Hunter Hunted

by Jack Gatland

  ‘I don’t know,’ Will replied, his expression completely void of any emotion. ‘Come to the office sometime and we’ll have a rummage. How does that sound?’

  ‘Thank you, sir.’ Fitzwarren turned for the door.

  ‘Well, when you hear anything more, please let me know,’ Will smiled, rising from the stool.

  ‘Of course,’ Fitzwarren walked to the door, but at it he stopped, turning back to Will.

  ‘Between us,’ he said conspiratorially. ‘Why did you give the order to attack Monroe?’

  ‘I didn’t,’ Will’s smile dropped now. ‘And if you suggest to anyone that I did, I’ll ensure you’ll never work a case again. Understood?’

  Fitzwarren nodded, his face unchanged. Almost as if he’d expected the response. ‘Of course, sir. I had to ask, to ensure I can’t be accused of bias. And sir, my family has connections to you, I believe. I’d appreciate it if you could put in a kind word for me?’

  Will nodded, escorting Fitzwarren to the door. ‘Think nothing of it,’ he said as he ushered the detective out. Closing the door behind him, he walked over to his coat rack, pulling his phone out of a jacket that hung there.

  Dialling a number, he waited.

  ‘It’s me,’ he said as he walked back into the living area. ‘I think I know who’s trying to ruin us. And I need them stopped.’

  Outside the apartment complex, Frost yawned as he sat in the driver’s seat of the black Lexus that he’d requisitioned the previous day. He’d followed Billy Fitzwarren from his house that morning, through London and had stopped here, across the road, watching him buzz for entry and enter the building. Frost knew who lived there; he knew the addresses of everyone connected to Rattlestone, and this was top of the list. Well, almost. He considered entering himself, of walking in on Fitzwarren, snapping out his baton and smacking the stupid expression off the idiot boy, but before he could decide on the best way to attack, the door opened and Billy emerged again, writing in his notebook as he passed a blonde woman that entered past him, not even paying attention to her as he did so. Frost tutted to himself.

  And he called himself a police officer.

  The woman had been Laurie Hooper. Frost had met her twice over the last year or so, she’d been Donna’s right-hand woman until the unstable bitch offed herself. Since then she’d been Charles Baker’s charity case, and the thorn in Will Harrison’s arse cheek. Frost watched Fitzwarren enter his stupid little car and for a moment considered following him. But the thought of catching Hooper and Harrison together was an opportunity for both blackmail and promotion.

  Climbing out of the car, he checked his pockets to ensure he was armed, and then walked across the road.

  Will was pacing in his living space, frantic and nervous as the doorbell went again. Glancing at the clock on the wall, Will saw that it had been literally two minutes since Fitzwarren had left. The bloody idiot had probably forgotten his way out of the building or something.

  ‘Bloody detectives,’ he said as he opened the door, facing his second visitor in as many minutes, locking eyes with them as he spoke. ‘What the hell are you doing here?’

  Laurie Hooper stood there, uncertain, tears streaming down her face.

  ‘I know you killed her,’ she said, looking around the hallway before pushing past Will and entering the living area. ‘Malcolm explained it to me.’

  ‘Killed who?’ Will observed the woman, wondering whether he should call the police, an ambulance or both. ‘Kendis Taylor?’

  ‘Donna!’ Laurie hissed. Will opened and shut his mouth at this.

  ‘You’re serious?’ he eventually said. ‘Donna Baker was a bipolar manic-depressive who realised she was married to Charles Baker! I’m stunned she didn’t off herself before!’

  The backhand from Laurie was unexpected and surprisingly forceful, and Will staggered backwards across the room, only faintly aware that the door to the apartment was still open. With luck, someone would hear this. Maybe the police officer, Fitzwarren, would return with another question.

  But nobody did.

  ‘You convinced her to kill herself!’ Laurie continued. ’Sir Hiss, that’s what they call you. The hypnotic snake in Robin Hood has nothing on you, though!’

  ‘You’re hysterical,’ Will rubbed at his cheek, aware that no matter what happened, people would see this. The mark would be public until it faded. ‘Have you taken your meds today? I ask because you’re utterly mental, so I’m guessing you take a lot.’

  ‘You killed Donna, and you killed Kendis,’ Laurie was on a roll now, her eyes bright and wide. Will wondered if she’d taken something, maybe a small amount of coke, to give her Dutch courage for the confrontation. Will almost laughed at this. ‘You killed them both because of Rattlestone.’

  ‘Well, there you’re right,’ Will clapped his hands. ‘Both of them died because of that. But tell me, how the hell was I supposed to kill Taylor?’

  Laurie reached into her pocket and pulled out what looked like a small, gunmetal blade. Will glanced down at it, his eyes widening in horror as he recognised it.

  ‘Where did you get that?’ he asked, now backing away from Laurie and the door. ‘Seriously, where did you get it?’

  ‘A friend gave it to me,’ Laurie was stalking her prey now, licking her lips as she warmed to the task at hand. ‘He told me you tried to hide it, that you were foolish to use it because it’s easy to track back to you.’

  ‘Look, I’ll admit I bought it, but not for myself,’ Will insisted. ‘I wasn’t the last to speak to Donna, either. Malcolm was. And I bought that bloody thing for—‘

  Will Harrison didn’t finish his explanation; as he stared into Laurie’s eyes, trying desperately to invoke some kind of empathy from her, she rammed the Montblanc letter opener in metal Ruthenium and plated with a black inlay into his chest.

  Holding it, as if trying to pull it out but unable to work out how, Will stared down at the letter opener, his mouth bubbling and filling with hot, sticky blood, spattering out across his shirt front as he tried to form words. But there were none to come from his lips as he slid to his knees, the blood from the wound now pooling on the surrounding carpet. He made one last, faint gurgling, keening sound, his eyes focusing onto the door behind Laurie, as if willing himself to escape, and then he slumped to the floor, his now lifeless eyes staring up at the ceiling.

  Laurie stared down at the body for a moment before spitting on it.

  ‘That was for Donna, you prick,’ she muttered.

  There was a sound behind her, a small scuff of the carpet, and Laurie turned around quickly, scared that someone had walked past the open door and seen her premeditated act.

  She saw the figure behind, her eyes widening even further with surprised recognition as the taser torch rammed into her sternum, pulsing the electricity through her and sending her twitching to the floor.

  28

  Grave Robbing

  It wasn’t the most comfortable bed he’d ever slept in but he’d had worse, and Declan managed a broken three and a half hours before finally giving up and, rubbing at his bleary eyes tried to move about in his seat to allow his cramped muscles to loosen. He peered down at his watch to see that it was almost seven thirty in the morning; already the rush hour traffic was building on the road ahead, and he could see that the gates to Brompton Cemetery were now open.

  Reaching into the back of the car, Declan pulled forward the urban backpack, opening it up and bringing out some items he’d brought with him. He needed a change of shirt, a wipe down with wet wipes and a quick spray of antiperspirant. He took a small swig of mouthwash, swilled and spat out into the gutter beside the car. Then, as freshened up as he could be, he took a mouthful of water from his bottle, grabbed out a lock pick case that he’d barely ever used, zipped the bag back up and left the car, head down, entering the cemetery.

  A man in a green jacket, obviously some kind of custodian, looked at him as he entered, so he quickly showed the Frost ID.

  ‘Cri
me scene follow up,’ he explained. The man nodded, waving him past, and Declan carried on down The Avenue, towards where Kendis had been found.

  But he didn’t go there.

  Instead, he made his way down a side road, over to a set of gravestones where, two days earlier, he’d stood with Kendis as she waved her hand around the Cemetery.

  ‘That’s the one for the Gladwells. Over there is the Harrison family.’

  Declan remembered where she had pointed, but needed a reference for it. Here, where he had last seen the longest love of his life alive, he noted the two mausoleums that she had pointed at before his vision blurred as tears filled his eyes.

  No. He couldn’t break down now. He had to carry on. He had to find her killer.

  Walking further down the path, he now picked his way through the gravestones to where her body had been found the following day. It was about a hundred yards from Will Harrison’s family plot, while only about thirty from Malcolm Gladwell’s.

  Why had she been here?

  There was still incident tape, slivers of blue and white plastic fluttering around in the morning breeze as Declan looked down to the small area of ground where, less than twenty-four hours earlier, he’d found her, placed onto her back and with her arms crossed, as in repose.

  ‘Defensive wounds on her hands and arms, bruising around her neck, as if she was throttled.’

  ‘She was arm-barred during the struggle, I think. Forearm pressed against the throat. There are taser marks on her upper chest, so I think she tried to fight whatever was happening, and then was zapped. There’s a cut to her head where she fell, struck it on something.’

  ‘They stabbed her in the chest. Small, thin blade into the lung. It would have caused an injury-related pneumothorax, a collapse of the lung itself. She would have passed out most likely, suffocated eventually.’

  Declan’s hands were clenching as he recalled Doctor Marcos’ post mortem report. There had been a cut on her head where she’d struck it. In addition, there was no blood.

  Somewhere in this cemetery, there was a place with blood.

  Declan looked to the Gladwell Mausoleum, purely because it was the closest. He once more walked his way carefully through the graves as he made his way to the eastern wall and the stone building that stood silently under a large and probably old tree. It was square, with a metal door; surrounded by railings, it looked like a tiny house.

  And then he stopped.

  There was a wire, running along the side of the mausoleum, about an inch from the lip of the roof. Slowing, Declan carefully walked around the perimeter, checking to see what this could be. As he reached the front though, he realised that something connected the wire to what looked like some kind of motion detector, maybe even a camera, like the doorbells that recorded you when you walked up to the doorstep. There was an antenna at the back, some kind of Wi-Fi extender, perhaps? Billy would know. Declan took a couple of photos of the serial number on the antenna, intending to send them across later. Either way, this looked very much like serious levels of security on a simple mausoleum.

  But why? Resurrectionists were long gone.

  Declan considered leaving the mausoleum, not alerting anyone, but he couldn’t walk away. Every nerve in his body cried out that there was something wrong here. He needed to go inside.

  Is this how Kendis had died? Had she gone inside and been seen doing so?

  Declan needed to keep his identity out of any cameras, so hunted around the base of the tree, finding a broken off branch, most likely fallen because of a storm a few days ago. Walking to the side of the mausoleum, he used the branch as a hook, yanking the wires out of the extender and then hanging the branch in them, making the act of vandalism look as if the falling branch had simply caught the wire. Then, not knowing how long he had before someone came to look, Declan jumped the railings and, with his lock pick case, started working on the door. An experienced lock picker could get through such an old lock in seconds, but Declan wasn’t that adept, and it took a good few minutes, long, worrying ones where at any point anyone could find him before he unlocked the door to the mausoleum, opening it up and with his phone’s torch as his light source, entering the dark room within.

  The mausoleum was square, a corridor on the left and two full length shelves on the right giving eight square tombstones, four on each shelf where coffins would have been placed in, headfirst. These were covered with small memorial stones, each one explaining which member of the Gladwell family lay in rest there. There were a couple of blank ones; Declan assumed these were empty, held for the next dead members of the family. They didn’t look as if they’d been touched in years.

  What did look like it’d been disturbed recently was a small table against the back wall, a wrought iron cross on top of it, and a circular mark on the surface, as if something with a circular base had been moved after years, leaving a change in colouration. Shining the torch to the floor, Declan saw shards of a ceramic bowl, shattered into pieces on the floor. And, when he looked closer, the floor, damp and mouldy, seemed darker here, as if stained with blood.

  Kendis died here.

  But why? Gladwell was her source. Had Will Harrison found her here? On the opposite wall to the tombstones Declan could see two burn marks, about an inch apart, a ragged line that looked like someone had taken a taser and scraped it along the wall.

  ‘There are taser marks on her upper chest, so I think she tried to fight whatever was happening, and then was zapped.’

  Declan fought to breathe, his chest tightening. He needed to get out, but then stopped as he looked at a tombstone inscription on the far left of the top shelf. It read

  Archibald Gladwell

  1875-1941

  Died aged 66 during the German bombing of Shoreditch 10th May 1941

  Declan stared at the inscription. He couldn’t explain it, but something felt off here. Something Billy had said about the piece of paper Kendis had held came to mind.

  ‘Totters Lane is in Shoreditch. Nothing of note, got obliterated in the war. People literally vaporised.’

  If Archie Gladwell was vaporised, how was there anything to place inside a coffin?

  Declan ran a finger around the stone; the others looked wedged in, stuck in place for years, centuries even. This however had a minimum of debris in the grooves, as if someone had removed it recently. Glancing about, Declan picked up the metal cross, noting that one end had been flattened, like a crowbar. Inserting it into the side of the tombstone, Declan levered at it, surprised to see that the stone moved out easily, and with a minimum of fuss. Taking the stone and placing it to the side, Declan stared into the coffin hole.

  There was a wrought iron safe facing him.

  It was square and old, that was for sure. There was a bronze plaque on the top of it that read

  MacNeale & Urban

  Hamilton, OH

  Declan stared at the old safe for a long moment; it looked like it had been concreted into the space, so there was no way to remove it. As well as that, it looked like an antique, and Declan wondered whether it had been installed there years before, maybe for an earlier member of the family. The one thing that caught Declan’s eye though was the dial. Most safes had a tumbler lock that used numbers to unlock the safe, spinning the dial left and right, hitting the number and then moving to the next. The MacNeale & Urban safe however didn’t have that. Instead, it had a dial that had twenty-six letters on it; this was a safe that relied on words, not numbers to open it.

  Words.

  ‘Half a day, a bomb and a pack of scrabble letters would give me the truth behind Rattlestone.’

  Declan turned to the small table. Pulling his backpack off his shoulder, Declan opened it up, removing the green felt bag, opening it up and scattering out the scrabble squares that spelled out Rattlestone. Declan rearranged the scrabble letters, stepping back as he stared at the two words facing him. Two words taken from Rattlestone’s name.

  T O T T E R S L A N E

  Ma
lcolm Gladwell had named Rattlestone after the bombing.

  Malcolm Gladwell had named Rattlestone.

  Malcolm Gladwell was the true leader of Rattlestone.

  And if Will Harrison had been trying to remove the leader, that meant he’d been taking his shot at Gladwell.

  Turning to the dial, Declan moved the first letter to T. Then left, all the way to O. Then right to T and so on, swapping direction every time he reached a letter, hearing a faint click as he did so. Finally, as he reached the final E, there was a click and the safe door eased ajar. Pulling it open, Declan looked inside. There was a metal briefcase in there, the size matching the safes interior exactly. Pulling it out, Declan placed it on the table and opened it, staring down at the files, USB sticks and photos inside.

  This was the secret history of Rattlestone. Most likely some kind of blackmail box that, if Gladwell was accused of anything would free him.

  Pulling out one folder that caught his eye, he read the cover of it: BALKAN INCURSION 2015. Opening it up, he read the first few lines and then stopped, whistling.

  He now knew who’d given up the schedule to militants; it was here in black and white. God knows what else would be in this briefcase.

  Pulling out his phone, he started taking photos of the pages. Once done, and placing the briefcase back into the safe, Declan stopped, staring at the inside of the safe door. On it, written on a piece of faded and ancient paper, were instructions from 1872 for the safe’s owner on how to change the eleven letter combination.

  Declan grinned. It seemed a shame to waste such an opportunity.

  As he closed and re-locked the safe, placing the tombstone back in place, there was a noise outside; nothing more than an old man cycling past, using the route through the cemetery as a shortcut, but it was enough to remind Declan to get out before anyone arrived to check the wires. And, exiting the mausoleum, re-locking the door with more ease than he unlocked it and climbing over the metal fence again, Declan melted back into the gravestones before anyone could see him.