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

by Jake Cross

  In answer, he opened his door to get out. But she stopped him.

  ‘You take the van because you’re going to be all alone and will need it. I’ll keep the phone. Danny will pick me up.’

  She got out, and he let her. She shut her door. Turned away, but didn’t move. He dropped the passenger window.

  ‘Have a good life, Liz Grafton.’

  She turned back. ‘Be careful.’

  ‘Never been my thing, as your presence in my life proves.’

  He got a smile from her in return. He decided to leave it at that. A nice final image. A genuine smile, which meant he must have done some good in her life. He turned the van onto the road, and drove past her.

  In the mirror, he saw that she was watching him leave.

  Strangely, he hoped he hadn’t seen the last of Liz Smith.

  Fifty-Seven

  Mick

  ‘I’m busy now, call you later.’

  Cooper was also on his mobile. He looked up and said: ‘The old guy is coming down.’

  Mick replied: ‘Why? I don’t want him here.’

  ‘He only wants to speak to the head detective. Won’t give up the tape otherwise. He’s coming down now with the constable.’

  ‘What took so long?’

  Cooper asked the question, then said: ‘The old guy insisted that the constable watched the CCTV first.’

  ‘Why?’ Mick asked, concerned.

  ‘He wanted to give some commentary. The chap wants to be involved.’

  If a cop had seen the video, he might recognise him, and that just wouldn’t do. Shit. Thinking quick, he said: ‘I don’t want the constable here. Just members of the investigation team. He can be of better use elsewhere.’ Cooper got on it.

  They were standing outside a lock-up garage on a patch of grassland backdropped by a playing field, about 160 feet from the main road. Behind them, 100 feet away, were the rear ends of a row of houses, each garden with high hedges that blocked their view of the upstairs windows. And thus any view of the garages. Exactly the reason he had chosen the place. Yet here they fucking were. It clearly hadn’t been enough.

  Mick and Cooper were watching the SOCO team milling around the Volvo in the second garage. The warped garage door was up only halfway, as far as the busted contraption would go. Today these guys wore respirators and face shields because they were dealing with a vicious chemical that Dave and Brad had used to sterilise the crime scene.

  DC Gondal arrived and was let through the cordon. He almost jogged to his colleagues, which Mick didn’t like. His fear that Gondal had news was right on the money.

  ‘I got a couple of neat things on Brad Smithfield,’ Gondal said with a grin. ‘That Scottish henchman called Rocker, the murder you investigated? Not the only killing Smithfield’s name has been tied to. There’s another low life with a daft nickname. Robert Dunham, called himself Rapid. Drug dealer specialising in Buzz who got himself whacked in the proverbial dark alley one night just a week after the Rocker fiasco.’

  He waited for a response. Mick, feeling the panic rise, could only think of: ‘Drug dealers get targeted all the time. Lucrative fodder for underworld taxmen and vigilantes. Give me more.’

  ‘His alibi was perfect: being interviewed by police about the Rocker killing. But shit sticks. Doesn’t mean he wasn’t involved. And this guy, Rapid, had been known to deal out of Grafton’s nightclub.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So twice, in two different murders and the nightclub robbery, the name Brad Smithfield has appeared as a person of interest. The sweetness is the way it all links to Ronald Grafton.’

  ‘That’s not really a link, is it? Dealers operate out of all sorts of nightclubs, and Grafton owned one of the most popular in London. I need more.’ More was the last thing he wanted, of course, but he was a cop investigating a triple slaughter and he had to be seen to be doing all he could.

  Gondal pulled out a sheet of paper from his pocket. Unfolded it slowly, like a guy playing on the tension to unleash something big. And big it was. Mick found himself staring at a printout from a website called About.me. A single-page user profile, like an online business card.

  ‘BRAD SMITHFIELD’ was the title. Below, taking up half the page, was a large picture of the man himself in jeans, T-shirt, dusty boots, a battered hard hat and a utility belt, kneeling before the corner of a half-built house, taking time out from laying bricks to grin at the camera.

  ‘JOINER, MASON, LANDSCAPER, ELECTRICIAN’ said big, bold letters under his name, and below that a button:

  BROWSE MY PORTFOLIO

  At the bottom was the personal stuff: HARD WORKER BY DAY AND GENERAL FUN GUY AT NIGHT, BRAD IS KNOWN FOR HIS SENSE OF HUMOUR AND BROAD SHOULDERS, A CHEEKY CHAP WHO…

  ‘Recognise the house?’ Gondal said, pointing. And Mick did. His heart sank.

  Gondal said: ‘So Smithfield worked on Grafton’s nice woodland cottage, which meant he knew exactly where it was and what kind of place it was. Maybe he was a long-time employee the cops didn’t know about, and maybe he was in the loop enough to know that Grafton would flee there after his advance-fee fraud trial. He was questioned about the death of a dealer working out of Grafton’s club. He was suspected of the hit on Grafton’s nightclub. He worked on Grafton’s house. We need to pull this guy in for a chat. No more playing.’

  ‘Do it,’ Mick said, because now he had no choice. He knew Brad had been working on a website in order to find work, but he hadn’t expected the damn fool to post a fucking photo of himself at Grafton’s country abode.

  For now, though, there was a more pressing matter.

  A uniformed constable and an old man appeared at the cordon, thirty feet off. Mick turned from them. Out of the corner of his eye, he watched Cooper bring the witness towards him. Thankfully, the cop who could potentially sink Mick was turned away. Mick relaxed.

  The old chap was in a tacky suit, something he might have got married in fifty years ago. He didn’t look altogether there as he was introduced to the detectives. He was introduced as Alfie Tasker, from number eight, which was the last house on the row behind them. In his hands was a VHS tape.

  ‘You’re the boss?’

  Mick nodded. ‘That’s the recording?’

  ‘Secured the perimeter, which is good,’ the guy said. ‘Have you got guys tracing cars seen in the vicinity last night?’

  ‘We’ll get it back to you, if you need it,’ Cooper said, with his hand out for the tape.

  ‘What happened to your ear?’ Tasker asked, pointing to Mick.

  He touched it before he could stop himself. ‘What’s your camera quality like?’ With luck, the guy would admit it was bullshit. With luck, maybe they couldn’t distinguish faces.

  ‘Dark, wasn’t it? Council wouldn’t shell out their own hard-earned, would they? But it’s good enough to get these idiot vandals bang to rights. So tell me, what’re you going to do about them?’

  They’d heard that this chap was annoyed by the constant vandalism of these garages, which needed knocking down anyway. Thought they could get away with their lark because nobody could see them because of the trees. They caused noise at all hours. Well, the old guy had fixed that problem. Mick glanced at the far end of the block of garages, some forty feet away. There, on the wall, was a tiny camera, aimed this way to watch all the doors. It hadn’t fucking been there six days ago when Mick and Brad had come here to assess the place for their needs.

  ‘This is more serious than vandals, Mr Tasker,’ Gondal said, annoyed. The old guy had called because of a media release about the murders in which the Volvo had been mentioned. Not vandals.

  ‘I know, I know. But they’re the same people, right? Have you dusted for prints?’

  ‘Can we have the tape?’ Cooper asked.

  The old guy passed it over.

  To Mick, Cooper said: ‘I know how we can get this hooked up, so we don’t have to wait for a transfer to digital.’

  They were ready to go back to the station and vie
w it. Which was bad. Mick felt panic rising further. He touched his ear again, and looked at the camera.

  The old guy said: ‘Smells like drain cleaner.’

  Sure was. A bottle of Devil Drain Dasher that Brad and Dave had splashed all over the car. Sodium hydroxide, no friend to forensics guys. But nobody knew that yet, and Mick wasn’t about to help them.

  ‘Caustic soda,’ the old guy said. ‘Good for burning up flesh. Sodium hydroxide, that’ll be it. That guy in Mexico who worked for a drug cartel, he used it. Three hundred bodies he got rid of. You got bodies in there?’

  Gondal and Cooper grinned at the old guy’s fanciful mind, but Mick didn’t. No worry, because they’d discover the chemical used pretty soon, and you wouldn’t be able to do anything with that information. But still, it wasn’t nice to hear an old guy work it out in seconds.

  ‘Thanks for the tape,’ Cooper said to the old guy. ‘I’ll escort you home, if you like.’

  But he didn’t move.

  And then an idea. ‘Mr Tasker, you obviously have the ability to watch these tapes, right? Playback. You have a video recorder?’ Mick asked.

  ‘I do.’

  ‘Then how about we four go watch this thing right now, at your house?’

  Tasker was up for it. Mick knew this guy wanted to be included. Maybe he was a former cop or just a busybody. Mick needed Gondal and Cooper to see it right now, too, because he could control that. He couldn’t if they chose to view it later, without him.

  All agreed, the four of them headed for Tasker’s house. Mick touched his bad ear again, as if he needed a reminder of what was at stake. He needed a plan, quick, or his two colleagues were going to watch a video which showed him with the Volvo. When Gondal and Cooper had joined his team, he’d hoped they were sharp tacks. Now, he hoped for the opposite. Because if they worked this one out, there would be no glory.

  ‘I need something from my car first,’ he said.

  He slipped the gun out of his glove box and into his pocket.

  Fifty-Eight

  Katie

  Katie finished packing the bag of items Karl might need while in police custody, and sat staring at it. It seemed so final. She had packed a bag for him a couple of years ago, while he was at work, because they’d had an argument. She remembered packing seven pairs of underwear, holding them in her hands, and throwing two aside, figuring that five days apart would be enough. Then she tossed aside three more. Then she unpacked the bag, and today he still never knew about it.

  This time, though, things were out of her hands. So, she took the bag to the car, and beside it put a sandwich wrapped in foil because he must be hungry; a bottle of water; the Smartwatch he’d given her a couple of weeks ago, because it was tiny and maybe he could sneak it into his cell so they could chat by text, even though she knew that was unlikely.

  Cell. That thought brought a tear.

  Her final task after locking the house and getting into the car was to boot up the satnav E1 0NR. The church was only half a mile southwest of their home. That made her realise that Karl was close. Out there somewhere, a hunted man hiding just minutes from his comfortable home, his wife, his unborn baby.

  ‘I’m coming, Karl,’ she said aloud, and started the car.

  Fifty-Nine

  Brad

  A taxi dropped Dave and Brad at Western Road Autos. More mechanics in dirty coveralls, but these guys knew Dave. When Dave had been a getaway driver, he used cut and shuts – illegal cars created by welding together the good halves of two written-off vehicles – provided by Western Autos. These days Western was purely legit, although the guys running it were not. And they still offered cut and shuts, albeit for sale only to rally and demolition enthusiasts.

  They were there to collect a brown Mercedes Vito panel. Surgery had resulted in the removal of the partition between the cargo space and the cab, which suited them just fine. It could be traced to the garage, so they were to deliver it to a scrapyard once they were finished with it.

  Standing outside the vehicle Brad asked: ‘Can you make your own way there? Something I want to take care of.’

  ‘There’ was the job Mick had given to Dave. He said sure, and got one of the mechanics, an old friend, to give him a lift home to collect his motorbike.

  * * *

  Brad cruised slowly past Ian’s house, seeking surveillance. And he found it. No attempt at secrecy, though. There was a patrol car parked near the house with two guys inside. They watched him drive past, and to hide his face he yawned and rubbed his chin.

  Around the corner, he called Mick, to urge him to pull the cops from his house and hurry up arranging some kind of plan to erase his name from the investigation. But he didn’t get a word out.

  ‘I’m busy now,’ Mick answered, ‘call you later.’ Then he abruptly hung up.

  Brad called Ian at work.

  ‘Hey up, Chopper,’ Ian answered. It sounded like a gangster’s nickname, but Ian had invented it. He thought Brad’s snoring sounded like a helicopter. His tone was the happy-to-hear-from-you kind, which was good. It meant the police hadn’t been to talk to him.

  ‘Just wanted to say love ya,’ Brad said. Ian repeated it, then asked how things were going with the job hunt. Brad replied that things were going well, and they agreed to watch a film tonight over pizza. That call done, worries alleviated, it was time to head to the church.

  Sixty

  Dave

  Dave didn’t have any cop worries as he arrived home. But that was about to change. Instead of collecting his motorbike, he stared at it for a few seconds, ignition key in his hand. Thirty seconds later, he put the key in his pocket, mind made up.

  He found Lucinda at the kitchen table, counting the money again. Used twenties. Not a big amount: 4,521 notes, to be exact. She had created equal-sized piles so that the cash filled the table. Then he noticed piles of £10 notes. She had wanted all the notes turned into tens or fives so the mass would be bigger. He had warned her that they couldn’t just waltz into a bank and change it. It had to be kept secret. Hell, it was going to be hard enough to try to use it to pay off half their mortgage. That problem still needed working on. Now she’d done this.

  ‘Did you do the church thing already?’ she asked, suspicious. Always suspicious. He ignored the question and tapped a pile of tens.

  She flicked a hand, like royalty dispatching a beggar. ‘Just £500. Nobody’s calling the FBI about that. Why are you back? Is it done?’

  ‘I’ve got some time,’ he told her as he grabbed the kettle to make tea. It had been a stressful last evening and this morning, and all he wanted to do now was relax.

  ‘Will it be done when the church thing is done?’

  ‘Yeah. I mean, maybe the odd bit of housekeeping or whatever. Mick wants me to warn some guy not to talk to the cops. But we’re good. You want a tea?’

  He grabbed a Typhoo teabag. This was real tea, not that flavoured or cold or herbal shit that some people drank.

  ‘“Warn some guy”? What do you mean?’

  Milk in the cup first, despite what some said. That way you could choose exactly how full you wanted the cup while getting the correct amount of milk. ‘One of the guys Mick sent to that guy’s house to find Grafton’s wife.’

  ‘You said he was dead. You said you had to go burn his flat down.’

  And don’t touch the teabag for fifteen seconds. Let the flavour diffuse into the water. ‘Yeah. Evidence. There were two guys.’

  ‘And?’

  Now he stirred the teabag. Some squashed it against the side of the cup, but that was forcing flavour out, which was just wrong. ‘And nothing, really. The cops know someone else was with Król. Mick thinks Król might have told the guy what was going on, and the guy might tell the police when they find him. I doubt it. His kind tell the cops nothing. Hey, you want to watch that comedy at the pictures tonight? It’s on at—’

  ‘Shuttup about films a minute. This guy might talk to the cops, so Mick wants you to warn him not to? Why
haven’t you?’

  Twenty seconds of stirring, and the strength was just right. ‘It’s a waste of time. He won’t tell the police anything.’

  ‘But if he does? If he tells them that Mick wanted the house owner and Grafton’s wife, that opens up a can of worms, Dave. Might lead to us.’

  And no sugar. If you needed sugar, you didn’t really like tea. ‘I doubt it. Just Mick being – Jesus!’

  He jumped as Lucinda appeared beside him and knocked the kettle out of his grip as he was pouring. Boiling water splashed everywhere, including onto his hand.

  She spun him around. ‘If he gave you a job to do, dickhead, it’s because it might ruin everything if you don’t do it. Are you stupid?’

  Clutching his scalded hand, he opened his mouth to speak, but she got there first.

  ‘Don’t even think about arguing with me. You damn idiot. Get out there. Go fuck this guy up before he tells the cops and they come knocking on this door. I’m not going down or losing this house because you’re a lazy bastard.’

  She slapped his arm to get him moving.

  ‘Get out there and don’t come back until it’s done.’

  Sixty-One

  Liz

  A van painted to look like a blue sky turned into the autoyard, so Liz put down her coffee, thanked the man who’d made it for her, and left the reception area. She climbed into the passenger seat without a word and the van backed up. Not until the vehicle was heading southeast along Bow Common Lane did the driver say anything.

  ‘You employed the Rotten Rake, then?’