Simon Kernick - A Good day to die

'I got the names of the people whose numbers you gave me on Saturday,' she continued. 'The ones that supposedly came from Les Pope's mobile. One of the numbers on there also belongs to Les Pope. So what was he doing phoning himself? Unless, of course, you were bullshitting me and they didn't come from Pope's phone at all, but from someone else's. Which seems a lot more likely, don't you think?'

On the night I'd met her in the Ben Crouch Tavern, I'd observed that something in Emma's girlish demeanour invited people to underestimate her, and I'd made exactly that mistake. I suspected that I wasn't the first.

'All right. I'll tell you what I know and how I know it, but be prepared not to like what you hear.'

She gave a hollow laugh. 'You're a self-confessed mass murderer. Don't worry, I'm fully prepared on that front.'

So I told her. About Blacklip; about Slippery Billy West; about everything. The only things I kept from her were the locations of the killings, and where I'd been these past three years, but even that would have been fairly obvious, given where Blacklip's corpse had been found.

When I'd finished she didn't speak for a while. Instead she just sat there watching me. She gave no indication of how she felt, although it wasn't that hard to guess. I lit a cigarette and wondered if it was worth my while trying to justify what I'd done. In the end, I decided it wasn't. She knew that one of the men I'd killed had been a violent and long-standing child abuser, and that the other had been the hitman who'd slain Malik and Jason Khan. That should have been justification enough.

'Why didn't you tell me all this before?' she asked eventually.

'You didn't need to know. And it wouldn't have made you feel any better about me, would it?'

She started to say something, but I put up a hand to stop her. I could hear movement outside — the shuffling of feet.

We both listened.

The only sound in the room was the faint tinny chattering of the TV in the corner.

A loud knock on the door startled us both. We looked at each other.

The knock came again. 'Emma, are you there?' The voice was naturally loud — deep and authoritative. 'It's DCI Barron. I'm here with DS Boyd. We'd like a quick word, if we could.'

Emma looked alarmed. She glanced over at me for guidance and I motioned for her to let them in. I got up, picked up the ashtray I was using and my drink, and headed for the staircase, trying to keep as quiet as possible.

'Just coming,' I heard Emma call as I reached the third stair.

By the time she'd opened the door I was on the landing, leaning over the edge of the staircase to listen to whatever DCI Barron and his colleague had to say, and hoping that Emma didn't take the opportunity to get her name in lights and a plum job on one of the nationals by telling them about the fugitive currently in her house. I might have trusted her implicitly that morning but I wasn't so sure now, not with the law on the doorstep, and me having just admitted that there were a further two murders to add to my rapidly growing list of crimes.

'What can I do for you both?' I heard Emma ask as they came into the house and she offered them seats.

'You were asking about a gentleman by the name of Jamie Delly last night,' said Barron. 'You called one of my colleagues, John Gallan, asking if he had Delly's address. Would that be right?'

Emma must have said something in the affirmative, because Barron asked why she'd wanted to know.

'I wanted to speak to him about his brother, Jason,' she answered. 'As part of my own investigation.'

The female officer, Boyd, then spoke, but her voice was quieter and I couldn't make out what she was saying. Something about Emma's articles, it sounded like, and her tone was more abrupt.

Barron interjected to inform Emma that the police had been called to Jamie's flat that morning. 'We've been keeping an eye on him as part of our investigation into the Malik/Khan murders, and we received a call this morning from one of his neighbours saying there was a disturbance going on at his place, and the sounds of a struggle. DS Boyd and I were the first to attend. We saw a tall, slim, bearded man of about forty leaving the premises, but he disappeared before we could apprehend him. When we arrived at the flat we found Mr Delly semi-naked in his bathtub having suffered a number of very nasty injuries which suggested he'd been tortured. He's being treated in hospital now.'

Boyd asked Emma whether she knew of anyone fitting that description who might have had links with the case.

Emma said she didn't, and I offered her a silent thank-you. But I wondered how long it would take them to link the description to the man who'd been involved in the Soho shootings. A while yet, I hoped. There was a lot of CCTV footage to go through and I'd been wearing completely different clothes. But it was a worry.

'What did you think Jamie Delly could tell you about Jason?' asked Boyd, her voice louder and clearer now.

Emma said this was her business, but Boyd replied that given what had happened that morning it was police business as well.

'I'm still interested in finding a motive for the murders,' Emma explained. 'It's a high-profile case but it doesn't seem to be moving very fast. I thought Jamie might be able to shed some light on things. I was going to visit him tomorrow.'

'Well, he's not saying anything to us,' said Barron, 'so if you get any information out of him, please let us know.'

Emma said she would.

The conversation continued with Barron and Boyd trying to find out where Emma was with her own investigations. Barron then suggested that, given the tone of her articles, she should be extra vigilant in case she herself became a target, which was when she told them about the break-in the previous night and the bloodied doll that had been left behind as a warning. After admonishing her for not reporting the incident, and asking to see the doll, he became even more forceful in his warnings. His tone was genuine enough, though, and I was confident that the main reason he was saying all this was because he was worried for her. I wasn't sure I could say the same about Boyd. Her manner was more hostile, which I suppose was understandable. As a woman she wouldn't be so easily impressed by a pretty girl, and, like most coppers, she didn't like journalists nosing into her investigations, particularly when those journalists were being critical.

'We can offer you police protection if you like,' said Barron, promising to take the doll to the station for further examination, but Emma declined.

Boyd then asked if she could use the bathroom. I heard her get to her feet as Emma told her it was first left at the top of the stairs.

As Boyd climbed the stairs, I retreated into Emma's bedroom and went round to the far side of her bed, feeling like a kid again as I sunk to my hands and knees and made myself as inconspicuous as possible in the darkness.

I heard her reach the top of the stairs, but rather than go straight on into the bathroom, she stopped. A second later, the door to the bedroom made a scuffing noise as it was pushed open, and I could sense her in here with me. She moved swiftly across the carpet and I suddenly wondered what on earth I'd do if she discovered me here: the man she'd seen that morning at Delly's place, hunched on the floor in front of her. I began to sweat.

A few more steps and she was almost on me. I gritted my teeth and remained as still as possible, silencing even my breathing and resisting the urge to go for my gun.

It was only when her legs were three feet away from my head that she stopped, and I could see her looking around Emma's desk. She opened the desk drawer and had a quick poke about inside. It looked like she had plastic police-issue gloves on.

I stayed as still as a statue, knowing that she only had to turn her head ever so slightly and drop her gaze downwards and the lives of the four people in this house would be changed for ever. One tiny movement; such huge ramifications.