by Luke Delaney
‘Maybe,’ Sean replied, expressionless.
‘One thing does bother me though,’ Donnelly changed the subject, ‘what you said to Sally – about how we could never have proved it was Goldsboro. There’s one thing both you and she seem to have forgotten.’
‘What’s that?’
‘The shotgun,’ Donnelly answered. ‘If he killed Howard in the white room then he’d have to have left the shotgun at the scene otherwise we would have known someone else must have been involved. And if he had to leave it we would have easily traced it back to Goldsboro. He would have had a hell of a job explaining how his shotgun ended up there.’
‘He’d have thought of it,’ Sean told him. ‘Would have had it covered. I doubt he kept his guns in his London place – with his sort of money he’s probably got a place in the country. Somewhere a burglary could easily be staged – and guess what was stolen?’
‘A McKay Brown shotgun,’ Donnelly answered.
‘I’d bet my pension on it.’
‘But why would Howard take a gun belonging to one of the people he also abducted and tortured?’
‘Why not?’ Sean explained. ‘Even when we still thought this was all about someone taking revenge on the bankers we didn’t have him down as a criminal who had the connections to get his hands on a gun. So why not take one from one of the people we thought he’d been following – learning everything about – including the fact they had shotguns and where they kept them?’
‘Jesus,’ Donnelly sighed. ‘You got this whole thing worked out, don’t you?’
‘Now I do,’ Sean answered. ‘Easy to see the picture once the puzzle’s been solved. Not so easy until then.’
‘And now you’ve stood in front of him,’ Donnelly asked, ‘d’you think he always had the potential to be a killer?’
‘I suppose.’ Sean considered it. ‘Deep down inside. But I don’t believe he was a psychopath. If anything he was something more – something even colder.’
‘A sociopath then?’ Donnelly almost whispered.
‘Maybe,’ Sean partially agreed – understanding more and more how Goldsboro had managed to lock him out of his mind. ‘If such a person really exists. His job kept it all at bay, satisfied his needs for dominance and power, but once that was taken away he changed – stepped into our world.’
‘A killer in the boardroom, eh?’ Donnelly half joked.
‘You could say that,’ Sean agreed.
Donnelly looked down at the body of Jeremy Goldsboro as the uniformed officers covered him with a large, blue plastic sheet. ‘At least there won’t be any trial this time, except maybe mine.’
‘You’ll be fine,’ Sean assured him, even managing to rest a hand in his shoulder. ‘It might just take a little time. It always just takes a little time.’
‘Well, there’ll be a lot of disappointed people out there,’ Donnelly told him. ‘A lot of people actually believed in The Jackdaw – felt empowered by him. Finally someone was standing up for them. But in the end it was nothing more than a rich man’s revenge. The Jackdaw stood for something, meant something – but this means nothing.’
‘It’s better this way,’ Sean explained. ‘It’s better it meant nothing. Better for everyone.’
Geoff Jackson sat at his desk in the open-plan office of The World thinking about how best to maximize the coverage of The Jackdaw’s final victim, not to mention his own suicide, when something coming from the large TV screen adorning the room made him look up from his computer screen. Sky News was showing a smartly dressed woman in her thirties, who looked more like a model than a reporter, standing on the edge of some car park or another. The caption in the bottom left-hand corner of the screen read, ‘Shooting at Hampstead Golf Course’, while the rolling news bar on the bottom of the screen said, ‘Police shooting in Hampstead, north London. Unconfirmed reports say man shot is The Jackdaw’.
‘Shit,’ Jackson cursed loudly as he saw the story of the year coming to an untimely conclusion.
‘Bad luck,’ one of his colleagues told him with a grin. ‘Bloody Sky. Already all over it. I guess there’ll be no more interviews with The Jackdaw then.’
‘Bollocks,’ Jackson told no one in particular.
‘Better luck next time, eh,’ the colleague told him and walked off as Jackson continued to watch the coverage – the footage cutting away from the reporter to a slightly older shot taken through a long-range lens, making the pictures from deep inside the car park appear a little grainy and ever so slightly out of focus, but good enough for him to be able to make out the dark-haired man as he walked to the white van where a blue sheet of plastic covered something on the ground. His experience told him it was a body – the body of The Jackdaw.
‘Corrigan,’ Jackson hissed through gritted teeth before leaning back in his chair with his hands behind his head, the thought of the money he’d earn from the book rights already softening the blow of losing the main character in the best story he’d had for years. ‘Corrigan,’ he repeated as he stared at the images on the TV, a slight grin spreading across his pale lips. ‘Rest assured I’ll be keeping a close eye on you, Detective Inspector Corrigan. A very close eye indeed.’
If you’re a DI Sean Corrigan fan, try the first in the series:
A KILLER WHO’LL NEVER STOP.
A DETECTIVE WHO’LL NEVER GIVE UP.
Click here to buy Cold Killing
If you’re a DI Sean Corrigan fan, try the second in the series:
HE’S GOING TO SAVE HER.
WHETHER SHE LIKES IT OR NOT.
Click here to buy The Keeper
If you’re a DI Sean Corrigan fan, try the third in the series:
HE SEES YOU WHEN YOU’RE SLEEPING …
Click here to buy The Toy Taker
Acknowledgements
A quick thank you to all the team at Harper Collins – particularly Kate Elton – the Publisher, the entire sales team and also the marketing team, especially Hannah Gamon for all her hard and inventive work. A special note to my editor – Sarah Hodgson – who having been set a demanding task with The Jackdaw, did a fantastic job.
A big thank you to the Harper Collins team over in America, lead by Trish Daly, for all the hard work they put in on the last three books that were published over there. Much appreciated.
Here’s to the future.
LD
About the Author
Luke Delaney joined the Metropolitan Police Service in the late 1980s and his first posting was to an inner city area of South East London notorious for high levels of crime and extreme violence. He later joined CID where he investigated murders ranging from those committed by fledgling serial killers to gangland assassinations.
Also By Luke Delaney
Cold Killing
The Keeper
The Toy Taker
About the Publisher
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