The Final Minute Read online

  It was a bit late to continue feigning sleep now so I manoeuvred myself into the foetal position, bringing up my knees and lowering my head to make myself as small a target as possible, as Blackbeard brought his foot back to deliver another kick.

  ‘All right, that’ll do,’ said Combover. ‘He’s softened up enough. Now, get up, Sean.’ He leaned down and hauled me up by the scruff of my neck.

  I didn’t bother resisting this time and managed to clamber unsteadily to my feet, seeing my surroundings properly for the first time. The building I’d seen while I was lying on the ground was an old pitched-timber barn that backed on to open fields. Opposite it across the dusty, lightly gravelled yard was a dilapidated building that might have been a workshop or farmhouse but had clearly been empty for some time. A further outbuilding stood next to it, and behind that was a wall of mature oak trees, blocking any further view. The place was deserted and, aside from the birdsong and the faint hum of traffic in the distance, there were no sounds at all. Even if I screamed my head off, no one would hear me. It wasn’t a pleasant thought.

  The sun was starting to set and there was a slight chill in the air. I guessed the time was between six and seven, and as the two of them frogmarched me across the yard to the barn, I wondered when, or indeed if, I was ever going to see the sun again.

  Combover used a key to unlock the heavy padlock on the barn’s double doors, and as they opened and I was led inside, I caught a very distinct smell of something stale and unpleasant.

  There was nothing in the barn but a few empty diesel barrels lined up against one wall and a metal chair in the middle of the room, which looked like it had been clamped to the floor. Two chains about six inches long, with metal restraints attached, hung from each arm; two further sets of chains and restraints were coiled by the chair’s front legs. An orange plastic bucket sat next to the chair and I noticed that there was a thin trail of something dark and dried running down the bucket to the concrete floor, and several dark stains dotted about the chair in an irregular pattern. It wasn’t hard to guess what the stains were, or what this contraption was used for, and I temporarily forgot the pain in my balls as I realized with an injection of adrenalin and fear that I was here to be tortured.

  ‘Christ, it stinks in here,’ grunted Blackbeard as they removed the restraints they’d put me in back at the hospital and shoved me down in the chair.

  For a split second I thought about making a break for it before they had a chance to strap me in, but the thought disappeared as Combover produced a small revolver from somewhere inside his suit and pointed it at my head. ‘Don’t even think about it, Sean,’ he said with a smile that created laughter lines around his amused blue eyes.

  That was the thing about Combover when you looked at him closely. He looked and sounded like a nice, trustworthy, eminently reasonable guy, the sort who would do everything he could to avoid inflicting pain. It was, I had to admit, a great act, and even as he pointed a gun at me I found it difficult to dislike him too much. But somehow I also knew he’d use it if he had to.

  ‘The thing is, we’re always one step ahead of you,’ he continued as Blackbeard applied the chains to make sure I wasn’t going anywhere. ‘You need to remember that. And if you want to get out of here in one piece, you need to do exactly as you’re told. Understand?’

  I nodded, but my attention was once again drawn to the bucket. There were two pairs of pliers of different sizes propped up inside, and a thick, dried-up pool of blood at the bottom. I could see what looked like a sprinkling of tiny yellow stones amid the blood, and it took a couple of seconds for me to realize that they were teeth. I felt my mouth go dry. ‘Sure,’ I said weakly.

  ‘Good. We want to do this as smoothly and stress-free as possible.’ Combover nodded to Blackbeard, who’d finished strapping me to the chair now. ‘Would you mind waiting outside for a few moments? I want to speak to Sean alone.’

  Blackbeard muttered something under his breath, but did as he was told.

  When the barn door had closed behind him, Combover sighed deeply, carefully smoothed his hair so it covered the majority of his bald patch, then looked down at me with a sympathetic expression. He’d lost the gun without me noticing, but then he seemed to have the magician’s knack for making things materialize and disappear at will. ‘I won’t bullshit you, Sean. And I don’t want you to bullshit me either. If you answer my questions truthfully, there may be a way out of this for you. I’m not guaranteeing anything, but if you give us the information we need, it’s possible you’ll be allowed to live.’

  Now it was my time to sigh. ‘For some reason, I don’t feel too optimistic you’ll keep your side of the bargain.’

  ‘The only reason to kill you would be to make sure you keep your mouth shut, but you’ve already got an extremely good reason to do that.’

  ‘Oh yeah? What’s that then?’

  ‘Because you’re implicated in mass murder,’ he said simply.

  I thought of my recurring dream then, and immediately pictured the body of the dead woman on the bed – the woman Tina Boyd was searching for – and the beautiful blonde propped up against the wall, bleeding. And the fear in her eyes as she saw me approaching her.

  ‘You’re not saying anything, Sean. That’s because you remember, isn’t it?’ He was still smiling, but there was nothing pleasant about it now.

  I shook my head. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. I really don’t. I’ve been suffering from amnesia.’

  ‘So you don’t know who you are then?’

  I was exhausted, both physically and mentally, but even so, I knew he was trying to catch me out here, and there was no way I was going to give up Tina. ‘I remember my name,’ I told him. ‘It came back to me today. That’s why I printed all that stuff about me off the internet.’

  ‘Where did you print it off?’

  ‘In an internet café in Paddington near the hospital where you picked me up. How did you find me, by the way?’

  ‘Don’t try to turn this around, Sean. You answer the questions, not me.’

  ‘And I am answering them.’ The pain in my groin had faded to a dull, insistent ache, and I realized almost with surprise that I was desperately thirsty. ‘Can I have a drink of water please?’

  He shook his head. ‘Not until you start telling the truth. And right now, I don’t think you are. Because for a man with full-on amnesia, you seem to be remarkably self-sufficient. Where did you get the phone you had on you?’

  ‘I bought it in a phone shop.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I thought I might need it,’ I snapped, feigning annoyance at the way the conversation was going.

  I’d been in this kind of situation before, I was sure of it. Having to think on my feet under pressure; having to talk for my life. I was good at it too. I remembered that Tina had said at one time I’d been an undercover cop, and the printed-off documents had confirmed it. The problem was, the man I was trying to convince almost certainly knew my background too.

  Combover produced the phone from his pocket. ‘What’s the code to open it?’ he asked casually.

  I feigned puzzlement, knowing that I couldn’t let him have it, because then he’d have Tina’s number. After a few seconds’ silence I shook my head wearily. ‘Jesus, I can’t remember.’

  ‘Fuck you, Sean. I told you not to try to put one over on me.’

  ‘I’m serious. Jesus, with everything else that’s happened these past twenty-four hours I’m surprised I can remember anything. I’m sorry. Maybe it’ll come back to me.’ I sighed loudly.

  Combover’s expression softened a little. ‘Tell me what happened last night back at the house in Wales.’

  Something dawned on me then. The reason why Combover’s voice seemed vaguely familiar. ‘It was you who phoned the house, wasn’t it? And told me to get out. You thought you were talking to Tom.’

  ‘I told you to answer the questions. What happened last night?’

  I told hi
m the exact truth as it had happened, starting from me returning to the house from my walk, and leaving nothing out.

  When I’d finished, Combover nodded slowly, as if this all made sense, which I guess to him it did. Unfortunately, very little of it did to me.

  ‘The people who tried to kill you are very dangerous, and very ruthless. They want the same information from you that we do. The location of the bodies.’

  ‘Whose bodies?’ I asked, trying to rid my mind of the images from my dream. The images of death and fear.

  ‘I think you know, Sean, and if you don’t, then I’d advise you to try very hard to remember.’

  ‘Can you at least give me some idea of what’s going on? It might help.’

  ‘I’ll tell you this. The people trying to kill you are a threat to national security. If they find out where these bodies we’re talking about are, it puts them in a position of great power. It also means that, as the only person who knows their location – and somewhere in your head, Sean, I can promise you that you do hold that information – you are an extreme danger to them. As a result, they will move heaven and earth to kill you. If we find those bodies first, it’ll ruin them – and that will immediately remove the threat to your life. So, if you can tell me the answer to that question, there’s every chance you’ll get an opportunity to start a new life away from here. That’s a pretty big incentive to start talking.’

  ‘It is,’ I said, ‘but at the moment I honestly can’t help you.’ Whether Combover was lying or not was irrelevant. If I’d had the information, I’d have given it to him, if only for a glass of ice-cold water. One way or another, I just wanted this nightmare to end.

  Combover looked disappointed, as if he’d put his trust in me and I’d somehow let him down. ‘I’m going to call your therapist, Dr Bronson. He’s going to come here and you’re going to let him put you under, and see if we can get to the truth that way. I know he hasn’t been successful so far, but this time you’re going to work with him like you’ve never worked before. Because be in no doubt, Sean, your life depends on it. And if we don’t get what we want that way, we’ll have to start using more direct methods.’ He glanced down at the bucket just so I wasn’t in any doubt what he meant by that.

  ‘I’m telling the truth. I promise.’

  ‘Well, we’ll soon find out. My colleague’s going to take over from me now while I phone Dr Bronson, and I’ll be straight with you. He’s going to hurt you. I’m afraid he enjoys inflicting pain far too much. However, he’s also a professional, so firstly he’ll make sure you’re conscious and able to work with the good doctor when he arrives, and secondly he’ll stop the minute you start actually telling us what we want to hear.’

  ‘But I can’t tell you what you want to hear if I don’t know what the hell it is!’ I said, the desperation in my voice all too real. I didn’t think I could handle any more pain, and I felt the fear getting the better of me. ‘Please. I’ll do everything I can to cooperate. And can I just have a drink of water?’

  Combover shook his head dismissively and turned away. ‘Try not to scream too much,’ he said over his shoulder as he walked out of the door, leaving me alone and helpless.

  Seventeen

  It didn’t take Tina long to find an address for Dylan Mackay, the man who’d supposedly asked Lauren and her friend Jen if they wanted to do escort work, and who, according to Sheryl, seemed so keen to forget Lauren had ever existed. In Tina’s experience it didn’t take long to find anyone if they weren’t making much effort to hide themselves, and Dylan was clearly not too bothered about keeping a low profile. It made it easier that he also owned his own property. According to the Land Registry, there were only two homeowners in Kensington with the name Dylan Mackay, and having taken down their details and full names, a simple Google search quickly brought up the Facebook photo she’d seen in Sheryl’s flat of the good-looking young man with the dark curly hair and arrogant pose. She needn’t have asked for a copy after all because his privacy settings were obviously non-existent. He was even on LinkedIn, which was somewhat ironic, given the paucity of his CV. It brought a smile to Tina’s face to be reminded how foolish some people could be in allowing themselves to be plastered all over the internet for all to see, particularly if they were involved in things they shouldn’t be. Sheryl had suggested that Dylan was some kind of pimp, and Tina couldn’t see why she’d lie. A quick credit check had revealed that, although Dylan’s flat was worth upwards of seven hundred grand in the current, hugely inflated London property market, his mortgage was four hundred thousand, and he had a credit card and other debts totalling a further one hundred and twenty grand, and these were just the ones listed. So Dylan clearly needed money, which to Tina’s mind enhanced his value as a decent lead.

  She looked at her watch. It was twenty past six. She could pay him a visit now but it was the middle of rush hour, and there was no guarantee that he’d be there. He struck Tina as the kind of guy who didn’t get up too early in the mornings, so she decided to leave it until tomorrow.

  She thought of Sean then, and wondered what had happened to him. It had been a good four hours since she’d dropped him off at the hospital and she hadn’t heard anything. She considered trying the mobile she’d given him, but concluded it was probably safer to check the tracker he was carrying. It wasn’t that she was paranoid, but she didn’t want anyone knowing she was working with Sean, not when he’d already admitted to her that he’d been indirectly involved in two murders. By rights, Tina should have reported what he’d told her to the police, since conversations between private detectives and clients weren’t covered by the same laws of confidentiality that lawyers enjoyed. But for the moment she was prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt, as long as he kept his distance.

  She accessed the website that tracked the device’s movements, keyed in its ID number, and felt a jolt of surprise when she saw its location. The red light was flashing in a semi-rural area about five miles north-west of junction 18 of the M25, on the Hertfordshire/Buckinghamshire border. She zoomed in as far as she could go and frowned when she saw a collection of buildings that made up a place called Cherry Tree Farm.

  What the hell was he doing there? Tina went through the possible explanations. Sean had been seen by a doctor in A and E and, with severe amnesia diagnosed, he’d been sectioned under the Mental Health Act and had been taken to a secure facility to be evaluated in more detail. She didn’t buy that, though. Firstly, Cherry Tree Farm didn’t look big enough to be a mental health facility. Secondly, it was almost impossible for Sean to have arrived there that quickly, not with all the paperwork that would have been needed. Thirdly, he was unlikely to have been sectioned. He might have amnesia, but he was very much in control of his faculties.

  The only other innocent explanation she could think of was that he’d got cold feet and left A and E before they’d seen him. But even if he’d done that, why on earth would he have gone to an isolated farm in the middle of nowhere? And how would he have got there? A taxi in rush-hour traffic, taking in a big chunk of north-west London, would probably cost more than the hundred pounds Tina had lent him. It was possible that some memory had come back which linked him to the farm and that was why he’d gone there, but to Tina that too seemed hugely unlikely.

  Which left only one alternative. Something was wrong, and Sean was in trouble.

  Just in case the tracker and Sean had somehow parted company, Tina grabbed her mobile and dialled the hospital, asking to be put through to a Mr Matthew Barron.

  The receptionist asked her what ward he was on.

  ‘I don’t know. I dropped him off at A and E this afternoon. He’s got amnesia. Is it possible to check whether he’s been admitted? I was going to come down and visit him.’

  As she waited for the receptionist to check, she wandered outside and lit a cigarette, taking a long, much-needed drag.

  ‘I’m afraid no one under that name’s been admitted,’ said the receptionist, coming back on the li
ne.

  Tina asked her to check that he hadn’t been admitted under the name Sean Egan. The receptionist wasn’t happy but she eventually acquiesced, although when she came back on the line, Tina wasn’t surprised to hear that there was no patient under that name in the hospital either.

  She thanked the receptionist and ended the call, wondering what to do now. She was hungry and tired but she couldn’t just leave things like this. If Sean hadn’t left the hospital voluntarily, then that meant he’d been taken by someone. It struck her then that the people who’d been holding him in Wales could have fitted him with a tracking device of their own. It might have been on a watch, or it might even have been fitted internally if they’d known what they were doing, and had access to the real high-tech devices. Either way, she should have thought of it.

  Still, it was too late to worry about that now. She stubbed out the cigarette and went back inside.

  It was time to take a drive to Cherry Tree Farm and hope that Sean was still there.

  And still alive.

  Eighteen

  Robert Whatret was sitting in his front room watching the news on TV and not really concentrating too much, when the phone rang.

  He felt a familiar sense of dread when he saw that the call was from a withheld number. With a shaking hand, he put the phone to his ear.

  ‘We’ve got our man back,’ said Mr H.

  ‘Thank goodness,’ said Whatret, not quite sure what this meant for him.

  ‘We’re holding him at a location just out of town. It should be about an hour’s drive for you at this time of night. I’m going to text you the location at the end of this call. You need to get over here right away.’

  ‘I’ve been drinking.’

  ‘How much?’

  ‘I’m over the limit.’