Judas Horse

by Lynda La Plante

  Jack gave Ridley time to process his confession. Jack saw the look in Ridley’s eyes and knew that he’d lost his alliance. Ridley had figured out that Jack must have taken the stolen bracelet from the evidence store, and that he had no option but to confess now, because now he needed someone to put it back for him.

  Ridley then asked the one question Jack didn’t want to answer. ‘Would you have told me if you didn’t have to?’

  Jack couldn’t say ‘yes’, as that would be an obvious lie. And he couldn’t say ‘no’, as that would be insulting and disrespectful.

  ‘My intention wasn’t to involve you at all, sir. My intention was to insinuate myself into De Voe’s life quickly because I didn’t have time for anything else.’

  Ridley sat back in his chair and shook his head, containing his frustration as best he could. ‘Where’s the bracelet now?’

  Jack tried to lean down to open his bedside locker, but his back instantly seized up and he flinched in pain. Ridley pulled the locker door open, fished out the rucksack and started to unzip the main compartment. ‘Front pocket!’ Jack said quickly. Ridley’s hands moved to the front pocket. He took out the diamond bracelet, stuffed the rucksack back into the bedside locker and stood up.

  ‘Sir . . . thank you. I never meant to put you in this position. I hope you know that.’

  ‘I do know that, yes.’ Ridley closed his fist around the bracelet. ‘Because I know that when you took this, you never actually gave me a second’s thought. And that’s a problem, Jack. Each time you step beyond the boundaries that guide us as police officers, you come back a little less like that man from Totnes who I employed two years ago.’

  Jack, thinking he’d just made the biggest mistake of his career and now had nothing left to lose, spoke without his usual careful filter.

  ‘Good. I don’t want to be him. I’m better than him. Right from the off, you gave me shitty jobs, forcing me to realise that I wanted more. Then you made me fight for it. So, no, I’m not the man you employed two years ago, sir. But you have to take some of the blame for that. Or maybe the credit?’

  Ridley remained statue-like, giving nothing away and Jack was certain that he’d blown it. There was no way Ridley was going to cover up the theft.

  So Jack did the only thing he could: he hit below the belt. ‘If you decide to get rid of me, sir, please make sure I’m sacked. Don’t get me moved. If I’m going to continue to be a policeman, I don’t want to be part of anyone else’s team.’

  Ridley’s eyes smiled beneath his furrowed brow. ‘Well . . . considering that moving teams would require a recommendation from me, it wouldn’t be an option, would it?’

  Ridley slid the diamond bracelet into his trouser pocket and left.

  CHAPTER 27

  Jack had relished his week’s medical leave, although he’d driven Maggie demented by not resting anywhere near as much as he should have. On his second day home, she caught him finally building his office desk. Two hours earlier, he’d said he was going to lie down as his head was aching, and when she’d gone to wake him for lunch, he’d actually been in the spare room fixing the integral lock onto the desk drawer. As she gently chastised him, he tucked the trailing strap from the small black rucksack into the drawer, locked it, and added the tiny key to his keyring. He then kissed Maggie and she joined him for his long-overdue lie down.

  Within minutes of lying down, Jack was snoring into the back of Maggie’s neck. This deep sleep was something he currently managed to achieve very quickly. For these glorious few days, which Maggie knew would end as soon as he returned to work, Jack had slept soundly. Even the phone suddenly ringing didn’t wake him.

  Maggie picked up the phone and Regina instantly started a long, barely comprehensible story about the colour of Princess’s baby-grow. ‘I went to the shop on the ground floor, but they only had white and I wanted yellow. I knew there was a charity shop just two streets away – this was yesterday, did I say that? Anyway, I wanted a different colour, because I wanted a change, something brighter and less clinical, you know? Less “hospital”. And I like yellow. So, yesterday I never opened the bedside cabinet because that’s just full of white babygrows and I wanted yellow. I didn’t open it all day yesterday, you see.’ Maggie didn’t see at all, but she said ‘yes’ and this prompted Regina to explain: ‘I only opened it this morning.’ Regina began to sob.

  When Regina has first started babbling incoherently, Maggie had assumed the worst. But now she had no clue what to think. She couldn’t make head nor tail of anything Regina had said so far. All she could do was wait and see if anything eventually made sense.

  Regina regained her composure, took a deep breath and carried on. ‘I opened the bedside cabinet to get the little collection tin so I could put it back on the nurses’ station . . . they’ve been collecting for Princess, did you know that? I feel terrible begging, but I opened the cabinet to get the tin out and there it was . . . a carrier bag full of . . . I’ve never even seen one fifty-pound note, never mind this many! There’s a note that says “For Princess”. You should see it, Maggie. You should see what someone’s done for our little girl!’

  *

  Jack’s week of desk duty was only nine-to-five, designed to ease him back in, so by 5.30 each evening, he was back home with his feet up.

  Jack and Maggie sat in old garden chairs on their wonky patio. They were pushed together so that Maggie was close enough to sit curled up with her head on Jack’s shoulder.

  The chairs had spent most of their lives on Charlie’s allotment, so had definitely seen better days, Jack swore he could smell Charlie’s aftershave on them, so couldn’t bring himself to throw them away.

  Hannah was lying on a blanket by their feet, as Penny finally planted the flowers that would clearly define the edges of Hannah’s outdoor playground. ‘We all need clear boundaries,’ Penny insisted. ‘They make us feel safe. And Hannah will always know that she’s safe here.’

  Jack’s £40 T-shirt felt soft against Maggie’s cheek. She had returned the corduroy trousers and the Hackett’s shoes, but Jack had asked if he could keep the Paul Smith shirt – he’d begun to take more of an interest in his clothes, since discovering the feeling of authority they could give him. He was still the same man – just a slightly better-packaged version.

  Maggie checked the wound that would soon become a scar on Jack’s arm. She often did this, almost as a comfort, reminding her how lucky she was to still have the man she loved so much. ‘Scars burn easily in the sun,’ she said. Maggie’s mind was now miles away, in St Lucia. On honeymoon. ‘I’ll buy you a Factor 50 sun-stick.’

  Maggie lifted her head and told Jack that she loved him. ‘No matter what,’ she added.

  Jack suddenly felt like he was being given permission to confess his sins, but he wasn’t sure he was quite ready.

  ‘I know the money was from you.’ Maggie stared into Jack’s eyes and read his thoughts. ‘Actually, I didn’t know for sure that it was from you. But the look in your eyes now says that I’m right. And then there’s the honeymoon we didn’t think we could afford until next year.’

  Jack averted his eyes, before Maggie got too deep inside his head and saw something she wasn’t supposed to.

  ‘Me and you, Jack, the doctor and the policeman . . . we see so much go wrong in the lives of so many people. We know what loss and pain and unfairness looks like. We know that bad people can buy lives they don’t deserve, whilst good people go hungry. Life, Jack . . . can be a fucker.’ Maggie began to cry. ‘What you did for Regina and Mario was beautiful.’ Jack quickly wrapped Maggie in his arms and squeezed her tight. She whispered into his ear, ‘Whatever you did, you never need to worry that I’ll ask. I won’t. I love you and I trust you.’ Maggie pulled back from Jack, so that she could see his face. She ran her fingers down the deep furrow between his tearful eyes. ‘This is him. This is Harry.’ Her fingers lovingly moved to Jack’s mouth and her touch made him smile. ‘This is Charlie.
’ Maggie took Jack’s face in her hands and kissed him. When she pulled away, a tear had rolled down his cheek. ‘Never worry that I don’t know who you are, Jack Warr. I see you both. And I love you both.’

  Hannah’s tiny hand grabbed Jack’s bare foot and she looked up at him with a bright, smiling face. ‘Well . . .’ Penny looked exhausted. ‘That’ll do for today.’ Penny scooped Hannah up. ‘She’s a bit ripe. I’ll change her.’ Penny looked up just as Jack tried to subtly wipe the tear from his cheek. ‘My boy . . .’ Penny said as she kissed his forehead and held back tears of her own. ‘I’m so glad you’re safe. There’s no prouder mum, or dad anywhere in the world.’ Then she went inside the house with Hannah.

  Jack and Maggie sat together on the rickety garden chairs in perfect, contented silence. She was once again resting her head on his shoulder. ‘I know you see me, Mags. For who I am. Who I need to be. You’re the only person in the world who does.’

  ‘I feel . . .’ Maggie chose her words carefully. ‘Not all the time, but every now and then, I feel the danger . . . of who you are. But that’s OK, because we both know that life’s not black and white. But if you ever bring danger to this door, Jack . . .’

  Jack tightened his grip on her, and Maggie knew that she didn’t need to finish her sentence. ‘I swear on my life. I’ll never do anything to hurt you. Or make you ashamed of me. Or make you doubt me.’

  Jack felt her cheek lift on his shoulder as she smiled, and he could feel her cool tears soaking into his sleeve.

  She laced her fingers into his and their perfect, contented silence returned.

  Acknowledgements

  I would like to thank all the staff at my publisher, Bonnier Books UK, with special thanks to Kate Parkin, Bill Massey, Stephen Dumughn, Ben Willis, Francesca Russell, Blake Brooks, Nick Stearn and Ruth Logan.

  Thank you to my team at La Plante Global, Nigel Stoneman, Tory MacDonald and Cass Sutherland. Special thanks to Debbie Owen and Mick Randall, for all their help with Judas Horse.

  Thanks also to the team at Allen and Unwin in Australia and New Zealand, and in South Africa, to all the staff at Jonathan Ball.

  In Ireland, thanks to Simon Hess and Declan Heeney for all their hard work selling and publicising my books.

  To all the booksellers and retailers, reviewers and bloggers who stock, read, review and promote my books, thank you again for your support, time and words.

  Finally, thank you to my readers, who keep in touch via my social media and who I have met on Facebook Live in the past year. I hope you’ve enjoyed our chats as much as I have.

  About the Author

  Lynda La Plante was born in Liverpool. She trained for the stage at RADA and worked with the National Theatre and RSC before becoming a television actress. She then turned to writing and made her breakthrough with the phenomenally successful TV series Widows. She has written over thirty international novels, all of which have been bestsellers, and is the creator of the Anna Travis, Lorraine Page and Trial and Retribution series. Her original script for the much-acclaimed Prime Suspect won awards from BAFTA, Emmy, British Broadcasting and Royal Television Society, as well as the 1993 Edgar Allan Poe Award.

  Lynda is one of only three screenwriters to have been made an honorary fellow of the British Film Institute and was awarded the BAFTA Dennis Potter Best Writer Award in 2000. In 2008, she was awarded a CBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List for services to Literature, Drama and Charity.

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  Dear Reader,

  Thank you very much for picking up Judas Horse, the second book in my new series featuring DC Jack Warr. I hope you enjoyed reading the book as much as I enjoyed writing it.

  Jack is a character who has really taken hold of my imagination and I have loved returning to him in this new instalment in the series. He is a complex character who is still figuring out exactly who he wants to be. In Judas Horse, he is learning to navigate the challenges of new fatherhood alongside his career in the police force. This also allowed me to explore Jack’s feelings about his own parents, and how he is shaped by both his biological father, Harry Rawlins, and Charlie Warr, the kind-hearted man who raised him.

  If you enjoyed Judas Horse, then please do keep an eye out for news about the next book in the series, which will be coming soon. And in the meantime, later this year sees the publication of the next book in my Jane Tennison series, Unholy Murder, in which Jane must lift the lid on the most chilling murder case of her career to date . . .

  The first six novels in the series, Tennison, Hidden Killers, Good Friday, Murder Mile, The Dirty Dozen and Blunt Force are all available in paperback, ebook and audio now. I’ve been so pleased by the response I’ve had from the amany readers who have been curious about the beginnings of Jane’s police career. It’s been great fun for me to explore how she became the woman we know in middle and later life from the Prime Suspect series.

  If you would like more information on what I’m working on, about the DC Jack Warr series or about the Jane Tennison thriller series, you can visit www.bit.ly/LyndaLaPlanteClub where you can join my Readers’ Club. It only takes a few moments to sign up, there are no catches or costs and new members will automatically receive an exclusive message from me. Zaffre will keep your data private and confidential, and it will never be passed on to a third party. We won’t spam you with loads of emails, just get in touch now and again with news about my books, and you can unsubscribe any time you want. And if you would like to get involved in a wider conversation about my books, please do review Judas Horse on Amazon, on Goodreads, on any other e-store, on your own blog and social media accounts, or talk about it with friends, family or reader groups! Sharing your thoughts helps other readers, and I always enjoy hearing about what people experience from my writing.

  With many thanks again for reading Judas Horse, and I hope you’ll return for the next in the series.

  With my very best wishes,

  Lynda

  This is a work of fiction. Names, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Copyright © La Plante Global Limited, 2021

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  Typeset by IDSUK (Data Connection) Ltd, UK.

  Cover design by Bonnier Books UK

  Cover photographs © Jaroslaw Blaminsky/Trevillion Images (glass); Shutterstock.com

  First published in the United States of America in 2021 by Zaffre

  This ebook edition published in the United States of America in 2021 by Zaffre

  Zaffre is an imprint of Bonnier Books UK

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  Digital ISBN: 978-1-8387-7442-4

  Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-83873-7441-7

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