by Jack Gatland
Billy gave Declan back his dad’s iMac, now reunited with its hard drive, but the only thing on it was the image of a receipt, the one that Billy had deduced the location of Ilse Müller on. Declan had shivered at that; he’d had faith in his team to come through, as they always came through, but for the first time he realised just how close they came to failing.
How close Jess was to dying for his own mistakes.
Lizzie was right to keep her from him.
Later the same day, Declan had taken a sledgehammer to the fake wall in his dad’s study, making sure not to re-tear his shoulder wound, and by the end of the day he’d removed a chunk of framing wood and plasterboard, and beginning a long route to removing the secrets and lies that had ended Patrick Walsh’s life. He didn’t know what to do with all the rubble though, so he placed it in his Audi and drove to the Dew Drop Inn; the contractors were still there, working on the place, but didn’t mind Declan dumping a few more pieces into their skip. There was no crime scene tape, as according to DCI Freeman, there’d been no crime scene there. And therefore forensics hadn’t bothered to visit.
As Declan walked back to his car, he stopped, noticing something glinting on the gravel floor. Walking over to it, he saw it was the coin that he’d thrown, that Karl had been too busy watching to realise that it was nothing more than a lure. The number 1 faced upwards on the surface of the coin.
Heads.
Declan almost laughed at this. Even without the fight, Karl had still lost and, no longer rigged, the coin toss had fallen in Declan’s favour. Picking it off the ground, he placed it in his pocket as he continued to the Audi, climbing in. His phone, left on the passenger seat, was flashing. Picking it up, he saw he had a new message from DCI Freeman.
As he read it, he smiled.
Billy was sitting in a booth at the Eight Club when Rufus Harrington arrived, all smiles.
‘William!’ he extorted as he sat facing his new hire. ‘I see you’re in your suit and tie? Not needed, old chum. We’re far more casual in the office.’
‘Thanks for meeting with me,’ Billy replied. ‘I wanted to say this face to face, as you’ve been so kind.’
Harrington leaned back, staring at the ceiling in mock despair.
‘Dear God, you’ve returned home, haven’t you?’ he said. ‘That’s why you’re in your best Savile Row.’
Billy smiled. ‘I’m a copper, Rufus,’ he replied. ‘I just needed to be reminded of it.’
‘You sure you’re making the right decision?’ Rufus looked back at Billy now. ‘You’re losing a lot of money, of stock options here.’
Billy smiled. ‘It was never about the money,’ he said. ‘Thanks for the opportunity.’
‘Hey, it’s always there, for when you realise this was a big mistake,’ Rufus grinned as Billy rose from the booth and walked to the entrance. ‘But at least this way I know my parking fines can be squashed.’
‘Dream on,’ Billy laughed as he left, looking at his watch.
He was late for work.
When the Temple Inn offices had first been offered to the City Police, they were part of a reciprocal deal for police security. The deal had been long forgotten now but the premises, grandfathered into the deeds meant that in this maze of barrister chambers and dinner halls, of courtyards and of pillared walkways there was a part of a small red bricked building off King’s Bench Walk that were City Police offices. Used as nothing more than file storage for the last fifteen years, it had been left ‘as is’, meaning there were no upgrades to the networks or the wiring, and the furniture was two decades out of date.
It was home.
But recently it had been renovated as The City Police, realising that they had a good thing here had renegotiated the deal with Temple Inn, or to give the official title, The Honourable Society of the Inner Temple, one of the four ‘Inns of Court’ in London, four professional associations for Barristers and Judges in the city, and an area of land set up by the Knights Templar almost a thousand years earlier.
The Knights Templar were gone now, but the Last Chance Saloon hadn’t, yet.
Declan had parked his Audi in its usual spot and stared up at the red bricked building. From the outside, nothing had changed, but the last time he’d entered it, he’d been handcuffed, and the last time he exited it had been via the roof. In part, showing these flaws in the structure had been one reason for the refurbishment; he just hoped that things hadn’t changed too much.
He’d also expected not to return here, but the message from Freeman had been pretty convincing; Declan and the team, working on their own initiative, had solved a vicious murder enquiry, and were due for a commendation. There was no mention of the fact that Karl escaped, as Whitehall most likely knew the full story, anyway.
Taking a deep breath, Declan entered the building. Before, when he walked in, he found himself in a narrow corridor, with forensics to the side; now he found himself in a police waiting room, a desk sergeant, a sturdy-looking woman in her fifties, grey hair pulled into a bun, watching him from behind a glass windowed counter. He didn’t recognise her, but she obviously knew him as she buzzed the door to the side, which opened.
‘This is new,’ he said, opening it.
‘Your ID will open that once you receive it,’ the desk sergeant replied. ‘There’ll be a sergeant on shift here during working hours. The rest of the time, it’s keys and passes only.’ With that she looked back to her paper, introductions seemingly not needed. Shrugging, and not keen to continue the conversation himself, Declan continued down the corridor. To the side, he could see three rooms, one of which had the door open, revealing a morgue table.
At least some things don’t change.
Walking up the stairs, Declan found himself on familiar ground now; the offices were still open plan, but the briefing room was double the size, the interview room now missing. Besides this, there was a new office next door to Monroe’s one; a larger corner office, too. Declan had heard that the department was gaining a Detective Superintendent, and he wondered how Monroe felt about this, considering the Last Chance Saloon was his baby.
There were still desks in the middle of the office, but now there was a section of wall that seemed to be built out of monitors. This had to be the new and updated cyber crime section; Declan hoped that they’d at least updated the fibre optics and the cables, as Billy had always been complaining about the lag. Declan also wondered who they’d convinced to join them to run it, with Billy now gone.
‘Good, isn’t it?’ Monroe said as he emerged from the briefing room. ‘Feels like a real department.’
‘Where’s the interview room?’ Declan asked. Monroe pointed upwards.
‘Next floor up,’ he said. ‘They knocked through to that staircase you found, and now we have the floors above us too.’ They walked towards the briefing room, which currently had the blinds pulled. ‘Top floor is just storage, but we’ve got interview rooms and a couple of shift cots upstairs, in case we’re pulling all-nighters.’ He grinned. ‘No more sleeping on sofas.’
‘Any news on the new Guv?’ Declan asked, hastily adding ‘of course, you’ll always be the Guv, Guv.’
‘All good things to those who wait,’ Monroe pointed at the briefing room door. ‘Come on, we started a few minutes back so you haven’t missed much.’
‘There’s a desk sergeant downstairs, didn’t seem to want to talk to me,’ Declan replied. ‘Are we gaining uniforms?’
‘A few,’ Monroe winked. Declan, unsure what that meant, walked into the briefing room and smiled.
DS Anjli Kapoor sat at a desk, chatting to DC William ‘Billy’ Fitzwarren. Behind them, currently arguing whether Harley Davidson’s were better than Triumphs, were PCs Joanna Davey and Morten De’Geer. By the wall, eating a cornetto and grinning at Declan was Doctor Marcos.
‘Find a seat, laddie, there you go,’ Monroe pointed at a spare chair beside a table at the front. ‘You can sit at the teacher’s pet table.’
Refusing to comme
nt on this, Declan sat down as Monroe faced the team.
‘So, new day, new start,’ he said. ‘And now mister Walsh had graced us with his presence, we can begin.’ He cleared his throat, and Declan could see that he was nervous.
‘We made some big enemies, and also some influential friends,’ he started. ‘And because of that, they’ve given us a larger scope and remit, including new uniforms,’ he nodded to PC De’Geer who grinned at everyone, ‘and a new boss.’
He stopped, and looked to the door where Detective Superintendent Sophie Bullman entered, a small, faint smile on her face, as if concerned what people would say.
‘Before anyone says I was parachuted in, or that I took someone’s job,’ she said, pointedly looking at Monroe, ‘he didn’t want it. Some bollocks about Captain Kirk and being in space. Personally, I think we should put DCI Monroe out to pasture, or shoot him.’
‘Hear hear,’ Doctor Marcos raised her cornetto.
‘Been tried before,’ Monroe smiled as Bullman continued.
‘Apparently, the devious bastard convinced his superiors that the one person he didn’t want to command here was me, so here you go. I know all of you, although some of you are lesser known, and I’ve seen what you can do. But that was yesterday, and all the bosses care about is tomorrow. So have a look around our new offices, make use of the new kitchen upstairs before Doctor Marcos eats all the ice creams, and settle in. If I’ve learned anything about this unit the last three times I’ve worked with you, it’s that normality is more a guideline than choice.’
‘Welcome to the Last Chance Saloon, Guv,’ Anjli grinned, looking back to De’Geer. ‘To both of you.’
There was a smattering of applause, and with the meeting now over, Declan rose and walked to Monroe.
‘You okay with this?’ he asked.
‘I wouldn’t have worked well with the suits,’ Monroe replied with a faint smile. ‘Bullman is a far more political animal than I am. She’ll let us work on the cases, and I won’t have to deal with all the touchy feely bullshit anymore. And I won’t have to deal with explaining your screwups to Chief Superintendent Bradbury anymore.’
Declan laughed as he walked into the office, looking around. For a split second, it reminded him of Section D’s modern style office, and so he walked over to Billy, currently still connecting devices in his new setup.
‘Greatest IT team in London, they said,’ he moaned as he reconnected a USB-C connector. ‘Idiots have already screwed up the network. It’ll take me all day to fix it.’ He looked to Declan and smiled.
‘Thanks, sir. For getting me involved in Hurley. For reminding me why I do this.’
‘You never need to thank me again,’ Declan replied. ‘I owe all of you.’
‘How’s Jess?’
‘I don’t know,’ Declan stated mournfully. ‘Her mum has banned her from contacting me. All I know is that she’s home and safe, and I can deal with that.’ He pulled out a USB drive, the small one that Tom Marlowe had given him a week earlier.
‘But as you claim you owe me, I could do with a favour,’ he explained, passing it across. ‘Off the books.’
‘Christ, I haven’t even settled in!’ Billy lamented.
‘Just check it over, ensure there're no viruses or anything,’ Declan replied. ‘Wintergreen wanted me to have it, and I’m untrusting of gifts these days.’
Billy nodded, taking the drive, and Declan walked over to De’Geer, currently standing at a bit of a loss in the middle of the office.
‘Transferred or sent?’ he asked. De’Geer looked towards the offices of Monroe and Bullman.
‘Requested,’ he replied. ‘Seems someone here felt I was being under-used in Maidenhead.’
‘Hell of a commute, though,’ Declan said. ‘Trust me on that one.’
‘Not on a motorcycle,’ De’Geer chuckled. ‘You should try it.’
He looked up as PC Davey waved him over, their bike argument unfinished. ‘Sir,’ he said as he left Declan alone once more.
He walked over to his new desk, seeing that his items, packed away by the contractors, were beside the keyboard, waiting for him to unpack. On the top was the British Bobby Funko that he’d had on his desk since Tottenham North; a gift from Jess almost a year earlier. Pulling it out, he saw that in the packing and subsequent movement, it had been broken and hastily fixed, a long broken scar running across the face where the two parts had been glued back together. Holding it up in his hand, he stared hard at it.
I hope to Christ this isn’t an omen.
And then, placing it on his desk, he unpacked his things, preparing for work.
He looked up, watching everyone else hard at work doing the same thing. Anjli was placing a photo of her mum on a desk, Billy still struggling with network wires, even Monroe was finding the right placement for his yucca plant, all getting the little things out of the way, all knowing that they had to be organised and ready for anything as quick as they could.
Because you never knew what the next case would bring at the Last Chance Saloon.
DI Walsh and the team of the Last Chance
Saloon will return in their next thriller
* * *
Pre-order now
* * *
And read on for a sneak preview…
Prologue
Thirty years after the books had been first released, the Magpie series of children’s detective stories were almost forgotten in the contemporary book market. Set at the start of the nineties, the novels were simple and quick to follow; Agatha Christie for the pre-teen generation, a series of adventures with titles like The Adventure of the Drowning Duchess, The Adventure of the Missing Prince and The Adventure of the Broken Clock, all stories that showed how a small and clever team of teenage sleuths could defeat grown up criminals, with detective skills and gold old fashioned gumption. More contemporary than their Enid Blyton related peers, the Magpie series however had one major difference to the others.
They were based on the truth.
The official story was as old as the novels themselves; that author Reginald Troughton had learned of the Magpies and their crime solving through a report in a local newspaper, and had written their adventures as novels, never expecting the interest that they would generate. In fact, he wrote eight novels in total involving the adventures of Tommy, Luke, Tessa, Jane and Daniel, and their group mascot and crime solving spaniel Dexter the dog, finishing when the Magpies themselves disbanded after a distinguished teenage crime solving career.
The books had sold on for a few years more, but in the same way that many other book franchises suffered they were overtaken by new trends, new technology, and eventually faded into the realms of nostalgia.
But the fans never forgot them. And, as the years passed, and the Magpies moved on with their lives, the fans still supported them.
Well, some more than others.
Thomas Williams, or as he was known back then, Tommy wasn’t a teenage sleuth anymore. Now he was in his mid-forties but still looked a good few years younger, his brown hair short and styled with the slightest hint of bottle-dye, a Ted Baker suit over a pale Eton shirt, his tan brogues shined to perfection and his stubble carefully curated. He looked like a cross between a television presenter and a self-help guru. Which, actually, were two of the many roles he’d played over the years.
Today however he was there, not as Thomas, but as Tommy once more. The fourth floor of Waterstones’ Piccadilly branch had been converted from bookstore to event venue for the night, with folding chairs in rows facing a clearing at the front where a lectern had been hastily placed, a table to the side piled high with newly released editions of the Magpies books. Beside that a sign had been tacked onto the wall, the same poster that had been strategically positioned around the store; a photo of the Magpies in their prime, above a line of text that read
MEET THOMAS WILLIAMS - 'TOMMY' FROM THE MAGPIES! TODAY, 4th FLOOR, 7PM!
Thomas hated the photo; he hated that Daniel had got to si
t beside Jane for it, while he had to place a brotherly arm around his ‘cousin’, Luke, who was being an absolute prick to him at the time.
Nothing changes.
He looked across the floor at the chairs from his hidden ‘backstage’ area, which was in actuality a small, closed off space made from repositioned bookshelves. It wasn’t exactly a West End dressing room, but he’d had worse.
The audience was primarily female; it always was for these events. Thomas assumed it was the same for teenage heartthrobs when they attended events years later, but he had never been a heartthrob in any sense of the word, and these women only wanted him now because he was a reminder of their youth—
He stopped scanning the audience as he spied a lone woman in her forties, her blonde hair pulled back. Slim and still as stunningly attractive as she was as a teenager, Thomas grinned on seeing her, and straightened his jacket.
Ah, Jane. You couldn’t stay away from me.
Now, Thomas Williams had an audience that he gave a damn about.
A small, stocky woman in her late thirties walked to the lectern, tapping the microphone on it to check that it was working, silencing the audience’s conversations as they turned to face her with expectant gazes. When he’d arrived an hour earlier, she’d told Thomas her name, and he seemed to remember that she was the manager of one floor, but there were so many managers and store owners over the years, in the end they all merged into one. He never remembered the names.
Well, only the pretty ones.
‘Thank you everyone, for attending tonight,’ she began, her face beaming with pride. ‘When I was a girl, I loved the Magpie books. I’d even dream of one day solving cases with Tommy Williams, Luke Ashton, Tess Martin, Jane Taylor, Daniel McCarthy and Dexter the dog. Anyone else do that?’
