by Jack Gatland
Copyright © 2020 by Jack Gatland
All rights reserved.
* * *
This book or parts thereof may not be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems without written permission from the author, unless for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
* * *
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, places of learning, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
Published by Hooded Man Publishing
DI Declan Walsh Books
LIQUIDATE THE PROFITS
(A short story prequel - free when you join the Reader’s Club)
LETTER FROM THE DEAD
* * *
MURDER OF ANGELS
(Coming 11th January 2021)
HUNTER HUNTED
(Coming March 2021)
WHISPER FOR THE REAPER
(Coming May 2021)
BEHIND THE WIRE
(Coming July 2021)
To Mum.
Contents
Prologue
1. Day of the Dead
2. A Second Chance
3. The Homeless And The Ambitious
4. Homecoming
5. The Last Temptation
6. The Last Chance Saloon
7. Deals And Consequences
8. The Memory Man
9. The Camera Never Lies
10. The Guilty Always Sweat
11. To The Manor Bourne
12. Priest Holes and Protests
13. No Place Like Home
14. Accident Or Emergency
15. Party Politics
16. Halls of Power
17. Gravesides and Roadsides
18. The Shakedown
19. Holy Ghosts
20. Run For Your Life
21. The Manchurian Candidates
22. Stand Off
23. Fake News
24. A Quiet Evening
25. Last Rites
26. Post Mortem
27. Against The Clock
28. Rematch
29. The Final Solution
30. The Dead Speak
Epilogue
Prologue
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Prologue
The New Year’s Eve party was in full swing as Michael Davies made his way through the ballroom, his face a mask of murderous fury.
‘Hey,’ he said as he passed one of the waiting staff; a young Indian girl in white shirt and black skirt, currently with a tray of champagne flutes balanced precariously on her hand, ‘You know my wife, right? The woman in the green dress who hired you?’
‘Sorry,’ the girl shook her head and carried on serving drinks as Michael looked around once more.
‘Well, do me a favour. If you see her, come find me. I’ll make it worth your while.’
Walking on from the girl, Michael continuously scanned the partygoers for any sign of his wife, but it was too crowded to gain any kind of view from this level. He needed height of some kind. Men in tuxedos and women in evening gowns were visible as far as the eye could see, and all of them were in his way right now. Indeed, Michael himself was wearing a tailored tuxedo that was worth most people’s salaries, his thinning hair swept to the side. He looked like James Bond, even if he didn’t currently feel like him.
Pulling at his collar, he wished he could loosen it, even for a moment. Michael wasn’t really a fan of collars, especially tight ones; a throwback from his years of political activism on the far left of the party. But apparently under Blair’s ‘New Labour’ title, Labour MPs wore tuxedos now.
That said, Michael could see that only half of the men attending the party had bothered to wear bow ties, instead preferring the newer trend of wearing black silk ties with their suits. Michael hated people who did that. Almost as much as he currently hated his wife.
Still, at least the party was going better than the previous year’s one; the looming threat of ‘Y2K’ and ‘The Millennium Bug’ had half the guests staring nervously at their phones for most of the night, while the other half loudly complained at not being invited to North Greenwich and the newly opened ‘Millennium Dome’, where they could have stood with ten thousand other people including Tony Blair and the Queen watching Mick Hucknall and The Corrs.
Personally, Michael couldn’t think of anything worse, and he was secretly overjoyed that the whole bloody thing had become an expensive albatross around Blair’s neck.
Maybe Blair didn’t come this year because Blair knew he would take the piss. Yes, that was probably it.
But secretly, Michael suspected that Blair wasn’t showing up, wasn’t taking Michael’s calls because he’d heard the rumours about Michael, and more importantly where his funding money was going from now on. And Blair was probably chewing off heads of advisors over it. Devington Industries was a major donor to the party right now; to have them pull support could create a wave of similar decisions, possibly fatal in an election year.
A man in one of these godforsaken tuxedo-tie combos staggered over to Michael, weaving his way through the crowd with what seemed to be either expert special awareness, or more likely drunken obliviousness.
‘Michael!’ he cried out as he fell against his newly found friend. ‘Excellent party! Tons of totty! Love it!’
Michael forced a smile and ever so slightly nudged the drunken man away from him. Thirty years old and with a full mane of lustrous blond hair, Charles Baker looked more like a movie star than a Member of Parliament. But a Labour MP he was, having won the Lower Denham seat from the Conservatives in the ’97 election. I
In fact, he was one of Blair’s ‘golden boys’, allegedly earmarked for top things down the line. If it wasn’t for the fact that one of those rumoured top things could be Leader of the Party and therefore possibly Prime Minister if Blair failed to unite the party before next year’s General Election, Michael would have told the hideous bore to piss off and annoy someone else.
‘Thank you, you’re so kind,’ Michael replied behind a plastered on fake smile.
Charles leaned in, rubbing some tell-tale white powder from his nose. ‘A little birdy says that this is the last of your bashes. That you’re pulling your support. Is this the case?’
Michael shrugged. ‘Depends what Blair decides the manifesto is going to be. You know, if he keeps to his promise at the conference.’
‘Aw come on, don’t be a bore!’ Charles loudly exclaimed to the room. ‘We’re in power! That’s what matters!’
‘You don’t think Socialists should have a voice?’ Michael asked, getting seriously irritated with the drunken idiot in front of him.
‘I don’t talk politics at parties like this,’ Charles mumbled, spying a young brunette across the room. ‘I talk totty. Shame they’re all stick thin though, you know? I prefer them a bit stockier. Like your sister-in-law.’
Michael tried to move away again, but even though Charles had locked onto a new, more feminine target, he seemed to be focused on currently making Michael’s night a living hell.
‘You could fund me,’ he whispered. ‘Screw Blair. We could change the narrative together.’
‘But surely if I’m as far left as you seem to think, you’re a little too Centrist for me,’ Michael replied, his tone almost mocking in nature.
&nbs
p; ‘You’d be surprised,’ Charles said, tapping the side of his cocaine covered nose. ‘I’m more a Bennite than a Blairite.’ He was referring to the elder statesman Tony Benn, who although supportive of the current Government, was critical of some of their acts; the bombing of Iraq three years earlier causing him to be very outspoken. There was talk around that he was so unimpressed with the current state of the party, that he’d be stepping down as MP at the next election.
Michael looked at Charles, trying to work out how much of this was spoken in jest, or whether drugs and alcohol, most likely supplied by one of his fellow MPs were loosening Charles Baker’s usually well locked down lips.
‘I hear you’re openly funding Shaun Donnal,’ Charles said softly.
‘Don’t believe the rumours,’ Michael replied.
‘First rule of politics, dear boy,’ Charles said, irritating Michael. He wasn’t Charles’ boy. They were the same bloody age. ‘Buy the rumour, sell the truth.’
‘You’re giving me motivational sales quotes?’
‘Same bloody thing,’ Charles tried to smile, but it came out more as a leer. ‘Anyone who thinks that politicians aren’t salesmen doesn’t understand how politics work. Anyway, I’m not sure that Shaun’s your boy. His morals are… questionable.’
‘I know exactly how moral or immoral Donnal is.’
‘Yes,’ Charles mused. ‘You probably know that better than us, right now.’
Michael forced himself to bite back his first response to this. Of course Charles knew. They all shared the same bloody office. ‘Maybe I’ll pick Andrew instead.’
‘MacIntyre? Sure, I suppose that could work,’ Charles mocked. ‘I could get him right now for you, if you want. He’s currently in the cloakroom ramming as much gak up his nose before the fireworks go off.’
Michael indicated Charles’ face. ‘You seem to have been joining him.’
Charles rubbed at his nose. ‘Oh, just keeping him loyal, that’s all. This stuff does nothing for me. I was born with a natural high.’
‘Well, we can always discuss my plans for candidate funding in the New Year,’ Michael said, looking around again as he changed the subject. ‘I don’t suppose you’ve seen Victoria, have you?’
Charles waved vaguely towards the stairs at the back end of the ballroom.
‘I think I saw her going upstairs about ten minutes back. Staring at her phone like it was about to go off. Boom!’ He made an expansive ‘explosion’ gesture with his hands, accidentally knocking into the Secretary of State for Social Security.
“Sorry, Darling,’ he slurred, placing a hand around the shoulder of his bemused new companion while waving his other hand. ‘I was talking to…'
But his words trailed off as Charles looked around to see that Michael had gone.
Michael was in fact already at the stairs, making his way up them two at a time. He wasn’t the fittest of men and there were a lot of stairs in this double height ballroom, but his anger spurred him on right now, almost barging past the security guard at the top of the stairs.
‘Sorry sir,’ the guard said. ‘Only cabinet members and major donors past here.’
Michael looked at the guard, as if examining something under his nail. He was big built, but this looked more due to the repetitive nature of pasties rather than pullups.
‘Have you seen any cabinet members here?’ he asked. ‘I mean, apart from the low level ones that nobody gives a damn about?’
The guard took a moment to look back down at the party before turning back to Michael, as if actually looking for some. ‘Well that’s as maybe, sir. But unless you’re…’
‘I’ll tell you who I am,’ Michael hissed as he leaned in closer. ‘I’m the man who paid for this whole bloody thing. You standing here? I paid for you. You work for me.’
The security guard shifted a little in his stance now, as if unsure of the steps to take next. Calming slightly, Michael looked around.
It wasn’t this poor sod’s fault that he was angry.
‘Look mate, I’m sorry for snapping. It’s been a very long day,’ he apologised. ‘I’m just hunting for my wife.’
The guard shook his head. ‘I don’t know your wife,’ he replied. ‘Maybe if you had a photo of her I could look at?’
Michael was already pulling his wallet out, opening it up, showing the guard the photo behind the small, plastic screen in it. A red haired woman, slim and pretty, laughing in a garden. An obviously happier time.
‘Her,’ Michael snapped. ‘Victoria Davies.’
The guard studied the photo, nodding. ‘Yeah, I saw her. She went past about ten minutes back,’ he said. ‘Her and a man.’
‘Which man?’ Michael was starting to anger again. The guard shook his head.
‘Don’t remember the name, sir. Think she said it was Shaun someone.’
‘Shaun Donnal?’
‘That could be it.’
Michael looked past the guard. There were a multitude of places that Shaun bloody Donnal and Vickie could have gone.
‘Did you see where they went?’ he asked. The guard nodded as he pointed to a side door.
‘The lady went to the roof,’ he replied. ‘Said she needed a smoke where nobody would see her, as the press are all outside the front and she’d told everyone she’d quit.’
‘And Shaun went with her?’
‘No, I think he returned down there.’ The guard pointed back down to the ballroom where, in the middle of the dance floor Michael could see a balding, bespectacled man in his early thirties.
Shaun Donnal. Another of Blair’s bloody Golden Boys.
‘Thank you,’ Michael said, pulling a twenty pound note out of his still open wallet and passing it to the guard. ‘Don’t let any of the guests past until I return, right?’
‘But the toilets—’
‘They can piss in the car park.’ Michael’s voice was filled with venom as he stormed past the guard and towards the side door leading to the roof. Nothing today had gone as planned. He’d agreed with Labour HQ back in September, during the party conference that he would hold the Labour New Year’s party here at Devington House. Blair himself had confirmed this, but Prescott, bloody Prescott had convinced him that perhaps seeing their representatives living it up like Toffs wouldn’t go down well with the proletariat and so Blair, Brown and all of their little hangers on had all decided to hold a far smaller event at Number 10 instead, with that guitarist from Oasis and some of the cast of Eastenders.
Bloody Eastenders of all things.
Michael hated Prescott too. That was a man who was pissed off that Michael was planning a movement within the Labour Party that wouldn’t have him in it.
He pulled out his phone, dialling a number on it.
‘Sir?’ The voice of Francine Pearce, his PA spoke through the speaker.
‘Where are you?’ he asked.
‘To be honest, I’m not sure,’ Francine admitted. ‘There are so many bloody rooms here.’
‘When did you get here? I’ve not seen you.’
‘Well maybe because that’s because you’ve been too busy shouting at the kitchen staff and not looking,’ Francine’s voice was terse. ‘I was here before the guests turned up. What’s happened now?’
‘She’s missing again,’ Michael hissed. ‘Find her before I do, because I’m gonna bloody well kill her.’ And before Francine could reply he disconnected the call, slamming the phone into his jacket and continuing towards the roof.
If Michael had paused and actually looked around, he’d admit that it wasn’t all bad; there were a large amount of Labour MPs and donors here, but the problem he had was that none of the important ones had attended. And with rumours flying of a General Election in less than five months and Labour doing badly in the polls, Michael had wanted to at least be seen to have the ear of the Prime Minister before Blair was booted out of office by the Tories, and Michael had to start the same damn dance all over again, building someone new to face William sodding Hague of all
people.
Instead, he was hunting around the building for his adulterous slut of a wife.
Victoria Davies was standing on the square, flat roof of the Eastern Wing of Devington House, staring down over the parapet edge at the multitude of expensive cars parked alongside each other on the gravel drive. Stunningly beautiful in an emerald green dress, her long red hair complimenting both the clothing and the expensive emerald necklace that she wore around her neck, she looked no older than twenty; although she was rapidly approaching thirty, a landmark that filled her with dread.
It was a cold, clear night but she didn’t feel it as she kept glancing repeatedly down to the phone in her hand. A Nokia 8890, it was a slim plastic brick, a sliding cover hiding the buttons of the keypad. She had wanted one ever since she’d seen Keanu Reeves use one in The Matrix. Sometimes she’d even look out of the window, wondering whether she was in the Matrix right now; wondering if there was any way to escape this mess that she’d gotten herself into.
She looked down at the phone again. The text message was still there.
I know everything. Meet me where we made the pact.
Victoria had assumed the message meant the roof; it was where Shaun had first expressed his love for her. But now she was starting to worry that she’d picked the wrong location. There had been so many stolen moments in so many locations.
The door to the stairs opened, and Victoria turned to see Michael emerge, letting the door slam behind him as he walked slowly towards her.