I was feeling groggy, having been given painkillers by a harassed-looking doctor who couldn't have been long out of medical school, and they must have been pretty damn strong because the terrible burning sensation in my right arm had been reduced to a dull throb. I still ached all over, and my mouth was bone dry, but I felt a vague euphoria. I was alive. Against all the odds, I was alive.
My hospital room was small and bright, and I was lying in bed. Outside I could hear voices and people moving about. Comforting sounds. People meant safety. The clock on the wall read ten past midnight.
As I lay there, I remembered with intense clarity digging my own grave in the rain, and watching Maxwell die. I'd never seen someone die before, even though I'd written about death vividly enough in Conspiracy. The sight of Ramon sitting lifeless in my bedroom had been awful, but seeing Maxwell actually murdered in front of me had been a whole lot worse. I remembered running through the trees, hearing the men behind me, thinking that this was it, the end; then the headlights, the sound of screeching tyres, and the car slamming me over its bonnet and sending me flying into the dirt.
Jesus. I'd been so damn close to death. For the second time in less than forty-eight hours. It was as if I was involved in an intense, never-ending nightmare that seemed to get worse and worse.
But it looked at last like it might be over.
I was desperately thirsty. I hadn't drunk a thing since the two Peronis at Maxwell's, close to four hours ago now, and no water since the middle of the afternoon. There wasn't a glass on the bedside table so I climbed out of bed, my hospital-issue pyjamas crinkling in time to my movement. My head began to spin and I had to stand still and shut my eyes for a few moments.
When I felt normal again, I opened the door and was surprised to see there was no police guard outside. The guy who'd come to me when I was semi-conscious had said he was police and that I was safe now. So, where were they?
I stepped out into the corridor.
And saw him immediately.
He was about ten yards away, talking to one of the nurses. He was dressed in the black jacket and jeans he'd been wearing back at Maxwell's place earlier, and his boots were still muddy with the soil from Maxwell's vegetable patch, but he was wearing a baseball cap again now, and horn-rimmed glasses.
For a split second I froze, unable to move, then he slowly turned my way and our eyes met. His lips curled in a tight, triumphant smile and, ignoring the nurse now, he put a hand inside his jacket.
And that was it. I ran.
But it was like wading through treacle. The painkillers, my injuries, my pure exhaustion, they were all slowing me down, making each step seem like an incredible achievement. And all the time I could picture him in my mind, raising the gun, aiming, pulling the trigger…
I swung a hard left, narrowly missing a cleaner with his trolley coming the other way. Behind me, I could hear his footfalls as he gave chase. Someone yelled for security. Someone else screamed the words I was dreading: 'He's got a gun!'
In front of me, the corridor stretched for thirty yards. A pair of orderlies were coming the other way, with a patient on a stretcher. Apart from them, it was empty. I was never going to make it. No way.
In one instinctive movement I shoved the cleaner out of the way with my good arm, then, as my pursuer came round the corner, a calm, determined expression on his face, the gun he'd used to kill Maxwell by his side, I kicked the trolley straight at him.
He was caught by surprise and crashed right into it, his momentum sending him sprawling in a heap.
Ignoring the nausea rising up in me, and the throbbing in my head and arm, I kept running. My heart hammering relentlessly.
The two orderlies stared at me aghast, then they both ducked down, using their gurney as cover.
I didn't wait for the bullet. I saw a door coming up on my right and scrambled through it, slamming it shut behind me.
I was in a small ward. A handful of beds were lined up against the opposite wall. But they were all empty. The whole place was empty. Outside, I could hear panicked shouting. More footfalls.
I was trapped. Jesus, I was trapped.
Looking round quickly, I located the light switch, flicked it off and plunged the room into darkness. Then, as quickly as I could, I slipped under one of the beds furthest from the door, and lay there on my back, staring up at the mattress several inches above me, knowing this was no cover at all, trying to calm my breathing. Waiting…
The door opened and shut again, and the lights were switched back on.
I held my breath. Outside, the noise seemed to have died away. Where the hell was everyone?
The footsteps were quiet as the man moved through the room, coming steadily closer. My guts churned, my heart beat furiously in my chest. I tried desperately to think of an escape plan, my mind whirring and leaping but coming up with nothing, because of course there was nothing to come up with.
The footsteps stopped. Right next to the bed. My lungs felt like they were going to burst. I had to breathe soon, had to-
'Mr Fallon?'
I recognized the voice. It was the police officer from earlier, the one who was with me after I'd been hit by the car, before the ambulance came.
'My name's Mike Bolt, and I'm from the Serious and Organized Crime Agency.'
He helped me out from under the bed and I got a proper look at him for the first time. He was tall and well built, with close-cropped silver-blond hair and piercing blue eyes, and there were three small scars on the lean, slightly lined face, one of them a vivid C-shape gouged into his cheek, that gave him an appearance that was close to, but not quite, thuggish. Right then he inspired confidence and I was glad he was on my side.
'You lead a charmed life, Mr Fallon,' he said, leading me out into the corridor, where a number of medical staff had gathered to see what was going on.
'Have you got the guy who was after me?' I asked him.
'We're looking for him now,' he answered as we walked back to my room. 'But there's no need for you to worry. We've got armed officers all over the building.'
I felt like saying that this could be construed as being a bit late, but didn't bother. I was pleased just to be safe, a feeling that was reinforced when I saw the three black-clad Robocop lookalikes standing outside the door of my room, wielding machine guns.
Standing off to one side of them in jeans and check shirt was a short, squat Asian guy with a thick head of hair like a badger's, talking animatedly to the harassed-looking junior doctor who'd examined me earlier.
'This is my colleague, Mo Khan,' said Bolt as the Asian guy turned round. 'We'd like to ask you some questions quickly if that's OK? It's extremely urgent.'
'I don't think this is a good idea,' said the doctor, pushing past Mo Khan. 'This patient needs rest,' he added firmly, addressing Mike Bolt.
'It's OK,' I said, pleased for the opportunity to finally tell my story in full. 'I'll speak to them now.'
A few minutes later I was back in bed with a glass of water in my hand, feeling a little more relaxed as they took seats on either side of the bed.
'OK,' said Bolt as Mo Khan produced a tape recorder, 'we understand you witnessed a kidnapping. Take us through everything from the beginning. And please don't leave anything out.'
So this time I didn't. I told them everything, including what had happened to Ramon, knowing that there was no longer any point in holding anything back. Neither of them seemed fazed by my revelations. Instead they took me through every important detail of the past forty-eight hours, slowly and carefully, asking questions where necessary, but otherwise allowing me to talk.
When I'd finished, I felt numb and spent. I took a big gulp of water and sat back against the pillows, hoping they believed me, but not sure what else I could say.
'You're extremely lucky, Mr Fallon,' said Bolt, leaning forward in his seat. 'The man who's been after you is a professional killer.'
'You know him, then?'
'I know of him. His name's Michael Killen, and he's extremely dangerous.'
Hearing his name took away some of the mystery surrounding him. It had a diminishing effect, making him smaller and pettier, somehow less immortal. 'I know I'm lucky to be alive,' I said, suddenly feeling deflated. 'But does this mean you'll be able to find Jenny now? And Tina? She's still missing, isn't she?'
Bolt nodded, an expression of concern crossing his face. It was clear he knew her. 'Unfortunately she is, yes,' he answered. 'We're in a better position to find both of them now we've talked to you and you've filled in the gaps, but I've got to be honest, we're still short of leads.'
'So, Killen's escaped then?'
'It looks that way. And I've got no doubt he knows where both women are.'
It was Mo Khan who spoke next. 'Is there anything you can think of, Mr Fallon, any clue at all that might help us find them? Something you saw or heard that you haven't yet told us about?'
'I've still got those photos that Tina sent me.'
'We've already seen them,' he said.
I wondered how this could be but didn't say anything. I was too busy racking my brains, but unfortunately to no avail. 'I'm sorry,' I told them at last, 'I can't think of anything.'
They looked disappointed but thanked me for my help and got to their feet. It was clear they were finished with me for now.
'One thing before you go,' I said. 'You turned up out of the blue at Maxwell's place tonight. How did you know I was there?'
'Maxwell – Harvey Hammond – was a police informant of mine for a number of years,' Bolt answered.
That caught me out. 'I was writing a book about him,' I said. 'I thought he was some bigshot criminal.'
'No, he was small-time. He used to know a lot of people on the fringes, and he was good at keeping his ear to the ground, but he was no Ronnie Kray.' He gave me a sympathetic look, seeing that this news represented something of an unpleasant surprise.
In truth, it was one of the biggest shocks I'd had in the last few days. I'd really believed in Maxwell, had been totally taken in by his tales of villainy. To find out that he was nothing but a lowlife snitch made me feel like a gullible prick.
'One thing I've learned in twenty years as a cop,' continued Bolt, 'is that the real bad guys don't tend to talk about what they do, only the wannabes. Look at it this way, though. If it hadn't been for Maxwell calling me to let us know you were at his place, you'd be dead now.'
As they turned to leave, something else occurred to me. 'And how did Killen and his mate manage to track me down to Maxwell's cottage? I'm positive I wasn't followed there and no one knew that was where I was going.'
They exchanged glances again, and it was clear that neither of them had thought about this.
There was a pause of a couple of seconds before a look of realization crossed Mo Khan's face. 'You said Killen gave you back your phone when he came to your place on Monday night, didn't you?'
I nodded.
'Where's the phone now?'
'In my jeans pocket.' I pointed to where my clothes were hanging over a chair in the corner.
He went through them until he found it and then, as I watched, he took off the back and started fiddling round inside. A couple of seconds later he removed a small round object, about half the size of a penny piece. He held it up for me to see. It emitted a tiny flashing red light. 'A GPS tracking device. Simple, yet highly effective.' He gave me a look that might have been sympathetic, or was possibly just pitying. 'It seems, Mr Fallon, that they knew exactly where you were the whole time.'
Bolt stood in the hospital car park, breathing in the cool night air. The rain had stopped completely now, leaving behind the smell of late summer foliage. He'd just finished paying the man from Autoglass, who'd put a new windscreen on the Jag, and he was pissed off.
To have come so close to Hook – the man he'd been after for five years – and then lose him wasn't easy to stomach, particularly with Tina unaccounted for. But it could have been worse. They'd almost lost Fallon as well. When they'd arrived at the hospital earlier and run into the ARV team tasked with guarding Fallon at the entrance, they'd heard the commotion and had run through accident and emergency, disturbing Hook, who'd abandoned his pursuit of Fallon and fled, using two orderlies and their gurney as cover. Bolt had even caught a glimpse of him, thirty yards away down the end of a corridor. So near, yet so bloody far.
His mobile started ringing.
It was Big Barry Freud. 'What on earth's going on, Mike?' he demanded. 'I've just had a call from the assistant chief constable of Thames Valley Police. He says you've been involved in a shoot-out in Berkshire, ran someone over, and drove off in a car that was being treated as crime-scene evidence. Care to explain?'
When he put it like that, it didn't sound too good, but Bolt was fairly certain that his actions had helped save Fallon's life, which was going to earn him some sort of credit. He gave Barry a brief rundown of the situation.
'So you're saying it's all to do with this bloody kidnap that Tina Boyd's been investigating?'
'It looks that way. Hook's definitely trying to do everything he can to shut up Fallon. And he's taking some massive risks. Like coming here tonight.'
'Blimey. It must be a very lucrative kidnapping to be worth all this effort and this many murders. What do we know about this girl?'
'Her name's Jenny Brakspear. And it's not a lot, but according to Tina, her father denied that any kidnapping had actually taken place. He said she'd gone on holiday. I had one of the team check up on Jenny's and her dad's backgrounds earlier, but everything ended up being put to one side when we got the call about Tina, and I haven't got the results back yet.'
'I heard that the body wasn't Tina's.'
'No.' Bolt knew he should have phoned Barry and told him it wasn't, but things had been happening so fast that night there'd been hardly a moment to stop and think.
'And you still haven't heard from her?'
Bolt sighed. 'No we haven't. But we've talked to Fallon.'
'Was he any help?'
'He's filled us in on what happened, but the problem is he didn't really know Jenny that well.'
'Great.' Big Barry exhaled loudly down the phone. 'Which of the team was looking into Jenny's background?'
'Kris Obanje. I think Mo's on the phone to him now.' Bolt looked across to where his colleague was standing on the hospital steps, talking animatedly into his mobile and taking notes at the same time.
'Good. Find out what you can and keep me in the loop. I'm at home.'
Bolt said he would, and ended the call. It was 1.20 in the morning, and he was exhausted. But he had a feeling neither he nor Mo Khan were going to be sleeping any time soon.
'According to Obanje, Jenny Brakspear's a complete unknown,' said Mo, pocketing his phone. 'Currently unemployed. She worked for an internet travel company based in Islington until about three months ago but got made redundant because of the credit crunch. No criminal record. Just an ordinary middle-class girl.'
'Her dad's the key,' said Bolt. 'He's the one they've got to be blackmailing. What did Obanje find out about him?'
'He's a company director of a gas wholesaler based in Cambridge. Good salary, and he's a part owner of the company, but there's not enough to hold him to ransom over. If he liquidated all his assets tomorrow then Kris reckons he could probably raise a few hundred thousand, but he hasn't even attempted to do that. The company's listed on AIM, the small company stock exchange, and there've been no share transactions this week, which there would have been if he'd been trying to raise money by selling his shares.'
'So it's something else.'
They both stood in silence for a minute.
Then a thought struck Bolt. 'You said Brakspear's a director of a gas company. What type of gases do they deal with?'
Mo shrugged. 'I don't know, and I don't think Kris looked into it in too much detail. But they wouldn't be ransoming her for gas, would they? It can't be worth that much money.'
'But if it's not money, I don't know what else it could be. Have you got a name for the company?'
He flicked open his notebook. 'Mainline Gas Services.'
'Let's look them up.'
Mo Khan always kept his laptop with him on jobs. It was currently under the seat in the Jaguar. They got inside the car and he looked up Mainline on the net, using a plug-in stick.
The company's website was pretty basic. It gave a brief history and an even briefer description of the services offered, and the gases they dealt with, none of which looked particularly controversial, although Bolt knew that this didn't mean much.
Mainline had two directors. One was Roy Brakspear, and when Mo double-clicked on his name the photograph of an ordinary-looking man in his fifties with grey hair and an avuncular smile appeared. His background was equally ordinary. A Masters degree in Chemistry from Cambridge; twelve years as a chemist at ICI before founding Mainline with an ICI colleague in 1987; one adult daughter. No mention of a wife. The ICI colleague was Miles Cavendish, now managing director, a younger-looking guy with red hair in a side parting and a much more confident, go-getting smile in his website photo.
'We need to speak to this guy,' said Bolt, pointing at Cavendish's mug.
'He's not going to be pleased being woken at this time in the morning.'
'It's an emergency. We've got no choice.'
It only took a few minutes to find Cavendish's number. SOCA had access to every registered telephone number in the country, but in this case Bolt bypassed HQ and phoned directory enquiries, immediately striking gold.
'This guy must be one of the last people in the country listed in the phone book,' he said as he wrote down the number. 'I'd never have my number there for every Tom, Dick and Harry to see.'
Mo shrugged. 'Saira insists on it. Just in case any of her old friends are trying to look her up.'
'And do any?'
'No. All we get are calls from Indian call centres.'
'I think when he finds out what this is about, Cavendish is going to wish we were an Indian call centre.'
He dialled the number. The phone seemed to ring for ever. Bolt was just about to give up when a hugely irritated male voice came over the line. 'Yes?'
'Miles Cavendish?'
'That's me,' he answered, still not sounding quite awake. 'Who am I speaking to, please?'
Bolt introduced himself and heard the audible intake of breath. No one likes a call from SOCA.
'How can I help you?' There was concern in his voice.
Bolt knew he had to choose his words carefully. He needed answers but he didn't want to have to give too much away. 'Can you tell me if your company, Mainline, handles any gases that could be described as expensive? Or dangerous?'
'Excuse me, can you explain what on earth this is all about? It's half past one in the morning.'
'Can you please answer the question, sir?'
'Look,' snapped Cavendish, 'how do I even know you are who you say you are? You could be anyone. Let me call you back.'
'I'm on a mobile.'
'In that case, goodbye. I'm not talking to people whose credentials I can't see.'
Bolt started to say something else but he was talking into a dead phone, and when he called back it was engaged. He shook his head angrily. 'Arsehole,' he cursed.
'You can't blame him, boss. You wouldn't give out information to someone who called you at home, would you?'
Bolt sighed. 'We're going to have to get his address and drive up there.'
'We could arrange for local CID to go round there if we told them what we needed to know. It would save us a long journey.'
Bolt looked at his colleague. There were big black bags under his eyes and he looked shattered. 'I'd rather do it myself, but there's no need for you to come with me. Honestly. I can drop you back home on the way. It's different for me. It's personal.'
Mo frowned. 'I was never a major fan of Tina Boyd, boss, but I still want to find her. And I want Hook just as much as you do. I worked the Leticia Jones case as well, remember?'
'I just thought maybe you could do with the rest. You look pretty whacked out.'
'I am. But look in the mirror. You do, too. We're in this together, boss. And also, there's still the matter that you saved my neck tonight, whatever you might think. So I owe you. Make the most of it. It won't last for ever.'
Bolt smiled. He felt touched, but didn't know quite what to say. In the end, he turned on the Jag's engine, backed out of the parking space, and once again they were on the move.
Miles Cavendish lived in the village of Stretham, about ten miles north of Cambridge on the A10, and it wasn't far short of three in the morning when Bolt and Mo finally pulled up in front of an attractive barn conversion set back a hundred yards from the road down a quiet lane.
Security lights illuminated the whole of the well-kept front garden, and as they got out of the car more lights came on in the house. By the time they got to the front door it had been opened on a chain by the man from the website photo. He was in a dressing gown and striped pyjamas and his hair was a mess. He eyed them with a mixture of suspicion and concern.
'Mr Cavendish, we spoke earlier.' Bolt placed his warrant card in the gap so that Cavendish could examine it as carefully as he wanted.
'Oh God,' said Cavendish, releasing the chain and opening the door. 'So it wasn't a hoax.'
'I'm afraid not,' answered Bolt as he and Mo stepped inside.
They followed Cavendish through to a traditionally decorated lounge and he invited them to sit down. 'I'm sorry about earlier but I've been the victim of identity fraud before and I'm very careful what I say on the phone to people I don't know. Could you please tell me what this is about?' He looked at them anxiously.
They'd decided on the way up to treat Cavendish as if he was a suspect. Which meant not giving much away.
'We can't tell you very much, I'm afraid,' Bolt replied. 'Right now, we just want you to answer our questions.'
Cavendish went white. 'We're a very respectable company, officers. We've got nothing to hide, I promise. We pay our taxes on time-'
'Firstly,' said Mo, 'can you tell me what your organization does?'
'We're a gas wholesaler. Basically, we buy certain specialist gases, directly from the manufacturers in this country and Europe, and sell them on in smaller quantities to our clients, who are mainly in the pharmaceutical and technology sectors.'
'And are there any gases your company handles that could be classed as highly expensive?'
'Yes. Some of the loads are worth a lot of money. A mixed batch of, say, xenon, tungsten hexaflouride, helium-3 isotope, could be worth as much as a hundred thousand pounds.'
That seemed to Bolt to be a lot of money for gas, but it wasn't the kind of figure worth killing people for. 'And do you handle dangerous gases as well?'
'Numerous. We deal in toxics and flammables. You'll have to be more specific.'
'What about radioactive materials?'
'No, we don't deal with radioactives. That's a very specialized area. Please, Mr Bolt, can you tell me what you're getting at?'
Bolt couldn't help feeling sorry for the guy. Unless he was an extremely good actor, it was clear he wasn't involved in Jenny Brakspear's abduction. But it was still essential that he take their enquiries absolutely seriously.
'Could you tell me if any orders for dangerous gases have been made in the past three days? Is that possible to check?'
Cavendish looked at them both in turn. 'All orders of hazardous gases or chemicals need a director's signature,' he said eventually. 'And there are only two directors. Myself-'
'And Roy Brakspear,' said Mo, finishing the sentence off for him. 'When was the last time you spoke to him?'
'Monday morning,' he answered. 'Roy wasn't feeling well. He said he'd been getting stomach cramps over the weekend. We discussed a client proposal we've got coming up but we didn't talk for long.'
'Has he been into work at all this week?'
Cavendish shook his head. 'No, we agreed it was better for him to work at home until he felt better.'
'So you haven't seen Roy at all this week?'
Again he shook his head. 'No. I tried to call him earlier on tonight to check that he was OK but he didn't answer. I assume he was sleeping. He's like me. He lives on his own.'
'But he has a daughter,' said Bolt.
'That's right. Jenny.'
'So he was married once?'
'He was. Celia passed away five years ago. She had stomach cancer. It was very tragic.'
Bolt felt a twinge of sympathy for Brakspear. He'd lost Mikaela seven years ago, yet still thought about her every day. A loss like that never really goes away, and for Brakspear to now face losing his only daughter must be unbearable. He would do anything to keep her alive. The question was, what had he done?
'Can you tell me if Roy's placed any orders for gases or chemicals this week?' he asked. 'Particularly anything out of the ordinary.'
Cavendish frowned. 'Mr Bolt, I've worked with Roy Brakspear for over twenty years now and I can assure you that he's as straight as a die. I can promise you he's done absolutely nothing wrong.'
Bolt leaned forward in his seat and fixed Cavendish with a hard stare. 'Can you just check for us, Mr Cavendish? Please.'
'OK,' he said reluctantly, getting to his feet. 'If he has, it'll be recorded on our system. I can access it from the study.'
They followed him through the lounge to a wide airy room at the back of the house where a mahogany desk faced out into the back garden, and waited in silence while Cavendish booted up his PC. When it was up and running he sat down and began typing.
Bolt rubbed his eyes and thought about Tina, wondered where she was and whether she was even still alive. He hadn't wanted to admit it to himself but, though the kidnappers might have a good reason to keep Jenny alive if they wanted her father to do something for them, they had no obvious reason to do the same with Tina. In fact, quite the reverse. She'd been investigating them, so clearly it would be better if she was out of the way. The only thing giving Bolt hope was the fact that her body hadn't been found yet, even though her car had. It wasn't much, but until he heard otherwise he'd keep searching for her.
'Nothing yet,' said Cavendish, without looking round, still tapping away on the keyboard. 'As I've said to you already, Roy's as straight as a die. He won't have made any significant orders – anything out of the ordinary, as you put it – without telling me.'
Bolt leaned against the wall, feeling frustrated. Roy Brakspear was being blackmailed, he was absolutely sure of it. No other explanation made sense. But if it wasn't something to do with his work, then what the hell was it?
'Christ.' Cavendish had stopped tapping on the keyboard and was now staring at something on the screen.
'What is it?'
Bolt and Mo hurried over to where he was sitting. On the screen was an invoice that appeared to be in German.
'I don't understand it,' said Cavendish distantly. 'Roy has put in an order. For a whole lorry load of phosgene. Now why on earth would he do that? We only ever buy it one pallet at a time.'
'What is phosgene?' asked Bolt.
Cavendish turned to face him. 'It's a component for pharmaceutical products, and it's more commonly used name is mustard gas.'
Bolt was confused. 'Mustard gas? The stuff they used to use in the First World War? And Roy Brakspear was able to order it? Just like that?'
'It's a legal product, Mr Bolt, manufactured in Germany. And we're authorized to import it. This quantity is unusually large, but it won't have been queried because the company has been dealing with us for years.'
'When was this order placed?' asked Mo.
Cavendish typed a command. 'Seven a.m. on Monday morning, so he must have done it remotely. I spoke to Roy about two hours later and he didn't say anything about it.'
'Is there time to cancel the order?' snapped Bolt.
Cavendish typed another command, and Bolt heard him swallow. 'No,' he said quietly. 'According to the system it was picked up at the factory in Germany at two o'clock yesterday afternoon. It must have been a rush order, but I've got no idea who it could be for. Roy hasn't listed who the end user is.'
He didn't need to, thought Bolt. The end user in this case was going to be Hook. But what the hell was he going to do with a lorry load of mustard gas?
'What would happen if the gas was released?' he asked Cavendish. 'What sort of damage would it do?'
Cavendish turned in his seat so he was facing Bolt. He looked stunned. 'But who's going to release it?'
'Just answer the question.'
'It depends on the weather conditions and how it is released. It's carried in light steel cylinders and you can't simply blow them up because that would render the gas ineffective. However, if there was very little wind, the gas was dispersed in a crowded area, and the people who carried out the dispersal somehow managed to break the valves on the cylinders simultaneously without damaging the phosgene, then…' He paused, and when he spoke again, his voice cracked a little. 'I dread to think. The death toll would be hundreds at least. Possibly even thousands.'
Bolt looked at Mo, whose face was draining of colour. Bolt was shocked himself. He knew what Hook was capable of. They both did. There were only two reasons why a man like him could possibly want something as lethal as this. Either to blackmail some other organization, the government perhaps. Or to commit a terrorist act.
Bolt forced himself to remain calm. 'We need to locate the load urgently,' he said. 'How do we do it?'
'I don't know which driver we used. Roy didn't fill his name in on the order form. There'll be a signature on the paperwork though. That should tell us who it is.' He began typing again, and a copy of the German invoice reappeared on the screen. 'There's the signature,' he said, pointing to an illegible squiggle in the bottom right-hand corner. He examined it closely, shaking his head. 'I'm afraid I don't recognize it.'
'What the hell is this?' demanded Mo, his face red with anger. 'You don't know who the hell's driving a deadly cargo on your company's behalf?'
Bolt could understand his friend's reaction. He had a wife and four children at home in London. If Hook was plotting a terrorist outrage then it was a fair guess that the capital would be the target, which put a hugely personal slant on the case.
'It's not my fault if Roy didn't fill out the information,' said Cavendish defensively.
Mo wasn't mollified. 'What about the checks and balances?' he asked. 'You should have known about it. You're a director of the company, for God's sake.'
'Roy's a director, too. He's in charge of the bloody checks and balances. How was I to know he'd do something like this? I can't understand it. What the hell did he think he was doing?' Cavendish put his head in his hands and stared down at the desktop.
Bolt put a hand on his shoulder. 'OK, Mr Cavendish, no one's saying it's your fault. But we really do need to locate the lorry carrying this load.'
Cavendish slowly lifted his head and looked up at Bolt with frightened eyes. 'That's the problem, Mr Bolt. We don't have any of our own drivers. We use agency ones, and they come from all over the place. That bloody gas could be anywhere.'
Mike Bolt was an optimist. He'd had some hard, hard times – the death of Mikaela being the hardest of all – but he remained conscious of the fact that if he kept a level head and rode the punches thrown at him, eventually he'd come through the other side, and things would get better. Because if you let them, they always did.
But at that moment he was having to work hard to keep his spirits up. Finding the mustard gas and, by extension, Tina and Jenny Brakspear was looking like an impossible task. In Hook, they were up against a highly professional operator who'd only remained at liberty for so long because he kept ahead of the game. But it was still possible, he told himself. It was just a matter of staying calm and working through the leads they had, and for that they needed resources.
It was twenty to four when Bolt stepped outside into Cavendish's back garden, leaving Mo inside with him. He dialled Big Barry's home number. The case had changed dramatically now that national security was threatened, and Bolt needed his boss's help.
Big Barry still sounded asleep when he answered the phone, but that didn't last long. 'How could this happen?' he demanded when Bolt told him about the mustard gas.
'All too easily, by the sound of things. Obviously, the important thing is to find the bloody stuff. Cavendish is in a bit of a state of shock.'
'I'm not bloody surprised. He'll be in even more of a one if it gets let off and it's his firm that's responsible for it. How bad could it be if it's released?'
Bolt told him.
'Christ.' There was silence on the other end of the line as Big Barry took the information in. 'I'm going to have to get the director involved. The PM's going to have to know about this as well. This is government-level stuff.'
'I know,' said Bolt, moving further into the garden. 'Cavendish has given us a list of agencies in the UK and Europe that Mainline have used before to hire drivers. But there are a lot of them. Eighteen altogether. And as Brakspear was trying to hide what he was doing, it's possible he could have gone to someone else.'
'How do we know that he even hired a driver? What's to stop him sending one of the kidnappers over to pick up the order?'
'I asked Cavendish about that. All drivers carrying hazardous goods have to have something called an APR licence, which has photo ID on it. They give them out to plenty of people, but it's unlikely the company manufacturing the mustard gas in Germany would have given the order to someone who didn't have a valid one. One could always be faked, I suppose, but my guess is Hook's going to try to intercept the load somewhere between the factory and the final destination, which is a secure facility that Mainline have just outside Cambridge.'
'If he hasn't done it already.' Big Barry sighed. 'OK, email me that list and the name of the company in Germany. I'll get resources lined up to contact everyone, but it's all going to take a while at this time of the morning.'
'There might be a quicker way,' said Bolt.
'What?'
'I'm pretty sure Brakspear was being imprisoned in his home shortly after Jenny was kidnapped. He was there on Monday because Tina and Cavendish both told me they called him at different times, and he was there when Fallon turned up yesterday morning. So it's possible he called the agency to hire the driver from his home phone. If we check the records, we might be able to find out who it is.'
'Good thinking,' said Big Barry, suddenly sounding a little happier. 'Good work, old mate. I tell you: if we stop this stuff falling into the wrong hands, it'll be a real result for SOCA. A high-profile one, too.'
Bolt knew that his boss was always on the lookout for the big result that would get him on to the next rung of the SOCA ladder, and nearer to his final goal of directorship. Ordinarily, Bolt would have let it go. He was used to Barry's attitude, and because he was a decent enough boss he could generally tolerate it, but these weren't ordinary times. 'I'll be happy when we get Tina and Jenny Brakspear back,' he countered, making little attempt to disguise the irritation in his voice.
'Of course, of course,' said Big Barry, backtracking. 'And what about Roy Brakspear? You said he was at home yesterday morning. Is it possible he's still there?'
'I doubt it, sir. My gut feeling is that Hook would have moved him after Fallon turned up, just in case Fallon raised the alarm. And if not then, they'd have moved him by now because Hook must know we've spoken to Fallon.'
'Hook's got a lot on his plate at the moment and he can't be operating with that many people. He might not have had the chance. Can you get down to Brakspear's place and take a look around? You're up that way, aren't you? In the meantime, I'll get a full surveillance team with armed back-up, and a search warrant sorted out. We might have to break him out of there.'
'I don't want to do anything that endangers Tina, sir. Or Jenny.'
'We'll do what we can to bring them home in one piece, but I'm sorry to have to say it, old mate, but as of now they've ceased to be top priority.'
Bolt and Mo were exhausted, operating purely on adrenalin as they drove to Brakspear's place.
'I want to tell Saira to take the kids out of London for a couple of days,' said Mo after a long silence. 'Her sister's in Leicester. They can go and stay there. There's enough room.'
'Don't do anything yet,' Bolt told him. 'We don't even know the current whereabouts of the gas, and it's important we keep things under wraps as much as possible. We don't want to start some kind of panic.'
'That's easy for you to say,' Mo snapped. 'You don't have a family.' He stopped himself from going on, a look of anguish crossing his face. 'I'm sorry, boss, I didn't mean it like that. It's just, you know…' He shook his head. 'All this is a lot to take on board.'
'It's all right,' said Bolt. He knew he'd almost certainly have done the same if Mikaela was still alive: made a call, told her to keep quiet but to get out of the city. Now that he lived alone it was hypocritical for him to deny others the chance to put the safety of the people they loved first. 'Do what you think's right, Mo,' he said eventually. 'I won't stand in your way.'
Mo nodded, and fell silent again.
It had just turned quarter to five when they reached Roy Brakspear's house. Bolt slowed down a touch as they passed the front entrance. The wrought-iron gates were shut but he caught a glimpse of Brakspear's car on the driveway.
They parked next to a terrace of whitewashed cottages nearby and got out of the car. The first signs of light were appearing on the horizon and the early morning was peaceful and silent. Big Barry had called back to tell Bolt that a surveillance team wouldn't be available for at least an hour, but he'd also said that if he thought the place was empty then they should go inside and worry about the consequences later. Which suited Bolt just fine.
A footpath at the end of the terrace ran parallel to the exterior wall of Brakspear's property to a cornfield beyond, and they moved up it in silence. The side gate was locked, but as long-term surveillance officers they were used to getting into places they weren't supposed to, and they helped each other over the wall and into the garden.
The house was quiet, with all the curtains drawn, and they crept quietly across the lawn until they reached the back door. Bolt listened at the glass but heard nothing beyond. He tried the door handle but it was locked. The lock was old, though, and could be picked in seconds.
He and Mo exchanged glances. It was likely Brakspear wasn't there, but it was also possible he was, and that whoever was baby-sitting him would be armed.
'Let's do it,' whispered Mo.
Bolt nodded, produced his picks, and a few seconds later they were inside an old-fashioned utility room with a washing machine and fridge freezer. Both men produced their standard-issue pepper sprays – the only weapons they had, and woefully inadequate if they encountered trouble. Holding his out in front of him, his finger on the nozzle, Bolt crept through the silent house, conscious of Mo right behind him.
The utility room gave way to a spacious kitchen with a breakfast bar in the middle that had obviously been refitted recently. Unwashed pots and pans filled the sink and there was a faint odour of fried food.
They moved into the silent gloom of the hallway. A dying moonlight filtered in through the window above the front door illuminating a framed poster-sized photograph on the opposite wall. Bolt stopped and inspected it.
The photo was a family shot of a younger Roy Brakspear standing between an attractive woman in her thirties and a cute-looking girl of about ten, which must have been Jenny. All of them were smiling at the camera, and even in the gloom Bolt could see that Brakspear looked genuinely happy. A man with his family. The photograph resonated with Bolt. It also angered him because it demonstrated so perfectly the casual evil of the men who were putting him through this. Bastards. A sudden desire for vengeance ripped through him, so intense that it made him shiver.
He turned away and padded silently across the hallway to the staircase.
That was when he caught a faint stale smell coming from upstairs. Like rancid meat.
He stopped, turned. Mo had caught it, too. He was wrinkling his nose. They both knew what it meant.
Bolt headed up the stairs and out on to the landing. The door opposite was shut, but the smell here was much stronger and hung heavy in the air. The murky silence seemed loud in Bolt's ears.
Holding the pepper spray in front of him, he slowly opened the door and stepped inside.
Roy Brakspear was lying face down on the bed, sideways on, his legs dangling off the edge. He was wearing casual middle-aged clothes – a pair of slacks and a navy sweater – tan brogues on the feet. His arms were outstretched on either side of him where he'd fallen and a small pool of blood had formed round his head. Further drops speckled the sheets where the bullet that had been callously fired into the back of his head had exited.
Mo came in and stood beside Bolt. He didn't speak.
'Poor sod was just a loose end to them,' said Bolt, looking down at the body. He thought about the smiling husband and father in the downstairs photo. Two of that family were now dead. It was possible the third member, Jenny, was too, and if she wasn't yet she would be once the mustard gas was in Hook's hands.
They searched the rest of the house, throwing all the lights on, no longer needing to keep quiet, but there was no obvious evidence pointing to either the identity or the location of the kidnappers. The place would have to be searched a lot more thoroughly but this would now be done by scene-of-crime officers.
They left the way they'd come in, and Bolt put a call in to Big Barry. 'Bad news,' he said when his boss answered, and he told him what they'd found.
'Poor bugger,' sighed Barry with only the barest modicum of sympathy. 'I've got news for you as well. There's good and there's bad.'
'What's the good?'
'Your hunch paid off. We checked Brakspear's phone records, got the number for the drivers' agency he used, and we've finally got the name of the driver picking up the load, and the registration of his lorry.'
'What's the bad?' asked Bolt, even though he could guess what it was.
'He's not answering his phone and the tracking device on the lorry isn't picking up. The bugger's disappeared into thin air.'
Frank O'Toole watched from his position in the gap behind the steps leading down to the ferry's lower parking level as the man he was tracking weaved his way through the stationary vehicles until he came to the lorry. The man's name was Trevor Gould. He was in his early fifties, with a ruddy complexion suggesting high blood pressure and an immense pot belly which made him look like he'd swallowed a beach ball. He stopped by the lorry and clicked off its central locking, unaware that its plates had been changed.
Another guy in a suit, looking exhausted, made his way to his own vehicle, and from the top of the steps O'Toole could hear more voices. It was time to move.
As Gould opened the driver's door and heaved himself up on to the step, precariously balancing the half-eaten baguette he was carrying, O'Toole slipped from his hiding place and strode over to him, keeping his head down and watching the man in the suit out of the corner of his eye as he got into his own car.
Gould was so busy squeezing himself into the driver's seat that he didn't spot a thing until O'Toole was leaning into the cab and jabbing the hunting knife into his side.
'Move over,' he hissed, 'and don't look at me or make a sound. Otherwise you're dead.'
'I don't want any trouble,' said Gould, who was sensible enough to do what he was told. It was a real effort for him to clamber over the handbrake and the gearstick, and O'Toole noticed with wry amusement that he continued to clutch the greasy baguette as if it was the crown jewels.
'Where's the tracking device in this thing?' O'Toole demanded.
'Under my seat,' replied Gould, making an exaggerated effort not to look at him.
'Disconnect it.'
As Gould leaned down, O'Toole slipped a hypodermic syringe from the inside pocket of his leather jacket. He removed the stopper and, as Gould sat back up again, jabbed the needle into his arm.
Unlike the man he was currently working for, Frank O'Toole didn't enjoy killing people. He'd only done it once before and that was fifteen years ago now. A tout who'd been selling information to the Brits. O'Toole and another man had kidnapped him from the street outside his home and taken him to an abandoned warehouse just outside Newry where he'd been tried by an IRA military court and found guilty of the crimes of which he was accused. There was only ever one sentence for touting: death. O'Toole had been given the task of carrying it out, something he'd done without hesitation, putting a bullet in the back of the man's head as he knelt down, blindfolded and begging for his life. O'Toole had had no sympathy for him – touts deserved what was coming to them – but he hadn't gained any satisfaction from doing it either. It was a job, nothing more. Just as it was a job now. And this time he was being paid a hundred grand for his troubles – more than he'd earned in the last ten years – which meant there was no place for weakness. Or too many questions.
Trevor Gould grimaced as the poison flooded into his system, and his eyes bulged. O'Toole slapped a hand over his mouth and pushed him back in the seat as he juddered and writhed. He could have killed him with the knife but that would have been way too messy. O'Toole wasn't squeamish, but he was going to have to drive this thing for the next hour and he didn't want it looking or smelling like a slaughterhouse.
Gould took several minutes to die, but his demise was silent and attracted no attention from the people who were now milling about their cars as the ferry made its way slowly into Harwich docks. When he was finally still, his face puce, O'Toole reached into his pocket, pulled out the APR licence badge that had been made for him, and attached it to his own jacket. He then squeezed Gould's body into the sleeping area behind the front seats and chucked a grimy-looking duvet over it. Ignoring the smell that was already beginning to permeate the cab, he polished off Gould's baguette, then started the lorry's engine as the ferry drew into the docks.
Barely five minutes later the ferry's iron doors opened, and O'Toole joined the long line of traffic snaking its way towards passport control. He sighed with relief as he was waved through with the merest hint of a glance by a kid barely out of his teens. He didn't even have to open his window. Just waved his false British passport in the kid's general direction. It amazed him that there was so little security, although he guessed that these days men like him, white and middle-aged, were no longer considered suspicious.
He chuckled to himself. Once upon a time he was one of Scotland Yard's most wanted men, with his own file at MI5. Now he was considered part of a long ago, irrelevant past.
Such complacency was going to prove a huge mistake.
'Nigel's gay,' said Yvonne with an exaggerated sigh, looking up at me, her expression a strange mix of disappointment and naked lust. 'I caught him with the local blacksmith.' Her hand slowly stroked my arm, and I found myself getting aroused. 'I think we should get back together, Rob. It's been too long, and I haven't been happy without you, I really haven't. You were always the man for me.'
I almost cried out with joy. This was what I'd wanted for a long time. The three of us back together again. It was as if a complex plan had finally come together.
Then I woke up.
Dazed, and with my arm throbbing painfully, I sat up in bed and picked up my watch from the bedside table. It was half past ten. I'd been asleep for the best part of ten hours. Sunlight flooded in through the window, and through the glass in the door I could see the silhouette of a man with a machine gun standing guard. After the most hectic and terrifying few days of my life, I was finally safe.
But, strangely, this knowledge didn't make me feel as good as it should have. Instead, I was enveloped by a feeling of real melancholy. This was partly to do with the dream I'd just had. It might have been pretty bizarre but it had also offered me a little hope, which had now been snatched back by reality. But it wasn't just that. With the drama of the last few days over, I was suddenly completely alone, no longer part of the events whirling round me.
I thought of Jenny and Tina Boyd and wondered if they were still alive. Somehow I couldn't imagine that bastard with the saucer eyes letting them go. He didn't seem the kind of man capable of showing any mercy. I wished I'd been more help to the cops who'd come to see me the previous night. They'd seemed like pretty intelligent on-the-ball guys, but it all depended on the quality of the leads they had to work on, and since most of them had come from me I wasn't at all sure they were that good.
The business card of the one in charge, Mike Bolt, was on the bedside table, and I picked it up now, wanting to call him for an update but knowing he wouldn't appreciate it, especially as I had nothing new to tell him.
There was a jug of water by the bed and I filled my glass and drank deeply, racking my brains for something I might have missed out in my account of those frenetic forty-eight hours.
It was only when I'd refilled my glass and picked up my mobile phone – the one that had advertised my whereabouts to the men who wanted to kill me – that it struck me. When I went to Jenny's father's place I'd photographed the unidentified car on his driveway on my mobile before he disturbed me. For some reason – it must have been the fact that it was sandwiched between far bigger, more terrifying events – I hadn't mentioned it to Bolt and his colleague, yet the car had almost certainly belonged to the shaven-headed kidnapper who'd chased me across Jenny's dad's lawn. And he might still be using it.
I didn't know whether or not the police had already visited her dad's place, or whether they'd located the car, but it had to be worth telling them about.
Hoping that he had some good news for me, I dialled Mike Bolt's number.
Eamon Donald stubbed his cigarette underfoot and watched as the lorry drove through the open double doors and into the cavernous barn, stopping at the end. The driver exited the cab and Donald immediately recognized him as Frank O'Toole, a volunteer from the old days. They'd spent a few months together in the Maze in the early nineties, before the first ceasefire, and Donald remembered that he'd been well thought of by his commanding officer. 'Reliable' was the word he'd used. Exactly what was needed for a job like this.
He was less sure of the other guy Hook had hired, a big shaven-headed thug from south London called Stone, who was currently at the far end of the barn sawing up long tubes of drainpiping into pieces six feet long. Stone didn't speak much, nor did he ask any questions, such as 'What am I doing sawing up tubes of drain-piping?' He did exactly what he was told without fuss or comment. In Eamon Donald's view, men who didn't ask questions shouldn't be trusted. Either they were immensely stupid or, worse, they were pretending to be. Hook had said that he'd worked with Stone in his days as a freelance London hitman, and it had been a success. Donald trusted his current employer's judgement, but he still had his doubts about the Londoner.
'Hello Eamon,' said O'Toole, coming over. 'I had an idea I might run into you at some point on this op. How are you doing?'
'I'm fine,' answered Donald, smiling thinly as they shook hands. He hoped that other people wouldn't jump to the same conclusion. As one of the IRA's most seasoned bombmakers, with more than twenty-five years' worth of experience with explosives under his belt, some of which was still very much up to date, Donald had to be very careful that he covered his tracks on this op. 'So, you know what the load is you're carrying, then?' he asked.
O'Toole nodded. 'Aye, I do. I don't think he does, though.' He pointed at Stone, who had his back to them, sawing away.
'No, and we're not going to say anything to him either. The fewer people who know about this, the better. And he might not be too happy if he thinks we're going to bomb his home town.'
'Are we?' asked O'Toole, looking interested. 'Do you know what the target is?'
'No, I don't.' This was a lie. Donald knew exactly what, and who, the target was going to be. 'All I know is it's got to be ready by ten o'clock tonight, so we're going to need to get going. I don't want Hook on my back telling me to hurry things along. You can't hurry something like this.'
'Where is Hook?' asked O'Toole, looking round.
'He's about here somewhere. Probably with the hostages.'
'They're still alive, are they? I thought he'd have wanted rid of them by now.'
Donald shrugged. Hook had always had an eye for the ladies. In the old days he'd had a lot of success, but that had all changed when his face had been ripped apart by the bomb. Now he just looked like a freak. But Donald had no doubt that he would have taken advantage of the current situation, and that both the women upstairs would have been on the receiving end of his unwanted advances by now. As a father of two adult daughters himself, Donald didn't approve. He was notoriously prudish in matters of the flesh, but as long as it didn't interfere with the op, and they were both disposed of before the end of it, he was prepared to turn a blind eye.
Deciding it was time to bring the small talk to an end, he walked over to the back of the lorry. 'Keys,' he said to O'Toole, putting out a hand.
O'Toole handed them to him, and Donald unlocked the rear doors and pulled them open.
In front of him, stacked two high, were open-ended wooden pallets containing neat, straight rows of plain aluminium cylinders – 236 in all. But Eamon Donald didn't see plain aluminium cylinders. He saw great gouting plumes of fire and jagged clouds of shrapnel. Destruction. And, of course, revenge. The IRA's struggle might have officially ended more than a decade earlier but Donald retained a deep hatred for the British. They'd imprisoned him in the Maze for a total of fourteen years, as well as shooting dead his brother, Padraig. He'd made them suffer too, of course, with a string of bombs that had left more than fifty members of the Brit establishment and their allies dead down the years. The innocent had died too, several dozen at least, but they were unavoidable collateral damage in a war that, for Donald, would never be over.
When Hook had approached him a few weeks earlier with his offer of work, Donald had almost said no. The job was risky in the extreme and likely to attract a lot of heat. But he'd gone for it, and it had had nothing to do with the hundred and fifty grand he'd be receiving. It was because Hook was providing him with the opportunity for a bloody, crippling victory over his old enemy that would eclipse everything that had gone before.
O'Toole must have read his thoughts. 'It's going to be a big one, isn't it?' he said quietly.
Donald caught the vaguest flash of doubt on the other man's face as he turned his way and fixed him with a hard stare. 'Whatever it is, it's no less than the bastards deserve. Remember that.'
Bolt was woken by his mobile phone. He sat up suddenly, groggily patting his pockets, before finally locating it. He didn't recognize the number and for a split second he wondered if it was Tina.
But it wasn't. It was Rob Fallon, and he was asking if they'd made any progress on the hunt for her and Jenny.
Bolt had snatched some sleep in his office while all around him his colleagues had been working flat out, but so far Operation Medusa, the massive police operation to find the missing consignment of mustard gas and, by extension, the two women, hadn't been successful on either count. They knew that the lorry was in the UK, and that it had come in on the overnight ferry from Zeebrugge to Harwich, but they were also sure that its number plates had been changed en route because an emergency trawl of all the traffic cameras in the greater Harwich area had failed to turn up anything. Like Hook, it had disappeared into thin air. A complete news blackout was in place while the full resources of the British state were diverted to the hunt, but he was all too aware that even this might not be enough, because time was not on their side.
Bolt cleared his throat, fighting down his disappointment, and gave Fallon the stock answer that they were following up a number of leads and that he'd give him news as soon as he had any. He felt like crap, and hoped Fallon would get the message and get off the phone.
'I might have a lead for you.'
Bolt perked up a little, but not much. Things had moved on, and Fallon was the least of their problems in a case as big as this. But he asked what it was, then listened with growing interest as Fallon explained about the car on Roy Brakspear's drive the previous day and the photo he'd taken on his mobile. 'I don't know how much help it is,' he continued uncertainly, 'but I thought you ought to know about it.'
Bolt pulled a notebook from his jacket and wrote down the car's make, colour and registration number, then he hung up, feeling a little more hopeful suddenly. Fallon had told him that the car wasn't there when he'd returned to the property, so it had clearly been used by the kidnapper. If they could find the car, it was possible they could find Hook.
He put the mobile back in his pocket and got to his feet, still feeling pretty crap, but Fallon's information had given him enough of an adrenalin buzz to keep him going for a few hours longer.
Big Barry Freud was temporarily off the phone and looking exhausted when Bolt walked into his office.
'You know,' he said as Bolt sat down, 'even with all this bloody stuff going on, I've still got Thames Valley giving me crap about you driving off from the murder scene last night. I've had their assistant chief constable on the phone twice this morning. He sounds like a right old woman. He wants you interviewed in connection with their inquiry but I've told him you're not available at the moment. I won't be able to put it off much longer, though.' He paused in his monologue to wipe sweat from his brow with a handkerchief that looked like it had had a fair amount of use already that day.
'I've got a lead,' announced Bolt, and he told Big Barry about the dark blue Mazda Fallon had photographed at the Brakspear residence. 'If the kidnapper doesn't know that Fallon got a shot of the number plate, he might still be using it now. If we can find him, we might be able to find Hook and the gas.'
Big Barry grinned, seemingly pleased with this new information. 'Got to be worth a try, hasn't it? I'll get on to the ANPR people.'
The automatic number plate recognition system was the latest technological tool available to the police in the twenty-first-century fight against crime. It used a huge network of CCTV cameras which automatically read car number plates to log the movement of vehicles along virtually every main road in Britain. These images were then stored on a vast central database, housed alongside the Police National Computer HQ. If the Mazda had been driven in the past twenty-four hours, the ANPR would have a record of its journey.
Big Barry picked up the phone and two minutes later he was giving the Mazda's registration number to one of the senior officers in charge of the database, and telling him in no uncertain terms that his team could put everything else aside because tracing this car was the absolute number one priority. 'And that comes right from the very top, old mate,' he added, putting a faintly ludicrous emphasis on the word 'top'.
Big Barry Freud was the kind of man who liked to throw his not inconsiderable weight about, particularly during major inquiries. He believed that it was just part of his decisive take-charge personality, but to most other people, including Bolt, it was just plain rudeness.
Still, it seemed to work, and when he got off the phone he gave Bolt a decisive nod. 'He's going to call back in five minutes.'
'Any more progress on finding the lorry?' Bolt asked him. There were currently officers from three different police forces re-examining the camera footage from Harwich to see if they could identify it using just its physical description.
'Nothing yet,' said Big Barry. 'We must have two hundred bodies working on it, but Gould's wife hasn't been a lot of help. She says the lorry's big and white, with black writing down the side saying Banton Transport, which apparently isn't even that big. Oh, and that he's got a West Ham banner in the back of the cab, but she doesn't think you can see that very easily from the outside.'
'Shit. It's not a lot, is it?'
'No, it isn't. And you know what these CCTV images are like. They're blurry at the best of times. It's like the proverbial needle in the haystack, old mate.' He sighed. 'If we had some idea of what the target was going to be, it would help, but we haven't got a bloody clue.'
'Something like mustard gas is only going to be used for one thing: to cause mass casualties. Have we got any idea who Hook might be working for?'
Big Barry shook his head. 'Nothing. But I have had a briefing on the gas's properties and how it might be released. Apparently, if it gets ignited, mustard gas loses its potency, so they can't blow up the load with a conventional bomb. It's possible they can get someone with a decent gas mask to release it manually by opening up the cylinders one by one, but there are more than two hundred of them, so it would take ages, and as soon as people got a whiff of the first few they'd be off in no time, so it wouldn't be very effective.'
'So what are they going to do?'
'No one knows. But I've got a feeling they'll find a way.' He sighed again, and Bolt could see the pressure his boss was under. 'If they somehow get it out into the atmosphere, it'll be a bloody catastrophe. It's a sunny day with a light breeze, which is meant to be perfect conditions for releasing it. I don't mind telling you, I'm glad my missus isn't up in town today.'
Bolt was surprised at his honesty. Big Barry Freud usually towed the party line, but these, it seemed, were unprecedented times. 'Plenty of peoples' wives are,' he said, thinking about Mo and Saira, and their four children. He'd dropped Mo back at home on the way here earlier so he could grab a bit of sleep and they could spend some time together, and he wondered whether he'd sent them out of town as well.
'If the powers-that-be think there's a need to evacuate, then they'll do it,' said Big Barry, 'but they're setting up roadblocks coming into town and the congestion charge cameras are tracking any white lorries.' He was trying to sound confident but it wasn't really working, and he was saved from further conversation by the ringing of his phone.
It was clear the caller was from the ANPR. Barry wrote something down on the giant notepad that covered half his desk before hanging up.
'The Mazda was last caught on the ANPR yesterday afternoon at 2.47 p.m. just north of Saffron Walden in Essex on the B1052 at Linton in Cambridgeshire. If it's been used since, then it hasn't gone far because it would have been caught on one of the other cameras. They're going to send us a map showing the area where it might still be.'
Bolt smiled. 'That should narrow it down a bit.'
But when the map was emailed through to Barry's PC ten minutes later, it was clear that it hadn't narrowed things down as much as either of them would have liked. Although the Mazda's last location was surrounded by cameras, it was a largely semi-rural area of northern Essex, with hundreds of back roads and villages, bordered by the M11 to the west, and the computer-generated map calculated that the car could be anywhere in an area of almost 190 square miles.
'Christ, that doesn't help us much, does it?' said Big Barry as they pored over the printout. 'I've got a tag on those plates, so if the car starts moving again we'll know as soon as it's picked up by a camera. Until then, though…'
Bolt wasn't entirely deterred. 'You say the gas can't be released very easily manually, right? So, if they're going to come up with a way of releasing it effectively, they're going to have to take it somewhere to get it ready, don't you think?'
Big Barry shrugged. 'I don't know. It's possible, I suppose.'
'Well, maybe the car's gone to the same place. Hook hasn't got a big team. So far we only know of one person working with him.'
'I still don't see what you're getting at, Mike.'
'I'm thinking that maybe they've got a base round there somewhere. A centre for their operations.' He ran a finger in a wide circle on the map. 'A place they would have rented. If you can let me take a couple of people from my team off the CCTV trawl, we can look up all the estate agents in the area, see who's rented out property recently. It's a long shot…'
'An extremely long shot. We don't even know that the car hasn't just been abandoned in a wood somewhere.'
'But it's got to be worth a look. We've got two hundred people working on the CCTV. Surely we can spare a couple of them?'
Big Barry looked doubtful, but he was the sort of guy who always liked to cover all his bases, just in case there was an opportunity for personal advancement in one of them. 'OK, take one person.' He looked at his watch. 'It's eleven now. We'll review how you're getting on at two.'
Bolt thanked him and walked out with the map before his boss had a chance to change his mind. It was still a case of searching for a needle in a haystack, but at least the haystack was getting smaller.
And any effort was worth it if it led to Tina.
The interior of the lorry's cab still reeked of death, even though they'd removed the driver's body more than an hour earlier, and Eamon Donald was pleased when he'd finished drilling the holes through to the back that were needed for the bomb's wires, and could finally get out into the comparative fresh air for a much-needed smoke. He'd been trying to give up for the best part of a decade now, a process that had started when his old man, a lifelong smoker, contracted terminal lung cancer, but he'd never managed to last for more than a week, and for the time being at least he'd given up giving up.
He lit a Marlboro Light and approached Stone and O'Toole, both of whom were hard at work among the pieces of drainpiping Stone had been sawing up earlier. O'Toole was using a large measuring jug to fill up each tube with a ready-made explosive slurry mix of ammonium nitrate and fuel oil that he was getting from a barrel next to him, while Stone was on his hands and knees attaching handfuls of six-inch nails to the tube exteriors using thick rolls of industrial masking tape. Every ingredient they were using could be bought legally by people who knew what they were doing.
'How's it going, lads?' Donald called out, making sure he stood well back from them with the cigarette.
'Another hour, I reckon,' answered O'Toole. 'Then we're going to need a break.'
Stone grunted something that sounded like agreement.
'And when you're done you can have one, don't worry.'
Donald looked at his watch. It had just turned half past twelve and they were well ahead of schedule. He was also beginning to get hungry, and hoped that Hook had got in some supplies. Donald liked his food, and he'd always found it difficult to function on an empty stomach. Somehow, though, he knew Hook wouldn't have anything tasty on offer. He wasn't the kind to get pleasure from eating. He wasn't really the type to get pleasure from anything bar, it seemed, rape and murder.
As he thought these unkind thoughts about his current employer, the barn doors opened and Hook appeared in his Friday the 13th-style boiler suit and gloves, his anaemic face looking like something out of a 'plastic surgery gone wrong' documentary. Donald wondered how the guy ever managed to blend into a crowd, as he was reputed to be able to do. To him, Hook blended in like a go-go dancer in a nunnery.
As Donald took a long, much-needed pull on the cigarette, Hook came over and guided him towards the front of the lorry, well away from Stone and O'Toole, and out of earshot.
'How's it coming along?' he asked.
'We're doing fine. Your bomb'll be ready on time.'
Hook nodded. 'Good. That's what I want to hear.' But there was something tense about him. He wrinkled his nose, glancing at the cigarette, and Donald remembered that he didn't like smoking.
Tough titty. He took another drag, savouring the taste.
They stopped at the cab, and Hook fixed him with a probing stare. 'I hear that when mustard gas ignites it loses its effect. How are you intending to fix that?'
'Ah, I see you've done your homework.'
'I always do my homework, Eamon.'
'Well, it's very simple really,' he said, unable to mask the enthusiasm he always felt when talking about bombs. 'When those two over there have finished filling the tubes with explosive mix, I'm going to put a detonator in each one and run them through the gaps in the pallets holding the gas. By my calculation there should be two tubes for each pallet. Then we wire them up to a connector box, which is basically the bridge between the explosive-filled tubes and the main detonator in the cab. When we set off the main detonator, the connector box will send a signal through the wiring and our thirty-two mini bombs will explode simultaneously, sending the nails attached to the outside of the tubing flying everywhere, and with enough force to puncture all the cylinders.
'But' – and here Donald paused for effect, feeling especially pleased with himself – 'the beauty of the design is that, because the tubes are made from toughened plastic, the power of the blast will be contained within each tube itself – think of it like a blanket smothering the flames – so the cylinders will get peppered with holes and thrown all over the place, but the gas itself won't get ignited. We might lose a couple, because it's not entirely foolproof, and a few won't get punctured, but I'm reckoning that ninety-five per cent of the cargo will be released into the surrounding air undamaged. With a little bit of a breeze and no rain, everyone in a mile radius will be breathing in pure poison. It'll be the most lethal terrorist attack in UK history. The Brits won't know what fucking hit them.'
'And you've put in the modifications we talked about?' asked Hook quietly.
When he'd hired Donald, Hook had stipulated that the bomb had to explode no matter what, even if the lorry was intercepted by the security forces, otherwise none of them would get their money. Technically speaking, this wasn't a problem at all, as Donald had explained. All it required was a pressure pad placed under the driver's seat connected to the bomb's battery pack. Once the bomb was live – and it could be made live with the flick of a switch before the lorry had even begun its journey – then the moment the driver lifted his weight from the seat, the movement from the pressure pad would set off the bomb, so even if he was shot dead while driving and toppled over, it would still explode. It was a tactic used by terrorist groups with vehicle bombs across the Middle East to ensure that, even if their suicide bombers experienced a sudden loss of nerve, their deadly cargoes would still detonate.
There was only one problem. When Donald had agreed to do the job, he hadn't realized that the driver was going to be a volunteer from the old days.
'They'll be put in before the end,' he answered. 'It's only a five-minute job. But does it have to be O'Toole who drives? He's one of our people. Why not use Stone? He's nothing to us.'
Hook stared at him blankly. 'Stone's too stupid. We need someone reliable. It's going to be O'Toole.'
Donald dragged hard on his cigarette, looking over Hook's shoulder to where O'Toole and Stone were working away. O'Toole would never suspect that his old comrades would betray him, and the fact that the man who'd hired him couldn't give a shit pissed Donald off.
'You never really believed, did you, Michael?' he said rhetorically, using the other man's real Christian name. 'In any of what we were doing.'
'That's none of your business.'
'You know, what I can't understand is why you're doing this. I'm doing it because I hate the Brits. Because I owe them for four hundred years of oppression, and because they never baulked at killing innocents, so why the hell should I? But what do you get out of this? I mean, I know your client, whoever he is, is bound to be paying you a lot of money, but it strikes me that a man like you has already got plenty of cash, and this kind of job, leaving so many dead and every cop in the country hunting you down… No amount of money's worth that.' He took a last drag on his cigarette and crushed it underfoot. 'So, what's your motivation?'
Hook leaned forward and his whole face seemed to darken. 'Because I fucking can,' he hissed, eyes sparkling maliciously. 'Now, do me a big favour, Eamon Donald, and get back to work.'
The two men eyeballed each other for several seconds, but it was Donald who backed down and turned away, immediately regretting that he'd seen fit to rile the other man. Regretting, too, that he'd ever agreed to work with him in a freelance capacity. The pay was good – a hundred and fifty grand, fifty already in his hands, the other hundred following as soon as the job was finished. But for the first time he wondered if he was going to actually receive this last instalment. If Hook was prepared to leave O'Toole dead, why not Donald himself as well?
He decided he was going to have to watch his back.
I was sitting up in bed, thinking about Jenny Brakspear, when there was a knock on the door and who should step inside but my old friend Dom, holding a box of chocolates in one hand and a Waterstone's book bag in the other. He was dressed in an open-neck shirt and well-cut suit, and his face was lean and tanned. He'd lost weight and it looked like he'd been working out.
I grinned, pleased to see him, but a part of me was also jealous. This was Jenny's boyfriend, the man she'd been with for close to a year, and who'd been living it up in Dubai when she'd needed him most. Unlike me. I'd been there when it mattered.
'Hello mate,' he said with a supportive smile. 'How are you? Brought you a few bits and pieces.' He laid the chocolates and the book bag on the table beside the bed and shook my good hand. His grip was weak. Usually it was tight and confident, but I guess I didn't look like I could handle a firm handshake.
'Thanks, mate, it's appreciated.'
He pulled up a chair and sat down, looking at me with a mixture of sympathy and awe. 'I can't believe what's happened to you. I really can't.'
'The evidence is here.' I gestured at the police guard still outside the room. 'It happened.'
'I heard Maxwell's dead.' I'd introduced Dom to Maxwell a while back because he'd always wanted to meet a real live gangster. Maxwell had told me he thought Dom was an arsehole.
I nodded. 'I saw him die.'
And then it all seemed to hit me in one go, a huge rolling wave of shock: how close I'd come to death, not once but twice; the crystal-clear image of Maxwell's corpse in that muddy grave… For several seconds I couldn't speak.
Dom looked worried and asked me if I was all right.
'Yeah, I'm fine. I just need a moment.' I ran my good hand through my hair, amazed that my body didn't ache more than it did, although I suspect that was the drugs, then took a slug of water. 'I don't know what's happened to me, Dom. It's like I've stepped into some kind of nightmare.'
'I can't believe anyone could get to Maxwell.'
I grunted, remembering the way he'd begged for his life. 'These people are way out of Maxwell's league. They're way out of anyone's league. And the worst thing is, they've still got Jenny.'
'I know,' he said.
'Why would anyone kidnap her? And kill so many people to cover it up? That's what I can't understand.'
'Have the police not given you any ideas why she might have been snatched?'
'Not that they've told me, but I'm out of the loop now. I've asked them to keep me posted, but I'm not holding my breath.'
'What are you going to do now?'
It was a good question. I couldn't go home as my flat was now a crime scene – not that I wanted to go back there anyway. To be honest, I never wanted to go back there again. 'I don't know,' I told him. 'I don't want to stay here any longer, and apparently they're removing my police guard because I'm no longer considered to be in danger, so…' I let the sentence trail off, hoping it would act as a hint.
It did. 'Why don't you come and stay with me for a few days?' he suggested, looking like he meant the offer. 'I took today off. I should be able to get the rest of the week too.'
'Are you sure?' I asked, hoping he was.
'You're my mate, Rob. Course I'm sure.'
I was touched. So much so I felt like shedding a tear, though thankfully I managed to stop myself. Instead I immediately climbed out of bed, desperate to get out of the place. Hospitals aren't much fun at the best of times, but when someone's tried to kill you in one, it acts as a pretty sizeable incentive to leave.
However, what with my somewhat unusual circumstances, coupled with the British penchant for bureaucracy, it didn't prove all that easy. First of all, I had to get permission from Thames Valley Police, who were in charge of guarding me, who had to phone Mike Bolt, who agreed in principle with me leaving but wanted a forwarding address in case he needed to reach me, before the assistant chief constable finally rubber-stamped my request. It was then the turn of the hospital itself to be convinced that I was in a fit state to be released from its care, and for some reason they were even more reluctant to see the back of me than Her Majesty's finest, insisting that I wait for the duty doctor to give me a thorough going-over, even though he was only a third of the way through his rounds. So it was well over an hour before I at last got into Dom's car for the journey back to London, laden down with enough painkillers to knock out a football team.
We didn't speak much. I was still a little shell-shocked by events, and all the drugs I'd had were making me dopey. But when we reached Dom's palatial pad in Wanstead and he cracked open a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc and told me to relax while he cooked a late lunch, I began to perk up. Dom had never been the best cook in the world – takeaways were our main dietary staple when I was living there – but this time he actually put together a half-decent king prawn stir fry, although given the lack of food over the last few days I'd have devoured pretty much anything.
After we'd eaten, we retired to the front room with the wine and talked about what had happened. Dom asked me plenty of questions but he seemed to take particular interest in the actions of the pale murderous Irishman. 'He sounds stone cold,' he commented after I'd told him about the casual murder of Ramon in my bedroom, and I thought I caught just the slightest hint of admiration in his voice. 'Maybe now Maxwell's gone you should consider writing a book about all this. It'd probably sell millions.'
Dom had always bought into the glamour of the criminal underworld, which was why his bookshelves were full of sensational true crime books, and why he'd been so keen to meet Maxwell. His attitude irritated me, but then I'd been seduced in exactly the same way.
'He was an animal,' I said with a conversation-ending finality.
'Shit, I'm sorry mate, I didn't mean it to sound flippant.' He looked genuinely remorseful. 'It's just, you know, I didn't know people like that really existed.'
The drink continued to flow and we moved on to happier subjects. We began to reminisce about the old days: the laughs we'd had in school; the disastrous teenage double date we'd been on with the twin Queen sisters, when Dom made his date Sam cry and mine, Justine, attacked him with her shoe; the disastrous camping holiday to the south of France when the two of us, aged seventeen, got on the wrong train at the Gare du Nord in Paris and ended up spending four rainsoaked days in Belgium… Good times, too long ago now, when the world was a fun and easy place, one in which stone-cold killers had never roamed.
As we laughed and talked, I genuinely forgot my troubles in that soft, comforting embrace of alcohol, but then I remembered that Jenny Brakspear was still out there somewhere, and the thought made me feel guilty.
Seeing the change in my expression, Dom asked me what was wrong, and when I told him, he too grew serious. 'I know how you feel, mate, and if it's any consolation, I feel the same way. But neither of us can beat ourselves up about it, especially you. You did all you could to find her, and now, thanks to you, there are plenty of people out there looking.'
'That doesn't mean they're going to find her, though, does it? Not if she's well enough hidden.'
'You can't think like that, Rob. You've got to be positive. You know with all the technology they've got these days, they can find anybody. Shit, look how easy the Irish guy and his mate found you. One tiny GPS transmitter and they can trace a person down to the nearest metre.'
'I suppose so,' I said, not really sharing his confidence.
He picked up the empty wine bottle from the pine coffee table. 'Shall I crack open another one?'
'I don't know. I'm feeling it already with the painkillers.'
He gave me a sly smile. 'Come on. Drown the sorrows. You can always sleep it off later. Remember, you've done your bit.'
Like a lot of City boys, Dom had always drunk a lot. It was an easy way to handle the pressure and the long hours. I'd never caned it to quite the same extent, but I figured another bottle probably wouldn't do a huge amount of harm. There was nothing else I could do to find Jenny, so I might as well forget about it for a while. 'Go on then,' I said. 'In for a penny and all that.'
He looked pleased – after all, no one likes to drink alone – but as he left the room I realized that something was bugging me, although in the fog of the booze it was difficult to identify what it was.
Then I remembered.
I hadn't told Dom about the GPS transmitter in my mobile. I went back through the conversation we'd had, trying to work out if I was mistaken.
Then something else hit me, its ramifications so immense and terrifying that I suddenly sat bolt upright on the sofa.
Maxwell didn't have mobile reception at his place.
He used to say he was happier without it because only a handful of people had his landline number, which meant only people he wanted to speak to could get hold of him. It meant that when I interviewed him for the book, I never got interrupted.
So the kidnappers couldn't have used the GPS to find me there. Which could only mean one thing: they'd had inside information from somewhere.
And as I turned towards the door, I knew immediately where it had come from.
The smile on Dom's face died the moment he came into the room and saw my expression. I think in that moment he knew that I'd found him out.
'What is it, Rob?' he asked with a casualness that seemed forced as he put the bottle of Sauvignon Blanc down on the table.
'Where's Jenny, Dom?' I demanded.
'What are you talking about? How should I know?'
I told him about the lack of a mobile reception at Maxwell's place.
'What the hell's that got to do with me?'
'You knew where Maxwell lived, didn't you?'
'Well, yeah, but so did quite a lot of other people.'
'But none of them were intimately acquainted with Jenny, were they?'
Part of me couldn't believe I was saying what I was saying. After all, Dom was my friend of more than twenty years, a normal guy who'd lived a normal life and who'd never been in trouble before. Yet when I'd spoken to him on the phone in Dubai the other day, something hadn't rung true. It was the way he'd denied that he'd talked to Jenny for months, even though she'd told me he'd been calling her, trying to get back together. Because why on earth would she have made something like that up?
'You were lying when you said you hadn't spoken to Jenny for months, weren't you? So tell me,' I said, raising my voice now, 'where the hell is she?'
'Christ, Rob, don't be so fucking stupid. Why the hell would I ever get involved in a kidnapping? I'm a businessman, not a criminal. You're delirious, mate. You need some rest.'
He tried staring me out, wearing an expression of righteous indignation and surprise that I'd seen him use plenty of times, usually when he was trying to convince someone he was telling the truth. It usually worked, too, and was doubtless one of the reasons he'd been so successful in business. Back in the old days it had always convinced our teachers he was telling the truth. But I knew him too well. Most of the time he did it when he was lying.
As if to confirm my suspicions, the skin beneath his right eye began to twitch, a long-standing habit that invariably occurred when he was under stress.
I felt the rage building in me. 'You bastard! Where is she? Where's Jenny?'
'What the fuck are you talking about?' he shouted, his voice filling the room. 'You're fucking delirious, Rob, so don't say stuff you don't mean, all right? Why don't you just go for a lie down or something? OK?'
'Where is she? Is she still alive?'
'Shut the fuck up!' he hissed, the guilt coming off him in waves.
'I'm going to call the police, Dom. Right now. I've got the number of one of the senior guys on my phone. Maybe you can convince him you don't know what's happened to Jenny, because you know what? You're not convincing me.'
I stood up and pulled the phone from my pocket with my good hand, still finding it almost impossible to believe that this was happening. Of all the shocks I'd had recently, this was undoubtedly the biggest of all. Which was why, I suppose, it had taken me so long to work it out.
'Put the phone down, Rob,' said Dom with an icy calm. 'Now.'
'No.'
The punch came out of nowhere, connecting perfectly with my jaw and sending me crashing back on to the sofa. The phone flew out of my hand, thudding on to the carpet somewhere out of sight.
Before I could react, Dom grabbed a cushion from one of the sofas and sprang across the coffee table, his face contorted with an angry panic I'd never seen there before. He landed on top of me, one leg digging into my broken arm, and I cried out in pain, trying to avoid the blows raining down on me. Then suddenly the cushion was being pushed into my face and I could no longer see anything. I struggled under him, but he was an ex-rugby player, and even though he'd lost weight he was still a big guy, and in my condition it was always going to be an unequal battle.
I heard him grunt with exertion as he forced the pillow down hard and I felt the panic surge in me as my breath became trapped in my throat. I grabbed his thigh with my good hand, squeezing it as hard as I could. I wanted to beg him for mercy, to tell him that if only he let me go I wouldn't say a word. But only muffled gasps came out as I fought for air.
Without warning, the cushion was pulled away. Dom was staring down at me, tears in his eyes. 'You fucking prick!' he shouted, bringing back his fist. 'Why did you have to get involved? Why couldn't you have just kept out of it and got your own fucking girlfriend? Then none of this would have happened!'
I started to say something but he punched me again, full in the face, although this time there was less power in the blow. I could tell then that he was incapable of killing me. I could hardly move, and my arm was in so much agony I thought it might have been broken again. Even so, I felt hopeful, because it seemed that Dom still possessed some kind of conscience.
He stood up, breathing heavily, clenching and unclenching his fists. Thinking.
Spitting blood from my mouth, I spoke through gritted teeth. 'If you tell me where she is, Dom, I'll call the police anonymously and give them the location. I won't mention your name, I promise.'
'I don't fucking know, all right!' he shouted, pacing the room. 'I haven't got a clue where she is!'
'So what's going on, Dom? Tell me. Please. I'm your mate.'
He gave a sort of groan. 'You were, Rob. But not any more.'
'I can help you. Honestly.'
'No, you can't. You most definitely fucking can't. The only people who can help me are not going to want you shooting your mouth off.'
'I'm going to leave now,' I said, getting unsteadily to my feet, ignoring the way the room was spinning. 'I won't say a word. I promise.' But my plea sounded hollow, and we both knew it.
Dom shook his head firmly. 'I'm sorry, mate, but I can't allow you to do that.'
Knowing I had no choice, I started towards the door, giving him the kind of anguished, vulnerable look I hoped would make him feel sorry enough for me that he wouldn't intervene.
He blocked my path, and I saw that his expression was hard and determined.
I went for the bottle of Sauvignon Blanc on the coffee table, but the booze and pills had made me way too slow, and he knocked me out of the way and grabbed it himself.
'Don't!' I yelled, throwing up my hands to protect myself but unable to stop the bottle connecting with my temple.
Something in my head seemed to explode, and my legs went from under me. I landed hard on the sofa, the back of my head smacking painfully against the armrest, the blood already pouring into my right eye while the vision in my left began to swim.
I saw a wobbling, swirling image of Dom take a mobile from his pocket and, just before unconsciousness finally enveloped me, I heard him speak four words to the person on the other end with an eerie, unnerving calm that chilled my bones.
'We've got a problem.'
There was movement outside the door, and Tina tensed as it opened, the hood over her head preventing her from seeing who it was.
For several seconds there was silence. Then she heard a sniffing sound close by her.
'Hmm, it smells like someone couldn't control herself.'
It was him. The man who'd abducted her.
Then, in one sudden movement, the hood was ripped off. Squinting against the brightness of the light, Tina saw him standing in front of her, dressed in a boiler suit and gloves, a mocking half-smile on his thin lips, a pistol with silencer in his hand.
He yanked the gag from her mouth, but she barely noticed the pain. Her raging thirst overcame everything. 'Have you got some water?' she asked, her voice a dry rasp.
Without answering, he pulled a bottle of Evian from one of the boiler suit pockets and pushed it into her mouth.
Tina drank thirstily, consuming the whole bottle in one go.
Almost immediately she experienced a powerful urge for a real drink, something that would make this horrendous situation more tolerable. 'Have you got anything stronger?' she asked before she could stop herself.
He brought his face close to hers, the saucer eyes inspecting her with interest, and she cursed herself for letting him see her weakness. 'I'm afraid not, Tina Boyd. But then, I wouldn't want you drunk for what I'm about to show you.'
She felt the fear coming then, in hard waves that tightened every muscle. 'What are you going to show me?'
He leaned down so his cheek was touching hers. It felt like rubber. 'It's a surprise,' he whispered into her ear.
A knife appeared in his free hand. He crouched down and used it to cut her free of the masking tape and the ropes, slicing them roughly yet thoroughly, yet somehow managing to avoid cutting her. When what was left of her bonds was scattered in several piles around the chair where she'd spent most of the last twenty-four hours, he stepped back and told her to get to her feet.
She did as she was told, so stiff she almost fell straight back down again. It felt strange being free. But not good, because somehow she knew that he wouldn't be tying her up again. Some time soon, maybe even in the next few minutes, he'd be finished with her. And when he was, that would be it.
'Put your hands behind your back, palms outwards,' he commanded, putting the knife away and coming round behind her. 'And don't try anything stupid, otherwise I'll make you scream.'
Tina moved her hands behind her and waited as he fitted a pair of new-style police restraints. Then finally she stood facing him, still dressed only in a blouse and socks. 'Do you mind if I put some clothes on?' she asked him. 'I'm very cold.'
He smiled. 'No. I like it when you suffer a little.'
He took her by the arm and pushed her in the direction of the open door, following behind her as she walked unsteadily through it, wondering if these would be the last steps of her life. She tried not to limp as she stepped painfully on the set of picks, which were pushing against the sole of her foot, hoping he wouldn't notice there was anything amiss.
The door led out on to a narrow balcony with stairs leading down to the ground floor on her left, and another door directly opposite.
'Keep going,' he said, pushing the silencer into the small of her back.
'Where?' she asked, standing at the top of the staircase, hating the uncertainty in her voice, because that would show him she was scared, and she couldn't have that.
'In there,' he said, pushing the door. 'Go on, it's open.'
Taking a deep breath, she went in, wondering what on earth was going to greet her.
What did was something far worse than she could have imagined.
The room was dark and fetid, lit only by a dim overhead strip light, the smell of human filth like ammonia in Tina's nostrils. A young woman, bruised and naked, with unkempt blonde hair and terrified eyes, whom she immediately recognized as Jenny Brakspear, was spreadeagled and chained to a black bondage-style contraption that had been attached to the far wall, completely covering the room's only window. A spiked collar kept her head in place and a plastic ball gag had been stuffed into her mouth to prevent her crying out. As Tina took a step closer, she saw that there were long dried rivulets of blood running down one arm. She followed them to their source and flinched when she saw that the tip of the little finger on her left hand was missing. An expensive-looking video camera on a tripod had been set up with the lens facing her to record her torment.
As the man responsible for it came into the room behind her, Jenny Brakspear moaned, and Tina recognized the sound as the one she'd heard the previous night. Trying not to gag against the room's stench, she looked at Jenny who was staring at her with pleading, beaten eyes, and mouthed to her that it was going to be all right, even though it was obvious that it would never be all right for her again.
'What do you think?' he whispered, coming close to Tina's ear. 'Aren't you lucky you're not being kept in accommodation like this.'
'Why are you doing this?' Tina asked, feeling a mixture of anger and black despair. It was difficult to believe that people as heartless as the man next to her existed. 'What's she ever done to you?'
'Would you rather I put you up there instead?'
'Just let her go, for Christ's sake!'
He chuckled. 'Ah, like I said earlier, you've got spirit, Tina Boyd. You interest me. That's why you're still alive. But this one… She's got no spirit at all.' He gave a melodramatic sigh. 'So she has to die.'
With a sudden movement he kicked Tina's legs from under her. As she fell to the floor, he raised the gun, took aim and, as Jenny Brakspear's eyes widened for the last time, shot her once in the groin, then once in the forehead.
Blood sprayed the board and Jenny's body shivered violently for several seconds before finally her head tilted forward and she was still.
'You fucking bastard!' screamed Tina, trying to scramble to her feet.
Stepping easily to one side, he kicked her in the side of the head, sending her sprawling, then grabbed her by the hair and dragged her to her feet. 'Do you want to die too, Tina Boyd?' He laughed, a mad, sadistic ecstasy in his voice. 'Do you, darling? Like her?' He dragged her forward so she was right in front of Jenny's corpse and could see the blood running down the board behind her head. 'Or are you going to beg?' He let go of Tina's hair and threw her against the opposite wall, pointing the gun at her face with a steady hand. The joy on his face was frightening to behold. 'Well, Tina Boyd? What's it going to be? Beg or die?'
She stared down the barrel. Thought of all the people she'd lost down the years.
Hold it together, Tina. For Christ's sake. Think.
'Please don't kill me,' she whispered.
'Sorry? What was that again?'
'Please don't kill me.'
'So you're going to do what I tell you?'
She swallowed. 'Yes.'
He smiled. 'Good. That's what I want to hear. Get on your knees.'
Tina hesitated, her mind a whirl of thoughts. Trying desperately to come up with some kind of plan of escape.
'On your fucking knees. Now.'
Slowly she lowered herself, catching sight of Jenny's corpse out of the corner of her eye, head slumped forward, the blonde hair hanging down over her face like a forlorn shroud. She didn't want that to be her.
He took a step forward, unzipping his fly.
And then stopped. A loud shrill ringing was coming from his boiler suit, its sound filling the room. Keeping the gun trained on Tina, he checked the screen, frowning as he put it to his ear.
He listened for several seconds, looking annoyed, before finally speaking. 'Text me the address. I'm on my way.' He put the phone back in the boiler suit pocket and regarded Tina with an almost scientific interest, moving the gun ever so slightly so that the barrel was pointed directly at her forehead.
She swallowed hard, waiting for him to decide her fate.
'We'll have to wait a while longer for our fun, I'm afraid,' he said, lowering the gun. 'You can wait here with Jenny.'
Tina didn't say a word. Just watched as he walked to the door and turned the handle, thinking of the set of picks in her sock.
'Oh, one thing,' he said, as if as an afterthought. 'Stand up a moment.'
Slowly, Tina got to her feet and stood facing him.
'Thanks for that,' he said with a smile, and shot her in the foot.
The clock on his office wall said five to four as Mike Bolt finished on the phone to yet another estate agent. He'd spoken to forty-five of them in all since he'd started checking for suspicious building rentals in the area of north-west Essex where the blue Mazda had last been sighted. He'd already overshot the time limit Big Barry had given him by close to two hours, and he knew he was going to get pulled off it soon to join Mo and the rest of the team in the next room where they were trawling through endless CCTV footage in the hunt for the lorry. But he was also sure he was on the right track. He would have bet a month's wages that Hook had his base somewhere within those 190 square miles.
He stretched in his seat, ignoring the exhaustion he was feeling, and took a gulp of lukewarm coffee. 'How are you getting on?' he asked Kris Obanje, who was sitting opposite him, wading through all the property details they'd been sent and dividing them into separate piles. 'Remember we're looking for properties that are big enough to store kidnap victims, and possibly even a lorry, and where the occupants aren't going to arouse suspicion from any nosy neighbours. That's got to narrow it down a bit, doesn't it?'
Obanje was a big man with a powerlifter's build and his chair creaked as he sat back in it and removed the thick-rimmed glasses that always gave him an intellectual air. 'So far I've got fifty-nine properties let in the area in the last six months where the monthly cost is over fifteen hundred a month. I don't think there's much point looking at anything for less than that.'
'Neither do I. But I'm thinking they wouldn't have let anywhere six months in advance. There wouldn't have been much point. How many of those have been let in the last three?'
'Twenty-five. And of them I reckon nine are promising, i.e. they're big enough to store a lorry and don't seem to be overlooked, and they're all let to people or companies not known to the agent.' He picked up one of the piles and handed it to Bolt. 'Have a look. I've spoken to the agents involved and apparently they all look like legitimate lets.'
Impressed with Obanje's organizational skills, which were far superior to his own, Bolt sifted through the details. They were a mixture of warehouses, industrial units, farms, a couple of grand country dwellings, one of which boasted a shooting estate, and a rundown cottage with fifty acres attached. All of them would have made perfect hideouts.
'Hook's a thorough man,' said Bolt, 'so if he's let one of these, it'll all look above board. But I bet if you dig a little it won't take long to find that the ID of the company or individual on the contract is bogus. So, I want you to check out each of the tenants of those nine properties, and see what you turn up. In the meantime there are still a few agencies that haven't sent through their details yet, and a couple I haven't been able to get hold of, so I'm going to chase them. Then I'll help you. OK?'
Bolt picked up the phone again, pissed off with the lack of urgency some of the agents were showing in the face of his enquiries. But before he could make his next call he heard voices outside followed by a knock on the door.
It was Mo, and he looked excited. Bolt immediately assumed there must have been a breakthrough on the hunt for the lorry.
But he was wrong.
'It's your blue Mazda, boss,' Mo told him. 'It's on the move. The ANPR people are following it. Big Barry's patched through to them in his office and he wants you in with him now.'
Bolt brightened. At last they had a break. He told Obanje to carry on with their list and followed Mo.
'Are you coming with me?' he asked Mo as they walked through the open-plan office and past the rest of the team, who were all looking up from their desks with the kind of expressions only worn when something big was happening.
Mo shook his head. 'No, he just wants you. You'd better hurry.'
Bolt ran down the corridor, going straight into his boss's office without knocking.
Big Barry was at his desk with the phone on loudspeaker. 'I'm just being joined by Mike Bolt,' he said into the microphone. 'This is his lead. Mike, I'm on with Dean Thomas of ANPR control, and Deputy Assistant Commissioner Antony Bridges of Central Command, who's heading up this inquiry. Dean, where is our suspect vehicle now?'
'He's on the M11 southbound,' said a thin, nasal voice over the mike. 'He passed junction six, the M25, one and a half minutes ago now. ETA junction five at current speeds is one minute. Over.'
'OK,' said a much deeper voice that Bolt immediately recognized as Bridges. 'Let me get this absolutely straight, Mike. You believe this vehicle is linked to our missing lorry, is that right?'
'Yes sir. In fact I'm absolutely certain it's being driven by one of those involved in the plot.'
'Do you have any idea where it's going?'
'No sir, and I can't be certain of the ID of the driver either, but he's definitely one of the men we're looking for.' He understood that Bridges had to check out the leads before authorizing any major intervention because, like anyone else in authority, he had to cover his arse in case things went wrong. But he was willing him to hurry up.
'Then we're going to follow this vehicle and see where it leads us rather than intercepting it,' said Bridges at last. 'I have air support standing by at Lippetts Hill. I'll call it in now.'
'Suspect vehicle has now passed junction five, M11, Loughton. Still heading southbound on main carriageway.'
'Shit, he's going quick,' said Bolt. 'What's the traffic like out there today, Dean?'
'Light into town. The camera's just picked him up at eighty-six miles per hour. Over.'
Typical, thought Bolt. 'We'd better hurry up, then,' he said to whoever was listening. 'The M11 ends at junction four. Then he's right into London.'
'The helicopter from Lippetts Hill will be in the air in thirty seconds,' said Bridges. 'His ETA to junction four is ninety seconds. We also have unmarked police vehicles converging there, with an ETA of two minutes. We won't lose him. Over.'
The room fell silent. Bolt was usually a patient man – you had to be to last as long in the police as he had – but he was finding it extremely hard to stay calm right now. It was still possible, of course, that this whole thing could be a false alarm, that the Mazda had been abandoned and it had been stolen by joyriders. Maybe it wasn't even connected to Brakspear's killer at all. But his instincts told him one of their suspects was in the car, and he'd learned a long time back to trust them.
As he waited, he drummed his fingers on the desk while Big Barry sat with his hands on his lap, staring into space, uncharacteristically quiet.
'Helicopter's in the air,' said Bridges. 'ETA less than one minute.'
'Suspect has just come off at junction four. Over.'
'Well, where's he going?' demanded Big Barry, before adding a belated 'Over.'
'We're not sure yet,' answered the controller with the first trace of uncertainty in his voice. 'Just waiting until he passes through another camera. Over.'
Bolt cursed. This was the problem with relying on all the fancy new technology. You could find just about anyone anywhere, but the problem was, not always when you needed to.
The silence in the room was deafening. They were all relying on a man they couldn't see who was sitting in front of a computer screen in Hendon.
The speaker crackled as the controller came back on the line. 'We've just picked him up on the North Circular roundabout. Looks like he's just turned on to the A113 heading south. Over.'
'I have unmarked vehicles one minute away and the helicopter should be overhead any second now. Over.'
There was a pause. Bolt could almost hear the seconds ticking.
Then DAC Bridges came back over the mike. 'Helicopter is now above junction four but he doesn't have the eyeball yet.' Another pause. 'He's now above the A113, but still no eyeball. Over.'
They all waited. No one said a word. Thirty seconds passed. Then a minute.
'The helicopter can't see a blue Mazda anywhere on the A113,' said Bridges, irritably. 'I repeat: we can't see suspect vehicle anywhere. Over.'
'Has he not passed any other cameras?' asked Bolt, leaning towards the mike.
'There's one on the junction with the A119 approximately one and a half miles south. It hasn't picked him up yet. Over.'
'What's traffic like on the A113 south?' asked Big Barry. 'Over.'
'I'm not in a position to see,' answered the controller. 'It might be stuck in a jam. Over.'
Bridges immediately cut in, sounding angry. 'There's no jam. The helicopter reports traffic light. It's moving south but still doesn't have the eyeball. Over.'
'He's got to have turned off,' said the controller, 'but he won't get far. There are cameras east and west of him. As soon as he passes another one, we'll pick him up. Over.'
'We can't lose this bloody car,' said Bolt, louder than he meant to.
But as a minute turned into two, and then three, it was becoming clear that they had.
'He must have stopped somewhere. Over.'
'The helicopter's circling, but no sign yet. We also have unmarked cars in the area. I'm dispatching them into side streets off the A113. Over.'
Big Barry muttered something under his breath.
Bolt shook his head, exasperated. Finally he stood up, too restless to stay seated any longer. 'Have you got a London A to Z in here anywhere, sir?' he asked Big Barry. 'I need something tangible to look at.'
'I don't think it's going to help us much,' grunted Big Barry, but he reached into his desk drawer and after a couple of seconds pulled one out and handed it to Bolt, who didn't think it was going to be much help either.
He found the relevant page and immediately saw the name of the borough where the blue Mazda had last been seen.
Wanstead. Why did that seem familiar?
Then he realized. The forwarding address Rob Fallon had given him on the phone earlier had been in Wanstead.
He groaned.
'What is it?' demanded Big Barry, leaning forward.
'They're after Fallon again. He's in Wanstead now, at his mate's place.'
'What's the address?'
Bolt patted his pockets. 'It's in my notebook downstairs.'
He tore out of there and down the corridor, ignoring his team as he ran through the open-plan area into his own office and, without even acknowledging Obanje, who was diligently making notes with a phone to his ear, scrabbled round his desk under the piles of paperwork for his notebook.
It was another thirty seconds before he was on the phone to Big Barry reading out the address of Dominic Moynihan, knowing he'd made a terrible mistake allowing Fallon to leave the hospital without his armed guard. 'Get officers there straight away!' he yelled, hoping he wasn't too late.
As my eyes opened and I wiped the blood away with my good hand, I could see Dom still pacing the room.
Seeing me stir, he grabbed the bottle of Sauvignon Blanc and waved it at me angrily. 'If you try and move, you'll get more of the same. I mean it as well. This is about my life now. My fucking life, mate. And right now it's more important than anything, including our friendship. It's why I've got to do what I've got to do.' He turned away and kept pacing up and down, the bottle in his hand, every so often glancing across to check I wasn't trying anything.
Every part of me was in absolute agony. If I'd taken every last painkiller the hospital had sent me away with I would have been dead before the pain eased. It was that bad. My head. My face. My arm. Even my side where I'd been hit by Bolt's car. Everything.
But as I lay there, blinking as I tried to focus on Dom, my fear was even stronger.
'What do you mean you've got to do what you've got to do?' I asked him. It was difficult to force out the words. 'And who were you speaking to on the phone?'
Dom continued pacing, studiously ignoring me, but even with my vision still blurred I could see that his jaw was wobbling. He was a man under serious pressure.
'Please, Dom, let me go. I'm your mate.'
'Shut the fuck up,' he hissed, staring straight ahead.
'I don't know what you've got involved in, but there's got to be a way out. It's not too late to give yourself up and help Jenny. You haven't actually done anything that badly wrong yet.' I didn't know if any of this was actually the case, of course, but I was getting desperate.
He kept pacing. 'You don't understand. It is too late, OK? Too fucking late to do anything.'
'It's not,' I said, putting every last ounce of effort into trying to sound convincing. 'It's never too late. It really isn't-'
But it was, because as I pleaded with him and he carried on pacing there was a loud knock on the front door.
He stopped dead, just like that, and looked at me with a pained expression in his eyes. Then he mouthed the words 'I'm sorry' as the full extent of his betrayal hit both of us, and turned and left the room.
I knew then that I'd used up all my nine lives, that this really was my very last chance.
A second later Dom came back in again, and this time there was a man behind him in a boiler suit, and before I saw his face I knew without a doubt that it would be him.
'So, Rob Fallon, we meet again,' he said quietly in that harsh Northern Irish accent, and I saw that he was holding the same gun with cigar-shaped silencer that he'd killed Maxwell with the previous night.
Dom was ashen-faced. 'I don't want to see any of this,' he said, turning away. 'Please do it quick.'
'I will,' answered the other man, 'and you don't have to worry about seeing anything.' With a casual movement, he lifted the gun and shot Dom through the chin, knocking him back into a bookcase. He slid down it, slowly disappearing from view behind the opposite sofa. All without making a sound.
The Irishman now turned to me, a cruel smile just about making itself known on the tight, pale face. 'So, it looks like it's time for goodbye, Mr Fallon.'
I no longer had the will to fight, and the pain was intense, but I wasn't going to go quietly either. 'You know, I meant to tell you before,' I said as loudly as I could. 'You really are one ugly fucker.'
The smile disappeared. 'But I'm a live one, aren't I? And at the moment, that's more important.'
He stopped in front of me, then turned slightly towards the front window as something caught his attention.
I could hear it too. The angry whirr of a helicopter overhead. I felt a surge of elation.
It disappeared as he turned back to me and raised the gun. 'Sorry I can't linger a while, Mr Fallon, but I have business to attend to. Goodbye.'
I thought of Yvonne. I thought of Chloe. I thanked God they were safe. I wished I could have seen them again.
'Fuck you,' I hissed, just before he pulled the trigger.
Fifty-eight
Wanstead, in east London, is an attractive middle-class enclave with a village-like feel, and the road where Dominic Moynihan lived was a leafy stretch of expensive-looking Edwardian townhouses, which had now been sealed off at both ends by police vehicles with flashing lights. As they pulled up, Bolt spotted the blue Mazda parked further along, already surrounded by scene-of-crime tape.
He and Mo Khan showed their IDs and made their way through to an inner cordon of patrol cars and riot vans which had been positioned in a rough semi-circle in front of one of the houses. Several dozen officers – a mixture of Territorial Support and plainclothes – milled around without much urgency, while a handful of officers from Scotland Yard's elite armed unit, CO19, were positioned behind the cordon with their weapons facing the house.
As they approached, one of the plainclothes officers – a youngish guy with wispy blond hair and a suit that looked too expensive for a police salary – peeled off from the throng to come and greet them. 'DCI Max Carter, Counter Terrorism Command,' he said decisively, putting out a hand, his accent unmistakably public school. 'I've got the unenviable task of being in charge on the ground here. Are you the SOCA guys?'
'That's us,' said Bolt.
'I've only just got here myself,' continued Carter, 'but we've had officers on the scene for twenty-five minutes now.'
'Is anything happening in there?' asked Mo.
Carter shook his head. 'I don't know. We've tried to contact them by phone but the landline's not being picked up. We've also been using the loudhailer, but to no effect. Do either of you know the person who lives here?'
'We don't,' said Bolt, 'but we believe we know the identity of someone who's in there at the moment. A Mr Robert Fallon. He's the person who broke this whole thing. It's possible that someone came here to kill him driving the blue Mazda we were tracking.'
'Didn't he have a police guard?' asked Carter, sounding surprised.
'We didn't believe he was any longer in danger,' Mo replied quickly.
'Oh.' He raised his eyebrows. 'Well, the Mazda's still here, so we have to assume that the driver is too. I've got more officers round the back so if he is, he's not getting out.'
Bolt hoped that this was the case, and that the driver was holding Fallon and possibly his friend Moynihan hostage in there, but the fact that there'd been no signs of activity suggested otherwise. 'There's only one way to find out,' he said. 'We need to go in. And if he's there, we need to apprehend him alive, because he'll almost certainly know the location of the lorry with the gas.'
'As I'm sure you'll appreciate, Agent Bolt, I'm reluctant to storm the place until I've exhausted all other options. Because of the risk of casualties.'
Bolt could understand his position. One of the problems with modern British policing was the fact that everything had to be done so completely by the book that it resulted in a culture of risk-averseness that harmed the force's effectiveness.
But the lorry and its deadly contents made this situation very different.
'You know about this gas, Max,' said Bolt quietly. 'It could be anywhere. It could be en route here for all we know, primed and ready to blow.' He remembered that Mo's family lived only five miles away, and though his colleague's face remained impassive, he moved on quickly. 'If you need to get authorization, get it now. If you need me to speak to DAC Bridges, that's fine too. But either way, I'm going in.'
There was a huge crash as the Enforcer – the heavy steel cylinder used by the UK police for fast entry – was slammed against the main lock on Dominic Moynihan's front door by an immense TSG officer in full riot gear.
The door flew open, the TSG guy got out of the way, and then there was a cacophony of cries of 'Armed police!' as the first CO19 officers stormed inside.
'Clear!' came a shout, and then they were all pouring in, close to a dozen in number, kicking open doors on the ground floor, moving up the stairs, rapidly securing the area.
'Let's go,' said Bolt, and the next second he and Mo were running out from behind the cordon, across the short stretch of tarmac, and into the house itself through the open front door.
The hallway was empty. There were doors on either side of it, both of which were open, and a wooden staircase immediately ahead. Bolt could hear plenty of banging about on the next floor up, but no sound of resistance.
'Clear!' someone shouted from one of the upstairs rooms.
To Bolt's left was a spacious modern kitchen, to his right was a living room. There were voices coming from inside, but there was no urgency in their tones.
He pushed his way in, with Mo following, and the first thing he saw was the body of a dark-haired man in his early thirties lying on his back between an expensive-looking sofa and a bookcase. He'd been shot in the face, and there was a pool of blood staining the cream carpet a deep burgundy colour. This must have been Dominic Moynihan, and it was obvious that he was dead.
Two CO19 officers, MP5 machine pistols now down at their sides, stood next to an identical sofa on the other side of the room. As Bolt came further inside he could see they were looking down at another body only the legs of which were visible, and that one of them was holding an arm, feeling for a pulse.
'No, he's gone too,' said the officer, releasing the arm.
Bolt swallowed and walked towards them. As they moved aside, he saw who it was lying sprawled on his back, and groaned. 'Fuck.' He spoke the word louder than he'd intended.
'It's not your fault, boss,' said Mo as they looked down at the corpse of Rob Fallon.
He'd been shot in the centre of the forehead by someone with a good aim, the blackened entry wound perfectly placed. He also had extensive facial bruising and an injury to his temple that had left him with heavy bloodstains down one side. Just seventeen hours ago he'd been sat up in a hospital bed talking to them, seemingly safe from those who wished to kill him. And now they'd finally managed it. Beaten him savagely, then casually destroyed him. Bolt knew who'd done it too.
But Hook was nowhere to be seen. As usual, he was one step ahead of everyone.
'It is my fault, Mo,' he said quietly. 'I should have kept him under guard until all this was over.'
'You weren't to know. None of us were. I mean, there was no logical reason to kill him, was there? What possible threat could he have been to them now?'
Bolt sighed. He couldn't understand why Hook would have done it either. Even for a cold-blooded killer like him, to commit another double murder on the day he took delivery of the gas seemed unduly risky.
As more officers entered the lounge, including a shocked-looking DCI Carter, Bolt turned away from the body. There was no point staying. This was a crime scene now and his presence was just cluttering the place.
'Is he dead as well?' asked Carter.
Bolt nodded, and walked past him into the hallway.
'What now, boss?' asked Mo.
'God knows,' said Bolt, looking at a framed A4-sized photo on the wall of a group of men in dinner suits grinning at the camera. There were three of them in all, and he recognized the one on the left as the other dead man in the living room. Dominic Moynihan was holding a champagne bottle in one hand and a half-full glass in the other. He was a good-looking guy with a confident demeanour, and he seemed to be without a care in the world. Bolt hated the way that death so effectively snatched all that away from a person, leaving just a hollow husk behind. Now, he and Rob Fallon were just dead bodies – two more to add to the growing tally. He wondered if the next one he was going to see would be Tina Boyd, the woman who'd never quite been his lover.
He swallowed hard and turned away from the picture. Then stopped as something caught his eye. 'Shit.'
Mo looked puzzled. 'What is it, boss?'
'Look.' Bolt pointed at the picture, his gloved finger touching the image of the dinner-suited man on the other side of the photo from Moynihan.
It was Sir Henry Portman, the high-flying financier who'd recently been investing the ill-gotten gains of SOCA's number one target, Paul Wise.
The pain in her foot kept coming in savage waves that made her want to pass out, but she knew she couldn't even afford to close her eyes. She'd been shot once before, five years earlier, but that had just been a flesh wound. This was far, far worse. Her forehead was bathed in a drenching, fever-like sweat, while her whole body shivered and juddered in shock.
But she was still conscious. And that meant there was still some hope of escape, however slim it might be. The bastard who'd shot her and murdered Jenny had been called away somewhere. She could hear no noises from downstairs, so she had a little bit of time.
The stink of death and decay in the room was appalling but Tina breathed it in deeply because it helped keep her awake and also reminded her of the fate that lay in store for her if she didn't move soon.
Clenching her teeth and staring at Jenny's slumped body, she let another wave of pain wash over her then forced herself into a sitting position. He'd shot her in the left foot, and the sock – the one that didn't contain the picks – had filled up with blood. Slowly, she used the toes of her other foot to pull it off, wincing against the pain as the material came away from the skin.
It had been a clean shot, the burnt entry hole about an inch back from the second toe, and already the area around it was swelling badly. The bullet had almost certainly smashed one of the metatarsals, and she used her other foot to examine the damage to the sole. There was a much larger exit wound which was still bleeding, but at least the bullet wasn't stuck in there. It was going to be impossible to put any weight on it, but it could have been worse, she supposed. He could have shot her in both feet.
She tried using her bad foot to remove the sock containing the picks but it was so painful that she thought she might pass out, so instead she kept dragging the sock back and forth across the floor, slowly loosening it, until eventually it came off altogether. Sweat poured into her eyes and she had to stop and take some more deep breaths before swivelling herself round on the floor so she could reach down with her hands for the small leather pouch containing her picks.
Like all police officers, Tina knew that handcuffs were designed only as temporary restraints; even the new police-issue ones could all be opened with a single key, making them incredibly easy to pick. Unfortunately, because he'd positioned her palms outwards when putting them on, it made the lock very difficult to reach, and on those occasions when she did actually manage it she couldn't seem to get the lock open before the pick slipped back out. Her hands were shaking, which didn't help. She didn't know if that was caused by the adrenalin-fuelled shock and fear that was coursing through her, or withdrawal symptoms from the booze. Either way, she desperately needed a drink.
Constantly fighting the pain, she forced herself to keep going. Turning her back on Jenny Brakspear's body, she put all her concentration on the all-important task of escape, knowing that the more times she tried, the more likely success would be.
Unless that bastard comes back, of course. To finish off what he's started.
By God, if she got out of here she'd make him suffer. Tina suddenly had a vision of the tables turned and him on his knees in front of her while she pointed the gun at him. She'd make him beg for mercy then she'd put a bullet in his balls and make him scream. Bastard.
The depth of her hatred surprised her. She'd never been a vengeful sort. She didn't think people like that could succeed in the police, and whatever else she could be accused of, Tina had always been a good cop. But it was this burning desire for revenge that, perhaps more than anything else, was keeping her going.
Her wrists ached, sweat continued to pour down her face, but finally she managed to hook the pick inside and turn. The lock opened, and she threw the cuffs off, taking a set of deep breaths, keeping her excitement in check.
Now came the hard part.
She wiped more sweat from her brow, twisted her wrists to get rid of the stiffness, gathered together her picks and placed them back in the leather pouch, then used both socks to bind her injured foot and stop the bleeding, sobbing with the pain it caused. Then slowly, very slowly, she stood up, putting all the weight on her good foot. Clutching her picks, she hopped over to the window and looked out. Although mostly blocked out by the heavy board to which Jenny had been attached, she could just about see across to an old cottage with a line of pine trees behind it. The day was sunny and the scene looked unnervingly peaceful and pretty.
There was no way out. The window was made of toughened glass with only a small area at the top that opened, which was far too small for an adult to get through. And she could now hear banging about and the odd shout from downstairs. It sounded like people working, and it reminded her that someone could come up at any time. She had to hurry.
The door had a single modern cylinder lock. She picked it in under a minute, all the time standing on one foot, then hopped out on to the landing and shut the door behind her. She had to lean against the staircase banister to get her breath back. Already weak from lack of food and water, and now carrying an injury that had lost her a lot of blood, she knew she was running dangerously low on energy levels. She thought about going back into the room where she'd been kept to get her clothes, but that would waste too much time. The most important thing was just to get out. She could worry about anything else afterwards.
Because of her foot, there was no point trying to use the top floor for her getaway, which left only one option. She had to escape via the ground floor.
It seemed to take Tina for ever to get down the staircase. She had to stop and rest every third or fourth stair, knowing full well that at any moment the bastard who'd shot her could come round the corner and see her there. But he didn't – no one did – and eventually she made it to the cramped stairwell at the bottom. A closed door to the left was the only way out, and she could hear people moving about beyond it. She could tell from the acoustics that it was a large open-plan area, probably a warehouse of some sort, which meant it was going to be difficult to get out without being seen.
She tried the handle. It was unlocked and she opened it a crack, peering through into a large barn lit by bright artificial lighting. A parked white lorry with its rear doors open took up her entire field of vision. There was movement inside it, but she couldn't see anyone. Beyond it, the barn doors were closed.
Then suddenly she heard footfalls on the stone floor, only feet away, and as she retreated and part-closed the door a very tall, stick-thin, middle-aged man with a bald head and thick moustache crossed in front of her. He didn't notice her as he walked to the driver's side door, holding something she couldn't quite make out in his hand. She saw him clamber inside and lean into the back.
Bollocks. She knew there was no way of getting past him to the barn doors, not in her current state. She was going to have to wait for an opportunity. Except there wasn't any time. Shit.
Keeping the door open just a crack, she leaned against the wall and kept an eye on what was going on outside, hoping she'd get a lucky break before she collapsed with exhaustion.
She had no idea how much time passed. It could have been fifteen minutes. It could have been half an hour. During that time she saw two other men – one immense with a shaven head, the other in his fifties with grey hair – go in and out the back of the lorry. They were carrying what looked like shorn-off drainpiping, tubes that were sealed at either end and filled with something heavy enough that it took two of them just to carry one of them. She wondered what it was they were doing, and what it might have to do with the kidnapping and murder of Jenny Brakspear, but they worked in silence, giving her no clues.
Finally, just as Tina was beginning to despair, the moustachioed guy in the cab shouted something she couldn't make out to the two in the rear, then jumped down, leaving the door open, and walked towards the back of the lorry. Tina pulled the door open a little further and saw the other two men get out the back, and then the three of them went out of view. Opening it still further, she saw them disappear through a door at the end of the barn.
This was it. Her one and only chance. She didn't hesitate, hopping across the floor in the direction of the front of the lorry, hoping she could use it as cover to get to the main doors, and freedom. The effort made her feel faint but she also felt a desperate elation at the thought that she might make it.
She was already promising herself a bottle of decent Rioja and a good smoke as reward for her pains when she heard harsh laughter and saw that they were coming back into the barn.
She was only half a yard from the driver's side door as they emerged. Knowing that the second one of the men looked her way she was finished, she toppled forward, grabbed the driver's seat for leverage and heaved herself up into the cab with all the strength she could muster.
It didn't sound like anyone had heard or seen her. There was more laughter, and someone said 'Cheers' in a hard Northern Irish accent similar to her kidnapper's. Tina was panting with the effort, her last reserves of energy seeping out of her, yet she knew she couldn't stay lying across the front seats of the cab. She had to get somewhere out of sight, in case the bald man with the moustache came back.
Biting her lip hard so she didn't cry out in pain, she crawled into the small rest area behind the front seats where the driver slept. There was an old duvet crumpled up on the dirty mattress, and she pulled it over her, lying as still as possible, her heart thumping in her chest.
Only five metres from freedom, but at that moment it might as well have been a thousand miles.
'So you're saying this has something to do with Sir Henry Portman?' Big Barry Freud asked, sounding as shocked as Bolt had felt when he'd seen the photo fifteen minutes earlier.
'It's too big a coincidence otherwise,' Bolt answered, leaning against one of the patrol cars, looking over at Dominic Moynihan's front door where a uniformed officer was rolling out more bright yellow scene-of-crime tape. 'We're going to need to bring him in, find out what he knows.'
'On what charge? So far, all we've got against him is he appears in a photo in a dead man's house.'
'Then we should at least put him under surveillance.'
'Sorry, old mate, but right now we're stretched to the limit. With everything that's going on, I doubt if there's a spare surveillance team this side of Hadrian's Wall.'
Bolt felt his frustration growing. 'Well we'd better find one or all we're going to be left with is more dead bodies and a missing killer who's got away from us again.'
'How did he get away? The Mazda's still there, isn't it?'
'It is. He must have cottoned on to the fact that we were on to him and got himself some other form of transport.'
'Or he's still there somewhere,' said Big Barry. 'We've got people flooding the area, and they're setting up roadblocks on slip roads off the M11.'
Bolt thought this sounded a lot like shutting the stable door after the horse had bolted, but didn't think it was worth pressing the point. Instead, he concentrated on another issue that had been concerning him. 'What I want to know is how come we only picked up the Mazda at junction six. It must have come up on a camera somewhere before that.'
Big Barry sighed. 'It was picked up on the A120 near Stanstead airport twenty minutes earlier, but whoever was meant to be watching for it didn't react quick enough.'
'Shit.'
'My sentiments exactly. But there's nothing we can do about that now.'
'What about the lorry itself? Are we any closer to IDing it?'
'Not yet. Some CCTV images of a possible vehicle have been sent to the FSS for analysis, but we haven't heard anything back yet.'
'At least we know that Hook's been using the blue Mazda, and it was parked overnight in the area the ANPR narrowed it down to, which confirms he's got a base up there somewhere. Since the gas hasn't been released yet, my guess is the lorry will be up there too.'
'It's still too big an area to be of any use to us, Mike,' said Barry. 'We're talking about close to two hundred square miles of north Essex countryside.'
'I've still got Obanje checking through rental properties in the area, but the last time I spoke to him he was snowed under. Can you get him some help?'
'I'll see whether I can move some of your team on to it. What are you going to do?'
'I want to drive up there so that I can be on the spot quickly if we do ID a rental place that looks suspicious.'
'It sounds like it could be a wild goose chase. I could use you back here, old mate.'
But Bolt insisted, knowing that he'd done enough in the past twenty-four hours to warrant being cut some slack by his boss. He also knew he'd be of little use back at HQ, where in effect he'd be sitting round and waiting. He might also be of little use heading up into rural Essex, but at least he'd feel like he was doing something. At that moment he had a desperate urge just to drive.
Big Barry didn't force the issue, so Bolt called Obanje, who'd told him that five of the nine properties whose tenants he'd been checking out in detail were definitely kosher rentals, and he was still trying to find out about the other four. Bolt gave him the good news that he'd now be getting help on his task and wrote down the four addresses still to be confirmed as kosher and rung off.
Mo Khan was making his own mobile phone call a few yards away. He ended it and walked over, unable to completely hide the anxiety on his face. 'I've just been speaking to Saira,' he said wearily.
'How is she?'
'Still blissfully ignorant. Unlike me. I don't know what to do, boss. If anything happened and I could have done something about it…'
'Are she and the kids at home?'
'Yeah, they're all there. My mother-in-law's over at the moment.'
Bolt put an arm round his friend's shoulders and looked him in the eye. 'I know how you feel, Mo, I honestly do. But right now, I think home is the best place for them.'
Mo nodded. 'Yeah, you're probably right. I just wish we had a better idea of who or what they're targeting. Is there any news from HQ?'
'Nothing yet. But I've got the addresses of four suspicious rental properties in the area where the blue Mazda was last night. It's possible one of them could be the one we're looking for. Let's go and check them out.'
Mo didn't look convinced, but he didn't say anything as they walked back to the car.
It had just turned ten past six in the evening. The gas had been in the country for just over twelve hours.
Paul Wise was sitting on his veranda with his second gin and tonic of the evening when the mobile phone in his left trouser pocket rang. Hook was calling, and Wise wondered what he wanted. He hadn't expected to hear anything more from him until after the job was done, and his mood immediately darkened at the prospect that something might have gone wrong. Charmaine was out with girlfriends in the nearby town of Kyrenhia, and the staff had all gone home, so he took the call from his seat.
'They're closing in on us,' said Hook, his voice calm.
'That's not what I want to hear.'
'I've got rid of Fallon, but he managed to alert the authorities to parts of the operation.'
'What are you saying exactly?' Wise demanded irritably.
'We have everything in place, but we need to bring the timings forward. It's too risky leaving the cargo where it is until ten p.m., and I'm concerned that we're going to have trouble getting it to the target site, so I think we should choose another.'
Wise looked at his watch. It was 8.30 at his home, and darkness had fallen; 6.30 in the UK. The operation, so long in the planning, was beginning to unravel, thanks to the interference of one man. He might be dead now but the obstacles he'd placed in their way were still there.
But Wise wasn't the type of man to worry too much about things he could do nothing about, and the beauty of his plan was that as long as the bomb went off and caused both chaos and casualties (preferably significant), neither the exact location nor the time actually mattered too much.
'Are all the elements we discussed in place?' he asked. 'The ones which will ensure success?'
'Yes.'
'Then move the cargo as soon as is practical. Aim for the target site, but if it gets intercepted, I'm not worried as long as it's still delivered.'
'It will be.'
'Make sure everything gets cleared up, and get rid of the phone you're using. I don't want to hear from you again. When I see confirmation of success on Sky News, you'll receive the balance of your money.'
Wise hung up and stared out to sea, gazing at the patchwork of stars in the night sky. If all went well tonight, he would earn millions. The thought made him smile as he put the gin and tonic to his lips and took a sip, wondering what it would be like to die choking on mustard gas.
The pain in her foot had reduced to a dull throb, but Tina was feeling faint and desperately thirsty as she lay on her side in the lorry, barely covered by the thin material of the foul-smelling duvet, trying to work out her next move. The three men were still outside talking, their conversation, when she could hear it, boring and innocuous, the light-hearted tone suggesting that their job, whatever it was, was done.
She was torn between staying put in the hope that the lorry would leave eventually, and slipping out the passenger side and making for the barn doors. In the state she was in, weakened and hardly able to walk, the latter course seemed the more risky of the two. But it was difficult to think straight, difficult even to imagine how she'd survived until now.
She tensed, hearing another sound. It was the barn doors opening, followed a few seconds later by his voice, the harsh Northern Irish accent cutting across the barn like a rusty blade. 'What the hell's going on?'
'We're just having a quick drink,' said another Northern Irish accent in response, but he sounded less sure of himself. 'Everything's ready.'
'There'll be plenty of time for a drink later. Everyone needs their wits about them before then. Come on, we need to get moving.'
Tina cursed. Now that he was back, her escape was going to be discovered very soon, and then she was finished.
The voices faded out and she risked poking her head out to take a quick look round. The barn doors were shut, but she was certain he hadn't locked them behind him. Barely five metres away. If she made a dash for it – or the closest she could get to that, anyway – she might just make it.
There was a sudden sound of footsteps just outside and she ducked back down.
Just in time, because a second later she heard someone getting into the driver's seat. Something clattered in the hollow well between the seats, only inches from where she was lying, and she heard him open the glovebox and fumble inside for something.
Tina lay absolutely still, holding her breath, until she heard him clamber back out.
There were voices outside again, but they seemed to be coming from the back of the lorry. Once again she risked peering above the duvet.
That was when she saw it. A mobile phone in the well beneath the handbrake. He'd obviously dropped it when he was messing about in the glovebox, and he'd be back for it soon.
But Tina also knew it was her best chance. Mobile phones can be traced to within the nearest few metres, which meant if the police could trace the phone they could find her.
Grabbing it, she flicked through the menu to the 'create text' command before typing silently and furiously in block capitals ITS TINA IN DANGER DONT TEXT BACK TRACE THIS NUMBER NOW, praying that she was in a decent reception area. She remembered Mike Bolt's mobile number because it started with the same five-digit prefix as hers and was then followed by an equally memorable 787878. She punched it in and pressed Send, then deleted the message and returned to the main menu.
She'd just put the phone back when she heard footsteps again, this time coming from both sides of the lorry. She felt a stab of pure terror. Were they coming for her?
Ignoring the nausea she was suddenly experiencing, she slipped back under the duvet, curling up and shutting her eyes, as if this might somehow prevent them from seeing her.
Two people got in the cab, one on either side.
'Right, we all ready?' said a voice – not his – from outside.
The driver and his passenger said they both were, and Tina wondered what it was they were ready for. She also wondered where he was. Was he on his way upstairs to finish her off?
'You've got the GPS coordinates of your destination,' continued the man from outside, who sounded like he was in charge. 'Park up there and then you call me. OK O'Toole? So I know you got there?'
'Sure.'
Underneath her makeshift cover, Tina willed them to hurry up. Before he discovered she was gone.
'And go straight there,' continued the guy outside the lorry. 'Don't stop for anyone or anything. Do you understand? Otherwise you don't get paid a penny. It's a quarter past seven now. I want to hear you're there by eight. Get going, and good luck.'
The lorry's engine kicked into life, and Tina allowed herself a small sigh of relief as the driver turned the wheel and drove through the barn doors, out into the gathering darkness.
At last she was putting some distance between herself and him.
Now it was simply a matter of staying put, keeping quiet, and waiting.
Bolt and Mo drove northwards into Essex on the B184, avoiding the M11 where, as Big Barry Freud had predicted, roadblocks had been set up on all the slip roads. Traffic was still heavy for much of the way though, and their progress was slow. Several times on the drive helicopters flew low overhead, only serving to add to the already high levels of tension in the car.
For Mo, it was fear for his family and for the city in which he lived. For Bolt, whose mother lived only twenty miles away in St Albans, it was the same. But it was also the intense frustration at constantly being one step behind a quarry he'd been after for years. Someone whose callous disregard for his fellow human beings had ruined so many lives, and who, for the first time, had almost certainly killed someone close to Bolt.
He'd been thinking about Tina a lot that day, more than he'd let on to anyone else, and with a sense of real regret. Beneath her cool, often distant exterior, he'd known there was a passionate woman there, yet he'd never managed to bring her out into the open. He couldn't help feeling that they could have been really good together. Now he was sure that if they found Hook's hideout, they'd also find her body, and he knew that this would be one of the most difficult sights of his life.
There'd only be one small consolation, and that would be if they also got hold of the man responsible for murdering her. Bolt had killed before, on two occasions, and he knew with total certainty that if he had Hook at his mercy he wouldn't hesitate to do it again.
But why was Hook involved in all this? And was Sir Henry Portman his client? They seemed unlikely partners in crime, yet Bolt was now convinced Sir Henry was part of the conspiracy.
His mobile rang, interrupting his thoughts. It was Big Barry Freud's office number, and he immediately put it on to loudspeaker.
'Where are you, Mike?'
'Just short of Great Dunmow on the B184.'
'Good. We've managed to track down the tenants of two of the four properties Obanje was looking at, and they're definitely kosher. We also think a third one is, because we've spoken to the guy who's letting it, and we're just doing a background check on him now. However, the fourth one's more interesting. It's a three-month company let, taken out three weeks ago, and with the rent paid upfront. It's in the name of an investment company registered in Palm Beach, Florida, but there's no answer on the number supplied for their UK offices, or from their head office, and we can't find any published accounts for the company either, or a website.'
'Sounds promising,' said Bolt, looking at Mo, who managed a tight smile in return. This was exactly the kind of dummy company Hook would use to cover his tracks. Doubtless, Big Barry would take full credit for the lead, even though he'd been reluctant to let Bolt look into it in the first place, but right now that didn't matter. 'Who's the registered tenant?'
'A Mr Andrew Regent, supposedly one of their employees, but no one from the agency's ever met him, and there's no one of that name registered at the property. The agency have given us a mobile number for him but I don't want to call it yet in case it alerts Hook to our enquiries.'
'Which property is it?'
'It's called Willow End, a farm near a village called Finchingfield, just off the B1057. How far away are you?'
Bolt remembered it as the second of the addresses he'd fed into his GPS, and he brought up the details now. 'About fifteen minutes. Ten if I put my foot down.'
'Good. I want you and Mo to get over there right away. DAC Bridges has just been on the phone to the Essex chief constable and they're sending ARVs, surveillance units and a hostage negotiation team over there now. We've advised them that we want the area secure, but we don't want them making any kind of move until we've ascertained whether or not it's the right place. And we definitely don't want the local plod stamping all over the place and advertising their presence, so we've cleared it that you and Mo, as experienced SOCA surveillance operatives, will check the place out, then advise us what the situation is.'
'I want to be part of the team going in,' Bolt told him.
Big Barry laughed, but it was a sound entirely without humour. 'I admire your devotion to duty, old mate, but this is way out of our league. If anyone goes in, it'll be the SAS.'
'Jesus,' said Mo, exchanging glances with Bolt. Mere mention of the SAS gave events an almost surreal quality.
'Now put your foot down. I want you there in five.'
'We're on our way,' said Bolt, feeling the familiar surge of adrenalin as he pulled out and overtook the car in front of him.
Mo switched on the flashing blue light and shoved it on the dashboard, and a minute and a half later they'd hit the right-hand turning for the B1057.
Bolt's phone bleeped to let him know he'd received a text, but he was too busy watching the road to check it. Mo took a look, and for a couple of seconds he didn't say anything.
'Who is it?' Bolt asked without looking round.
'It's Tina,' he answered. 'She's still alive.'
Eamon Donald watched as the lorry drove down the driveway of Willow End Farm, knowing that in about an hour's time the revellers enjoying one of the last evenings of summer in London's world famous West End would be choking up their own insides. He felt a twinge of guilt but quickly forced it down. The Brits had never shown him or his family any compassion. Why should he care about them?
A light drizzle began to fall, and for several minutes he stared into the rapidly descending darkness as the gas lorry rounded the corner and disappeared from view. Rain was bad for the gas, and he hoped it was dry in London, otherwise all their work might count for very little.
Still, it was no longer his problem. The job was over for him now and he was looking forward to watching the carnage on TV in a quiet hotel room with a bottle of Jameson's.
He shut the barn doors, turned round and saw Hook standing a few yards behind him. The expression on his face was cold. 'Where's the woman copper, Eamon?'
'The other hostage? I don't know. Didn't you kill her?'
'No, I didn't. But I did shoot her in the foot and left her handcuffed in a locked room, and now she doesn't seem to be there any more.'
'Well, we were here all day, and she never came past us.'
'You're sure about that? You didn't go and have a little dabble?'
'No, I fucking didn't. I'm not like you, Michael. I just do my job. And I've done it now. I made the bomb live before they left, and it's fixed so it'll blow the second O'Toole leaves his seat. So, I want the rest of my money and then I'm out of here.' He took a drag on his cigarette, not liking the way this conversation was going.
Hook's lips curled up at the edges in an unpleasant smile. 'You know, Eamon,' he said, 'you're good at what you do, but I don't respect you.'
Donald frowned. 'What the hell do you mean?'
'You're happy to kill people-'
'And you're not? That's rich, Michael.'
'You misunderstand me. The reason I don't respect you is not because you kill them, but because you kill them from afar. With the flick of a switch. Anyone can do that with a bit of technical know-how, but only someone with real backbone can do it face to face, looking into the other man's eyes.' He pulled a gun from somewhere behind his back and pointed it at Donald's chest.
The bombmaker's eyes widened, and he took a step back, genuinely shocked by this sudden turn of events, even though a part of him had been expecting it. 'What the hell are you doing, Michael?' he asked uncertainly.
'You know, Eamon, I think it was you who told me that each and every bombmaker has his own signature.'
'I don't think I did-'
'And there aren't many good ones around, are there? So I'm thinking that it's only a matter of time before the authorities come knocking at your door.'
'Shit, Michael. You know me. I'm no tout. I've never informed on anyone in my life. I'd never tell the Brits a thing, and they're not going to find me anyway.'
'You said yourself, Eamon, there'll be hundreds, possibly thousands, dead. The pressure for a result's going to be enormous. They'll find you, and when they do, they'll be looking for me.'
There was a pause of several seconds and then, working hard to keep his nerves in check, Donald smiled grimly. 'I thought you might try something like this, Michael. So, I got myself a little insurance.' He raised his hand to reveal a mobile phone in the palm. 'If I press Send, this phone will transmit an electronic signal to the battery pack in the lorry, and it'll detonate the bomb immediately.' He stroked the button with his forefinger. 'Even if you put a bullet in me, it'll make no difference. My reflexes will set it off anyway, and your whole op will have fucked up.'
Hook's expression darkened. 'You're bluffing.'
Donald shook his head, relieved to see he'd caught the other man out. 'No, Michael, I'm not. Now, what I'm going to do is back out of this building, make my way to my car, and drive away. If nothing happens to me en route, I'll chuck this mobile and the bomb will go off as planned. But I'll be keeping my hand on this Send button the whole time, and if you try anything – anything at all – then, kaboom: the only casualties of this whole job are going to be a few sheep, and maybe an unlucky farmer.' He backed away slowly towards the barn doors, keeping his eyes fixed on the other man. 'You understand what I'm saying?'
'All right, go,' said Hook, his eyes cold. 'No hard feelings, eh? It's just business.'
'Sure,' said Donald, ignoring the hammering in his chest and the sweat running down his face. His free hand found the door handle and he squeezed it tightly, knowing he was only a few seconds away from safety, feeling confident enough to say, 'I still want the balance of my money, though, Michael. I did my job. You owe me.'
Hook opened his mouth to reply, but any words he might have spoken were drowned out by the voice that came through loud and clear from a megaphone outside, accompanied by the heavy beams of mounted flashlights as they were simultaneously switched on, illuminating the barn's interior.
'Armed police. You are surrounded. Come out with your hands up.'
'Jesus!' Terrified, Donald swung round. And in doing so he made a single, fatal mistake because he took his eye off Hook, and as he turned back round, the pistol kicked in the other man's hand.
Donald felt a searing pain in his wrist, and the mobile he was holding clattered uselessly to the floor. He tottered unsteadily on his feet, before leaning back against the door for support, clutching the wound with his good hand.
Hook watched him calmly, his unnatural face almost serene in the fixed glow of the police flashlights and Donald was amazed that he seemed so unperturbed. You had to hand it to the bastard. He knew how to stay cool under pressure. Donald could almost have admired his poise if it wasn't for the fact that his one-time colleague was about to kill him.
Their eyes met, and Donald's expression hardened as he accepted the inevitable. 'You treacherous fucking freak,' he hissed through gritted teeth, determined not to show his fear in these last moments.
'Perhaps,' said Hook evenly, and pulled the trigger.
It was hard to believe she was still alive, but then, thought Mike Bolt with a burst of exhilaration, Tina Boyd had always been a survivor. It was one of the things that made her so attractive.
But although Mo was already on the phone to HQ organizing a trace on the mobile she'd called from, which given modern technology and the resources involved should take only a matter of minutes, they still didn't know exactly where she was. Bolt was sure she'd still be at Willow End Farm, although why Hook was keeping her alive was anyone's guess. The GPS on the dashboard gave an ETA of four minutes, but with the speeds Bolt was doing he was certain he could make it in three. It was raining now, and getting harder to see, and he had to use all his concentration to keep the car from losing control on the winding country roads. He'd already had one crash this week. Another one and he'd probably be suspended from driving on duty for months.
He slowed down as he came to a blind bend.
'They should have a trace on the phone in the next five minutes,' said Mo, steadying himself against the dashboard, 'and Essex police have just arrived on site and are securing the area, so no one's going out.'
'Shit!' yelled Bolt, slamming on the brakes as he came round the bend, almost blinded by a set of approaching headlights on full beam that had suddenly appeared in the gloom.
The lorry was weaving all over the place as it came towards him far too fast and Bolt had to swerve violently to avoid it, skidding through the wet and only just managing to stay on the road. He screeched to a halt and, looking in his rearview mirror, saw the driver do a poor job of manoeuvring his vehicle round the final curve of the bend. He noticed that it was white and large.
Unusual for a vehicle that size to be out on a road as quiet as this.
'It looks like our lorry,' said Bolt, doing a rapid three-point turn. 'I thought they were meant to have secured the area.'
'Surely we're not going to follow it?' asked Mo as Bolt accelerated off in pursuit. 'We don't know who's driving that thing, boss. It could be some kind of suicide bomber.'
'I want to get close enough to show it we're police. If the driver's one of the bad guys he's not going to want to stop, so we'll call for back-up.' Mo looked scared, and Bolt was too, but he was also excited. 'I'll stay well enough back so that if he tries anything we can abort without getting blown to pieces.' He glanced at Mo's stricken face. 'I won't do anything stupid, I promise.'
Within the space of a few seconds they'd closed in on the lorry, and with the car ten yards back from it Bolt pulled into the middle of the road. Just in case the driver had somehow missed the flashing blue light in his wing mirror, he began flashing the car headlights in rapid succession.
If he was innocent, the driver would stop.
He didn't. Instead he accelerated, weaving down the road, taking the next corner too fast, the wet road slicking beneath his wheels.
'Get on to HQ now,' Bolt said, gritting his teeth, pulling back a little as the full enormity of what he was doing came home to him. 'That's our gas.'
Mo was back on the line in seconds, putting the phone on loudspeaker and shouting out their location and current direction, using the GPS for guidance.
A few seconds later the voice of DAC Bridges came down the line, strained with the tension he must have been feeling. 'We're sending in back-up and helicopters. Keep well back but do not lose it. I repeat: do not lose it.'
The lorry braked suddenly. Bolt braked too, harder, going into a skid, suddenly only five yards from the back of the vehicle, and the gas.
The lorry accelerated again, now on a straight stretch of tree-lined road.
Bolt fought the skid, managed to straighten up, and put his foot down. The Jag's speedometer showed fifty, and the lorry was beginning to pull away from him.
'Jesus,' hissed Bolt. 'He's going way too fast.'
'We have local police setting up a roadblock at the junction of the B1057 and the 184,' said Bridges.
'Then they've got about a minute to do it,' Bolt told him, glancing at the GPS, 'because we're less than a mile short of it and this guy's driving like a maniac.'
'We're blocking the B184 north and south so if he makes this he won't make the next one. The helicopter will also be in situ within three minutes.'
Bolt remembered him saying something similar only a few hours earlier with disastrous results, so he wasn't exactly filled with optimism.
Another sharp corner appeared up ahead, and the lorry driver screeched round it, hitting the bank on one side but still managing to keep going.
And then, as Bolt followed him round, thirty yards distant now, he saw the junction up ahead. A single police squad car was parked sideways on in the middle of the road, its lights flashing, blocking the path of traffic both ways. He caught the vaguest glimpse of two figures standing on the other side of it, one with a torch. And then the lorry moved into the middle of the road, blocking his view, and making no attempt to brake as it bore down on the squad car.
'Oh fuck,' said Bolt, tightening his grip on the steering wheel as the two cops with the car dived into the bank, the torch flying into a bush. The lorry hit the patrol car with a huge bang, shunting it into the side of the road, before swerving dangerously to the left as it swung round on to the B184 southbound.
Bolt had to make a split-second decision. Stop and see if the officers were OK, or continue the pursuit. He chose pursuit, knowing there was no way he could let the lorry get away. He braked hard to avoid the stricken squad car, changed down into second gear, drove through the gap between it and the bank on the other side, then slammed his foot to the floor on the accelerator.
The force of the impact had slowed the lorry down and Bolt was rapidly back within twenty yards of it, but soon the road straightened and the lorry quickly picked up speed again.
Then a strange thing happened. The lorry suddenly began to weave wildly on the wet tarmac, and, as Bolt watched, it slewed off the road, knocking over a speed limit sign as it hit the bank and careered along it at a precarious angle, tearing up mud and foliage, until it finally came to a halt, barely twenty yards away. Immediately its reversing lights came on. Bolt knew he only had a few seconds at most to stop it from taking off again. Up ahead he could hear the wail of sirens getting closer, but they were some distance away and there was still no sign of the promised air cover.
Bolt pulled the standard-issue pepper spray from the inside pocket of his jacket and, ignoring Mo's warning shout, leapt from the car and made a dash for the driver's cab, just as the lorry bounced back on to the tarmac.
As soon as she realized that the lorry was being chased by the police, Tina knew she had to do something. She hadn't expected them to trace the mobile that fast, and now that they had it was clear to her that the two men in the cab weren't going to come quietly. Their voices were panicked, angry.
'I can't get rid of this fucker!' the driver shouted in frustration.
'There's a fucking cop car in the road!' the other one yelled. 'How the fuck did they find us?'
There was a loud crash as the lorry struck it.
'That'll teach youse!' the driver cried out, laughing. 'Now we sort the other and we're home free!'
That was when Tina summoned up every ounce of strength she had left. Rising up in the back of the cab, she threw the duvet cover over the driver's head, leaning over to hold it in place.
Taken utterly by surprise, he immediately lost control of the vehicle, his cries muffled by the duvet. He lashed out with an elbow, catching Tina in the ribs, but she clung on to him for dear life as the lorry mounted the verge at the side of the road and he swung the wheel wildly, desperately trying to wrest back control.
The passenger, the big shaven-headed guy, turned in his seat with an angry snarl and threw a punch at Tina. She dodged the worst of the blow but the fist still connected with her shoulder and neck, knocking her backwards into the metal grille separating the cab from the rear of the lorry. She twisted her bad foot in the process and screamed out in pain, releasing her grip on the duvet.
The driver yanked it off and braked hard, bringing the lorry to a juddering halt while his passenger leaned over his seat to throw more punches at Tina, who kicked out wildly with her good foot, catching him in the face, adrenalin overcoming the agony the action caused her.
The driver crunched the lorry into reverse gear, and as he accelerated backwards the shaven-headed thug managed to land a blow on Tina, who felt herself growing faint.
Don't pass out now! One last effort!
There was a bang as the wheels landed on the road. The driver turned the steering wheel and struggled to put the lorry into first while his colleague continued to punch Tina, savagely squeezing her bad leg as well. But he was too far away for his punches to tell and she managed to twist round, stick a hand through the gap in the seat, and grab the gearstick.
'Sort the fucking bitch out, Stone!' yelled the driver, tearing her hand away. 'Get in there and sort her out!'
Stone's face darkened with a killing rage that Tina had seen on criminals only a handful of times before. He clambered over the seat as the lorry lurched forward, his body filling her whole field of vision.
She lashed out with her good leg again but there was no strength in the movement and he swatted it aside easily, drawing his fist back to throw the final punch that would surely finish her.
And then, as the lorry began to move down the road, the passenger door was yanked open and a figure jumped inside. He threw an arm around Stone's neck, pulled him backwards and gave him a generous shot of pepper spray in the eyes in the process. Stone fell on to the driver, and it was only then that Tina recognized her rescuer. It was Mike Bolt – the first time she'd clapped eyes on him in a year. She experienced a feeling of complete elation as Bolt leaned over Stone and let the driver have it with the pepper spray too.
But the passenger door was still hanging open, and Stone was still able to lash out. He struck Bolt in the face and knocked him backwards.
Bolt dropped the spray and grabbed the door frame with both hands, but his grip was precarious, and when Stone kicked out again he almost lost it.
'Mike!' yelled Tina.
Sensing that he was about to fall into the road, she scrambled over the seat and launched herself at Stone with teeth and nails. She bit him on the ear and felt, but didn't see, Bolt grab him too. And then she was shoved hard from behind by the driver, and all three were flying through space before smacking on to the tarmac.
Sixty-eight
As they fell from the lorry, Mike Bolt just managed to pull himself away from the shaven-headed thug, so when they ended up on the road it was the thug who landed first. Bolt spun off him and rolled along the tarmac, conscious of the sirens getting ever closer.
He was winded, and tired from his exertions, but he managed to get to his feet faster than the thug, who was flailing about blindly. Out of the corner of his eye Bolt saw that Tina had stopped moving, but there was no time to worry about her now. Instead, he charged forward, headbutted the thug on the bridge of the nose and kicked him to the ground.
Panting, he swung round as the lorry weaved its way forward, already thirty yards ahead, then forty, still not being intercepted by the police cars whose sirens seemed to be coming from everywhere.
Then, as Bolt watched through the steadily increasing rain, an arm shot out of the open passenger door and grabbed for the handle. The next second he was knocked off his feet by a huge shockwave as the rear doors and both sides blew off the lorry, and the cab erupted in flames. Cylinders flew up into the air like confetti before showering down on the road in a cacophony of metallic clangs.
Clambering to his feet, he saw that Mo had picked up Tina and was in the process of putting her over his shoulder. He rushed over and grabbed her legs, easing the load for Mo, and together they took off down the road, yelling at the two uniforms at the junction to do the same.
Mike Bolt had no idea how fast mustard gas travelled, but as he ran through the rain the adrenalin seemed to course through every part of his body. And though he knew his, Mo's and Tina's lives were in danger he had a bizarre yet incredibly intense desire to laugh out loud. He was enjoying this, he truly was. It was like all those dreams of action and adventure he'd had as a young kid. Now, aged forty and banging on the door of middle age, here he was running for his life with the heat of an exploded bomb at his back.
He and Mo ran with Tina for two, three, four hundred metres, it was difficult to tell. He felt a surge of relief when she moved a little and groaned, told her it was going to be OK, and kept going, knowing that if they made it out of this it had to be a good omen for all three of them.
But his legs were getting weaker, and he was slowing down badly. As was Mo, who was panting like an old man, two decades of cigarettes taking their toll. So it was with another burst of relief that Bolt saw the police van approaching slowly, its sirens flashing, and the man in the protective white suit leaning out of the passenger window and motioning for them to get in the back.
He pulled on the rear door handle and he and Mo threw Tina inside before being pulled in themselves by two uniforms.
'Is anyone else down there?' came a voice from the front.
Bolt thought of the thug he'd floored a few minutes earlier. 'No,' he gasped, 'I don't think so.'
Immediately the van turned round and they were driving out of there.
Still lying on the floor, he looked across at Tina. She was bruised, splattered in dried blood, and beautiful, her eyes just about staying open. She managed a weak smile. 'Thanks, Mike,' she whispered. Then her eyes closed.
Bolt smiled across at Mo, who was too busy getting his breath back to notice, then he reached over and took her hand, utterly elated that somehow she'd come out of this alive.
That they were all still alive.
Chief Superintendent Ken Canaver of Essex Police was standing on a grassy verge directly opposite the outbuilding he and his officers had been told was the possible headquarters of a terrorist cell, watching as flames gouting thick black smoke lit up the sky over to the west. He'd heard the dull thud of the explosion that had caused the fire and knew that it was the lorry his colleagues were trying to intercept. He also knew what it was supposed to contain. But he had no idea whether in the current weather conditions the gas would spread to where they were now, and until he heard otherwise he and his officers would remain where they were.
Canaver was a solid career copper, only one year short of his thirty years' service, and he liked to do things methodically and by the book, because he knew that, ultimately, that was the best way. In all his time in the police he'd never had to make a life-or-death decision, and he was truly hoping that this wasn't going to change now. As well as a fleet of ambulances, Canaver had some forty officers on the scene, a dozen of whom were armed. As he'd already announced to the building's occupants on the megaphone several times in the last ten minutes, he had the place surrounded. Neither the hostage negotiation team nor the big guns from Counter Terrorism Command and SOCA were yet at the scene, but the sooner they were, the happier he'd be. In the meantime he'd carry on repeating his request every three minutes for whoever was inside to give him or herself up. So far he'd received absolutely no response, although there were several lights on inside, so he and his people continued to stand silently in the pouring rain using a line of squad cars as cover, waiting to be relieved.
Behind him he heard several of the other officers whispering urgently to one another. The explosion had made everyone jumpy. Luckily, none of them knew its ramifications. The only people within the Essex police force who'd been informed that the lorry was carrying poison gas were the chief constable, his assistant, and Canaver himself.
Canaver fingered his mobile phone nervously, wondering if he was going to get a call to evacuate. As well as terrorists, he'd been told that the building might also contain a kidnap victim, although whether she was alive or not was still unclear. There was definitely someone alive inside though: two of his officers had seen movement in one of the upstairs windows a few minutes earlier. He didn't like the idea of abandoning a potential victim of crime, or letting the criminals holding her get away, but he had to admit that he'd be more than happy to leave this scene and its heavy responsibilities behind.
'I didn't expect an evening like this when I came on duty today,' said DCI Nigel Teasdale, the head of Essex CID and a colleague of Canaver's for more than ten years now.
The two men had never got along particularly well. Teasdale was brash, impulsive, and far too gung-ho – a trait that was definitely not needed in a siege situation – but right now it was all hands on deck and Canaver had no choice but to work with him.
'I don't think any of us did,' answered Canaver, wondering how Teasdale would react if he was told what the lorry contained. For all his bravado, the fat sod would probably run a mile, which given the size of his gut would be a sight worth seeing.
The thought momentarily cheered Canaver, but only momentarily, because as he stared straight ahead at the barn he saw smoke beginning to seep out of one of the windows on the upper floor, and the first flickering glow of flames coming from inside.
Others saw it too, including Teasdale. 'Blimey, he's burning the place down,' he announced loudly in a statement of the blindingly obvious. Then he asked the question Canaver had been dreading: 'What the hell do we do now?'
In the same moment, the head of the armed response team, Sergeant Tony Lennis, appeared at Canaver's other side. 'Do you want us to go in?' he asked.
The truth was that Canaver had no plan of action, no idea of the numbers he was up against or how well they were armed. Even the blueprints for the building hadn't arrived yet. Lennis might have been a firearms officer for close to two decades, but he'd never fired a shot in anger, and if he messed things up now it would be Canaver's responsibility.
The two men were looking at him expectantly. In the skies above, a helicopter circled noisily. Smoke was pouring out now, the flames rising higher. He could call the chief constable, put the onus on him, but that might look like indecisiveness, and time was running out. There could be someone in there in huge danger.
Christ, how he hated being put in this position.
He turned to Lennis, saw the pent-up tension in the man's face, the way he was bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet. 'All right,' he said, the words coming out with difficulty. 'Go in.'
As one armed officer yanked open the left-hand barn door, Tony Lennis, breathing apparatus on, moved swiftly inside, his Heckler and Koch MP5 submachine gun held out in front of him, followed immediately by two of his most experienced officers. Although the lights had been turned off on the ground floor, powerful spotlights from outside were shining through the two narrow windows at the front, illuminating the smoky interior enough for Lennis to spot the corpse of a tall skinny guy in the middle of the stone floor. He had intelligence that there might be a twenty-nine-year-old IC1 female being held captive somewhere in here, but he couldn't see her and had little desire to go upstairs where the fire had clearly been started, in case he got trapped.
A bullet hissed past his head, and one of his people – Jim Walton, a recently divorced father of three kids under ten – went down with a muffled yelp. Another round flew past, narrowly missing Lennis again, and he realized that in twenty years of armed service this was the first time he'd ever been fired at with live ammunition; and worse still, whoever was firing was good.
The shots were coming from behind a partly open door straight ahead, but neither the assailant nor his gun was visible.
To his credit, Lennis didn't hesitate. Nor did his other colleague, recently married Terry 'One Shot' Landesman. They both opened up with the MP5s, the bullets knocking open the door with a loud crack.
A shadow moved beyond it and Lennis let off another burst of fire, the torch beam from his MP5 lighting up the gloom. Where the fuck was he?
'Officer down!' he shouted into his mouthpiece as more officers poured in through the barn door. 'Repeat, officer down! We need urgent medical assistance!'
Lennis knew he had very little time. Ordinarily he would have secured the ground floor then waited while his superiors attempted further negotiation, but the fire was spreading fast above them and it wouldn't be much longer before the wooden ceiling gave way, condemning them all to a fiery grave.
With his heart hammering in his chest, he advanced on the open door, Landesman by his side. Lennis went through first, pointing his weapon up the wooden staircase that led to the next floor. The smoke was everywhere here and he could hardly see a thing.
Then another bullet hit the wall just behind him, and he returned fire, the sound of the discharge making his ears ring.
A shadow flitted across the balcony and Lennis fired again, moving his weapon in a tight arc, his rounds tearing up the woodwork. He thought he heard a scream and saw a figure stumble as if he'd been hit, but visibility could be measured in feet and it was impossible to tell for sure. He became aware of Canaver calling out on the megaphone for the man to surrender, but his voice was stifled by the crackle of the fire and the sound of his own breathing.
With a nod to Landesman, he raced up the stairs, eager to press his advantage, operating on instinct now, not thinking of the dangers inherent in his actions. As he reached the top, the smoke seemed to swallow him up, and he felt the heat of the fire against his protective overalls. He turned the corner, finger tensed on the MP5's trigger, and almost tripped over the body of the gunman at his feet. He'd been shot in the head, the pistol with silencer still in his hand. It was hard to tell whether he was dead or not, but he was definitely in a bad way.
But it was the sight of the girl in handcuffs lying on the floor a few feet away through an open door that grabbed Lennis's attention. Her face was smoke-blackened and she was choking beneath her gag, eyes tight shut in an effort to keep out the smoke.
Lennis ran forward, ignoring the heat from the flames as it came at him in intense waves, and heaved her up from the floor. Then, helped by Terry Landesman, who took one of her arms, they hauled her from the room.
'What about him?' asked Landesman through his mouthpiece, nodding towards the gunman.
'Leave him,' panted Lennis, knowing they had only moments to get out. 'He's not worth risking our necks for.'
As they helped the girl down the staircase, a loud crack rang out from the ceiling above the main barn, and Lennis saw a long, twisting split appear right across it. He knew it was going to give any second and he was tempted to drop the girl and make a dash for it, but he knew without a doubt that he'd never be able to live with himself if he did that. Instead, he stopped and heaved her over his shoulder.
'Go on, go!' he snapped at Landesman, and the two men made a dash across the floor as another crack sounded above them and the ceiling began to buckle. 'It's going!' he shouted through the mouthpiece as he charged out the door and across the track before falling to his knees and setting the barely conscious girl as gently as he could on the grass as the paramedics moved in.
Behind him there was an almighty crash as the ceiling finally collapsed, interring the gunman in a fiery grave. Lennis felt a sudden surge of euphoria. He'd made it.
Thick black plumes of smoke continued to pour from the badly damaged barn while more than a dozen police and TV helicopters flew slowly in a wide circle overhead vying for the best view of the dramatic scene that was being played out over the few square miles of countryside below.
A three-mile exclusion zone had now been set up around the burnt-out gas lorry, and a major evacuation of the area's residents was already underway, although the effects of the phosgene had been severely limited by the rain that was still falling, coupled with the lack of a strong wind. So far the only confirmed casualties were the lorry's driver, who'd been incinerated in the blast, and his passenger, who'd been rushed to hospital suffering from the gas's effects and who was not expected to live.
The barn lay just a few hundred yards outside the exclusion zone, and three separate fire crews were still working to bring the blaze under control. Further back, behind the police lines, Mike Bolt and Mo Khan, both of them exhausted, stood watching them alongside the police and ambulance crews. Big Barry Freud had arrived by helicopter a short while earlier and was now in the process of taking charge of the crime scene from his colleagues in Essex on behalf of Counter Terrorism Command.
Bolt, still hyped up by his recent experiences, was drinking a hot mug of coffee, while Mo was smoking a sneaky cigarette, having fallen off the non-nicotine wagon once again. When Bolt had given him a disapproving look, Mo had answered simply, 'It's the stress of working with you,' and Bolt could hardly disagree. Neither had said much to the other since their narrow escape from the bomb nearly an hour earlier. They were both still getting over the shock of it, and Bolt knew that there was no way either of them was going to be sleeping much tonight.
Tina, meanwhile, had been transferred to hospital, where she was now being treated for her injuries. She'd drifted in and out of consciousness in the immediate aftermath of the explosion so Bolt hadn't been able to ascertain what had happened to her during the thirty or so hours she'd been missing, but the word from the hospital was that she was going to be OK, and he was looking forward to visiting her there as soon as he could.
In the end, things had worked out as well as they could have done. The mustard gas lorry had been intercepted; a woman believed to be Jenny Brakspear had been rescued alive from the burning building by one of the armed response officers; and it seemed that Hook had never made it out, and was therefore almost certainly dead. Bolt was pleased: someone like him didn't deserve the comparative luxury of a British prison. But he would have liked to look into his eyes while he died and say, 'This is for Leticia Jones, you callous bastard.' Bolt knew that some people would say acting like that made him almost as bad as Hook, and he could see their point. Ordinarily he didn't believe in the death penalty, yet there were people out there – not many, but some – who were so corrupt, so depraved, and most important of all so dangerous that it was more of a crime to let them live. Hook was just such a man, and when the time came, Bolt would raise a glass to his passing.
'You two did well tonight,' said Big Barry, coming over to join them.
Bolt nodded a thanks, thinking that it was typical of his boss to arrive and take charge of the scene long after the danger had passed and all the hard decisions had been made.
'We could have had a disaster on our hands,' continued Big Barry. 'If that bomb had gone off in a crowded area and it hadn't been raining…I don't even want to think about the implications.' He concluded by announcing that he was going to be recommending the two of them for bravery awards.
Mo grinned, and Bolt was pleased to see how happy he looked as he thanked their boss. Bolt thanked him too, but he was less effusive. In the end, an award didn't mean as much to him, although he knew his mother would be proud. He was more interested in getting an answer to the one question that had been bothering him through all this. 'Have we any idea what on earth this is all about, sir?' he asked.
Big Barry nodded. 'We're beginning to, yes, although we're still a long way from a definitive explanation. But you were right: the key's Sir Henry Portman.'
Bolt frowned. He knew that the photo in Dominic Moynihan's house couldn't have been a coincidence, but it was still a shock to think of Portman as a central player in this whole conspiracy. 'How come?' he asked. 'And what did Moynihan have to do with it?'
'Moynihan's a partner in Sir Henry's hedge fund, HPP. It's a very small and exclusive outfit, mainly dealing with wealthy private clients, and it's had a good reputation for making money over the years. But in the last year they've piled into some risky financial and banking stocks at exactly the wrong time, as well as some pretty iffy-looking mortgage-backed securities, and they've taken some big hits. Or, more to the point, their clients have.'
'One of whom's Paul Wise,' said Mo. 'He's been investing in them through one of his holding companies, hasn't he? We were looking at it just yesterday.'
Big Barry nodded. 'That's right. Ratten Holdings. They've got roughly thirty million with HPP. But twelve months ago it was a lot nearer fifty. Wise hasn't done at all well out of Sir Henry, but here's the strange thing. A lot of Sir Henry's clients have been taking their money out of the fund and putting it elsewhere because of its poor performance, but in the last three months Ratten Holdings have actually been putting more money in. In fact, they're now helping to keep Sir Henry in business.'
'But what's that got to do with all this?' asked Bolt, waving a hand towards the burning building. 'And what's it got to do with a lorry load of mustard gas?'
'Have you gents ever come across the term "short-selling"?'
'I've got a little bit of an idea,' answered Mo.
Bolt just shook his head. He'd never had much of an interest in finance.
'Basically, it's when someone sells a share they don't own, then buys it back at a later date, hopefully at a lower price.'
Bolt pulled a face. 'How the hell do you sell something you don't own?'
Big Barry shrugged. 'That's the financial industry for you,' he said, as if this explained it. 'I'm not sure how it works exactly but it seems the person rents the share from someone else, and then they just hand it back to him at an agreed time. Apparently, it's a very common practice among hedge funds. Anyway, the thing that's significant from our point of view is that HPP have been short-selling huge numbers of shares in British retail, leisure and insurance companies in recent weeks – hundreds of millions of pounds' worth. If the prices of these shares stay static or rise, then HPP are going to be in a lot of trouble, because they're already stretched financially. On the other hand, because of the size of their holdings, if the prices of all these retail, leisure and insurance companies were suddenly to fall significantly – and by significantly I mean ten, fifteen per cent – then they're looking at making the kind of profits that are going to reverse all their bad calls of the last twelve months. But it would take a catastrophe affecting the whole of the FTSE to cause that to happen.'
'My God,' said Mo, who looked genuinely gobsmacked. 'You think that they were going to blow that lorry load of mustard gas to cause some kind of stock market crash?'
'Well, given the individuals involved in this plot, it stands to reason. A big London-based terrorist attack would cause an automatic knee-jerk reaction on the stock market, and the shares whose prices would suffer most are those in the sectors that HPP were shorting.'
'This is Paul Wise's work,' said Bolt, who was finding it hard to believe himself. 'It has to be. I know some of these City boys don't have that much in the way of moral scruples, but there's no way someone like Sir Henry Portman would have had the contacts to get something like this up and running. But Wise… I wouldn't put anything past that bastard.'
'No, I agree,' said Big Barry. 'Someone high-level like Wise would have been running things, but Sir Henry was a willing partner, as was Dominic Moynihan. I believe Moynihan went out with Roy Brakspear's daughter for a while so he would have been the one who volunteered the information about her father's connections with dangerous gases. Then Wise would have used his criminal contacts to organize the actual logistics and hire Hook. Whether or not they intended to carry out a mass slaughter or give some sort of warning before the bomb was detonated we don't know, but knowing someone like Wise, they'd probably take the mass slaughter route, because that would have the bigger impact on the stocks.'
Mo shook his head slowly. 'What kind of people would do something like that?'
'Greedy ones. And I reckon Sir Henry and Dominic Moynihan were probably under a lot of pressure from Paul Wise. He's not the type to be very understanding about people losing millions of pounds of his money.'
'But I can't understand how they'd have got away with it,' said Bolt. 'Surely it would have been a huge coincidence them making a fortune like that on exactly the same day this bomb goes off?'
Big Barry shrugged. 'I'm no economist, old mate, but I heard once that one third of the world's money passes through the City of London every working day. If that's the case, then the money they would have made – fifty, sixty million – is just a drop in the ocean. So I doubt if it would have been picked up. An attack like that would almost certainly have been blamed on Islamic terrorists trying to disrupt the British economy, and with no witnesses left alive to say otherwise it would probably have been left at that. I doubt if anyone would have suspected a couple of UK-born City financiers, one of whom's a peer of the realm.'
An unpleasant thought struck Bolt. 'What can we prove against Wise?'
'I don't know,' admitted Big Barry, his expression not inspiring a great deal of optimism. 'Probably not a lot. Wise is an intelligent, surveillance-aware operator so he'll have been careful with his side of the planning, and I expect he left a lot of the actual logistics to Hook. With most of the conspirators dead, we're going to have to rely on Sir Henry testifying against him, and even then it's going to be difficult to build a case.'
'Have we brought Sir Henry in yet?'
'At the moment we haven't got enough evidence to charge him with anything, but we've got him under twenty-four-hour surveillance and his house has been bugged, so even if he farts we'll know about it.'
Bolt took a gulp of his coffee. 'Fair enough,' he said, even though he'd have been happier with Sir Henry Portman in a place where they could lean on him. Bolt was sure a high-living socialite who'd never known true pressure would crumble immediately.
At that moment, a shout went up among the assembled firefighters in front of the barn. The fire was pretty much out now and two horrifically charred bodies were being brought out. As Bolt watched, they were laid down on the gravel track, and two paramedics with body bags and the duty doctor came forward to complete the formalities.
'So we got him at last, boss,' said Mo, patting Bolt on the shoulder. 'It's what he deserved.'
Bolt nodded, then slowly made his way between the squad cars over to where the bodies lay, exhaustion finally beginning to take hold. He had no real desire to view the charred corpse of the man he'd been after these past five years, but something drove him on. Perhaps it was the memory of Leticia Jones's small, stiff body on her uncle's floor. Or the other bodies he'd seen these past twenty-four hours. Roy Brakspear, Rob Fallon, the unidentified woman beside the road the previous night…
He stopped a few feet away from the bodies, flinching against the overpowering smell of burnt flesh. Bolt might have been a police officer with more than twenty years' experience, but he still found it very difficult to look at dead people. They reminded him too much of his own mortality, and burns victims were possibly the worst. The intense heat melted their fat and shrank them into nightmarish charcoal sculptures, almost unidentifiable as human.
One was very tall, and he guessed that this was the body of the as yet unidentified man who'd been found on the barn floor when the armed officers had gone in.
Bolt took a deep breath and stared down at the other corpse – all that was left of his nemesis. Although some form of natural justice had been done here, he found it difficult to feel any real satisfaction.
Something caught his eye on the body. A smoke-blackened gold ring on one of the gnarled, twisted fingers.
He bent down, looking more closely. Which was when he felt a surge of pure shock. There was a second gold ring on the finger next to it, unmistakably feminine in design.
Bolt wasn't looking at Hook at all. He was looking at the body of a woman.
And straight away he knew it must be Jenny Brakspear.
Hook had waited until the pretty paramedic with the spiky red hair turned her back to him to prepare a shot of painkillers, then slipped an arm free and released the chest strap holding him to the gurney. He'd attached a small plastic blade, four inches long and very sharp, to the inside of his wrist with tape earlier, and he pulled it off, the noise alerting the paramedic, who started to turn round.
Hook had been far too quick for her. Drawing her back into a tight embrace, he'd clasped his hand over her mouth and driven the blade deep into her neck. A geyser of blood from the severed jugular vein spattered hard against the back window before slowing to a sputter as she died, shaking, in his arms.
He'd placed her body gently on the floor, then discarded the makeshift blonde wig he'd sliced from Jenny Brakspear's head and leaned through the partition into the cab, putting the dripping blade to the unsuspecting driver's neck and ordering him to pull over.
The shocked driver had been sensible enough to cooperate. 'Let me go and I won't raise the alarm for another ten minutes,' he'd said calmly as he brought the ambulance to a halt. 'That should give you enough time.'
It was a fair offer, but Hook hadn't been tempted to take it. Instead, he'd yanked the driver's head backwards and dispatched him in exactly the same way as he'd dispatched his colleague, sinking the blade up to the hilt in his neck. This time there'd been more of a struggle. The driver had made some loud choking noises and had lurched forward in his seat, the blood spraying everywhere. Somehow he'd managed to break free, and he'd grabbed wildly at the door handle.
For a moment Hook had thought the driver was going to yank open the door, which would have been a problem because there were headlights coming the other way, but thankfully all energy had then seemed to leave him and he'd slumped to one side, lifting one arm in a useless show of resistance.
He'd pushed the driver into the passenger seat, then clambered through the partition and taken the wheel, pulling away as two police squad cars passed him heading in the other direction.
Hook had allowed himself a small smile as he picked up speed, checking his location on the GPS. It wouldn't be long before they realized their mistake, but by then it would be too late.
Once again, it would be like he'd never existed. A shadow disappearing into the night, leaving only terror and destruction behind him.
Seventy-three
The helicopter rose swiftly above the smoking ruin of the barn before turning south towards London. Below him, Bolt could see the wide cordon of flashing blue lights stretching out in the darkness across the countryside, with the crashed phosgene lorry in the centre, illuminated by the search beams of a circling police helicopter.
It was now half an hour since he'd discovered that the body he'd assumed was Hook was actually female, and therefore almost certainly the kidnap victim, Jenny Brakspear. Ominously, the ambulance taking the person they'd thought was Jenny to hospital had not arrived. Nor had the crew responded to radio contact or calls to their mobile phones. The assumption was that they'd been carrying a disguised Hook, and that he'd managed to overpower them and escape. Only someone with his ruthlessness and nerve could have carried something like this off, and Bolt almost felt a grudging admiration for him.
He sat back in the cramped seat, frustrated at the way events had once again twisted out of his control, fighting the exhaustion that was now taking hold as the adrenalin-fuelled tension of the past twenty-four hours subsided. He knew he'd achieved a lot. He'd helped to avoid what would have been a disaster for London and the UK, and he'd rescued Tina from certain death. He'd just spoken to the hospital again, and the doctor had told him she was expected to make a full recovery, although it would be some months before she regained full use of her foot. So, in the end, he had a lot to be proud of.
Except it wasn't enough. Hook remained free, and Bolt knew he'd probably murdered the paramedics as well. Portman remained free too. As did Paul Wise. Justice, then, had not been served on those who deserved it. Bolt felt like sleeping for a week, but he knew he wouldn't be able to until matters had been brought to a close.
In the cramped helicopter cab with him were Mo Khan and Big Barry Freud. Mo was dozing, while Big Barry, who still had a long night ahead of him, sat in the seat next to Bolt, staring into space. He was on his way to Scotland Yard where he would help coordinate the capture of all outstanding suspects involved in the plot.
Bolt turned to him now. 'I want my team on the Henry Portman surveillance,' he said firmly. 'I think we deserve that.'
'Get some sleep, old mate. And don't worry about Sir Henry. He's not going anywhere.'
'I don't care. I still want to be a part of it.'
Big Barry looked reluctant, but he was also pragmatic enough to know when to give ground. 'All right, I'll speak to DAC Bridges and see what we can do. There's a new team taking over at two a.m., and they're on until ten tomorrow. I'll try and get your people to take over then.'
Bolt looked across at Mo, who'd opened one eye and was listening to the exchange. 'Does that give you enough time to sleep?'
'If I have all the sleep I need,' he answered, yawning, 'then I won't be awake until Saturday. But I don't want to miss out on this either. Someone's going to have to pay for this, and I'd love to see the look on that pompous sod's face when we nick him for conspiracy to murder.'
Bolt cracked a half-smile. 'My feelings exactly.'
Mo closed his eye and went back to dozing while Bolt stared out of the window at the sweeping curtain of lights that signalled their approach into London. Somewhere down there was Hook. Hiding among the city's ten million citizens. The immense apparatus of the state would be hunting him down, using all the latest technology, but Bolt knew that it wasn't going to be enough. Their quarry was too good for that, and right now the slippery bastard was winning on points.
But it wasn't over yet.
And anyone, even a cunning pro like Hook, could make a mistake.