Westward Read online

  WESTWARD

  A ROBERT HOON THRILER

  JD KIRK

  CONTENTS

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

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  Also by JD Kirk

  WESTWARD

  Published worldwide by Zertex Crime, an imprint of Zertex Media Ltd.

  1

  Copyright © 2022 by JD Kirk

  The right of JD Kirk to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Design and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher.

  www.jdkirk.com

  www.zertexmedia.com

  Edited by Hanna Elizabeth.

  CHAPTER ONE

  He smelled the smoke first. Thick. Acrid. Jarringly out of place in the otherwise crisp night air. It snagged in his throat as he opened the door of the cab, throwing the shellshocked driver a couple of bloodied, scrunched-up tenners before falling out of the car onto the towpath.

  The pain skelped his arse. Stole the breath from him. Made the world spin. They had done a number on him, no doubt about it. The fact that he was alive was something of a miracle. Even more so if he remained that way until morning.

  That he could smell anything at all was also miraculous. His nose was blocked by two fat corks of blood, but there was something about smoke—about this particular sort of smoke—that seemed to bypass the senses completely, targeting instead some ancient and primal part of the brain.

  DANGER, it screamed. BEWARE.

  The boat was a hundred yards up the towpath, around a bend, overlooked by two tall towers of flats, whose lights guided him to the place he had temporarily called home.

  The place that he already knew no longer existed.

  Still, he had to see. Had to be sure. And so, with a crescendo of pain building in his legs, and his back, and most of the rest of him, too, he set off along the path.

  He was barely halfway to the bend when he saw them through the trees—the oranges and reds dancing in the darkness, a mad and frenzied celebration of chaos and destruction. The smoke lined his throat, and he imagined his tongue and gums turning black as he pressed on through it, eyes streaming in the charring heat.

  Sirens rang out in the distance. But then, they always did. Since coming to London, he couldn’t remember a time when he hadn’t been made aware of some distant emergency or other by the panicky squeals of the emergency services.

  He limped on, ignoring the protests from his body, the lightness in his head, and the tickle of the blood as it trickled down his arm and along his fingertips. He had to see it. He had to see what they had done.

  The boat wasn’t his. Not technically. He had… inherited it from a friend, though not through any official channels.

  Well, a former friend.

  In every sense.

  It had proven itself useful during his time here, though. It had been one of a very small number of things he’d known he could count on.

  Had been. Emphasis on the past tense.

  The smoke had already done a number on his breathing on the way up the towpath. The sight that presented itself as he rounded the bend stole the rest of it away and finished the job.

  The glimpse he’d had of them through the trees didn’t do the flames justice. They sprouted from the skeleton of the old yacht like flowers blooming to the sky, hissing, and crackling, and spitting their sparks into the surrounding darkness.

  “The cockrags,” he said, coughing the words through his tightening throat. “The weasel-eyed fucking cockrags.”

  He let out a pained groan as a thought struck him.

  “My fucking sparkly notebook was in there!” he announced, then he hung his head for a moment, mourning its passing.

  There were a few randomers standing around, watching the boat burn. The owners of the boats moored on either side of his were working quickly to move them, lest a stray spark should light those up, too.

  At the sound of his voice, the inky black silhouette of a woman turned. Short. Stout. He dimly recognised her as one of his fellow water-dwellers. She nudged her husband, and they both started walking over.

  Even cast in shadow, he could see the horror registering on their faces when they noticed the state of him. It didn’t deter them, though. If anything, it just made them pick up the pace.

  No surprise. From what he could gather, they were a right pair of nosy bastards. After the day he’d had, a conversation with these two arseholes would be the icing on the cake.

  And to think, it had started as a day like any other…

  CHAPTER TWO

  Several hours before the boat was set on fire, Bob Hoon came to the conclusion that he had no idea what he was doing here. He didn’t like London. He’d never liked London. He hadn’t wanted to come here, and had actively fought against it, in fact. But, in the end, he’d had no choice.

  He had a choice now, though. His reason for being in the capital no longer applied. His mission was over. He could leave anytime he wanted. Head north. Go home. Step back into the life he’d been forced to abandon.

  “What fucking life is that, exactly?” he muttered, and the dishevelled reflection in the bathroom mirror mocked him with its hollow-eyed sneer.

  He looked, not to put too fine a point on it, like a sack of shite. His skin was pale and sallow, his bloodshot eyes surrounded by big black circles. He looked like a panda with a smack habit, though with none of the cuddly charm.

  The boat rolled beneath his feet as he reached for his razor. Dried shaving foam and short pieces of lightly greying hair still clung to it from when he’d last used it. How long ago had that been? Two weeks? Three? His beard was a ramshackle, scattergun thing, like the lower half of his face had been dipped in treacle and dragged across a barber’s floor. It wasn’t a good look, not by any stretch of the imagination.

  And yet, he just couldn’t bring himself to care.

  He returned the razor to the edge of the sink, next to his equally neglected toothbrush, and resorted to the same self-care techniques he’d fallen into in recent weeks—a splash of cold water to the face, and a withering look at the man in the mirror.

  The sun was streaming through the boat’s porthole windows when he returned to the main living area, and while most people would see this as a good thing, it did his mood no favours whatsoever. Those beams of sunshine were brimming with the promise of a brand new day, and it was the level of expectation that came with them that he couldn’t abide. You were supposed to be happy when the sun was shining. You were supposed to be—he physically winced as the word entered his head—positive.

  Well, the promise of a brand new day could, quite frankly, go fuc
k itself.

  He stumbled, eyes screwed half-shut, into the kitchen and opened the closest drinks cabinet. Technically, it was just a regular kitchen cupboard, but as it—and all four of the others—held almost exclusively alcoholic beverages, they had defaulted to being drinks cabinets.

  He removed a half-bottle of Famous Grouse, unscrewed the lid, and took a swig. He considered Grouse to be the ideal breakfast whisky. It wasn’t as rough as some of the supermarket own-brand stuff he might knock back around lunchtime, but equally not as smooth as the malts he’d almost certainly enjoy as the day wore on.

  It had enough of a kick to get you going, but not so much that you’d have to write off half the morning. It was the alcoholic’s equivalent of a hearty bowl of Weetabix, and an effective middle finger to the promise of a brand new day.

  Still, food would be a good idea. Man could not live on the bevvy alone, much as he might like to. At some point, you had to succumb to solids.

  He opened the fridge and considered its contents. As these amounted to a single block of cheese, this did not take him long.

  Removing the pack, he peeled back the plastic and gave the block an experimental sniff. It was an artificial orange in colour, and he’d picked it up late one night at a corner shop that was staggering distance from the nearest pub. The description on the front label read simply, ‘Cheese,’ with only the bare minimum legally required additional information available on the back.

  It smelled alright, though. Not great. Not even good. But alright. He took a bite from one corner, clumsily rewrapped the plastic, then returned it to the dookit in the door where he’d found it.

  Breakfast done, he headed for the living area, flopped down onto a seat, and turned on the TV. The television set was knocking on in years, and the sound always came blaring out a few seconds before the picture arrived.

  A braying, nasal sort of laughter assaulted him from the speakers, and he hastily thumbed the power button, shutting the TV off before the images had a chance to arrive.

  Christ, that had been close.

  “Loose fucking Women,” he grunted. He ran a hand down his face, asked out loud what time it was, then checked his watch.

  Afternoon, then, although only just. He’d overslept.

  Well, no. Not exactly. ‘Overslept’ suggested there was something to get up for—a deadline for waking, a reason to rouse. He had none of those, so had simply slept longer than expected. Not a problem when your time was your own.

  Every damn minute of it.

  Still, on the plus side, that meant it was almost time for the lunchtime whiskies. The days tended to fly by after those. If he knocked a few back and kept his head down, it’d be night before he knew it, and another day could be torn from the calendar forever.

  He was considering his options—the Spar stuff was particularly bracing, but the Tesco bottle was closer—when he heard the unmistakable creaking of the deck above him.

  The boat was a noisy bastard of a thing at the best of times, always groaning and squeaking as it shifted on the tide, but he’d come to know all those sounds like he knew the clicks and wheezes of his own body, and he’d long-since stopped noticing them.

  This one was different, though. This one was new.

  He reached under the table, to where he’d taped one of the many handguns he had stowed around the boat.

  There was someone up there. Someone was sneaking around on the boat. Someone who didn’t want him knowing they were—

  “Coo-ee! Hello? Anyone home?”

  It was a woman’s voice. Young. He’d just processed this information when footsteps descended the stairs and knuckles rapped on the door.

  “Um, Mr Hoon? Robert? Are you in there?”

  Not one of the neighbours, then. He’d made a point of never identifying himself to any of those stuck-up snooty bastards. But she knew it. She knew his name.

  How the fuck did she know his name?

  He gave the gun a moment’s consideration, then elected to leave it where it was. He reached the door just as she started to knock again, and she jumped back in fright when he tore it open, presenting himself in all his full, smack-panda horror.

  “Keep your fucking voice down,” he spat, and she danced skittishly back up the steps, stopping halfway but ready to flee farther at a moment’s notice. “What do you want?”

  She was a little older than her voice had suggested, but not much. Thirty, maybe. Thirty-five. Despite the light-footed elegance of her retreat, she looked sturdy, like she was no stranger to physical labour.

  Her hair and fingernails were both kept to practical lengths, and her clothes were dark denim, like a cowboy in mourning.

  It was her eyes that Hoon noticed most of all, though. They had a troubled, haunted look to them that he didn’t think even his startlingly awful appearance could fully explain away.

  They reminded him, in many ways, of his own. Not the bags—she didn’t have those—but the trauma.

  “Are, um, are you Robert?” she asked, and he realised the levity of her original coo-ee had been forced. Now, up close, her voice was flattened by worry and fear. “Are you Robert Hoon?”

  Hoon looked past her to the top of the stairs, and the rectangle of blue sky he could see overhead.

  “Who’s asking?” he demanded.

  “I’m… My name’s Suranne. I need your help.”

  “Aye, well, tough luck, sweetheart,” Hoon said. He closed the door with an emphatic slam, slid the locking bolt across, and his thoughts returned to his lunchtime tipple.

  “Gabriella!”

  Mention of that name stopped him, mid-step. He turned, unfastened the lock, and pulled the door open even more sharply and suddenly than before.

  Suranne was still standing there, halfway up the stairs, ready to run.

  “The fuck did you say?”

  “She, uh… I’m a friend of…” Suranne descended a couple of steps, her voice lowering into a whisper. “Gabriella. She told me about you. She told me where to find you.” Her hands clasped together, the fingers entwining. “She said… She said you might be able to help.”

  “Gabriella?” Hoon replied, unable to hide his surprise. He looked Suranne up and down, as if only now seeing her. “What, you’ve spoken to her? You’ve spoken to Gabriella?”

  “Yes.”

  “How the fuck can you have spoken to Gabriella?”

  “I… Sort of spoke to her. Not exactly. I can explain,” said the woman at the bottom of the stairs. “I just… I’ve got no one else to turn to. She told me you could help. She said that’s what you do.”

  Hoon let out a snort at that. “Aye, well, she’s stitched you up a fucking blinder there, sweetheart. Look at me.” He pointed to his face. “You think that’s helping anyone?”

  Suranne looked like she wanted to agree. Like she wanted to take back everything she’d said, turn around, and get the hell out of there.

  But she didn’t. She couldn’t.

  “Please,” she said, and her voice broke on the word. “Someone’s taken my Ollie. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know where else to go.”

  Hoon tutted. Sighed. Groaned. All for her benefit. This was an unwelcome interruption to his day. This was a fucking liberty. And he was damn well going to make sure she was aware of that fact.

  “Right, well,” he grunted, stepping aside and opening the door. “I suppose you’d better come in.”

  He made them coffee. Black by necessity, as the last of the milk had crawled away days ago. She accepted it gratefully, though had declined his offer of cheese with an almost superhuman level of politeness.

  They sat at opposite ends of the small dining table. She didn’t seem like a threat, but Hoon had positioned himself at the end with the gun taped to the underside, because he’d had it repeatedly hammered into him over the years that you couldn’t trust anyone.

  He gave her a chance to take a sip before asking the question that had been burning a hole in his head since she’d called to him t
hrough the door. It wasn’t actually a question at all. At least, not a fully formed one.

  “So. Gabriella?” he said, then he sat back and observed her reactions.

  “She’s um, I used to help her sometimes. With Welshy,” she offered, hesitating over the words like she was sharing a secret she’d sworn to protect. “It was difficult for her sometimes. On her own. So I’d give her a hand. With his care. Or, you know, if she needed a break, we’d do a sort of… a swap.”

  “A swap?” Hoon asked. “What do you mean?”

  “She’d look after my girls on the farm for a couple of days, and I’d move into hers and look after Welshy.”

  “She never mentioned you,” Hoon said. It came out like an accusation. Which was precisely what it was.

  “Well, snap. She never mentioned you to me, either,” Suranne replied.

  “And yet here you fucking are,” Hoon countered.

  “Until yesterday, I mean.”

  Hoon sat forward, resting his elbows on the table. “See, that’s where I’m confused. Gabriella’s not around at the minute. She and Welshy are… elsewhere.”

  Exactly where they were, he didn’t know. Almost nobody in the world did. But they were safe. He’d been promised that much.

  “I know. I’ve been messaging her. For weeks. On the phone. Email. On Facebook. I went to the house, but it’s empty. There’s a sign out front saying it’s for sale. I just…” She looked down into the murky black depths of her coffee. “I thought something must have happened. And then, I sent out a message yesterday about Ollie being taken—sent it to everyone I know—and a couple of hours later I got a message back.”