The Jackdaw (48 page)

‘OK,’ Sean relented and pulled out his warrant card from which he took one of his business cards and handed it to her. ‘Get hold of her and get her to call me on this mobile number.’

‘Me?’ Coppolaro complained.

‘Yes, you,’ Sean insisted. ‘I can’t wait around here any longer. I need to get to Hampstead and find Waldegrave. Get him somewhere safe. If you can’t find her you can’t find her,’ he told her, already heading back towards the corridor and the lifts. ‘But I need you to try. I’ll see myself out.’ He left Coppolaro in the bright office and headed back into the dimness of the hallway, the overhead lights coming on one by one as he walked. He slid his phone from his coat pocket and called Donnelly’s number. It was answered after only one ring.

‘Guv’nor. Where are you? Addis has been stalking around looking for you.’

‘Forget Addis,’ Sean told him. ‘I need you to do something for me.’

‘Fine,’ Donnelly agreed, sounding a little flustered, ‘but where are you?’

‘Just leaving King and Melbourn Capital Associates – in the City.’

‘Jeremy Goldsboro’s old company?’ Donnelly asked.

‘And Paul Elkins’s,’ Sean broke the news. ‘When Goldsboro left he was replaced by Elkins, but a few years later he also left and we didn’t go back far enough so we missed it. We missed the connection. Goldsboro and Elkins were both vice presidents, but the top man was Francis Waldegrave. What better way for our man to sign off than taking out the top-dog?’

‘You think this Waldegrave is going to be his last victim?’

‘I’m sure of it,’ Sean told him as he pressed to call the lift.

‘Is it Jason Howard?’ Donnelly asked. ‘He threatened both Elkins and Goldsboro. He may have threatened Waldegrave too.’

‘He probably did,’ Sean agreed, ‘but Howard threatened a lot of people from a lot of different City firms. This feels more personal – more organized.’

‘But it could be him?’ Donnelly pushed.

‘It could be,’ Sean had to concede.

‘And the other victims?’ Donnelly questioned. ‘Are they connected to King and Melbourn too?’

‘No,’ Sean tried to explain. ‘They were just decoys to keep us off balance. They meant nothing to him.’

‘I don’t understand,’ Donnelly admitted.

‘I’ll explain later,’ Sean told him, ‘but right now I need you to book out a firearm.’

‘What?’ Donnelly almost shouted.

‘Your certification hasn’t lapsed, has it?’ Sean asked.

‘No,’ Donnelly assured him. ‘It’s still valid, but why the hell am I booking out a forearm?’

‘Don’t worry.’ Sean tried to calm his fears. ‘It’s just for back-up. If it comes to doing a hard stop we’ll get an ARV to do it. Yours will be just in case.’

‘Just in case what?’

‘I’ll explain everything later,’ Sean insisted. ‘Just get the firearm then get over to Hampstead Golf Course. Apparently Waldegrave’s heading there. Don’t approach anyone until I’m with you. Park up out the way somewhere and wait for me to meet you.’

‘I don’t like how this is going,’ Donnelly admitted. ‘You’re not thinking of doing anything rash, are you?’

‘Me?’ Sean managed to joke. ‘I’ll call you when I’m there.’ He pressed call end just as the lifts arrived. The doors quietly slid open with little more than the sound of a breeze and allowed him to step inside – the doors closing as he was carried back towards the streets where he felt so much more at home. His finger hovered over Sally’s number on his phone, the lack of reception frustrating him until finally the doors opened and released him into the atrium. As soon as he stepped out he pressed call and kept walking, heading through the huge glass doors just as Sally answered.

‘Shit, Sean. What’s going on?’

‘You with anyone?’

‘Yeah,’ she said without enthusiasm. ‘I got DC Bishop with me.’

‘Good,’ Sean replied. ‘Has he got any closer to pinpointing the broadcast location?’

‘That’s something else we need to talk about,’ Sally told him.

‘Meaning?’ Sean asked.

‘Meaning after his earlier broadcast today we got the location down to just a couple of square miles in Surrey,’ she explained. ‘Only trouble is that area’s already been searched. The local police found three derelict buildings and searched them all with no sign of our man.’

Sean thought quietly for a few seconds. ‘How sure is Bishop that he got it right?’

‘Says he’s completely sure,’ she told him. ‘He can’t understand what went wrong.’

Again Sean thought silently for a few seconds. ‘Then he’s not,’ he said. ‘Whoever searched the buildings missed something.’

‘I don’t know,’ Sally disagreed. ‘I checked the reports myself. All are recorded as being fully searched.’

‘Mistakes happen,’ he reminded her. ‘This is what I need you to do. Get hold of at least two ARVs. Take one with you to Surrey and search those buildings again. Get the other one over to the golf course in Hampstead ASAP and tell them find and secure a guy called Francis Waldegrave as a matter of urgency. I’ll meet them there as soon as I can.’

‘Francis Waldegrave?’ Sally asked. ‘Who the hell is Francis Waldegrave?’

‘The Jackdaw’s next victim,’ he told her.

‘What?’ She tried to understand. ‘How could you possibly know who his next victim is going to be?’

‘I found something,’ he assured her, ‘but I don’t have time to explain right now. You’re just going to have to trust me, Sally.’

A few seconds passed before Sally answered. ‘They won’t like it,’ she warned him. ‘You know what ARV crews are like: they’re going to want a bit more information than we’re giving them.’

‘I can’t help that. Just get them to meet me there and make sure they know to keep Waldegrave out of the way.’

‘OK,’ she hesitantly agreed, ‘but wouldn’t you rather check out the buildings in Surrey and leave the golf course to us? You could be in Surrey quicker than us from where you are.’

‘No,’ he insisted. ‘Leave the golf course to me.’

‘Why are you so keen to get to the golf course?’ Sally asked.

‘I need to speak to Waldegrave,’ Sean half lied.

‘Bollocks,’ Sally accused him. ‘You think The Jackdaw’s going to be there, don’t you? Somehow you know – you know he’s going to try and abduct Waldegrave from the golf course.’

‘I don’t know anything,’ Sean tried to convince her. ‘Not for sure.’

‘You want to confront him, don’t you?’

‘No,’ he answered, not even sure within himself if he was telling the truth or not. ‘I just need to check something out.’

‘Then let me get local uniform units to swamp the area and scare him off,’ Sally suggested.

‘No,’ Sean answered too quickly. ‘This could be our best chance to catch him. He’s made a trap for himself. Let’s let him walk into it.’

‘I don’t know, Sean,’ she appealed to him. ‘Don’t stick your neck out again. Your children, Sean. They’re so young.’

He sighed into his phone. He knew she was right, but he also knew he wouldn’t be able to stop himself. He never could. ‘I have no intention of confronting him,’ he told her what he knew she wanted to hear, ‘but if we end up crossing paths, Dave will be with me and he’ll be armed.’

‘Dave’s armed?’ she asked disbelievingly.

‘As a precaution,’ he tried to calm her. ‘If we’re the ones who have to arrest him then it’ll be Dave making the approach, not me.’

‘No it won’t,’ she told him. ‘Just be careful. I’ll call you once we’ve checked out the buildings in Surrey.’

Sean listened to the phone go dead.

Mark Hudson sat in his squalid bedroom staring at the blank square on his computer screen, waiting for The Jackdaw to return. He felt like he’d been watching the screen for days, but he didn’t dare take a break and run the risk of missing his idol – not even to use the toilet or to eat or drink. Nothing could pull him away from the old computer he’d stolen during a burglary a few months before. The thrill of being an intruder in somebody else’s home had been one of the greatest feelings he’d had in his short life, but it would have been oh so much more
satisfying
if the occupants had been in while he rifled through the house. Next time he’d make sure they were. He’d do it at night. Wait outside hidden in trees as he watched them go to bed one by one, the house turning to darkness, and then he’d slip from the trees and find a way in. Before he left with his stolen haul he’d be sure to defecate somewhere prominent inside the house – a final act of defiling the house and family who lived inside. He had no way of knowing that such acts would soon fail to satisfy his needs. Soon he would need more.

‘What the fuck’s going on?’ he shouted at the blank screen. ‘What are you waiting for?’ He flopped backwards on his bed, but kept his eyes on the screen. He needed this. He lived for this. The Jackdaw had shown him the way forward. Shown him what he could achieve with his life. And now he was going to slay another rich pig live on the Internet – for his
entertainment
. And after that, he’d as good as promised to end his own life.

Hudson leaned forward, suddenly interested in his own thoughts. How did The Jackdaw plan to kill his next and seemingly final victim? Would he hang him like he did his first, or would he use the shotgun? He hoped it would be the shotgun. He’d already seen people hanged – hundreds of them on the Internet – victims of the Holocaust, victims of other conflicts, but prisoners too and even Saddam Hussein’s execution by hanging had made it onto the Net. He’d even seen his fair share of decapitations – nearly all the victims of jihadists and terrorists — but he’d never seen anyone shot, not live and close up with a shotgun. He hoped he shot him in the chest or better still the abdomen, so the victim could be seen to be suffering. Somehow that would make it all the more
real.

And how would The Jackdaw end his own life? With courage and strength? No fear. He’d show the world how strong he was. The Jackdaw was just like him – he lived his life hard and fast and wouldn’t let anyone fuck with him. If they did he made them pay, just as Hudson did. They were kindred spirits. The Jackdaw had shown him the true way forward. From now on he’d never look back. He knew what he had to do with his life.

But right now he just wanted the small black square with the words ‘Your View’ in its centre to blink into life and for The Jackdaw to once again take centre stage.

Over a hundred miles away from Hudson’s squalid bedroom, Gabriel Westbrook sat at the breakfast bar in the kitchen of his house in Hoxton. Once a tough and depressed area of the East End of London housing dockers and their families, famous for lunatic asylums and workhouses, in the 1980s it had been taken over by young artists and then inevitably the rich had moved in, taking advantage of its proximity to the City to make it their own.

He looked up from his laptop’s screen for a few seconds to see his beautiful young wife playing with his beautiful children in their modest-sized garden. She waved through the glass kitchen extension and encouraged the children to do the same. He faked an eager smile and waved back, pointing at his screen to let her know he still had work to do. Only it wasn’t work on his computer – it was the same black Your View picture that, unbeknown to him, a young psychopath in Birmingham was waiting to come alive.

Westbrook had planned on meeting some work colleagues for a game of golf, but had decided against it when he saw The Jackdaw’s earlier broadcast. He’d bent a few rules and regulations back in the bad old days, when the banking crisis was the only thing in the news, and in his heart he’d always known that his actions had probably made somebody, somewhere, suffer because of his own greed and impatience to climb the corporate and financial ladder. He always managed to console himself with the thought that if he hadn’t, then someone else would have, and since then he’d been as white as white. However, the thought of The Jackdaw still roaming the streets a free man was enough to put him off leaving the house. How could he know? How could he be sure he hadn’t already been selected to be his next victim? But The Jackdaw had all but promised to take his own life once he’d taken his final victim. All Westbrook had to do was see out these last few hours and he’d be in the clear. No more looking over his shoulder whenever he was out and about. No more feeling paranoid on the Underground – every stranger’s glance making him on edge. No more nightmares about being taped to that old wooden chair as the monster burnt out his eyes and hacked off his fingers before hoisting him in the air to hang to death. He just had to get through the next few hours.

With The Jackdaw out of the way everything could get back to normal. The City could relax and breathe again – stocks and shares would quickly recover and the money and bonuses could once again begin to roll in. He, like his colleagues, knew the get rich quick and stay rich formula. It was simple enough: get your bonus, take the cash out of the increasingly regulated banking sector and use it to buy property across London. Who cared if the middle and working classes got pushed out of London altogether? There was fast money to be made. At least, that was what he used to think. The Jackdaw was nothing other than a vengeful lunatic, as far as he was concerned, but the amount of people watching and voting had deeply troubled him, especially the amount who had voted the defendants guilty and thus encouraged The Jackdaw to maim and kill. Locked in his bubble of work and wealth, he’d had no idea how much the majority of people hated his kind. But it was those who voted not guilty who had affected him most – tens of thousands of ordinary people, no doubt many who had suffered as a result of the banking crisis, but who showed mercy and compassion – they were the ones who had truly changed him. He didn’t want to spend the rest of his life making money for people who already had money. He wanted to do more with his life now, something that mattered. Something that made a difference – if he could just see out this day. Come Monday he would hand in his resignation then take some time out to think about what he really wanted from life. A slight smile spread across his lips at the irony. The Jackdaw represented nothing but hate and revenge – a man who wanted to turn the country on itself. But somehow he couldn’t help but believe that The Jackdaw, in trying to destroy him, had saved him.