was why Declan called in a favour to gain the car registration details rather than call Billy.

  Dialling another number, Anjli waved the fire engines to the burning pub, waving aside some shopkeepers and visitors who’d stopped to watch, and who were now blocking the way of the lorries, showing her warrant card to a police car as it pulled up beside her in a screech of tyres.

  ‘Pull the crowds back,’ she shouted, turning back to the phone as it was answered. ‘Jo? Anjli. Get to Marcos right now.’

  She looked to the firefighters, already preparing the hoses.

  ‘Someone’s coming to kill Monroe.’

  14

  Race The Clock

  DC Jo Davey wasn’t a fan of running. She’d spent most of her life avoiding the act, and so the fact that she was now sprinting down the Victoria Embankment wasn’t lost on her as she waved down the first black cab she could find, clambering wearily in and sending them to The Royal London Hospital. Doctor Marcos still hadn’t checked her emails or voicemails, and the calls were still going through to the annoying bloody voice that stated that ‘blah blah blah number’ wasn’t available right now.

  The least she could have done was make a funny answerphone message.

  Out of the car, DC Davey now started reluctantly running again, her frizzy ginger hair blowing out in the wind as she pushed her glasses back up her nose. She’d been here several times over the last couple of days, so unlike Declan on his first time there, Davey knew the quickest and exact route to Ward 4F, entering through the Stepney Way entrance, running past the Air Ambulance kiosk and through the double doors on the far side. Here she ran up some stairs and took another right
to the elevator, already out of breath, running up to it, yelling ‘hold the doors!’ as they closed and sliding into the cramped enclosure between three burley men in bomber jackets.

  The button to the fourth floor was already pressed, and she went to say nothing, but there was something off about the surrounding men, and so she pressed the button for the floor above, smiling at the man closest to her. He was close shaven, giving him a bit of a ‘spray tan Jason Statham’ look. The man to her right was dark-haired and Asian, while the man behind her, from the brief glance she’d given as she entered had looked to be the oldest of them all with peppered grey hair cropped into something similar to a buzz cut, but at the same time not. Which was lucky, because buzz cuts were really tragic.

  The button for the ACCU dinged, and the doors opened. Smiling, Davey stepped back into the elevator, allowing the men to leave, watching them as they entered the shared waiting area and walked off to the right. She held the <> button for a moment, keeping the doors open for a count of five and then, peeking around the door and seeing they were now out of sight, she slipped out of the elevator and moved quickly across to the main door, letting them walk across the bridge corridor and through the other end’s doors before making her own move to the end. There had been a police officer there the last time she’d been there; through the double windows in the door she could see that he was still on duty, rising to his feet to confront the three men, who seemed by their postures to be quite relaxed at this, pulling out warrant cards and showing them. The police officer relaxed, and now seemed to chat happily to them, indicating to the left, and the corridor that led to Ward 4F.

  But there was still something wrong here, and once they moved on Davey entered the junction, waving her warrant card, the three men already around the corner and out of sight.

  ‘Call backup now, armed if possible,’ she whispered to the officer, turning right and entering Ward 4E. It was almost a mirror image of the other ACCU ward, running parallel with it to the doors at the other end. Running faster now, the adrenaline fuelling her legs, she shot past the confused consultants and nurses in the central area and slammed through the double doors, now in a white walled corridor that led to the stairs and the rear entrance of Ward 4F. Arriving at its double doors, she stared through the window into the central area.

  She was too late.

  As she looked through the pane of glass, she saw the three men walk into Monroe’s side room, one of them stopping and standing outside as a guard.

  She went to open the door, steeling herself for a fight she likely couldn’t win but then, a moment later, the other two men walked back out, looking around the ward, now looking confused. Davey ducked back, so that they didn’t see her and almost punched the sky in delight.

  Monroe and Doctor Marcos weren’t in there.

  She probably would have done this, if the hand hadn’t snuck around from behind and clamped over her mouth.

  ‘Shush,’ Doctor Marcos said as she pulled Davey through another set of grey double doors, entering a side room, barring the door behind her. “What are you doing here?’

  ‘There’s three men here to kill Monroe,’ DC Davey said, seeing him sitting in a wheelchair, an IV bag on a pole above his head. ‘Should he be out of bed yet? I guess you got my messages?’

  ‘No,’ Doctor Marcos said, already grabbing Monroe’s wheelchair and moving off towards the back of the room. ‘To both questions.’ They were in a sterile-looking storeroom, which looked very much like a kitchen in a school or college. Davey assumed it was where the meals for the forty odd ACCU patients were made.

  ‘How many?’ Monroe asked, his voice dry and raspy. ‘Out there?’

  ‘Three,’ Davey replied. ‘But they looked military. Or something.’

  ‘Something?’

  ‘I think they had warrant cards,’ Davey explained, opening a door so that Doctor Marcos could wheel Monroe through, closing it and barring it behind her. ‘The officer on duty seemed to be okay with them.’

  ‘Everyone these days has a bloody warrant card,’ Monroe muttered. ‘How did you know about this?’

  ‘DS Kapoor,’ Davey said. ‘There was an explosion at a pub. Some guy drove off, the car was connected to Rattlestone and there was a written order that DI Walsh saw that said to kill you.’ She paused. ‘How did you know, if you didn’t get any of the messages?’

  ‘Billy and that DI Frost came to visit,’ Monroe explained. ‘All smiles, said they were going to catch my attacker. I told them I couldn’t remember anything. Thing is, I remembered everything, including the fact that it was Frost, or whatever his bloody name is that attacked me.’

  There was a hammering on a door back from where they had started.

  ‘They’ve worked out where we are,’ Doctor Marcos shifted the wheelchair as they started running down another corridor, this time heading through what looked like a radiology waiting room.

  ‘Great, more running,’ DC Davey breathed before starting after them.

  Every day, Nasir Gill took his lunch at 1pm, and made his way to a new location in London to take photos. They weren’t for his personal collections and they weren’t for the newspapers, but they were a solid if small additional income for him. Nasir took dozens of photos of places, of people, people in places, it didn’t matter. Twenty, thirty in a go and then, in the afternoon he’d edit them, pick the best five or six and upload them to stock footage sites. There was good money in those these days. More so than working as a photographer for a newspaper.

  He hadn’t been to work today, but still he spent his lunch in One New Change, a small but affluent shopping centre to the east of St Pauls Cathedral; and from his perch on the first-floor balcony he could see the people entering and exiting; a mixture of tourists and city workers on their lunch.

  People with money.

  He snapped a few images, looking around for something new to shoot. He tried not to take closeups of people as they always had to sign image waivers, and likeness rights were an absolute pain. He liked to find alternative ways to take the images, ones that showed the people while not showing the people. He’d done the same yesterday when he’d taken some artistic shots of Brompton Cemetery. He expected some good paydays from those. People always used cemeteries in their blogs and articles.

  Looking through the viewfinder rather than staring at the screen on the back of his Canon, he stopped, zooming in as he focused on the entrance of the shopping centre. Two men in bomber jackets were entering, looking around for someone. Nasir snapped off a couple more shots and then turned to leave, only to find Declan standing in front of him.

  ‘How—‘ Nasir started, but Declan grabbed him by the arm, pulling him to a side pillar.

  ‘People are after you,’ Declan explained. ‘They had your location written down. Lucky for you, I got here first.’ He looked over the balcony, down at the men who now stood on the escalators, moving up to their floor. ‘Just about, anyway. Come on.’

  Moving quickly, Declan and Nasir made their way through the lunchtime crowds, stepping onto the escalators to the upper floor.

  ‘What’s the rush?’ Nasir asked. Declan looked to him, surprised.

  ‘You didn’t hear about Kendis?’ he asked in surprise.

  ‘I’ve been off the grid,’ Nasir explained. ‘I haven’t heard anything.’

  ‘They murdered her.’ Declan pulled Nasir into a shop entranceway as he watched the escalator.

  ‘Oh.’ Nasir seemed either stunned or nonplussed by this. Declan looked at him for a moment.

  ‘You knew,’ he hissed.

  ‘I didn’t—‘ Nasir started to protest, but Declan rammed him against the door window.

  ‘I used to work for the Military Police,’ he explained, pulling out his warrant card and waving it to a concerned shop assistant through the window. ‘I hunted down and interrogated a lot of suspects. Over the years, I got a kind of sixth sense for liars.’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean!’ Nasir cried out.

&
nbsp; ‘You were a friend of Kendis, but when I said she was dead, you didn’t react.’

  ‘Shock!’

  ‘Also, you didn’t ask how she died,’ Declan continued. ‘People can’t help themselves, especially with people they knew. They have this morbid curiosity. Unless they’ve seen the news, and they know the story.’

  He paused.

  ‘The message said take out. But they weren’t killing you, were they? They were extracting you.’ His forearm resting against Nasir’s throat pushed harder.

  ‘How long have you worked for Rattlestone?’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about!’ Nasir pleaded. ‘I was brought in by Kendis!’

  ‘Did you deliver the letter to her house?’ Declan asked. ‘The call to action sheet? Her neighbour seems to think so.’

  Nasir just stared silently at Declan.

  ‘The photo of me at the entrance, the one that’s all over the Internet,’ Declan continued. ‘You took it, didn’t you?’

  Nasir nodded.

  ‘What did Kendis do after meeting us?’ Declan hissed. ‘Did she find the source? Did she go to the cemetery again?’

  Nasir was trembling now. ‘I have a family,’ he whispered.

  ‘I have a family!’ Declan snapped back.

  ‘You should have thought about that when you did what you did with her!’ Nasir almost shouted. Declan went to reply but forced himself to relax. He wanted nothing more than to punch Nasir’s face through the glass, but that wouldn’t get them anywhere.

  ‘Who’s the source?’

  Nasir looked away, as if deciding whether to say. Declan pushed harder with his forearm.

  ‘Who’s the source?’