deadline

Daniel Pascoe

Description

What could more effectively turn a girl's head but an artist with magic in his fingertips and mystery in his brush strokes? Olivia wants to be a writer and plans a biography of the charismatic Hugo, but their previous experience as lovers haunts them. Olivia is liaising with the mysterious Louise, while Hugo still hankers after his long-suffering muse, Samantha. A police shooting, a kidnapping and a desperate search lead to a dramatic finale while the lurking Edward threatens in the background with his own deadline.

Informations

• Publié par: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Date de parution: 30 avril 2019
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781528953900
• Langue: English

Extrait

deadline
Daniel Pascoe
Austin Macauley Publishers
2019-04-30
deadline About The Author About The Book Dedication Copyright Information © Initial Police Report of Shooting Incident, Earl’s Court London Evening Standard, Friday, January 16, 2015 Part One: Olivia Truelove 1 Saturday, January 17, 2015 Mystery Shooting by Police in Earl’s Cour t Man in Car Not the Armed Robber That Police Suspected With the same thin story details and photographs but an additional quote: Shooting by Police in Earl’s Court a Mistake 2 Monday, January 19, 2015 Serbian Stripper Girl-Friend Confesses All 3 Saturday, January 24, 2015 Victim of Mistaken Identity Says He Will Sue Police 4 Saturday, January 31, 2015 5 Monday, February 9, 2015 6 Saturday, February 21, 2015 7 Friday, February 27, 2015 Part Two: Police Shooting, Earl’s Court, London (Friday, January 16, 2015) Part Three: Hugo Pitsakis 1 Week Beginning Saturday, January 17, 2015 2 Week Beginning Saturday, January 24, 2015 3 Week Beginning Friday, February 6, 2015 4 Week Beginning Thursday, February 19, 2015 Part Four: Olivia and Hugo 1 Sunday, March 1, 2015 2 Wednesday, March 4, 2015 3 Weekend, March 6–8, 2015 Friday Saturday Sunday 4 Deadline – Tuesday, 6 pm 5 Clearing Up
About The Author
Daniel Pascoe was brought up on smog and boiled cabbage in London many years ago. He worked in the Health Service in the northeast of England for thirty years as a cancer specialist. Now retired, he lives on Teesside and spends much of his time writing, far from the hubbub of city life. His wife is from Hungary. As his two daughters contemplate their own futures, he worries that our political elite have not the faintest ability to make sensible progress within our sadly divided society. He has two children and three grandchildren from before. He also lives with a black cat and two funny-looking Pomeranians.
He has had two intelligent commercial thrillers published already: The London Sniper in 2015 and Dead End in 2016. Deadline is his third novel.
About The Book
What could more effectively turn a girl’s head but an artist with magic in his fingertips and mystery in his brush strokes? Olivia wants to be a writer and plans a biography of the charismatic Hugo, but their previous experience as lovers haunts them. Olivia is liaising with the mysterious Louise, while Hugo still hankers after his long-suffering muse, Samantha. A police shooting, a kidnapping and a desperate search lead to a dramatic finale while the lurking Edward threatens in the background with his own deadline.
Dedication
Dedicated to three elegant women, urbane and hip, who are the present and the future:
Anna, Jessica and Francesca.
Copyright Information ©
Daniel Pascoe (2019)
The right of Daniel Pascoe to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with section 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.
Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.
ISBN 9781528953900 (Epub-Book)
www.austinmacauley.com
First Published (2019)
Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd
25 Canada Square
Canary Wharf
London
E14 5LQ

THE POLICE SHOOTING INCIDENT AS DESCRIBED HEREIN ACTUALLY HAPPENED, IN THE EXACT SPOT ON PEMBROKE ROAD, IN EARL’S COURT. BUT FOR THE NAME CHANGES AND TIME SWAP, THE SEQUENCE OF EVENTS THAT LED UP TO AND FOLLOWED THE INCIDENT ARE REPRODUCED FROM FIRST-HAND ACCOUNTS, MORE OR LESS, AS THEY HAPPENED. THE STORY THAT EMERGED IS GATHERED TOGETHER AS A WHOLE IN THIS VOLUME, WHICH MADE USE OF THE REPORTS AVAILABLE, TO ATTEMPT TO BRING SOUGHT-AFTER CLARITY TO THE TRAGEDIES OF THIS CASE AS A MATTER OF PUBLIC INTEREST.
Initial Police Report of Shooting Incident, Earl’s Court
3
.
London Evening Standard, Friday, January 16, 2015
A man has been critically injured in a police ambush in a West London street in what may be a case of mistaken identity. Witnesses said marksmen surrounded a car in a traffic jam on the Earl’s Court Road and opened fire. The driver was shot several times in the head and body. Scotland Yard said the ambush was part of an operation to recapture escaped prisoner Midge Martin.
Martin absconded from custody at Marlborough Street magistrate’s court last month where he was due to face a charge of attempting to murder a police officer. But it remains unclear if the man shot was Midge Martin. Two senior Scotland Yard officers have already been appointed to investigate the incident.
One of the first witnesses on the scene, Secretary Jane Lumley, who was queuing in the car immediately behind, said the man seemed very badly injured. ‘He was about 30, I would say, but I couldn’t even see the colour of his hair because of all the blood,’ she said. Another witness, Mrs Helen Westhouse, saw some of the incident from her home which overlooks the scene. She said: ‘Whilst I was watching, I heard one or two more gunshot cracks, but I couldn’t actually see where they came from. Then I saw that the driver of the Mini had sort of fallen out of his car, he was hanging out from the waist with his head on the road.’
The man is being treated in the intensive care unit at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital in Fulham Road, Chelsea. Two other women were passengers in the car; one ran off, and the other was taken to hospital by police officers for treatment of what are believed to be minor injuries.
Part One: Olivia Truelove
1

Saturday, January 17, 2015
Olivia is agitated and awake unnecessarily early. Habit, mostly, as she is normally up at the crack of dawn during the week, but the news reports from last night are nagging at her. Leaning against the kitchen sink at the window in her pyjamas, she nurses a mug of tea. Her mouth is dry and stale from last night, an empty ache in the pit of her stomach: too much alcohol, too little to eat. The street lamps are still bathing the empty pavements with their tenuous orange light. She pulls on a baggy tracksuit and trainers to brave the ugly London drizzle. Outside, the darkness has barely begun to seep away, while a joyless light tries to penetrate blankets of low cloud. The surprising chill hits her cheeks like a slap in the face, and she pulls her hood up to press its woolly softness against her skin. There is nobody about as she jogs carefully along to Broadgate to fetch a couple of the day’s early editions. Neither have the story as front-page headlines, which are still shouting about the awful terrorist attack in Paris, even though that was ten days ago, but inside the Telegraph , she finds some bold paragraphs and a couple of pictures that grab her attention, as she ambles back home around Finsbury Circus:

Mystery Shooting by Police in Earl’s Cour t
A man was gunned down yesterday evening by armed officers of the Metropolitan Police in Earl’s Court – by mistake. He is said to be in a critical condition in the intensive care unit of Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, having had extensive trauma surgery. Hugo Pitsakis, originally from Greece, an artist and many years a London resident, was mistaken for a dangerous man on the run from the Police, Midge Martin, who escaped from Marlborough Street magistrate’s court over three weeks ago, where he was on remand for attempted murder of a police officer during an armed robbery that went wrong at the Marylebone Gallery.
Cut down in broad daylight like a matchstick man, an innocent artist was rushed to the nearest emergency hospital for treatment when it was realised that he had actually survived the onslaught of a dozen high-velocity 9mm bullets smashed into his body. He was receiving emergency treatment throughout the day and night and was said to still be in a critical state. He is likely to be transferred to the Charing Cross Hospital for specialist thoracic surgery later today. A young woman companion had also been injured and taken to the hospital; she had received emergency treatment and was described as stable.
The photographs are crap quality snaps, one of a yellow Mini car at the side of a street, lopsided with its back tyres flat, its doors wide open and some hefty figures in black gear and helmets and hi-vis gilets standing around under street lights, behind blue and white incident tape. The other, a police mug shot of a youngish clean-shaven man with long wavy hair and a crooked mouth, staring wide-eyed into the camera, described as the elusive and potentially dangerous Midge Martin. There is practically nothing about the victim, matchstick man.
The Daily Mail has the headline:

Man in Car Not the Armed Robber That Police Suspected

With the same thin story details and photographs but an additional quote:
“It can be hard to identify some people from a distance,” said a police spokesperson, “especially in the dusk when you suspect he may be armed, we could not take any risks. He was disguised in a coat and hat. If it turns out that an innocent man has been injured, which rarely does happen under the circumstances, then there will be an internal inquiry, and we hope the victim and his family would be able to accept our apologies.”
Blithering idiots. How can they be so stupid? The man was shot twelve times, how can that be an easy mistake to make? Mind you, he was disguised in a coat and a hat. An inquiry and an apology? My God, are we safe on the streets of London these days? Olivia pauses along the pavement for a moment, glancing around, up and down the near-deserted street to see if there are any men disguised in coats and hats, armed policemen hiding in parked cars. The solid outlines of brick and glass buildings that rise on either