Hunter Hunted, Jack Gatland [good story books to read .txt] 📗

he wasn’t being followed, he turned away from the building and started east up Page Street, walking towards St John’s Gardens.

Originally the burial ground for St John Smith Square back in 1731, this was another of these ‘pocket parks’ that had appeared in the mid-nineteenth century, when the gravestones were removed or placed around the sides, the burials were stopped and people conveniently forgot there were thousands of dead bodies beneath their feet. Laid out in a symmetrical pattern; paths to the middle from each corner and two additional paths from the sides joining them at a large, circular clearing, a small circular fountain in the middle with trees planted equidistantly around it, the park was a well-kept green space, surrounded on all four sides by eight storey buildings, created for locals and visitors alike to relax in, and take stock of their situations.

Sitting on one of the benches that surrounded the fountain though was Kendis Taylor. Gladwell sighed audibly and walked over, sitting on the bench beside her.

‘When I gave you this way to contact me, I didn’t expect you to use it immediately,’ he stated irritably.

‘I’d hoped to find you at the cemetery,’ Kendis replied. ‘You said you volunteer there.’

‘I couldn’t today. I have a session,’ Gladwell explained irritably. ‘I was hoping to make it there tonight. What’s this about?’

‘They’re gunning for me,’ Kendis replied, passing Gladwell the sheet of paper with the call to martyrdom written on it. ‘I need to move on them now.’

‘There’s nothing I can do about it,’ Gladwell replied. ‘They’re apparently watching me too. That is, they were watching the pub last night.’

‘The Horse and Guard?’

Gladwell looked at Kendis. ‘How many pubs do you think I go to in a night?’

‘Well, I know you were upstairs in The George with Baker and a couple of starry-eyed MPs beforehand,’ she smiled sweetly. ‘You might have been on a pub crawl.’

‘You checked into my movements last night?’

‘Let’s say I’m a little protective of my investments.’

‘I’m not one of your bloody investments,’ Gladwell replied. ‘I’m a completely anonymous source, and that doesn’t work when we’re not being anonymous. Christ, Taylor. If they were watching me, then they’d have seen you there too!’

‘Then I’d say it’s more dangerous for me to be around you, than for you to be around me,’ Kendis tossed some breadcrumbs from a bun she held to a pigeon. ‘Besides, I saw who you were with in there. Interesting piece of political tittle-tattle, wouldn’t you say?’

Gladwell took the bun from her, tossing it into a bin beside them.

‘Don’t do that,’ he chided. ’They’re vermin.’

He sighed, looking up at the trees that towered above him. ‘Baker put your name forward last night. This is probably the start of a discrediting scheme.’

‘Then I need to discredit him first,’ Kendis leaned forward on the bench. ‘I need to gain leverage on him, put the piece out and make this public.’

‘It’s not Baker you need to worry about,’ Gladwell replied. ‘It’s his department. He’s not the genuine power there.’

‘I know,’ Kendis nodded. ‘Sir Hiss has been asking about me all week.’

‘I bumped into Harrison today, during lunch,’ Gladwell looked across the park as he spoke. ‘I’ve spent years keeping off their radar, and now I’m seeing them all over the bloody place. He knows my… Astronomy side, so I asked whether Baker’s intel was credible.’

‘On me?’ Kendis smiled. ‘Was it? Am I a terrorist?’

‘He made a fairly credible argument,’ Gladwell admitted.

‘But you didn’t shoot it down.’

‘How could I?’ Gladwell leaned forward to join Kendis, lowering his voice. ‘I regret the Balkans, I really do. But it wasn’t my mistake. Wasn’t even my bloody department. When we spoke to Baker about the leadership, when I placed him in contact with the 1922 Committee, he said he had no skeletons. I assumed that it had been someone else, that he hadn’t known about it, and took him at face value.’

‘And then you learned he had a secret love child and had been blackmailed by Francine Pearce for twenty years.’

‘Well, yes,’ Gladwell finally smiled. ‘He did shit the bed quite spectacularly there.’

‘Do you know who leaked the schedule?’

‘Of course. We both know. It had to be someone who could see an opportunity for Rattlestone.’ Gladwell shook his head. ‘And no, I don’t know all the names of power there. I just know that Harrison and Baker were brought on board a year before the Balkans, promising big things.’

Kendis sighed. ‘I need to know where the smoking gun is, Malcolm.’

‘And I’m trying to find it,’ Gladwell hissed. ‘But meeting me in secluded gardens right before you’re possibly outed to the press as a terrorist sympathiser doesn’t help! God knows who followed you here!’ He looked around, glancing carefully at the others in the park as if expecting them to attack him at any moment.

‘I know how to avoid a tail,’ Kendis replied. She couldn’t help herself though, and she looked around as well; she paused as she saw the figure standing by the shelter. Looking back to Gladwell, she rose, pulling him up as she did so, patting at his jacket’s pockets. ‘Are you wearing a wire?’

‘Of course I’m not!’ Gladwell looked at the figure. ‘Who is it?’

Kendis avoided the question. ‘Get home. I’m going off the grid for a couple of days. If you can find out where they keep the evidence, you know how to find me.’

‘And if they get to you first?’

‘Then speak to DI Declan Walsh.’ Kendis started walking away from Gladwell who, grateful for the end of this meeting, rose and trotted out of the park.

Kendis however wasn’t leaving the park just yet; opening up her hand, she glanced down at the wrought iron key that she’d just taken from Gladwell’s jacket while patting him down. It had been a calculated guess to find it, especially after he’d commented about visiting the cemetery later; she needed to do what was needed and then return it back somehow, preferably before he realised it was missing. But now,