The Choice: An absolutely gripping crime thriller you won’t be able to put down

by Jake Cross

  ‘And then what?’ Brad said. ‘Kill her right out in the open?’

  Dave was shaking his head. ‘We need to sterilise this place and get rid of the bodies. Make out somehow that Grafton fled. No one was ever here. Let’s think about this. No one knows about this place. Everyone thinks he’s in Spain. That gives us time to get rid of the bodies. We could torch the place afterwards. It won’t matter if his wife goes to the cops after that.’

  Mick let him go. ‘That wasn’t the plan—’

  ‘This slaughterhouse wasn’t the damn plan!’ Dave yelled.

  Mick pulled something from his pocket, holding it out to Dave and Brad. ‘This was the plan. And we’re sticking to it. It will work. Understand, you two?’

  Dave glared at the item in Mick’s palm. ‘Provided he didn’t go to a party five minutes after I stopped watching him. He could be surrounded by witnesses.’ That would muck up their plan entirely.

  ‘It buys time. It gives him a damn headache. That’s enough for me. So that’s the plan. Right, Dave?’

  ‘Whatever!’ Dave said, throwing up his arms like a petulant child.

  ‘Right, Brad?’ Mick asked.

  Brad didn’t speak, and he didn’t look. He was staring at the woman on the sofa. The only one who hadn’t fled. When they had burst into the house, the three dead people had been in here, very much alive and sitting on the sofa and chatting. Grafton’s wife had been upstairs, using the toilet. When Brad had gone up to get her, he’d left Dave and Mick holding their guns – a shotgun for Dave and a pistol for Mick – on the three captives. Brad could see now how it had gone down. At some point after Brad had climbed through the bathroom window in pursuit of Grafton’s wife, Mick had shot sofa woman, and the two men had fled. No way would Dave have pulled the trigger, so Mick must have taken the shotgun from him and pursued the two men. He had probably blasted the other guy first just because he was a loose end – an obstacle between Mick and his target. Grafton must have thanked his lucky stars when he heard the explosion in the tiny hallway and the guy next to him had dropped. But there were no lucky stars a few seconds later. Grafton hadn’t been shot in the back, so, trapped in the kitchen, he probably turned to face his executioner. Mick probably said something to the man before pulling the trigger. Probably smiled right at him, knowing the last laugh was his.

  Two men escaping. Perhaps reason enough, in a panic, to blast away. But the woman?

  ‘You shot this woman out of the blue,’ Brad said. ‘She didn’t try to escape. She didn’t move. She didn’t do anything. There was no reason to kill her.’

  ‘You were chasing Miss High Heels through the woods, so how would you know? Maybe she pulled a weapon.’

  Last he’d seen, the dead woman had been shivering with fear, a million miles from launching a counter-attack against two masked gunmen. ‘You planned to kill them all. Not just Grafton. Not just a scare. Kill them all. Everyone here tonight. Planned all the way.’

  Mick stepped in front of him, blocking his view.

  ‘This doesn’t work if the woman who got away from you in high heels saw a face that wasn’t dark-skinned, does it? So, can you be sure she didn’t see your shiny white skin?’

  ‘I didn’t let her escape on purpose,’ Brad said, shifting the focus from the question. Because she might have seen white skin through the large eyeholes in his ski mask. And that would well and truly fuck up the plan. ‘Since we’re in this shit together, at least admit you came here planning to kill everyone.’

  ‘What did you think, we’d blast Grafton away and make the others do pinky promises that they wouldn’t tell? Besides, any friend of his doesn’t deserve to live.’

  A scary thought. Brad wondered what would have happened if this party had been for thirty or forty people. He wondered if he had really believed Mick’s assertions that the plot had been to steal Grafton’s money and smash his legs and spine to confine him to a wheelchair. But it was what it was, and they had to deal with it. They didn’t have a choice.

  ‘So what’s next?’

  Mick walked to the sofa and sat down, just feet from the dead woman. The cushions moved under his weight, and the woman’s head lolled to one side. Mick laid his head on hers, like lovers watching a romcom, and laughed at Brad’s expression.

  ‘We need to find the wife. Tonight; because when she finds out her hubby’s dead, she’ll have no reason not to go to the cops. Let’s not panic, though. We’ve got all night.’

  ‘We don’t have to do that,’ Dave said, shocked. ‘She didn’t see our faces. She can’t tell anyone. The so-called plan still works. It could still work if we torched this joint.’

  Mick stared at Brad.

  Brad stared back.

  And then Brad said: ‘I don’t know if she saw I was white.’

  Dave started to complain again. Mick halted him with a raised hand.

  ‘Don’t worry, Dave, because Brad got the registration of the car she jumped in. Right, Brad?’

  Brad nodded. ‘I got both. Two cars out there.’

  ‘There we go. Good news all round. Dave, you go and make sure we haven’t left anything that can make Her Majesty our landlady for the next fifty years, like some of that cheap tacky jewellery dripping off you with your name all over it. Brad, you go to the shed. Then we find whoever picked up the wife and make him wish he hadn’t. I’ll call Król for that shit. Right up his alley. Then we go home and celebrate. That’s a plan and a half. Grafton’s going to spare me a bottle of Scotch. I reckon he won’t mind. I’ll ask him and take silence as a yes.’

  ‘And what’s in the shed that you could possibly want?’ Brad said. He had a notion in mind, but dearly hoped he was being silly.

  Mick’s grin said he wasn’t in luck. ‘This is my one and only date with Grafton, and I’m not leaving the dance early.’

  Three

  Karl

  He had been on his way to a house in Wilmington, to see a client, but that plan was out the window. Once he was through the housing estate, he cut north on Leyton Cross Road because a sign pointed that way for the A2 which he could use to get back to London. As if sensing that he had changed his route, the woman in the summer dress asked him where he was going.

  ‘To a police station,’ he said, surprised. Where did she think – Alton Towers?

  Since reaching lights and civilisation, she seemed to have calmed down. But suddenly she appeared agitated.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ he said, his own fear rising. He checked the mirrors, just in case she’d spotted a tail. He imagined a man on a bike emerging out of the darkness like a ghost ship, but the world behind was black and blank.

  ‘We need to go somewhere safe,’ she said.

  He was full of conflicting emotions. The urge to do the right thing was wrestling a cowardly craving to stop and kick her out. He didn’t like hassle, and this was a big one. At the same time he was annoyed at her for dumping a shitstorm in his lap, and embarrassed that he felt that way.

  ‘What do you mean? Police stations are safe places. You’re making no sense. You want this guy caught, right?’ Plural, he remembered. More than one guy.

  Her hand went onto his arm, which made him jerk and almost tug the van into the oncoming lane and an insurance claim by a people carrier.

  ‘Jesus.’

  ‘Just take me somewhere safe. Then you can go back to your quiet life and forget about me.’

  He laughed. Disbelief, not amusement. ‘How about the 71st Signal Regiment?’ They’d passed a sign for the barracks a minute earlier.

  And then she started to cry. He thought about putting an arm on her shoulder, just for comfort, then thought better of it. If he tried to console every lost soul in London, he’d have to give up work and drink a lot more caffeine. He wasn’t Florence Nightingale. He’d rescued her on a dark road, so it wasn’t as if he was being unkind.

  He pulled out his mobile phone and started to type, but she snatched it from him and tossed it down by her feet. Without a word. And that was
when he knew: she had a problem with going to the police. And he thought he knew why.

  ‘You know these people. That’s why no police, isn’t it? I see your wedding ring. Is it your husband? Is he a wife beater? Were you running from him? Him and his pals? Did they get too drunk or something? Started trouble?’

  She didn’t answer. He took a sharp left, and they drove west with the A2 running parallel on the right. She stared out of the side window, forehead on the cold glass. No answer from her, which was answer enough.

  ‘Did he hurt you? What happened?’ No response. ‘Hey, just because this guy’s your husband, it doesn’t mean he’s allowed to smack you around.’

  No answer. He’d read about beaten wives before. About their desire to believe their violent partners were good men. He pressed his foot harder on the accelerator. He would take her to the police station and that would be his part over. If she chose to pretend to the boys in blue that nothing had happened, that she had walked into a door or fallen down the stairs, well, that was her choice. His good deed for today would be done.

  But her continued silenced gnawed at him. He imagined a big man making this little woman cower in a corner. Hitting her. Begging for forgiveness afterwards, and getting it. Again and again. And that made him angry.

  ‘You’ve got to tell the cops about him, before he bloody kills you next ti—’

  ‘I don’t know who they were,’ she cut in. ‘It’s not my husband. It was my husband they came for. They came to hurt him. He…’

  She fell silent. He looked at her for so long that the van drifted, and he had to jerk the wheel to retain the road. She had been about to admit something, he figured. Something she suddenly decided she didn’t want him to know. Something that would explain why her husband had the sort of enemies who’d crash a party to get at him, who’d hurt his wife to hurt him. But that just made it stranger that she wouldn’t go to the cops. She wasn’t think— ‘—ing straight,’ he said out loud. ‘We should go to the police right now. Your husband might be hurt. He might need help.’

  ‘I just need somewhere safe. I will go back to the cottage tomorrow.’

  He laughed. Disbelief. ‘This is stupid. You can’t just hide away. Is there someone you know? We could call the cottage. Maybe he’ll answer, and all will be fine.’

  ‘Not tonight. Not until we know what’s happened.’

  ‘Is it a pissed-off ex-boyfriend or something?’ Her attitude was so puzzling that it was becoming scary. ‘You need to tell me why you can’t go to the police.’

  They passed a streetlight. Her face flashed; he saw pleading eyes, like a hungry dog’s. You were supposed to go all soft, seeing eyes like that. He just got annoyed.

  ‘Tell me why you can’t tell the cops?’ he snapped. ‘That guy back there was trying to hurt you. He might go hurt someone else. Why wouldn’t anyone with a brain tell the police? Why are you protecting him?’

  She was silent again. Head on the glass.

  He shook her shoulder. ‘Hey, listen to—’

  ‘I’ll go tomorrow, I promise,’ she snapped, and slapped his hand away. ‘But not now. I just need somewhere to stay. Until tomorrow. Do you live alone?’

  He really didn’t like this.

  Four

  Mac

  In a job devoid of humour, you had to get your laughs somewhere. One piece of comedy enjoyed by Bexley’s Murder Investigation Team was to ring the HAT phone at end of shift. This was the Homicide Assessment Team’s phone, and it only rang when there was a dead body. That meant a trip out to a scene, where the team would search for signs of foul play. No fun for the team getting ready to go home; much fun for the detective making the bogus call.

  Detective Sergeant Manzoor Gondal, a British-born Pakistani copper, expected a colleague to laugh down the line when he stomped to the phone and slapped it against his ear. But it didn’t happen. He gave his two other HAT pals the sign that the call was real. They groaned. At least with a bogus call you didn’t have to go out in the dark and peruse some lunatic’s handiwork. Half an hour later and the next shift would have got this one. Killers could be so inconsiderate.

  ‘Three dead,’ he said. ‘Cottage on Tile Kiln Lane. Thank the Lord for catch-up TV. Someone call Mac. Tuesday’s his gym day, isn’t it? He’ll have a barbell above his head, so be careful not to say, “drop everything.”’ Gondal was the only one who laughed at his joke.

  * * *

  Tile Kiln Lane was only a mile and a half south of them. They were there fifteen minutes later. The scene was already a party.

  Outside the postcard-material house were three patrol cars, two crime scene vans, and two ambulances. The crime guys were suiting up in plastic outfits to prevent contaminating evidence. The paramedics stood around their vehicles like guys on strike because there was nobody to save, and the bodies couldn’t go anywhere until the pathologist said so, and he wasn’t here yet. The uniformed cops stood around because the remote location meant no horde of gawkers and reporters to hold back, chatting as if welcoming a break from slinking around dark streets in the hope that some hoodie would smash a window right in front of them.

  A uniformed officer stepped up and introduced himself by his full name, making a big show of adding the title First Officer Attending. The HAT guys got sent out in advance to see if the dead body was a homicide, but uniforms were always dispatched prior to that to make sure there was actually a body to assess. Couldn’t have important detectives mobilised for an old rolled-up carpet that some fool thought looked like a dead man. The uniform explained that an anonymous call from a phone box in Greenwich had directed the police here. That he had secured the scene. And that it was not a pretty sight inside: three in a very serious state of dead-as-doornails. He pointed out the plastic shoe covers on his feet, as if to wordlessly say he had taken care inside, touched nothing, followed the rulebook in preparation for the big boys. Gondal was happy with the man because he’d attended scenes where cops were covered in blood or holding murder weapons.

  As DS Gondal was on the porch, warmed by the dying pit fire and about to head inside, he turned at the sound of a vehicle arriving. The cops blocking the woodland gateway, their fluorescent jackets glowing brightly in the approaching headlights, parted to let a car through. Bexley detectives, who’d get the case if it wasn’t a homicide. This late, no doubt they were hoping for foul play so they could turn right around and vanish. Gondal, likewise, was hoping for a suicide or accident that he could dump on the local boys.

  He put his hand on the door handle, ready to go inside.

  Not a pretty sight, the FOA had said, but a gruesome and suspicious scene didn’t always mean murder. Just three days ago the police had been called to a house to find an old man dead with a vicious head wound and a hammer lying in a pool of blood. The HAT boys got there and saw the loose and cracked light fitting above and the blood on the corner of a metal coffee table, and had a vision: a slipped foot as the guy was doing DIY, a tumble, a temple against the sharp table corner. Dead. Seconded by the coroner.

  He stepped inside. So, announcing murder wasn’t always straightforward, or easy. You had to walk around, read the scene, analyse the little details, and make a professional judge— There was a bloody chainsaw next to a severed leg in the kitchen. Right before him, dead centre of the room, as if carefully arranged as a welcome for visitors. This would be one for the crime encyclopaedias.

  He stepped back out. The pair of local detectives were approaching the other two HAT members, and in a croaky voice Gondal called out to the newcomers: ‘Waste of petrol. We’re having this one.’

  He walked over to all four guys, almost shaking. He’d attended many murders, but most were committed by one spouse or family member against another: crimes of explosive rage; a moment of lost control followed by a lifetime of regret. Stab or blunt-force wounds, not the work of a chainsaw. Cut throats or cracked skulls, not chopped-off body parts. They all saw his face and knew this was a big one.

  He explained what
he’d seen. Everyone looked at the house, as if wary of the building itself.

  ‘Is it him, then?’ one of the borough detectives said. The HAT guys looked at him in puzzlement.

  ‘You know who owns this place, right?’

  They didn’t.

  ‘It’s owned by Pasticcio Food and Wine.’

  One of the HAT guys said: ‘Ronald Grafton’s mum’s joint?’

  That was right, the borough detective told them. Elena Grafton owned the restaurant, a gift from her son. And the house had been bought in the name of that company.

  ‘So, this is his hideaway?’ a HAT guy said. ‘I assumed he had run to Spain.’

  Yeah, they all agreed. They’d heard that, too.

  ‘So is it him? Is he inside? Is he dead?’ the borough detective said.

  ‘Someone’s dead,’ Gondal said.

  They decided to have a quick look. They did it from the doorway before shifting off the porch and waiting on the grass.

  ‘That’s Mac,’ someone said as they heard loud music heading towards them from beyond the treeline.

  * * *

  Thirty seconds later a Nissan turned into the woodland gateway. A large man got out. Late forties, brown bomber jacket and trousers in black. The trousers had a crease above both knees because they’d been folded in his car all day. His right ear was bandaged. The Mac in question: Bexley murder squad’s boss, Detective Chief Inspector McDevitt.

  ‘Is it Ronald Grafton?’ Mac called over from his car as he opened his boot to get protective coveralls.

  ‘Not sure yet,’ someone said. ‘Grafton’s joint, but maybe he fought back against whoever came for him. Maybe Grafton and his boys painted the town red in there. It would be just like that guy to get out of this one untouched.’

  ‘Well, he’s fucked either way,’ Mac said.

  Five