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JAMES PATTERSON is one of the best-known and biggest-selling writers of all time. His books have sold in excess of 325 million copies worldwide. He is the author of some of the most popular series of the past two decades – the Alex Cross, Women’s Murder Club, Detective Michael Bennett and Private novels – and he has written many other number one bestsellers including romance novels and stand-alone thrillers.

James is passionate about encouraging children to read. Inspired by his own son who was a reluctant reader, he also writes a range of books for young readers including the Middle School, I Funny, Treasure Hunters, House of Robots, Confessions and Maximum Ride series. James has donated millions in grants to independent bookshops and he has been the most borrowed author in UK libraries for the past ten years in a row. He lives in Florida with his wife and son.

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Copyright © James Patterson 2017
Excerpt from The Shut-In copyright © James Patterson 2017
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James Patterson has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this Work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

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PROLOGUE

IN THE TOWN of Kilmeaden in Ireland, just west of Galway, on a rainy October night, little Bobby O’Connor was lying fast asleep in his warm bed. His mother, Bridie, went up to check on him. She stood in the doorway, watching his breathing, his peaceful sleep. She reflected on the quiet contentment of her life, just herself and her little boy.

She went back downstairs and picked up her sewing, listening to the rain hammering against the windows.

Then another sound … A cry from upstairs, a thump, and then Bobby’s footsteps, fast pad-padding down the stairs. He appeared in the doorway, white as a sheet, terrified.

Bridie sprang to her feet. ‘What is it?’ she asked him, gathering him into her arms. ‘My boy, whatever is the matter?’

He could hardly speak. Eventually he managed, ‘He had a green mask. Like leaves. And he was singing. A horrid, horrid song, like a lion growling …’

This hit Bridie like a punch to the guts. ‘Who?’ she asked, but she knew the answer.

‘In the window,’ the little boy said. ‘I heard the singing. I woke up. And then I saw him through the window. I called for you – the man was laughing. I ran, I ran downstairs …’ He burst into tears.

‘Hush now, little one,’ she said, holding him close. ‘You’re safe now. It was a bad dream. Nothing but a dream.’

She took him upstairs to her big double bed and lay down next to him. Soon he settled back to sleep.

CHAPTER 1

IN A TALL, sleek, glass tower block in the City of London, Finn O’Grady heard his phone ring. The pink of the new day tinted the City landscape, catching the watery flicker of the Thames. O’Grady had been sitting, watching the CCTV screens of the sleeping buildings, waiting for his night shift to end.

He almost didn’t answer it. But it was six in the morning and she’d been in his thoughts for most of the night. Like every night. Even though he hadn’t seen her for three and a half years. Three years, six months. And eight days.

‘It’s here,’ she said. ‘Oh, Finn, thank God you answered. I didn’t know who else to call, who else would understand …’

‘You know what. Bobby saw it in the night, at his window. I told him it was a bad dream. He believed me last night. He won’t believe me when it happens again.’

CHAPTER 2

THE SLEEK TOWERS of the City of London glittered in the first rays of the sun. In front of O’Grady sat a bank of CCTV cameras, flickering grimy images.

This is what I’ve become, he thought. I was the top cop in Galway – now I’m watching warehouses storing computer kit. And all because I held out for the truth, for justice.

And if I’d chosen otherwise? What would it be like? To have a home, a garden, a potato patch. A wife …

He stopped his pacing. He remembered his mother’s words as he played out in the back yard when he was a boy. ‘I won’t be keeping you here, Finn boy,’ she’d say. ‘A nomad, that’s what you are. A restless spirit. You belong to the whole world, not to me.’

A nightwatchman, paid to guard the wealth of companies against those who would try to take it.

He knew what she meant. The Salter curse, which came through her father’s line, before she married into the O’Connors. Bridie’s grandfather, James Salter, was English. He was said to have stolen land in Galway that had belonged to an Irish family. At the time the locals had a story of the ancient Green Man. They believed he would protect them from the English incomers. The Green Man was invincible. In the ancient folk song they try to kill him by earth, air, fire and water, but he always rises up again.

James Salter showed no interest in the stories. He expanded the farm, ignored the locals, claimed he didn’t give a damn what these inbred savages thought of him.

His only son, Richard – Bridie’s father – was different. Richard was a gentle soul, a solitary child who grew up to be an academic – a historian at the university. Much loved locally, he seemed to carry the guilt of the stolen land, the opposite of his bully of a father.

It wasn’t surprising that old Salter was unpopular. Nor was it surprising that the locals used these tales to express their sense of injustice.

What was surprising was that decades later, at Bridie’s window, her little boy had seen something resembling the Green Man of the stories.

O’Grady was brought back from his thoughts by a crash of doors and a beep of security gates.

‘All right?’ Mo and Ahmed tumbled through the doors and thumped tubs of hot coffee onto their desks. ‘Quiet night?’

‘Quiet night,’ O’Grady agreed, handing over a large bunch of keys. Mo was bearded and trim; Ahmed was tall and broad-shouldered, his shirt tight over his muscles. O’Grady sometimes wondered what they made of him, with his ten years on them.

He said his farewells and went down the back stairs into the yard. The huge steel gate slid open to let him out.

His flat was in East London, two dingy rooms on a road which never slept. The dusty windows let in minimal daylight and the warring aromas from the artisanal bakers and the cheap fried chicken shop below.

O’Grady took off his jacket. He pulled a comb through his chestnut-brown hair. A glance in the mirror showed a tall, muscular figure, clean-shaven, blue-eyed.

A cowboy, Bridie had once called him. ‘You calling me names?’ he’d asked. ‘No,’ she’d laughed, shaking her head. ‘From the Westerns, the old films. You look like a man who’s got what it takes. That’s what I mean.’

He slept fitfully, dreaming of Ireland. Dreaming of Bridie, remembering their happy times before she married Stuart, before little Bobby came along.

At four in the afternoon he woke, got up, boiled the kettle, made tea. He sat at his table, stirring the spoon around in his mug.

A nomad, my mother would call me, before I knew the meaning of the word. ‘A warrior,’ she’d say, watching me playing in the dust. ‘One of the ancients.’

I was her beloved only child. Running round the yard with my wooden sword, slaying dragons. Important work, I thought at the time. The dragons were real enough to me.

And then I grew up, fell in love. But I’d catch Bridie watching me as my mother had, as if she too was thinking that one day she would have to let me go.

And then came the time when she said to me, ‘I’m a woman who needs to be a mother. I need to find the man who’ll give me that.’

Soon after, Stuart O’Connor appeared on the scene with his fancy motorbike, a Suzuki Intruder, bought from a dealer in Raheen who turned out to have stolen it. But Bridie was happy enough being whisked along the country lanes.

The last time he’d seen Bridie had been in the yard at Caffrey’s stables, a set of reins looped over one arm, little Bobby toddling at her feet, her brother Mikey in the distance shovelling manure.

She’d gone up to him, looked into his eyes, taken hold of his hand. She was about to speak.

Instead, she’d shaken her head, squeezed his hand, then turned and walked away.

O’Grady checked his phone, picked up the address of that night’s job from his company.

As the sun set across London, he made his way back to the City, back towards the river. He thought about the fields beneath his feet, the medieval markets, the Roman wine cellars and garrison stations. He looked upwards at the brand-new towers of shimmering glass.

By ten o’clock, he was sitting alone on the back stairs of a storage company. He could feel his pistols, Glock 17s, one in each pocket. It was a cool clear night and he sat out of sight, by the metal fencing of the warehouse yard.

The night was quiet. Just the occasional plane, its tiny dotted lights against the sky. He could hear Bridie’s voice in his head: ‘I didn’t know who else to call …’

The moon had risen, a perfect crescent. He wondered if they could see the same moon in Galway.

CHAPTER 3

MIKEY SALTER STARED up at the perfect crescent moon as it rose behind Tynan’s bar, down the lane from the stable yard where he worked. He walked to his car, steadily enough, he thought, one foot landing safely in front of the other. It’s not as if anyone’s going to know.

Start the engine, pull out of the pub car park, put on the radio, Bowie, isn’t it? ‘Golden Years …’ He found himself singing along as he pushed the car up a gear and sped around the bends in the dark lane.

‘Mikey, you’ve had enough,’ Griff the landlord had said, two or three pints before. But the old country lane was familiar, and anyway, who else was going to be on it at that time of night?

Something reared up in the darkness, across the road. A block. A tree, he realised, as he jammed on the brakes and felt the tyres spin. The car swerved and stopped, inches from collision.

‘Now what?’ Mikey Salter said, out loud. He got out of his car. A huge tree trunk, right across the road. How the devil had it got there?

It was a still night, with an autumnal chill in the air. The crescent moon was crisp against the dark sky.

Then he heard it. A weird, guttural singing, a deep voice. A song, sounded like Gaelic, he thought, like the old folk songs his dad used to play on those funny old recordings. It seemed familiar, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on it.

A step, a crunch of a boot behind him. He turned and faced the barrel of a shotgun, glinting in the moonlight.

The last thing Mikey Salter saw was a mask of green leaves in the ghostly moonlight, a face grinning behind its beard of twigs. The last thing he heard was the humming of the strange song, the low growling notes, as a cloud descended and his breath rattled out of him.

CHAPTER 4

FINN O’GRADY SAT in the shabby office of the storage company. The moon had softened, lowered into clouds, and was now just a patch of grainy light against the City towers.

Suddenly there was a flash of light outside. The security beam had been triggered.

He was quickly on his feet, a hand in each pocket, the steel of the pistols under his fingers.

Silently, he stepped to the wall and stood hidden in the darkness of the office.

He scanned the CCTV. Scratchy images panned across shadowy corners, showing nothing at all.

O’Grady slipped out of the office. He stood at the top of the stairs, motionless, invisible.

A wisp of a movement across the yard. Three figures in the darkness, scaling the gates. The searchlights flashed across their hooded faces, but they moved fast, reaching the top and then jumping softly into the yard, bolting towards the storage units. The beam of light cut across the space around them, but they were hidden now.

O’Grady could hear the clicks of equipment, the hard screech of drills applied to metal crates.

He pulled out his guns – one right, one left – and stepped down the staircase, emerging into the light.

Three figures whirled and faced him, three blank hoods, six holes for expressionless eyes.

There was a dead silence. Three male faces stared. Then there was the click of a gun.

O’Grady fired a split second before the lad did. A bullet cracked into the wall above O’Grady’s head, but O’Grady’s aim was true. The young man dropped to the ground. His Skorpion 9mm slid across the yard, glinting in the security light. Around him was panic, shouting, cursing, running back towards the gates.