The Man Everyone Wanted Read online

  G R Jordan

  The Man Everyone Wanted

  A Kirsten Stewart Thriller

  First published by Carpetless Publishing 2022

  Copyright © 2022 by G R Jordan

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise without written permission from the publisher. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or distribute it by any other means without permission.

  This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

  G R Jordan asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

  G R Jordan has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party Internet Websites referred to in this publication and does not guarantee that any content on such Websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

  Designations used by companies to distinguish their products are often claimed as trademarks. All brand names and product names used in this book and on its cover are trade names, service marks, trademarks and registered trademarks of their respective owners. The publishers and the book are not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book. None of the companies referenced within the book have endorsed the book.

  First edition

  ISBN: 978-1-914073-95-3

  This book was professionally typeset on Reedsy

  Find out more at reedsy.com

  Every next level of your life will demand a different you.

  Leonardo Dicaprio

  Contents

  Foreword

  Acknowledgement

  Novels by G R Jordan

  Chapter 01

  Chapter 02

  Chapter 03

  Chapter 04

  Chapter 05

  Chapter 06

  Chapter 07

  Chapter 08

  Chapter 09

  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

  Read on to discover the Patrick Smythe series!

  About the Author

  Also by G R Jordan

  Foreword

  This novel is set around the highlands and islands of Scotland and while using the area and its people as an inspiration, the specific places and persons in this book are entirely fictitious. And I seriously hope that this kind of thing isn’t going on in the highlands today!

  Acknowledgement

  To Ken, Jessica, Jean, Colin, Susan and Rosemary for your work in bringing this novel to completion, your time and effort is deeply appreciated.

  Novels by G R Jordan

  The Highlands and Islands Detective series (Crime)

  Water’s Edge

  The Bothy

  The Horror Weekend

  The Small Ferry

  Dead at Third Man

  The Pirate Club

  A Personal Agenda

  A Just Punishment

  The Numerous Deaths of Santa Claus

  Our Gated Community

  The Satchel

  Culhwch Alpha

  Fair Market Value

  The Coach Bomber

  The Culling at Singing Sands

  Where Justice Fails

  The Cortado Club

  Cleared to Die

  Man Overboard!

  Antisocial Behaviour

  Kirsten Stewart Thrillers (Thriller)

  A Shot at Democracy

  The Hunted Child

  The Express Wishes of Mr MacIver

  The Nationalist Express

  The Hunt for ‘Red Anna’

  The Execution of Celebrity

  The Man Everyone Wanted

  Busman’s Holiday

  The Contessa Munroe Mysteries (Cozy Mystery)

  Corpse Reviver

  Frostbite

  Cobra’s Fang

  The Patrick Smythe Series (Crime)

  The Disappearance of Russell Hadleigh

  The Graves of Calgary Bay

  The Fairy Pools Gathering

  Austerley & Kirkgordon Series (Fantasy)

  Crescendo!

  The Darkness at Dillingham

  Dagon’s Revenge

  Ship of Doom

  Supernatural and Elder Threat Assessment Agency (SETAA) Series (Fantasy)

  Scarlett O’Meara: Beastmaster

  Island Adventures Series (Cosy Fantasy Adventure)

  Surface Tensions

  Dark Wen Series (Horror Fantasy)

  The Blasphemous Welcome

  The Demon’s Chalice

  Chapter 01

  Sally Grayson was approaching retirement and today, she looked with disdain around the shopping centre in the middle of Inverness. A child had been sick all over the carpeted floor, one of the very few carpeted areas within the shopping centre, at least outside of the shops. Sally had been sitting quite happily, enjoying a cup of tea and some moments rest, when the call had gone out for the cleaner. She had arrived and looked at the meaty chunks lying on the floor and a rather apologetic parent standing some feet away from them. The child, however, was now running around and Sally had wondered how they always managed to do that. One minute, they lose everything. The next, fit as a fiddle.

  She’d taken the mop out, along with her bucket, and cleaned the floor with it, but only once she had picked up most of the solid form and deposited it in her bin. She was using those large rolls of blue paper that she seemed to get through so much of during her career. Little yellow signs had been placed around the area as she cleaned. She saw the people watching, looking at her, unsure if they were feeling for her or just simply disgusted at the mess.

  From the windows of a coffee shop, she saw people look over distastefully as if somehow, she’d been involved in ruining their beverages. There was a piece of cheesecake on one of the tables and she felt she might pop in when she’d finished her shift and have some. It had appeared some weeks ago, a new line that the cafe had taken in, and she’d tasted it once. It was by no means cheap, but it had been nice.

  Sally finished up the last of her mopping, gave the area a good stare, and decided to leave the wet floor signs out for the meantime. She’d come back in an hour and pick them up because it wouldn’t take long before the area was dry once again. As she started to push her trolley, she noticed a man standing in jeans and a jacket, but with sunglasses on, glancing left and right.

  Normally, it wouldn’t bother her, but he didn’t have the gait of a shopper or even that annoyed, frustrated look of a husband or partner waiting for his better half to finish purchasing within a shop. Some men, she had noticed, would stand and fidget at doors jumping from side to side on a foot as if they were unable to control the frustration they felt. Others just plonked themselves down on the chairs, bums on a seat, in the middle of the main thoroughfare. They pulled out phones these days, gazing at them, and every now and again, staring back at the shop that was taking away their partner.

  This man was different. He was looking for somebody. Sally passed by in front of him, stared straight at him, and yet the man didn’t offer any rebuke. He simply kept up his watch, up and down the full length of the thoroughfare.

  There was a large ark, a clock feature, up high in the c
entre. The clock began to strike, and Sally could see a number of kids gathered round watching it, their parents behind them eagerly looking at watches and wondering if they had time to do this. Back in its day, the clock had been such a wondrous feature, one at which significant crowds would gather, but these days, the colours looked somewhat jaded. Usually, it was the youngest of children that were still taken in by it. Various animals would appear and then disappear, causing delight to the youngest of faces. There was a time when Sally had been delighted to watch the kids smile and laugh, but everything these days just seem tired.

  That man is still there, thought Sally, looking at him. She followed his gaze to see a similarly dressed man standing in the doorway of a clothes shop. He’d just given a nod. She was going to push her trolley of cleaning equipment through the crowd and back to her little cubbyhole where she hid out. Instead, because of a couple of dancing kids in front of her, she stopped. The clock only lasted a couple of minutes; she could wait. She didn’t look up at it, but instead gazed back to the man outside the clothing store. He was looking back down the thoroughfare and she saw a woman looking back at him. Was there some sort of signal given there? The woman’s hand had moved. A number of fingers had been quickly put out and put back in again.

  The thing about being the cleaning lady was that no one really noticed you. No one really looked, but you could notice people. You spotted when people were shoppers, when people were just dragged along, or when someone was simply cutting through, staying out of the rain, or maybe sprinting off for that sandwich that the stores provided. There were all sorts of people that passed through here, all looking at different things, all wanting something, but rarely did you see anyone standing and communicating from doorways. She could have gone over, asked them what they were doing, but in truth, she didn’t care. Two weeks and Sally was out of here. Two weeks and she’d be getting on that bus for the airport. Málaga. Málaga would be the start of her retirement and there was no way Sally was letting herself get dragged into some shenanigans before she went.

  A man pushed through in front of the kids, knocking one child on his backside as he strode. Sally was indignant and about to step forward and have a word, when she saw the man at the clothes store suddenly react. He took off into a run and from out of his pocket, she saw him pull a gun.

  The man who had barged through was suddenly thrown as several shots hit his body. Sally screamed as the blood went everywhere and quickly tried to get behind her cleaning trolley. In front of her, the kid on the floor was crying loudly and she could see his face splattered with some of the blood from the man who had been shot. Sally crawled forward, putting herself over the child, but her ears began to ring as more shots were fired.

  Sally felt a hand grab her on the shoulder and she turned her head to look into the face of a distraught woman who reached forward for her child. Sally could see a pram behind her, but the woman was dressed in high heels, a short skirt, and some sort of fur jacket. In the midst of all the terror that was going on, all her brain could think was, Why did you dress like that to bring the kids out? Another shot brought her back to reality and Sally let the woman grab the child, pulling the wee one onto their feet. She heard the clip of her heels as the woman ran, pushing the pram in front of her.

  Sally saw an elderly man starting to shake on his seat in the middle of the thoroughfare. It looked like he was having some sort of a heart attack because he was clutching at his chest. She looked up to see if she could reach him but in the middle of the thoroughfare, there was a firefight, guns unloading their deadly packages from here and there. She saw the woman the man had been looking at pitch up against the window of a shop before gunfire shattered it and she fell through. Sally tried to crawl forward to the man who was having the heart attack, but as she got close, he was hit in the crossfire and fell off the chair in front of her, his face landing in front of hers. His eyes were dead, simply staring forward.

  Sally tried to roll away, but someone ran past her and their foot caught her shoulder, sending them tumbling to the floor. She winced at the pain of the kick. As she looked up, she saw it was a gunman and he stood up, pointing the gun at her before realising she was just a bystander. She prayed aloud, begging him not to shoot. For a moment, she thought her prayers had been answered. The gun then fell from his hands. His body pitched forward. Sally looked up into the face of a man holding a bloody knife. He didn’t wait to confront her, but neither was he concerned that she would identify him. Instead, he turned on his heel and ran.

  It was less than three minutes from when the shooting had started, and Sally thought it had reached a low. She stared down the thoroughfare, saw the glass from the shattered windows where bullets had penetrated. She counted at least five bodies lying on the ground. Who knew if there were any more? Slowly, she crawled back to her cart, got up to her feet, but remained crouched behind it.

  Sally stayed there for the next five minutes, her body shaking, her mind racing with images, until a security guard took her by the arm, telling her it was all right, and leading her into one of the shops. A few moments after she entered, the metal shutter was put down in front of it. She found herself in a crowd of people, all looking at each other in fear and terror. A man was telling them all to sit down on the ground, stay quiet until they could be assured that the place was safe again. Sally saw the old man’s face, the one who had died in front of her. The hell with two weeks, she was out of here. She’d never come back to this place.

  Scene break, scene break, scene break.

  Detective Sergeant Hope McGrath stood at the far end of the thoroughfare looking at the scene in front of her. Paramedics had cleared away after doing what they could for the people in front of them. The forensic team had arrived and marked out where the bodies had been and had little yellow markers indicating where spent bullets were lying or where other important details were to be found.

  Hope worked in the murder investigation team based in Inverness and was waiting for the arrival of her boss who had been at a conference and who was called back rather abruptly. While she awaited his arrival, Hope had been detailing who the witnesses were, making sure they were getting medical attention, but at the same time, were also getting processed to find out what they knew. It was a fine balance with some of them for they were a mess and details could be lost so easily. She had to brief teams of uniform police and make sure the entire area was secure, while organizing places for quick interviews to happen. Having done all that, she now stood at the end of the thoroughfare looking at the scene of devastation in front of her.

  She shopped here. She had bought clothes in some of these shops, food in other places. This was part of her life that had been ripped apart. In many ways, she was beginning to struggle with the scene of devastation.

  ‘McGrath, what on earth? Do we have any idea?’

  ‘Seoras,’ said Hope. Looking over at her boss, Detective Inspector Seoras Macleod, a man she had worked with for many years, and with whom she had seen many devastating incidents.

  ‘It’s reminding me of Neptune’s Staircase, Seoras,’ said Hope. ‘This is brutal, except . . .’

  ‘What?’ asked Macleod.

  ‘I think it’s more clinical. I was talking to Jona, and she said that some of these shots to take people out, they were good, very good. Not some random punter. Also seem to be shots coming from here, there, and everywhere. It’s not a lone gunman. The weapons used, they’d be used by professionals.’

  ‘Have we seen anything of Kirsten?’ asked Macleod. He meant Kirsten Stewart who’d worked with him as a detective constable but who was now working for the secret services within the UK, mainly in the Inverness area. With what had just happened, Macleod was fully expecting her to be on scene. He walked over to a small table where he found some covers for his shoes. He put on a white coverall suit as well, indicated Hope should join him, and walked his way through the carnage outside a coffee shop.

  He saw some little plastic signs advising there was
a wet floor and he tried to weigh up the scene of what had happened. Glancing up, he saw the clock that had been part of the thoroughfare for years and noticed that two of the animals had shot marks. He bent down, looking at the outline of a male figure close to the bench in the middle of the thoroughfare. There was still blood on the floor around it. Macleod glanced round at the smashed glass fronting several stores.

  ‘Carnage,’ he said. ‘Just carnage.’

  ‘No, Seoras,’ said Hope. ‘There’s method here. They were after somebody. Something’s not right. Jona talked about crossfire, two sides. She’s trying to pull it together, but—’

  ‘CCTV here?’

  ‘A lot of the shops, but not here. We’ll be going through it.’

  Macleod went down to his knees again, followed by Hope. ‘This is murder,’ he said, ‘but it’s also something more.’

  ‘Very perceptive, Inspector.’

  Macleod rose and turned to look at a woman behind them dressed in a white coverall suit, but still managed to have a thorough and professional look about her.

  ‘Miss Hunt,’ said Macleod, ‘this must be serious if you’re actually here.’

  ‘It’s very serious, Inspector, but I’m afraid I can’t talk to you about that, can I? We’ll be taking it from here. Thank you and your team for your efforts. I’ll talk to Miss Nakamura about where I want the forensic report sent. Some of our own people will be here soon enough.’

  ‘This is a shopping centre,’ said Macleod, ‘a firefight in a shopping centre. You’re meant to prevent this.’

  ‘I’m well aware of that, Inspector,’ said Hunt. ‘As soon as we find these people, we’ll close down on it, but I obviously can’t comment on operational matters.’

  ‘I was expecting to see our friend,’ said Macleod. ‘Is she okay?’