Arthur nodded. He was aware that time was obviously of the essence. ‘Well, there is one thing I can tell you straight off, this isn’t the usual cheap throwaway phone. This picture has a lot of detail, which tells me the phone used was a fairly decent model.’

Michael Flynn wasn’t even listening to the man. ‘Just try and track the fucker down.’

The phone vibrated once more. Arthur Hellmann automatically opened the text. After a quick glance at the contents, he passed the phone to Michael Flynn without a word.

Michael looked at the photo of his mother lying in her hallway, a knife poking out of her right breast, and he shook his head slowly in disbelief. For the first time in his life he felt vulnerable, frightened. His mother was dying before his eyes, his daughter was dying somewhere, tied up like a fucking animal and obviously in extreme pain, and he couldn’t do a thing. This man was taunting him. The phone in the office started ringing, and Michael Flynn knew exactly what the call would be about.

Chapter One Hundred and Thirty

Chapter One Hundred
and Thirty

Josephine sat on her balcony with a glass of red wine, looking out over the gardens and wondering if the man who had her daughter and who had murdered her mother-in-law was coming for her and Jake.

It felt unreal knowing that Hannah was dead. Stabbed in her own home, by some mad fucker who had evaded capture. Now her home was overrun with armed men, sent by Michael to protect them. Little Jake was loving the company, bless him, unaware of the danger they were in.

She had a twelve-gauge shotgun by her side, and a Glock 22 handgun lying on the table in front of her. If anyone was coming here, she was more than ready to fight her end. It was odd, but she had always found handling guns very easy from the time Michael taught her to use one. She liked the feel of them, the knowledge that they were capable of so much destruction. It was the secret of guns: the weakest person in the world could protect themselves from the biggest of enemies, because a gun was relatively lightweight, and had the power over life and death.

Even though Michael had seen fit to drown their home with his armed men, she felt much safer knowing that she was armed too. Hannah had been taken out on her doorstep, stabbed like a fucking animal, and whoever had done that also had her daughter in his clutches. If only she had been capable of passing his message on to Michael, this might have been avoided. She had been hoping that he would come to see her and, if he had, then she would have been able to show him the letter.