by Tony Kent
‘Yeah, I remember. But that was when we were chasing Wisdom Penfold. When we thought Derek was a potential target. Once Penfold was ruled out the protection was stood down.’
Michael felt the warmth of his body disappear.
‘You mean there’s no one keeping a watch on Derek?’
‘No. Not now we’ve ruled Penfold out. Why would there be?’
Michael felt himself lose focus for just a moment. His rational mind was trying to keep him on track – trying to reassure him that there was no way Reid was a target – but it was losing to the vivid images of Michael’s worst fears.
He forced himself to regain his composure.
‘But what about the new suspects? The ones arrested by Blunt. Have none of them brought up Derek’s name?’
‘We’re only just starting that list. I only picked up Sarah’s message about an hour ago. So there are no new suspects right now.’
Michael shook his head at the answer. It was not what he wanted to hear.
Levy continued.
‘Michael, have you got some reason to think that Derek Reid is in danger?’
‘I . . . I don’t, no.’ Michael felt his blood pressure reduce as he heard his own answer. ‘I’ve just got a bad feeling, that’s all. I don’t know why.’
‘Do you want me to send someone round to his address? To check on him?’
‘No. No, there’s no need. I’m close by. I’ll go myself.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘I’m sure. Like I said, it’s just a feeling based on nothing.’
‘OK,’ Levy replied. ‘Then get yourself there and make yourself feel better.’
FIFTY-FOUR
Lonsdale Square was barely two miles from the Central Criminal Court. A fifteen-minute journey by car, assuming typical London traffic. Twice the time by bus. A good black cab driver could shave another five minutes from the figure by using the back streets and rat-runs learned from the four-year intensive education that was accurately nicknamed ‘The Knowledge’.
Michael hailed the first black cab that passed as he rushed from the court building and onto the street outside. It was the right decision. The driver took right and left turns to avoid the traffic, roadworks and dead-ends that blight the route. Paid by distance, he seemed eager to finish the fare and start the next.
Michael watched as the world passed by the window, every inch of it a blur. Nothing his eyes took in could shift the image in his mind. The thought of Derek Reid suffering the same fate as Longman and Blunt. It was ridiculous, he realised. But it would not go away.
The sound of Michael’s mobile phone broke through his darkest thoughts. He took the handset from his pocket and lifted it to his ear.
‘Is everything OK?’ Sarah’s voice was worried. ‘I’ve just listened to your messages.’
‘I don’t know.’ Michael could hear how tense he sounded. ‘I’m on my way to Derek’s. To make sure he’s OK.’
‘I’m sure he is,’ Sarah replied. ‘Remember what he told me. He was taking himself off the grid for a few days.’
‘Yeah, I know that. But I’m just gonna make sure for myself.’
Sarah was silent for a moment.
‘Michael, there’s something you need to know.’
The tone of Sarah’s voice sent a shiver down Michael’s spine.
‘It’s about Karl Hirst,’ she continued. ‘Whoever told you that he is still in custody was wrong. Hirst is out. He’s been out for three years.’
Michael was silent as his heart rate doubled in an instant. The adrenaline that came with it made everything else seem unreal.
‘That’s not possible,’ Michael finally said, his tone flat. ‘I made arrangements. I—’
‘It was a political release,’ Sarah interrupted. ‘A cover-up. Your guy probably couldn’t risk telling you. Not with everything else being kept so under wraps.’
Michael tried to think through what Sarah was telling him, but his mind could no longer analyse concepts like politics and cover-ups. All he could see was Karl Hirst and Derek Reid, and the atrocities one could be inflicting upon the other.
The images had awoken the ‘other’ Michael. The less civilised, more primitive survivor he had long left behind. It was that ‘other’ Michael who had already taken charge as the cab took the first right-hand turn into Lonsdale Square.
‘I’m almost there,’ Michael said, his voice flat. ‘I have to go.’
‘Michael, please. If Derek doesn’t answer the door then promise me you won’t go inside.’
‘I can’t do that,’ Michael replied. ‘If Hirst is out then he’s behind all of this. And that means Derek’s in danger.’
‘But what if you’re right?’ Sarah’s voice was becoming frantic. ‘What if it is Hirst? What if he’s still in there?’
‘Then he won’t leave that house alive.’ Michael disconnected and turned to the taxi driver. ‘Stop here.’
The cab stopped abruptly. Michael stepped out, threw a twenty-pound note through the open window and began to run.
Reid’s home was halfway along the left-hand side of the square. Not visible from where the cab had stopped. The greenery of the private garden around which the tall townhouses were built saw to that. It was an obstruction that would last only a few steps.
Michael’s eyes stayed fixed ahead as he ran, not blinking in the intense sunlight. In just moments he saw the front of the house, carefully constructed to match the surrounding homes. Rebuilt after an ordeal Michael had thought would be his worst experience in his former home.
Except the worst was perhaps still to come.
It took a few moments to see that the front door was open, revealed by the growing angle as he moved closer. The sight made Michael speed up. Only one thought on his mind.
Hirst.
Michael’s fear had passed, replaced by a focused determination to find and to harm whoever had targeted Derek Reid. That was what drove Michael now.
If Hirst is inside, Hirst will pay.
Michael’s speed somehow increased as he grew closer. Fast enough that, as he reached the house, he passed through the doorway clumsily, his shoulder colliding with the hallway wall as he banked left. The impact slowed him but it did not stop him.
If only it had.
The door that separated Reid’s hallway from his lounge was open, giving a clear view of the room’s front half and revealing what Michael had feared the most, visible in all its dreadful glory.
A sight that brought Michael to his knees.
FIFTY-FIVE
‘Drink this.’
Sarah’s shaking hand placed a crystal glass on the worktop of Derek Reid’s kitchen island. Inches from Michael’s right hand. The glass was half-filled. Irish whiskey. Two doubles, at least. Reid had not been a whiskey man; he preferred grape over grain. But what he had been was an excellent host, and so he always had a supply on hand for his friend.
Sarah had watched Reid pour countless times. She knew where he kept the strong stuff.
‘Thanks.’ Michael’s voice was soft. The voice of a man bereft.
Sarah wiped a tear from her own eye as she watched Michael drink. It was not his first glass of the day. It would not be his last.
She moved away without meeting Michael’s eye. She did not want to look at him. Did not want to see his devastation. Reid’s death alone was hard to take; Sarah had genuinely loved the man. Combined with Michael’s undisguised pain, it became more than Sarah could take.
Worse still, though, was the thought that would not leave Sarah’s mind.
I did this. If I had just called Levy. If I had just mentioned Hirst as soon as I knew he was out.
The thought was a crushing mix of abject shame and guilt, on top of her grief. And it was a thought which she feared Michael must share.
Sarah was distracted from her own anguish by the sound of Michael placing his glass back onto the worktop. His gaze was fixed upon it, as if fascinated by the now-diminished liquid inside. Sarah knew
better. Michael had retreated into himself. Into a dark place she could not hope to understand.
She felt the tears building again, threatening to overwhelm her. She blinked them away, looking around the room for something she could focus on. And as she did so it occurred to her that this was the very room in which she and Michael had first met, almost two years ago. That night it had been Sarah who had lost someone dear to her. Her own friend and mentor.
A shitty damn coincidence, she dully reflected.
‘Have Kevin Gilligan and Seth Neil been contacted?’
Michael did not look up from the glass as he spoke.
The names meant nothing to Sarah. She was not sure the question was for her.
‘I don’t know,’ she replied, the otherwise empty room satisfying her that Michael could be speaking to no one else. ‘I don’t know who those people are.’
‘They were the two prosecuting barristers in Hirst’s trial. They could be on his list.’
‘Right, OK. Yes, Joelle saw to that from Scotland Yard. She said that the prosecutors had been contacted and that their protection officers were on-site.’
Michael did not react to Sarah’s mention of protection officers. Instead he wiped the swelling tears from his eyes and spoke again.
‘They can’t go home. None of us can. Not until Hirst is caught.’
‘I don’t understand any of this, Michael.’ Sarah’s voice began to break. The loss of Reid – the whole situation – was hard to take. But combined with the threat to their own lives? It was close to impossible. ‘Why is Hirst doing this? To Derek? To us? You guys were on his side, for Christ’s sake. You defended him.’
‘You don’t need to know, Sarah. You don’t want to know.’
‘Maybe she doesn’t.’ The distinctive voice came from the kitchen doorway. It carried the slightest accent. One Michael had barely noticed until today. ‘But I do.’
Levy strode into Reid’s kitchen. It was not the ideal place for a conversation, with his body lying cold in the next room. And she was sure it was the last place either Sarah or Michael wanted to be. But with Michael now a potential target, a house crawling with cops had seemed the safest place for the moment. At least until she could get a protection detail sorted. For now, though, her priority was to get some answers.
She took a seat at the island unit, Michael and Sarah on either side of her. The worktop between them was clear except for Michael’s glass. Levy lifted it to her nose and sniffed deeply.
‘Bushmills?’
‘No idea.’ Sarah looked to her right. Towards the bottle on the side worktop. She read the label. ‘Actually yeah. Good nose.’
‘Good guess, anyway. Do you mind if I join?’
Levy indicated to Michael’s glass as she spoke.
‘On duty?’ Sarah asked.
‘Aren’t I always?’ Levy replied, dispirited.
The death of Derek Reid was a sucker punch. It was bad enough that another innocent man was dead because she had failed to find his killer. But it was made all the worse because the same man had been under police protection until last night.
If there was ever a time I needed a drink . . .
Sarah stood up without another word and poured two more glasses.
‘I might as well join you too,’ Sarah said as she pushed a glass towards Levy.
Levy drank gratefully, welcoming the comforting burn of the whiskey, all the while aware that Michael was watching her intently.
‘Where are you moving Anne Flaherty?’ he asked abruptly, as soon as the glass was away from her lips.
Michael had no time for pleasantries. Not today. Levy could understand that. After the devastation of Derek Reid, the priority was the safety of his family.
‘We aren’t,’ Levy replied. ‘We are going to keep a protection detail in your home. For all three of you. I assumed that was right?’
‘No.’ Michael’s tone was sure. ‘Hirst can’t be underestimated. I don’t want my family kept anywhere that’s been associated with any of us before today.’
‘Michael, don’t you think—’
‘Just trust me, Sarah.’ Michael stopped the interruption midstream without a glance. He kept his eyes on Levy. ‘It has to be somewhere completely new.’
Levy nodded her assent. It was rare for her to defer to a civilian once she had decided on a course of action. But Michael had been through hell today. And in the last few hours Levy had learned a lot about Michael Devlin that she had not known before. If a man with his experience said extra precautions were needed, Levy was sure as hell going to take them.
‘Thomas.’ Levy raised her voice as she called out the name, directing it towards the kitchen door and prompting Detective Inspector Thomas Chadwick to enter the room.
‘Call the head of the protection detail at Mr Devlin and Miss Truman’s home. Tell them that they are to escort Miss Flaherty to Scotland Yard. They’re to make sure she’s comfortable. And in the meantime I want a suitable safe house sourced, for the family to occupy until this is over.’
Levy turned back to Michael.
‘Good enough?’
‘Good enough,’ Michael replied.
‘OK.’ Levy returned her attention to Chadwick. ‘Get that done as a priority, Thomas. Right now.’
‘Ma’am.’
Chadwick left without another word. The MIT chain of command in action.
‘Now.’ Levy turned her gaze back upon Michael. ‘Anne’s safe. You’re both safe. Which means we have some breathing space. So let’s use it. Who the hell is Karl Hirst to you and why did he come for Derek Reid?’
FIFTY-SIX
‘Karl Hirst is the closest thing to a pure psychopath I’ve ever seen.’
Michael was retaking his seat as he spoke, his glass again replenished with amber liquid. It was now much more than half full.
‘He was also my first real case as Derek’s pupil. A hell of an introduction to the job.’
‘I know a little of the case, Michael.’ Levy was not unprepared. ‘I had the files checked. Turns out Hirst was one of the names that came up when Longman was murdered. But he didn’t make the cut when we sifted the suspects.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because we’re undermanned and under-resourced and so we had to prioritise the most likely suspects over the less likely,’ Levy replied. ‘And key details didn’t match the MO of this case, so he didn’t make the cut. Then Blunt was killed and as far as we saw there was no connection, as Blunt hadn’t been Hirst’s lawyer.’
‘But you didn’t look at Blunt’s time with the police?’
‘We weren’t aware of that line of enquiry at that stage.’ Michael saw Levy cast a glance at Sarah. ‘And once we were? That came too late.’
‘How the hell did you not know Blunt had been a cop?’ Michael asked.
‘Same answer as before,’ Levy replied, ‘only with added incompetence. I’ve got half my team split between the Longman case and the gang-killing in Brixton, and that’s out of a team that’s only at half-capacity already. When we’re stretched that far we have to trust our officers to be on the ball. It turns out the one I put onto Blunt’s background was less than that. Blunt had no family and no friends, so no one to fill in the blanks, and the idiot DC I put on his background check didn’t go any further than “lawyer”, as for him it was the obvious conclusion.’
‘That’s a hell of a mistake,’ Michael said.
‘And don’t think it’ll go unpunished,’ Levy replied.
Michael drained a mouthful of whiskey as Levy spoke.
‘None of which really matters right now,’ he finally said. ‘Not while Hirst’s still out there. What we need to be doing is making sure that anyone else he might be targeting is safe.’
‘We’ve already done that, Michael. We have you and your family under protection, plus the other barristers in the case. We’ve even put a unit on Adam Blunt’s old detective sergeant, just in case. There’s no one else left, is there?’
Michael
did not answer immediately. His mind was too busy elsewhere. Did he need to tell Levy everything? Could Hirst really find the only other possible target? Michael did not know, and that fact answered the question for him.
‘There’s one other person,’ he finally replied. ‘The main witness at Hirst’s trial. Tina Barker.’
‘There’s another target?’ Levy exclaimed, startled and angry at the same time. ‘Why the hell haven’t you mentioned her until now, Michael? You were fast enough demanding protection for Derek Reid and telling me how to do my job when it came to Anne Flaherty. But not Tina Barker? She just slipped your mind?’
‘She didn’t slip anything,’ Michael snapped, riled by Levy’s tone and overwrought after the trauma of the day. ‘And don’t lose your temper with me. I’m doing the best I can in the circumstances.’
‘Then give me a reason to keep my temper.’ Levy met Michael’s glare, matched its intensity with her own. ‘Because right now it looks like you’ve left a potential target hanging out to dry.’
‘I didn’t mention Tina because I didn’t think she was in any danger,’ Michael replied, still rankled. ‘Christ, I still don’t. She’s been safe in witness protection for almost two decades, so I don’t see how Hirst could track her down. But you want to know everything and that’s everything!’
Levy’s eyes stayed fixed on Michael’s. Neither looked ready to back down from their confrontation. Alpha personalities rarely do.
‘How the hell is this helping anyone?’ Sarah’s voice cut through the angry silence. ‘It isn’t and it won’t. So stop this shit! Both of you!’
Michael did not respond. Levy’s suggestion – and her tone – had provoked him. On any normal day he would have risen above it, but today was as far from normal as it could get.
Levy’s blood, it seemed, had not risen so high.
‘She’s right,’ she said grudgingly. ‘I just don’t want to lose anyone else to this sick bastard. And if we’re going to achieve that then I need to know what we’re dealing with.’
Levy sat back on her stool and took a small sip from her glass.