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Back The Last Guests
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

‘I don’t care what you do at home, that’s your business, but you can’t have anything in your system when you turn up for work.’ I feel like my entire body is vibrating with anger. ‘Whatever you’re on, it needs to stop.’

‘You don’t know what you’re talking about,’ he says, again that narcotic smile, only now it’s touched with menace.

‘Oh I know. You can lie, but your eyes, your irritability don’t. You’re on something.’

‘You’ve got the wrong end of the stick. We all have our off days, Lina.’ He shows me his teeth again, his eyes widen, and those light eyebrows climb up his forehead. ‘And I happen to know for a fact you are not so squeaky clean yourself, are you?’

My stomach drops, the radio crackles with a new call and I shift the ambulance into gear.

‘Just try to keep it together.’

ELEVEN

AFTER MY SHIFT, I run to clear the tension in my body – my calves, clenched fists, my hips aching to move. I think about tomorrow, my next shift: twelve hours in one vehicle with Scotty. I could always ask to switch – it’s not easy but possible. Sometimes if you change stations, you end up passed around different partners on different shifts until something permanent opens up.

I start my run on the MyTrack app and set out down the stairs, under a pink twilight sky, with my headphones in and my phone strapped to my upper arm. I pick up the pace. Everywhere I run is well lit, but whenever I see someone, particularly men, nearby I pause my podcast and my senses peak.

Grandma was a firm believer in motion for unlocking stress, clearing illness and bad moods. Cold? Run it out. Headache? Run it out. Butterflies? Run it out. She died when I was fifteen. Grandpa died when I was twenty-one. The two most significant moments of my pre-adult life. Mum gave me nothing, other than a penchant for dark spirits which haunted me through university and my early twenties. I never knew my dad and she gave me up to my grandparents, then left home or was kicked out. I never got the full story. Then, when I was around eight years old, a short custody battle ended in favour of my grandparents. The times Mum was around she was either drinking or mean. I’m nothing like her.