A Good Day To Die by Simon Kernick

Author:Simon Kernick
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: 03 Thriller/Mistery
ISBN: 9780552157384
Publisher: Transworld
Published: 2008-09-01T23:00:00+00:00

24

Jason Khan's brother, Jamie Delly, had never known his dad. I don't suppose his mum had, either. He was eight years old when he'd first been nicked, after making a valiant effort to burn down his primary school. Since the age of criminal responsibility in the UK is ten, he'd been let off with a warning, which when you're a kid like Delly is the same as a letter of encouragement, and over the next six years he'd been arrested on numerous occasions for offences which ranged from the minor, like shoplifting and possession of dope, to the potentially far more serious, like knife point muggings and aggravated burglary. He'd been fourteen when I'd left the force, and even then I hadn't seen him in close to a year. He'd be seventeen now, and doubtless making a mess of his life. Like his three brothers, he was a nasty little bastard, but I felt that he'd also be the easiest to talk to. He was the youngest and the smallest of the Delly boys, and he hadn't been the brightest of sparks either, with nothing like the animal cunning of, say, Jason. Or indeed Bryan or Kyle, the other two. If he knew something, I'd get it out of him. I also thought he'd be the least likely to recognize me. But I put my glasses back on, just in case.

On that Monday morning the rain had stopped and the sun was shining. My head still ached, but a lot less than it had done the previous day, and the lump from Saturday's blow in the cafe had shrunk considerably. I rose at eight o'clock, dressed in fresh clothes and got something to eat from the Italian place round the corner. I took the paper with me and was surprised to see that the shootings in Soho weren't the top story. In fact, they only got a small initial mention in the bottom left-hand corner of the front page, supplanted by another Palestinian suicide bombing in Jerusalem, plus something about GM crops, and I had to turn to page three to get the full report. There was a photo of the street in which I'd gunned down the assassin. It had been sealed off with scene-of-crime tape and a uniformed copper was standing in the background. Aside from that there were a few sentences describing how three men had been shot dead in a gunfight, part of which had taken place in an adult cinema. None of them had so far been formally identified by the police.

And that, pretty much, was it. Twenty years ago, an incident like that would have been front-page news. Now it was just one more shooting. For a country with some of the strictest gun-control laws in the world, Britain has a remarkably high incidence of gun crime, and it always amazes me that by and large the police remain unarmed.

I'd finished breakfast and was on my way to collect my new business cards when Emma phoned.

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