Takedown by Heather Atkinson (latest books to read txt) 📕

bad apples had been missed and they were slowly corrupting the barrel without anyone realising? He couldn’t take the chance. There was no choice, he had to look into it.

He exited his office and stepped into the main CID office where the majority of his detectives were gathered together, gabbling into phones, furiously typing at their computers or discussing the various cases they were investigating. They were all hard-working and good detectives. None of them were corrupt, he was sure of it.

“Sir,” said DS Talbot, a very capable and intelligent officer.

“Not now,” he said, waving her aside.

“Sir, are you all right?” she asked him as he walked by her.

“Fine,” he murmured vaguely. “I’ve just got…something to do.”

With that he strode straight out of CID, not sure where he was headed but knowing he needed to get away from his colleagues until he’d gathered himself together.

He walked through the station, staring mistrustfully at every officer that passed him by, still unable to believe any of them were traitors. The investigation into the corruption in this station had been extremely thorough and they’d been confident every rotten apple had been binned. All Marlow’s corrupt officers were now serving time behind bars. Even Superintendent Gallagher had been given seven years for his role in hiding evidence, setting up Vance and protecting Marlow. He’d heard Gallagher wasn’t coping very well with life behind bars. He’d been replaced by a superintendent from Manchester called Oakes whose role was to keep an eye out for any more corruption and he was very good at his job. Even the more senior officers were wary of him, knowing he was there to root out corruption and incompetence and they were still in the bad books for not noticing the rot in the first place. The station ran much more efficiently since Oakes had joined them and Matthew couldn’t imagine anyone like Marlow or his merry band hiding in the station again with him in charge. He couldn’t even go to Oakes with this information as that would mean telling him where it had come from and he couldn’t very well say he was in collusion with the Chambers family as he’d be prosecuted for corruption too. He must keep this to himself, do his own quiet little investigation and if he unearthed any proof then he would take it to the superintendent.

There was another possibility – that Faith had created this theory thanks to the trauma Marlow had imprinted upon her. She wasn’t usually the hysterical type but she had been through an ordeal that he knew she hadn’t even begun to get over. Vance had said the crew who’d robbed the vault used police equipment and techniques but that didn’t mean they were police officers and he could understand Vance leaping to that conclusion when he’d had two years of his life stolen by corrupt officers.

Matthew exited the station, crossed the car park and passed through the gate leading into the industrial park packed with big name shops and supermarkets. It was the same route he’d taken to escape Marlow’s men when they’d been after him and he thought it ironic he was taking it now, as though he was trying to escape something he didn’t want to think about.

A thought occurred to him - what if whoever did over the Chambers family weren’t serving police officers but ex-police officers? Now that would make much more sense. They would have the training necessary to carry off that robbery and they would know how to get hold of and operate an hydraulic door breacher. God he hoped that was the case. He couldn’t imagine anyone in his station being stupid enough to pull off a stunt like that when they were still being so closely watched by counter-corruption, unless whoever did it knew the robbery wouldn’t be reported. It wasn’t like the Chambers family could file a complaint but it would still be a very risky move. It made more sense that this was ex-police officers, but who? None of Marlow’s lot were still on the outside. He pondered talking to his grasses. Faith had spoken to everyone they could think of but they couldn’t say they were looking for their stolen drugs because that would damage their reputations. He however could ask his informants about a large amount of drugs flooding the market and they wouldn’t know what he was referring to.

After buying himself a drink and a sandwich from a supermarket, he headed straight to his car. He would speak to his informants about the drugs and hopefully they might know something about Dillon Enfield too.

“This place is great,” smiled Caleb.

They’d collected the keys for Eclectic from the estate agent and now he was standing in the middle of the main dancefloor with his siblings, surveying his new domain. The club wasn’t as big as Pulse but it was still one of the most popular nightspots in Blackpool, split into two levels. The ground floor was full-on loud music, dancing and shots, mainly frequented by the younger crowd and stag and hen parties who wanted to get blind drunk and make a lot of noise. The first floor was quieter and played more sedate music where customers could go to drink and chat or cosy up together in large comfortable booths. Here was also housed the VIP room, which was frequented by quite a few celebrity clients.

“So this bit’s for the plebs,” said Kevin. “And upstairs are the reality TV twats and crap footballers.”

“I see you’ve got a lot of hope for this place then,” said Vance.

“It’s all right I suppose. It’s not as awesome as Pulse. Look, it’s got that tacky eighties neon lighting.”

“That’s because it has eighties themed nights,” said Caleb.

“Why? Eighties music was proper crap.”

“A lot of people like it, especially the hen parties and they’re the most popular nights, so we will be