Facing Justice Read Online Free Page A

number or name recorded but it did state it had come from an international number.
    Flynn grinned with pleasure. He expected it would be a message from Craig. Following the events of the previous year, contact between the two had been re-established with the consent of Flynn’s ex-wife. Craig had even been allowed to come out to the island for two weeks over the summer holiday when they’d worked together on the boat. It had been a wonderful fortnight and he’d re-bonded with Craig. When the lad had returned to the UK, both had been heartbroken.
    He dialled the answerphone service and waited for the connection, fully expecting to hear Craig’s still childlike voice.
    But the voice he heard was not that of his son.
    It was a thin, desperate-sounding female voice, one that Flynn recognized immediately.
    â€˜Flynnie? Flynnie? It’s me . . . Cathy . . . hi, hope you’re OK, big guy.’ Flynn heard what he thought was a sob. ‘Sorry, sorry . . . look, Flynnie, can you give me a call? I’m . . . I don’t know what to do or who to turn to . . . God, it sounds so pathetic, but’ – another sob – ‘it’s just going all wrong, everything, please . . . gimme a bell . . . I know you’re two thousand miles away . . . need someone to talk to, to talk it out . . .’
    The robotic voice of the answerphone lady came on. ‘End of messages. To play this message again, press one . . .’
    Flynn pressed one and listened hard to the message again. The phone then beeped and the screen display told him another voice message had landed from the ether. He listened to the new one.
    This time the voice was even more fraught. ‘Flynnie, it’s me again, Cathy, you’re probably getting sick of hearing me by now. God, this must be the eighth time of trying . . . need to see you, talk to you, mate . . . please, please call me.’
    The message ended but before Flynn could do anything more, four more landed in quick succession.

THREE
    P reston Crown Court. Court Number One. Shell-shocked and evidence weary, the jury of eight men and four women shuffled back into the court room for the last time, having reached their verdict after four days of heated deliberation. They sat meekly, avoiding eye contact with the accused.
    Detective Superintendent Henry Christie noted the body language and as usual, when he became excited at the possibility of a result, his bottom clenched tightly. He exchanged a very quick glance with the detective inspector sitting next to him, Rik Dean. A glance of triumph. Both men could smell it. Surely this had to be a guilty verdict.
    The investigation had been long and difficult, understaffed and fairly low-key, even though the police were hunting a professional killer who had executed a gangland lord by the name of Felix Deakin. Having escaped from custody, Deakin himself had been on the run from the police; tracked by the cops to an isolated rural farmhouse, he had been re-taken into police custody but before the police had even managed to put him in the back of a van, the hit man had struck. From his hiding place up on the moors, almost a mile away, he had expertly blown Deakin’s head apart with a high-powered rifle. He had escaped before the stunned police could react.
    Henry was convinced the killer had been hired by one of Deakin’s rivals, a man called Jonny Cain, because Deakin had volunteered to give crucial evidence against Cain in a murder trial. Although Henry was certain of this, certainty didn’t mean evidence, but it was a starting point for what was only part of a complex investigation with many threads.
    Setting a small team to work consisting of experienced detectives, intelligence and financial analysts and firearms officers, Henry let them get on with the job. Five months down the line they had a name. From the