Deadline Page 11

  And then they all saw it. The long, gleaming blade of a hunting knife, held in a black-gloved hand, moving slowly across the screen from right to left, mocking the viewers with its presence. It belonged to the cameraman. His camera shook very slightly as he moved it. The knife then changed direction as he leaned forward, pointing the tip of the blade at Emma's neck. His arm beyond the glove was covered by a black sweater. There was no flesh showing, nothing that might even hint at a possible ID.

  A torturous wail came from Andrea. 'No, Jesus, no. Please. Don't hurt her.'

  Bolt felt his mouth go parchment dry. This was total sadism, something that, thank God, was rare.

  In twenty years of law enforcement he'd only seen something similar once before when he'd been forced to watch an old amateur videotape showing the sexual abuse and torture of a three-year-old child by her father. That was a long time ago now, yet he could still remember every single moment of it. It was etched on his brain, like a hideous tattoo, for ever. This was similar, and in a way all the more painful in that the victim's mother was someone he'd once cared so much for.

  'Let's turn it off, Andrea,' he said. 'We can watch it again in a minute.'

  She shook her head angrily. 'No. I've got to see. I've got to.'

  On the film, Emma pushed her body back into the wall, craning her head away from the blade, her pale blue eyes never leaving it.

  Andrea's moaning grew louder. It stopped abruptly when the point touched Emma's neck. Ever so gently.

  No one moved a millimetre. It was as if they'd been frozen to the spot, staring hypnotized at the screen. Waiting.

  The blade traced a slow path up the contours of Emma's jawline and on to her cheek, brushing the pale skin but not breaking it, stopping at the fold of skin just below her left eye. Half a centimetre more and it would be caressing the eyeball.

  Bolt steeled himself for what might be coming next. He prided himself on being a hard man, able to take some of the worst experiences the world had to offer, but this was tearing him up inside, and he wondered how many times this scene would be revisiting his dreams in the coming months.

  The knife jerked suddenly to the side, moving like a flash. Disappeared from view.

  Emma cried out. Andrea gasped. Bolt stopped breathing.

  The camera panned inwards. Emma's face filled the screen. Terrified, but unmarked. Then it panned slowly outwards as Emma crumpled into a fetal position on the bed she'd been sitting on, dropping the newspaper to the floor. She was wearing handcuffs, and there was a chain attached to her ankle by a metal loop.

  Something dark rose up from the bottom of the screen, blocking out everything else, and the camera took several seconds to focus on it. It was a piece of paper. Five words were written on it in bold capitals: NO POLICE OR SHE DIES. The camera stayed on it for a full three seconds. Then abruptly the film ended and the screen returned to Andrea's homepage.

  For a long moment, no one spoke. Bolt was just about to open his mouth to tell Andrea to be strong, that this was just a method for the kidnappers to cow her into submission so that she'd get them the next tranche of the ransom money – even though he wasn't at all sure he still believed it – when in one ferocious movement Andrea swept the laptop off the table, sending it crashing to the floor, and jumped to her feet. She grabbed the photo of Emma as a toddler from the desk and hugged it to her chest. Pushing Turner out of her way, she swung round to face Bolt, her tearstained face a twisting combination of torment and rage.

  'They're going to kill her, aren't they? That's it.

  They're going to kill her.'

  Bolt put a hand on her arm, trying to calm her. 'No, Andrea, they won't. They're far better off keeping her alive.'

  'They told me not to involve the police, and now look at you all here.' She yanked herself free and swept an arm dismissively round the room. 'Standing around while my daughter's tortured by these bastards. Oh God. If they kill her . . . if they kill her, it's all going to be my fault!'

  'You can't think like that, Andrea,' said Bolt, but she was no longer listening. She strode rapidly past them and out the door, leaving behind only grim silence.

  Sixteen

  Marie went after Andrea, and Bolt heard them both going up the stairs, Andrea shouting at Marie to leave her alone. He stood staring at the upended laptop, wondering how Andrea was ever going to recover from this. Finally he broke his reverie and turned away.

  Turner was speaking into the phone. When he hung up a few seconds later, Bolt asked him if they'd got a trace.

  'He called from a mobile on a back street in the N18 postcode. But he switched off straight away so we can't follow him.'

  'So he knows what we can do with mobile phones.'

  'Looks that way, doesn't it?'

  'Any chance of getting anything from the email he sent?'

  'We won't get much out of the email address itself. Anyone can set up a hotmail account anonymously. But we should be able to locate the computer he sent it from. It might take some time.'

  'Get the team on to it straight away. We've just got to hope this guy makes a mistake.'

  'He hasn't made any so far.'

  Bolt might have liked Turner, but his occasional habit of accentuating the negatives could grate at times. Especially times like this. 'Just do it,' he said, turning away and pulling out his own mobile. 'And get the local cops down the street where the call was made from, just in case he's still there.'

  He unlocked the French windows in the living room and went out into the back garden, dialling his boss's number. When Big Barry answered, he explained to him what the kidnappers had done. 'These guys are good, sir. They know exactly which buttons to press. But there's something else too. The way they're tormenting her – this is personal. I'm sure of it. Someone really wants Andrea Devern to suffer.'

  'Well, let's hope you're right, because that might help lead us to them. The woman can't have that many enemies. In the meantime, though, I've had authorization for us to set up a sting. Looks like the ladies and gents upstairs agreed with you about negotiation. It's pointless with people as ruthless as this.'

  'It's definitely the right move. This way we'll be the ones in control.'

  'We'll use bundles of counterfeit notes fitted with trackers.'

  'These people are professionals, sir. They're going to spot something like that.'

  'We'll be right on their tails. By the time they realize the notes are fake it'll be too late and they'll be in custody.'

  Bolt wasn't convinced. 'But it also might be too late for Emma. If they pick up the money, then check the notes in the car, see that they're not real, they'll know we're involved. In that case, they might never lead us to her.'

  'Come on, old mate, how am I going to get authorization to use half a million pounds of real money? And where am I going to get it from? The Christmas kitty? Think about it.'

  'You said we're not going to lose them.'

  'We're not.'

  'So we can afford to use the real thing, surely?' Bolt thought of the photo of Emma as a toddler, playing with the hosepipe in her pink swimming costume. 'This is a young girl's life we're talking about.'

  'Let's not get sentimental, Mike.'

  'I'm not. But if we use fake money and it all goes wrong, it's not going to look good for any of us, is it? That we thought the money was more important than our kidnap victim.' He resisted adding 'heads will roll', but the point was a valid one. Bolt was appealing to Barry's innate arse-covering instincts, knowing that there lay his greatest chance of success.

  And it seemed to be working. 'I'll talk to them upstairs, but I can't see them going for it.' Barry sighed. 'Look, this whole operation needs to be well planned, so I want you back here so we can discuss the details. As soon as poss. Keep Turner and the liaison there with Mrs Devern, just in case they make contact again.'

  Bolt hung up, and looked at his watch. It was ten past one. His stomach was growling and he realized that he hadn't eaten a thing all day. He'd grab some
lunch on the way back. He took a deep breath. One way or another, he was going to get these bastards. And get Emma back for Andrea as well. The hunt was on now, and on the ground at least, he was the one in charge. This was the part of the job he loved, when the battle lines were drawn and it was all about you and them. Pushing the images of the video aside, he felt a renewed sense of determination.

  He became aware of a presence behind him. It was Turner, looking vaguely sheepish.

  'Everything all right, Matt?'

  'Mrs Devern wants a word with you upstairs.

  Alone. She doesn't want to talk to Marie.' There was a vague disapproval in his tone.

  'OK, thanks.'

  Bolt walked back into the house through the French windows. Marie was standing at the bottom of the stairs, looking concerned.

  'She's in the first room on the left,' she said wearily.

  Bolt smiled, feeling sorry for her. 'Thanks. I don't see there's much I'm going to be able to do either, but I'll give it a try.'

  Andrea was in the master bedroom, sitting in a white leather armchair and staring out of the bay window, a cigarette in her hand. She turned as he came inside and shut the door behind him. Her face was set hard, the tears wiped away now.

  'You've got to get her back, Mike.' She spoke the words firmly.

  'And we're doing absolutely everything we can to bring that about. I know how hard it must be, but you've got to try to sit tight and be patient.'

  'Did you never want children, Mike?'

  She watched him closely, waiting for an answer, the cigarette burning, forgotten, in her hand. He sighed, wondering how he was going to extricate himself from this conversation.

  'The opportunity never arose. Maybe one day.'

  'Have you ever been married?'

  'I was. Once.'

  'What happened?'

  'She died. In a car crash. Five years ago.'

  Five years. It felt like such a long time, yet in truth it had gone fast. He could still picture Mikaela perfectly, could still hear her voice. But she was someone he didn't like to be reminded of by other people. He liked to keep his thoughts and memories of her to himself.

  'I'm sorry,' she said, sounding like she meant it.

  'It's OK.'

  Silence. He sensed there was something she wanted to add, so he waited for it.

  And it came.

  'Listen, Mike, I don't know how to say this, but . . .'

  She noticed the cigarette then, and flicked the ash into an ashtray on the windowsill before it spilled into her lap.

  'What is it, Andrea?'

  'I told you about Jimmy Galante, didn't I? About the reason I involved him.'

  'Because you needed his help.'

  'Yes, and because he was her father as well.'

  'That's right.'

  'The thing is, I was lying.'

  Bolt tensed. 'What do you mean?'

  'I mean I was lying when I told Jimmy he was the father. He wasn't.'

  She looked him squarely in the eye. 'You are.'

  Seventeen

  One of Mike Bolt's problems in his younger days was an inability to say no. He should never have carried on the affair with Andrea Devern after that first night of passion in the Bloomsbury hotel. She was a married woman, with a wealthy husband who looked after her, and he was an impetuous twenty-four-year-old cop, so it was always going to end in tears. But Bolt had somehow convinced himself that this didn't really matter. He was just going to see how things went and not get too involved.

  But he had got involved, and in the eight weeks the affair had lasted he'd found himself driven ever deeper into Andrea's web. In the beginning he'd been in control, but that control had evaporated rapidly as he'd become more and more obsessed with her. He was driven to distraction by the difficulties in getting hold of her, and in meeting up for their illicit liaisons. In those eight weeks they slept together on only six occasions, and then suddenly it was all over. Just like that. Not with a whimper either, but with a bang he'd never forget.

  But could he really have fathered her child? The thought nagged at him ferociously as he drove back to HQ. But the dates fit. Andrea had convinced him of that back at the house. 'Our daughter's birthday's the second of April,' she'd said. 'We were seeing each other in June and July.'

  Our daughter. His daughter. She could be wrong, of course. As he'd found out afterwards, she was also seeing Jimmy Galante at the time. And she was married too, although she'd always claimed that her husband, Billy Devern, was impotent, which was why he'd allowed her to take lovers. Whether that was true or not was still largely immaterial, because the dates fitted. Check them, Andrea had said, and he had, going back in his head to those giddy days, and the truth shouted at him so loudly he could barely hear anything else. It was possible Emma Devern wasn't his child, but there was a damn good chance that she was.

  On the seat next to him were photographs of Emma and Pat Phelan which he was taking back to the incident room. Phelan's was face up, but Emma's was face down. He couldn't bear to look at her. Couldn't bear to think that she might be his flesh and blood, and the first he'd known about it was when he'd been put in charge of investigating her kidnapping.

  He thought of Mikaela, the woman he'd met a couple of years after Andrea, who'd gone on to be his wife. Mikaela had always wanted children. A boy and a girl, she'd always said. Children, and the big, rambling house with a nice garden. It was Bolt who'd always held back. He'd feared the immense commitment required; with the long hours he worked, he didn't think he could provide the necessary support. But eventually, after seven years together, he'd reluctantly agreed to Mikaela's increasingly persistent requests that they should start trying for a baby.

  She was two months pregnant when the car he was driving left the road and smashed into an oak tree, crunching it into a shape that made it unrecognizable.

  He'd spent six weeks in hospital and now carried three small scars on his face as a permanent reminder of that night. Mikaela's life support system was turned off three days later, without her ever regaining consciousness. Bolt had been too ill to leave his bed to say goodbye. He hadn't even been told of the decision, made by her parents, until almost two days later because it was thought the news would be so traumatic it would worsen his condition.

  And all that time – all the time he'd ever been with Mikaela, and through those long hard years since – he might already have had a child. A child growing up whom he'd never seen, and knew absolutely nothing about.

  His fingers tightened on the steering wheel and he clenched his jaw, feeling a sudden burst of furious resentment towards Andrea. If he was the father, why had she said nothing to him all these years? And if he wasn't, how could she manipulate him like this?

  He pulled over to the side of the road before the fury got the better of him, and took some long, deep breaths, trying to calm himself down. But it was hard. Incredibly hard. That morning he'd been a reasonably happy man with a new girlfriend, coasting towards his fortieth birthday – now only a few months away – having got used to the idea that he was probably never going to have children. And now he'd been told not only that he might have one, but that her life was in terrible danger, and he was the one responsible for getting her back safely.

  He sat there for a full minute, his heart thumping so loudly it felt like the only thing he could hear. Then he picked up the photo of Emma – blonde, smiling, fourteen years old, in her school uniform – and stared at it, searching for resemblances. Was she his? There were similarities, there were differences. He thought of the man – the men – holding her. The men who might not want to return her alive. The men they were now going to try to set up. For the first time, he truly imagined what could happen if their plan went wrong, and his stomach lurched violently. The girl who could be his only child would die.

  He put down Emma's photo, but he kept it face up so that he could see the girl he had to rescue. It was time to take responsibility and think straight. Technically, the position had
n't changed; it was just that the stakes had now become infinitely higher.

  He took a final deep breath, flicked on the indicator, and pulled out into the traffic.

  Part Three

  Eighteen

  It was half past two on Friday afternoon when SG4 Tina Boyd stopped outside the Lively Lounge Club and Casino, a turd-coloured slab of a building straight out of the 1960s school of bland architecture, which sat at the Colindale end of the Edgware Road, about three miles and a thousand years as the crow flies from the leafy Hampstead suburb where Pat Phelan now lived. Looking at it made her feel mildly pleased that gambling wasn't one of her vices. It wasn't that she wasn't interested. She just didn't dare place a bet, even on something like the Grand National, because she knew if she got a bit of beginner's luck and started winning, she'd probably never stop. Tina had an addictive personality. It was part of her genetic make-up. All through her early and mid-teens she'd resisted the peer pressure to start smoking, then at seventeen she'd tried her first cigarette at a party and she'd been putting away twenty a day ever since, with every attempt to stop ending in rapid failure.

  She wondered if Phelan was the same. Because he definitely had a gambling problem, and the Lively Lounge Club and Casino was where he sank the lion's share of the money he spent on his betting. And he spent a lot. Tina's team had got hold of copies of the previous year's statements for the five credit cards and one debit card held in his name, and during that period his outgoings amounted to a grand total of £87,288.36 – and this from a man with no actual income that they could find, other than a £1,500-a-month standing order paid into his personal bank account from Andrea's own account, which was held at a separate bank. There'd been a number of further payments into his account over the course of the year, more than twenty-five grand's worth in all, but they were sporadic which meant they almost certainly represented winnings. Even with his wife's £160,000-a-year salary it was an unsustainable amount, and already Phelan's credit limit was maxed out on every one of the credit cards, while he was currently overdrawn at the bank by more than six thousand.