Each Day I Wake: A gripping psychological thriller: US Edition (25 page)

I coughed up water. My lungs burst with pain.

I turned my head.

I saw that Janet must have been thrown clear of the crashed car and had been rescued from the water by a brave bystander. Paramedics had arrived. She was being given oxygen before being stretchered into a waiting ambulance.

As I was being carried towards the ambulance, I looked as best I could for any sign of Quinn or his men. I could not see them. They must have known that this was no longer the time and place. Yet I knew they would try again.

Brogan joined us in the ambulance as it left for the local hospital.

As the ambulance sped back along the Commercial Road, lights and sirens flashing, I turned to the paramedic who was treating Janet.

I didn’t need to speak.

He gave me the best news I’d heard in my life. “She’s breathing normally. She’s going to make it.”

Six months later

I’m sitting next to Janet in the coffee bar overlooking Lichfield city square. It’s Saturday morning and the outdoor market, presided over still by the statue of Boswell, is in full swing. I’m part of all this now.

I’ve recovered my past, well, most of it, anyway. I think back now with a welcome distance to those dark times when I came round in the hospital not knowing who I was. I have Janet and that means more than the world to me.

Much has happened in the last six months.

DI Ives accepted that I’d acted in self-defense in the killing of Mason and that I’d played a major role in stopping a serial killer.

The evidence found at Mason’s house was convincing. The videotapes shocked even Ives. They showed that Mason had been killing for over ten years. In the basement, Ives found the tiny shamrock badge that Mason could pin to any item of clothing and which functioned as a video camera linked by Bluetooth to the smartphone in his pocket. It returned images of near HD standard with good quality sound.

In addition to the films he’d made of Cathy Newsome, Rebecca French, Margot West and Felicity Jenkins there was sickening footage of eight other girls that he’d abducted, molested and killed. The bodies of four of them had now been found but before that the police had made no meaningful connection between the killings. They had been unaware that they were dealing with a serial killer before I’d become involved. My visions had at least accomplished that. The bodies of Rebecca, Margot and Felicity were still unaccounted for.

It emerged that Mason had been called in for questioning by no fewer than three different police authorities on separate occasions when the disappearance of a number of the girls was being investigated but no one had put the evidence together to recognize a pattern in his behavior. Nor had the police made any connection between this and the more recent disappearances.

Yet Ives was reluctant to admit that he had been wrong about me. He left DI Lesley to give me what amounted to the closest thing to an apology I ever received. “We had every reason to suspect you, Mr. Markland. You can’t blame us for that.”

I struggled to convince Ives that he should place us in witness protection. “Mason is dead. You have nothing to worry about.”

When I told Ives that the protection was needed because of threats made by Montague and Quinn, he wanted to know more. Ives was unconvinced that any case could be brought against them for what they had done to Janet and Brogan. “I know Mike Quinn. He’ll have covered his tracks. It’ll be his word against yours.”

When police were sent to investigate Montague and Quinn they denied everything. The deserted warehouse where Janet and Brogan had been held was clean. Without evidence, the police could not intervene. I knew then that the only way to stop Montague and Quinn was to further the case against them over their wrongdoing at OAM.

What Ives did agree to was a detailed investigation of Della’s diary. He tasked DI Lesley with this. Brogan was insistent that the diary contained evidence that Della had been murdered but Lesley did not agree. The diary showed that Della had been threatened and that she must have had more than one close encounter with the serial killer when Mason visited her as a client but that was as far as this went. Brogan tried to insist that other threats against her mentioned in the diary pointed to Montague but Lesley would have none of this. The post mortem results showed too little to justify that Della’s death was anything other than an accident.

When I raised the issue of the death of Geoff Tunny, I was also told that there was no evidence that this was anything more than a regrettable and avoidable incident. If he hadn’t run into the busy street, he would still be here today.

When I told Ives about Montague and financial wrongdoing at OAM, he told me it was outside his brief. He passed this part of the case over to CI Ambrose, an officer tasked with law enforcement for the Financial Conduct Authority, the FCA.

The information stored on Tunny’s pocket drive gave details of the complex financial transactions that Montague had employed to make OAM appear solvent and profitable in order to lure further investors to his Ponzi scheme. The details given in Della’s diary of financial wrongdoing were trivial in comparison. CI Ambrose told me it would take time to analyze the wealth of data obtained by Tunny. This placed us in danger since no protection was available before the possibility arose that charges could be made.

We couldn’t return to the house in Lichfield. Instead, we stayed with friends, moving every three or four days, concerned that if we remained too long in any one place, Quinn would find us.

As Ambrose dug deeper into the data, it became clear that Evan Hamilton was a key witness. Hamilton was reluctant to be involved at first, fearing he would be prosecuted for the bug he had authorized to be placed in Montague’s computer. But, in order to pursue the case, Ambrose was prepared to obscure the details of how Tunny had acquired the information about OAM and Hamilton decided to cooperate. Hamilton told of the threats he’d received from Quinn to prevent
The
Herald
investigation into OAM from getting into print.

I met with Marshall Brogan and we tried to start over again. He showed no gratitude that I’d rescued him from Quinn and he remained unapologetic about implicating me in Della’s killing. He was right that our first meeting in Canada One had been the trigger for the whole series of events to unfold. But he now understood that the attack that had consigned me to the North Dock was the work of Mason who had been there that day at the meeting as part of
The
Herald
team visiting the building to interview Montague. I tried to thank him more than once for his heroism in pulling me out of the crashed Ford but he failed to respond. Yet I sensed that he now regarded me more as his equal. We parted as the blood brothers we had always been.

Once CI Ambrose understood the extent of the case against Montague and OAM, we entered witness protection with round the clock police protection.

News that the FCA was in the process of bringing a case against OAM leaked out to the press, causing a clamor amongst investors seeking to recover their money. When OAM couldn’t meet its obligations, the panic intensified. Despite Montague’s protestations to the contrary, the City was left in no doubt that OAM was being run as a Ponzi scheme.

Despite our witness protection, these were still dangerous times. There were death threats via social media. We were left in no doubt that Quinn was searching for us. We seldom left the apartment the police had placed us in. Despite this, with Hamilton’s help in keeping me informed with online messages and links, I resumed work ‘from home’ on
The
Herald
investigation into OAM.

The threats stopped when Tyrone Montague and Albert Emery were arrested and charged with financial misconduct by the FCA. Ambrose made great show of the arrest, making sure that the media were briefed to expect Montague and Emery to be seen being taken away in handcuffs. Images of the arrest went round the world in the news media.

The
Herald
led with the inside story of the wrongdoing at OAM. I shared the byline with Evan Hamilton and Jason Blair.

Quinn escaped arrest.

I held Janet’s hand. “It’s over. We can get back to our lives again.”

She smiled back. “Those are the best words I’ve ever heard.”

I looked back out towards the square.

There amongst the crowds of shoppers, looking up at us, were the unmistakable figures of Mike Quinn and his driver, Malcolm, heading our way.

I turned my head away. When I looked back they were nowhere to be seen.

Janet looked concerned. “What’s wrong?”

I stared back into her eyes. “It’s nothing. Just something I imagined I saw out there.”

From the author

Thanks for reading EACH DAY I WAKE. If you enjoyed it, please leave a review. This is one of the best ways a reader can help an author spread the word about a book. It doesn’t have to be any more than a few lines (but don’t hold back if you get the urge to write more). Just return to the book page (
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TAKE NO MORE

Top 20 bestselling thriller; 123 reviews with an average of 4.0 /5.0 stars at amazon.com

'An artistic voyage in crime - thrilling and original'
 

Julia Blake is a conservator, working with classic art. Her expertise includes imaging beneath the surface of paintings to discover what lies beneath.

Take No More
 begins when James Blake, Julia's husband, returns to their home in London to find that she has been shot and killed. What had brought her back to London unannounced? Why has someone committed this shocking crime? 

Blake determines to find her killers. He has little to go on - just her last message to him sent from her mobile phone: 'help me' with an attachment showing Michelangelo's painting ‘Leda and the Swan’.

As the prime suspect of the crime, James flees England and sets out on a trail of deception and danger across the sweeping landscapes of Venice and Florence into a dark underworld of crime, conspiracy and corruption, a trail that will lead him to the killer - and the truth behind the mystery. 

Available as a Kindle ebook, in print or on audio:

US Edition:
http://smarturl.it/tnm

UK Edition:
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And, please check out the other books in the series, available as a Kindle ebook or in print:

REGRET NO MORE

US Edition:
http://smarturl.it/rnm

UK Edition:
http://smarturl.it/rnm1

FORGIVE NO MORE

US Edition:
http://smarturl.it/fnm

UK Edition:
http://smarturl.it/fnm1

For further news and information on books by Seb Kirby, please visit
http://sebkirby.com

Cover design is by
Jane Dixon-Smith (
http://www.jdsmith-design.com
).