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

by Jake Cross

  ‘I gave him that choice already and he fucked it up,’ Mick said from the doorway, in a deep voice.

  He approached Seabury. Dave and Brad stood back. He stood five feet away and folded his arms. The pliers were in his hand, on show, impossible to ignore. He had his cap pulled low, the same one he’d worn when he’d confronted Seabury on the building site.

  ‘Where’s my wife?’ Seabury asked. His voice didn’t sound scared, although his eyes were. Fear overridden by worry for his loved one. They darted everywhere.

  ‘She got away, actually. Lucky girl. Right now she’s probably in a hospital, talking to my guys.’ He saw the puzzled look on Seabury’s face and laughed.

  ‘The police, Seabury, the police.’

  Still utter confusion: Seabury hadn’t put two and two together yet. Mick made a big show of flicking off his hat.

  The transformation on Seabury’s face was magical to watch. His eyes grew wide. His jaw quivered. He stumbled over whatever line he tried to speak. Mick liked the idea that Seabury had been half-expecting a miraculous rescue by Detective Chief Inspector McDevitt. It made his little reveal that much more beautiful.

  ‘Don’t abandon all hope yet,’ Mick said.

  He had expected Seabury to latch onto this, but he didn’t. Instead, he simply asked ‘Why?’ and Mick realised he was talking about Grafton. He was angry that a nonentity like this fucker had dared to ask. That he believed he held enough importance to expect an answer.

  ‘Why did I kill that bastard? You don’t get the right to ask that.’ He wanted to smash him, but he didn’t. He took a step back and unzipped his jacket, unbuttoned the top of his shirt.

  Seabury looked at the wound, and Mick could see the puzzlement on his face. Mick fingered the old injury. One misshapen right collarbone and a ragged semi-circular scar the size of a baby’s fist.

  ‘It’s deeper than you think. Even if it wasn’t, people have killed for less,’ Mick said. He tapped the wound with the pliers. ‘I didn’t let them fix it. I wanted the scar. A reminder. Kept me motivated. It’s all I have, apart from a few fucking routines that would make me look like a raving lunatic but keep me fucking sane, ironically.

  ‘You think it’s overkill. You don’t understand, of course. You’re not meant to. You aren’t part of this. You got involved because you wanted to help a woman. And you’re still alive right now because I’m giving you a chance to help another woman. Your wife this time. You have no idea how many cops are involved in this. They can get to your wife. The moment I give the order. My nightmare continues, day after day, but yours can end right now. I said don’t abandon all hope, right? Because you have a kill switch for this whole sorry fiasco, Seabury. When the shit raining down on you becomes too much, you can go ahead and press that kill switch by telling me where Grafton’s bitch wife is—’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Karl blurted. ‘I honestly don’t know.’ He struggled in the chair, trying to break either it or the handcuffs. He knew it was futile, because the three men would be upon him before he got to his feet. But he tried, anyway, because a drowning man will clutch even at the smallest straw floating within reach. He succeeded in toppling the chair, but the big detective grabbed him before it could crash down. He was set carefully upright once more. He smelled bacon on the guy, which somehow made this whole thing seem even more wrong. It was a reminder that he was human, that he ate, slept, lived a normal life.

  The detective stepped back. ‘Don’t say a word yet. I’ll let that one go because you didn’t know any better. But not another word, because you only get one chance. A woman is going into that very chair you’re in, and you get to pick. Liz Grafton, or Katie Seabury. Do you understand? If you don’t tell me where Grafton’s bitch is, or you lie about it, I’ll send my man to go fetch your wife right now. I’ll rip you apart with these pliers and force-feed you to her. Tell me you understand that so we have no confusion.’

  Karl nodded. He looked at Varsity, and a short black man he didn’t know. Both men looked concerned. They didn’t look comfortable with what was happening, which made Karl realise that these two henchmen weren’t as unhinged. But he also realised that concern proved he was a lunatic. Right then he had no doubt that he would not leave this warehouse alive. And that Katie was in grave danger.

  ‘Good,’ the detective said. ‘So the only word I want to hear from you is a name. Liz, or Katie. The urge to beg must be great, but you need to bite it back. So, calm down and think. You’ve got that ability, because there’s no pain yet, is there? I’m standing back, and nothing’s happened to you yet, the brain isn’t going wild with shock. So, use it to think. Think of your wife. And I don’t mean think of her lonely without you, bringing up that baby alone. I mean think of her in this chair. You slumped beside her, dead. And her being force-fed little torn-up bits of your flesh. You go ahead and take ten seconds to think.’

  Karl flicked his eyes around: at the rusty old shutter, at the high windows and a doorless office at the back where there was a ground-floor window. His brain threw up escape scenarios, but they all depended on his being out of this chair which didn’t look likely. And he didn’t know where he was. He had been in the dark in the back of a van, unconscious for most of the journey, and they could have driven him anywhere. There might not be a soul around for miles. He might not even be in London.

  He realised he’d been wasting time when Mick said: ‘Three, two, one,’ and stepped forward with the pliers held up.

  Karl leaned back, and screamed for help.

  A ringing phone froze everyone. Karl raised his hopes as the detective pulled out his mobile and looked at it with a worried frown.

  ‘You get another sixty seconds, Karl. Dave, with me.’

  The detective and the black man went into the office. Karl saw him pull out a seat from the table and sit just out of view. He could see the man’s feet up on the table. His phone flew into shot and was clumsily caught by the black man.

  Karl looked at Varsity, who looked uncomfortable. He knew his eyes were pleading.

  ‘You should just tell the guy what he wants,’ Brad said.

  ‘You should tell your boss that you can’t get away with this. The police will know everything because my wife will tell them.’ A threat, of sorts, but he had the feeling that hurting him was the detective’s domain alone. This guy wouldn’t lay a finger on him without permission.

  Varsity held Karl’s look for a moment, then looked at the office, and then at the entrance, the glorious daylight and freedom beyond.

  He went to a button on the wall and pressed it, then jogged over to the office. The metal shutter started to lower. It rumbled and rattled and moved slowly, and the square of daylight began to shrink, and with it Karl’s hopes of freedom.

  Varsity walked into the office and said: ‘Hey, we still need to work on a plan to—’

  Sixty-Four

  Mick

  Mick’s raised finger and a sneer cut him off. Brad looked on in puzzlement. Mick was watching Dave, and Dave was pacing with Mick’s phone to his ear.

  Then Dave said: ‘Listen carefully. I’ve got your man’s phone. Which means I’ve got your man. He tried to stick his nose into our business. If you don’t want him cut to pieces just like Grafton, then you get fifty grand and leave it at Nelson’s Column in one hour.’ He hung up.

  Brad shut the door and said: ‘What the fuck was that?’

  ‘That was some kind of weird twisted shit he got me to do,’ Dave said, tossing Mick back his phone.

  ‘My people will suspect I’m involved,’ Mick said. ‘My detective sergeant just left me a voicemail. Very distraught. Knows I was set to meet Seabury, and then the shit hit the fan. They’ll soon suspect I’m involved in the kidnapping. But they’re not certain of anything yet, so this will muddy the waters. Maybe now it looks like I was going to bring Seabury in, but the bad guys turned up and took us all hostage. It gives us time. Time to get the bitch, and time to sterilise our houses and run for the hills.’


  ‘Run?’ Dave said. ‘And burn down a house I just bought? You’re joking, right?’

  Brad said: ‘But what about the plan to get the cops off my back? How can that work now?’

  ‘It can’t any more.’

  ‘Jesus. Because you’re burned.’

  ‘Wouldn’t work even if I wasn’t. Because you are.’ Mick explained all about the About.me webpage, and the dead dealer, Rapid. ‘They don’t yet know about your alibi for the night Rapid was killed, but that’s just a matter of time. Alerts are going out for you even now. The police are probably talking to your boyfriend right this minute. You are burned, just like me. So, there’s no interview, and there’s no going home.’

  In the shocked silence that followed, Dave said: ‘Er, but not me, right? They’ve got nothing on me.’

  ‘Oh, thanks,’ Brad said, which made Mick laugh. But he stopped a moment later when they heard a monstrous crash out in the warehouse.

  Sixty-Five

  Karl

  The shutter’s downward rumble increased. It was two feet from clanging shut when Karl realised he was hearing something else.

  Engine, he thought.

  The shutter burst inward as if a bomb had exploded just outside. With a screeching bang it tore free from its runners and flew into the warehouse, and behind it was a vehicle.

  At first he thought it was the van that had smashed into the police car, but it was a different colour. Sky blue, literally. It roared into the warehouse with the shutter folded over its front, held there by force. And it was racing right at him.

  He jerked his whole body to the left and tipped the chair, hoping to God that he cleared the vehicle’s path. He landed hard on his side and felt the rush of air as the van blew past him, mere feet away. He got a half second glance at the driver: a guy he didn’t know but whose face was a mask of joy. Karl knew then this was no bizarre accident.

  The van did not slow as it bore down on the office just ten feet away. Beyond the powering vehicle, he saw the door open and Mick standing there, locked in shock. A nanosecond later the van hit the wall right where the office door was and stopped dead with a massive clang from the shutter. The driver had blocked the doorway.

  The passenger door crashed open, and Liz leaped out. Karl didn’t believe she was real until she bent over him and started yanking at his shoulder to make him stand.

  ‘Tied to it,’ he yelled.

  She knelt behind him and found the handcuffs.

  ‘Don’t back up!’ he heard Liz yell to the driver – she had obviously realised that the shutter, pressed against the doorway, was keeping the animals inside.

  From this position Karl could see right under the van. He saw a sliver of the doorway. No more than eight inches right at the bottom, but enough to allow the passage of a man. And that was what he saw now: Varsity, down on his front, feeding himself out of the office.

  ‘Back up when I say,’ Liz screamed.

  ‘Where’s my wife?’ Karl asked, feeling his shoulders jerk as she tried to break the chair to free him.

  She didn’t answer. She stood, and for a moment he thought she was going to give up. Leave him here and flee.

  Instead, she raised a bare foot and stomped. Right onto his wrist; it hurt like hell as he heard a snap. A snap like wood. He had been straining to lean forward, and now felt the resistance evaporate. The slat holding him right in place had snapped, and he was free – as free as you could be while still handcuffed and in the presence of killers.

  Sixty-Six

  Mick

  At that moment Mick was in the upstairs office, having rushed for the stairs while Brad dropped to his front to crawl under the shutter.

  He had heard the initial crash, figured some vehicle had rushed the shutter, and had got as far as the doorway when the shutter slammed the walls either side, forced there hard by the vehicle. The impact was strong enough to crack the doorframe and send a spiderweb of cracks along one wall; dirt and paint flecks from the shutter rained all over him and the booming clang rattled his ears. He knew this was a rescue attempt.

  He had rushed up the stairs: the door was locked. Three hard shoulder blows killed the lock. At the far end of the upstairs office was a window that he rushed to. It was simply a sheet of clear plastic, no handle, not designed to open. Mick dislodged a corner with a heavy kick, grabbed the edge and pushed. The whole sheet peeled away like the top of a tin can, nice and neat. He watched it fall and hit the top of the van, eight feet below.

  Like something from a cartoon, he stuck his head out in time to see the final inches of a leg slipping inside the open back doors. Then hands reach out to slam the doors. A moment after that, Brad rolled out from underneath. He was halfway to his feet when the van shifted backwards, knocking him over again. Brad rolled aside, barely avoiding the wheels as the van reversed towards the exit. It was halfway there by the time the shutter, with nothing to hold it up, toppled away from the office door with a noise like thunder.

  More thunder as Mick’s Hi-Point C-9 pistol fired. Half its ten-round magazine gone in seconds. The van swerved left and right. He heard the clang of metal striking metal at high speed, but no tyre popped, the windscreen didn’t shatter, and nobody screamed in pain. Three or four direct hits maybe, but all to no good.

  The van’s engine whined as it J-turned, and he found himself aiming at its blank metal rear. He continued to aim, five shots remaining, but he didn’t fire because the bitch was in the back. What he wanted most in the world was to kill that bitch with his bare hands, and the very last thing he wanted was for her to escape. But at least the latter would allow him another chance at the former, and that wouldn’t happen if a fluke bullet sprayed her across the interior of the van.

  Beyond the gun’s sights, he watched the van exit and vanish.

  Sixty-Seven

  Karl

  The van had a single bench seat against each side wall, and Liz and Karl took one each. All windows were curtained, and Karl wondered where the hell he’d been brought. The rough ride made him think: somewhere remote.

  ‘They might go after my wife. I need to get to her,’ he called out.

  After a series of sharp manoeuvres over rough land, the drive became smooth and the speed dropped. He heard other vehicles. So, not the desolation of the country, then. He moved to the back window as the van took a turn and parted the curtains with his face as his hands were still cuffed. Between two sand-coloured buildings he glimpsed moored yachts and water which vanished as the turn was completed.

  ‘Where the hell are we? Where are we going?’ He knew his head was still fuzzy from the wild events of the last hour, but surely they couldn’t be at the coast.

  ‘Limehouse,’ the driver said. He was a heavyset guy with ginger hair and a ginger beard, heavily muscled shoulders under his T-shirt.

  Karl relaxed a little. Limehouse was close to St Dunstan’s, so he hadn’t blacked out for long. He figured Katie might still be near the crash location.

  ‘Are we going back to the crash?’ he asked.

  ‘Don’t be silly, pal,’ the driver said. Karl figured this was Danny.

  ‘We’ve got to go back. My wife might still be there, so—’

  ‘She ran away, mate. She’s safe. The people who did this got the hell out of there when they lost her. If she’s still around there, she’s with the police, my friend. They’re all over that place by now.’

  ‘She’s not safe with the police! That guy was a cop. He was that detective, McDevitt. They can get to her. I need to find out where she is.’

  ‘Calm down, my friend. Yeah, we saw him. He might be a high-ranking cop, but he’s shown his face, so he’s on the run now and can’t get anywhere near her.’

  ‘No, he said there’s others—’

  ‘I doubt that, pal. I know enough crooked cops. They steal money from criminals and they hide evidence and stuff, but what they don’t do is kill witnesses in custody. So, this guy is probably a cop taking the law into his own hands because Ron beat
the system. So, she’s fine. We can find your missus later. For now your priority is to get away from this area because they’ll throw a net across it. And mine is to get that girl there away from here.’

  Liz. He’d forgotten about her for the moment. She sat facing him, but looking down at the floor, hands on her lap, palms up.

  ‘Are you okay?’ he asked. And then he realised she wasn’t looking at the floor. Her hand. The paw print tattoo. It was now an indelible reminder that her journey had been cut short.

  Danny took a quick turn, pulled in somewhere and stopped.

  ‘Lizzy? You hurt?’

  Karl knew then that this guy would do anything for her. Including making sure she was safe before he even thought about finding Katie.

  She didn’t look up when she said: ‘This isn’t because Ron won his trial. It isn’t a police officer taking the law into his own hands.’ She wiped her cheek, removing a tear. ‘This was an inside job. My husband was betrayed by people he trusted. People who were our friends.’

  Sixty-Eight

  Mick

  Mick moved away from the others to make a call. He spoke for thirty seconds, and then slotted his device away and returned, sitting on the chair Seabury had been handcuffed to.

  ‘What a fucking day so far,’ he said, rubbing his face. ‘And it’s barely lunchtime.’

  ‘So now what?’ Dave said. ‘This is over, right? That’s it.’

  ‘Easy for you to say,’ Brad moaned. ‘I can’t just go home.’

  ‘Well, I’m sorry about that, Brad. But what am I supposed to do, go on the run as well? I’ve got a wife—’