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

‘Just my pride being dented,’ Billy reluctantly passed the baton back to Frost. ‘I think I’ll stick to computers if that’s alright,’ he smiled sheepishly.

Frost took the baton, condensing it and replacing it up his sleeve as PC De’Geer returned in the doorway.

‘Nobody in the loft space,’ he admitted. ‘We’ve looked everywhere.’

‘We can’t have,’ Frost scanned the room now, looking at the boxes, the walls, the bookcase…

‘Maybe he didn’t come here,’ Billy replied. ‘I mean, let’s be honest. With all the subterfuge of the train to Whitby and everything, he’s hardly going to go to the first place we’d look.’

‘He would if there was something here for him,’ Frost muttered, half to himself.

‘Or maybe he got here after the police did, and it spooked him?’

‘Whatever the reason, I’m not wasting any more time here,’ Frost muttered, walking out of the room. ‘I want two officers outside watching this building until we catch this terrorist. Come on, Fitzwarren, we’ve got work to do.’

Billy reached down and picked up the other baton. ‘I’m going to keep practising,’ he said as he followed Frost out. ‘I mean, practice makes perfect, right?’

PC De’Geer took one look around and shivered.

He couldn’t explain why, but he had the uneasy feeling that he was being watched.

Shaking it off, he left the room, following the officers and detectives out of the house, closing the door behind him, and finally leaving it empty.

After a moment’s silence, the bookcase moved, sliding slowly to the side.

Declan emerged from the secret study, tiptoeing to the window, staring down at the police as they left.

He’d heard everything. Every comment made by Frost and Billy, listened while kneeling against the back of the bookcase, his ear to the wood. He knew they wouldn’t stop looking for him, especially if Frost thought he’d make a career from it.

It was time to go on the offensive.

20

Watch The Birdie

Declan walked back into the secret study, finally able to breathe. He’d heard Frost’s last commands to the officers, so he knew they would post a car outside the house, and that it’d be a terrible idea right now to stand near the windows. That said, the police had kindly left half of the lights on in the house when they left, so he wouldn’t be stumbling around in the dark.

Declan looked back to the bookcase, now half opened. He’d had plenty of time to work out his hiding strategy when the police had arrived, sliding it back into place and turning off the desk lamp, sending the room into darkness as he waited. Sitting back at the desk, Declan grabbed a large desk notepad and a pen. He needed to think fast; he didn’t know how long it would be before someone else came into the house; although that said, he hoped that the simple fact that they were sitting outside would stop any of them from returning into the building. Unless they needed the toilet, that was. Coppers always needed the toilet when on stakeout. Pushing the thought out of his head, he looked at the notepad.

There were two issues here. The first was that they had attacked Monroe, and that the attacker, DI Frost, had been trying to look as similar to Declan as he could, in order to frame him.

The second was that Kendis was onto a story that had forced her enemies to brand her a terrorist, and to kill her before she could tell people what she knew. Kendis knew Donna had been a signatory for Rattlestone, but Donna was dead. Kendis had nothing and her source, apparently Francine Pearce, wouldn’t risk blowing up any deal she was about to make for freedom.

Which led to Kendis’ death, and the problem Declan had here. They could have simply destroyed her journalistic reputation and killed any trust that people had in her with the file that had been on Monroe’s laptop. There was no need to kill her.

But someone had. Why?

A memory came to light; something that Trix had said the last time he was in this house.

‘Baker wanted Kendis to be ruined, but he didn’t want her dead. That’s not his style. He also didn’t hate Monroe enough to do that. But here’s the thing. Adding what happened to Monroe to what I was doing? It was genius, but had to be done by someone who not only knew that Rattlestone had created the file, and that Baker was having me upload it. It became a moment of opportunity, to not only go for you and the Unit, but pin this on Baker.’

Someone connected to Baker, and who had knowledge of what Rattlestone was doing.

It could be any of them.

Even Pearce had worked with Rattlestone when she was in charge of Pearce Associates. Somehow, Declan needed to speak to her.

Pulling out the burner phone Trix had given him, he opened a browser, googling Balkan attack militia convoy Kendis. Nothing came up except for articles on ethnic brawls on buses and some unconnected sites. So, Declan changed his search, narrowing down the words. Eventually he found the attack that Kendis had mentioned. A piece written by her in 2015 flashed onto the screen. Declan read through the page; it was quite pedestrian, keeping simply to the facts that a militant force had attacked a Peacekeeping convoy, and in the ensuing firefight four soldiers had been killed. A link to another article commented more on this, giving a heartfelt statement by Sir Michael Fallon, the then Secretary of State for Defence, stating that justice would prevail, while a final paragraph commented that Fallon’s department, headed up by the Minister of State for the Armed Forces, Malcolm Gladwell would investigate the matter fully, while Rattlestone Securities were tendering to take over the convoys.

There was nothing about Baker there. So, how was he involved?

After another Google search, Declan found a Parliamentary piece on some blog site from 2014 that stated that Charles Baker was the then Parliamentary Under Secretary for Defence; it was