KillerReads
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First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2019
Copyright © Paul Grzegorzek 2019
Cover design by Andrew Davis © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2019
Cover photograph © Shutterstock.com
Paul Grzegorzek asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of 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.
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Ebook Edition © August 2019 ISBN: 9780008329990
Version: 2019-07-16
It’s been ten years since I killed a man. Not in cold blood, but in hot rage born of fear for those I loved. Ten years of terrible dreams by night and frustration by day. Ten years of watching those younger and less capable than me get promoted, while I remain an eternal sergeant, a relic at the back of the office no one is sure what to do with.
Killing a man tarnishes your soul as well as your reputation. I used to live by the creed that if I could look myself in the eye every morning and not feel ashamed then I was doing things right. Now, when I look at myself in the mirror I see a killer, a man who knows what he’s capable of when the chains come off.
After this long I’ve made some measure of peace with it, but I still have moments when the darkness rears up, trying to drag me back into those old memories of pain and blood and death.
“Contact, contact, we have eyeball on the X-ray.”
The voice jerked me back to the present and I straightened up behind the wheel, glancing across to my colleague, Tom. He was younger than me, somewhere in his mid-twenties, and he still had the fire and zeal that coppers radiate before they get burned out.
“Should we move, Sarge?” he asked, almost bouncing on the edge of his seat. No wonder; we’d been after our target for months now, slowly building up enough evidence to put him away for years. Eric Simmonds, charmer, socialite and club owner, with no fewer than three of Brighton’s premier entertainment venues displaying his name above the door. He is also, we discovered from a discontented former employee, responsible for a good twenty percent of the city’s cocaine distribution.
“Not yet. Let’s see which way he’s going first.”
Simmonds lived in one of the palatial flats in Palmeira Square, a hundred and fifty square metres of space in a building called Palmeira Grand that overlooks the sculpted public gardens.
It was home turf for me, just one street over from my flat, a tiny, functional place that was all I could afford after a messy divorce.
“X-ray is moving south into Palmeira Square, heading towards his car. Confirm he is carrying a black rucksack. Also wearing a red jacket and black trousers. I have the eyeball.”