The Baby And The Brandy (Ben Bracken 1) Read Online Free Page B

curtailed yet polite words, suggest Jack really doesn’t want to talk. I pay him that respect.
    ‘Jack, thank you for everything you have done for me. I won’t forget it. If there’s anything I can do in return...’
    ‘No, we are square,’ Jack replies, and starts walking backwards to the door. ‘4509’ he adds, before turning and heading out of the bar, the wind whistling through the door and up to the booth, chilling me as I watch Jack exit, heading back to whatever has him so fiercely in its grip. Poor lad. I hope it works out for him.
    I look at the card on the table, and get up myself. It is time to go shopping. I need supplies for this new mission, and there’s still a couple of hours before the high-street stores close.
    *
    I think I have all the immediate essentials, so I lay them out on the bed in my hotel room. It was easy to get a cheap last minute deal on a room at the Premier Inn - I just walked up with a bunch of shopping bags and asked what they had. I checked in as Jack Brooker, the name on the bank card, which is what I’ll have to do until I can set up a fake bank account somewhere with a fake identity to back it up. But it will do for now. The room is clean, and quite spacious. The bed is a double, something else I’m really looking forward to. Plus the wifi is free.
    On one side of the bed sits a 13inch Macbook Pro, a Samsung Galaxy smartphone (loaded with a pay-as-you-go sim), a Swiss Army knife, some basic clothes from Primark (combat jeans, a solitary flannel shirt, three dark t-shirts and the least ridiculous underwear I could find), a pair of hardwearing dark brown Timberland boots, a toilet bag pre-stuffed with toiletries, a waterproof backpack to stuff it all in, a pair of Steiner Nighthunter low light binoculars, a compass and the finishing touch: an Italian BMT footlong Subway with chipotle sauce.
    I stretch out on the empty half of the bed, ready to wolf down the sub. I am salivating at the prospect, and I flick the TV to provide a backdrop to my feast. I think back to Jack, and what troubles may have befallen him. Maybe the fact that I had to save him from those two oafs that night suggests he has a habit of getting himself into trouble, and maybe, true to form, he has gone and done it again.
    I grab the sub, and the smartphone. I bought it pretty much ready to go, so I enter the passcode I have assigned it for security and load up the pre-installed Twitter app. I type in those very specific login details, and the planet’s most poorly populated Twitter account comes to life, with only two names. My own and my one follower. As a handle, I had picked something so generic as to wash into ignominy, and enforced the same on Jack. I select direct message, and type.
    @MUFC4Ever1995 to @MUFCFan2654
    21.46 on Thursday 27th October
    07893 629087 - if you
    ever need anything.
    I grab that sub. I am going to savor every morsel, and let the flavor’s reanimate my dulled tastebuds. Then, I’m going to pack, and ready for bed. I’m off first thing in the morning - back to the Big Smoke, back to settle old scores and correct the mistakes I’ve made. Back on the hunt for the one that got away - the smug, wily, powerful, old bastard, Terry ‘The Turn-Up’ Masters. The man who got me locked up, blew out my knee, stuck me in a knife fight with his son, and set his attack dogs on me. The man I can’t wait to sort out once and for all - the first mission of my new era of clean up.

4
    That was the best night’s sleep of my whole life. I was initially worried after a fitful first fifteen minutes that I would struggle to drop off, but as soon as I did, I was sucked into a bottomless, floaty vacuum. Breakfast isn’t bad either - a full English with all the trimmings, thrown in with the price of the room. I had sauntered down to the hotel restaurant just like A. N. Other guest, a touch of purpose in my stride to suggest I am very much supposed to be there. Just another guy who wants to get shit done