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

by Jake Cross

  ‘I’m sorry I spoke that way to you,’ Mac said to Cooper, locking his phone. ‘You’re a good copper,’ he added.

  He was putting the phone away when it rang. He was smiling when he removed it from his jacket, thinking it was the same caller as before. But his smile disappeared when he saw the name of the caller. He almost put the phone to his bad ear again, but realised his error just in time. It was still hurting from when he made that mistake earlier.

  ‘Our Nancy-boy leg-breaker is called Brad Smithfield,’ Gondal said.

  ‘I know him! I investigated that bastard three years ago.’

  But Gondal already knew the background: a guy had been found outside a tower block late one night. Dead by cerebral ischemia: insufficient blood to the brain. Turned out to be a guy affectionately known as Rocker, because he was off his. He was an enforcer employed by an Edinburgh crime figure called Razor Randolph. He’d been investigating a robbery at Grafton’s nightclub, in which two masked men had burst in, shot the place up, and fired rounds at Randolph as he and his men sat in a booth with Grafton and his cronies.

  The cops had looked at the residents. Brad Smithfield was a career criminal with a plethora of small convictions, one of which had been for choking a guy unconscious. And a stranglehold could cause cerebral ischemia – it was too coincidental. He was visited immediately, and the police thought they had their story: Rocker had information that Smithfield might have been one of the shooters and had decided to pay a visit. Good information, because he was soon dead. The CCTV had been busted in the flats for weeks, and in that area of Erith in Bexley the cops faced a wall of silence when seeking witnesses. A search of Smithfield’s flat yielded no evidence. No arrest. No one was ever charged with the killing.

  ‘I bet it was him,’ Gondal said. ‘The police missed something.’

  ‘I led that investigation,’ Mac said. ‘He was fully assessed, and interviewed. I missed nothing.’

  ‘I got his address. Nobody home, though. It’s owned by a guy called Ian Barker, Smithfield’s boyfriend. I’ve just got hold of his place of work, so—’

  ‘Don’t go there,’ Mac said. ‘We don’t want him telling Smithfield that the police are after him. This guy could go underground. Leave the boyfriend out of it. Keep watching the house. But let’s not throw everything including the kitchen sink at this guy. Remember his name came from that scumbag Ramirez. Smithfield wasn’t the only guy the Scottish mob were after. They had dozens of names. We’ve got dozens ourselves to check up on. We don’t listen to rumours, especially from criminals who might have their own reasons for giving people up.’

  He hung up and told Cooper to drive him back to his car. He had a new lead to follow, he told him. It should take him about three hours.

  Forty-Nine

  Katie

  Katie rushed upstairs to grab her laptop. A minute later, she was looking at a newspaper website, based on a search of the name the young DC had mentioned: Ronald Grafton. There it was, right before her eyes. Three chopped up in gang war cottage carnage late last night. And one missing woman, Liz Grafton, wife of powerful ganglord, Ronald Grafton. There was a picture of the wife. Katie stared at it and tried to picture Karl with her. Where were they right now? What were they doing?

  The DCI, McDevitt, had lied to her about his appointment with Karl, and now she thought she knew why. In a police station, Karl would have his statements recorded with a solicitor present. He would be coached in what to say. But if he met the detective outside, alone, he wouldn’t have that security. The detective must be planning to coerce Karl into making some kind of confession. He knew the case against Karl was weak, and wanted him alone and vulnerable so he could be tricked into incriminating himself. Thrown to the wolves like a common criminal.

  But there was more. The dead man in the shop was, as DC Cooper had said, the DCI’s informant. McDevitt was unhappy that his informant was dead, and he wanted to lash out at Karl because of it. Maybe he would beat Karl at the meeting, then claim he resisted arrest.

  Both of these things pointed to the police not believing Karl’s story. They thought he was a killer.

  There was only one thing worse than seeing her husband thrown in prison for a crime he didn’t commit, and that was something she was slowly failing to ignore: Karl might actually be a murderer.

  Katie paced because the baby was hurting her back. At least, that was what she told herself. But the pain was pure stress, she knew. She didn’t want to believe that Karl had killed a man, but something didn’t add up. If Karl had killed someone, even accidentally, even in self-defence, he would have gone immediately to a police station. She knew it. And yet he hadn’t. Could that be because of guilt?

  It didn’t matter. She couldn’t let him face the detective alone. She would go to the meeting point, and she would take the police with her. Karl would go into their custody, not the detective’s. That man wouldn’t get near him until Karl was in a police station.

  She grabbed her phone and scoured the Internet, seeking a solicitor. She found one called Miller, Jones & Tuck, on Aldgate High Street. Thirty years’ experience, highest level of representation, excellent track record – just some of the lines she read on their homepage. She jabbed the link for the phone number.

  That was when it hit her. She was calling solicitors to save her husband. He would sit in a police cell. He would go to court – even if he killed in self-defence, even if the dead man was a criminal.

  She started to cry. How old would their baby – Michael, she now hoped it would be a boy because that was what Karl wanted – be when Karl got out of prison? If. She had heard about ‘whole life tariffs’ being given to some criminals, which meant they stayed in prison until they… She could no longer keep the phone to her ear with just one hand. She had to use two.

  Fifty

  Brad

  ‘Repeat: this is a waste of time,’ Dave said. Unable to pace in the car, his legs were jumping up and down, fingers drumming on the steering wheel. He looked like a guy missing the buzz of heroin. ‘We’re sitting here doing nothing but risking arrest.’

  Brad didn’t look up from his phone. ‘Repeat: stop bloody moaning. You’ll run out of synovial fluid and then you’ll really moan.’

  ‘Whatever.’ He looked at Brad’s phone, saw that his colleague was scrolling through Varsity jackets for sale and said: ‘You could have just bleached the blood out instead of lopping the arms off.’

  ‘And walk round until then looking like I just killed someone?’

  ‘Look at your forehead. People would know the blood was from that. How are you going to find one with a B?’

  Remembering, Brad looked down at the emblem on the jacket’s breast. ‘Shit.’

  Dave laughed, then slapped the steering wheel impatiently. ‘Why isn’t Mick here?’

  Brad sighed. ‘We’re here because he can’t be, aren’t we?’

  ‘Maybe he ran away to Germany already,’ Dave said. ‘Maybe for once his brain stopped to think, and he’s realised he’s made this situation a lot worse by trying to set-up Seabury and the woman. But that’s Mick. Shoot first, sod the questions. And he literally did shoot first, didn’t he? He’s going off the rails a bit, don’t you think? I mean more so than normal. Even the Germany thing proves that. Why not a country with no extradition, like Chile?’

  That much was true: the man was getting more erratic, and less thorough. Brad put it down to ego. Akin to some undefeated boxer getting sloppy in the ring, Mick was taking more and more risks because he believed he was invincible. Of course, there was a pinch of lunacy, too. But he didn’t want to talk about that any longer.

  ‘Maybe he’s got a woman over there,’ he said. ‘I caught him checking out jewellery on his phone one time. He sometimes sends texts with that goofy grin you guys only get when wooing a lady.’

  Dave laughed. ‘And I thought he’d turned celibate after his ex-wife died.’ He abruptly stopped laughing and sighed. ‘I shouldn’t be here. The plan was to nut Gra
fton and take his money, and we did that. I got ninety grand. That’s the house paid for, so what else do I need? Eh?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Brad replied impatiently. He didn’t care.

  ‘Nothing, that’s what else. So why am I here? What can Grafton’s wife tell the cops now that Ramirez is out of the picture? Nothing that comes back on me. All we’re doing is risking everything with this foolishness.’

  Brad had been waiting for the right moment to drop the bombshell. This wasn’t it, but Dave was pissing him off, so he said: ‘Ramirez is helping the cops, and he said they should look at the guys who hit The Savannah.’

  He felt all nervous movement from Dave cease, turned his head and saw him glaring. ‘That’s a fucking joke, right?’

  Brad needed a piss. He looked on the messy floor for a bottle. ‘Funny, eh?’

  Dave slapped the dashboard. ‘So the cops have our names, that’s what you’re saying? Well, that’s a fucking escalation, isn’t it? Jesus Christ.’

  ‘I thought you didn’t care? You were worried like an old woman last night, but this morning you said everything was fine. That’s what you said.’

  ‘I didn’t care. We got away from the scene. No cops kicked in the door at three in the morning. New day, new outlook. But it’s fucking different when they’ve got our names, isn’t it? Jesus. My wife will kill me if we lose that house.’

  ‘Don’t forget she’ll also be a bit down in the dumps if you go in the slammer for thirty years,’ Brad said, sarcastically. ‘You’re not the only one with something to lose here, you know. I’ve got plans that I don’t want to see go down the toilet. I’ve got a life that I like enough to want to keep.’

  Dave rubbed his face and cursed.

  Brad said: ‘Anyway, the cops don’t have your name. But don’t worry either way. Mick will find a way to deflect the police away from us. Bear in mind they would have looked at people like us anyway, without Ramirez shooting his mouth off. I heard Grafton’s lot hit a rival’s place earlier, looking for leads. All his enemies will be targets. We’re grains of sand in a desert.’

  ‘Mick’s head’s a mess; so, how’s he going to sort it out? He can’t think straight. Everything that happened has clearly fucked him up. It explains why he overreacted with Grafton. Then that silliness killing Król just so he could get near Seabury’s wife. Now I hear he’s talking about watching Gold, Grafton’s solicitor. Is he going to kill him, too? And who’s gonna be in the cross hairs after that? Ever see that film, Six Degrees of Separation?’

  ‘Look, he’s just covering all eventualities. It makes sense, if you think about it. They’re on the run. Król was going to burn us. Seabury’s wife might know where her bloke would hide. And Grafton never took a shit without consulting his lawyer, so maybe his wife thinks that’s the guy to go to. She’s gotta know by now that her man’s dead and the world thinks she’s been kidnapped. Some papers even said she’s the killer. The cops were always trying to nail Grafton, and she probably believed his bullshit that it was bullying, so a station full of cops is the last place she’s going to walk into.’

  ‘What, you agree with all this shit? What’s Mick going to resort to if Grafton’s wife ends up telling the cops all about us? Bomb London to shift attention? Think you’ll kiss the ground he walks on when that happens?’

  ‘That’s a bit far-fetched.’ Bomb London. Brad remembered when Mick had uttered something along those lines. Unless I burned the whole world, I might miss him and never know it. A couple of years ago now, and Brad had forgotten all about it. Somewhere along the way Mick had well and truly gone off the rails. With it in mind, he added: ‘Anyway, I don’t think this is about keeping her silent any lon—’

  ‘“Far-fetched”? What, you mean like overkill? Let me explain overkill, Brad. Overkill is when you shoot a guy dead, and then have a little sit down to get your energy, and then grab a fucking chainsaw to dice him up. Tell me that’s the sign of a guy in full control of his grey matter? And we stood by and watched. A quick kill might have got us to the Pearly Gates, but there’s a special level of Hell waiting for us now.’

  ‘Hey, as Nietzsche said, all the interesting people are missing from Heaven.’ He grabbed an empty plastic Pepsi bottle off the floor. ‘I expected as much, to be honest.’ He unscrewed the lid, and then unzipped his jeans. ‘Maybe the chainsaw was OTT. And he asked me a scary question about life after death. Sort of thing your God-fearing ass would say. But we’re not in his position, are we? Who are we to judge? We don’t know what it’s like after everything he’s been through. Maybe I’d have done exactly the same to Grafton if he’d done that to m—’

  ‘Hey, don’t piss in that, man. It’ll go everywhere. There’s a petrol can in the boot.’

  Brad tossed the bottle down and grabbed the door release lever.

  Dave said: ‘I want out. I just wanted the money, and I’ve got it. I don’t owe him anything, so I’ve got no reason—’

  ‘What are you saying? That I owe him? He got me off a murder charge. He needed us to get to Grafton. It was a business deal. You think I’m doing this as a favour? I’m trying to save my own skin, that’s all. Got that? I don’t owe anyone anything, okay?’

  ‘Whatever, man. I’m just saying there’s no reason for us to be involved. Grafton’s dead, so we all got our payback. Payback and a paycheque. We should be happy.’

  Brad didn’t know what to say to that. He knew Dave was right, and he wasn’t even sure exactly why he was going along with Mick’s plan any longer. Probably because he trusted the guy to keep them safe. He opened the door slowly and got out.

  As he stood up he flicked a glance across the road at the Seabury house.

  Fifty-One

  Karl

  The awkward part was Tanter Road because it was a hill, and that meant they couldn’t see the dozen police cars and fifty armed cops congregating at the entrance to Karl’s street. Karl slowed down and pulled into the side of the road.

  Liz wasn’t looking ahead, and barely seemed to register that the vehicle had stopped. She was quiet now, eyes facing downward.

  The spectrum of her performance was astounding given how docile she was now compared with her actions in stealing the van. Yet again she had displayed a resolve that made him wonder how much influence she had exerted over her husband. How much input did she have into his so-called business?

  ‘Be careful,’ she said, still lost in a world behind her eyes.

  ‘I’ll go in the back way.’

  He pulled into traffic. Ahead, the peak of the hill drew closer. The concrete jungle beyond it sprouted into existence full throttle: houses, lampposts, parked cars. But of the dozen police cars and fifty armed cops he expected… nothing. His street, on the left, was a hundred feet away. The entrance was clear.

  An oncoming van, with window installation company livery, turned right, onto Karl’s street. At that moment, Karl tugged the wheel to the left, and found himself behind the other vehicle. Just a couple of tradesmen at work. He reeled out some distance between them. Only a handful of cars were close to his house. Apart from Katie’s car, the closest was a red BMW, but that was on the other side of the road and sixty feet past. The street looked static, sleepy, but he wasn’t—

  ‘Don’t be fooled by everything seeming normal,’ she said, interrupting his thoughts.

  ‘I know,’ he replied, somewhat sharply. He wasn’t an idiot. He wasn’t about to stop outside his house and stroll to the door. ‘We’ll turn right at the end and park, and I’ll go in down the back alley.’

  The cops would use blank cars, of course, because they’d want camouflage. But two could play that game. If the cops didn’t leap on Premier Windows man as he drove to install triple glazing, then they wouldn’t hassle Mr Anderson en route to lay some tiles. Karl let the distance between them grow.

  He noticed a guy standing at the back of the BMW. The Premier Windows van passed his house, and then the parked car, without incident.

  He stared at his house.
How he’d taken its comfort for granted. What he’d give to be able to flop onto the sofa one more time. He’d eat and sleep on that thing for six straight months if he ever again got the chance.

  No movement from inside the house. No sign of Katie. But her car was there. He fought the desire to leap out and rush into his house. Even if cops, or bad guys, swung down from trees and Jack-in-the-boxed out of manholes, he’d get to hold Katie before they dragged him away. And he’d burn that image to his memory for ever.

  When the Caddy approached the BMW, Karl noticed a black guy in the driver’s seat. The white guy at the back had a petrol can in his hands and his head down, blocked by the open boot hatch.

  Then the Caddy was alongside, and slipping past. Karl turned his head and looked at them, struck by panic. Liz was staring, and Karl was staring, and the driver was staring back at them. Just for a second, before he slipped out of view, but long enough. Liz whipped her head away, and he saw her shock and fear. He threw a hand up to cover his face.

  Both of them had seen his forehead. Three ragged gashes filled with dried blood. Just like you might get if you tried to kill a man in an underground bar and a woman dug her nails into your face from behind.

  Varsity. Here. For them.

  They both watched the passenger wing mirror with rising dread. Waiting for the guy to shout, and point, and jump in the car before coming after them – from anonymity to ten o’clock news in a flash.

  But Varsity had his back to them. He slammed the boot, and he got in the car – slowly, no haste. And the BMW just sat there.

  He hadn’t recognised them, Karl realised, breathing a sigh of relief. Perhaps because of the dirty windows of the van, or maybe he just wasn’t expecting them to be in Mr Anderson’s van.