Hunter Hunted

by Jack Gatland

  As Frost watched, each of the supposed detainees revealed their hands, all having been uncuffed while in the van.

  Frost laughed, looking back to Billy.

  ‘All this time?’ he asked. Billy nodded.

  ‘From the start,’ he replied. ‘Anjli and me, we’d decided to use secret codes in case anything went wrong. She wouldn’t let me use Belgrade, but Judas was a good one.’ He pulled out his phone. ‘I’ve recorded every conversation you, me, Sutcliffe ever had. I’ve placed tracker apps in your phones and know exactly where you were each minute of each day, as well as any burner phones you’ve called during that time. Like, for example, that I know you went into the apartment after I left. So when we have time to listen to it, we’ll hear every single moment of what happened in there, courtesy of your phone’s microphone.’

  Frost thought for a moment and then physically slumped, as if finally beaten, the baton dropping out of his hand.

  But, before anyone could say anything, he brought up the silenced pistol in the other hand, aiming it point blank at Billy as he fired.

  Declan was the closest and had been moving before Frost had. He knew Frost wouldn’t go quietly, had watched the trigger hand clench and unclench the grip of the gun, and had intended to push Billy out of the way before Frost fired. However, he was a moment too late and, as Frost fired he’d only moved in front of Billy, blocking the view, the bullet slamming into Declan’s shoulder, spinning him around and sending him to the ground as the Armed Response officers fired their carbines at Frost, hitting him centre mass, sending him already dead to the floor.

  Doctor Marcos was the first to Declan, checking his shoulder.

  ‘It’s gone right through,’ she said. ‘Lucky bastard.’

  ‘I don’t feel lucky,’ Declan groaned.

  ‘So what now,’ Anjli asked. ‘Is Declan cleared yet?’

  Bradbury shook his head. ‘We have a confession and proof that Walsh didn’t attack his DCI, but we still have the fact that he clandestinely met with a potential terrorist, and still could have been connected to her murder, a fact that, with the potential alternatives for the murderer all dead causes a bit of an upset.’

  ‘They’re not all dead, sir,’ Billy replied, already working his way through Frost’s phone. ‘Sutcliffe made calls to Gladwell on a burner phone, the same number that sent a message to Frost, demanding that he gain a password from Declan. We have the message here, along with quite a few others.’

  ‘What do we know about this number?’ Monroe asked.

  ‘We’re getting data on where it’s been over the last few days,’ Billy replied. ‘We’ll know in an hour everywhere it went.’

  ‘And we know Gladwell named Rattlestone back at the beginning, and held their secrets,’ Declan groaned as they helped him up, holding his shoulder while the officers pulled out a medical pack from the truck. ‘He knows I changed the combination. He’ll know that I’m after him. He’ll try to change the narrative again. And there’s only one person left he can frame.’

  Doctor Marcos was now working on his shoulder with the kit as she spoke. ‘Charles Baker.’

  Bradbury considered this. ‘So, what do you want to do about it?’ he asked. Declan forced a smile, but it turned into a wince as Doctor Marcos worked on his shoulder.

  ‘I’d like to—Jesus, woman!—I’d like to be the one that brings him in,’ he replied. ‘For Kendis. And besides, it’s a bit of a ritual now, me saving Charles Baker.’

  Bradbury looked to the others. ‘I can’t in good faith let this man, injured and still suspected of terrorism, go after an elected Parliamentary Official,’ he said. ‘Unless one of you vouches for him?’

  Anjli, Billy, Bullman and Monroe all stepped forward as one.

  ‘They attacked our Unit,’ Monroe said. ‘We all want him.’

  ‘Well,’ Bradbury smiled. ‘You’d better go find him, then.’

  32

  D E C L A N W A L S H

  Charles Baker was pacing around his desk when Malcolm Gladwell returned to his office.

  ‘What the hell do you want now?’ Gladwell asked, looking around, seeing that the office was empty. ‘Do you want people to think we’re complicit? Stop bloody calling my office to get me to meet with you! Christ, we’ve spoken more today than we have since the last election!’

  ‘The press are hounding me!’ Charles snapped back. ‘The news about Laurie and Will’s deaths is out now. I need to divert it away from me.’

  Gladwell paused. ‘Jesus,’ he muttered. ‘You’re falling apart. Get a grip.’

  ‘Look, all I need is some help with the story I’m saying,’ Charles added. ‘That’s it.’

  Gladwell sat in the chair opposite Charles, looking up at the ceiling as he let out a frustrated sigh. ‘Pour me a drink then,’ he said. ‘Let’s work it out.’

  Charles pulled a bottle of expensive brandy out of his bottom drawer, pouring the amber liquid into two small tumblers. Passing one over to Gladwell, he sat back down, sipping at his drink.

  ‘Give me the issues,’ Gladwell said.

  ‘Balkans,’ Charles offered.

  ‘Simple. You tell them that Will did it,’ Gladwell replied. ‘Thought he could gain influence in Rattlestone, told no one, allowed our offices to fight with one another.’

  ‘Did he though?’ Charles asked. Gladwell almost spluttered his brandy.

  ‘Who cares if he did or not?’ he snapped. ‘He’s dead!’

  Charles mulled over the idea, eventually nodding.

  ‘Taylor.’

  ‘Terrorist.’

  ‘Come on, Malcolm—‘

  ‘That’s what we stick to!’ Gladwell exclaimed, almost rising from his chair in anger. ‘Look, your man Harrison created the hatchet file on her with Rattlestone resources. That might come out to bite us, but if it does? We claim it was on him. If it doesn’t? Then we keep the narrative. Even if she wasn’t, she actively began this by speaking to Donna.’

  ‘And the claims that Donna didn’t kill herself?’ Charles spoke softer now, calmer, watching Gladwell as he replied.

  ‘Are nothing but claims,’ Gladwell leaned forwards in his chair, bringing his voice down to match. ‘Look, I had a falling out with Donna that day, and so did Will. She wanted to come clean, go to the press. I felt bad; having you push for the Leadership was my idea. The extra press was because of that, and the Taylor woman turned her brain around. I’m sorry it ended the way it did.’

  ‘Did you kill Taylor?’ Charles asked.

  ‘Of course not!’ Gladwell decried. ‘Will did it! He told me!’

  ‘When?’

  Gladwell shifted in his chair. ‘We spoke yesterday.’

  ‘And the attack on DCI Monroe? Was that Will too?’

  Gladwell sat still now, observing Charles.

  ‘This feels more like an interrogation than an ideas exercise,’ he intoned, looking around. ‘Is there something I should know?’

  ‘Yeah, probably,’ Charles slumped back in his chair, turning to a door leading out of the back of his office.

  ‘You might as well come in now,’ he said, his voice raised.

  Malcolm Gladwell rose as the back door opened and Declan, his right arm in a sling, entered through the door, Monroe following in behind him. ‘What the hell is this?’ he asked.

  ‘It’s time to end this,’ Charles replied, looking back to the desk. ‘These detectives have some questions for you.’

  ‘I won’t answer anything without my brief present,’ Gladwell snapped back. Declan shrugged, nodding.

  ‘I guessed you’d say that, so let me instead tell you some things,’ he suggested. ‘How’s that?’

  As Gladwell reluctantly sat back in the chair, Declan walked into the room now, leaning against the wall as he looked at him.

  ‘I knew Kendis since we were kids,’ he started. ‘So understand that I’m not going to say that it’s nothing personal. It’s incredibly personal.’

  Gladwell nodded. ‘I wondered why Fros
t hadn’t replied to me,’ he said. ‘He was always a wild card. Going off on his own—‘

  ‘Frost, or whatever his name is? He’s dead, laddie,’ Monroe interjected. ’So I’d shut up if I was you.’

  ‘You can’t speak like that to an elected official!’ Gladwell looked for support, but Charles Baker was still staring down at his desk.

  ‘Let me tell you a story,’ Declan began. ‘Ten years ago you create Rattlestone. Even name it after a street where one of your family died. Nice touch. You build up some nice contracts, create a fake board, all of that.’

  ‘Hearsay.’

  ‘I have files in a mausoleum safe that say differently,’ Declan replied.

  ‘So there you are, living the life, skimming some nice defence contracts, and then the Balkans incident happens,’ Monroe continued. ‘You pass the blame onto other departments, but it’s swept under the rug and Rattlestone makes a nice hefty chunk of coin. Over thirty pieces of silver, even, considering you climbed over the dead to get it.’

  ‘But here’s the problem,’ Declan took over. ’Now we’re a few years on. You’re in the Star Chamber, Baker there is newly admitted, you’ve got a chance to really do something here, but people are complacent. Will Harrison is using Rattlestone as his stepladder to greatness, and that’s pissing you off. Francine Peace is using it as her personal security and there’s nothing you can do and Charlie there is taking substantial payments for ‘lectures’.’

  ‘I’m confused,’ Gladwell smiled. ‘You’re saying that I’m the moral one here?’

  ‘It looks it,’ Monroe nodded, now sitting against Charles’ desk. ‘But then the shite hits the fan. Literally. The Davies murder comes out. We learn Pearce has been blackmailing Baker. He has a son, now murdered. Terrible affair. And from that a journalist, one that was in the Balkans, who saw the betrayal first hand starts digging.’

  ‘First, she thinks it’s Baker, so she aims at him, finding Donna’s name on some documents. She pressures her, hoping to gain a source, but Donna doesn’t do that. She tells you what she’s learned.’

  ‘Donna spoke to me, Will and Charles that day.’

  ‘True, and all of you told her to ignore Kendis,’ Declan continued. ‘But that night she’s found dead.’

  ‘I didn’t kill her,’ Gladwell protested.

  Declan shrugged. ‘We’ll never know,’ he replied. ‘And besides, that’s only the start. At this point Laurie Hooper, Donna’s PA, gets involved. She’s Donna’s confidante, she knows that something smells here. And she contacts Kendis as an anonymous source. Meanwhile, you each go into protection mode. Harrison creates this fake legend, informing Charles that Kendis is a terrorist sympathiser. Charles, grieving and desperate to focus blame on someone, accepts it as truth. He utilises a government department, maybe one he has connections with through the Star Chamber to get it out there. To ‘flick the switch’, turn on the light, reveal this dissident. But Will Harrison starts his own campaign, sending a text to Frost, telling him to kill DCI Monroe, dressed as me.’

  ‘I never knew about this,’ Charles replied. ‘I swear.’

  ‘King John never knew he was being played by Sir Hiss in the Disney film, either,’ Declan muttered, looking back to Gladwell. ‘You didn’t know any of this because you were planning your own political assassination of Harrison and Baker. You started an affair with Laurie, convincing her you were the only one that believed her. On the night of Monroe’s attack, you went with her to a meeting at The Horse and Guard with Kendis, ensuring that by the end, Kendis believed that you, not Laurie, was the whistle-blower. Maybe you told Laurie that it’d be more believable from an MP; I don’t know. What I do know is that the following day you met with Kendis in St John’s Park, playing the part perfectly.’

  ‘And how do you know this?’ Gladwell asked. ‘I mean, I’m not saying I didn’t; I felt I had a duty to bring a full transparency—‘

  ‘Shut up!’ Declan shouted, his face filled with anger. ‘Enough with the lies! I know because you brought in one of your assets, Nasir Gill. He followed Kendis for you, taking photos. It’s how I know you met her. But you had to explain why you needed him to do this, you had to make him think that Francine Pearce was involved, and in the end he had to be taken out before he realised the truth.’

  Gladwell sat silently now. Declan took a deep breath, gathering his composure. Monroe, seeing this, continued.

  ‘Personally, I believe you wanted to remove Harrison, maybe even Baker there. Being seen as the man who learned that one of his own colleagues, a man that he had once championed for Leadership had done such a terrible thing, using a force created for good… Nice PR there. And you’d have shown how they’d followed you too, taken photos that showed you to be a target as well.’

  Still no response from Gladwell, now staring balefully at the two detectives.

  ‘But here it goes off the rails,’ Declan, calm again continued. ‘I think Kendis took something, maybe your key to get into Brompton. She doesn’t trust you, you see. And she sneaks in once it’s closed and goes to have a sniff around. Unaware to her, she sets off your motion alarm. It’s three miles to the cemetery from your house. A cab could get you there in ten minutes.’

  ‘I was at home all night,’ Gladwell replied. ‘You can check my phone records.’

  ‘Oh, we did,’ Monroe smiled. ‘Not your normal phone though; we looked at the burner phone you used to speak to Sutcliffe and Frost with. You thought that one was safe. And so you went to Brompton for about 8pm, according to the cell tower data. The same time that Kendis is believed to have been murdered.’

  ‘I went into your mausoleum,’ Declan added. ‘There’s blood on the floor and also on a broken vase, shards of which I’m sure will match the ones found in Kendis’ head. Also, there are scorch marks on the wall, made from a circular taser, the same marks found on her body.’

  Gladwell leapt up. ‘Conjecture! This is a farce! Will Harrison could easily have killed her there! And he had the taser in his hand when he died!’

  ‘And the letter opener that killed her in his chest, too,’ Monroe countered. ‘Yes, we’re aware of that, laddie. And that was a problem. How did the weapon that killed Kendis, a particular weapon that left a rare, easily identifiable residue arrive wedged between his ribs? That was tough until we realised a couple of things.’

  ‘First, although Will bought the item, he gifted it to you,’ Declan chimed in. ‘You even claimed it.’

  ‘I don’t recall this,’ Gladwell replied, Po faced. ‘My people would have done it, and Will probably lied to them.’

  Declan pulled out his phone. ‘And how did Laurie Hooper get it?’

  ‘From the crime report I read, she found it in a box on his sideboard or something,’ Gladwell commented, on stabler ground now. ‘Which shows that Will had both weapons and most likely killed Kendis Taylor.’ He smiled now, a humourless one that didn’t quite reach his eyes.

  ‘If only the dead could speak,’ he said.

  ‘But they can,’ Declan said, pressing play on his phone. Through the speaker, voices could be heard.

  Frost’s voice: Well, well. Hello there. What do we have here?

  Gladwell: What the hell are you doing here?

  Frost: I saw her enter. I was coming to see if I could help Mister Harrison. That seems a bit late, though.

  Gladwell: You’re Frost, right? You work for him?

  Frost: Well, I worked for him. Now that looks a little sketchy. What exactly are you doing here, Mister Gladwell?

  Gladwell: It’s not what it looks like.

  Frost: Are you sure? Because it looks like you’re repeatedly tasering a dead woman.

  Gladwell: What I’m doing is fixing a problem. And if you help me, I’ll be a better benefactor to you than he ever was.

  Frost: I’m listening. What do you need?

  Gladwell: Take this box and put it on the sideboard. Make sure the receipt is visible. And then wipe this down and stick it in his hand—

&nbs
p; Declan turned off the recording.

  ‘We recorded everything Frost did for the last twenty-four hours,’ he explained.

  ‘Frost’s dead. You already told me,’ Gladwell, his voice now rising with fear, looked from face to face as he replied. ‘This won’t stand up in a court of law.’

  ‘No, but we don’t need it to,’ Declan replied. ‘You wiped the knife down, but forgot to wipe the box. We know you had it. And we know that ten minutes after arriving at the cemetery, your phone makes its way back to Page Street momentarily before moving back to the mausoleum.’ Declan moved closer now, his hands clenching.

  ‘You tasered her. She fell, unconscious, bleeding from the head. You then left her, unconscious and locked in a tomb as you went back to your apartment, found an item that could be blamed on Will Harrison and then returned, stabbing her in the chest.’ His voice was breaking now, the emotion raw. ‘You then dumped the body near Harrison’s tomb. But you didn’t expect him to place his own men, including Frost, into the investigation and you panicked. You needed to create a patsy, and so you groomed Laurie into killing Harrison with the same letter opener.’ He grabbed Gladwell by the jacket lapels, pulling the scared man close now. ‘I shouldn’t arrest you! I should kill you!’

  ‘Fun story, but only that,’ Gladwell tried to sneer. ‘I never had a relationship with Laurie Hooper. You can’t prove—‘

  ‘I have the footage from The Horse and Guard,’ Declan replied. ‘You were so busy trying to blow it up, you never checked if they backed onto the cloud.’ He released his grip, letting Gladwell fall back to the chair.

  ‘I might not prove all this, but you’ll damn well lose all this,’ he hissed. ‘And the Balkans file in your safe will send you away for the deaths of innocent soldiers.’ He looked to the main door.

  ‘Get this traitorous bastard out of here,’ he shouted.

  Anjli and Billy entered now, handcuffs at the ready. Gladwell, horrified, looked at Charles.

  ‘You set me up?’ he exclaimed. Charles shrugged.

  ‘I made a deal,’ he replied, standing now, watching as Monroe, Anjli and Billy led the now handcuffed and protesting Malcolm Gladwell out of the office, and into the corridors of power. They wouldn’t walk him through the major areas, but the press would hear. They’d locate him as he left. He’d be front page news within the hour.