Hunter Hunted by Jack Gatland (best romantic books to read .TXT) 📕

DCI Ford and she was crooked as shit, but she played the game, you know? By the book.’

Declan took a sip from his own coffee. ‘I don’t want to ask, but Monroe never told me why you ended up in the Last Chance Saloon.’ He tried to plan his words carefully. ‘Was it The Twins?’

Anjli froze as the coffee cup moved towards her mouth. The previous day, she’d finally admitted to Declan that she was in debt to Johnny and Jackie Lucas, the ‘Twins’ of East London, and in doing so had passed on information on Declan to them. Unlike DCI Ford though, who Declan had learned was in their thrall because of gambling addictions, Anjli had needed help with her mother’s breast cancer treatment. That she had offered to resign because of this had stopped Declan reporting her. There was more mileage in keeping her as a double agent.

‘Mariella Hudson,’ she replied. ‘Married woman, two kids, prick of a husband. He’d been beating on her, but he worked for some mechanic who knew The Twins, so we weren’t allowed to do anything. Orders from on high and all that.’

‘Ford?’

‘Yeah. Anyway, one day Mariella turns up in hospital. Fell down the stairs, she says. But they live in a ground-floor flat. I sniff around.’

‘Bet that went down well.’

‘That wasn’t what did it,’ Anjli actually chuckled at this. ‘I found out that she’d been beaten half to death by the prick for burning his sausages. His sausages, for god’s sake. So I popped over and kicked the living shit out of him. Claimed I was taking him in but he resisted arrest, and I broke his collarbone in two places.’

‘And that’s why they kicked you out?’

‘That’s why they kicked me out,’ Anjli nodded. ‘God, Ford was livid. She wanted me gone. Fired. Out. The Twins were getting shit, so she was getting shit. Anyway, it goes up the chain and then a week later I get a call from Monroe. We meet, he reminds me we met at Hendon and he asks me why I did what I did. I answered honestly.’

She looked to the bed, a faint half smile on her face.

‘Next day he requested my transfer. Best boss I’ve ever had,’ she said. ‘He gives me space, you know? He allows me to make my own mistakes. And in doing that, I make my own successes.’

Declan nodded. ‘Yeah, he’s good at that,’ he replied. Sighing, he leaned back in his chair.

‘He’d better get better soon,’ he muttered. ‘This is going to be a sod of a case to solve without a witness.’

‘You think Kendis was involved?’ Anjli asked, warily watching Declan. He shook his head.

‘If she was, she wasn’t there to see it,’ he admitted. ‘She… She was with me.’

‘Until when, though?’ Anjli was already running the incident’s timing through her head. ‘I mean, if he—‘

‘All night,’ Declan interrupted. ‘She was with me all night.’

There was a long, uncomfortable silence.

‘Isn’t she married?’ Anjli eventually asked. Declan nodded again.

‘It was an accident,’ he sighed. ‘We were drunk.’

Anjli considered this. ‘We were, or you were?’

‘What’s the difference?’

‘We implies that both of you had been drinking. But if she was more sober, then she could have let you drink until you passed out, and then left you. Unless you remember the entire night?’

Declan shook his head. ‘No.’

Then he shook his head again, more vehemently.

‘No.’

‘I get it,’ Anjli steepled her fingers in front of her chin as she continued. ‘You don’t want to think this. But why did Monroe have her file on his laptop?’

Declan couldn’t answer the question. Silently, he looked back to Monroe, the tubes and wires in his arms making him look like some kind of bed-ridden cyborg.

‘Don’t make me choose,’ he said as his phone buzzed. Pulling it out, he glanced at the name on the screen.

‘It’s Jess,’ he said as he rose to take the call. ‘Back in a minute.’

Walking into the central area of the ACCU, Declan answered the phone call as he walked to the exit at the end, away from the main entrance to Ward 4F and through a pair of heavy, grey double doors that led into a junction corridor and a stairway. ‘Everything okay?’

‘We saw you on the news, dad,’ Jessica Walsh’s excited voice spoke down the line. ‘People at school think you’re a rockstar right now.’

‘And that’s why you phoned me?’ Declan almost laughed at this. ‘To tell me I’m suddenly your cool dad?’

‘I didn’t go that far,’ Jess laughed. ‘But I wanted to call because I saw about Mister Monroe. Is he okay?’

Declan looked through the windows in the doors, back into the ACCU. ‘Not really, but he’s a fighter,’ he said. ‘He’ll be okay. I’m sure of it.’

‘Was it because of the book?’ Jess continued. She’d been helping Declan try to solve the murder of his father, her grandfather, and in the process she had not only worked on Declan’s crime board, but had also read Patrick Walsh’s likely edited memoirs.

‘I don’t think so,’ Declan replied. ‘But as soon as I know, I’ll come back to you. Love you.’

Disconnecting the call, Declan thought for a moment, standing alone in a hospital stairwell. Could this have been The Twins? Could The Seven Sisters have pushed for revenge? More importantly, was there someone else from Monroe’s past, someone who was in Patrick’s book that could have arrived late in the evening and taken down the already tired and battered DCI?

There was a vibration in his pocket, and Declan pulled out the other phone, the one he’d gained from Kendis earlier. It had received a single message.

Brompton Cemetery N entrance 3pm. Don’t drive. Avoid CCTV. Don’t be recognised.

Declan stared at the message in confusion. He could understand Kendis being annoyed at him for stepping out that morning without saying goodbye, but this was becoming more and more suspicious by the second.

Putting the phone back into his pocket, he forced a smile before re-entering Ward 4F. He could spend a little more time with