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

sooner had he gone before Malcolm Gladwell entered Brompton Cemetery like a man possessed. Wide eyed and desperate, he ran to his Mausoleum, pulling out his key as he did so. His day had taken a turn for the worse when he received a notification that his motion alarm had been broken. Looking at the building as he arrived, however, he could see that this was apparently because a branch had fallen from the tree above and pulled out the wire. On a normal day, Gladwell might have accepted this, but today was different. He stared at the large metal key in his hand, wondering whether Kendis had copied the key that she’d stolen from him, the one he now had back in his hand; but with the cemetery opening earlier now, anyone could have entered.

Entering the mausoleum now, Gladwell paused. Someone had moved the cross on the table. He wasn’t sure, and the last time he’d been in here he’d been distracted, but it was angled away from the door, as if replaced haphazardly. Grabbing it, he levered the tombstone away, revealing the antique safe behind it.

His father had told him about the safe one night years earlier, explaining the story behind it, and how his father, Gladwell’s grandfather, had positioned the safe in the mausoleum. And, in a world where digital technology was constantly hacked, the thought of an analogue hideaway was something Gladwell could really get behind.

The safe was closed, and for a moment Gladwell believed he was just being paranoid, that everything was okay, however the voice in the back of his head told him he should check just in case, and so he twisted the dial; first to the T, then the O…

When he finished, he realised the door hadn’t opened. Worried that he’d made a mistake during the eleven letter code, he tried again. And a third time. And then he fell to his knees, pulling at his hair.

Someone had changed the combination.

Which meant that someone had opened the safe which meant that someone had learned everything.

Turning and walking silently out of the mausoleum, he pulled out his phone, dialling a number. With Kendis and Harrison dead and Baker scared of his own shadow, there was only one person who could have done this.

He needed to get ahead of this, and fast.

29

CSI: Chelsea

Billy hadn’t expected to return to Will Harrison’s apartment so quickly.

‘You look like you’ve seen a ghost,’ Frost said with a frown, pulling on his white PPE suit as he did so. ‘Let me guess. You’ve never really been to a solid, gory crime scene before?’

‘It’s not that at all. It’s that I was just here,’ Billy replied, pulling on his own PPE suit, zipping it up as he stared through the door at the bodies of Will Harrison and Laurie Hooper. He had been in that very room speaking to Harrison less than two hours earlier.

‘What do we have?’ Frost asked a forensics officer, a tall, elderly looking man as they walked past. ‘Give us the basics.’

The officer paused, pulling off his mask. Billy didn’t recognise him, but then the only forensics he really knew were on the run or back at Temple Inn.

‘Name?’ he asked.

‘DI Frost, this is DC Fitzwarren.’ Frost seemed unimpressed at being called out, and had been miserable as sin since they’d arrived. ’And you?’

The forensics officer equally didn’t look impressed at the DI in front of him as he pulled his hood off, running a gloved hand through his short, white hair. Billy went to comment on this, but then stopped; he didn’t think that commentating that the gloves were now compromised was the right thing to do in this scenario.

‘Brightman, Forensic Scene Investigator,’ he replied. ‘I don’t have a fancy rank like you, Detective Inspector. What I do have is years of experience on crime scenes, so giving ‘basics’, as you asked for isn’t really within my remit.’

‘We’re happy for more detailed explanations,’ Billy quickly interjected. Brightman sniffed at this.

‘We think that Mrs Hooper here visited and then fought with Mister Harrison, in the process stabbing him mortally in the chest with a letter opener, but not before he’d tasered her several times with the customised torch.’ He showed the taser torch, still in Harrison’s dead hand. ‘Probably got a few shots in on her before he died, enough to cause her an immense coronary spasm in the process.’

‘A what?’ Frost looked to Billy.

‘A massive heart attack,’ the younger man replied. ‘Basically Laurie Hooper killed Will Harrison, but he killed her too.’ He looked down at the bodies. ‘Which morbidly is good for us, I suppose.’

‘How in God’s name is this good for us?’ Frost exclaimed. Billy pointed at the letter opener, still in Will Harrison’s chest.

‘If she’d escaped alive, we’d most likely be blaming DI Walsh for this as well,’ he said. ‘I’d stake my salary on betting that’s a Montblanc letter opener with a metal Ruthenium finish. DC Davey sent me the reports for Kendis Taylor’s death and she believed that was the murder weapon.’

‘DC Davey’s an idiot,’ snapped Frost. ‘She couldn’t solve a crime scene if we gave her the answers.’ He stared down at the bodies. ‘So say for a moment that the same blade killed Kendis Taylor. How did Laurie Hooper get it?’

‘She might not have arrived with it,’ Brightman spoke up now, standing by the sideboard. ‘There’s a Montblanc box here, and a receipt from a year ago. Bought with a card, but I’m pretty sure the number will match one Will Harrison owns.’

‘Leave the detective work to the detectives, okay?’ Frost was visibly agitated. Billy watched him.

‘Did you know either of the victims, sir?’ Billy asked. Frost went to snap back, but stopped himself.

‘I’ve worked with Harrison before,’ he admitted softly. ‘When I was undercover, of course.’

‘Sorry for your loss,’ Billy replied, leaning over the bodies again. ‘So Laurie visits Will, which could match considering that last night she was saved from being questioned