Disorder (Sam Keddie thriller series Book 1) Read Online Free PDF

‘Of which there are plenty round here. We will investigate it, but I can’t promise anything.’
       Sam could see the man thought he was a time waster, an impression that merely compounded the frustration and anger he felt.
       These thoughts were still tormenting him when, around lunchtime, he decided to go out to clear his head.
       He walked up to Church St and crossed the road to the entrance of Abney Park Cemetery.
       Sam liked the cemetery. In an area that had become increasingly gentrified, this was a place of genuine natural wildness. While there were some memorials that were well maintained, for the most part the vegetation had run riot: statues of angels strangled by ivy, headstones collapsed and crumbling into the graves of the men they were meant to commemorate, mausoleums where the rain had found entry and the tombs within had become dank pools of fetid water.
       While others might have found the rampant nature rather upsetting – and unsettling – Sam found it comforting. It seemed to offer confirmation of something he knew only too well.
       Even though death was all around, the place made him think of life. How it was not a tidy process and anyone who tried to con themselves into thinking they could control it was a fool. As his own experience – and those of the hundreds of people he’d treated – had taught him, life could not be lived neatly. He was reminded of all those clients with apparently orderly façades – the tailored City boy who despised his job and had murderous thoughts about the other traders in his office, the middle-class mother who’d been sleeping with a teenage friend of her son. Eventually our true feelings and desires had a habit of coming to the surface. In this way, most people were no different to a crisp new headstone that, before long, is overcome by nature.
       Sam had wandered deep into the cemetery. There was a sudden rustle of leaves and a snap of twig. It made him jump, which annoyed him because he knew his anxiety was only heightened because of the burglary. There was no reason to be spooked. There were a number of broad, well-maintained paths in the cemetery. Other people were bound to be around.
       Just to put his mind at rest, he turned round. There, no more than ten metres behind him, was a tall figure dressed in a dark bomber jacket and jeans. Sam felt a chill run through him. The burglar – what little he’d seen of him – had been similarly built and dressed.
       He berated himself. There were loads of tall men dressed like that in London. Sam looked back again. The man was moving faster.
       Sam began to run, urged on by an instinctive feeling that he was now in danger. As he picked up pace, he could hear the man doing the same.
       There was a clearing ahead, an area where a disused chapel stood. The surrounding lawns and gardens were often busy, a peaceful haven close to the cemetery’s east gate.
       Sam turned. The man had begun to close the distance between them. His face was gaunt, with pale skin and narrow, hard eyes.
       Sam accelerated. Suddenly he was out in the open, the chapel standing before him. There were, just as he’d hoped, more people around. An Asian couple – him bearded, her in a hijab – seated on a bench and cooing over a pram; an elderly man walking, his arm steadied by a middle-aged daughter.
       Just then, the man who’d been chasing him burst from the path. He took in the scene around him – Sam and the others – and appeared to make a quick calculation. And then Sam saw something glint, and his blood ran cold. A knife, held tightly in the man’s right hand, was stuffed into a coat pocket and, as quickly, the man withdrew the way he had come.
       Sam was rooted to the spot as he rapidly processed what he’d just witnessed. Had that man intended to scare him into talking? Or silence him forever?
       Sam’s thoughts came in quick succession. Were the police an option? Perhaps. But