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

by Jake Cross

  Karl

  Unsure of where to head or what to do, Karl had parked on a quiet stretch of road. They had sat in silence for what seemed a long time.

  ‘What’s your name?’ he asked.

  She didn’t look at him, and didn’t speak for a few seconds.

  ‘Liz… Smith.’ She stuck out her hand.

  A pause there before giving up Britain’s most popular surname. Added to her dress, and the fact that she was secretive about her husband, her use of a clearly false name dinged another alarm bell. She was obviously hiding something, and not because she was scared and didn’t trust him but because it was something a person might want to keep secret. He shook her hand purely to prevent her from becoming more unsettled. Her skin was cold which made this whole shebang that little more unnerving. He checked the mirrors to make sure no vehicles were approaching.

  ‘So what’s your name?’ she asked.

  Those wrestling emotions again. She was wet and hurt but hiding something, and sad and scared, but lying to him. He knew he should be more sympathetic, but suspicion was blocking that response.

  ‘Your name?’ she pressed.

  Wet and hurt and sad and scared, yet calmer now.

  ‘Perhaps it’s an embarrassing name like Doug Hole or Sonny Day?’

  And now making jokes.

  ‘I’ll just call you white-van man, shall I?’

  ‘Peter,’ he said. It was his wife’s dad’s name: anonymity was his safest option here, until he knew what the hell was going on. ‘Over the moon to meet you. I wish you’d jumped in front of my van years ago.’

  ‘And you’re married?’

  ‘Happily. So, hands off.’

  ‘Well, you got an attitude all of a sudden.’

  Back there: masked men, maybe a beaten husband, and some missing silverware – and she was worried that he seemed unfriendly?

  ‘What do you plan to do if you don’t tell the police, eh?’

  She didn’t seem fazed by his sudden change of subject. ‘I need to stay away just for the night. I can’t risk running around tonight because I have no idea what’s going on. I’ll meet back up with my husband in the morning. He’ll know what to do. He always does—’

  ‘Always does? This chase-through-the-woods thing some kind of weird weekly role play, is it?’

  She glared at him like a teacher impatient with a child interrupting her class. ‘This a big joke to you?’

  He met that glare with a stubborn one of his own. ‘Hey, for me fear and sarcasm are lifelong soul mates. So, if I’m making wise cracks, you can be sure I’m far from having the time of my life.’

  She looked away. ‘Like I said, I’ll meet with him in the morning. But not tonight. And if I can’t stay at your house—’

  He barked a laugh and showed her his wedding ring. ‘See this? We’ll both be running for our lives if I take you to my house. So, burn that idea and scatter the ashes, okay? Isn’t there a friend’s house you can stay at?’

  ‘All in Kensington. Too risky, though.’

  ‘A hotel?’

  ‘Ron always told me not to trust… to stay hidden until the next morning.’ She put her hand on his arm. ‘It’s Karl, isn’t it?’

  ‘How the hell did—’ And then he saw what she held in her hand. His business card, plucked from a bunch on the centre console. For a daft moment he feared that she somehow knew who he really was.

  ‘Karl, I know you’re worried about what’s happening. I understand. But please, trust me. I don’t want to go to the police. I have my reasons, but I don’t want to tell you any more than I have to. I am thinking straight. Please understand. Although it sounds a bit dodgy to you, it’s the way it must be done. No police, not tonight. Tomorrow. Tonight, I just need a safe place to stay. You have a shop, don’t you? It’ll be closed and empty, won’t it? Can I stay there? Just for tonight?’

  He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. What the hell was he getting into? Or, more correctly, what was he being dragged into?

  Six

  Mac

  ‘Witnesses?’ Mac asked.

  ‘Over east, 500 feet or so, are some estates,’ Gondal said. ‘But there’s trees blocking any noise the killers might have made. Even the chainsaw. There’s nothing around here. It still amazes me that you can find remote places like this in London. Great for containing the crime scene, terrible for witnesses.’

  Mac nodded. It was the damn reason the killers chose this place for the hit.

  Gondal said: ‘I sent a guy out to fingerprint the phone the initial call to the police was made from. And a guy hunting for CCTV. Out here, no one cruising past would have seen or heard anything, so the caller might actually have been present during the carnage. It was all the way over in Greenwich, weirdly. That seems off to me. Someone feeling a sudden bout of guilt, maybe.’

  Good idea. But these killers were professional. Nobody would find CCTV footage of any use, and the fingerprint man would return with the bad news that the phone box had been wiped clean. Mac asked if anyone had been inside the house yet.

  ‘Just the FOA and the paramedics, but they were careful. We were about to head in. The pathologist isn’t here y— oh, here we go.’

  Two thick beams of light splashed over them as the uniforms barring the entrance to the area had admitted another vehicle. A middle-aged man got out, nice and slow for his £40 per hour. He waved, then went to the back of his vehicle to suit up.

  The detectives shook hands with the pathologist. Mac explained for about the fifth time how he’d lacerated his ear: car door. The pathologist was on call tonight, like Mac’s team, and moaned about having to bring his dog, which they saw in the back of his car. Mac couldn’t resist a stroke of its fur – it accepted happily. The pathologist clapped his hands together when he was told that the bodies inside were probably not in whole form, like a guy getting ready for a challenge.

  The borough detectives offered to hang around – akin to saying the murder squad needed them – but Mac gave them a firm no, thanks, we’ve got it covered, go find a stolen cat or something. The locals made their exit, somewhat reluctantly, like partygoers turned away from a nightclub door. Everyone else went indoors, except Mac, who chose to remain outside for the time being to think to his iPod music. It was how he did things sometimes.

  * * *

  Everyone spread out once inside. The bodies were the pathologist’s domain, so nobody touched them. They stepped around blood and body bits as if they were pieces of furniture, taking photos and bagging and dusting things because you never knew what insignificant piece of nothingness might provide the breakthrough.

  The MIT detectives on the next shift arrived shortly afterwards. One was a slimeball DC called Downey, one day from the end of his police career. Two HAT guys left to pursue enquiry avenues, but Gondal chose to stay. They filed past their boss and went inside. Mac continued to look around outside, thinking, to a backdrop of loud rock music.

  When finally he entered, he was called to a body in a white suit. Or, more correctly, body parts in a white suit. Or what technically should be described as a red suit.

  ‘I think it’s him, sir,’ Gondal said. He searched his superior’s face for an emotion. Mac was staring down at the head, which was a good five feet from the nearest part of the rest of the body. It was impossible to recognise the face, of course, because the face had gone. Literally. And not because of the chainsaw: it had been peeled away carefully. A bloody knife, surely the surgical instrument, had already been bagged. It would go for DNA testing, and the scientists would shake with anticipation.

  A typical home in this mess would have required a long face, a shake of the head, an angry or saddened tone, and the detectives stuck to the script. Every cop in London would be glad Ronald Grafton was out of the picture, but an abattoir was no place for rejoicing. Plus, cops didn’t want their jobs taken away by street justice. And there were two other victims, who might turn out to be law-abiding citizens. So, there were counteracting emotions
at play, which explained a host of neutral expressions.

  ‘It might have been a trophy,’ Gondal said, referring to the face. They hadn’t found it.

  Mac doubted they ever would.

  There was a shout from the lounge. Gondal and Mac headed that way. They knew the tone of that shout. It meant one of their team had found an important clue. The hand of lawful justice might still get a role in this case.

  In the living room, a detective stood by the dead woman on the sofa, holding aloft a necklace in a pair of tweezers.

  ‘Our bad guy is Davey-boy,’ the detective said with a grin, as if the case had already been solved.

  Mac and Gondal closed in carefully, stepping on boards placed so that shoes wouldn’t crush evidence, while the slimeball DC Downey took out his phone and sent a text about this new development to someone who had no business knowing. All three stared at the swinging pendant, and understood the detective’s cry of glee. It was the sort of clue that detectives dreamed of: a military identification tag.

  Seven

  Karl

  He’d heard the urban legend of the kidney thieves, but right now wished he hadn’t. What an idea to suddenly pop into his head: that she was planning to drug him and steal his organs to sell on the black market. But the fact that this woman didn’t want the police involved was making him paranoid. He almost blurted out a silly lie that he had kidney cancer.

  ‘You would be helping me more than you know. I know this is very puzzling for you, and I’m sorry that I can’t give you answers.’

  Kidneys on the black market was a wild idea, but stolen goods on a flea market was not. He could imagine the plan. She pretends to be escaping from an attacker and flags down a lone guy in a vehicle, and then asks for a place to stay the night. A lot of guys would find it hard to say no to a beauty in a thin dress. Maybe there would be some sex, maybe not. But during the night she opens a window, and her supposed attacker sneaks in. Their victim wakes from a drugged sleep the next morning with, at best, a need to visit DFS for new furniture. If he wakes.

  ‘Just for one night, Karl. Please.’

  He knew he was being silly even considering that this was some kind of scam. Too much detail in the plan: she could have pretended to be lost, or homeless. But he still regretted saying ‘Okay’ even before the word dissipated in the air. Too late to back out now, especially given how buoyant his news made her. He was glad she was no longer a shivering ball of fear but still wished he’d never met her. Maybe the police would have picked her up and all her problems would have been solved by now. But it was what it was. He shut her out and drove.

  The guy in Wilmington waiting for his new fancy car alarm to be fitted would soon wonder what was going on. He might call Karl’s home, and then Karl would have to explain to Katie where he’d been. That was a new damn worry. He could lie, of course, but for all he knew one of her friends had seen him driving with another woman in the van. And he wasn’t going to lie to his wife. Withhold information, yes, but not lie.

  Liz, if that was her name, rabbited on. He should have been rid of her by now, yet there she still sat. She should be miles away from him, with his boot print on her arse, but instead they were headed to his shop. Every extra minute he spent with her increased the chances that someone his wife knew would see them together. Bad enough out on the roads, but if they were seen going into his shop while it was closed…

  Soon she fell quiet, maybe out of things to say, or maybe finally aware that he didn’t want to talk. They drove in silence. Karl watched the road and tried to pluck up the courage to race to a cop shop before she realised what was going on. Liz spent most of the time staring out the side window with her head on the glass. He figured the talking had helped her forget, which meant the silence was driving it home again. He tried to think of something to ask so she’d talk again. But he discarded subject after subject, and the minutes ticked by. He realised he didn’t want to talk, even if it meant leaving her tense and worried. He went back to the road ahead. She stayed with the world slipping by.

  After a while, he caught movement as she lifted his business card again. ‘So what electronics stuff do you sell? DVD players and things?’

  He looked at her for the first time in fifteen minutes. He answered with a simple no, and fell silent again. Minutes ticked by. Liz seemed happy with this, breaking her own silence only once she saw Queen Elizabeth II Olympic Park far off to their left.

  ‘Where are we?’

  ‘Old Ford.’

  ‘Ah. I heard this place was getting a makeover because of the Olympics a few years back.’

  ‘Well, they overlooked the bit we’re going to.’

  She seemed relaxed, so he figured she might now be open to visiting the police. And when a police station came into view half a minute later, he prayed she wouldn’t object. But in his peripheral vision he saw her sit up straight and glare into the side of his head.

  She said nothing, though. Looking good. As nervous as a guy topping off a house of cards and praying it didn’t tumble down he prepared to make the turn.

  And then: ‘Don’t, please.’

  And that was that. As he cruised past the station, he cursed his weak soul.

  * * *

  Sunrise Electronics was nothing but a sign above a large shuttered doorway in a windowless, single-storey building on a tucked-away street. The building was lined with shutters and signs on both sides of the street. The road ended at a high wall covered with faded graffiti and topped with rusted barbed wire. Just the one way in and out.

  Karl’s place was second from the end, past a place called Fine Ink’s and before a joint that sold antiques. He pulled up to the kerb and stopped. Across the road a shutter was rolled up at a place called Computerz. Light washed the street and inside Karl could see shelves of machines and bits and pieces, and a desk at the back. A guy was sitting behind it, putting on a white shirt and suit jacket over his coveralls. There was a pushbike leaning against the exterior wall.

  ‘Wait till this guy’s gone,’ he said, sinking low in his seat.

  Seven minutes later the road was dark, Computerz closed up like all the other places.

  They got out and walked to Sunrise Electronics’ shuttered door. Karl unlocked it and used a button to raise it three feet. He ducked inside. When Liz didn’t immediately follow, he stuck out a hand and waved frantically. She muttered something about expecting him to open the shutter fully, then bent and ducked inside, taking care to make sure she lifted the hem of her dress with one hand and protected her head with the other, or maybe just her expensive hair.

  He told her to wait while he moved through the dark and hit a switch that powered a strip light in the ceiling. The room was like the place across the road: just a desk at the back and a few filing cabinets and wall-mounted shelving bloated with stock.

  ‘This is just some workshop,’ Liz moaned. ‘I can’t sleep here.’

  ‘You should have waited a minute, then. The guy driving behind me owned Bedroomworld.’ He had saved her, offered to drive to a hotel, and now offered her a roof for the night, and this was his thanks? A wrinkled nose, as if he’d brought her to a pig pen.

  ‘Up in the loft there’s a hammock.’

  ‘A what?’

  He tugged a string that hung a few inches from the ceiling. A loft hatch flipped open. She made a surprised sound, and then a pleased sound when he lifted a wooden ladder from behind the counter.

  He placed the ladder against the open hatch, and she followed him up; in a dress, there was no way she was going first. The loft was carpeted and had a window in the sloping roof. Wedged in a corner was a TV/DVD combo, with a PlayStation alongside and a bean bag in front. There was a small coffee table with a kettle, cups and Ultimate Fighting Championship DVDs scattered on it. The hammock was strung under the ridgeline of the roof.

  She knelt on the carpet and looked around, her head just inches from the roof, and said: ‘What’s crime like around here? Is it likely to be burgled ton
ight?’

  ‘You tell me.’

  Her look was a puzzled one. She picked up one of the mixed martial arts DVDs. ‘A man cave. Is this place for when your wife kicks you out?’

  ‘It’s for when North Korea bombs us. So… I’m going home. You make sure—’

  ‘What’s all that stuff?’ she asked, pointing to the far brick wall where there was a grid-like shoe rack containing electrical gadgetry. On the bottom of the pointing left hand, running from the wrist to the end of her pinky finger, was a tattoo of tiny paw prints.

  He got the feeling she was stalling, probably because she didn’t want to be left alone. He didn’t care. Every minute in this woman’s company was one less in Katie’s. So, it was time to go. ‘Don’t worry about all that stuff. And don’t touch it. Touch nothing, okay? I’m going home. There’s no food, but there’s a water bottle next to the TV. The shutter can be unlocked and raised from the inside. I’m back here to open up at eight in the morning. You’ll be gone by then, right? And remember, we never met.’

  He started to climb down the ladder.

  Just his head and shoulders were exposed to her when she said: ‘You might be in danger. I don’t think you should go home tonight.’

  He froze. ‘What the hell are you talking about? Why am I in danger? They didn’t see me.’

  But one of them had, or at least his van. His was unmarked and like a thousand white vans that criss-crossed London every day and night. But each had a registration plate for a reason: to be traced to a person and an address. He’d managed to confine this worry to a bit part, but in light of her warning it took the centre stage.

  She shrugged. Paused. ‘Just be careful.’

  ‘I’m fine,’ he said with false boldness. ‘Just be gone tomorrow morning. Nice knowing you. And don’t answer the phone, okay? We get calls from America, so it might ring early in the morning. I’ll turn off the answering machine so you won’t be woken. Leave it alone. Leave everything alone. Everything.’