Ethan Justice: Origins (Ethan Justice #1) by Simon Jenner Read Free Book Online Page A

nothing else for him to do. Without thought of hygiene, he leaned over, pressing his open mouth to the smooth tiled floor and closed his lips around the folded paper. Then, using his prone position like a sprinter, he pushed off from the ground to enhance his acceleration and took off. His purchase was good, and had it not been for the knee of a particularly large lady connecting directly with his chin, he might have given himself a head start. He collapsed face down on the cold floor, like a floored fighter. He had lost.
    “Are you all right?” asked the large lady.
    John lifted his head from the floor and waggled his jaw from side to side. He felt a click from his handcuffs as they fell away behind him. He turned, expecting to see one of the two men with keys in their hand, but they were nowhere. He pushed himself up, grabbing the fallen handcuffs as he rose. He was still giddy from the blow that had stopped him in his tracks so shook his head like a dog shook off water, hoping to clear his thoughts.
    He looked deep into the crowd in all directions for unusually rapid movement or a tall man with short hair. Nothing. What he did see made some sense of his sudden freedom. Two armed policemen stood near a pillar about thirty feet from the entrance. They were part of the build-up to the London Olympics, John recalled - on full display to the general public and would-be kidnappers. He should be grateful. Without their obvious presence, he could well have been the latest addition to the growing number of tube suicides. They were also the reason that his firearm alert went completely ignored. The crowd had assumed that he meant the armed police.
    “Are you all right?” repeated the lady of around fifty years of age, hands full of carrier bags. She wore baggy black tracksuit trousers, trainers and a huge purple overcoat. Her hair was expensively coiffured, perhaps for a later engagement. The bags in her hands were from every designer shop imaginable. Obviously she didn’t dress to shop. “You’ve got something caught in your mouth,” she added.
    John removed the note along with some hair and dirt from the floor, placing it safely in the pocket of his jeans. The woman was clearly expecting something more as she made no move to carry on about her business.
    “I’m fine, thanks. Sorry about bumping into you,” he said, assuming the lack of an apology was the cause for her delay.
    “Think nothing of it young man.” She smiled and raised her eyebrows. “Those for your girlfriend?”
    “I’m sorry?”
    Her eyebrows rose. “The handcuffs. You got someone in mind for those?”
    He’d forgotten about the handcuffs. He tucked them into his hoodie pocket. He needed to be alone to look at Mark’s note and to plan his next move. What he didn’t need was an old, fat lady with a handcuff fetish coming on to him. Before he could answer, she continued in a voice that trembled excitedly.
    “Anyone who’ll lick a tube station floor and carries handcuffs about town is someone I want to know.”
    Jesus. What did he say to that? “They’re for my ... my boyfriend,” he tried.
    “I can work with that,” she said, after way too little consideration.
    A small group of onlookers, lured in by the initial collision, had by now realised that this vaguely interesting encounter was developing into something a little steamier. One girl, late teens in a pink anorak, was lifting her iPhone above heads in their direction. Tomorrow, he might well be on YouTube.
    John, certain that nothing he said would aid his cause, stepped to his left and entered a fast moving stream of bodies bound for the trains.
    “I’m here most Saturdays around this time,” the woman called after him, but John was on his way home.
    *
    Wilson turned to his partner after both men had watched John Smith disappear into the crowd. He was still churning inside from Johnson’s refusal to listen to his troubled thoughts. Sure there was protocol, but he had taken a bullet