Phil Kurthausen - Sudden Death

The clock is ticking on Erasmus Jones’ deadliest case yet…

Jaded lawyer Erasmus Jones has been hired to protect the footballing world’s latest protégé – and while it’s a job he may not like, he can’t refuse. Thrust into the hedonistic world of the football elite, Erasmus discovers a sinister underbelly to the beautiful game, riddled with corruption, deceit… and murder.

It’s his most high-profile case yet… and it should be enough. But when the only woman he has ever loved appears, begging for his help, Erasmus finds himself caught between two deadly cases: and his professional instincts are tested more than ever before.

With mere seconds on the clock, Erasmus must make a choice: put his client’s life on the line, or turn his back on his past. Because there can only be one winner... and the penalty could be death.

Also by Phil Kurthausen

The Silent Pool

Sudden Death

Phil Kurthausen

Copyright

HQ

An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2014

Copyright © Phil Kurthausen 2014

Phil Kurthausen asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

E-book Edition © June 2014 ISBN: 9781472099990

Version date: 2018-09-20

Phil Kurthausen grew up in Merseyside where he dreamt of being a novelist but ended up working as a lawyer. He has travelled the world working as a flower salesman, a light bulb repair technician and, though scared of heights, painting the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Ken Dodd once put him in a headlock for being annoying.

He has had work broadcast on BBC Radio 4 Extra, published some short stories and his novel The Killing Pool won the Thriller Round in the Harper Collins People’s Novelist Competition broadcast on ITV in November 2011 and appeared in the final. It was later shortlisted for the Dundee International Literary Prize in 2012.

He lives in Chester.

PRAISE

‘Totally un-putdownable. Quite Outstanding’ Jeffrey Archer

‘This pulls you in at 100 mph. [The] sense of place is terrific. A great central character. I love Erasmus Jones’ Mark Billingham

‘Wonderfully written, tightly written, Erasmus Jones is like Jack Reacher. Wonderful’ Cathy Kelly

‘I read ahead of myself. Just cracking. Macabre, brilliant’ Penny Smith

Dedication

For Dylan & Thea

Contents

Cover

Blurb

Book List

Title Page

Copyright

Author Bio

PRAISE

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Four

Chapter Thirty-Five

Chapter Thirty-Six

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Chapter Forty

Chapter Forty-One

Chapter Forty-Two

Chapter Forty-Three

Chapter Forty-Four

Chapter Forty-Five

Chapter Forty-Six

Chapter Forty-Seven

Epilogue

Extract

Endpages

About the Publisher

CHAPTER 1

July 2nd 1992

She ran, breathing and sobbing hard. She didn’t dare turn around and look back, for the sound of the beasts was still close behind.

The tears that wouldn’t stop blinded her and she tumbled hard onto the cinder path. She lay there for a second and as her eyes cleared slightly she noticed the skin hanging off her knees, revealing lacerations the colour of cough sweets. She held up her hands. Even silhouetted against the sun she could still see the speckled grit that had lodged there as she had broken her fall.

From behind her there came a cackle, a sound that spoke of pleasure in pain, torture and fear. She stood up and ran faster than she ever had before and inwardly screamed at the universe, at herself, for believing that it had all been true.

***

The gap in the trees had been exactly where he had described it in the letter.

She had walked down the cinder path, her head bowed as usual to avoid attracting any unnecessary attention from the ever hungry eyes of the hawks, as she thought of them, those girls with the heightened sense of who was weak and vulnerable to attack, torment and destruction.

But she had been lucky, the path was unusually clear of other pupils. It was a warm day and everyone else had been desperate to leave, a rush and whirr of movement – perfume being applied, shirts rolled up at the waist and buttons undone – and all the time she had moved slowly, as though moving through a different world, a denser atmosphere than the others inhabited. By the time she had put her bag over her shoulder, the changing rooms had cleared save for the tired and grey looking Miss Clarkson, who had wearily ushered her out of the school doors.

When she had reached the end of the cinder path, instead of turning right and heading down the hill that ran to her home, she had turned left. The path ran for a few yards more here and then disappeared, reclaimed by weeds and the trees that surrounded the old Mill House copse

She had come to the gap in the trees, widened over the years by the smokers, potheads and mischievous school children who used this forbidden path. She had never dared come this way before, had never been invited before now but it was exactly as he had described it: a gap marked by the corpse of an old dead elm, dried and decaying.

Her hand had gone to the letter in her pocket. It had been tucked into her bag, placed there while she was doing gym. Resting at the top, the envelope sticking out of the zip so she couldn’t miss it. She had always thought that her half glances had been missed or ignored for the more obvious attentions of the prettier, more confident girls who danced and preened around Mark. But Mark, a golden flop of fringe, eyes the colour of sapphires and a quiet confidence and bearing that made her stomach loop and turn like a Tiger Moth performing acrobatics, had known all along. She had felt sick with the anticipation. For the rest of the afternoon she had struggled to keep her thoughts from colliding with one another, the letter seemed to have derailed all her carefully nurtured linear patterns of thinking. Miss Clarkson had asked her a question in her maths class and Alison hadn’t been aware that she was even being spoken to until she realized that the laughter of the other children was being directed at her.