Bolt tossed and turned all night, his sleep a series of fitful dozes. In those rare times when he did go under, the dreams came, unwelcome and unnerving. In one of them he and Mikaela were living in Andrea's house with two young children of their own. But the children were nameless, faceless wraiths. He wasn't even sure if they were boys or girls, only that he loved them with an intensity he didn't realize he was capable of. Yet every time he went to hold one of them, they would float out of his grip, leaving him feeling progressively more angry and frustrated. He tried to talk about this to Mikaela but she didn't seem to understand. 'They're our children,' was all she said, and she was smiling as she spoke, because Mikaela had always wanted children. It was he who hadn't…
Some time later, in the grey time before dawn, he'd found himself slipping into another dream, this one far clearer and more violent. He was back at the Lewisham robbery – the gunfight that in reality had lasted a matter of seconds, but which had remained etched on his mind for ever. Only this time the robbers were unarmed. They were standing in a line and trying to surrender, hands in the air, their balaclavas removed, all but one of their faces blurred. The one Bolt could see properly was Dean Hayes, a scraggy-faced youth with a hook nose that had been broken more than once, and dyed blond hair. His eyes were wide with fear and he was trying to say something. But in the dream, Bolt was filled with a ferocious rage. These were the bastards responsible for kidnapping his daughter – all of them. The rage made the gun quiver and twitch in his hands, but that didn't stop him from opening fire, the shock of the retorts echoing in his head. Dean Hayes bucked crazily as he was hit repeatedly, until finally he fell sprawling to the pavement. Then Bolt moved the gun in a slow, careful arc, pulling the trigger again and again, experiencing a burst of elation as one after another they went down, hardly hearing the shouts of his colleagues as they tried to get him to stop shooting.
The last thing he remembered was seeing Andrea standing beside him, dressed in the lacy black negligee she was wearing when he'd first met her all those years ago, the gun in her hand kicking as she too opened fire on the men in front of her, her expression a picture of controlled calm.
And then suddenly the dream ended with the shriek of the alarm, and it was back to a reality he'd rather not have had to face.
He was shattered by the time he got into the office that morning. There was a 7.30 meeting for everyone involved in the operation, except those who were on surveillance duty, either watching the area around Andrea's house or keeping tabs on the movements of Leon Daroyce and his close associates. It was led by Big Barry Freud, and was at least partly overshadowed by the discovery of Marie Aniewicz's body the previous evening. There were no further details on her death, although the initial results of her autopsy were expected by mid-afternoon. One thing, though, was clear: she'd been deliberately targeted, and her murder was linked to the kidnap inquiry. Barry seemed unduly hopeful that the results of the house-to-house enquiries in the area, and a search of the murder scene itself, might elicit clues as to the identity of the kidnappers, conveniently glossing over the fact that they had only a matter of hours left before any such clues became irrelevant. There'd been no breaks in the case anywhere else, and the Daroyce surveillance team had nothing to report to suggest that either he or his people were directly implicated, so, once again, everything hinged on the success of the sting operation they were setting up to catch the kidnappers during the ransom drop.
The bulk of the meeting was spent going over the details of the sting itself and everyone's part in it, and Bolt sensed the growing excitement among those present in the incident room as it became clear they were going to get a chance to bring some truly brutal individuals to justice.
Bolt shared none of this excitement. The tension was building in him again, rising to almost intolerable levels as he heard his colleagues discuss the proposed arrest of the kidnappers and the rescue of his daughter, noting grimly that there seemed to be more emphasis on the first objective than on the second, and that Emma was rarely mentioned by name. Once during the meeting he caught Tina's eye. She was looking tired, but she mouthed the words 'You OK?' at him. He managed a small smile and a nod in return, wondering if his stress was that obvious, and she turned away. He watched her for a second, feeling a sudden urge to unburden himself – somehow he knew she'd understand – but he dismissed it immediately, telling himself not to weaken. There were things he needed to do.
When the meeting was over, Bolt asked to see Barry alone.
'You look bloody awful, old mate,' said his boss when they were in his office.
Bolt was already on his fourth coffee of the day.
He hadn't eaten anything more substantial than half a sandwich for more than twenty-four hours now, and the lack of food was making him nauseous.
'I feel it.'
'I'd say take a holiday, but we're far too busy for that.'
'I've got a possible lead,' Bolt told him.
Barry frowned. 'Why didn't you mention it in the meeting?'
'I didn't want to muddy the waters. Everyone's got enough to think about without me complicating matters.'
'If it's a lead, it's a lead. What is it?'
Bolt told him about the armed robbery fifteen years ago, how Galante was strongly suspected of being involved, and how Andrea's information had scuppered it, leaving the other robbers dead or behind bars.
Barry looked incredulous. 'So what you're telling me is that you knew Andrea Devern from the past? Why the hell haven't you said anything before now?'
'I only knew her vaguely. She was a friend of a snout.' He could see that Barry didn't entirely believe him. 'Anyway, two of the gang – Marcus Richardson and Scott Ridgers – are out now, and I think we should view them as potential suspects.'
'Why? Were either of them aware that it was Mrs Devern who shopped them?'
Bolt shook his head. 'No, not that I know of. I was deliberately vague about who'd given me the information so that I could protect Mrs Devern. You know what it was like back then. You didn't have to give too many details.'
'So why do you think they'd be targeting her if they didn't know about her part in putting them away?'
It was a good question, and one Bolt had been thinking about a lot.
'They were probably aware that Jimmy Galante was seeing Andrea – Mrs Devern – at the time, so they may well have known her too. Then, when they come out of prison years later, looking for a way to make money and see how well she's doing, they think, well, why not hit on her?'
'Was any reward money paid to Mrs Devern for the information she gave?'
'No.'
'So they couldn't have found out that way.'
Bolt shook his head.
Barry leaned forward in his seat, adopting one of his thoughtful poses, which consisted of steepling his hands together as if in prayer, his index fingers touching his nostrils.
'It's not much, is it?' he said finally.
It wasn't. But for Bolt it was still something.
'These guys are villains, sir. Hardened criminals.
Richardson fired at us when we tried to arrest him. He didn't hesitate. There aren't many people around like that. People willing to kill for financial gain like our kidnappers. They've got to be worth looking into.'
Barry sighed loudly. 'I haven't got the resources, Mike. We've got two surveillance teams out already, and everyone else is concentrating on the ransom drop.'
Bolt knew he wasn't going to win, but when he was back in his own office the first thing he did was access the PNC and check the details of Marcus Richardson and Scott Ridgers.
Richardson was the more brutal of the two, having amassed a total of twenty-three convictions in his forty-two years, including one for stabbing a teacher in the eye with a screwdriver when he was only fifteen years old. He'd been released from his sentence for armed robbery and attempted murder in the summer of 2001 and since then had been back inside twice: once for possession of cocaine with intent to supply, the other time for assault, after he'd beaten his girlfriend so badly she'd been in hospital for three days. He'd been out for just over two years now and it looked like he'd kept his nose clean, although someone with a criminal record as long as his was unlikely to have turned over a new leaf. He was currently living in his native Kilburn, and remained on parole, as he would do until his original eighteen-year sentence ran out some time in 2010.
Ridgers had a similar, if slightly less violent, record. Since he hadn't discharged the handgun he was carrying during the robbery, his sentence had been only fourteen years, which Bolt noted wryly didn't say much for how the courts treated the attempted murder of police officers. He'd been released in 1999 but had gone back in three years later, once again for armed robbery, after he'd held up a betting shop at gunpoint, firing several shots into the ceiling. He was caught minutes later by the occupants of an armed response vehicle that had been passing. It seemed that Ridgers wasn't the luckiest armed robber around, and he'd spent a further four years inside before being released back into an unsuspecting community late in 2006.
Bolt stared at their pictures and tried to remember the initial police interviews with them, but after fifteen years and several hundred other suspects his memory of them both was sketchy. Jack Doyle had said neither man was a budding Einstein, so it was unlikely they had organized something like this, but even so, he couldn't get the feeling out of his head that they were worth pursuing.
Throughout the morning the sense of anticipation in the incident room grew. Although most of those present were still involved in the mundane tasks of sifting through camera footage, everyone knew that later on they were going to be in action. That sense became heightened when it was reported that the ransom money, half a million pounds in cash, had arrived in the building and was under armed guard in the basement.
Bolt was on his sixth cup of coffee, feeling wired and knowing he was going to have to eat soon, when Andrea phoned, asking for him. He refused to take the call, making an excuse. For the moment, he had nothing to say to her. He still had doubts that she was telling the truth about his relationship with Emma. The more he thought about her actions, both in the present and in the distant past, the more manipulative he found her.
Yet, as she'd told him, the dates fitted. There was no way round that. Within minutes he was feeling guilty about not taking her call, so he phoned Matt Turner – who was back on babysitting duties, along with Marie Cohen the liaison officer – and asked him what she wanted.
'She just wants to speak to you, sir,' Turner told him when he came back on the line. 'She wouldn't say what it's about.'
'Tell her I'm very busy at the moment. I'll talk to her later. How's she bearing up?'
'Same as she was yesterday. Tired, emotional… like you'd expect.'
'OK. Keep an eye on her, can you?'
'Sure – but, boss?'
'Yes.'
'When exactly am I going to get relieved? I'd like to get where the action is. You know, there's not a lot happening here.'
Bolt sympathized with him. He'd have felt the same way too, but he didn't have the time or the inclination to start shuffling resources.
'Soon,' he said. 'I'll sort something.'
He hung up and stared out of the window at the street below. The sun was shining, a few puffy clouds trailed in an otherwise blue sky, and it looked like it was going to be another warm day, the sixth or seventh in a row after the wet summer. When Bolt craned his neck, as he was doing now, he could see one half of a small park, little more than a thin strip of land with a climbing frame and a couple of trees, set between two office buildings. There was a man sitting on one of the benches, a push bike propped up beside him, and he was looking up at the sky. Bolt was too far away to see his expression, but he knew from the man's casual demeanour that it was one of satisfaction.
Bolt watched him enviously. He'd always been a level-headed man. You needed to be in his line of business, where part of the job involved stalking your target for weeks, sometimes months, at a time. He was finding this sudden change in him just too much to bear.
He turned away and stood up. He could stand it no more. He had to do something other than sit and wait to react to events that might well shatter his life for ever. He had to get out and start influencing them.
Grabbing his jacket, he walked out of the office, telling Kris Obanje, who was the nearest person to him, that he was off for an early lunch.
It was time to renew some old acquaintances.
Marcus Richardson's bail address was the third floor of a five-storey block of 1960s flats, one of about a dozen identical buildings built in a loose square, which made up an isolated estate just off London 's North Circular Road. Even on a sunny, warm day like this one it seemed a bleak place to live, and the streets were near enough deserted as Bolt parked on the opposite side of the road to Richardson's block.
Because all the flats were reached via an open air walkway running along each floor, Bolt could see directly to his front door. As he stared up at it, he wondered what he was going to do now that he was here. The need for action had been so great that it had driven him out of the office, but he hadn't thought much beyond that. A recent mugshot of Richardson staring moodily at the camera was on the seat beside him. Balding and unshaven, with a double chin and narrow eyes as cold as flint, he looked like the kind of guy who didn't turn down many things for moral reasons, which was the reason Bolt had focused on him first.
He stared at the photo for several seconds, concentrating on the eyes, imagining the man behind them running a knife across Emma's neck, then turned it over and grabbed the ham and cheese baguette he'd bought at a corner shop on the way over, unwrapping it furiously. The idea of eating made him nauseous but he had to have something to keep him going; he couldn't make it through the day on adrenalin alone. He forced down a mouthful while he pondered his next move. Almost immediately he felt his hunger pangs returning, and he demolished the baguette in the space of a minute, washing the bread down with a half-litre bottle of mineral water.
A couple of kids, one carrying a football, walked past chatting, paying him no heed. He was used to waiting around. It was what a surveillance cop did. But this time things were different and it wasn't long before he was fidgeting. He looked at his watch. It was half past twelve. As one of the senior guys on this case, it wasn't going to be long before he was missed. If he was going to do anything, he had to do it now.
He decided on the simple option. Knock on the door, identify himself, and if Richardson exhibited absolutely no signs of fear or panic he could probably be eliminated from their enquiries. Hardly scientific, but at the moment Bolt was operating on the hoof.
There was only one problem. When he got up there, there was no answer. He knocked a second time, hard and decisive, so that Richardson would know he meant business. But nothing happened. Either he wasn't there, or he wasn't opening up.
Bolt peered through the letterbox, ignoring the stale smell of socks and old food that came back his way. He was looking straight into a small lounge with a cheap sofa and matching chairs. It was empty. A door directly opposite was partly ajar. There didn't seem to be any activity beyond it.
He stood up and looked around. The walkway was empty, the only sound a crying baby beyond one of the doors further up. He knew the risk he was about to take, but it was all about priorities and right now keeping his job wasn't that high on the list. He didn't like breaking the laws he was paid to uphold, but he'd always been a pragmatic man, and like a lot of surveillance cops he was also a highly competent burglar. It took him less than a minute to open the door using the set of picks he always carried with him. Richardson hadn't even bothered to double lock it, which told Bolt that even if he was involved in the kidnapping he was coming back to the flat regularly. He was also probably not intending to be out for that long, which meant Bolt was going to have to be quick.
He stepped inside, shut the door behind him and gave the room a quick scan, putting on a pair of evidence gloves as he did so. The furnishings were cheap and old; the only thing of any value was a brand-new LCD TV on a stand. There were a couple of lads' magazines and old copies of the Sun spread about, and a pile of DVDs stacked up in front of the TV, but it wasn't as messy as many of the bachelor pads Bolt had seen in his time. He noticed that one of the papers was this Thursday's, and by the look of it had been read from cover to cover.
Bolt knew that most armed robbers tended to be big spenders; it was the nature of their business. They lived life fast and hard because they knew their profession could be ended at any time. They snorted coke, they gambled, they bought women. Bolt had always understood why that sort of life held an appeal for certain people. When times were good, the life of an outlaw must have been a lot of fun, and he wondered how well someone like Richardson coped now, living in a poky little place like this. Not very, was his guess. Like all these guys, he'd want to take a shortcut to easy money, and kidnap could be an attractive option.
It was obvious that Richardson lived alone. There were no photos or pictures on the walls, nothing to give it the appearance of a home, and no self-respecting woman would put up with the stale smell, which got worse as he went through the lounge and into the kitchen. Washing up was piled high in the sink, which was half full of rusty coloured water, and there were plastic fast food containers everywhere, some still with the remnants of earlier meals.
He gave the bathroom a cursory glance, then carried on through into a bedroom with an unmade double bed and a view straight out on to the next block of identical flats. There was no landline in the flat, and it was definitely empty. There was also no evidence that someone had been held there against their will, or even that anyone female had been there at all recently. Bolt felt a surge of disappointment. He'd been positive he was on to something with Richardson; now unwelcome realization began to break over him.
There was a small cabinet beside the bed with a lamp on it. He checked through the drawers, moving quickly, but found nothing other than underwear and socks. Sighing, he stood back up.
Which was when he heard the movement behind him and the menacing, aggression-laced growl, 'Who the fuck are you?'
Bolt swung round fast, adrenalin surging through him as he came face to face with Marcus Richardson. The first thing that crossed his mind was that Richardson was a lot stockier than he remembered him. The second thing that crossed it was that the former armed robber wasn't going to be waiting for an answer to his question. Instead he came forward fast, his face set hard, and Bolt saw that he had a small wooden cosh in his hand.
'Thought you could fucking rob me, did ya?' he demanded, raising up the cosh for Bolt to see, his biceps rippling beneath his sweat-stained Lonsdale T-shirt, the eyes just as cold and unpitying as they were in the mugshot.
Bolt had to make a decision, fast. He was trapped, with his back to the wall. He could identify himself, say he just wanted to talk, but he knew it would make little difference. In fact, it might make things worse. Richardson had already worked himself up for violence and Bolt knew that if he got the shit kicked out of him now he'd be out of action for days, and with Emma needing him as much as she did he couldn't have that. Not because of the actions of a low-life bottom-feeder like Marcus Richardson.
He experienced a sudden and ferocious sense of injustice, and in that single moment something inside him just snapped. All the tension that had been building up over the past twenty-four hours – the constant frustration, the crushing feeling of impotence – finally found the kind of outlet it had been waiting for. But he knew better than to go in guns blazing.
'Listen, I'm sorry,' he stammered, raising his hands, palms outwards, in a non-confrontational pose.
Richardson grinned, still coming forward, raising his free hand to grab Bolt by the collar.
'You will be, mate.'
Without a sound, or even a change in his contrite expression, Bolt lunged at Richardson, moving so fast that he took the other man completely by surprise. He grabbed both wrists and yanked them apart to create a gap, and before Richardson had time to react Bolt slammed his forehead into the bridge of his opponent's nose.
It was a good hit, but Richardson was no pushover, and though he stumbled, he didn't lose his footing. With an angry, pained grunt, he pulled his weapon hand free of Bolt's grip. But Bolt still had the advantage, and he used it, butting him a second and third time in rapid succession, creating a deep cut just above Richardson 's eye.
This time Richardson did fall backwards, landing on the bed, Bolt going down on top of him with as much force as he could muster. The blood was running into his eyes but Richardson still managed to drive the cosh into Bolt's ribs. Bolt grunted in pain but knew he had to keep up the momentum before the other man got his act together, so he rolled over on to Richardson's weapon arm, effectively limiting the cosh's swing to only a few inches. In such a close-quarters position his head remained his best weapon, and he smashed it down into Richardson 's face again and again, feeling a blind, furious elation. He heard bones crack under his blows and felt blood slick against his forehead.
Richardson struggled under him. He finally managed to get his other hand free, and used it to grab Bolt by the collar of his shirt and push his face away, but on this day of all days Bolt wasn't stopping for anyone. Spotting an opportunity, and with his usual inhibitions temporarily absent, he rammed two fingers first into Richardson's left eye, then into his right, digging them in as far as he could, ignoring the high-pitched shrieks of pain coming from the other man.
Of all his tactics, this was by far the most effective. Temporarily blinded, Richardson howled and waved his arms about uselessly. Bolt jumped up from the bed, twisting the cosh out of his hand and throwing it against the far wall.
'Jesus, stop it! Take what you want!' wailed the ex-con, writhing about on the bed, pawing at a face that had become a mask of blood.
Bolt stared down at him, panting. His head hurt where he'd been using it as a battering ram, and the baguette was lurching around his stomach. But he was still in the zone, his anger not yet sated, the realization of what he was doing still way off in the distance.
'Have you been keeping your nose clean, Richardson?' he demanded.
'What?'
'You heard me. What have you been doing the last few days?'
'What the fuck are you talking about?'
Bolt lunged forward and pulled him up by his T-shirt, slapping him hard across the face.
'I said, what the fuck have you been doing the last few days?' He stuck his face so close to Richardson 's he could smell his blood, confident he was beyond fighting back. 'Tell me where you've been. Now!'
Bolt threw him roughly to the floor. Richardson lay there, squinting up at him. He used his T-shirt to wipe the blood from his eyes, leaving behind a thick stain. His nose looked broken and he was bleeding from several cuts.
'Nowhere,' he answered. 'Just doing my job.'
'What's your job?'
'I'm a labourer. On a site near Wembley. Why do you want to know? And anyway, who the fuck are you?'
'I'm the person who's asking the questions,' Bolt answered, speaking loudly, knowing that the best way of getting answers was to continue the quickfire questions, taking advantage of his dominant position. 'So unless you want more of the same, you answer them.' He stamped a foot down hard on Richardson 's chest as he tried to sit up, knocking him back down. 'Now, where have you just been?'
Richardson looked as if he might make a grab for Bolt's leg, then evidently thought better of it.
'Out,' he said. 'Getting lunch.' He motioned towards the kitchen. 'Check if you don't fucking believe me. It's KFC. Three pieces with fries and coleslaw.'
Bolt had stopped panting now. Above the general stench that pervaded the flat was the unmistakable odour of freshly fried chicken. Realizing he might have made a big mistake, he turned back to Richardson, who was a picture of righteous indignation. In no way whatsoever did he look guilty, and in Bolt's experience people who didn't look guilty generally weren't.
'Are you a copper or something?' demanded Richardson, more confident now as he sensed the doubt in Bolt. 'Because I'm going to fucking sue you if you are, you bastard.' He touched a hand to his face, wiped off more blood. 'Look what you've done to me. That's serious assault, that is.'
But Bolt wasn't going to let things go just yet.
'Scott Ridgers. When was the last time you saw him?'
'You are a fucking copper, aren't you?' Richardson said, sitting back up again.
Bolt took a step back and kicked him hard in the chest, knocking him backwards a second time. 'Answer the question!'
'I ain't seen him in years,' Richardson hissed through gritted teeth. 'I don't socialize with perverts.'
Bolt's jaw tightened. 'What do you mean?'
Richardson saw his reaction, and managed a small, mean grin. 'Oh, didn't you know, copper? Scottie Ridgers is a kiddy fiddler. He likes 'em nice and young. Why? He hasn't been after one of your kids, has he?'
Bolt drove the heel of his shoe into Richardson 's face, stamping down hard, then kicked him savagely in the ribs, the force of the blow shunting him across the carpet. The anger roared through him. He spat out curses and kicked him again, even though a voice inside his head was screaming at him to stop, stop, stop! But he couldn't. When the red mist came down, as it did so rarely in his life, he had no control over it.
Richardson wailed in pain, but Bolt kept kicking, conscious enough of what he was doing to concentrate on the body and not the head, but still too lost in the rage and emotion of the past twenty-four hours to cease until his victim was curled up in a ball, silent, unmoving and beaten.
Then the full extent of what he was doing hit Bolt like an express train, and he stepped backwards, retreating into the wall, wondering what the hell he'd become. He had to get out of there.
Turning away quickly, he strode through the stinking flat, past the greasy box of KFC and out the front door. And all the time he was thinking, What the hell is happening to me? Acting on nothing more than a general hunch, he'd deliberately disobeyed orders, broken into a suspect's flat and beaten the living shit out of him. And now it looked like his victim was almost certainly innocent.
But he'd got some answers. Not the ones he wanted maybe, but he'd been doing something to get Emma back, and it had felt good. He'd crossed the line before, and had sworn then he wouldn't cross it again. Yet he just had. And the terrifying thing was, part of him had enjoyed it.
Upstairs they were arguing again. It was the second time she'd heard them today. Emma couldn't hear what they were saying – the voices were too muffled for that – but she knew it was about her, and was pretty sure what the subject would be: whether she lived or died. She wondered which of the two of them was in charge. She prayed it was the smelly one, but something told her he wouldn't be.
Neither man had been down to see her today. This was unusual. It had been light for hours now, and the bucket she was going to the toilet in needed changing. She was also hungry, and though she'd vowed not to eat anything until she could slip off her handcuffs, she thought she might have to relent on that one. She was using up plenty of energy, scraping away at the wall – a task that had become something of a full-time activity. The chain was definitely getting looser, but it still wasn't budging, and she knew she was beginning to run out of time. The nail had worn down by about a third, and her fingers were stiff and aching. If she stopped eating altogether, she ran the risk of being too weak to escape if an opportunity did somehow arise, although she was still unsure exactly how she'd get out anyway, even if she got the chain free from the wall.
Take it one step at a time, she told herself.
Upstairs the voices stopped, and she broke off what she was doing too, replacing the nail under her pillow and pushing the bed back against the wall so that the metal plate wasn't showing.
For a few minutes she sat there in silence, the butterflies racing around her stomach as she wondered if they'd come to a decision about what to do with her. Maybe they had; maybe they'd agreed it was best simply to kill her. 'Calm down,' she whispered out loud. 'Calm down. Remember what Mum always says. It's the tough ones who rise to the top.'
But when the cellar door opened she had to stop herself from crying out as she pushed herself back against the wall, praying that this wasn't the end, reaching for the hood she had to wear and thrusting it over her head, not wanting to give them any more of an excuse for getting rid of her.
It was the smelly one. She could hear his heavier footfalls as he came down the steps, that wheezing of his. She felt a surge of relief, even enjoyed the familiar odour of his BO, which was stronger than usual today. She heard him stop at the bed, put some food down on the floor, and change the waste bucket.
'Hello,' she said uncertainly.
'All right, love?' he answered, in his gruff voice. 'Did you sleep all right?'
She nodded. 'OK, I guess.'
She could smell his breath as he crouched down in front of her.
'I just need you to do another little message for your mum. I want you to let her know what day it is, so she knows you're OK.'
'OK.'
'So, I'm going to lift your hood up, all right? Just a little bit so you can see the date on the paper.'
She nodded again, waiting patiently while he lifted up the hood and placed the newspaper in front of her face, obscuring her view of anything else. He held it there, giving her plenty of time to see it, and she stared straight ahead obediently, confirmed that it was indeed Saturday, and the hood was replaced. He then recorded a very short message from her before switching off the tape player.
'Well done, love,' he said, trying to sound all cheery, but not quite making it. 'Not long now and you'll be home in front of the telly.'
'What are you arguing about up there?'
'Can you hear us?' He seemed surprised.
'I can't hear what you're saying, but I know you're arguing, because your voices are very loud. Is it about me?'
'Course not.'
She didn't believe him. 'He wants to kill me, doesn't he?'
'No, no, it's not like that,' he said quickly, but he sounded flustered, like one of her friends who'd been caught out telling a lie.
'Please don't let your friend kill me. Please. I never saw his face, I promise, whatever he says.'
'I won't, love, it's all right.'
'Because I know how cruel he is. When he came down here yesterday, he really scared me.'
Beneath the hood, she pretended to cry (she'd vowed not to cry for real any more), hoping this would make him feel sorry for her. And it seemed to work. He put an arm around her and pulled her into his shoulder. The smell of BO coming from his armpit made her want to gag but she forced herself to ignore it. She had to keep him on her side.
'I promise you, darling, no one's going to hurt you while I'm here. I wouldn't let anyone hurt defenceless kids.' His hand stroked her head. 'Tonight it's all going to be over and you'll be going home. I'm sorry my friend had to come down yesterday. I didn't want him to, but it was important your mum took things seriously, you know.'
'He put a knife to my face.'
His arm tensed, almost crushing her. She realized then how strong he was.
'Bastard,' he hissed angrily. 'Did he?'
'Yes.'
'Don't worry, he won't be coming down here again. And he won't touch you, I promise. No one hurts kids on my watch.'
His hand continued to stroke her hair, his gloved fingers slowly massaging her head. It was a horrible, creepy sensation, like spiders running across it, and she really wanted to move away, but she couldn't. He had her pinned.
'Who's in charge?' she whispered, trying to ignore what he was doing. 'You or him?'
'Neither,' he answered, but she heard him hesitate. And that told her everything.
It was the cruel one.
She desperately wanted to feel better, had hoped that his words might soothe her, but as he got up and left, telling her to enjoy her meal, the waste bucket sloshing and slapping against the banister as he mounted the steps, she felt instead a growing sense that something dark and terrible was about to happen.
And it was going to happen soon.
Scott Ridgers' place was no palace either. He lived in the basement flat of a dilapidated post-war townhouse situated on a back street near Finsbury Park, the paintwork so faded that the people who'd last given it a lick probably owned ration books. The stone steps that led down to Ridgers' front door were caked in an unpleasant combination of dried and fresh pigeon shit, and Bolt had to tread carefully to avoid taking away any unwanted souvenirs from his visit.
The curtains were pulled, and when Bolt knocked on the door, it quickly became clear that Ridgers wasn't in either, although unlike Richardson, he was far less blasé about personal security. The single window, not much bigger than a porthole, was barred, and there were no fewer than three locks on the front door, including two five-levers. They were all in use as well. Bolt wasn't put off. He could get past almost any locks. The problem was he'd had his fingers burned once already today. Richardson had had no idea who he was, but if he made a fuss and reported what had happened to the local cops, there might be ramifications.
Bolt was in no mood for a further confrontation. His head still hurt from the last one, as did his ribs, where Richardson had dug his cosh into them. But he also knew that having driven over here, he needed to do something. It was ten to two now. He'd turned his mobile off but knew he couldn't keep it off for much longer, and when he did switch it back on he knew he was going to have to come up with a decent reason why he'd gone AWOL on arguably the most important day for his team since it had first been formed eighteen months earlier. It was now or never.
But as he took out the picks, he heard a noise above him.
'He's been gone for days,' said a female voice. 'Your lot probably frightened him off.'
Bolt looked up and saw a short, grey-haired woman in her late sixties dressed in a black trouser suit more suited to a Khmer Rouge guerrilla than a London senior citizen.
'What do you mean, your lot?' he asked with a puzzled smile, wondering how on earth she'd recognized him as a copper. He was dressed casually in jeans and trainers, and that, coupled with the flecks of blood on his shirt, made him sure he didn't look like one at all.
'Are you working for him?' she continued, her tone suspicious. 'The dad?'
'I don't know who you're talking about, I'm afraid.'
'Who are you, then?'
Bolt saw no point in denying his official role. 'I'm a police officer.'
Her expression didn't lighten. It seemed even the nation's senior citizens were against the police these days.
'Haven't you got anything better to do than harass a poor man who's just trying to get on with his life? Scott's a lovely lad. Who sent you? The dad? Can't he let it go?'
'I think you've got me wrong, madam. I'm here to let Scott know that a friend of his has been badly hurt in an accident.'
'Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't realize. Who's that, then? Scott doesn't have many friends.'
'It's someone from the past,' he answered with suitable vagueness, coming back up the steps so he no longer had to crane his neck to talk to her, stepping in pigeon shit on the way. 'You don't happen to know where he is, do you?'
She shook her head. 'I haven't seen him for a few days now. He's probably run off somewhere to escape her dad.'
'Whose dad?'
'Lisa's. That's Scott's girlfriend. I haven't seen her yet, but Scott thinks the world of her. He says she's beautiful.'
Bolt looked puzzled. 'So why's her dad after him?'
'Because he says she's too young,' she answered in a tone that suggested he was being entirely unreasonable. It was clear this lady had a lot of time for Scott.
'And how old is she?'
'It's hard to tell these days, but Scott says she's quite old enough to make her own decisions.'
'I know what you mean,' Bolt agreed. 'Can you remember the last time you saw Scott?'
She thought about it for a moment. 'It was at the beginning of the week, I think. Monday or Tuesday. To be honest, I've been a bit worried. It's not like him not to be around. I usually see him most days when I'm passing. He likes to sit out the front here on his deckchair, watching the world go by. Do you think he's all right?'
'It might be worth checking. Do you have keys to his flat?'
She shook her head. 'Sorry, no.'
The timing of Ridgers' absence was certainly interesting. However, it didn't bring Bolt any closer to finding him now.
'Do you know where Scott's girlfriend lives?' he asked.
She shrugged. 'Over in Paddington somewhere.'
'That's a long way from here.'
'They met on the internet,' she said with a conspiratorial whisper, as if this was some kind of magic.
'That doesn't really help me much.'
'I know her last name, though. Scott told me because it's so pretty.' She pronounced it Boo-sha-ra, with something of a flourish, but then had the good sense to spell it for him. 'Lisa B-o-u-c-h-e-r-a. It's French, apparently,' she explained as Bolt memorized it.
He felt a glimmer of hope. London was a big city, but there weren't going to be many people of that name floating around Paddington. It wasn't much, but he was beginning to grow used to getting by on slim pickings. He thanked the old lady and walked back to his car, without looking back.
When he was inside, he switched on his mobile, dialled 118 118 and asked for the number of a Bouchera in the W2 postcode area. He could have got the information faster by phoning the Glasshouse, but he wanted to avoid speaking to anyone there for the moment.
There was one number listed under that name, and he called it straight away. A man answered after three rings.
'Hello, is that Mr Bouchera?' asked Bolt.
'Who's asking?' came the gruff reply.
Bolt identified himself, and asked if he was the same man whose daughter Lisa was seeing a Mr Scott Ridgers.
'That bloody pervert. Yes, my daughter has been seeing him. I'm glad you lot are finally taking it seriously now. I want him arrested.'
'I'm sorry, sir, but we can't arrest him if your daughter's over the legal age of consent.'
'What do you mean, the legal age of consent? She's fifteen, for God's sake!'
Bolt's mouth went dry. 'What?'
'She's fifteen years old, mate,' he snapped, disgust in his voice. 'Only just turned as well. Why on earth do you think I called the police about it? They've been getting up to all sorts as well. She even filmed some of it on her mobile phone. He should be locked up.'
Bolt thought of Emma at the mercy of a murdering thug with a predilection for young girls.
'Didn't you know any of this? What the hell are you phoning for?'
'Listen to me,' Bolt snapped. 'Is your daughter still seeing him?'
'Course not. What do you take me for? I grounded her as soon as I found out about it. And confiscated her mobile. But she's been sneaking out to see him. I got the police round here to talk to her but she wouldn't tell them anything. Denies everything. He even gave her this software that wiped all their conversations off her computer. I've been at my wits' end trying to sort it out. I've threatened her, locked her in her room, even found out where he lived and went round. But the bastard wasn't there.'
'Is Lisa at home now?'
'Yeah. She hasn't been out for the last few days, except for school. She's just moping about, not speaking. I'm hoping she's over him.'
'Have you still got her mobile phone?'
'I gave it back to her yesterday if she promised not to call him. So far, I don't think she has. She's a good girl, you know. That bastard corrupted her. If I could get my hands on him…'
'I know exactly how you feel,' Bolt told him, 'but in the meantime you can help us locate him, because we're very interested in talking to him about a number of matters.'
'What kind of matters?'
'The kind that'll put him away for a very long time.'
Bouchera grunted. 'Good.'
'But I need to know straight away if Lisa hears from him, or if you hear him speaking to her. Understand? And if you can get the number he's speaking to her from, even better.' Bolt gave Bouchera his mobile number, then wrote down the daughter's number and the name of her service provider. 'It doesn't matter what time of day or night it is, call immediately. It's extremely urgent.'
'Course I will,' replied Bouchera. 'I want to see that bastard suffer.'
Bolt thanked him and ended the call. There was still no proof Ridgers was involved, but Bolt's gut instinct was telling him he was definitely on to something here.
Ordinarily, the excitement at getting a lead like this would have been surging through him, but instead he felt a growing sense of dread. Time was running out and Scott Ridgers could be anywhere. If he didn't find him, and the ransom op failed, then he was convinced now that Emma was as good as dead. But he wasn't going to give up. Not while there was still an ounce of fight in him.
Thirty-six
The phone rang as he pulled out into the road. It was a message from Mo, wondering where he was. There was obvious concern in his colleague's voice. The time of the message was 1.27 – just over half an hour ago.
But Bolt didn't call him back. Instead he called Tina. 'I need you to check on whether there are any mobile numbers registered to a Mr Scott Ridgers of Hanbury Gardens, N19,' he told her. It was a long shot that someone like Ridgers would have registered anything in his name, particularly a mobile phone. Criminals don't like giving the authorities a means of tracing them. And even if he'd done so, Bolt doubted whether he would have taken it with him on a job as important and risky as a kidnap. But it was still worth a try.
Tina asked who Scott Ridgers was.
'I'll explain later, I promise.'
'You sound excited. Where are you? People have been asking. I mean, it's a big day, and you've been gone a long time.'
There was a trace of criticism in her voice, something Bolt hadn't heard from Tina before, and he wondered if his team were beginning to lose respect for him. If so, it was something he was going to have to counter. Just not now.
'I've been following something up, and I'm on the way back. I won't be long.'
He hung up and called Mo, telling him a briefer version of the same story – that he'd been following up on a lead – deliberately keeping details scarce. He didn't want to tell his friend too much about Ridgers, still less ask him a favour, because Bolt had the distinct feeling he would refuse.
Mo told him to hold on while he went somewhere private.
'Why are you working on a lead that no one knows anything about?' he asked. 'On a day as important as this one.'
'It's just something that's come up, OK? From the past.'
'Do you want to share it?'
'I'll tell you about it later.'
There was a pause.
'I think this is getting too personal for you, boss,' he said eventually.
It was the first time Bolt could remember Mo questioning his abilities, and it galled him. He felt like telling his old friend to butt out.
'I'm not going to mess this up, Mo. '
'Don't, please. I respect you, boss. Don't make me lose that respect.'
There was a genuine pain in his voice that cut into Bolt, and neither man spoke for a few seconds, both unsure what to say. It was Bolt who finally broke the silence.
'This time, Mo, I'm going to have to ask you to be the one to have faith. I promise you I know what I'm doing.'
'OK. That's good enough for me. But don't try to do everything on your own. It won't work.'
Bolt said he wouldn't, and it was with an element of genuine relief that he ended the call.
There was a traffic snarl-up around Millbank and it wasn't until twenty to three that he finally reached the office, having already found out from Tina that there was no mobile anywhere in the UK registered in the name of a Scott Ridgers of Hanbury Gardens, N19. He hadn't even made the incident room before Barry collared him. He didn't look very happy at all.
'Where the hell have you been?' he demanded.
Bolt knew immediately that he was going to have to tell him, but as soon as he started talking, Barry's expression darkened.
'Let's get to my office,' he snapped, looking round to make sure that no one was witnessing his wrath.
'What's going on, Mike?' he asked, his voice laden with exasperation, when they were behind closed doors. 'I thought I told you not to go running off on a wild goose chase.'
'With all due respect, sir, I don't think it is a wild goose chase.'
Bolt explained about Scott Ridgers' absence over the past few days, though he didn't mention his taste for underage girls, since he wasn't sure what relevance this had.
'So, what the hell does that prove? Maybe he's gone on holiday.'
'He's been gone since Monday. You've got to admit, it's coincidental.'
Barry nodded furiously. 'Yes, it is coincidental, isn't it? But that's all it is. A coincidence. It doesn't help us one fucking iota.'
Bolt couldn't remember the last time his boss had sworn. It was a measure of his anger and the pressure he and they were all under.
'I thought it was better than just waiting around. I'm convinced I'm on to something.'
'Did Tina say there was a mobile registered in his name?'
Bolt admitted there wasn't.
'So you're not on to something, are you? Listen, Mike, you're going to have to pull yourself together. I don't know what the hell's got into you over this, but whatever it is, it's got to stop. And what's happened to your face? You've got a bloody great bruise coming up.'
'I had an accident. Banged my head against the car door.'
Barry's gaze then dropped to the bloodstains on his shirt.
'Are you all right to go through with this tonight? Because if you're not… if you're not well or something…'
'I'm fine, I promise.'
But even as Bolt spoke, he wondered for the first time whether he really was capable of operating effectively. He thought of Marcus Richardson, his face smeared with blood as he lay curled up in a defenceless ball against his flailing kicks; of Emma, a girl he might never know, chained to a rusty iron bed, a black hood over her head, while an unseen man ran a knife across her neck. Then he forced out the thoughts and focused on his boss.
'I won't mess this up,' he said firmly.
Barry nodded once, accepting the answer. 'Good. I need you fine. In fact, I need you more than fine. You were the one who initiated this op, and it's got to work.' He looked at his watch. 'We've got a final briefing at three thirty for everyone taking part. After that, I want you and Mo to get down to Mrs Devern's place and brief her. It's essential she doesn't mess things up either. There's going to be a lot riding on her.'
'She knows that.'
'Make sure she knows it again.'
'What about the ransom money?'
'You're taking it with you, so don't suddenly go AWOL again.' He smiled to show he was joking, but Bolt wasn't entirely sure he was. 'The rest of the team are going to be following you,' he continued, 'so we'll be ready to move as soon as they call. You'll be in charge on the ground. I'll be overseeing things from here.'
'No problem.'
Bolt nodded decisively because he had a feeling this was the kind of encouraging gesture Barry wanted to see. His boss looked more stressed than Bolt had seen him for a while, and he knew that his own actions weren't exactly helping.
'If this goes well, it'll be a huge boost for SOCA, and for us,' said Barry, watching Bolt closely, looking, it seemed, for answers. 'But if things go wrong…' He let the words hang in the air for several seconds. 'If they go wrong, then you and me, we're going to be in a lot of shit, old mate.'
More than you'll ever know, thought Bolt. More than you'll ever know.
The briefing was short and to the point. It focused purely on how the operation to follow the money, apprehend the kidnapper and rescue Emma was going to work. It seemed like a good plan with an extremely high chance of success to most people. To Bolt it was full of holes.
Afterwards, when he and Mo were in the Jaguar driving to Andrea's place in a convoy of cars containing the rest of the team, the canvas holdall with the half a million pounds locked safely in the boot, Mo asked him about the lead he'd been working on all day. Bolt knew he had to tell his friend the truth now, so he told him about his visits to Richardson's and Ridgers' addresses, leaving out the part where he beat the shit out of Richardson.
'Why didn't you tell me any of this earlier?' Mo asked.
'I didn't want you thinking that I'd lost control – you know, after what I told you yesterday.'
'But you spoke to Tina. Do you trust her more than me?'
'No, I don't. Of course not. I just wasn't sure what you'd say if I asked you to look up Ridgers' number. Also, Tina's got good contacts at the phone companies.'
'And you really think I wouldn't have helped you?' Mo looked deflated.
'Look, I'm sorry.'
Bolt wished he wasn't having this conversation. He wished too that he hadn't opened his mouth the previous day and put himself in such a vulnerable position with one of his most trusted colleagues.
'How did you get that bruise on your head? And the blood on your shirt?'
'I had an accident. Banged my head on the car doorframe.'
'I'm a detective, boss, not a ten-year-old.'
Bolt sighed. 'I broke into Richardson 's place. He attacked me. We had a fight. That's how I got it.'
'What the hell is happening to you?' demanded Mo.
'What's happening to me is that it could be my daughter who's imprisoned by the kind of scum who've already killed at least twice, and so won't hesitate a single minute to kill again. That's what's happening. OK?'
'But you can't go round breaking into people's houses and having fights with them. It's just not the way to get things done.'
'What is the way, then? Tell me!'
'To focus,' snapped Mo. 'To focus on making sure this operation's a success. Not on running round on a wild goose chase.'
'It's not a wild goose chase.'
'It is, boss. What proof have you got that either of them has any involvement whatsoever? Absolutely none.' Mo shook his head angrily. 'If it wasn't so bloody late in the day, I'd be talking to Barry about it right now.'
They continued the rest of the journey in brooding silence. They'd never argued before, not like this. They'd had the occasional niggling disagreement and cross words, but it had never got anywhere near the position they were in now. Mo was openly questioning his ability to do the job, and, though Bolt desperately didn't want to admit it, he had some justification too. Another line had been crossed, one from which it was going to be a hard journey back, and he knew exactly whose fault it was.
It was after five when he and Mo left the convoy and turned into Andrea's street, having been given the all-clear by the surveillance team watching the house. It was the third time in a little over twenty-four hours that he'd been here, and each time Bolt arrived he felt worse than the time before. He couldn't help wondering how he was going to be feeling the next time he came – if there was a next time.
Heaving the bag containing the money out of the boot, he walked to the gate in silence, Mo following behind. Marie the liaison officer buzzed them through. She was wearing a more concerned expression than usual as she opened the door to him.
'Still no word from the kidnappers,' she told him.
'How's Andrea?'
'She's bearing up, but her nerves are shot with all this waiting. I think all of ours are.'
It was the first sign from Marie that she was getting personally involved in the case. Bolt wasn't surprised. Liaison officers might be highly trained but they were still human, and, he noted wryly, someone like Andrea had always been good at tugging on other people's heartstrings.
'They'll be in contact soon enough,' he said, nodding to Matt Turner who'd poked his head round the door of the study. 'Is she upstairs?' he asked Marie.
'She's in the lounge,' she answered quietly. 'She's been there most of the afternoon. She said she wanted to be left alone.'
Andrea was on the same sofa she'd been on yesterday afternoon. Apart from the change of clothes – she was smarter today, in a white blouse and black knee-length skirt – she might as well not have moved. Her haunted, almost hypnotized expression remained the same, and she only gave him the barest of glances as he and Mo entered the room.
Bolt felt a sudden, almost overwhelming urge to take her in his arms, but he fought it back down. He put the holdall on the floor between them and took a seat opposite her. Mo remained standing near the door.
'They haven't called, Mike.'
'I know. But they will. They want the money, Andrea. That's their sole motivation for this.'
She stared into space. 'I can't lose her. I… I just don't know what I'd do.'
Bolt leaned forward in the seat, willing her to look at him. 'You've got to be strong, Andrea. Do you understand?'
'OK,' she said quietly in a voice that didn't fill Bolt with confidence. For the first time he wondered if she'd be able to do what they needed her to do.
'For Emma's sake.'
She nodded, a little more decisively this time, and looked down at the holdall.
'Is that the money?'
'Yes. There's a tracking device attached to the lining on the inside. It's so small it'll be almost impossible to find. There are also two further devices, also very tiny, attached to the notes inside.'
'But surely the kidnappers'll find them?'
'Eventually they will, yes, if they know what they're looking for.'
'Which they do, Mike. You know they do.'
'But we're not going to let them run with this money for long. We'll be following you the whole way as you deliver it. There'll be surveillance teams travelling in front of you and behind.
There'll also be helicopter back-up. There's no way you're going to be in any danger.'
'I'm not worried about me, Mike, I'm worried about Emma. We're putting her life in danger here, and I can't stop thinking about it.'
'Look, we'll keep back so we're not noticeable, and you'll be wearing a mike so we can monitor any conversation you have, and a tracking device so we don't lose you either. Mo, can you put them on for Andrea?'
Mo nodded curtly, and attached the devices to Andrea's blouse while Bolt continued.
'When you've delivered the money and withdrawn from the scene, we'll track the money to its destination. The kidnappers may put the money in a different bag but they won't have a chance to check half a million pounds in cash for trackers. We'll then follow them and the money to that destination and arrest them there.'
'But what if Emma isn't there? What if they're hiding her somewhere else?'
It was the big question, one that Bolt really didn't want to think about, because it represented the biggest flaw in their plan.
'The chances are she will be, Andrea. If all the kidnappers are involved in the drop – and given that there are only two of them, three at the most, they probably will be – then they won't want to leave her alone for long, I promise you.'
'It's all chances and likelys though, isn't it, Mike?' she said as Mo moved aside. 'That's the problem. There are no guarantees. They've already killed Jimmy. What if they kill Emma too?'
Bolt could have added that they'd also killed her cleaner, but he didn't. Back at the Glasshouse it had been decided not to tell Andrea about this latest development until after the ransom drop, because of how it might affect her mental state.
'There are no guarantees, Andrea. Not in something like this. But you've got to trust us. We know what we're doing.' He decided to change the subject. 'Have you ever heard of anyone by the name of Scott Ridgers?'
She lit a cigarette with shaking hands, and blew out a thin plume of smoke. 'No. Should I have? Who is he?'
Bolt told her about the possible connection. When he'd finished, she looked shocked.
'You're not saying this has got anything to do with what happened all those years ago, are you?'
'It's possible. We can't find him at the moment.'
'Was it common knowledge that I told you about the robbery, then?' She glanced at Mo as she spoke. 'I swore you to secrecy.'
'And I kept it secret, I promise. It's just a possibility that he's involved.'
'I only ever met a couple of Jimmy's friends, and I don't remember a Scott Ridgers,' she mused.
'Fair enough,' he said, not entirely able to mask the disappointment in his voice. He wasn't totally surprised. Ridgers was a vague lead at best, and now he was beginning to get vaguer.
It was a long shot, but he pulled out of a pocket an A4-sized copy of Scott Ridgers' latest mugshot and unfolded it.
'This is a photo of him.'
The moment she took it, her eyes widened.
'I know him,' she said simply.
'He's done work in the garden here before,' said Andrea, still staring at the photo. 'For the firm I use. I've seen him here a couple of times.'
Bolt looked at Mo. His colleague's face was impassive.
'What's the name of the firm?'
' Brandon Landscapes. I've got a business card with all their details round here somewhere.'
She got up and rummaged round in the top drawer of the pine cabinet next to the sofa until she found what she was looking for.
'And when did you see the man in the photo here?'
'He's only been here recently,' she said, handing Bolt the card. 'In the last few weeks. I hadn't seen him before that.'
'Did he act suspiciously at all?' asked Mo, speaking for the first time.
Andrea shook her head, sitting back down. 'No. Just did his job.'
'Did he ever come inside the house?'
'No. I never let any of the gardeners inside the house. There was never any need. And also, quite a few of the people who work for Mike Brandon have criminal records.'
Bolt raised his eyebrows. 'Really?'
'The idea's to help them get back on their feet.
I've always thought it was a good idea but, you know, I'm not entirely stupid. I'm not going to give them the run of the place. Not with their backgrounds.' She picked up the photo again. 'God, do you really think he might be involved?'
Bolt suddenly wished he wasn't, after what Bouchera and Richardson had both said about him, but he nodded. 'Yes, I do. And it shows we're on the right track.' He glanced at Mo as he said this.
Bolt looked at the card Andrea had given him and saw that Brandon was a local Hampstead firm.
'Well, we're going to need to get on to them straight away and see if they've got any other contact details for Mr Ridgers.'
He stood up and excused himself and Mo.
As soon as they were out in the hall, Bolt let out a deep breath. He turned to his colleague, hoping for some form of acknowledgement that he'd been right to follow up the lead.
'I still don't agree with how you went about it,' he said grudgingly.
'This is my daughter we're talking about,' Bolt hissed, leaning close to Mo. 'I had no choice. And now we're getting somewhere, aren't we? Because this is way too coincidental. Ridgers is involved. No question.'
'OK, but we still don't know where he is and we haven't got a lot of time to find him.'
Bolt nodded. 'But I was right to do what I did.'
He turned away before Mo could say anything else and dialled the number for Brandon Landscapes. The call went straight to message and he left one, asking Mike Brandon to get back to him urgently. Then he called Big Barry and gave him the news.
Barry seemed to forget his earlier irritation with Bolt, and praised him for his good work. 'We don't want to put out an alert in case any local copper tries to nick him before he's picked up the money. But it's good to be able to put a name to one of them, Mike. Well done.'
Matt Turner emerged from the study as Bolt came off the phone.
'Any chance of getting relieved here, boss?' he asked. 'I'm going stir crazy.'
'Don't worry,' Bolt told him wearily, 'this is all going to be over soon.'
He wasn't sure what else to say so he left Turner and Mo there and went and stood out in the garden. He had a strong need to get away from everyone. It was a beautiful early autumn afternoon, with only a few wispy strands of cloud and aircraft trails crossing an otherwise perfect azure sky, but he was unable to enjoy the solitude. Like Andrea, he couldn't stand the waiting. It gave him far too much time to think, and the fact that his hunch had paid off was proving to be a doubleedged sword. As Barry had said, it was good to be able to ID one of the kidnappers, but the fact remained that he'd also been accused of being a paedophile, and he was quite possibly holding Bolt's daughter. That thought made relaxation of any kind impossible.
He paced the garden for quite a while, then went back inside. He could hear Mo, Turner and Marie talking quietly in the study but couldn't make out what they were saying. Not wanting to interrupt them, he knocked on the living-room door and was unsurprised to see Andrea still in her seat, smoking.
'You know what?' she said through the smoke, without looking at him. 'The contents of that bag…' She motioned with a flick of her head towards the holdall on the floor. 'It's just a load of fucking paper, isn't it? I've spent my whole life trying to earn as much as I can of those little bits of paper, and all for what? A nice big house. A big car. A daughter I might never see again…'
'You can't think like that, Andrea. You've got to be positive.'
She managed a weak smile. 'We'll get through it. Won't we?'
'If we're strong, we'll get through it. And tonight we both need to be very strong, and very focused.'
She stubbed the cigarette out in the ashtray and stood up, taking a step towards him. 'Will you hold me?' she asked him. 'Just for a moment?'
She looked so vulnerable that Bolt knew there was no way he could resist, and he went to take her in his arms.
And then stopped, startled by a sound that inspired hope and fear in equal measure.
The ringing of the phone.
Emma's voice came over the line on loudspeaker. Like the previous day, it was a recording. Unlike the previous day, Bolt's relationship with her had changed, and he experienced a wrenching in his stomach as she spoke, her words nervous and halting.
'Hi Mum, it's me. I'm OK. It's Saturday. I've seen the paper.' A short pause. 'They say that they'll let me go tonight if you give them the money. But you can't involve the police. Please. Otherwise…' Another pause, longer this time.
They were in the study. All five of them. Turner, Marie, Mo, Bolt and Andrea. Turner clicked frantically on his laptop, trying to secure a trace. The others stood silent, waiting. Bolt couldn't look at Andrea, even though he knew she was looking at him. The receiver was shaking in her hand. He caught Mo's eyes and saw sympathy there. He didn't acknowledge it. Instead, he stared at a fixed point high on the ceiling, his jaw set hard.
There was a click at the other end of the phone, and then the familiar disguised voice came on the line.
'Do you have the money yet, Mrs Devern?'
'Yes.' Delivered firmly.
'Good. And have you spoken to the police?'
'No.' Delivered just as firmly.
'We have someone with your daughter. He has instructions to kill her at ten p.m. exactly if he hasn't heard from us, so I would advise you strongly to do the right thing this time.'
Bolt flinched at his words, and for a moment Andrea appeared unsteady on her feet; then she began to speak confidently into the phone.
'I told you, I haven't,' she said. 'I just want to get this thing over with.'
'Good. You have sat-nav in your car, don't you?'
'Yes.'
' Munroe Drive in N7 is a six-minute drive away from you in normal traffic. You've got four minutes to get there or the deal's off. Drive to the end and await my call.'
'But-'
The line went dead. Andrea let the receiver drop to the floor.
'Jesus, where are my keys? I've only got four minutes.'
'Don't panic, Andrea,' Bolt told her sharply. 'He's bluffing. Remember, he wants the money. Just stay calm and get to Munroe Drive as soon as you can.' He looked at Turner. 'Trace?'
' Mobile, north London. That's all I've got. If he's following the same MO as yesterday, he'll have switched the phone off by now.'
But Bolt was no longer listening. Pressing his mobile to his ear, he put a call in to Barry in the control room. 'It's on,' was all he said. Then, as he followed Andrea out of the room, he called the surveillance team leader outside.
'It's clear,' came the reply.
'We're on the move,' Bolt told him.
'Good luck.'
I'm going to need more than that, Bolt thought as he hung up. But for the first time in over twenty-four hours he felt better. He was taking charge of a well-rehearsed operation. The stakes were higher than he'd ever known, but at least it was now up to him.
'The mobile he called on was a different one from yesterday,' said Turner, coming out of the study, 'and it is already switched off. Somewhere in N17, not far from yesterday's.'
'Good work, Matt.'
'I want to come with you.'
Bolt looked at him.
'Please, boss. I don't want to stay here.'
There was no time to argue.
'All right, you can come with me and Mo. '
Bolt grabbed the holdall containing the money, and once Andrea had retrieved her keys from the kitchen, they left the house together. The money was heavy and he struggled to keep up with her as she ran down the street to her car. He pulled open the door and dropped it into the passenger seat as Andrea switched on the engine and hurriedly fed Munroe Drive N7 into her sat-nav. She looked terrified, but focused. He wished her luck but she didn't even glance his way. Instead she leaned over, shut his door and pulled away from the kerb.
One minute had passed.
'I'll drive,' Bolt announced, jumping in the Jag with Mo and Turner.
He shoved in his earpiece, switched on the loop mike he was wearing round his neck, and then they were away, doing a rapid three-point turn in the middle of the street. A middle-aged couple walking arm in arm stopped and watched them curiously. Lucky sods, Bolt thought. Not a care in the world.
There were five surveillance cars and two motorbikes involved in the convoy. As with all surveillance ops, they would switch position constantly so that no one vehicle stood out, just in case the kidnappers had decided to tail Andrea themselves. All communication would now be done by radio, using call signs, so that every person involved could hear what was being said and be able to act accordingly.
Bolt got into position behind a Toyota Auris with Tina Boyd and Kris Obanje inside.
'I think our targets are getting paranoid,' said Mo. ' Munroe Drive 's a dead end.'
'Shit. They're obviously checking for tails. We're going to have to be very, very careful here.'
He turned right out of Andrea's road, pulled over while another of the surveillance cars overtook him, then accelerated, his fingers drumming on the wheel as the tension coursed through him. He looked at his watch.
Two minutes.
They turned again, this time on to the Finchley Road, heading north in the direction of the North Circular. Traffic was steady rather than heavy and one of the surveillance bikes roared past them, disappearing into the distance and tucking in behind Andrea's Mercedes, which was fifty yards ahead and weaving in and out of the lanes, moving fast. The surveillance vehicles would be travelling both behind and in front of her, so she could be kept under the eyeball at all times, but her speed and the erratic nature of her driving were making it difficult for them.
Bolt leaned against the window looking skywards, hoping that Barry was being true to his word and keeping the helicopter back and out of sight. Even in a sprawling city like London, where helicopters are a common sight, it would stick out a mile to the kidnappers. But today the sky was clear.
Three minutes.
Up ahead, the lights went amber. Andrea accelerated through them, just as they went red, the surveillance bike going through just behind her. The two cars in front of Bolt stopped, giving him no choice but to do the same. He cursed, and his finger-tapping on the seat intensified as he counted the seconds in his head as Andrea's car disappeared from sight.
One, two, three… thirteen, fourteen, fifteen… twenty-two, twenty-three…
'Come on, come on,' he hissed.
As the lights turned green again, there was a crackle of static in Bolt's earpiece and a voice came on the line amid a lot of background noise.
'Bike two to all cars, target has just turned into Clearland Road, leading to Munroe Drive. Am taking the next road along, Boothby Avenue. Have lost eyeball.'
Tina's voice broke in. 'Car two to bike two, we're thirty seconds behind. Will turn into Clearland and take the eyeball.'
Four minutes.
Bolt accelerated, cutting inside to overtake the two cars in front before pulling back into the outside lane. He was making up ground fast but they were still way behind.
And then from inside their car they heard the sound of Andrea's mobile ringing, the mike on her blouse picking it up. They heard her say 'hello' and then the kidnapper's voice came on the line, faint but audible.
'Where are you?' he demanded, the voice warped by the suppressor.
'I'm just turning into Munroe Drive now.'
'Drive to the end. Stop outside number twenty on the left. There's a green Renault Scenic parked directly outside. In the driver's-side wheel arch, on top of the tyre, is a package. Pick it up and leave this phone in its place, making sure you switch it off. Then get back in your car and open the package. There'll be two items inside, one of which is another mobile phone. Turn it on, and you'll be called on it with further instructions. In the meantime, drive up to the North Circular and turn right, heading east.'
The line went dead.
'Christ, these guys aren't taking any chances, are they?' said Turner in the back.
Bolt shook his head angrily. 'The bastards know something. They must do.'
'How?' asked Mo. 'We've kept everything under wraps.'
'God knows. But they know. I'm sure of it.'
Tina's voice came over the airwaves, interrupting them. 'Car two to all cars. Target has stopped near bottom of Munroe Drive. She's picked up the package, and she's getting back in. She's turning round and coming back up Munroe Drive. Now turning left and heading back towards Finchley Road.'
'We'll take the eyeball,' said Bolt as he pulled over just before the entrance to Clearland Road, waiting for Andrea's Mercedes to emerge.
Seconds later, she pulled out of the junction, heading north, her driving even more erratic than it had been earlier.
'Car one to all cars,' announced Bolt, 'we're following the target north on Finchley Road, three cars back. She's driving fast. I can't get a good view, but it looks like she's on the phone. Her mike's not picking anything up so she can't be speaking.'
'Shit,' cursed Mo. 'What the hell's she doing?'
'Oh no,' said Bolt.
Barry's voice came over the radio, urgent. 'What's going on?'
'Target is opening the window and throwing something out.'
'That's her mike,' yelled Barry. 'And the tracker she's wearing.'
'She's just chucked something else out,' said Mo.
'I know!' Barry yelled. He sounded almost apoplectic now. 'It's the bloody trackers in the bag lining. How's she finding these things, and what on earth does she think she's doing?'
It was Bolt who answered the question. 'That package she just picked up. It doesn't just contain a phone, there's a bug finder in there as well. The bastards know we're on to them. That's what's happening.'
He couldn't believe it. The kidnappers had been tipped off. But by whom?
Andrea hit the North Circular at exactly 6.26 p.m. and proceeded east, driving fast. No longer able to hear what she was saying, the surveillance cars simply had to do their best to keep up, throwing all hopes of remaining inconspicuous out of the window. Not that that was such a priority now that it was obvious the kidnappers were assuming the police were involved.
In the control room, Big Barry Freud sounded as if he was fighting a losing battle to stay calm. As he sat grim-faced at the wheel of his car, conscious for the first time of the helicopter overhead, Bolt knew how he was feeling. This was no longer a surveillance job, it was a chase, and once again he cursed Andrea. He knew the kidnappers were telling her to get rid of anything which made it possible to trace the money, and knew too that they'd be lacing their instructions with murderous threats to ensure her obedience. Alone in the car with only her thoughts and fears for company, it would have been incredibly difficult for her to say no, but the fact remained, cold and hard, that her actions could also be costing her any chance of seeing Emma alive again. These guys were frighteningly ahead of the game. They were doing everything to make sure they got this money while at the same time minimizing their risk of getting caught. It would be a simple matter to put a knife through Emma's heart when they'd finished with her, just like they'd done to Andrea's cleaner. Bolt cursed himself, too, for going through with this charade. They should have gone the negotiation route from the start, laid their cards on the table, used trained people to get her back, instead of trying to come up with a sexy, headline-grabbing success story that was in danger of falling apart only minutes after it had started.
For twenty-four minutes Andrea drove along the North Circular. Traffic was busy but moving both ways, and though she continued to weave between lanes, there was never any danger that they were going to lose her. At 6.50, she turned on to the A10 going south, taking advantage of the lighter traffic to speed up.
'I can't understand why she's not trying to get rid of the trackers in the ransom money,' said Mo as they accelerated after her. 'They've obviously told her to remove anything that could trace them, and she seems to be cooperating.'
'Maybe she hasn't had a chance to look for them while she's driving,' answered Bolt.
'Or maybe she's only pretending to cooperate,' suggested Turner.
Bolt shook his head. 'No, she's definitely doing what they're telling her.' He took a deep breath. 'They're planning something,' he added quietly. 'God knows what. But they're planning something.'
Ten minutes later, Andrea turned again, this time into Lordship Lane, heading east into Tottenham. Then a strange thing happened. She slowed right down, managing barely fifteen miles per hour in the nearside lane. By this time Bolt and Mo were only twenty yards behind her.
'Car one to control,' said Bolt as he stared straight ahead.
Barry came back in the earpiece. 'Control receiving. What is it, car one?'
'Target driving very slowly. Now down to approximately fifteen miles an hour. Still looks to be on the phone. What do you want us to do? Over.'
'Stay behind her, car one. Just stay behind her. Important thing is not to lose her. Over.'
'Don't worry, there's no chance of that. We're more likely to crash into the back of her. Over.'
They were coming up to the junction with Tottenham High Road. Andrea slowed down still further and the lights went red.
Bolt stared out of the windscreen. To his right were Tina and Kris Obanje in the Toyota, while one of the motorbike outriders was flanking them. He couldn't see the helicopter any more but knew it wouldn't be far away. There was no way Andrea was going to get out of their sight, so he couldn't see how the kidnappers would be able to pull off getting hold of the money without being spotted. Yet these guys were pros. So far they hadn't made a single slip-up. They had something up their sleeves. He was sure of it.
The lights seemed to stay red for a long time. Bolt desperately wanted to get out of the car, walk up to Andrea's Mercedes and ask her what the hell she thought she was doing, but he knew it would do no good. If they aborted the ransom drop now, their hopes of getting Emma back alive would diminish still further. They simply had to follow her.
He tried to second-guess the kidnappers. Clearly they suspected something was up. They'd originally tried to get Andrea to outrun the police, but had now changed tack, getting her to slow right down. Why? They were waiting for something. But what?
And then it hit him. 'Shit.'
Mo turned to him. 'What?'
'Are Tottenham playing today?'
The lights ahead went green, and the cars started pulling away.
'I'm not sure. I haven't had the time to check. You don't think-'
'Christ, they are,' said Turner, leaning forward between the front seats. 'Five fifteen kick-off.'
Bolt smacked the steering wheel. 'So they'll be finishing up about now. I bet the final whistle's just gone. It makes perfect sense.'
Before he had a chance to say another word, Barry's voice came over the airwaves, his tone frantic, his words immediately confirming Bolt's suspicions.
'Control to all cars, we have a situation. Football fans beginning to exit White Hart Lane on to Tottenham High Road in large numbers due north of target. This could be possible location for ransom exchange.'
Bolt felt a shot of adrenalin go through him. Possible location? It was damn near inevitable.
'Give me current target location.'
'Car one to control, she's turning left into Tottenham High Road, and she's accelerating fast.'
'Keep her in sight!' Barry howled. 'All cars, keep her and the money in sight! Over.'
But Andrea wasn't stopping for anyone. She weaved between the two lanes, driving like crazy, even though the traffic was slowing in front of her as, up ahead, a wave of close to forty thousand white-shirted football fans poured on to the street.
Bolt cursed loudly as they tried to keep pace, squeezing between two cars in a manoeuvre that smacked both wing mirrors out of position, and accelerating through the gap. Andrea's initial burst of pace had put thirty yards between them. No more than a hundred and sixty yards in front of them mounted police were in the road, stopping the traffic as the road became a sea of white. Already fans were crowding the pavements, coming towards them on both sides of the road, their raucous shouts filling the air.
Andrea suddenly pulled up on the kerb and stopped. A second later she was out of the car, the phone no longer to her ear. She ran round to the passenger door, pulled out the holdall, heaved it over her shoulder and started walking as fast as she could manage under its weight.
Bolt's earpiece was suddenly filled with every surveillance car and bike trying to talk.
'Car three to all cars, she's on the move. What do you want us to do? Over.'
'Bike one to control, I'm ten yards behind her vehicle. I have the eyeball. Do you want me to intercept? Over.'
'Control to bike one, does she have the bag? Over.'
'Yes, she has it. Over.'
'Shit. The money trackers say the damn thing's still in the car. The stupid bitch has removed them too. Control to all vehicles, follow on foot. Now. Do not lose her. Or the bag. Go! Go! Go!'
Bolt, Mo and Turner were out of the car like a shot, leaving it in the middle of the road as they ran to where Andrea was already being swallowed up by the advancing crowd. Bike one was ahead of them, pulling off his helmet as he ran, but Bolt was faster, overtaking him and dodging through the fans, his gaze fixed firmly on the back of Andrea's head.
Only fifteen yards and closing.
The explosion came out of nowhere, followed by a flash of very bright light somewhere in the crowd up ahead. Bolt shut his eyes and covered his head instinctively, but the moment he opened them again there was a second blast, coming from roughly the same direction. Panicked shouts broke out and there was a sudden surge of people barging and shoving into him as they attempted to get away from the explosion's source. He was knocked backwards and had to fight to keep his balance as he struggled through them, looking round frantically for Andrea but unable to see her among the mass of humanity blocking his view.
And then he was choking and his eyes began to water. It felt like someone had squirted ammonia in his face before dumping a load more down his throat. Tear gas. The bastards had let off tear gas grenades. The panic suddenly grew vastly worse as people began to experience its noxious effects, most of them doubtless fearing that this was some kind of terrorist attack. Bolt was battered like a ship in a storm as he tried to hold his ground amid the choking stampede, eyes squinting against the pain, his shirt pulled up to cover the lower half of his face.
Then a large empty space opened up in front of him. A handful of members of the public were on the ground, one with a cut on his head. Right in the middle, barely ten yards away, was Andrea. She was kneeling on the pavement, hands clutching her face. There was no sign of the holdall. Sirens were starting up now, and mounted police were galloping towards the scene, but they were still too far away to be of any immediate help.
Eyes still streaming, Bolt tried to focus on the backs of the fleeing people, his eyes scanning wildly in all directions. He saw Mo and Turner only a few yards away, standing close together. Mo's face was in his hands, while Turner had a handkerchief to his and was also looking around desperately.
And then he caught a glimpse of the holdall, slung over the shoulder of a guy in a black baseball cap. He was rounding the corner into an adjacent street, moving fast as he was carried along by the fleeing crowd, already disappearing from sight.
Still choking, Bolt leaned into the mike and spoke rapidly. 'Suspect fleeing with bag into…' He looked for a street sign, couldn't see one. 'Into one of the streets off the high road, heading due west.'
'Control to all units,' shouted Barry through the earpiece. 'Do not lose that bag! We are trying to get CCTV up and running.'
'There he is,' spluttered Bolt, still swallowing acrid-tasting gas as he pointed.
Turner had already spotted him and was pushing through the crowds of supporters in his direction, followed by Kris Obanje and Tina Boyd. It was Turner who was moving the fastest, as if being cooped up in Andrea's place had given him a huge new reservoir of energy, as well as a point to prove. He wasn't the biggest or strongest of guys but he ploughed through the mob, shoving people aside as he ate up the distance between himself and the holdall.
'Mo,' yelled Bolt, 'stay with Andrea!'
Before his colleague could reply, Bolt was past him and joining the chase, his eyes beginning to sting less as the fresher air hit them.
It was fifteen seconds since the first explosion, and already the gas was dissipating, and its effects wearing off on those who'd been affected. Now most of the crowd were coming to a halt as their more voyeuristic tendencies took over, creating a dense wall which acted as a perfect cover for the fleeing suspect. 'Police! Out the way!' Bolt screamed as loudly as he could as he charged into them, no longer seeing the point in trying to keep a low profile. Being football fans, they weren't in a desperate hurry to be cooperative, but Bolt was a big man, and one who knew that if he lost the guy with the holdall then he'd almost certainly lose the daughter he'd never known, so today he wasn't stopping for anyone. If he'd had a gun, he would have waved it, even fired off a couple of shots in the air and risked the sack.
Still yelling, he pushed right through them, ignoring the outraged cries and the insults, catching up with Tina and Obanje and passing them. Turner was ten yards further ahead, at a point in the street where the crowd was beginning to thin. Ten more yards separated him from the man with the holdall. Turner was running, the suspect walking quickly. In a few seconds he'd be on him, and that would be it because Bolt and the rest of them were only seconds behind.
And then there was a blurred movement in the corner of Bolt's eye. It was so quick that it took him a second to register the man in black cap and sunglasses and brand-new Tottenham shirt as he ran headlong into Turner from the side. Bolt caught a glint of metal as the man's hand shot out once, making contact, and then he was dancing past him and running for the other side of the road, in the opposite direction to the man with the holdall. Turner stopped running and seemed to stumble, his hand reaching to where the man had hit him, and then he fell to one knee, while fans milled about him, wearing vaguely curious expressions.
Bolt stopped when he reached him, putting a hand on his shoulder. 'Matt, you all right?'
Through the earpiece, Barry demanded to know what was going on. It was only then that Bolt saw the growing bloodstain on his colleague's shirt.
'Shit!'
Turner looked up, his eyes wide and fearful, his expression almost childlike. 'I think I've been stabbed, boss,' was all he said, and then he put a hand out to steady himself and lay down on his side, almost as if he was about to go to sleep.
'Officer down!' yelled Bolt into the mike. 'Stabbed by second suspect. We need urgent medical help immediately.'
'What the hell happened?' yelled Barry in his ear, his tone close to full-blown panic as the full enormity of what was happening began to hit home. 'Control to all units, secure the scene. Secure the money. Armed back-up is arriving shortly.'
Bolt knew that the important thing was to stay calm and take the lead. In the ten seconds since Turner had got hit, the man with the bag had disappeared. They had to get him. Obanje and Tina had arrived now and Bolt yelled at Obanje to keep up the chase and Tina to stay with her injured colleague.
'What about the one who stabbed him?' she demanded.
'He's mine,' hissed Bolt, jumping to his feet.
The knifeman had run off down Tottenham High Road and he, too, had disappeared from view, but Bolt wasn't going to give up that easily. He didn't give a toss about the money, that was irrelevant, but this bastard, whoever he was, had seriously injured one of his men, as well as put Bolt himself through over a day's worth of personal hell. He hadn't got a good enough look at him to see whether or not it was Ridgers, but he didn't think it was. Guessing that he would keep the black cap on to avoid being ID'd by CCTV cameras, and knowing he wouldn't have got far, Bolt took off after him, ignoring the frantic chatter in the earpiece.
He almost hit a police horse and took no notice of the shouted command of its rider as he ran down the middle of the road between the lines of stationary cars, his eyes scanning the pavements and the legions of white-shirted fans. There was no black cap anywhere to be seen. Not on either side of the road. It was like looking for a needle in a haystack. Except for one thing. The herd mentality remained in full flow, which meant that almost everybody had turned in the direction of the mêlée behind, and some were actually moving towards it, their movement hesitant. One man, though, stood out, simply because he was walking purposefully away from the scene, his pace far too quick. He was keeping to the inside of the pavement, trying to remain out of view as he weaved between other fans. Bolt had hardly got a look at him earlier, but he was the right height and build, and he was thirty, maybe forty yards ahead.
It was him, Bolt was sure of it. He wiped his eyes, spat on the ground to get the taste of gas out of his mouth and kept running, going flat out in his desperation to get hold of him.
Thirty-five, thirty, twenty-five, twenty yards. His footfalls sounded artificially loud on the tarmac. Two uniformed cops in full riot gear stood in the road surveying the crowd uneasily, their batons drawn. One of them heard Bolt's rapid approach and, as if he was looking for someone to lash out at, lifted his baton menacingly and shouted at him to stop. Bolt didn't even slow down. He just pulled out his warrant card and yelled 'Police!' as loud as he could, and miraculously the cop simply got out of the way.
Unfortunately, the suspect also turned round. The expression on his face was one of pure shock, even behind the black shades, and in that single moment Bolt knew he was looking at the right man.
The suspect took off down the street, knocking over a middle-aged woman in his haste and stumbling before regaining his balance. Her husband shouted something and threw out a hand to grab him but he was nowhere near quick enough. This guy was speedy, and he had one hell of a lot of incentive to get away from his pursuers.
Bolt was less fit than he should have been. These days he only got to the gym once a week at best, and he was beginning to put on a few pounds round the middle. Today, though, he was powered by pure rage, and he kept pace with his target. He screamed at him to stop, loud enough so the whole street could hear it. People turned his way, then towards the fleeing suspect, who reacted by pulling out his knife and waving it wildly in front of him. It was an effective move. The crowds parted, no one wanting to tackle a knifeman.
Bolt sneaked a quick look over his shoulder. Two of the team, Dan Blakeley and Cliff Yakonos, were running along behind him, but were still a good twenty-five yards back, while the helicopter continued to hover impotently overhead. And Bolt was unarmed. If he caught up with the suspect, he'd be taking a huge risk. He thought about this information, accepted the risk, and kept running, ignoring the pain in his lungs and beginning to gain on his target half-yard by half-yard.
'Suspect two running south on Tottenham High Road,' he shouted into the mike. 'He's armed and dangerous. Request immediate back-up.'
'This is control. Back-up on way. ETA one minute.'
Without warning, a large man in his thirties, with a kid of about ten who must have been his son, jumped at the suspect as he ran past, trying to grab him in a bear hug. It was a brave move. Brave, public-spirited and totally rash. He got a grip, knocked the suspect against the window of a charity shop, but wasn't quick enough to neutralize the knife. The suspect reacted ruthlessly and instinctively, driving it directly into the man's upper body with a single bloody lunge, his face contorted with rage and desperation. The man went down like a falling tree, probably dead before he hit the ground. His kid cried out, 'Dad!' It was a terrified, shocked howl, a sound that would live with Bolt for a long time. It was a savage reminder that death can be so quick. One second you're a living, breathing, smiling human being out with your boy to see your team play football on a glorious evening, the next you're gone. For ever.
'Suspect two has stabbed member of public; urgent medical assistance required,' Bolt yelled into his mike, but it wasn't urgent. The guy was dead. Like Andrea's cleaner and Jimmy Galante. Maybe even Emma. Laid low by a killer without the slightest regard for human life.
A fury filled Bolt. It was stronger than any he'd felt in a long, long time, maybe ever, dwarfing the emotion that had soared through him as he kicked and beat Marcus Richardson, and it seemed to give him a blind, terrible energy.
The man's intervention might have cost him his life but it also cost the suspect five or six yards. He took off again as soon as he could, waving his bloody knife as he ran past the son he'd just deprived of a father, but he now had only a handful of yards on Bolt. A junction was coming up ahead, and when he reached it he turned hard right, his body almost jack-knifing in his bid to keep momentum. Bolt kept coming, not even thinking about hesitating as he too took the corner, even though he knew the suspect could use the blind spot as an ambush point. He was moving beyond logical risk assessment and into the realms of pure revenge. He was going to beat the information he needed out of this bastard, would kill him if he had to, but there was no way he was losing him. No way at all. It was an incredibly liberating thought.
When he rounded the bend, the suspect had gained a few yards and was racing across to the other side of the road through the blocked traffic. There were fewer people milling about on the pavements here, and no sign of any police either. But also less cover for his quarry, and Bolt knew that as long as he kept pace, feeding the suspect's position into the mike, then he wasn't going to get away.
After thirty more yards, the suspect looked round and saw Bolt still right behind him. He turned back and kept running, but Bolt was conscious of the knife in his hand. It was a stiletto, the blade probably eight inches long, still slick with the blood of two men. All Bolt had to fight with was the standard-issue police pepper spray. That and the pure rage that was driving him on. Neither of which was any guarantee of success. He knew that if he'd had a gun on him he'd have used it without a second's hesitation to bring the bastard down. He'd have put a bullet in his leg, and beaten the whereabouts of his daughter out of him while he lay helpless. Because the fact remained – indeed, it was branded right on the front of his brain in flaming white-hot letters – that if he lost this man, Emma was as good as dead.
The suspect turned a hard left. Bolt did the same, shouting the street name into the mike, but he wasn't looking where he was going properly and he slipped and lost his balance, jarring his knee as he hit the deck hard, and rolling on to his side. He ignored the pain, jumped up and kept running, cursing the fact that his clumsiness had lost him five yards and counting.
The street led up to the entrance to a high-rise council estate. It was a dead end for cars. Bolt cursed. He knew that if the suspect got inside the warren of alleys that these characterless sixties estates always featured it would mean he'd almost certainly slip through the net. Jesus, where the hell was the back-up? Even the helicopter was no longer overhead; doubtless it had been sent to chase the money. It disgusted him that the recovery of the half a million pounds was more important to his bosses, and their bosses, than capturing a brutal knife-wielding killer and possibly saving the life of a fourteen-year-old girl, but then in his heart he'd always known it would be. The whole British justice system was built on the protection of property above the protection of lives, which was why armed robbers were always put away for two, three, sometimes even five times as long as child molesters.
Bastards. In those taut, desperate seconds, Bolt was a man entirely on his own, out on a limb and having to do everything himself, knowing that failure was unthinkable.
The armed response vehicle seemed to materialize from nowhere. In fact it had come out of a side road up ahead, just in front of the entrance to the estate. It stopped dead, blocking the way, and the three officers were out in an instant, their MP5s pointed straight at the suspect, who was twenty yards from them.
'Armed police! Drop your weapon!'
Bolt reached into his pocket for the pepper spray, knowing that the suspect was going to turn and run back his way, away from the guns, meaning it would be up to him to make an arrest.
But the suspect didn't. He kept on going. Charging right at them, yelling something that sounded remarkably like a battle cry.
'Don't shoot him!' shouted Bolt. 'Take him alive! For Christ's sake, we need him!'
'Armed police! Drop your weapon now!'
'Don't shoot!'
The suspect was only ten yards away from them. Still running, he pulled back his arm and threw the knife. It hit one of the ARV officers in the arm above the elbow, slicing right through the bicep. The cop dropped his gun and grabbed uselessly at the knife's handle, which was jammed halfway into his arm, stumbling as he did so. For the suspect, it was a suicidal move. Bolt knew it, and knew too what it meant. He saw a dead girl; a funeral; a lifetime of wondering how he could have done things differently.
The bullets sounded like firecrackers in the empty street, their noise reverberating hollowly off the high walls of the surrounding buildings. Two two-round bursts. The suspect flew backwards, arms flailing as he spun round before crashing to the ground, his sunglasses flying off and clattering across the tarmac.
'Police!' screamed Bolt to identify himself, holding up his warrant card as he ran over to where the suspect lay. He knelt down, felt for a pulse, knew it was pointless. There was something there, but it was fading fast, and even as his fingers squeezed the wrist and he shouted at him not to die, his voice full of desperation, it disappeared altogether. He was gone. His eyes were closed, his mouth ever so slightly open, a single drop of blood forming in one corner. It wasn't Scott Ridgers, either. This guy was young – late twenties, maybe thirty – an ordinary, unblemished face, olive skin and thick black hair suggesting a background from somewhere in southern Europe. Bolt had never seen him before, knew nothing about him, would probably never know anything about him, other than the fact that his death might have ramifications for him that lasted for the rest of his days.
And as he knelt there, staring down at the dead man, unable to understand why the ARV cops couldn't have used a non-lethal option like a taser or a baton round to bring him down, his worst fears were confirmed as Barry's frantic voice came over the earpiece.
'Control to all units. What do you mean you've lost suspect one? Find him! I want the whole fucking area locked down! We have to get hold of that money! Over.'
They'd failed. And God alone knew what happened now.
'Why the hell did you remove all the tracking devices, Mrs Devern?' demanded Mo Khan, barely able to contain his anger. 'You must have known it was going to help them get away.'
Andrea, ashen-faced, shocked like all of them, glared at him. 'Because they knew about them, that's why!' she yelled, her voice close to breaking. 'They knew you were there. How the hell did that happen?'
The question hung in the air.
Twenty minutes had passed since the fatal shooting of suspect two. Two police helicopters continued to hover overhead, moving in lazy circles, hunting for a quarry who had long since disappeared, leaving a trail of chaos in his wake. The worst of the crowds were gone too, although there were still large groups of pedestrians hanging around to see the aftermath of the action, and because they were spilling out into the road they were causing serious traffic congestion. The operation to clear the area to allow police forensic teams and ambulances in was being further complicated by an apparently unrelated outbreak of fighting between rival fans further up on White Hart Lane. The competing blare of sirens filled the air as Mo, Bolt and Tina stood beside one of a line of police vehicles clustered round the corner from the street where the body of suspect two still lay where it had fallen. Andrea was in the back of one of the cars, sitting with her legs out, holding a plastic bottle of water.
The mood among everyone at the scene was one of complete shock. The operation had been a complete failure. Half a million pounds of taxpayers' money had walked away from right under their noses; worse than that, a member of the public had been killed, one of the team's own number seriously wounded, and the one suspect they had managed to apprehend had decided to go out in a blaze of glory rather than be taken alive. It couldn't really have gone any more wrong. The only positive was that, unlike the stabbed fan, Turner was still alive, although the seriousness of his condition wasn't yet known. He'd been airlifted to the Homerton Hospital in Hackney whose expertise in dealing with knife injuries, honed through years of practice, was legendary, so he was in the best possible hands. Even so, as they all knew, that might not be enough.
Bolt felt as if he'd done ten rounds boxing a man twice his size and speed whose speciality was headshots. He couldn't seem to think straight, was finding it hard to come to terms with the fact that he and his people were being outthought and outfought by the men who'd taken Emma. He knew he couldn't give up, but standing there among the wreckage of the op, he was getting perilously close.
'What happened, Andrea?' he asked. 'We lost communication with you after you stopped to pick up the package.'
'I got a call on the phone that was in it. It was Emma screaming.'
Bolt swallowed. Told himself to keep calm.
'Just this one terrified scream. Then it cut out and he came on the line. He said that this time Emma was screaming out of fear, but the next time it would be out of pain, unless I did exactly what I was told. Those were his exact words. He told me to use that thing to start removing all the bugs and trackers' – she pointed at the bugfinding device that was now in an evidence bag in Mo's hands – 'and I tried to tell him I didn't know what he was talking about, but he told me he knew I'd gone to the police, and if I tried to deny it then he'd… he'd make Emma scream again.' She stared at them each in turn. 'I had no choice. Don't you see that? I had no choice. I want my daughter back.'
'Well, you went about it the wrong way,' said Tina, her tone exasperated.
'What do you know? Have you got children?'
'No, but-'
'But nothing. You have no idea what you're talking about.'
Tina opened her mouth to reply but Bolt stepped in. This was getting them nowhere.
'OK, Andrea, so you followed their instructions.
You removed the tracking devices and threw them out of the car. But not the two that were attached to the money.'
'No, they told me to leave them in the car when I got out.'
It was a logical move from the kidnappers' point of view, lulling the team into a false sense of security by letting them think they'd still be able to follow the ransom. It also showed that at least one of those involved had fairly expert knowledge of tracking devices.
'What was the last instruction you received?'
'To get out of the car and start walking up the road. I was told I'd be met by someone. I started walking and the next thing I knew there were these loud bangs, everyone was running, there was that gas… I remember shutting my eyes, getting knocked about by all these people running, and then someone punched me in the side of the head and grabbed the bag.' She touched the left side of her face where she'd been struck. The area was red and beginning to swell.
'And did you get a look at your attacker at all, Mrs Devern?' asked Mo.
'No, I didn't see anything. It all happened so fast.'
She took a gulp from the water and hunted round for her cigarettes, but couldn't find them.
'Has anyone got a smoke?'
Tina reached into her jeans, pulled out a battered pack of Silk Cut and a cheap lighter, and lit two cigarettes, one for Andrea and one for her. Andrea gave her a curt nod of acknowledgement.
'So, the person on the phone made you remove all these devices,' said Tina, a hint of scepticism in her voice, 'which you did…'
'That's right.'
'And did he at any point tell you when you were going to see your daughter again?'
All three of them looked at Andrea.
'He said I'd be seeing her very soon. As soon as he'd verified that the money was all there.'
'When did he say that?'
'During the car journey. Twice. He said it twice.'
'How did he say he was going to make contact to tell you where to find her?'
'He didn't.'
'It seems like you were very trusting,' said Tina.
'You made it impossible for us to track either the suspects or the money, yet you were offered very little in return.'
'All right, Tina,' said Bolt, concerned about the aggressiveness of her questioning, 'there's no point going over all this now.'
Andrea shot Tina a look that was both angry and incredulous.
'What is it? Don't you believe me or something?'
'No,' Tina replied, 'it's just that I can't understand why you did it.'
'Look, don't blame me because someone leaked the fact that I'd brought the police in. This is your fault not mine.' She took an urgent drag on her cigarette and stood up. 'I'm going home.'
'I'm afraid that's not possible for the moment, Andrea,' Bolt informed her.
'Back off, Mike. They've still got my daughter. They could call. So, if you're not arresting me, I'm going, and I'm going to need a lift if you're holding on to my car.'
She pushed past them and started walking in the direction of Tottenham High Road.
'Wait here,' Bolt told the other two and hurried after her. 'Listen, Andrea,' he said when he was alongside her, 'you've got to let me know the second you hear from the kidnappers, OK?'
'What, so you can fuck it up again?' she snapped, without breaking pace. 'No way. I'll take my own chances from now on.'
Bolt grabbed her by the shoulder and swung her round so that she was facing him.
'That's not fair, Andrea, and you know it. I did everything I could.'
'Let go of my arm. You're hurting me.'
Bolt was conscious of several uniformed cops watching him. He ignored them. 'Please,' he said, 'tell me when they call.'
'Mike, what the hell's going on?'
Bolt looked round into the eyes of Stephen Evans, the former head of the NCS, now the assistant head of SOCA, who was flanked by several other equally grim-faced men in suits. Bolt let go of Andrea's arm and she walked away rapidly, passing Evans and his colleagues before they had a chance to say anything. Evans whispered something to the men with him and they went after Andrea while he approached Bolt.
Bolt knew Evans from the past. A short, compactly built man in his late forties with a neatly clipped moustache and a military bearing courtesy of an earlier career in the army, he'd helped him once before when he'd found himself in trouble, and had a well-deserved reputation for looking after the interests of the men and women in his charge. But this time it was different, and Bolt knew it.
'Hello, sir,' he said with a sigh. 'Long time no see.'
Evans stopped in front of him. 'Yes, it is. And I'm sorry we've got to meet again under these kinds of circumstances.'
Bolt nodded grimly. 'I know.'
'I'm afraid I'm taking over the running of this op from SG2 Freud. Because of the way it's gone, he's been suspended pending an investigation. The same goes for you, Mike. As the team leader of the central team on this, I can't afford to keep you on.'
Bolt took a step back as he absorbed the hit.
'Don't do this, sir. I've got a good lead. There's a guy called Scott Ridgers with a long criminal record who's been doing gardening work for Andrea – Mrs Devern – until very recently. He was part of a gang of robbers she informed on fifteen years back. I think he might be our suspect one.'
'I know all that, Mike,' said Evans coldly. 'We've already got surveillance in place outside his flat in Finsbury Park.'
'But he's not there, is he? And the guy's a paedophile-'
'We're dealing with it.'
'Listen, sir, please-'
'No,' Evans said with a brutal finality. 'You're off the case, Mike, suspended until further notice. The IPCC will be getting in touch with you for a witness statement, so don't go disappearing on holiday. I'm sorry, but that's the way it's going to have to be.'
Bolt knew there was no point arguing. The decision had been made. He watched as Evans walked past him and over to Mo and Tina. He caught their eyes but said nothing. Instead, he simply turned away. He was no longer wanted or needed here.
Emma scratched away at the brickwork with the nail. It was so worn down now that it stuck out barely half an inch from between her thumb and forefinger, the end blunt and splayed. Progress was desperately slow. She was on her hands and knees, the bed pushed out from the wall to give her room, but her back still ached from where she'd been bent over for what felt like hours, and her fingers were almost numb with the pain and stiffness. But she refused to stop because she knew that her life might depend on success. Even more so now, after what had happened earlier.
A couple of hours or so after she'd recorded the message to her mum, telling her it was Saturday and that she was coming home soon, there'd come the familiar sound of the cellar door being unlocked, and she'd wondered if it was the smelly one coming down to collect the plate she'd used for breakfast. She'd had to push the bed as hurriedly and as quietly as possible back against the wall, and slip on her hood.
But his footsteps hadn't come. There'd simply been a cold, dead silence, and she'd known without a shadow of a doubt that it was the cruel one who'd come to visit, the one whose footsteps she could never hear.
An icy sensation had crept slowly up her spine as she sensed his presence in the room with her. Watching. Could he have spotted what she'd been doing to the wall? Had he heard her move the bed? Was this the end? Right now?
'Die, bitch!'
The voice was mocking and close.
She'd felt a sudden rush of air, and his hand had grabbed her shoulder in a tight, vicious grip. She'd screamed, instinctively – a terrified wail – and he'd laughed.
And that had been it. He released his grip, and she thought she heard something click, like a tape recorder. His parting words were delivered in a quiet sing-song voice, just before the cellar door shut again: 'Back later, bitch, back later.'
Ever since then she'd been working frantically, stopping every so often to yank at the chain, ignoring the frustration when still it seemed no looser. The sheer terror she was feeling kept her going, but it was also tiring her out. She wanted to sleep desperately, to lie down and shut her eyes. Forget this awful nightmare. But she refused to stop, knew that if she did she'd probably never start up again.
And then finally she got her break. For the first time, the brickwork really started crumbling. Full of hope, she scratched away even harder, and a load more brick dust poured down so that two of the screws holding the plate in place were almost completely revealed. She grabbed the chain and pulled furiously. Something gave, and one of the screws came out completely. She kept at it, but she simply didn't have the strength to tear it free.
But she was nearly there. A quick rest, and she'd carry on.
She lay back on the bed, her eyes shutting almost immediately. She was so tired, so weak. She felt herself dozing, drifting away… tried to come back, but never quite made it…
Bolt was sitting in heavy traffic on Tottenham High Road, only a few hundred metres away from where it had all gone so badly wrong. Darkness had fallen, and the sound of the sirens was becoming more sporadic. The helicopters still flew overhead, but their constant circling felt pointless and redundant. Not for the first time in his life he was left on the outside, no longer wanted on an investigation he'd helped to get started.
He didn't want to go home, not with Emma still out there somewhere. The two mobile phone calls the kidnappers had made to Andrea's landline had come from round these streets, and he doubted that the guy with the money had gone far. Much easier to disappear into a nearby house, away from the helicopters, the pursuing cops and the prying eyes of the CCTV. It would take some nerve to organize the ransom drop so near to where they were holding Emma, but nerve had never been in short supply with these people. He was sure that suspect number one was Scott Ridgers, and if necessary he'd drive round and round hoping that at some point Ridgers emerged from his hideout. It was the longest of long shots but it had to be better than doing nothing.
The traffic was moving at a snail's pace, and the worn-out buildings around him – cheap takeaways, charity shops, a few boarded-up wrecks – felt foreboding and claustrophobic. It was on nights like this that he hated London with its noise, its litter and its gridlock, and he felt an almost physical yearning for space. He remembered back to the day he'd bumped into Andrea on the Strand, and how it had been the start of their affair. What if he hadn't been there? What if he'd been doing something different, and their paths had never crossed that second time? How much happier a man would he be now.
Which was when that old nagging thought struck him. What if their meeting hadn't been spontaneous? What if it had all been a set-up? Perhaps Andrea's lover, Jimmy Galante, had wanted inside information on the Flying Squad and had encouraged her to take up with Bolt in order to get it. He thought back, trying to remember if she'd ever pumped him for information, but nothing came to mind. But then, of course, she might not have been doing it on behalf of Galante. She might have taken up with Bolt of her own accord, using him to bring Galante down, either because she was genuinely desperate to leave him and could think of no other way of doing it, or… or what?
God knows. He sighed, wiping sweat from his brow and turning the air con higher.
The sound of his mobile ringing jolted him from his thoughts. He looked at the screen but didn't recognize the number. He flicked it on to hands-free and took the call.
'Mr Bolt?'
Bolt recognized the slightly officious tones of Lisa Bouchera's father and tensed a little.
'Mr Bouchera, how can I help you?'
'He's called my daughter.'
Bolt felt a sudden flash of excitement. 'When?'
'Just now. I was outside in the garden but when I came back inside she was crying. She told him she didn't want to see him any more and he started calling her all these filthy names.'
'I'm very sorry to hear that,' Bolt told him. 'We can make sure he doesn't call her again. Have you got access to your daughter's phone?'
'I can get it. Hold on.'
A few seconds later he was back on the line. Bolt asked him to go into the Calls Received screen.
'OK, let's have a look.' There was a pause. 'All right, I'm in.'
His hands shaking, Bolt pulled out his notebook and pen.
'Read me out the top number.'
The moment of truth.
Bouchera reeled off a mobile number and Bolt wrote it down. By using a mobile to make the call to his girlfriend, Scott Ridgers had effectively given out his location, and, Bolt hoped, Emma's location as well. The excitement he was feeling was so powerful it actually made him nauseous for a few seconds.
'And he was the last person who called her?'
'Yes. It was just now.'
Bolt looked at his watch. Five to eight. Just under an hour since the money had disappeared.
'Thank you, sir,' he said, 'you've been a great help.'
'And you. Let me know when you've got the bastard in custody.'
'Course I will,' Bolt said, ending the call.
He took a deep breath, brutally aware that he was suspended and that unless he played things right this lead counted for nothing. He had to do something, and fast. Mo or Tina – who did he call? Who did he trust?
Mo was the colleague he'd always trusted the most, but things had changed between them these past twenty-four hours, possibly irreversibly. Tina, meanwhile, was the person on the team with the best access to the phone companies, and he remembered the look she'd given him in the meeting that morning. Was it empathy? Some kind of understanding? He was stepping over a line by contacting her, he knew that. Asking her to put her own job in jeopardy as a favour to him. And she was such an enigmatic person, so difficult to read, that he had no idea whether she'd help him or not.
There was only one way to find out. He dialled her number, willing her to answer, concentrating so much on this latest development that he didn't even notice that the traffic ahead of him was moving until he heard the horns blaring. As he touched the accelerator and moved forward, her voice came on the line. Clear and businesslike as always.
'Tina Boyd.'
'Tina, it's Mike.'
He heard her sharp intake of breath.
'I didn't expect to hear from you. There's no more news. Matt's in surgery at the moment.'
His thoughts returned to Turner. Poor sod. If only he'd stayed behind at Andrea's house.
'Listen, sir, we're snowed under here. I'm going to have to go.'
'I need a favour.'
'But you're suspended.'
'I know that, but this is urgent, and it's to do with the case. I've got a mobile number for Scott Ridgers – that suspect I was talking to you about earlier who turned out to be one of Andrea's gardeners. He's just used it, literally minutes ago, to make a call. If we can get a trace on that number, it'll lead us straight to him.'
'How did you find this out?'
Bolt explained as briefly as he could.
'I can speak to Steve Evans, but I'm not sure he'll be able, or willing, to authorize it.'
'No, don't speak to him. I can tell you now, he won't authorize it. Just do it. Please.'
'I can't, sir. You're suspended. It could cost me my job.' She sighed. 'I'm sorry.'
'She's my daughter, Tina.'
'What?'
'Emma Devern. She's my daughter. Check with Mo if you don't believe me. It's why I've been so highly strung since this all began.'
'God, I… I don't know what to say.'
'Don't say anything. Just help me, please. If we don't act fast, Emma could die.'
'I can't believe you're putting me in this position, Mike.'
'Do you think I want to? Look, there's no way on God's earth I would ask you to do this unless I absolutely had to.' He could hear the desperation in his voice, hated it.
Tina was silent for two, maybe three seconds.
'OK, let me have the number.'
He reeled it off for her.
'I'll do what I can, but it might take some time.'
'This is my daughter. There is no time.'
'If you're lying to me,' she said evenly, 'I'll kill you.'
Emma awoke with a start, sitting bolt upright. It was dark in the room, and her mouth felt bone dry. She wondered how long she'd been out. Without a watch it was difficult to tell, but it was a while. Half an hour, something like that. She rubbed her eyes, swung her legs off the bed and remembered that she'd been very close to getting the chain free from the wall.
And then she heard a loud bang. It was the sound of the front door shutting.
They were back.
She grabbed the chain with both hands, closed her eyes and pulled as hard as she could. There was a crack – something giving – and more dust showered on to the stone floor. She could hear footfalls on the floor above, but no voices.
Clenching her teeth, ignoring the nauseous feeling flowing through her, she kept pulling, leaning back so her whole body was behind it, knowing this could well be her last chance.
Another crack.
Movement near the cellar door – a shuffling of feet.
They're coming.
She was out of time.
And then suddenly she was falling back off the bed, landing painfully on the floor with the chain uncoiling on top of her.
She'd done it. The metal plate had come free.
Bolt was driving aimlessly down yet another grimy terraced back street when the call came. The clock on his dashboard said 8.07. Only nine minutes since he'd got off the phone to Tina.
So much of a person's life seemed to him to boil down to those single, long, terrifying moments of anticipation when you're given the hugely important news you've been waiting for: the results of medical tests; exam results; a jury's verdict; the location of the man who's holding your daughter.
'Tina,' he said, his voice hoarse, 'what have you got?'
'The phone's still on. The location's been triangulated to an area around a farm called Woodlands in Crews Hill.'
'Where the hell's that?'
'Just north of Enfield, south of the M25.'
She gave him the address and he fed it into the car's sat-nav system. The distance was just over six miles from where he was now. He swung the car round in a rapid three-point turn so that he was heading back towards the main road.
'Thanks, Tina.'
'What are you going to do?'
'I'm going to go and check it out. If it looks like it's a lead, I'll call in straight away.'
'This could put me in huge amounts of trouble, Mike. They're going to know the info's come from me, and you know as well as I do that it's totally illegal to get an unauthorized triangulation.'
'If it comes to nothing, there's no way it'll ever get back to you. You've got my word on that. And if it does lead somewhere, I'll come up with a reason why I found out about Ridgers' location without mentioning your name. I really appreciate this, Tina.'
'I talked to Mo. Christ, I can't believe she could be your daughter.'
There was a silence then, because Bolt didn't really know what to say. Tina ended it by wishing him good luck.
'Call us as soon as you've checked it out,' she added.
'Sure.'
He cut the connection, and accelerated on to the main road, ignoring the blast of the horn from the driver he'd just cut up. All that mattered to him was getting to Scott Ridgers.
Six miles and counting.
Emma put the bed back in its original position so that it covered the hole in the wall and the brickdust on the floor, and waited in silence with the hood in her hands. Her elbow ached where she'd smacked it on the floor, and she felt sick and thirsty.
The movement upstairs had stopped a few minutes ago, and now she couldn't hear anything. She wondered what to do. The problem was, she might be mobile, but the fact remained that she was still handcuffed and locked in here, and the chain was still attached to her ankle, which was definitely going to slow her down if she did make a run for it. And the silence scared her, because silence was what she associated with the cruel one.
Back later, bitch.
Maybe he was sharpening his knife right now?
But she couldn't just sit there waiting for him to come and kill her. Otherwise all her efforts would be in vain. No, she had to do something. A plan formed in her mind. She'd hide at the top of the steps behind the door, and when he came inside she'd push him down them before he had a chance to spot her. Then she'd make a break for it. It was pretty lame as plans went, but it was the best she could think up at the moment.
She lifted up the ankle chain and started to get up from the bed. And then stopped as the key turned in the lock and the door opened.
She was too late.
Hurriedly, she got back on the bed and let the chain slip to the floor. Her hands were shaking and she felt fear running up her spine. Was this it? The last seconds of her life, in a dingy, cold basement miles from home?
Silence.
She made no move to put on the hood as she stared towards the staircase.
The light came on, and she squinted against its brightness.
'Emma,' came a voice from the top of the steps, 'it's me.'
She felt a surge of excitement. It was the smelly one. She was going to be OK.
'Hi,' she said quietly. 'I'm here.'
'Put your hood on, honey. OK? It's almost time to go home.'
She did as she was told, hardly able to believe her luck.
'Am I honestly going home?'
'That's right,' he answered in that wheezy voice of his. 'It's over. Your mum paid the money so you don't have to stay here any more.'
She heard him come close. Smelled him, too, the BO so strong now it made her gag beneath the hood. He put something down on the floor by the bed and she thought she heard water sloshing.
'Am I going to go now?'
'Very soon. We'll just get you ready. Then there'll be a little journey, and that'll be it. Back home to your mum. First I'm going to give you a little wash, though. So you're all nice and clean.'
She felt a wet sponge on her left arm. It made her feel cold and itchy. He ran it slowly up and down before starting on the other one.
'Bet that feels good, doesn't it?'
'You don't need to do this. I can wait until I'm home.'
'I want to do it.'
He moved her arms to one side and lifted up her T-shirt, rubbing the sponge on her tummy in small circles. Water dripped down towards the top of her skirt, and she heard him swallow. It was a really horrible sound, like something a frog would make.
'What are you doing?' she whispered.
'Just washing you, darling,' he replied, lifting her T-shirt higher. Swallowing a second time.
That was when she realized with a sickening feeling that the nightmare hadn't ended after all.
The driveway that led down to Woodlands Farm was situated on a quiet wooded road half a mile south of the M25, a simple wooden sign attached to a beech tree announcing its presence. There were no other houses in the immediate vicinity, making Bolt think that it would be an ideal place to hold someone without arousing suspicion.
The tension coursed through him. Scott Ridgers had motive; he'd worked at Andrea's place and then disappeared at the same time that Emma had gone missing. And as a fully fledged city boy, why else would he be out here in the back of beyond?
Not wishing to announce his presence, Bolt drove thirty yards further along the road before pulling up on the verge and manoeuvring his car as far into the trees as it would go. He killed the lights and got out. Through the darkness created by the thick concentration of trees, he thought he could just make out lights, but it was difficult to tell. According to the sat-nav, Woodlands Farm was set back at least a hundred yards from the road.
Knowing how short time was, he moved swiftly, making for the driveway. His plan was to approach from the front as quietly as possible and recce the place. If there was no sign of Ridgers, he'd break in. He'd taken the law into his own hands enough times today to worry about doing it again, and it was possible that his actions had already cost him his job.
The advantage, however, was that he now had nothing to lose.
Forty-nine
Emma knew what was coming. The dirty, stinking pervert wanted to have sex with her. Was going to have sex with her if she didn't do something about it.
A gloved hand touched her knee, and she gagged beneath the hood.
She had an idea. It was her only chance.
'Can you undo the handcuffs?' she asked, trying to make her voice sound as if she might be interested in what he was about to do to her. 'Then maybe we can…' She let the words trail off.
'You're not teasing me, are you?' he said, seriously. 'I don't like girls who tease me. I've had too much of that recently.'
'No, course not. I've done it before, you know.'
He chuckled. 'Ooh, you are a naughty girl, aren't you? I think maybe we can make things a bit more comfortable for you.'
He stopped sponging her and she heard him fiddling around for the key. She tensed as he found it and unlocked the cuffs, slipping them off. She heard him stand up, then the sound of a zipper being pulled.
Now! Now! Now! a voice in her head screamed.
She pulled off the hood and jumped up from the bed in one movement, kneeing him in the groin as hard as she could. He gasped in pain and staggered backwards, clutching himself with both hands.
For the first time, she got a look at him. He was dressed in jeans and a dirty white T-shirt, and his face was covered by a balaclava. Tattoos adorned his arms.
Picking up the chain, she ran past him, dodging beneath a flailing arm as he tried to grab her.
'You little cow!' he bellowed, lurching after her, still holding on to his balls.
She took the steps two at a time, the chain still in her hand. Her limbs felt stiff and painful from the sudden burst of exercise, but adrenalin drove her on because she knew that if he caught her, this time he'd kill her for sure. He hadn't locked the door from the inside, and she yanked it open and ran out, slamming it behind her.
She was in a hallway. A door ahead led through to a living room, one to the right looked like it led outside. She turned hard right, ran across the hall and grabbed the handle. It turned, but the door didn't open. Panic flooded through her.
Behind her, the cellar door flew open and banged hard against the wall as he came stumbling out after her.
There was a second handle. Tucking the chain beneath her arm, she turned the two of them simultaneously, and this time the door opened.
A gloved hand snatched at her collar, but she kept going, hearing it rip as he lost his grip, and then she was out into the night, breathing in fresh air for the first time in days. There was a gate and fence ahead, beyond them trees. The gate was shut. She knew he'd catch her if she ran towards it, so she darted left, running along the front of the house, past an outbuilding, making for a field with long grass up ahead.
She could hear his footsteps on the gravel behind her, and the sound of his heavy breathing. He was only feet away now. Pure fear drove her on, the sure knowledge of what he'd do if he caught her making her legs pump far faster than she'd ever thought they were capable of. She'd never been much of a runner, and at school she'd hated athletics, even though her Games teacher, Miss Floyd, always said that she had the perfect build for it, being slim and small-chested. And now, finally, when it really mattered, she was proving Miss Floyd right.
His breathing got fainter as she began to open up some distance between them. She was running into the long grass now, and she felt a surge of elation which lasted no more than a second. As she pumped her arms to speed herself up, the movement tightened the chain and caused her to trip up and lose her footing. She fell forwards, the uneven, stony ground charging up to meet her, and her hands hit it palms first.
Desperately she scrambled to her feet, but it was too late. With a roar of triumph, he came down hard on her back, knocking the wind out of her in an agonizing rush.
'Oh God!'
'He can't help you now, you little tease!'
He laughed as he sat astride her and twisted her round roughly so that she was facing him, his knees digging into her upper arms. She stared into his balaclava-clad face, saw dark eyes glinting excitedly through the slits, and felt terror surge through her as his gloved hands fiddled impatiently with the zipper on his jeans, pulling them open.
He grabbed her wrist and thrust her hand towards his groin, pulling her upright as he did so. 'Feel me,' he hissed, and she cried out as the hand made contact. But he'd moved as well and his knee was no longer pinning her free arm. Taking her chance, with the free hand she scrabbled around in the grass until she found a sharp piece of flint half the size of her palm. It wasn't much of a weapon, but it was all she had. Operating entirely on instinct now, she drove it into the side of his head and dragged the sharp edge down the side of his balaclava.
He yelped in pain and smacked her hand away, letting go of the other one at the same time, but Emma pressed her advantage, ramming the flint into the top of his thigh, only centimetres from his balls. Cursing, he jumped off her, keen to get out of the way before she did any more damage, and she saw her opportunity. Scrambling to her feet, she took off again, the chain trailing loosely behind her as she made for the tree line, not daring to look back.
She hit the trees at a sprint, branches crunching underfoot as she was swallowed up by the darkness, tearing through brambles, ignoring the pain as they scratched and clawed her, just wanting to keep running, to get as far away from him as possible. Faster and faster, almost blind now in her desire to keep going.
She fell headfirst, landing on a bed of leaves. She could still hear him but it sounded as if he was some distance away. He hadn't seen or heard her fall, she was sure of that. Part of her wanted to jump back up and keep going, but a bigger part told her that it was best to stay put, hidden. Slowly, very slowly, trying to control her breathing, she inched forward on her stomach, pushing herself under a thick holly bush until she'd got her whole body underneath it, the jagged leaves scraping against her head and back.
She could feel his heavy footfalls getting closer. Step by slow step. She'd never been so scared in her whole life and it took all her willpower just to stop herself from crying out. She squeezed her eyes shut and bit her lip.
'You've cut me, you little cow,' he hissed, his voice carrying through the darkness. 'And after all I've done for you as well. I kept you alive, and you do this.'
Another footstep. Almost next to her now. She forced her eyes open, and had to stifle a scream. He was right by the holly bush, his black Caterpillar boot only feet away from her face, a hulking black shadow blocking out the moonlight as he sniffed the air like some kind of predator.
She stayed utterly still, frozen to the spot, not even daring to breathe. Waiting. Hoping. Praying that he wouldn't discover her.
Please. I just want to go home. See my mum. End this nightmare.
He seemed to stand there for ever, and she felt her lungs tightening, crying out for air.
Move. Move, please. I can't hold it in much longer.
And then suddenly he did, the footfalls starting again as he skirted the holly bush and began to move away.
She shut her eyes and thanked God, exhaling as silently as she could and slowly taking in much needed air. Kept listening, telling herself that she only had to lie there another few minutes and everything would be all right. He'd give up his search, and she'd make a run for the nearest road. Get help. Go home.
She never heard the movement behind her, just caught a reek of stale sweat. And then the chain that was attached to her ankle was suddenly round her neck, choking her, and a triumphant voice was whispering in her ear, 'Found you.'
Bolt walked slowly down the track as it ran in a curve through the woodland and then straightened as the tree line ended and an old two-storey cottage in need of a lick of paint appeared in front of him, nestled between two ramshackle outbuildings. There were lights on downstairs and the double-gates that led to the front of the house were wide open. A dark-coloured Range Rover was parked in the driveway.
He moved off the driveway and on to the long grass lining it so that his movements didn't trigger any lights, and approached the gates quietly using the darkness as cover.
But as he reached them he heard the sound of footsteps on gravel coming from somewhere up ahead. His view of whoever it was was blocked by the Range Rover as he crouched down behind the fence so that he couldn't be seen.
Then he heard it. A strangled sob, definitely female. He felt a ferocious jolt of emotion that almost knocked him off his feet as he realized that it was almost certainly coming from Emma.
This was confirmed in the next few seconds when she came into view, barely a silhouette in the gloom and smaller than he'd imagined, staring straight ahead. But it was definitely Emma, just as Bolt knew that the man dragging her by the length of chain round her neck was Scott Ridgers. He might have been wearing a balaclava, but that didn't matter. It was him.
Bastard.
Ridgers had a small-bladed knife in his free hand which he kept close to Emma's side to ensure she didn't struggle. Even in the darkness, Bolt could see the terrified expression on her face, and he felt the rage build within him. But there were at least twenty yards between them, which would give Ridgers far too much time to react if Bolt charged him. He was going to have to be patient, look for an opportunity.
Then Ridgers said something to Emma that chilled Bolt's blood: 'We're going to have some fun now, baby.'
Emma managed a strangled sob, and Bolt had to shut his eyes and hold on to the fence for support.
When he opened them again, they'd reached the front door. He watched as Ridgers pushed it open and shoved Emma inside, following her in without looking round.
And chuckling. The bastard was actually chuckling.
He also made the biggest mistake of his life. He didn't shut the door behind him.
Bolt took a deep breath. Moving as quietly and swiftly as he could, he followed them into the house.
The chain round her neck was choking Emma so badly she could hardly breathe as he dragged her through the hallway. The cellar door was still open and he pushed her towards it.
Oh God, she couldn't go back in there again, not having come so close to freedom. And she knew that if she went back in, this time she definitely wouldn't be coming back out. Not alive, anyway. She went limp in his arms, and he cursed.
'Come on, move it,' he snapped, angry now, pressing the blade of a penknife he'd produced earlier against her ribs.
She stayed limp, and started to make horrible choking sounds, as if she was dying.
'If you're fooling me about…'
He let her drop to her knees and loosened the chain a little.
'Water,' she gasped.
'All right,' he said, hauling her to her feet and manhandling her through the hallway in the direction of the kitchen. 'You can have some water. Then we'll have some-'
He suddenly stopped as they reached the kitchen door and he switched on the light. She felt him go tense.
'Where is it? Where the fuck is it?'
He shoved her roughly inside, letting go of the chain and sending her sprawling to the floor.
'The bag!' he yelled, his voice filling the room. 'The bag with the fucking money! It was on here!' He pointed a gloved hand at the empty kitchen table. 'Where the hell is it?' He paced about inside the room, rubbing a hand over his face beneath the balaclava, his eyes wide and angry. 'I can't believe this. Someone's taken it. Someone's taken my money.' He stopped and slammed his hand down on the table, hitting it so hard the legs wobbled. 'My fucking money!' he roared at the ceiling.
Emma cowered, terrified, pushing herself into the corner of the room, away from his rage and frustration.
'I'm going to find whoever's done this,' he muttered. 'I'm going to find him now. And when I get hold of him…' He shoved the penknife he was holding back into the pocket of his jeans, then yanked open one of the drawers, took out a huge kitchen knife and ran a finger along the blade. 'When I get hold of him, I'm going to fillet the bastard.'
He turned and pointed the knife at Emma. The blade shone in the glare of the overhead lights.
'Stay there, all right? Don't you dare move an inch if you ever want to see your mum again. OK?'
She nodded, trying not to sob. 'OK.'
He swung round and stormed out of the door, knife in hand.
And immediately cried out in surprise.
The next second he was flying back through the door with another man hanging on to him and shouting something that filled her with sudden and delirious relief: 'Armed police! Drop your weapon!'
But that was the problem. Bolt wasn't armed when he charged Scott Ridgers. He wasn't even carrying standard-issue pepper spray, which had been taken off him earlier. He had nothing but surprise. He grabbed Ridgers' wrists and twisted them away from his body, paying particular attention to the hand holding the kitchen knife, and trying to butt him as he'd done Marcus Richardson earlier that day. But the blow he caught Ridgers with as they both crashed into the kitchen barely glanced the other man, who had the good sense to move his head, and as they hit the kitchen table, disaster struck. Bolt lost his footing and slipped, sliding along the tiled floor on one knee, desperately trying to keep hold of his foe, even though his head was now only level with the other man's groin.
Ridgers was fast, and he took advantage of Bolt's plight to tug his wrists free and slam a knee into his face. A piercing, hot pain shot through Bolt's nose and he wobbled in his kneeling position, unable to react as Ridgers then lifted a leg and delivered an accurate kung-fu kick to the side of his head. This time he fell backwards, landing against something white and hard. His head throbbed savagely where Ridgers' boot had connected and he could feel the blood pouring out of his nostrils and on to his lips. He tried to focus through the pain, saw the huge knife in Ridgers' hand, and knew that he was helpless.
Jesus. After all this, he'd failed.
Then he saw Emma crouching in the corner of the room, her eyes wide with shock.
'Run, Emma!' he shouted. 'Run!'
Ridgers took a step forward, pointing the knife down at Bolt, ignoring Emma now. 'Where's my money?' he roared. 'Where's my fucking money?'
Bolt rolled on to his side, thinking fast, assessing his options… knowing full well that he didn't have any. Emma leapt to her feet, but instead of running for the door, she ran at Ridgers and sank her teeth into his knife arm, just above the elbow. He cried out but didn't relinquish his grip on the knife. Instead, he grabbed her by the hair and yanked her off in one movement, the force of his attack sending her crashing into one of the worktops.
Adrenalin born of pure rage shot through Bolt, briefly substituting the pain and dizziness. He started to get up.
But it was too late. Ridgers was bearing down on him, and there was murder in his eyes as he brought back his knife arm to deliver a blow that Bolt knew would not only end his life, but would mean the end of Emma's too.
And then there was a loud crack, followed a second later by the sound of breaking glass, and suddenly Scott Ridgers pitched forward as his legs went from under him. His head smacked hard against the fridge and he collapsed to the floor, landing on his side on Bolt's legs. A thin stream of blood poured from the smoking hole where his right eye had been.
Emma screamed as he convulsed in his death throes.
'Stay down!' Bolt yelled at her, kicking Ridgers' body off him.
Four more shots exploded through the night air in rapid succession, showering the table and floor with shards of glass. Emma screamed again, and Bolt crawled over to her, moving as fast as he could and ignoring the glass beneath him. Grabbing her in his arms, he pulled her under him so that she was shielded from the gunfire. She was shaking with fear and sobbing, and he held her tight, thinking how small and vulnerable she was. Even in those dramatic moments he felt a kind of love he'd never experienced before.
'Just stay still,' he whispered. 'I'm here now. You're going to be all right.'
For ten seconds they lay there together in a tight, tangled embrace. There were no more shots. Silence had returned, and Ridgers had stopped moving. But the fact remained that someone had just murdered him, and that person was close by.
'Stay where you are,' Bolt told Emma as he got to his feet.
'Where are you going?'
'Just stay there, help's coming.'
Keeping low, he killed the kitchen light and crept over to the back door. A yard, with outbuildings to the left and right, ran about twenty yards to the beginning of the tree line. It looked empty, but, as Bolt turned the key in the lock and slowly opened the door, he knew he was being foolish. It was one thing risking your neck to save your daughter, it was quite another to chase a gunman while he was unarmed.
But whoever had fired the shot that killed Scott Ridgers was also involved in this, and Bolt was in no mood to let him get away. And if he was carrying half a million in cash, his escape was going to be a slow one.
Bolt slid through the gap in the door on his hands and knees, then made a dash for the nearest outbuilding, where he stopped and peered round at the trees. He could hear nothing. The night was silent with only the lightest of breezes. The gunman was gone.
He was being an idiot. He could never do this alone, and he couldn't leave Emma alone with a corpse either. He wiped the blood from his face, pulled his mobile from his pocket and put in a call to Tina as he jogged back the way he'd come.
'I've got Emma,' he told her once he'd briefly explained what had just happened. 'She's OK, but the guy who shot Ridgers is gone. You're going to have to get people over here quick. We need to get a security cordon in place and seal off the whole area.'
Ignoring the fact that she was being ordered around by someone who was suspended, Tina said she was on it and hung up.
Bolt stepped back inside the kitchen door. Emma was sitting on the floor, staring into space. She turned his way as he entered, and for several seconds they simply looked at each other in silence.
Emma looked utterly exhausted. Her clothes were torn and sweat-stained, and her blonde hair was matted and dishevelled, parts of it stuck to the thin layer of grime that covered her face. But none of that mattered. She was beautiful. And she was safe. He felt a wave of emotion sweep over him and he had to grit his teeth so that he didn't cry.
'Who are you?' she asked uncertainly.
Who am I? Your father, I think. A man you've never met before who's linked to you inextricably and for ever. Someone who's sweated blood these past hours trying to find you, who wants to get to know you, take you places, be a part of your life, and explain why he hasn't been there for so long. Who needs you so badly you can't imagine it.
'I'm the police,' he said.
'Will you take me home?'
He took a deep breath, fought back the tears. 'Of course I will.'
But he didn't take her home. In fact, he hardly had a chance to talk to her.
Within minutes, the first of a long line of police and ambulance vehicles were on the scene, and she was taken away from him. After checking that she didn't need emergency medical treatment, the paramedics whisked her off to the nearby Chase Farm Hospital where she was to be reunited with her mother before being debriefed, and for Bolt, that was largely that. He was left alone on the periphery, watching as the local police sealed off the murder scene.
Within half an hour, the area around the farmhouse was teeming with activity, and floodlights had been set up to illuminate proceedings. Bolt was introduced briefly to a DI called Baker, who was running the CID nightshift at Enfield Nick, and who had the initial responsibility for investigating Scott Ridgers' death. He looked more like an accountant than a copper and when he spoke it was in a flat estuary accent, but he had sharp, intelligent eyes that didn't look like they missed a lot, and Bolt had a feeling that when he went down to the station later to give his statement he was going to get a serious grilling about how he, a suspended SOCA agent, had ended up at the scene, particularly as the ransom money was missing. But he was ready for it. After everything else that had happened today, he was pretty much prepared for whatever was going to be thrown at him.
He was leaning against the farmhouse's front fence, drinking coffee from a plastic container, when a car pulled up just behind the line of police vans on the driveway, and Steve Evans got out, followed by Tina and Mo. Their expressions were grim and businesslike, but as they got closer Tina nodded at him from behind Evans's shoulder and gave him the barest hint of a smile. Mo just nodded.
Evans, meanwhile, was just plain pissed off. 'I thought I told you you were suspended, Mike,' he said, stopping in front of him.
'You did, sir. I got a lead on Scott Ridgers. I thought I'd check it out. As a concerned private citizen.'
Evans didn't look mollified. 'And you tracked him down here, only for him to be shot dead by an unknown assailant while you were struggling with him. That's the story I'm getting from DI Baker.'
'Yes, sir. Someone shot Ridgers from outside the kitchen window while I was fighting with him inside. I'm assuming it's the same person who disappeared with the money from the ransom drop. I phoned Tina as soon as I could so that she could alert the local police, and I've been here ever since.'
Evans looked sceptical. 'It always seems to be you who gets in these situations, doesn't it? How did you end up here?'
Avoiding Tina's eyes, he told Evans the story he'd already rehearsed in his head.
'Ridgers told his girlfriend where he was staying in case she needed him. When her father told her that he was wanted for a very serious crime, she gave him this address. The father phoned me because we'd already spoken earlier today. Obviously I was suspended, and I didn't think my word would count for much, so I decided to come up here myself, just to check things out. As soon as I arrived, I saw Ridgers dragging Emma into the house, and decided I was going to have to intervene immediately.' He shrugged. 'The rest you know.'
Evans stared at him for several seconds. He had a hard, intimidating gaze that carried the heavy weight of authority. Bolt, who was used to such looks and wasn't affected by them, held it firmly.
'Well, you're still suspended, Mike, and I don't want to see you around again until you're back on duty. Understood?'
The rebuke was painful, especially as he'd done so much to break a case that was about to go very high-profile, but not entirely unexpected. Evans was right. He still shouldn't have been there.
'Sure, I understand.'
'Good. Now, I need to go and see DI Baker. If you'll excuse me.'
Evans moved past Bolt, leaving him alone with Mo and Tina. Mo asked how Emma was. His tone was stiff and formal, and Bolt had noticed that he hadn't called him 'boss' for some time now.
'She's good,' he answered. 'As well as can be expected, anyway. But it's going to take her a while to recover.'
'But she will recover. Kids always do. They're resilient like that.' Mo looked towards the house. 'I'd better go inside.'
'OK.'
Mo managed a weak smile that confirmed to Bolt that their relationship had taken a serious beating.
'I hope you're back on duty soon,' he said.
'I will be.'
'Good luck.'
Mo turned and walked towards the gate. Tina made no move to follow him.
'You not going with him?'
She nodded. 'In a minute.'
Bolt smiled at her. He couldn't help but think she looked pretty in the moonlight.
'Thanks for what you did, Tina. It saved Emma's life.'
'Thanks for covering for me.'
'I couldn't really do anything else, could I? Not after you put your job on the line.' He sighed. 'How's Turner?'
'Still critical, but he's off the operating table now. It looks better than it did.'
'Thank God for that. Any other developments in the case?'
It was her turn to smile now. 'You're the one who seems to be creating the developments, Mike.'
'I didn't have anything to do with Ridgers' death, you know.'
'I never thought you would have done.'
He wondered why he'd felt the need to tell her that. Had he really moved so far from his position as law enforcer that he had to justify himself to his colleagues in case they suspected he might be a killer?
'It wouldn't surprise me if Mo thinks I did, though,' he said, rubbing his eyes.
'Mo likes to do things the right way. He's pissed off with you, but he still thinks you're a good cop.'
Tina was wrong. Mo didn't always have to do things the right way. Bolt remembered that at one time Mo had done things for him way above and beyond the call of duty, but that maybe now he'd grown weary of bailing his boss out.
'You look whacked, Mike.'
'I am. It's been a long day. But, you know, I don't like the idea of going home knowing there's still someone out there who's a kidnapper and a killer, and who's now at least half a million pounds richer.'
'The police here have found Phelan's car in one of the outbuildings. But no sign of Phelan.'
Bolt was surprised. He'd almost forgotten about Andrea's husband.
'I don't think it was Phelan who killed Ridgers,' he said slowly. 'I just can't see that he's the one behind this. I mean, the guy's a fly-by-night, a minor criminal, and an inveterate gambler. He's hardly a criminal mastermind.'
'But if his car's here, then why isn't he?' asked Tina. 'If he wasn't involved, I would have thought they'd've disposed of the car and the body together, because there'd be no point doing it separately.'
'I suppose so, but if he is part of this, then why did they bother killing Andrea's cleaner?'
Tina shrugged. 'Good point. God knows.'
They fell silent, and Bolt yawned.
'You'd better go in, Tina. Steve Evans won't be pleased if you're talking to me. You'll keep me posted of how things go though, yeah?'
She nodded. 'Of course I will.'
As she walked past him, she patted his arm reassuringly and he realized it was the first time in their two years working together that she'd ever touched him.
'You did a good job tonight, Mike,' she said. 'You'll be back on duty soon.'
He watched her go, thinking of all the things he'd done today, so many of which could still cost him his career. He'd been in law enforcement for twenty years. It was the only job he'd known, and despite the constraints it imposed and the huge tedium of much of the work, he loved it. If they sacked him, he had no idea what he'd do. But the fact remained, there was no way he'd have changed any of his actions because in the end, illegal or not, they had got him the one thing he wanted most: his daughter back.
He thought about Pat Phelan in the photograph with Emma and Andrea at Andrea's house, all close up together, the happy nuclear family. If he was involved, it would be a betrayal of epic proportions. Fear can make a man do some strange things, and owing big sums of money to a violent thug like Leon Daroyce was going to make someone like Pat Phelan very frightened. But even so, Bolt still didn't buy the fact that he was the man who'd escaped with the money.
The problem now, with the other conspirators dead, was finding out who was.
Whatever doubts Bolt had about Pat Phelan's involvement in the kidnap of his stepdaughter, the fact remained that they were largely irrelevant. He was off the case and, for the moment at least, off the team.
It had been a long night. He'd been at Enfield Nick until the early hours, giving his statement to two of the local CID and taking their questions. He'd stuck to the story he'd told Steve Evans about why he'd been on the scene in the first place, but made sure he told the truth about everything else, and it soon became clear that they were treating him as a witness rather than a suspect in the murder of Scott Ridgers. Formalities complete, he'd eventually made it home a little after three a.m. and collapsed, exhausted, into his bed straight away, able to relax for the first time in close to forty-eight hours.
He slept late. It was gone eleven when he finally rose from his bed, cleaned himself up, and put on a fresh pot of coffee. There was a message on his mobile from Mo telling him that Matt Turner was still on the critical list but that the operation had been a success and the doctors were confident he was going to pull through. He also added that Emma had been debriefed and had confirmed Bolt's version of events, then finished by wishing his boss luck and hoping he'd be back on duty soon. He sounded a little contrite, and Bolt guessed that this was his apology for the way he'd been the previous day.
It was good news about Turner. He'd go down the hospital to visit him as soon as he was well enough to be seen.
As he poured the coffee and made himself a couple of slices of toast, his thoughts turned to Emma. It was a strange feeling knowing that he had a daughter who for fourteen years had grown up only a few miles away. But he felt happy about it, and hopeful too. He wanted to become a part of her life now, although he knew that this would have to wait a while, at least until she'd recovered from the worst of her ordeal.
But at the very least he needed to know how she was getting on, and when he'd finished his toast he called Andrea's landline. Marie the liaison officer answered. She sounded tired, but brightened a little when she recognized Bolt's voice.
'It's great news that we've got Emma back,' she said. 'Andrea's ecstatic, as you can imagine.'
'Is Andrea there?' he asked.
'Yes, they're both here. Do you want to speak to her?'
'Please. Just tell her it's a quick courtesy call.
I'm sure she's busy.'
'I'll go and find her. Hold on.'
Marie clearly didn't know about his suspension. In fact, it didn't seem that she'd been told much, which under the circumstances was probably no bad thing.
A few seconds later he heard the receiver being picked up. But it wasn't Andrea. It was Marie again.
'She says she's very busy at the moment, Mr Bolt. Can she call you back later?'
He tried to keep the disappointment out of his voice. 'No problem. I'll wait to hear from her. But Emma's fine, yeah?'
'She's asleep at the moment, but yes, she's bearing up well, although the doctors say she's quite dehydrated.'
He wanted to ask something else, to keep the conversation going in the hope that Andrea would change her mind and take the call, but he wasn't sure what, so reluctantly he said his goodbyes and hung up.
He turned on the TV and found Sky News. The main report was on the failed ransom drop. The man shot dead by police had not been named, but the young father he'd fatally stabbed had been identified as thirty-five-year-old Anthony Randolph of Waltham Abbey, Essex. A photo of him on his wedding day flashed up on the screen, followed by a photo of Matt Turner looking particularly deadpan, as the reporter described him as fighting for his life in intensive care. A camera panned round a largely empty Tottenham High Road, lined with strips of scene-of-crime tape, as the report continued, but it was clear that information was scarce, and there was no mention of the kidnapping, or of the separate but linked death of Scott Ridgers.
Bolt felt resentful that he was no longer involved in an investigation he'd done so much to break. He wondered whether Phelan had shown up yet, and briefly contemplated phoning Tina, but decided against it. She'd done more than enough for him already, and he didn't want to lose her respect by pushing her further.
Instead, he finished his coffee and got dressed, knowing that he had to do something, anything, to ease his frustration.
Which was when he had an idea. Outside, the sun was shining and it looked like it was going to be another beautiful day. He grabbed his shoes and looked at his watch. Five minutes to midday.
It was time to catch up with some old friends.
When Tina Boyd pressed the buzzer on Andrea's security gate at just after 2.30 p.m. she'd already done a seven-hour day and was finally on her way home, albeit in a slightly indirect way. She'd already spent more than two hours there that morning with Mo talking to Emma, listening to her harrowing account of the past few days while her mother sat beside her, holding her hand. Tina had been impressed by how brave and lucid Emma was in the interview, answering all their questions quietly and carefully, and although she'd looked tired, and thinner than she did in the photos that lined the house, her overall demeanour suggested that the damage she'd suffered wasn't irreversible. It was too early to say for sure, and Tina was no psychologist, but she'd come away feeling positive, and also proud of her boss, who according to Emma's testimony had saved her life and almost lost his own in the process. Emma had asked where Bolt was, saying she'd like to thank him properly, and Tina had told her that she was sure they'd get to meet soon, looking at Andrea as she did so.
Andrea had looked away.
Andrea's voice came on the line now, far brighter and chirpier now that she'd got her daughter back, but it immediately lost its lustre when Tina introduced herself.
'Oh, back again?' she said wearily. 'I'm afraid Emma's asleep at the moment, and I don't want her disturbed.'
'That's OK. It's you I've come to see. Can I come in?'
Andrea buzzed her through. She'd changed since Tina had left earlier and was now wearing a long T-shirt and a pair of khaki hotpants that showed off shapely legs and freshly painted, bright red toenails. The haggard, terrified woman of the last couple of days had now almost completely disappeared. It was quite a transformation.
'I've sent the liaison officer away,' she said as Tina stepped into the hallway. 'It's just me and Emma now. Like it's always been. Any word on Pat yet?'
'Nothing at the moment, I'm afraid.'
'God knows what's happened to him. I still don't think he's involved, but if he is…' Her face darkened momentarily but then returned to normal as she pushed thoughts of her husband aside. 'Do you have more questions for me, then? Is that why you're here?'
'Shall we go through to the living room?'
'OK.'
Andrea stretched out the word, trying to gauge from Tina's expression what this might be about. Tina didn't give anything away, so Andrea led her through, taking her usual position on the sofa. Tina shut the door but remained standing.
'I wanted to ask you some questions about Emma's father. Her real one.'
Andrea sighed loudly. 'God, do we have to? I mean, is it important? I could do with a rest myself, you know.'
'We need to discuss it now.'
'Don't take that sort of tone with me.'
'You said in your statement on Friday that Emma's father was James Galante.'
'That's right.'
Tina pulled a folded sheet of paper from the back pocket of her jeans, holding it out in front of her.
'Do you know what it says on here?'
Andrea didn't say anything, but she was looking less sure of herself.
'It says that Emma was adopted.'
Andrea swallowed.
'By you and your then husband, Mr William Devern, in September 1994. When she was seventeen months old. I got a copy of the birth certificate from Somerset House this morning.'
'Christ. Keep your voice down. Emma doesn't know.'
'OK. But it makes me wonder, Mrs Devern, how many other things have you been lying about?'
Andrea reached for her cigarettes, which Tina now recognized as a sure sign that she was feeling stressed.
'It was only that I wanted Jimmy to help me and I thought if I convinced him he was Emma's dad then he'd never be able to say no.' She got up and opened the French windows, lighting up and blowing smoke out into the garden, her arms folded in a defensive gesture. 'You'd have done the same in my position, except you don't know that, because you've never had kids. She may not be my flesh and blood, but she's still my daughter. I brought her up. No one else, because Billy was dead within a year. Just me.' She blew out more smoke and glared defiantly at Tina.
'When are you intending to tell Mike Bolt that he's not Emma's father?'
The question made Andrea flinch.
'So, he told you about that, did he?'
'Only when he absolutely had to.'
'I'll tell him soon enough. When I've got my head back together.'
'You almost destroyed him, Mrs Devern. He's suspended from his job because of you, and it's possible he'll lose it over this. The least you can do is put him out of his misery.'
'I told you, I'll tell him soon.'
'No. Either you call him now, or I do. And I really think it would be best if it came from you, don't you?'
'Listen, Miss Boyd, you've got no idea what I've been through in the last week. What I've done, I've done to protect my daughter and help to get her away from those animals and back with me where she belongs, and I'm not going to make any apologies for that.'
'He still needs to know,' Tina insisted. 'Today.'
Andrea unfolded her arms, softening her stance.
'Can you tell him? Please? Say I'm very, very sorry and that I will call him, I promise. It's just…' She paused, and Tina could see that her eyes were filling with tears. 'Not today.'
'OK. I'll call him outside.'
As she walked through the French windows, Andrea stopped her with a hand on the arm.
'I do care for him, you know,' she said quietly, a tear running down one cheek. 'A lot more than you think.'
Tina nodded. She didn't believe a word of it.
She walked up to the end of the garden, well out of earshot, and dialled Mike's number, knowing that he was going to take this hard.
When he answered, he sounded in a good mood and there was a buzz of conversation in the background.
'Tina, how's it going?'
'Not bad. Where are you?'
'In a pub in Finchley. Relaxing with some old Flying Squad buddies. I figure, I'm suspended, I may as well enjoy myself. What can I do for you?'
The moment of truth. And straight away she knew she couldn't do it. Not when he was enjoying himself. It would just have to wait.
'I thought you might want a quick update on things, but if you're out with your friends-'
'No, I'd like to hear what you've got.'
She gave him a summary of where the investigation was, but there really wasn't a lot to say as things were running down now. There was still no sign of Pat Phelan. They'd put surveillance on Isobel Wheeler's house in case he turned up there, but that was pretty much it.
'And have you seen Emma?'
Tina stiffened. 'Yes, she's well. Back at home now.'
'And Andrea?'
'She's fine too.'
'Thanks, Tina. I really appreciate you keeping me in touch with things.'
'I'd want to be, if I was in your position. Anyway, you'd better get back to your friends.'
She rang off, cursing herself for being such a coward. Now she'd have to call him again later.
She sat down on the garden's loveseat and lit a cigarette, in no hurry to go back inside. As she basked in the mid-afternoon sunshine, she realized with surprise that she was going to miss Mike Bolt now that he was suspended. Things had changed between them these past few days. She'd seen a vulnerable side to him for the first time, and she was flattered that he'd turned to her when he needed help, seeing something beyond the hard shell she surrounded herself with. She hadn't had romance in a long time. It was over three years since John had died. Since then there'd been a couple of one-night stands and a brief holiday fling in Thailand. But now she felt the first hint of attraction, and it unnerved her.
She stubbed out the cigarette in the grass and stood up slowly. It was time to go home.
But as she reached the French windows, she stopped. Andrea was back on her sofa, but there were two men in suits in the room with her whom Tina recognized as detectives from the farm the previous night. They were obviously trying to keep their expressions as calm and inscrutable as possible as they turned towards her, but there was no escaping the excitement in them.
'We've got a new lead on Scott Ridgers' killer,' said the younger of the two, a fresh-faced youth with thinning hair and a spray of freckles. 'A big one.'
The Coach and Horses was the pub where Finchley Flying Squad members past and present liked to drink. There were always a few old faces in on a Sunday lunchtime, mainly the local guys, but today was the first time in a long while that Bolt had made it.
The lunchtime crowd was thinning out now as Bolt came off the phone to Tina and returned to the table where he'd been drinking for the last two hours with today's Flying Squad contingent: Ron 'Scissors' Austin, silver-haired, still serving, nearing retirement; Marvin 'Mad Dog' Bennett, a huge black guy now working on the Met's Operation Trident; Big Tim Pritchard, once the squad's Romeo, but now a few stones above his ideal weight courtesy of his desk job at Scotland Yard; and the ever injury-prone Jack 'Dodger' Doyle.
'Who was that, your girlfriend?' grinned Scissors Austin as Bolt sat back down with his drink.
'No such luck. Colleague.'
'You want to get yourself out more, pal,' advised Jack Doyle before resuming his story, which involved a long-ago one-night stand he'd had with a female DCI from Hendon.
Bolt wasn't really listening to the story. His mind was elsewhere. He wanted to talk to Emma and had thought that Tina's call might have been her or Andrea getting in touch. The fact that it wasn't disappointed him. It had been good to catch up and trade war stories from the good old days, but now, as the conversation moved on to sexual conquests, he decided it was probably time to go.
Doyle finished his story of fumbled, drunken lovemaking (which had resulted, somewhat inevitably, in him falling over and twisting his ankle so badly he'd been off work for three days) with a flourish and plenty of illustrative hand movements, amid much laughter. When he went off to the toilet, Big Tim, not to be outdone, started on a story of his own, involving a relationship with a pretty uniformed PC from Finchley Nick.
'Tracey Bonham was her name. Anyone remember her?'
'Yeah, I do,' said Scissors. 'Pretty little thing. Red hair. Don't tell me she had a fling with an ugly sod like you.'
Big Tim's seat creaked precariously as he leaned back on it. 'Watch it, old man. That girl was in love with me, I tell you. I liked her as well. We almost got engaged at one point.'
'I never knew that,' said Scissors sceptically. 'Are you sure you didn't dream it?'
'I don't remember her at all,' said Mad Dog, shaking his head.
Bolt swallowed the last of his pint. To be honest, he didn't either.
'Well, I didn't bloody dream it, all right? We did nearly get engaged, and I reckon we would have done as well, but then she ends up running off with some scuzzy little bastard who turns out to be one of Dodger Doyle's snouts.'
Scissors looked mortified. 'Christ, she dumped you for a snout?'
'All right, all right. Don't rub it in. He was one of these real charmers, you know. The sort gullible women go for.'
'What, like you, you mean?' chuckled Mad Dog.
'No, not like me. I'm sophisticated and good hearted, as well as being beautiful. He was just a long-haired toe rag with a nice line in patter. But he had things with a couple of the girls at Finchley Nick. Then he got done for receiving a load of hijacked hi-fis, after he started trying to flood the market with them. He even sold one to Tracey.'
'Serious?'
'Yeah. She ended up leaving the force over it eventually. Christ, what was his name now?' Big Tim looked up and saw Doyle returning from the toilet. 'What was his name, Jack? That snout of yours a few years back. The one who got done for all them hi-fis. Pat somebody or other, wasn't it?'
'I've got it,' said Scissors, banging his empty pint glass on the table. 'It was Pat Phelan. Right long-haired nancy. He was one of yours, wasn't he, Jack?'
'Christ, I can't remember that far back,' said Doyle, re-taking his seat.
But as he spoke the words he glanced across at Bolt and their eyes met. Bolt felt his fingers tighten around his empty glass. Doyle looked away quickly and picked up his pint, trying too hard to appear natural.
Bolt stared at him, feeling adrenalin course through his body. There was a news blackout. Pat Phelan had not been mentioned at all in the media. Yet Jack Doyle clearly knew of his relevance to Bolt, which was why he'd instinctively glanced his way.
Their eyes met again, and it was suddenly as if everyone else in the room had melted away, leaving just the two of them there, at opposite ends of an empty, silent table.
Instincts. They shape so much of human behaviour. And in those single, dark moments, every instinct in Bolt's body told him that he was staring at the man who'd telephoned Andrea at home and in her car, and who one way or another had masterminded the whole thing.
Fifty-seven
Jack Doyle drained his pint and stood up. 'Well, boys, I've got to go. Things to do, people to see, you know the score.'
He shook hands with the boys.
'I've got to go as well,' said Bolt, getting to his feet.
'Don't fancy one more for the road, gents?' asked Big Tim, looking disappointed at the prospect of losing half his potential audience.
'No, sorry, I've had a long few days,' said Bolt, doing his own rounds and having to hurry as he followed Jack out of the pub.
'I'd give you a lift, Mike,' said Doyle, fumbling for his car keys, 'but I'm going in the wrong direction. See you soon, eh?'
He nodded briefly, a smile so tight on his face that it looked like it had been fixed there with botox, and made no attempt to shake hands as he started walking up towards the car park at the back of the pub.
Bolt kept pace alongside him.
'She was my daughter, Jack.'
Doyle looked at him with a puzzled expression. 'Who was?'
'Emma Devern. The girl whose kidnapping you organized.'
'What the hell are you talking about?'
'You know exactly what I'm talking about. Why did you target Andrea? Did Phelan get you in on it?'
'Whoa, Mike. I think the stress of this kidnap case you've been on's got to you. Why don't you go home and get some rest? Because I promise you, you're talking shit.'
He carried on walking, and once again Bolt kept pace, even though he was experiencing the first signs of doubt.
And then it struck him.
'You were off sick for the Lewisham job, weren't you? The one where I shot Dean Hayes.'
'I'm not talking about this, Mike. Now fuck off.'
Doyle clicked off the central locking as they reached his car, a silver Ford Mondeo, parked up against a fence round the back of the pub and out of sight of the front door.
'You were off sick, so you never knew about the ambush until afterwards. That's right, isn't it? Shit, Jack. I never had you down for corrupt, but you were involved, weren't you? You were in on it.'
Doyle's features hardened as he opened the driver's door. 'You're pissing in the wind, Mike.
And you can keep pissing as long as you like, because none of it's going to hit me.'
'There'll be evidence, Jack. You know it. I know it. So, where's the half million? Under your bed?
Safe for a rainy day? We'll find it.'
Doyle shook his head. 'Well, you won't, will you? You're suspended.'
And with that he got inside the car.
Bolt felt rage bubble up inside him. He looked around. The car park was empty. He had to act. Now.
'You think I'm going to let you drive away after what you've done to my daughter?'
He strode round to the driver's door and yanked it open.
'No, I don't,' said Doyle as Bolt went to grab him. 'That's why I've got this.' There was a snub nosed revolver with a scotch-taped handle in his left hand, and it was pointing up at Bolt. 'Now, step back from the car, nice and easy.'
'You won't shoot me here.'
'I wouldn't place a bet on that if I were you.'
The cold expression in Doyle's eyes told Bolt that it was best to comply, and he took a step backwards, realizing as he did so that he'd made a serious miscalculation. What the hell was he going to do now?
Doyle got out of the car, keeping the gun down by his side and glancing briefly over Bolt's shoulder to check that the car park was still clear. Then he threw his car keys on the driver's seat.
'OK, Mike, you're driving. Get in or I'll put a bullet in you right now.'
'Don't do this, Jack. It's over, can't you see that?'
'Get in.'
Bolt took a deep breath and complied, while Jack got in the back. He pointed the gun through the gap in the seats.
'All right, let's get moving.'
'Where are we going?'
'Just start driving and turn right out of here.'
Bolt started the car and pulled out, heading slowly through the car park, hoping that one of the Flying Squad boys would come out of the front door and ask for a lift.
'Go on, get moving,' Doyle snapped, shoving the gun in Bolt's ribs.
There was a big gap in the traffic and, knowing he had no choice, he pulled out on to the Finchley Road and started driving north, trying hard to figure out his options. He was certain Doyle wouldn't pull the trigger while he was driving, and pretty sure he wouldn't even if he stopped and jumped out – not in such a public place with pedestrians and other traffic about – but pretty sure wasn't good enough. Jack Doyle was both a killer and a desperate man. It was a bad combination.
It struck Bolt that Doyle was almost certainly trying to work out his own options, and he decided that his best policy was to distract him. He needed to keep Doyle talking.
'Why the hell did you have to do this, Jack?' he asked, his voice laced with disappointment.
'It's not like you think, and I didn't know she was your daughter. I just wanted my money back.'
'What do you mean?'
'That Lewisham job was going to be my retirement fund. Instead, the whole thing went tits up and almost cost me everything. If I hadn't got Galante out of the country he'd have definitely grassed me up. For years I never knew who'd fucked things up for us. You never named your source, remember?'
'Yeah, I remember.'
'Very chivalrous of you. Except the problem was one day you did tell me.'
Bolt frowned. 'When?'
'Remember that fishing trip you and me went on to Ireland a couple of years back, the last time you got yourself suspended? Well, it was then. We got pissed one night in that pub near Kilrush, the one with the big log fire. I asked you about the job then. I wasn't even that bothered about it. I just wanted to know.'
'And I told you?' Bolt vaguely remembered saying something now, but it had been an extremely drunken night.
'Yeah, you told me it was that bitch Andrea Devern. I didn't even know she was Galante's squeeze at the time.' Doyle cleared his throat. 'Anyway, I looked into things and saw she'd done very, very nicely for herself. Unlike me with a divorce, kids I don't see, and a whore of an exwife who's nicked all my money and half my pension.'
Bolt didn't bother telling him that this was hardly a reason for committing kidnap and murder. Instead, he kept quiet, letting Doyle talk. All the time pondering his options.
'And then I heard she'd married that piece of dirt Pat Phelan. You know, I met up with him a few months ago? I was going to sound him out about getting involved, but the flash bastard couldn't stop telling me how much money he had now that he was married to a rich girl, really rubbing it in. He laughed at me. You know that, Mike? The bastard laughed at me. Well, he ain't laughing now.'
'Where is he?'
'Not far away. I'm surprised you lot haven't found him yet.'
He pulled a crumpled pack of cigarettes from the sports jacket he was wearing, drew one out and lit it.
'You know what gets me? The whole thing was planned brilliantly. I really put effort into it. I let Ridgers and his prison buddy, a toe rag called Karl Roven, do all the hard work, and the idea was they'd turn up back at the farm last night and I'd take them both out. Bang bang, just like that. Then with Pat Phelan disappeared off the face of the earth, he'd end up getting the blame for organizing it all.'
'What about Emma? What were you going to do with her?'
'She was always going to get released. I'm not that cruel. I don't mind getting rid of scum like Ridgers and his mate, but I don't hurt kids.'
Somehow Bolt doubted it. If Doyle was cruel enough to lock Emma in a cellar and subject her to such a terrifying ordeal, he was definitely cruel enough to dispose of her afterwards.
'What about the cleaner? Was she scum as well?'
'That was a pity,' Doyle answered, sounding genuinely regretful. 'I got Ridgers' prison buddy, Roven, to get to know her. It was the only way we could get the alarm codes to plant the bugs. I tried getting past the alarm a couple of times myself, but it was too sophisticated. And once Roven had the information, he had to get rid of her.'
'But we never found any bugs in the house.'
'We used the simplest ones of all: a couple of mobile phones planted in the house and set up to hands-free kits. All we had to do was put them on silent and auto answer, then dial the numbers, and we could hear everything. The reason you never found them was because they'd both run out of batteries by Friday, so they wouldn't have shown up on all the new-fangled stuff you use these days. I didn't think we'd need them beyond then.'
Bolt knew it was possible to turn standard mobile phones into covert listening devices with only a few standard modifications. They should have thought of that. Not that it would have made any difference in the end.
'You know, I can't believe a friend of mine – someone I've known for, God, how long is it?
sixteen, seventeen years? – could do what you've done and sit here trying to justify it.'
Doyle sat up in his seat and glared at Bolt, blowing smoke into the front of the car.
'I saved your life last night, Mikey boy. Remember that. If I hadn't put a bullet in Ridgers, he'd have cut you to pieces, and you know it.' He dragged hard on the cigarette. 'I saved your life, even though you turning up there nearly ruined everything for me. Just like you turning up now has.'
'Forgive me if I don't apologize for wanting to rescue my daughter from the animals you hired.' 'You know I'd never have done it if I'd known she was anything to do with you. Like I say, all I wanted was my money.'
Bolt stared at him in the wing mirror.
'You keep saying that, "my money". Andrea ran a business she'd built up from scratch. What did she owe you?'
'How do you think she started that business? There was other money that Jimmy Galante had stashed away that went missing after he left the country. Money that she had. Don't ever make the mistake of thinking that bitch is whiter than white.'
Doyle opened the window and chucked his cigarette butt out.
'Go straight across at the lights, and don't try anything. There's a turning up here somewhere.'
'Where are we going?'
'Just for a little drive.'
Bolt knew what was coming. He slowed down as the lights went red, and the Mondeo came to a halt.
'So, you're going to kill me then?'
Doyle looked pained. 'Course not, Mike. We go back way too far for that.'
'Sure we do.'
The lights went green and Bolt pulled away. He knew that Doyle couldn't afford to leave him alive, even if he was an old friend. When you were responsible for as many killings as he'd been this past week, you became hardened to it, and Jack Doyle had always been a hard man, unafraid to make tough decisions.
The mobile in Bolt's pocket rang.
'Aren't you going to answer that?'
Bolt pulled it out, but Doyle extended his free hand. 'Give me that,' he said, taking it off him. He examined the screen as it continued to ring.
'Who's Tina Boyd?'
Bolt tensed. What could she want now?
'She's a friend.'
Doyle smiled knowingly. 'Friend, or girlfriend?'
'Friend.'
The mobile stopped ringing and went to voicemail, before ringing again for a few seconds to announce a message. Doyle put it to his ear, still keeping the gun firmly on Bolt.
But as he listened to Tina's message, something happened. As Bolt watched in the rear-view mirror, Doyle's face, blotchy and lined after years of too much boozing, began to drain of colour, and his breathing rate increased.
'Shit!' he hissed, throwing the phone to the floor. It clattered under one of the seats. 'Shit, shit, shit! How the hell do they know about me?'
Somehow they were on to him. Bolt wondered whether this was a good or a bad thing. He had a grim feeling it might be the latter.
'It's over, Jack,' he said, trying hard to stay calm, looking for a chance to get out of range of that gun. 'You can give yourself up. None of what you've said in here's admissible in court. You'll get done for kidnapping, but you'll miss the murder charge.'
Behind him, Doyle fidgeted in his seat.
'It ain't going to happen, pal,' he said after a short pause. 'They know. Somehow they know I pulled the trigger on Ridgers. What am I going to do?'
'Give up.'
'Fuck you. No way. Got to think, pal. That's what I've got to do.'
He exhaled deeply, still training the gun on Bolt, his expression distracted as he desperately weighed up his options.
Bolt noticed he wasn't wearing a seatbelt.
Without warning, he slammed his foot down on the accelerator and swung the wheel hard left, cutting up the car in the next lane.
'What the hell are you doing? Stop, or I'll shoot!'
Bolt's whole body stiffened, expecting a bullet any second, but he kept driving, aiming straight at a line of concrete bollards on the edge of the pavement.
'Stop, you bastard, stop!'
There was a tremendous bang as Bolt hit the nearest bollard head-on, his foot still flat on the floor, and the sound of shattering glass and crunching metal. At exactly the same time, a shot rang out in the car, louder than the initial crash and deafening Bolt as he was flung forward in his seat like a stringless puppet. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Doyle smash into the front passenger seat, then fly backwards, his legs flailing wildly, before disappearing altogether.
Then the airbag shot out, driving the wind out of Bolt as it smothered him in its rubbery grip. For a few seconds he was crushed against his seat, unable to move, not even sure whether or not the bullet had hit him. Then, realizing that it hadn't, he managed to yank open the door handle and struggle free, desperate to get out.
He staggered round the front of the Mondeo, conscious that he was outside a parade of shops, some of which were open. Shocked onlookers were gathering fast, the majority of them looking at something round the back of the car.
'He's got a gun!' someone called out, and the small crowd moved backwards quickly.
Doyle was lying on the pavement about ten feet from the back of the car, propped up precariously on one elbow, the revolver hanging loosely from his hand. He must have been flung out of the back window, but somehow had managed to retain his grip on the gun, which was typical of him. He'd always been single-minded. Blood stained his shirt and sports jacket, and a huge gash had opened up one cheek like a second, bleeding mouth. He was in a bad way, but when he saw Bolt, something flashed in his eyes and he tried hard to lift the gun.
For a long moment they simply watched each other, oblivious to everyone around them, each man trying hard to come to terms with this terrible turn of events that had destroyed things between them for ever. Then Bolt began walking towards him, steady, confident strides that ate up the distance fast.
Doyle's eyes narrowed, but he was having difficulty focusing and the gun was shaking in his hand. Several people in the crowd gasped but no one made a move to intervene. It was as if they were watching the last dramatic scene in a TV cop drama.
Blood leaked out of the corner of Doyle's mouth, running down his chin. Bolt saw his finger tighten on the trigger, the end of the barrel pointed towards his belly, and he felt a lurch of adrenalin that almost lifted him off his feet. In that second, he leapt forward, stamped on the wrist of Doyle's shaking gun hand and drove it into the pavement. Doyle grunted and fell down on his back, losing his grip on the revolver.
Bolt snatched it up and pointed it, two-handed, down at Doyle's chest, holding it steady, his face as hard as stone.
'Don't do it!' someone in the crowd cried out, shrill and fearful.
But he was never going to. There was no point. Emma was safe, Jack Doyle was finished, and finally his rage was fading, to be replaced by a leaden sense of regret that an old friendship he'd once thought so strong could have ended up like this. Tattered, bleeding, and ultimately hollow.
Doyle's eyes closed and his head rolled to one side, more blood trailing out of his mouth and dripping on to the concrete.
Bolt took a step back, then another, until he reached the car. He propped himself up against it and noticed the crowd watching – twenty, thirty strong now – for the first time.
'Someone dial nine-nine-nine,' he said with as much strength as he could muster.
Then tiredness seemed to overwhelm him and, still clutching the revolver, he slid down the car and landed in a sitting position on the tarmac.
It was over.
Tina Boyd stood in the shadows thrown by the low-rise council flats and looked through the darkness at the brand-new four-door Lexus GS parked behind the chainlink fence on the other side of the road. It had just turned twenty past ten and she'd been standing there for more than an hour already. She wondered if she was wasting her time. Probably. But Tina wasn't the sort to give up that easily. She'd give it another half an hour before calling it a day.
She stifled a yawn. It had been a manic weekend but at least events had come to a comparatively clean conclusion, which, as most police officers would tell you, is very rarely the case. Pat Phelan had at last turned up, although the manner in which he did so left something to be desired. A thorough search by Enfield SOCO of one of the farm's outbuildings revealed his dismembered remains inside a barrel of sulphuric acid, where they were dissolving steadily; they would probably have been little more than sludge had they been left for another week. His teeth had been forcibly removed, and identification had only been possible because a large 'Ban the Bomb' tattoo on what was left of his upper arm was still just about visible, and was recognized by Andrea Devern.
The other main development that day had been the uncovering of the third person involved in the kidnap, DI Jack Doyle of the Flying Squad. A woman who lived a hundred yards from the farm had heard the gunshots the previous evening and had gone outside to investigate. She'd seen an unfamiliar car parked down the lane from her house, and because of the circumstances she'd written down the registration number. A few minutes later she'd seen a man return to the car and drive away. Because there were a number of farms in the area, and the sound of shotguns being fired wasn't that unusual, the woman hadn't called the police. But when they'd turned up at her door earlier that day as part of their general enquiries, she'd told them about what had happened. The car was quickly traced to DI Doyle, and when the witness was shown his photo she was able to say that it bore a very strong resemblance to the person she'd seen. Not enough for a conviction perhaps, but ample justification for an arrest warrant to be issued, and from that moment on his fate had been sealed. However, before he could be arrested, he'd been involved in a car crash, and was now seriously ill in hospital. A gun recovered from the scene with his fingerprints on it had subsequently been confirmed as the weapon used to murder Scott Ridgers at the farm.
The reason why it was only a comparatively clean conclusion rather than an absolutely perfect result was that Matt Turner was still very ill and Mike Bolt, who more than anyone deserved credit for the op's overall success, was suspended until further notice. It didn't seem fair. And this was the main reason Tina was hanging around in the dark in a bad part of town, waiting. Because sometimes doing the job and upholding the law didn't necessarily provide the justice it was meant to. Sometimes you had to dispense that justice yourself, as an individual. Like Mike had done yesterday.
There was movement across the road. A group of men emerged from the entrance to the monolithic tower block, three of them in all, moving purposefully, their voices low. They stopped at the Lexus and got inside, pulling out seconds later.
Tina retreated further into the shadows and took out her mobile as they drove past her. It was an unregistered pay-as-you go she'd bought on Tottenham Court Road earlier that day, and as the Lexus came to the end of the road and turned left, she dialled 999, asking for police.
'Hello, can I help you?'
'I've just seen three men get into a car armed with guns.'
'Are you sure about this, madam?'
'Absolutely,' she said breathlessly. 'They walked right past me.'
She gave her location, the make and model of the car, and the direction it was travelling in, waiting patiently while the operator took all the information down.
'And can I have your name, madam?'
'I don't want to get involved, I'm too scared.'
And with that, she ended the call, switched off the phone, and walked back to her car.
When she'd phoned the number Leon Daroyce had given her an hour earlier she'd disguised her voice and said he could find Pat Phelan at a flat in Colindale, where he was holed up with a lover, hoping he'd take the bait. And now it looked like he had done. She had no idea whether Daroyce and his two associates would be armed or not, but it didn't really matter since when the police stopped the car they'd find the five grams of cocaine she'd planted in the glove compartment. It had taken all the burglary skills she'd learned at SOCA to bypass the Lexus's sophisticated alarm system, as well as one hell of a lot of nerve, but it would be worth it. Armed with the coke, the police would be able to execute a search warrant on Daroyce's premises, a place she was absolutely sure would be full of illegal contraband.
It might not be enough to put him away for years, or even months, but at least she'd done something to disrupt his business and pay him back for the ordeal he'd put her through two days earlier, and a search of the flat would probably mean freedom for the girl he'd abused as well, which had to be a good thing. He would probably work out who'd been behind it, and might even want to extract some kind of revenge when he was back on the street, but she doubted he'd risk killing a SOCA agent. Whatever he might like to claim, Daroyce was a bully, and bullies tended to be cowards when it came down to it.
She knew what her former lover, John Gallan, would have thought of her actions. He'd have disapproved, not only because what she'd done was potentially so dangerous, but also because he'd always believed in the absolute sanctity of the law he'd been paid to uphold. But as Tina and countless many others had found to their cost down the years, the law didn't always punish the bad, just like it didn't always protect the good. Sometimes you just had to bend the rules, even if that did mean planting evidence.
Somewhere deep inside, the realization of what she'd done and the huge risk she'd taken worried her. But nowhere near enough to regret it, and there was even something of a spring in her step as she walked down the quiet, litter-strewn street and heard the first of the sirens converging on Leon Daroyce.