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

by Jake Cross

  ‘And I’ve got a bloody partner, too. But I—’

  ‘No, it’s not over,’ Mick cut in. ‘They’re not safe yet. Didn’t you recognise that van?’

  ‘Danny Mall,’ Brad said.

  ‘Your old friend.’

  ‘He isn’t my friend.’

  ‘Not now, for sure. The bitch had the chance to go to the police, yet she called one of her husband’s people. What’s that say to you?’

  Neither Dave nor Brad had an answer.

  ‘She won’t go to the cops yet,’ Mick said. ‘So, we have time. I think I know the plan. Seabury gave it away. He said she was planning to hand herself in in her own way. Gold. Her husband’s solicitor. That’s where they’re going. It was her plan all along.’

  ‘You mentioned him earlier. But you’d never get there in time.’

  For some reason, Mick latched onto Dave’s use of the term you’d. Not we’d. ‘I did mention it earlier, and I got a guy I know to watch his office. He went to court and looks like being there all day. I don’t think the bitch has contacted him yet. If they’re going there, I think her plan is to just turn up on his doorstep. Where we’ll be waiting.’

  Brad said: ‘His office is in the middle of Notting Hill Gate. I can’t see them risking exposure on the way there. Besides, he might not go back to the office.’

  ‘Grafton wouldn’t be seen dead in a busy high street solicitor’s office, sitting next to a car thief in a baseball cap. I think they’ll go to his house after hours.’

  ‘I want no part,’ Dave said. ‘We should cut and run. This revenge thing of yours is getting out of hand, Mick.’

  ‘You’re not home and dry, Dave, because there’s a man out there who can burn you, too.’

  They glared at each other. The realisation sinking in, Dave said: ‘You?’

  ‘Me. We’re in this till the end. All of us. Look, I don’t want to threaten you two. We’re friends. But this is a whole new big ass ballgame now. I’m very far from being in a celebratory mood, and we all celebrate together, or we all go down together. But if we do this, and it works, I’ll make sure you’re both spotless. I need an answer.’

  * * *

  A few minutes later, they were driving out of the warehouse grounds. Dave had refused to ride in the Vito, claiming a jaunt on his bike would clear his head, so he was following behind on the Suzuki.

  Three minutes after that, both vehicles hit a junction. Green light. The Vito went straight across, heading west, as planned, but the bike stalled and got caught on red. Brad slowed the Vito and looked in his rear-view mirror. He saw the light change to green; and watched the tiny vehicles 500 feet back begin to move again. But Dave’s bike swung a fast left at the junction, not west.

  Stalling the bike had been a trick. Dave was abandoning them. Cutting them loose. Running. And when Brad looked at Mick, the detective was staring at his own wing mirror. But Mick said nothing.

  That was when Brad knew they were about to play a very different ballgame.

  Sixty-Nine

  Karl

  ‘His name is Bradley Smithfield. I heard he was some kind of enforcer. I know Ron had people like that. But the Brad I knew was my bodyguard, and a maintenance man. He helped with the house. He fixed my dressing table. He used to give me a lift sometimes.’

  She rubbed her face. ‘He always seemed like a nice man. I mean, I know what he did for my husband. Threatening people, collecting money. But that wasn’t the man I knew. He stopped coming round a few years ago. It was that robbery at our nightclub. Ron’s associate suspected some of Ron’s men because they knew about the meeting he was having that night. Ron didn’t want to look like he was protecting people, so he fired a few of his guys. Bradley and a friend of his, David, I think, were suspected. But I never believed it, and Ron said he wasn’t sure who did the robbery. I never saw Bradley after that. I heard he went straight. How could he be involved in this? What did Ron do to make Bradley want to hurt him? Is this revenge for something? For being fired?’

  ‘Don’t beat yourself up about it,’ Danny said. ‘And we don’t know anything for sure yet.’

  ‘This is my fault. I should have told you earlier.’

  ‘Fault how?’ Karl asked.

  ‘If I’d said something, to both of you, we could have…’

  ‘Not avoided this, if that’s what you mean,’ Danny said. ‘None of this is your fault.’

  ‘How can we go to Ron’s solicitor now, though? If a close friend of Ron’s can do this, how do we know who we can trust?’

  ‘Gold is on our level,’ Danny said. He looked round at her, and in his face Karl saw something that he didn’t like. He got the feeling the guy was hiding something.

  ‘I live in Woodford these days,’ Danny said, eyes on the road again. ‘It’s only five miles away. We can eat and clean up. We’ll go and work on our plan. And see if we can find out a bit about where your wife is, eh, pal?’

  There was something in his tone: Karl knew the man was glad they’d got off the subject of Bradley Smithfield.

  Seventy

  Mick

  Brad stopped in a secluded corner of the library car park. Mick stared at the library for a few seconds, trance-like.

  ‘We haven’t got all day,’ Brad said.

  ‘Tim’s still got an overdue book out from there,’ Mick said. ‘Do libraries still have those amnesty days?’

  Brad shook his head in disbelief. ‘Mick, we should—’

  ‘Half an hour maximum,’ Mick cut in. He kicked his door wide. ‘Any longer means I’m in handcuffs: so, get away and have a good life.’

  He got out and for a moment stood and thought about how he’d failed himself when Seabury’s wife knocked off his mask. The embarrassment was so intense it gave him an instant headache. He got out, crossed a field, and climbed a fence into his backyard. He opened the door and crept into his own house like a burglar.

  He checked out the front window. No strange cars. None of his colleagues’ cars. The who and why and how of the road traffic collision would still be a source of confusion, so he still had time before someone worked it out. But not much. He got changed: elastic-waisted jeans, a zip fleece and running shoes. All black, of course. Stakeout gear needed to be comfortable. His put his bomber jacket back on and got to work.

  He started with the books from his bedroom cabinet. Old paperbacks from the YMCA shop where Tim volunteered. He ripped out page after page and tossed them around like confetti. The clothing was next, hauled from drawers and wardrobes and scattered everywhere.

  The fluid came last. Splashed all over. He left the kitchen until last. Five feet from the back door, he grabbed a roll of kitchen towels and pulled a lighter from his pocket.

  ‘Brad Smithfield’s alibi for the night Rapid was killed was perfect indeed.’

  Mick froze. And slowly turned.

  Standing at the back door was DI Gondal.

  ‘He was being interviewed by police about the murder of Rocker,’ Gondal continued. ‘Just a simple follow-up interview, supposedly at his own house. But I just found out who conducted the interview. DCI Mick McDevitt. And he was all alone with Smithfield for a couple of hours, right around the time Rapid got stabbed in the brain in a stinking alleyway.’

  Mick’s eyes cast left, to the worktop loaded with money boxes. Eighteen filled sweetie jars that he and Tim had filled together. Just for a moment, he wondered if money could get him out of this one, because he really didn’t want to be forced into a different action. He had ninety grand: Gondal would take two years to earn an amount like that.

  ‘Did you put Smithfield up to it? Killing the dealer? Did you just cover it up? Maybe in return for helping him beat the murder of Rocker? You knew that the dealer was selling Buzz, didn’t you? Was that why he had to die?’

  ‘Don’t say another word about that,’ Mick hissed at him.

  ‘Okay. Try this. I thought about what Ramirez’s mother had said. About the police going into her attic. I looked into it. Turne
d out she was talking about when he was suspected of stabbing a guy in Kensington five years ago. You mentioned that investigation. But you didn’t mention that you personally oversaw the search of his house.’

  So, he knew. Mick felt his heartbeat increase with the realisation that he wasn’t buying passage out of this problem. And then he became aware of the lighter in his hand, and the flammable mess everywhere, and the stench of petrol that was impossible to ignore.

  ‘I was praying I had it wrong, so I dug deeper,’ Gondal said. ‘I learned that you’d requested a couple of PNC searches. One was this morning. Registration plate for a Suzuki motorbike registered to eighteen-year-old Darren John Crowthorne. An hour after your search, he was riding to college when he was knocked off his bike and then ran over again. Twenty-five-year-old Volkswagen Transporter, but with plates cloned from a five-year-old version of the vehicle.’

  But the point of no return was still ahead, and there could still be a way out of this. Mick’s brain cycled through options. His jaw started to throb.

  ‘But that’s not the scary search,’ Gondal continued. ‘There was also a PNC search you requested en route to the Grafton murder scene last night. I spoke to the operator you called, and she said DCI McDevitt had spotted a couple of guys racing their vehicles along a street. Basic vehicle search. The results had come back clean. Just a pair of guys comparing dick sizes, no big deal. That’s what you said to her. But the names are a big deal. Harold Bond, who was viciously attacked in his home that same night. And Karl Seabury.’

  Mick’s shoulders relaxed, and he let out a long breath. Gondal took a step forward.

  ‘You have to go in,’ Gondal said.

  ‘Why, Manzoor, why?’ Mick said, hanging his head.

  ‘Because you lied, Mac. You swore to fairness, integrity, diligence and impartiality. You remember that oath? That badge is a lie. Your life is a lie.’

  Mick raised his head, but now laid his eyes upon the ceiling. ‘This shouldn’t have happened, Manzoor. Shouldn’t have happened.’

  ‘But it did, Mac. It did. You chose this path, but part of me understands why. But it ends here.’

  Now Mick’s eyes dropped to his colleague. ‘No, Manzoor, you shouldn't have come here. That shouldn’t have happened. I guess I taught you too well.’

  Gondal took a step forward, into the kitchen. Into Mick’s space, which calmed the waves in his mind. He knew the feeling too well: acceptance of the inevitable.

  But Gondal misread it: ‘The right choice, Mac. It’s over. We’ll drive to the station together, but I’ll let you walk inside alone. No handcuffs. I’ll let you do it that way because, God knows, you’ve had enough heartache. Old wounds will be opened about—’

  ‘I told you not to bring that up,’ Mick said quietly.

  ‘I know, Mac, I know. You returned to work and it was the first thing you said. Nobody is to mention what happened. Nobody is to talk about it. We stick to talking shop. But I think we’re past that now. Is all of this because y—’

  Gondal stopped as the kitchen roll flew at him. He put a hand up to deflect it, shocked by the attack. In that time, Mick had covered the five feet between them. He landed a hard headbutt, right into the nose, and Gondal dropped straight down onto his knees. Then Mick had the knife in his hand. A big guy with a knife, and an overweight man on his knees was no contest.

  Mick grabbed Gondal’s hair at the back and pulled him forward, into the blade.

  ‘I killed that fucking cunt. For playing a part in it.’ Mick dragged Gondal deeper into the kitchen and dropped him. His colleague’s blood began to mix with the petrol on the lino. Gondal rolled onto his front, hands clutching his neck as he tried to get his knees under him.

  Mick said: ‘When you get to Heaven, tell God you said the wrong thing to the wrong man, okay? He’ll roll his eyes and wonder why we never learn.’

  He picked up the kitchen roll. He stepped into the back doorway.

  ‘By the way, Gondal, here’s something else you can take with you. I killed Grafton. There you go. You solved your final case.’

  Gondal’s fading eyes registered a moment of disbelief. Then the man’s movements slowed and stopped, as if his batteries had run out.

  Mick lit the kitchen roll aflame, but held it and watched Gondal until the blood pumped no more, until the ragged breathing had stopped. Only when he was sure his long-time partner was beyond the reach of more suffering did he toss the flaming roll.

  But at his back fence, ready to climb, he stopped as he felt his heart lurch. He turned, wanting to go back, wanting to drag Gondal out of the burning kitchen, but it was too late. For a moment, he fought back tears, watched black smoke pour out of his doorway, and wished he’d never learned the story of a lucky twelve-year-old Danish girl.

  Seventy-One

  Karl

  Liz was looking out the back window. At first he thought she was still stressing about Brad Smithfield, but he corrected himself with a mental kick. Her husband was dead, that was what was haunting her. Earlier, under the bridge, he’d seen glimpses of her fortified resolve. But it was gone now. The woman before him was again meek and helpless.

  ‘How did you find me, Liz?’ Karl asked.

  As she answered, she didn’t look away from the outside world. ‘We went to the meeting. I wanted to make sure that everything went okay for you with the detective. We followed the police car. And then we followed the van after they took you. Through a window I saw them go into the warehouse office.’

  Now she looked at him. ‘How is Bradley Smithfield involved in this with a policeman? Why would they work together to kill my husband?’

  At that point Danny put the radio on, loud. Probably his effort at deflecting her thoughts. She looked out of the window again. Karl copied, his mind on Katie. As soon as he got to a phone, he would call hospitals and police stations to try to find her.

  The van turned down a street lined with terraced houses. The road was slim, made tighter by twin walls of cars parked nose-to-end. Danny barely avoided hitting a neighbour’s vehicle as he turned sharply into his driveway.

  Karl got out, glad to feel the fresh air. There were people out and about: women talking at gates, kids playing in the road, men fixing cars, just as if it were any old sunny afternoon. He half-expected someone to yell and point, recognising him as a wanted man. But it didn’t happen.

  He got a shock when the driver’s door opened.

  Danny was in a wheelchair that took the place of a driver’s seat, with braces on his legs that connected to the pedals – no clutch. The vehicle had been converted to allow a disabled guy to pilot it. A mechanical framework around the door was designed to hydraulically lift the wheelchair in and out.

  Danny caught him staring. ‘Ah, you didn’t know. Bet you thought I was a pig for not getting out of the van to help you escape, eh?’

  ‘No, I… er…’

  ‘Don’t worry about it.’ He set the mechanical framework going. Karl watched as Danny’s chair was lifted out of the cab and placed on the ground. He tossed Karl a key. ‘Lead on and I’ll follow.’

  He pegged Danny as one of those self-sufficient guys who abhorred the offer of help. Karl would just offend the guy if he tried to give him a hand getting his wheelchair into the house. So, he stepped up to unlock the door and went inside.

  He had expected the house to be modified to accommodate a guy in a wheelchair, but that wasn’t the case. It looked like any other house. Maybe it was an ego thing – rather than adapt his surroundings, Danny preferred to push himself and struggle. Or maybe he didn’t want visitors to see his house as different, that he was different. Hell, maybe he believed he’d miraculously wake up one day able to walk. The only concession was the hand grabbers, the sort of tool he had seen street cleaners use to avoiding bending down to retrieve trash. They were everywhere. They were on chairs, on floors, leaning against walls.

  Liz said she needed the bathroom and vanished. Danny led Karl into the kitchen, where he proce
eded to make tea. He used a grabber to drag the kettle along the worktop, close enough to the edge. There was a lot of overreaching to fill it and to extract mugs from a cupboard. Karl noted that the mugs were in a high cupboard and that Danny pushed the kettle far back along the worktop when finished with it, as if making things hard for himself. He was tempted to help, especially when Danny had trouble hooking a cup, but knew his help would be seen as interference.

  They took their teas into the living room to continue their conversation. Again, Karl wanted to help because Danny had trouble wheeling himself. Mug jammed between his legs, he manoeuvred himself slowly to avoid spillage. Karl could hear a shower running upstairs.

  Danny caught him looking at a desktop computer in a corner, with a phone nearby. His agitation was unmissable. Danny nodded in that direction. Karl literally ran over to try to find his wife.

  Seventy-Two

  Dave

  Mick might not be raging around like a psychopath, but he was acting without thinking and that made his actions just as dangerous. The idea to send him to kidnap Seabury’s wife, for example. A fucking joke. No way would he have obeyed that order. He would have pretended the girl was out.

  Dave’s street was lined with semi-detached houses at the end of sloping gardens. A peaceful place, much coveted. Full of old people and respectable couples. He was glad to be home.

  He wandered into the living room, and Lucinda sat up sharply. ‘What’s wrong?’ she asked.

  Fuck. He had to work on his poker face. He said: ‘Nothing,’ but knew it was useless. He could feel his clenched jaw, and the sweat on his hands. Sure enough, she got up and asked him what the hell had him worried. He knew there was no point in lying. So he said it. Mick had gone off the rails and he’d quit, got out of there.