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Back The Last Guests Save as PDF
Chapters (54)
  1. Cover
  2. Dedication
  3. Epigraph
  4. PROLOGUE
  5. PART ONE
  6. ONE
  7. TWO
  8. THREE
  9. FOUR
  10. DEADLY SAS RAID IN AFGHANISTAN UNDER SCRUTINY
  11. FIVE
  12. SIX
  13. SEVEN
  14. EIGHT
  15. NINE
  16. TEN
  17. ELEVEN
  18. TWELVE
  19. THIRTEEN
  20. FOURTEEN
  21. FIFTEEN
  22. SIXTEEN
  23. SEVENTEEN
  24. EIGHTEEN
  25. NINETEEN
  26. TWENTY
  27. PART TWO
  28. TWENTY-ONE
  29. TWENTY-TWO
  30. TWENTY-THREE
  31. TWENTY-FOUR
  32. TWENTY-FIVE
  33. TWENTY-SIX
  34. TWENTY-SEVEN
  35. TWENTY-EIGHT
  36. TWENTY-NINE
  37. DANIEL MOORE: ‘A SINGLE BLOKE, HAPPY-GO-LUCKY, A BIT OF A DUNCE BUT WITH A GOOD HEART,’ BEST FRIEND SAYS.
  38. THIRTY
  39. THIRTY-ONE
  40. THIRTY-TWO
  41. THIRTY-THREE
  42. THIRTY-FOUR
  43. THIRTY-FIVE
  44. BREAKING: POLICE CONFIRM DANIEL MOORE ACTED ALONE
  45. THIRTY-SIX
  46. THIRTY-SEVEN
  47. THIRTY-EIGHT
  48. THIRTY-NINE
  49. SECOND ARREST MADE IN WESTAY HIDDEN CAMERAS CASE
  50. EPILOGUE
  51. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
  52. Discover More
  53. ABOUT THE AUTHOR
  54. Also by J. P. Pomare

Later, they all bathe, get dressed in tidy clothes. Then when they’re all dressed, they leave for dinner, the place falls dark and the numbers drop again.

SEVEN

CHANGE YOUR PHONE number. The thought comes unbidden but once it’s there it lodges itself in my brain. Some thoughts are like that. The longer I wait the more likely Daniel will message me again and Cain might see it. This is the only way to ensure I’ve severed the thread running between Daniel and me. I can control the situation. It would mean a mass text to all my contacts to update them. I would have to explain the decision to Cain – maybe I’d complain about telemarketing calls or say something vague about protecting my identity. For now I keep my phone close at all times, when I’m in the shower, in the middle of the night, when we go out in the car.

Today I keep my phone in the glove box of the ambulance. My partner Scotty is a veteran of the service with receding ginger hair on a slightly pink, ruddy head. Anything beyond about ten years qualifies as veteran status, but he’s spent around twenty-five years saving lives. The only times we don’t work together is when I pick up extra shifts on my days off.

A suspected heart attack starts the day for us, a 61-year-old male at a golf course. He’d bent to pick his ball out of the hole and when he stood up again, he’d had intense stabbing pain beneath his sternum. His friends said he just stood rubbing his chest, red in the face. Then he dropped down to one knee.

In any ambulance there’s the lead and the driver, and between jobs we swap to keep the workload even. For certain calls, a hierarchy instantly establishes itself where the most senior officer will take the lead but for this call, I’m responsible for the patient. Scotty hesitates at the edge of the golf course, looking out over the perfectly manicured grass.

‘Go,’ I say. ‘It’s dry.’

He starts driving onto the grass of the course. I see a man rushing out of the clubhouse, waving at us. The wheels spin, flicking turf. My look tells the man to stay out of the way; his lips seal in a pale line.

We see cardiac arrest calls once a month or so but this one sounds more like a garden variety heart attack.