The must-read new blockbuster thriller

by Tony Kent

  Sarah attempted to interrupt. To explain. Michael ignored her.

  ‘I’ll tell you about Daniel Lawrence, shall I? Daniel Lawrence was the best man I knew. A good man. Better than me and damn sure better than the two of you. There’s no dirt to dig so why don’t you leave his memory in peace. Now get away from my door!’

  Sarah’s approach had been disastrous, which made Michael’s next action inevitable. She moved her body far enough forward to take the brunt of the impact as he attempted to slam the door closed.

  Sarah did not acknowledge the door’s forceful contact with her shoulder. Instead she tried to explain herself.

  ‘We’re not digging up dirt, Mr Devlin.’

  Michael pulled the door fully open, now even angrier after Sarah had prevented its closure. Fury flashed in his blue eyes.

  If you won’t leave then you’ll get the abuse you deserve.

  Sarah beat him to it.

  ‘I believe that Daniel Lawrence was murdered to cover up the fact that he spent two hours in confidential conversation with Eamon McGale.’

  She somehow managed to get her words out before Michael could say his own. They did not instantly register. Michael was too angry for that. He opened his mouth to launch the furious tirade triggered by the first mention of Daniel, but nothing came as Sarah’s words began to sink in.

  His mouth closed. The fury on his face disappeared. Replaced by pain and confusion.

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  Michael had not glanced at a television screen or a newspaper since receiving news of Daniel’s death. The fact rendered Sarah’s words meaningless.

  ‘The authorities are saying that Eamon McGale didn’t see a lawyer last night,’ Sarah explained. ‘But I watched Daniel Lawrence arrive and I watched him leave two hours later. Now Daniel Lawrence is dead, McGale’s dead and they’re saying that it didn’t happen. They’re lying, Mr Devlin. We want to find out why.’

  Michael stood next to the open door and listened. He did not know what to think. Did not know how to react. Daniel’s death was enough, surely? But now this?

  He steadied himself. Then he took a single step back, unblocking the doorway.

  ‘I guess you’d better come in.’

  Michael turned without another word. With a slow tilt of his head he indicated that he wanted to be followed into the house.

  Sarah turned to Maguire.

  ‘You follow him,’ said Maguire. ‘I’ll bring the equipment in and set up for when you’re ready.’

  Sarah did as Maguire said. She followed in Michael’s footsteps. First through the lounge, where Cass had taken his place in an enormous dog basket by the far wall. As large as the basket was, the animal’s fully grown bulk more than filled it.

  She walked past the dog, towards the back of the lounge, where a visitor would expect to find a wall. Instead there was an open double doorway. On the other side was a large, clinical kitchen. Like the lounge, it was an overtly masculine room.

  Michael was inside.

  Sarah watched in silence as he took a stool at the room’s central island unit. He placed a visibly chilled bottle of white wine and three glasses on the unit’s worktop. Then he turned towards Sarah.

  ‘Please, take a seat.’

  Michael indicated a stool on the opposite side of the unit. When he spoke again his voice still betrayed his uncertainty.

  ‘Will you join me in a drink?’

  ‘Yes please.’

  Sarah took her place on the offered stool.

  ‘Is your friend not joining us?’ Michael asked.

  ‘He will. He just needs to bring in some equipment, and to find a space for the van. We’re double-parked.’

  Michael took a gulp of wine as Sarah spoke. Large enough to drain most of the glass. For a few moments he didn’t seem to know where to look, until caught by Sarah’s unusually green eyes. In different circumstances he might have found them captivating.

  But once again Michael’s mind was elsewhere.

  ‘OK, Miss, erm, Truman, wasn’t it?’ he said, breaking their brief silence. ‘Tell me what you know.’

  Sarah took a single nerve-assuring sip from her glass and began to explain.

  ‘What I know is this: following the shooting Eamon McGale was taken to Paddington Green police station. He was the only detainee as the station had been commandeered by the security services. The information that’s been released is that he refused to answer questions and refused to give the details of his own lawyer, and that he had no legal visit last night before taking his own life in the cells in the early hours.’

  ‘But that’s just not true,’ Michael interrupted.

  He was struggling to pick up the facts as Sarah spoke. Exhaustion was neutering his usually razor-sharp mind, but he knew what he was hearing was wrong. He continued.

  ‘Daniel did see McGale last night. We spoke about it after he left the station.’

  ‘That’s why we came to you,’ said Sarah. ‘I saw Mr Lawrence enter the station last night and I saw him leave. We knew he couldn’t be there for any other reason, but when McGale’s death was announced the official statement denied that he had seen a lawyer. We were going to question Mr Lawrence about it. I’ll be honest with you, we thought he might be involved in some way. But then we found out about last night’s so-called accident.’

  ‘So they’re denying that Daniel went to see McGale, even though we both know he did. And now McGale’s dead too?’

  Sarah nodded. Michael paused for thought before speaking again.

  ‘How did McGale die?’

  ‘Badly. They say he snapped one of the plastic forks he was given to eat his meal and used the jagged edge to stab himself in the neck.’

  Michael was unfazed by the detail. He did not miss a beat.

  ‘And then Daniel dies in an accident.’

  Michael’s words were spoken mainly to himself. What he was hearing had focused his grieving mind. There was a problem to be solved. Something he could think about other than his own sadness. He continued.

  ‘It all sounds pretty convenient, assuming there is something to hide. Have you any theories on what the something might be?’

  ‘We don’t,’ Sarah replied. ‘Not yet. We needed to be sure that there was a cover-up. Once that’s done we can start thinking about what’s being covered up.’

  ‘I might be able to give you a leg-up with that,’ replied Michael.

  He could feel the energy in his own voice. His mind had already run through the possibilities.

  ‘I know a thing or two from speaking to Daniel last night. But I want to be involved in this. Hands-on. I want to help you find whoever killed him.’

  ‘If that’s the price, Mr Devlin.’ Sarah did not hesitate. ‘But if we’re going to be partners, we should be on first-name terms. Please call me Sarah.’

  ‘Michael.’ He reached out a large, open hand. ‘So do we have a deal, Sarah?’

  Sarah reached out, took his hand and shook it.

  ‘We do. Michael.’

  Their hands were still grasped when a cough from the kitchen doorway made them both turn. Michael looked over Sarah’s extended shoulder and saw Maguire. He noticed a slightly quizzical look in the cameraman’s eyes.

  ‘Is, erm, is that your Jaguar just out front, Mr Devlin?’ Maguire asked.

  ‘It is,’ Michael replied. ‘Is there something wrong?’

  ‘I was just wondering if you could move it up a little? There’s a space behind it where I could fit the van if you edge forward a bit.’

  Michael nodded, stood up from his stool and walked to a kitchen drawer. He took a key from inside, turned to Maguire and threw it in his direction.

  ‘Do you mind pulling it up yourself?’

  Maguire snatched the keys from the air as Michael spoke.

  ‘Drive the Jag? No problem!’

  Maguire closed his hand around the key and headed back outside. Sarah watched him leave before turning to face Michael.

&nbs
p; ‘So what did Daniel tell you?’

  ‘Not much, but it’s a start. Or at least a place to start. Daniel couldn’t tell me everything; we were on an open line and you’ve got to be careful about mobile phone calls being intercepted. But what he did tell me is important. He said that McGale wasn’t trying to kill Howard Thompson. He was there to kill Neil Matthewson. McGale believed Matthewson was behind the terrorism in Ireland. Behind the people that killed his wife and kids.’

  Sarah seemed stunned.

  ‘But that makes no sense. The True IRA have claimed responsibility already, on the basis that Thompson was the target. Plus we’ve been told there was prior intelligence.’

  ‘Then I don’t know what to tell you,’ Michael replied. ‘Except the IRA might have good reason to lie, and this came straight from the horse’s mouth.’

  Sarah did not speak for a moment. She seemed to be assessing what Michael had just revealed.

  ‘OK,’ she finally said. ‘Let’s say that’s right. Let’s say that McGale was after Matthewson all along, on the basis that Matthewson was somehow involved in the terrorist resurgence. Where did he get an idea like that?’

  ‘I don’t know. Daniel wouldn’t say on the telephone. And, to be honest, my first reaction was that McGale was a crank. But now? With them both dead? Someone was willing to kill him and his lawyer, just to keep them quiet. So maybe not so much of a crank after all.’

  ‘Shit!’

  It was all Sarah could manage at first. The fresh information was causing the story to spiral even further. She continued.

  ‘If only we knew what else McGale—’

  Sarah never finished her sentence. It was not the barely audible sound of Michael’s car ignition that interrupted her. It was the deafening explosion that immediately followed it, violently showering them with broken glass from the shattered living room windows.

  Michael reacted on instinct. With glass still flying towards them he leapt over the kitchen island in search of cover. Gravity took him down. As it did, he reached out and grabbed Sarah, dragging her from her seat and to the ground with him. He sheltered her beneath him as debris from the explosion bounced across his exposed back.

  They lay there for just moments, long enough to be sure that the danger of flying debris had passed. Only then did Michael get to his feet. He pulled Sarah to hers without a word as his eyes reviewed his devastated home.

  Michael’s teenage years in Belfast had been blighted by bombs and their aftermath. Like anyone with this background, he knew their effect on sight. He could read the detail. The bomb – the damage – came from outside. The black smoke of a petrol fire now snaking through the gaping living room windows served as confirmation.

  Sarah had no such expertise. She looked around in bewilderment as she coughed up a lungful of smoke and dirt. She turned to Michael and saw a stream of blood tricking down his neck.

  ‘You’re hurt.’

  The words were all she could manage before a second coughing fit.

  Michael did not respond. He seemed unconcerned by his injury. Instead he was staring in despair into what was left of his lounge. It was not his devastated belongings that paralysed him. They were just things. No. It was the sight of Cass, motionless under a pile of broken plasterboard and glass, with no indication of whether he was alive or dead.

  The sight was almost too much. The iron resolve that had seen Michael through the last twenty-four hours was about to break. Maybe it would have, had he not been interrupted by Sarah’s cry.

  ‘JACK!’

  Michael immediately understood. Maguire had been outside at the time of the explosion.

  He was not quick enough to restrain Sarah as she ran for the door. But he already knew what she would find outside and it energised him. It made him run after her.

  Michael was faster but the distance was short. He gained on Sarah with every step, but still he only reached her side in time to catch her as she crumpled to the floor by the charred remains of the Jaguar.

  The car Maguire had been driving.

  Michael could not console Sarah where she had fallen and so he lifted her from the floor. The car was still burning. A second explosion was unlikely, but it was still a risk. They had to move.

  The adrenaline was flowing, flushing through Michael’s system as his heart beat faster. Sarah felt almost weightless in his arms as he stood tall, her head resting against his chest. He turned to move back inside. Then he heard it.

  Maybe it was the over-acceleration of the motorcycle. Maybe it was that Michael was on his guard after what had just happened. Or maybe it was his own instinct for danger, developed so keenly in his youth and still very much alive, though it had lain dormant in recent years. Whatever it was, Michael stopped on the kerb still close to the burning car, turned his head and saw the motorcycle approaching.

  His instincts were returning by the second. Just moments earlier Michael would not have noticed the motorcyclist steering with only his left hand. Or the right arm stretched out towards them. Now Michael saw both. And he knew what they meant. He knew what to do.

  Michael threw himself and Sarah to the floor just as the motorcyclist fired five shots into the spot where he had been standing.

  The sound of gunfire and the impact with the pavement combined to break through Sarah’s stupor. She looked at Michael from just inches away, and her green eyes were alive once again.

  Michael pushed his back against the car and pulled Sarah alongside him. Then he listened. Tried to isolate the sound of the motorcycle’s engine. To determine where it had stopped.

  Twenty yards, he realised. Better than nothing.

  Michael grabbed Sarah’s hand and pulled her up to a crouch. He was careful to keep their heads below the height of the surrounding vehicles. They provided the only cover in the exposed square.

  Staying behind the line of parked cars, they edged forward to the rear of the CNN van. It was heavily damaged and still smouldering; it must have been next to Michael’s Jaguar at the time of the explosion.

  Michael knew that the motorcycle had at least passed this point before stopping. But that was the best he could do. What remained was guesswork, and so protection was vital. Protection best offered by the bulk of the van.

  *

  As Michael and Sarah moved, hidden from view, Joshua fixed his attention on the spot where they had dived.

  Joshua had no way of knowing if his bullets had hit their target. But whether they had or not, where the couple had gone down remained their most likely hiding place.

  He dismounted the bike, pistol aimed. Time was limited – he knew that after the car bomb the local police could not be far away.

  Joshua reached the spot in moments and was disappointed to find it empty and free of blood. He had missed. It meant that Devlin and Truman were uninjured, and no doubt desperate. They had also been clear-headed enough to move. The question now was to where.

  Joshua’s attention turned to the remaining possibilities. His mind ran through them methodically. Weighing the likelihoods. Two thoughts dominated. The CNN van, though badly damaged, offered the best cover and so was the most likely hiding place. And his targets were unarmed, which made more haste and less caution acceptable.

  Joshua’s weapon remained fixed as he approached the van. He rounded its offside to expose what was hidden by its bulk. Nothing. It was disconcerting.

  This is where a frightened civilian should be, he thought. So why aren’t they?

  Joshua could not allow the unexpected to distract him. The clock was ticking. He turned his attention to the vehicles parked close by. One by one he checked the spaces between and all around them, with his weapon aimed and his body braced for impact. Neither was necessary; each time he found nothing.

  After the fourth car Joshua glanced at his watch. His concern was growing.

  There’s no time for this, he thought.

  Joshua’s heart began to race with that thought. Something he knew he could not allow. He took a deep br
eath to calm himself. To regain control over his blood flow and his adrenaline. It cleared the anxiety that had been rising. Then – for an indication of what time he had left – he took a moment to listen carefully, for the sound of distant sirens.

  There were none. But there was another sound. A sound Joshua had not considered.

  The roar of the motorcycle’s engine was unmistakable. And its meaning was clear. Joshua turned towards it and ran.

  He needed to cover the forty yards that stood between him and the front of the CNN van as quickly as possible. From there he would have no obstructions. A clear shot as his targets attempted to escape on his own bike.

  It was a short distance, yet far enough to concern him. Stanton’s displeasure was already bitter. It would only grow worse if Joshua’s prey got away on the back of his own vehicle. The thought made him desperate, and with desperation came carelessness.

  Joshua reached the front of the van in seconds, confident the bike was still well within his pistol range. Michael Devlin must have come to the same conclusion, which was why Joshua was hit with a crippling shoulder tackle to his midriff the instant he passed the van’s front lights.

  The loud revving of the engine had been a ruse designed to grab Joshua’s attention. Safe escape on the motorcycle was impossible at this distance. Not when facing a man armed with a pistol. Michael knew that. But he also knew that to remain hidden was to invite death; it would take only moments more for Joshua to find them. And so Michael had instructed Sarah to sound the bike engine and then take cover, in order to flush Joshua out and allow Michael the chance to violently blindside him.

  It was a desperate plan that had worked perfectly. The follow-up went less well.

  Michael hit Joshua with enough force to down a heavyweight. The impact broke the gunman’s grip on his pistol, which was thrown to the floor before sliding to a rest underneath the adjacent van, and the momentum drove Joshua into the side of a parked car. Michael could feel the breath forced out of the taller man by the collision with the immovable metal frame.

  Surely that broke some ribs?

  Michael did not hesitate as these thoughts crossed his mind. He stepped back and immediately threw what should have been a knock-out punch. It took much less than a second to travel the short distance towards Joshua’s jaw. Which was long enough for Michael to realise he was fighting out of his league.