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

by Jake Cross

  He finished the tea and dumped the cup in the sink: hard, from a distance, so that the thing made a noise. Mick liked noise because it was the opposite of silence. He liked to slam doors and play his rock music loud, and if the bitch next door banged on his wall to complain, well, he liked shouting right back at her. That certainly made him feel better. In fact, he probably got angrier if she didn’t respond.

  I’m sure you hope so.

  That damn thing in his head couldn’t be ignored. And why bother? He couldn’t fool himself. Fuck the plan to blame Ramirez and all that scenery. Fuck what Grafton’s wife could tell the cops. If Grafton was watching the world above from his fiery pit in Hell, there was only one way to hurt him. And Mick hadn’t finished dancing yet.

  Where the fuck was Król?

  He dressed quickly and slid out a cardboard box from the cupboard under the stairs. It was marked ‘Loyalty Box’. Inside, plastic food bags containing his treasures; his favourite items that came in handy to force loyalty from others. The latest addition had gone in last night: Grafton’s blood-encrusted wedding ring.

  He found the label he needed (date: four months ago; place: Muswell Hill; name: Mohammed Iqbal) and hauled out the bag. He took a photo of the item inside with his phone and carefully placed the bag in the box, the box in the cupboard, the key to the cupboard in his pocket.

  At the front door, with the handle in his fist, he paused. He was being too hard on himself. He had a future planned, didn’t he? He pulled out his phone, loaded Facebook Messenger, and sent a quick note to Alize:

  Morning, Babe. Hope you are well. Can’t wait to see you.

  He slotted the phone away, already feeling better. ‘See you later, Tim,’ he called out, then left.

  Eighteen

  Mac

  Mac was halfway to his car when his phone trilled. He expected an update on the triple murder, but Gondal told him about a ‘Body in a shed in Longlands. An old dear left her husband fixing his remote control plane late into the night, and he wasn’t in bed when she woke up. She found him dead in the shed the next morning, door wide open and a lot of stuff missing. Strangled, she says. I sent Berry and Smith and I’m gonna head over in a mo. You want to spare time off the Grafton case for this one?’

  ‘I’ll be right there,’ Mac said, and thirty minutes later his car was parked on a patch of gravel outside a corrugated iron shed. He took vinyl gloves from his boot. As he was slipping them on, an old chap exited the structure with a cloth, a small plastic bag and a spray cleaner. He looked nervous.

  ‘What is it, Barry?’

  Barry said: ‘There was some activity last night. Some cheeky upstarts on motorbikes, those off-road things. Racing about. I chased them off, and I got the registration plate of one. But I was too late to—to…’

  He didn’t look like he fancied continuing, so Mac took the cleaning supplies and prompted him. A minute later, Mac knelt on grass still damp from last night’s rain, churned by tyre tracks everywhere, and saw that Barry had been right. A large crack in the headstone, on the left side, extending down from the top and slicing in half the W in his ex-wife’s name.

  VVENDY

  His phone trilled while he was scraping a week’s worth of grime from the headstone, but he ignored it. He returned the call while he was trekking back to the groundkeeper’s shed. Gondal told him not to bother attending the Longlands scene because the dead guy hadn’t been strangled at all. Barry and Smith suspected a heart attack. Mac hung up, met Barry on the path and returned his cleaning supplies. The groundskeeper apologised again.

  ‘Don’t worry about it. Not your fault. I’ll order a new stone. See you next Thursday.’ They shook hands, but when Barry considered the deed done and tried to pull his back, Mac kept hold and said: ‘I should report these silly bikers before they hurt someone next time. Did you say you got a registration?’

  Nineteen

  Karl

  Karl woke. A good start, since it meant he’d survived the night. But the cold light of day brought a harsh reality. His next thought: police.

  Lying in bed, he grabbed his phone and again searched for newsworthy events around the area of Tile Kiln Lane in Bexley. But he closed the Internet before anything could load. He didn’t want to know. He didn’t care. It wouldn’t change what was going to happen in the next few minutes.

  He got up, went into the bathroom, and made the call.

  And hung up after two nines. Calling the cops would officially stamp him as part of this, whatever ‘this’ was.

  It was only six in the morning, which, he figured, was too early to call the shop. Katie was still asleep on her back. He pressed the covers around her belly to form a hump and imagined a little baby boy in a tent, which lightened his mood a little.

  There was no time for a shower. He settled for flattening his wild hair with a wet palm, then slipped on black trousers and a white shirt with Sunrise Electronics stitched on the chest. Katie was starting to stir, so he returned to the bedroom.

  ‘Tea?’

  ‘Of course. Immediately.’

  ‘Soon as Michael’s here, I get the pamper treatment.’

  ‘We’ll ask Jane if that’s okay.’

  ‘He’ll want his daddy to be pampered.’

  ‘I’m sure she will.’ She closed her eyes again, and in that moment of being effectively shut out, Karl’s worries returned. He kissed his wife’s cheek and went downstairs to make tea. But before the tea, he made the call.

  It rang.

  Get out, he was going to tell Liz Grafton. Go home, or go to the cops, but just go. Not his business. He’d done enough for her. He wanted her gone by the time he got to work.

  It rang.

  And she had to pretend that they’d never met, he’d remind her. Some other guy had picked her up. She’d never heard of Karl Seabury or Sunrise Electronics.

  It rang.

  Of course it did: he’d told her not to answer the phone, hadn’t he? She was probably at the loft hatch, staring at it.

  Maybe not, though. Maybe she had gone, and he’d find a note in her place that said she’d spoken to her husband, all was fine, the attack was a prank, thanks for the ride, see you around.

  Katie thumped downstairs. He hung up the phone and moved away from it before she saw him and asked what he was doing. She entered the room wearing a nightgown and a smile, and he smiled back. He remembered the tea and went into the kitchen to make it.

  He started to fill the kettle and took a moment to think. He had no choice now but to go to the shop as if it were any normal workday and deal with whatever happened when he got there. He heard Katie enter the kitchen.

  ‘Remember there’ll be traffic jams, so don’t be back any later than twelve. Nails at one.’

  ‘I’m a white van man, Katie. We invented traffic jams.’

  A minute later, tea in hand, she announced that she was going for a bath, pecked his cheek and vanished. His own tea was gulped down before the stairs had stopped creaking. He yelled goodbye around a mouthful of toast and almost pulled the nail out of the wall when he grabbed his keys, so eager was he to get to the shop and erase his worries.

  Twenty

  Król

  Aleksy Kozaczuk was called Król by those who knew him, a name meaning ‘king’. He had run gangs as a teenager in Szczecin, Poland, inspired by his father’s tales of Polish criminals making money and earning respect alongside Al Capone and other notable gangsters during America’s Prohibition era. It all had to do with some loose family connection to Bugs Moran. Król didn’t retain most of what the drunken old fool spouted, but he did like the fact that he was allowed to steal and beat other kids, and his father only reprimanded him if the police got involved. The old fool taught him early that a man without a rich family, a serious talent or massive luck could only strike it rich through crime. He had yearned to set up a new life in America, running guns and girls.

  He got to London after the expansion of the European Union in 2004, still eyeing an empire in
America, but here he still was more than a decade later. He didn’t mind because he was running a gang and sometimes there was a girl he could pimp and now and then he sold a gun. He was tall, skinny, only twenty-eight but had a buzz cut and a face of stubble that was iron grey. It made him look older, but, he felt, meaner. His face was known on the streets. His gang was mostly kids, shorter and stupider, and he liked that they called him their king. Like some Fagin of the modern world, he sent them out to do his robbing so that he could remain untouchable. Of course, theft was in his blood, so he still went on the odd excursion himself.

  He lived in a bedsit above a laundrette in Fulham, accessed by an entrance in the side wall and a set of stairs that terminated right at his door. Not exactly the palace he had dreamed of, but paperwork issued by the benevolent British government said he alone owned the keys.

  His eyes flickered awake at the sound of the first door being kicked in. His brain oriented itself as footsteps thudded up the stairs. He was sitting up in bed in just his boxer shorts and holding a knife as the inner door was booted open.

  ‘Put that away or I’ll store it in your arse,’ said the silhouette in the doorway. The intruder yanked on a grimy cord hanging from the ceiling, and a weak bulb cast jaundiced light over the room.

  Król recognised his visitor and tossed the knife on a small bookcase beside his bed, on top of which sat his mobile phone and an ashtray heaped with cigarette butts.

  ‘What you doing here?’

  There was a cheap plastic clock hanging on the wall beside the door. The intruder yanked it down and skimmed it like a Frisbee, striking Król hard in the chest. ‘What time does that say? Is reading the time the same in fucking Poland?’

  Król tossed the clock aside after a glance at it – barely past seven in the morning – and rubbed his chest. ‘I’ve had one fucking hour’s sleep, Mick. Fuck off.’

  Mick strode into the room and stopped at the foot of the bed. ‘Same here about the sleep, Król, you piece of shit. Know why? Because I was waiting up for you. You were supposed to call when it got done, remember? Not just piss off home. So, I’m figuring it didn’t get done, right?’

  ‘I got burned, man.’

  ‘One of them recognised you?’

  Król thrust out his right hand, fingers splayed. ‘Nah, I mean I got fucking burned.’ Mick stared at the man’s fingers, which were red and blistered. ‘Some fucking weird electrified security shit on that house in Chiswick. Must have the fucking Crown Jewels in there.’

  ‘That all you learned since you sneaked in my country? That fucking foul language? Which house? So, you didn’t get inside?’

  ‘Gave it up, man. You see my fingers? You’ll have to go see the guy yourself.’

  ‘Well, that’s why I need you again. Get your stolen shit shoes on and let’s go.’

  Król shifted so he could sit up against the headboard. He lit a cigarette stub plucked from the ashtray and sucked hard on it. ‘One hour’s sleep, Mick. You listening?’

  ‘I’m listening to you whine, that’s all. Let me tell you what else I listened to, Król. Earlier, I heard about some boys in blue being sent to Muswell Hill. Apparently some guy and his wife were attacked in bed. The man got all cut up bad, and now he’s in the hospital. Shit, I thought, there’s some bad people out there. Not like my man Król, who I sent to ask some questions. Not like Król, who went in there simply to scare someone and find out one little piece of information. Król’s smart, and he wouldn’t have done anything like that because he knows that someone who’s threatened in bed but left unhurt will probably keep his promise to keep quiet about the break-in if he thinks the guys will come back if he talks. Right?’

  Król shrugged, finished his butt and grabbed another. ‘He was messing with me. But it worked, cos he talked, and I don’t think he’s your man. Must be the other one.’

  Mick strode to where the clock had been tossed, grabbed it and skimmed it again at Król, who complained with expletives when it burst into shards just inches above his head.

  ‘Now that guy has no choice but to talk, you fuckwit, because it’s obvious to everyone he got attacked at home. Some nurse called the police. You might get caught for this one, and then you might rat me out.’

  Król shook his head. ‘Nah, I was playing cards all night with my own pals, and they’ll say so. Alibi.’

  ‘Scum like you don’t have friends. You’re all backstabbing arses who don’t even trust each other. And if there’s DNA, the word of a bunch of kids who think you’re the dog’s bollocks won’t count for anything. You owe me, so get your Oxfam rags together and let’s go.’

  And yet again, to be reminded that he owed Mick, Mick brought out the knife. Just a picture on a phone this time, of course, because last time Mick had brought the actual knife, and Król had tried to wrestle it away from him. This time he’d get nowhere near it.

  ‘Clothing, Król. Or a call gets made to Scotland Yard. A concerned member of the community just found a knife close to where that old Asian shopkeeper was stabbed four months ago.’

  ‘You’ll never give me that back, so why should I help you?’

  ‘Is that a no, Król?’

  It was never a no, was it? Three times recently this arsehole had blackmailed him into doing a job, and each time he’d been promised the knife would be destroyed. And each time it had reared its ugly head again. Król didn’t doubt that this process would continue for some time yet, unless he managed to get some dirt on Mick to balance the scales.

  Mick said: ‘You didn’t do the job you were asked to do. Lucky for you I did some research to help you redeem yourself. So, if you want to sleep here tonight instead of a prison cell, get dressed and let’s go finish it.’

  Just then Mick’s phone trilled. Król started to get up as Mick read the text message, but a moment later the big guy rushed forward. Król flopped back onto the bed, hands over his head, protesting, wondering what the hell had been in that text message. In shock, he watched Mick, instead of attacking him, pluck a couple of novels out of the bookcase.

  ‘For being an arsehole, I’m having these. You can’t even read English.’

  Król could barely read his native Polish, either, but he was still worried. At what future crime scene might the cops find one of those paperbacks with his prints all over it? What the hell was Mick up to?

  Twenty-One

  Karl

  He was in the van, driving to work, and was watching the mirrors more than the road ahead. Nothing suspicious was reflected at him. Cars followed, but they all turned away eventually. No pedestrians glared at his van as he cruised past. Nobody leaped into the road with a shotgun. Of course not – Liz Grafton was wrong.

  So why was he still worrying?

  The phone rang. He jerked and caught the brake lightly. Some dick hugging his rear thumped his horn. Withheld number. Karl told himself to relax. The bad guys were hardly likely to phone him, were they?

  ‘Sunrise Electronics.’

  ‘Hey up. I ordered a car alarm, was supposed to be a guy round to install it last night between—’

  The Wilmington client that Karl had stood up. Karl hung up, unable to face dealing with him. He was angry at his own paranoia – if people were going to come for him, they would have done it last night. They hadn’t – ergo, all was fine. Ergo, Liz had it wrong. He hit the accelerator.

  The phone rang again. Katie this time. His foot slipped off the accelerator, and the van started to slow. His eyes latched onto a petrol station whose forecourt he could use to swing the van around if she suddenly said there were men trying to kick in the door.

  ‘What’s up?’ he said, keeping his voice calm.

  ‘The shed’s been broken into,’ she said, angry.

  It felt like a drip of ice water had just trickled down his spine. But he told himself to think logically: could be pure coincidence. ‘Damn idiots. What’s been taken?’

  ‘I don’t know. It’s all junk, isn’t it? But it’s a right mess. And the
lock’s busted. I saw it from the kitchen. There’s a bag of grass seed been spilled everywhere.’

  ‘Don’t worry about it. Just junk. I’ll clean the mess. Everything else okay?’

  A pause while she calmed. ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Let me call you in a minute when I pull over.’

  She signed off, and he hit the brake. The same honking idiot behind him butted the horn again. Black Corsa with stupid flame stickers on the bonnet. He turned into the petrol station and pulled up at a pump.

  He clicked an application on his phone with a camera icon. His phone could connect to his home desktop computer which managed the house’s CCTV recordings. The camera activated whenever the burglar alarm was live, which meant it had been recording all night. He clicked on the file, and the screen filled with a video image of his back garden from a tiny camera hidden in a potted plant on a side fence. The house was on the left, the shed on the right. The image had a bright green hue. Night vision.

  He played it in fast forward. The only thing moving was the timestamp, and he prayed it would stay that way. Someone honked behind him. A guy waiting to use the pump. He flicked a glance in the mirror. The Corsa was there again. Karl drove forward and joined four vehicles waiting to exit the forecourt. A young yobbo in a baseball cap bounced out of the Corsa. For a moment Karl stiffened, certain that this young thug had been following him, that he was one of them. But his only offence was to flip Karl the bird before grabbing a nozzle to fill his macho ride.

  Something blipped on the screen like a subliminal message at 01.18 a.m. Karl felt his heart thud. He rolled the video back and watched at normal speed. A green cat strolled across his garden.

  Five drivers waiting to leave the forecourt became four as the head car pulled out and vanished. Karl inched forward with the others. All three were indicating to turn left, but Karl was still unsure which way he should go: left, to the shop, or right, back to Katie?