The Edge of Madness Read Online Free PDF

other. There had been an unseemly scramble–Harry couldn’t use his own gun, it would alert those inside, and he had no time for his knife because the other man had the drop on him. That’s when Harry had raised his elbow, hit him, just one time, and the gunman had fallen back into the mud and cow crap, quite dead. Harry had no regrets; they’d already used an electric drill on the hostage, straight through both kneecaps, and were about to do much, much worse. It had been another bit of dirty business in a despicable war which had few rules, but that was then and…well, this was the middle of Mayfair. Harry was no longer a soldier but a politician, a Member of Parliament, and it wasn’t his job any longer to go round London adding to his body count. As heraised his arm, he took care to use just enough force to mash the cartilage of the nasal passages. It caused the man to scream with pain.
    ‘Oh, dear, you seem to have banged your nose on the door. I feel sure it’s broken,’ Harry said.
    ‘You, you stinking…’ But the burble of protest was cut short by the handkerchief that he was forced to clamp against his nose to staunch the flow of blood.
    ‘I think you know where the door is,’ Harry added softly.
    The taxi driver decided to become involved once more and began shouting at the wretch not to make a mess in his cab. Outnumbered, whimpering with rage and in considerable pain, the stranger stumbled back out into the rain, slamming the door shut.
    The cabbie wasted no time in releasing the hand brake to lock the doors and prevent any further interruptions, revealing himself to be a man of instant loyalties. ‘Pushy bastard got what he deserved, you ask me. So where to, guv?’
    Harry was just about to give instructions when his mobile phone began to vibrate. He plucked it from his pocket and listened intently for a few seconds.
    ‘Can’t it wait? I’ve got a lunch,’ he muttered with undisguised reluctance into the mouthpiece.
    He said nothing more before the call ended. When it did, he sat back in the seat, his mind flooding with images of Gabbi and her manifold attractions. And that’s how they would probably now stay, nothing butimages. She was a girl from New York, lots of Latin blood, feisty, that’s what made her such fun, and he was willing to take a large bet that she wasn’t used to being stood up. Harry would call, do a little grovelling, try to firm up the weekend, but already he felt the moment slipping away. Anyway, she’d be back in New York by Wednesday, so not much point. But a pity. A very considerable pity, he decided.
    The cabbie was staring at him insistently in the mirror. ‘Where’s it to be, guv?’ he demanded once more.
    ‘Downing Street,’ Harry sighed. ‘The back door.’

CHAPTER TWO
    Thursday afternoon. The Cabinet Room, 10 Downing Street, London.
    Mark D’Arby carried many burdens. It wasn’t just the responsibilities he held as Prime Minister, for those he had grown adept at dealing with. What had driven him on, and always a little further than any rival, were the ghosts of his childhood, and one ghost in particular, that of his grandfather. Frank D’Arby had started out as plain Mr Derby but by dint of audacity and a huge pot of luck had grown into Sir Frank, the sort of character who leaped out of boys’ magazines, a war hero who didn’t give a stuff about convention and who had lived into his nineties despite smoking forty Craven-A cork tips a day. He’d been a flier and had a good war, found himself promoted to air vice-marshal and lived in occupied luxury in Berlin after 1945, where he would fly around in Dakotas with stuffed armchairs for seats and chintz curtains on the window, often in the company of women who were frighteningly young.Grandpa made up his own rules as he went along. Arrogant, impatient, inspiring, unmissable. And often absent. It had made him an awful parent. Mark’s father, the only child of Sir Frank’s peripatetic marriage, sought