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

by Jake Cross

  ‘We do it now,’ Sink said as he hung up. That puzzled Brad: how was this guy going to ‘regret the error of his ways’ if he was gone? Was this a house-trashing job? Not Brad’s style, and why would it take three to do that anyway? Anxiety crept over him. He didn’t like this.

  Eighty-Two

  Mick

  Mick hung up the phone and watched Gold’s fat frame, with a big I-love-life grin on his face, as he chatted on his mobile. Mick slapped the steering wheel hard enough to hurt his hand, and immediately regretted it. But not because of the pain: why abuse the vehicle, which had done everything he’d asked of it?

  The phone and the ride and that big belly of Gold’s were all products of criminal money. Suited, briefcase in hand, phone against his ear, didn’t he just look like one of the good defenders of the law? This man who’d kept the wheels of Grafton’s criminal empire oiled with blood. Mick gripped the steering wheel and tried to pull it towards him. Planted his feet on the brake and clutch to get the leverage. He leaned back and pulled, angry, and didn’t stop until the steering column began to groan. Then he relaxed.

  He needed a release for his rage, but why take his anger out on something innocent?

  He waited for Gold to get inside the house, then he climbed into the back of the van and opened a toolbox bolted to one wall. The plan had been to await the arrival of Seabury and the bitch, but all main events needed a support act. And he needed to get his blood pumping.

  Thirty seconds later, he was scuttling across the road, aimed at Gold’s lair. With a hacksaw.

  Why unleash his fury on something that didn’t feel pain and regret?

  Eighty-Three

  Brad

  Sink stopped the campervan right across from the target house, other side of the road. Brad scanned the other homes. A metal Neighbourhood Watch sign on a lamppost seemed to glare right at him. But there was no one about and every lit living-room window had the curtains pulled. Brad still wasn’t happy about it.

  ‘Too close,’ he said.

  ‘Calm down,’ Guff said. ‘In and out. Are you gonna be the one crying to mummy after all?’

  ‘What are we doing here?’ Brad asked, panic rising in his throat.

  Both men ignored his question. Then they did something outlandish: played a round of Paper Scissors Stone, and Guff lost. But it was Sink who got out of the van and crossed the road. As he walked, he pulled on a balaclava. Nice and casual, like a guy putting on a woolly hat against the cold.

  Then, in the upstairs window of the target house, Brad saw a woman step into view. So, the old man wasn’t the target after all. She approached the window and started to pull the curtains. There was a towel slung over her shoulder. Rising dread turned to shock when he recognised the face.

  Seabury’s wife.

  ‘What’s the plan?’ Brad asked, trying to sound casual. He moved back, and sat on one of the armchairs. Just to think.

  Guff slid between the cabin seats and took the facing chair, their knees almost touching. ‘We wait,’ he said.

  Through a chink in a curtained side window, Brad watched Sink walk casually down the driveway and leap over a tall fence, lithe as a cat. Lithe as a man who’d had lots of practice at breaking into houses. But he also watched Guff because something was afoot here beyond hurting Seabury’s wife.

  ‘So what did you do to piss off Mick?’ the brother asked from the darkness.

  He knew he should have reacted then, right then, as the realisation that Mick had tricked him sank in. But he didn’t. He allowed himself a moment of doubt, a moment to think he had it wrong, that Mick wouldn’t do this: they were friends; they looked after each other. And in that moment the chance to strike first passed.

  By the time Brad had knocked away doubt from his mind, the bruiser had leaped forward with surprising speed for his bulk and grabbed his hair. The other hand pressed something cold and sharp against the side of his neck.

  ‘I guess we just reached “S” in the alphabet,’ Brad said.

  Eighty-Four

  Karl

  Danny hung up. ‘We go in the back way, he says. Right now.’

  They bid him good luck, and got out. But then the phone rang. It was Katie. Karl scuttled out of earshot to take the call.

  ‘Oh, God, Katie, are you okay? That crash. I tried to call. Your dad—’

  ‘I’m fine. Forget me. Dad unplugged the phone until I was ready. What about you?’

  ‘You got away, thankfully. He didn’t hurt you?’

  ‘Nobody hurt me, Karl. This hurts me, though. Are you okay? Where are you?’

  It felt like a supreme betrayal to not tell her, but he couldn’t. Most of the stuff in his shop was the sort sold to law enforcement. Recording devices hidden in plugs, in business cards, surveillance gear so small it could be planted anywhere in a house. Or on a person.

  Was Katie bugged? He was losing his mind.

  ‘I’m going to see a special solicitor,’ he said, which seemed like a safe answer. He explained, and she listened, and she didn’t shoot him down afterwards. Which seemed like acceptance.

  ‘That’s good,’ she said. ‘I heard things about that police officer. I knew he was… something was wrong. He’ll be arrested. Is he part of this?’

  ‘Hell yes,’ Karl almost shouted, just in case. For the bugs. He liked to imagine a team of guys in a surveillance van jotting down the name McDevitt.

  ‘He’ll be arrested,’ she said again. ‘You can hand yourself in. I want to meet you there, outside, so I can come in with you.’

  ‘Okay.’ The moment the word was out of his mouth, he had to bite back tears. But not because of his wife’s affection. Because he needed her, and what kind of a man couldn’t face what he was up against without desiring his partner to be with him? The right thing to do, surely, was face this thing alone and keep his pregnant wife away from stress. Or was it? Maybe they should face this problem together? Maybe her stress would be amplified if she was out of the loop.

  Hell, he didn’t know. He only knew he wanted her there, and she wanted to be there, and there she would be. Even if he said no, probably.

  ‘But not at the station,’ he said. ‘I don’t want to see you with cops all around. We’re going to come to your dad’s house.’

  Silence as she digested this. Would she think it a good idea, or foolish?

  ‘Outside,’ she said. ‘I’m not sure if my dad would call the police. I’m not sure if the police are watching this house. I’ll get out, and meet you nearby, and then we’ll go to the police station together.’

  ‘Good.’ A good plan indeed. There was nothing he wanted more.

  ‘Oh, and by the way, Mr Karl James Seabury, boy or girl, we are not calling our child Michael.’

  That made him laugh. She giggled, too, and he figured this rare moment of levity was the optimum time to shoehorn in: ‘Liz is with me.’

  Not a beat missed: ‘Good, because the police will need her as well.’

  He relaxed. ‘I love you. I want to hug you.’

  ‘Same, babe. But I probably stink. I’m just going in the bath. For you.’ She said it with a hint of cheekiness there that made him miss her more than ever. They’d been apart only hours – he’d spent longer away from her when at work – but it felt like weeks.

  The tension flooded away for two hundred seconds. The flirting reminded him of way back when they’d been a week-old couple. Arranging dates with a nervous voice. Unsure of what would happen next. Worried whether it would be the last time they kissed, the last time they saw each other. The world around him vanished, and with it every worry, every bad guy, every cop.

  After he hung up, he was ready. He turned to his comrades, and he said: ‘Let’s go.’

  Eighty-Five

  Katie

  Katie sank into the bath, and that was when she heard the noise.

  It sounded like the back door shuddering open, and her first thought was that her father had returned quickly. But then she discarded that notion because
her father knew the trick with the back door. If it was opened at speed the draught excluder, fixed too low, slid over the lino easily, but if opened slowly it caught and caused the whole door to vibrate loudly enough to hear it throughout the house.

  Her father knew about the fault, of course. But Karl didn’t!

  ‘Karl?’ she shouted down. The faint vibration halted. No answer, but he was probably staying silent in case the police were with her, waiting for him. Maybe even suspecting she was trying to trick him into handcuffs.

  She rose slowly from the bath, trying not to make a splash. Even as she did this, she knew it was a futile action because her earlier shouts would have given away the fact that there was someone in the house. And that, right there, was the inescapable truth.

  Hearing her shout, Karl would not have remained silent. Her nakedness and delicate condition heightened her fear as she realised what that meant… a stranger was in the house.

  She nearly slipped on slick tiles as she stumbled to the towel rail on the wall. Her vision swam, and her head throbbed because of the heat of the bath. She wrapped herself in a towel, opened the bathroom door and staggered to the top of the stairs. Out on the landing it was much cooler, and her head cleared quickly.

  The stairs had a bulb at both top and bottom, and she lit up the one below, leaving herself in darkness. She listened, praying that she’d been wrong about the sounds she heard.

  Too late she realised she should have run for the phone in the bedroom. Someone appeared at the foot of the stairs. A man in a boiler suit and a balaclava. He looked up into the darkness, and she froze. Despite knowing he couldn’t see her, she didn’t dare move, couldn’t bring herself to. But then the man reached for the light switch, and she was no longer frozen.

  It was a mistake. He did not light her up, but instead turned off the lower bulb to envelop himself in darkness once again. But she moved, and he heard it.

  His feet thumped the stairs, and she heard an Irish voice say: ‘C’m’ere, darling.’ Her fear spiked at the realisation that he hadn’t seen her but clearly knew who to expect. This wasn’t some impatient burglar unwilling to wait for late night. He was here for her. He had to be one of the men chasing Karl.

  She ran into the dark bedroom, turned, threw the door shut. It bounced right back at her as the hooded man crashed into it, knocking her into the bed. The moment she landed on her back, he was right there, right above her. Even in the gloom, she saw his lascivious eyes behind his balaclava. Hands pinned her arms, then forced them above her head. He cast her towel aside, and to cover her naked waist she threw up a leg. Her knee caught the guy in the balls, and he grunted. It didn’t help her cause, though. He lowered himself onto her, closing the gap so she couldn’t strike again. She felt his clothing against her skin and it sickened her. His head dropped onto her chest, and she could hear his panting.

  ‘Help!’ she yelled, at the top of her voice, giving it all her lungs had. The neighbours were young people, good ears, and surely they’d hear and come rushing round. Thirty seconds, she figured. All she had to do was fight this guy off for thirty seconds and she’d be saved.

  His knee went between her legs, forcing through and up, until she felt coarse material, very cold, between her legs. She yelled again.

  One of his hands released her arm and grabbed her between the legs. Her free hand lashed out, slapping his head. He seemed to barely feel it. In fact, he laughed.

  She heard something downstairs. The door again. No vibration this time but a heavy thump, as if someone had slammed it all the way open. Then footsteps on the stairs, just as loud as her attacker’s had been.

  ‘You kill that dude, bro?’ the guy on top of her said as she saw the black shape of another man framed in the doorway.

  The last of her resolve was crushed under a wave of horror as she realised the two men knew each other. She could not defend against two. There was no hope and she felt her muscles relax as her brain gave up the fight.

  ‘Sure did,’ the new guy said, then moved forward to help his partner hold her down.

  Eighty-Six

  Showdown

  Behind the houses was scrubland that terminated at a post and rail fence, with farmland beyond. On the other side of the fence, running parallel, was a gully.

  They climbed the fence and walked along it, just their heads visible to anyone who might have been in one of the buildings. They walked slowly because the ground was littered with trash and rocks. Karl led, with Liz bringing up the rear. He was cold and wished he’d selected more than just a T-shirt for the trip. Then again, he hadn’t expected to be traipsing around some field. They walked in silence. It didn’t take long. Times flies when you’re walking into the unknown.

  The back of the house had an extension that looked like a kitchen. The light was on and the chimney poured smoke. People sometimes went out and left lights on, but surely not fireplaces burning away. Karl had hoped Gold would be in. Now he wished the guy would pop out of existence. They’d come all this way, but he suddenly had a bad feeling about this house.

  To shift his mind off what lay ahead, Karl said: ‘Danny said he lost the use of his legs in a bike crash. Is that true?’

  In the dark, he saw her chest vibrate. Humour, but the annoyed kind. She said: ‘You’re wondering if it was actually because of the job he did. Working for my husband. Some kind of gangland thing. Because they all die or end up in prison, right?’

  He nodded. ‘Understandable, right? Look what we’ve been through today, Liz.’

  ‘Danny wasn’t tortured by a rival gang, he didn’t get shot during a bank robbery and a home-made bomb didn’t explode while he was fixing it to a prosecution witness’s car. It’s not like it appears in the movies. Okay?’

  He could tell she was sick and tired of people talking about her husband’s way of life. Well, he bloody chose it. And she chose him. And Karl had been slap bang in the middle of it today. ‘Sorry I asked.’

  She mellowed. ‘It was a bike crash, Karl. I admit that Danny had a role that he needed to be fit and active for. After the accident Ron booted him out. It didn’t go down well with Danny, of course. For his own good, Ron said, but that annoyed Danny. Said it made no sense. But in the end, Ron had to cast aside the caring boss attitude and become mean. He said Danny was no good to him as a cripple. But I’m glad Danny got out. He’s my friend.’

  It was virtually an admission that it was dangerous to be in Ronald Grafton’s orbit, despite her response thirty seconds earlier.

  ‘Now let’s talk no more, because we’re wasting time.’

  He turned his attention to the house again, knowing she was right. A minute wasted here meant a minute longer to get to Katie. ‘So what do we do?’

  In answer, Liz climbed over the fence and, bent low, scuttled across the scrubland. She stopped at the kitchen window and looked in, eyes and forehead peeking up like some kid noseying on a neighbour. It would have looked funny, except that it proved even Liz was nervous about what they might find at the house. Their pursuers had posted men outside Karl’s house: they could have men waiting here too.

  Karl shouted a whisper, trying to draw her back until they could formulate a plan. But when she tried the door and it opened, he cursed and followed her.

  They stood at the open door, bathed in light, and waited, listening. No sounds. He didn’t want to walk inside, even just one step. His instinct was screaming at him not to.

  ‘Through the kitchen door there’s a hallway. Three doors and some stairs. A waiting room, a study, and the office. Bedrooms upstairs. Normally he lives in the study with his books and iPad, but if he’s waiting for us then he’ll be in the office. Second door on the right, just past the stairs.’

  Karl forced himself to enter the house. Big, confident steps, although he wasn’t sure that they’d look that way to anyone watching. The kitchen floor was carpeted, which helped kill the sound of their footsteps. The door in the far wall was ajar and he put his head through. Slowly. No one chop
ped it off. As promised, a hallway beyond. Dark, but faint yellow light flickered on the ceiling.

  A door in the right-hand wall was wide open. Outwards, just eight feet away, and hinged on the side nearest to him which meant he couldn’t see the room it belonged to and, worse, it blocked his view of the entire right side of the hallway. And whoever might be hiding there with a knife. On the left side was a wooden staircase, rising towards him, which meant he could only see the underside of it. Cardboard boxes were neatly stacked underneath. Gold’s files, no doubt. There was a door by the foot of the stairs, shut, with a plaque that said: WAITING ROOM.

  His two choices were: backtrack and flee into the night, or step out and face what was behind that door.

  He scuttled quickly to the door blocking the hallway, leaned close and peeked through the gap. A lamp on a table shed enough light for him to see most of a study. It was empty of life. He shut the door and tried not to convince himself he did it to clear an escape route.

  Now the rest of the hallway was exposed. No masked madman. Two more doors: the front door in the far wall, and one at the end of the right-hand wall. The office. The door was open like an invitation. The flickering yellow light, surely from a fireplace, oozed from beyond. The last place to check, because Karl had already decided he wasn’t going upstairs. Gold expected them, and if he wasn’t waiting down here then something had gone badly wrong. But he could spare three more seconds, make a few more steps, to know for sure. He was tempted to call out for the man, but didn’t. Always safer if— He was within two steps of the doorway when he sensed it: the unmistakable feeling of another presence.