The Rebel: The new crime thriller that will have you gripped in 2018. Jaime Raven

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СКАЧАТЬ her skin was stretched too tight across her bones. It was as though the life had been sucked out of her.

      I walked over and gave her another kiss on the forehead.

      ‘It’s nice of you to say that, Mum. It means a lot.’

      And then I quickly tried to lighten the mood by changing the subject. I told her about Dave Prentiss becoming a father. I knew she’d be interested because she’d met him not so long ago. I’d agreed to go along to the school to give a talk about careers in the police force, but had to pull out at the last minute. Dave had done me a favour by stepping in.

      ‘They’ve named him Josh,’ I said. ‘And he’s so cute.’

      It did the trick. My Mum smiled and said, ‘What a coincidence. My neighbour became a grandmother yesterday as well.’

      Babies were her favourite subject and she stuck with it as Aidan served up the potatoes. We both waited for the inevitable question and it wasn’t long in coming.

      ‘So have you two given any more thought to getting married and starting a family?’

      It was always so tempting to tell her the truth, but now wasn’t the time to start building her hopes up, especially if, God forbid, I wasn’t able to have children.

      ‘I keep telling you, Mum,’ I said. ‘You’ll be the first to know when we do. I promise. We just want to wait for a while and concentrate on our careers. There’s no hurry, after all.’

      She kept her eyes on me and pointed her fork at Aidan.

      ‘Well, let me tell you, young lady,’ she said. ‘You’ve struck gold with this one, and if I was in your shoes I’d tie him down with a wedding ring and children so he can’t get away.’

      Aidan couldn’t help but laugh as he reached across the table and placed a hand over my mother’s.

      ‘There’s no way I would ever leave your daughter,’ he said. ‘She’s the best darn thing that’s ever happened to me.’

      Aidan had a knack for saying things that stirred my emotions and made me want to make love to him. And if my mother hadn’t been with us I would have dragged him upstairs to the bedroom and done just that.

      Instead it was going to have to wait until after he had taken her home.

      But as always she was keen to be off as soon as she’d finished dinner.

      ‘Are you sure you don’t want a coffee?’ I asked her.

      She shook her head. ‘It’s almost seven and you know I like to be in bed by eight during the week. But thank you for a lovely evening.’

      ‘It’s been our pleasure,’ Aidan said, as he pushed back his chair and stood up.

      At that moment his mobile pinged with an incoming text message. It was lying next to me on the table so I picked it up and handed it to him.

      While he checked it I started clearing the dishes but then stopped suddenly when I heard him gasp.

      ‘What’s wrong?’ I said, turning back to him with a plate in each hand.

      He looked up, his eyes bulging, his mouth agape.

      ‘What in Christ’s name does this mean?’ he said and held the phone towards me.

      I put the plates down and grabbed the phone. And as I started reading the text every muscle in my body went still.

       This morning I sent the following message to every detective on the organised crime task force. Thought you should know.

      It was the same message with the same unambiguous threat.

      ‘Is this for real, Laura?’ Aidan asked, thrusting his chin towards my mother. ‘Are our lives in danger?’

       14

      Slack

      He was on his second pint when Danny called him on his mobile.

      ‘I’m sorry for the delay, boss. The plane got stuck in a holding pattern over the airport for ages. Then we had to contend with the bloody rush hour.’

      ‘Where are you now?’

      ‘I’m just checking her into the hotel. What about you?’

      ‘I’m in the pub. Arrived about half an hour ago.’

      ‘Great. We should be there in ten minutes.’

      It was why that particular hotel had been chosen. It needed to be within walking distance of the pub.

      ‘What about the second text message?’ Slack said. ‘Did it get sent?’

      ‘It did. I had confirmation a few minutes ago.’

      The second message had been Danny’s idea. He’d come up with it late last night as a way of raising the fear factor even before the killings began. It was sent to those people close to the detectives whose phone numbers they’d been able to obtain.

      ‘Just so you know, boss, I’ve not had a chance to talk to Jack about the gear,’ Danny said.

      ‘Don’t worry. He’s taken delivery of everything and it’s all out the back.’

      Jack Pickering was the pub landlord and he worked for Slack who owned the building. There was a yard at the rear with a lock-up garage that the firm made extensive use of. It was the perfect place to store the stuff that Rosa Lopez needed to do her job.

      After hanging up, Slack sipped at his beer and looked out the window. The evening rush hour was over, but in this part of Lambeth the roads were still busy.

      It had taken them almost an hour to get here from Dulwich – a distance of about four miles. On the way he’d told Mike to drive past the house where Terry Malone had lived and died.

      It had made him feel sad and yet pleased with himself at the same time. Sad because of what had happened to Terry and pleased because he’d been able to avenge his untimely death.

      He didn’t give a toss about that gun-toting copper or his family. The bastard determined his own fate when he shot a defenceless Terry in cold blood.

      Just six months ago Slack wouldn’t have cared. He’d never met Terry and had no idea that he’d worked for the Romanians in North London before the gang’s leaders were snared by the task force.

      But then, out of the blue, he got a call from an old girlfriend who was in Guy’s Hospital having suffered a severe stroke.

      Chloe Malone had begged him to visit her, saying she had something important to tell him. So he’d gone along out of curiosity and she’d revealed that just after they’d split up twenty-six years ago she’d discovered she was pregnant. Eight months later she gave birth to a boy.

      ‘He’s СКАЧАТЬ