The Last 10 Seconds: A Novel Page 14

  ‘Drop the gun,’ I repeated, trying to keep the fear out of my voice.

  Wolfe kept it pressed in Kent’s cheek. ‘Or what? You’ll pull the trigger? I don’t think you’ve got the balls, son. Cos I’m looking in your eyes and I can tell you won’t do it.’

  I swallowed, conscious of a bead of sweat running down into the corner of my eye, forcing me to blink.

  That was when I felt something cold against the back of my head. ‘I think it’d be better if you dropped yours, Sean,’ said Tommy. ‘I’m sorry, mate, but it’s better this way.’

  I hadn’t expected this from Tommy, but maybe I should have done. After all, his first loyalty was always going to be the crew. Even so, I still felt a sense of relief as I lowered the shotgun, which lasted as long as it took Wolfe to jerk it from my hand, turn it round, and shove the barrel between my legs while at the same time placing the pistol right between my eyes. For the first time in my life I was on the wrong end of three different firearms.

  ‘Cover Kent,’ Wolfe snapped at Tommy. ‘And put that gag on him. Tie his hands behind his back too. I don’t want that bastard moving an inch.’ Then he turned to me, his face a screwed-up ball of pure hate.

  I didn’t speak. I couldn’t, because I knew with absolute certainty that the man holding the gun against my head was the cold-blooded murderer who’d shot my brother all those years before, and that now it was my turn. I’ve been close to getting killed before. Jesus, I’d been close enough earlier that day. But not like this. I could feel the coldness of the barrel pressing into my skin, and see the dark contempt in Wolfe’s good eye. I couldn’t even repeat the trick I’d used earlier and swat the gun away, not when there were three of them trained on me.

  Wolfe clicked off the Sig’s safety catch, his lips curling upwards in a sadistic sneer, and I saw his index finger tightening on the trigger. ‘Not so nice now, is it, Seany boy? Having someone point a piece at you.’

  I swallowed hard, my heart hammering in my chest, as possibly the last ten seconds of my life ebbed away, and wondered whether John had experienced the gut-wrenching terror I was feeling now as I sat there waiting to die, knowing there was nothing I could do to prevent the bullet from coming. I was helpless, and everyone in that stinking van knew it.

  ‘Don’t do it, Ty,’ I heard Tommy say. I could see him out of the corner of my eye, holding a small snub-nosed revolver against Kent’s neck while he put the tape over his mouth. ‘We’re all pretty emotional after what happened. Sean shouldn’t have done what he did, no question, but we’ve all done stupid things in the heat of the moment, and we don’t want any more complications right now, do we? So come on. Let’s all put the guns down, get to the rendezvous and sort it out there.’

  ‘What do you reckon, Clarence?’ said Wolfe, not taking his eyes off me.

  ‘Blow his fucking head off. He’s a liability, and we don’t need him no more.’

  The minibus fell silent. It was decision time. Life or death.

  Wolfe nodded slowly as if he’d come to a decision. ‘The next time you point a gun at me,’ he said, speaking slowly and carefully enunciating every word, ‘I will kill you without a second’s thought. Do you understand that?’ Pause. ‘Do you?’

  ‘Yeah,’ I answered, experiencing a sense of relief so powerful I almost vomited.

  ‘Good,’ he said, removing the gun and replacing it in his waistband before taking the shotgun out from between my legs.

  Then, without warning, he slammed the butt into my face and my whole world exploded in searing pain.

  Twenty-seven

  Tina dragged hard on her cigarette and wished she could have a drink. It was now ten to ten, more than an hour since she’d written off her Focus, and the gentrified quiet of Doughty Street where she was standing now had been transformed into a major crime scene. Police vehicles blocked access at both ends while SOCO swarmed over the three vehicles – the ambulance, the patrol car and the Bedford van – which were all that remained of the audacious operation to spring Andrew Kent from custody.

  Details of what exactly had happened were still sketchy, but according to all the eyewitnesses, most of whom were police officers, it had been a well-planned and professional assault involving four men, most or all of whom had been armed. They’d been ruthless too, shooting one of the officers guarding Kent when he attempted to intervene. Twenty-seven-year-old Gary Hancock was currently in intensive care at University College Hospital, the same place Kent had been on his way to, and his condition was unknown. Tina knew him to say hello to and remembered that he was a nice guy who’d recently got engaged to a WPC based out of Camden nick.

  And now the perpetrators had disappeared into thin air. A burnt-out car, thought to have been their getaway vehicle, had been found up in Islington, and a full-scale manhunt involving helicopters and strategically placed roadblocks at points all over north London was now under way. But they no longer knew what car they had to look for, and Tina knew from experience that, with this much time gone, it was highly unlikely they’d get a result that day.

  The thought angered her. The gunmen had tried to kill her, and had almost succeeded too. If she and Grier hadn’t ducked at the right time it could have been them in intensive care like Gary Hancock. Or worse.

  She’d get them, though. She swore it to herself. And Kent. Although for the first time, she wondered if he was still alive. Someone had gone to a lot of trouble to break him out. It was possible, of course, that he’d faked his poisoning, knowing that he was going to be rescued, but she didn’t buy it. He’d said to her that he’d tell her everything when she got him to a hospital, but everything about what? He had to be the Night Creeper, there was still too much evidence against him to suggest otherwise. And yet . . . and yet there was a gap in this jigsaw puzzle. Something missing.

  Tina took another drag on her cigarette, determined to find out what it was, even it meant working solidly for the next week.

  Out of the corner of her eye she saw Grier giving his statement to two detectives from Scotland Yard’s Serious and Organised Crime Agency who didn’t look any older than he did, and doubtless telling them what a reckless fool his boss was. It was funny how, at the age of only thirty-one, Tina saw herself as a veteran when it wasn’t really that long ago – five, perhaps six years – that she was a wet-behind-the-ears DC like Grier, a graduate herself with all these big ideas, and more than her fair share of ideals (even though she never liked to admit it). She hadn’t supported the death penalty in those days either. How life had changed, and not for the better. She’d been through so much that sometimes the thought of all the terrible things that had happened both to her and to the people close to her made her want to lock herself away from the whole world, shut her eyes, and never wake up.

  And then there were the other times, when she was filled with a terrible homicidal rage that made her kick the wall of her bedroom, smash crockery, scream at the top of her voice, as she imagined herself beating thugs into submission, or torturing the man she held responsible for so much of the wreckage of her life, a short, balding businessman called Paul Wise. The man she desperately wanted to bring down – to kill, if she was honest with herself – and the one person against whom she was utterly powerless.

  Tina knew she was beginning to deteriorate mentally. Her neighbours on both sides tended to give her a wide berth these days whereas once they’d exchanged pleasantries, and one of them – she didn’t know which – had even called the police when a night of red wine and tequila slammers in the front room had led to her methodically smashing every mirror in the flat. It was the one in the hallway that had caused the problem. It was a two-foot-by-four-foot in pine trimming from Ikea that faced the bedroom, and she’d taken it out with a chair. It had made such an explosive noise that she’d jumped back with fright, tripped over and hit her bookcase. She’d lain there, confused yet strangely sated, as half a dozen paperbacks and an old hardback Jackie Collins she’d bought as a teenager landed one after another on
her head. She’d somehow convinced the two uniforms who turned up that it was all a fuss about nothing, and, recognizing who she was, they’d let her off with a friendly word of warning.

  She’d given up the booze after that (at least for a couple of weeks), but the moods hadn’t gone away, and it had crossed her mind more than once to ask at work to be referred to a psychiatrist, or simply take a period of absence for stress, but she’d rejected both alternatives. The job was the only thing that gave her life a semblance of balance and, in spite of everything, she was still damn good at it.

  But now she’d gone and messed things up by taking a dramatic risk, not only with her own life, which she could accept, but with Grier’s as well. He’d hardly spoken to her since, and she could understand why. Her behaviour was erratic and undisciplined, and people like that were best avoided, particularly by someone who wanted to keep his copybook pristine.

  She saw DCI MacLeod emerge from one of the police vans at the edge of the cordon. He looked pale and tense, but she could hardly blame him for that. What had started off as a happy evening in the pub to celebrate the successful conclusion of a long-running case had turned into a violent tragedy, with the suspect they’d spent so many man-hours hunting down having disappeared into thin air. Already news helicopters were whirring steadily overhead, and film crews from the various stations jockeyed for position with curious members of the public behind the scene-of-crime tape.

  MacLeod saw her and came over, asking if she was OK.

  ‘I’ve been better,’ she said, stubbing out her cigarette and trying to maintain a cool reserve, although in truth she was quite badly shaken up. What had happened to her that night reminded her of too many incidents in her past.

  He gave her the kind of look a father gives an errant daughter. Kindly and caring, but with more than a hint of worry crinkling his features. ‘Your luck’s going to run out one day, you know. Be careful, Tina.’

  She was touched by his words, but typically didn’t show it. ‘I had no choice but to follow them, sir. I couldn’t let Kent go without a fight, could I?’

  He shook his head, and Tina was struck by how stressed, and how old, he looked. ‘I wish I knew what was going on here.’

  Tina exhaled, thinking she might as well tell him what was on her mind. ‘You don’t get a gang of four men springing a prisoner like that without a very serious motive. I don’t think we know the half of it yet, sir.’

  MacLeod looked at her sharply. ‘You think someone inside the station helped them?’

  ‘Don’t you?’

  ‘But why? And why are all these people willing to shoot police officers to get their hands on a man who’s just a particularly nasty sex killer?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Tina, ‘but I think I might have a lead.’ She explained briefly about the differences in the Roisín O’Neill murder compared to the other four. ‘We definitely need to look into it further. Talk to some of her friends and family and see if that turns up anything?’

  But MacLeod didn’t look convinced. He sighed, his face looking redder than ever, clearly thinking about something else.

  ‘I may have to hire a car,’ she continued. ‘My Focus is a write-off.’

  ‘Do what you have to do,’ he told her, suddenly dismissive. ‘Put it on expenses. I need to get going. I’ve got to go and explain myself to the DCS.’ Tina knew he was referring to DCS Frank Mendelson, the head of Homicide and Serious Crime Command, the body to which all London’s murder investigation teams belonged. He told her to take care, then with a small, forced smile he strode off in the direction of the station.

  She watched him go, thinking that could be her in ten years’ time – unhealthy, unfit, and burnt out by a job which, when it was stripped down to the bare bones, was and could never be anything more than a continual stream of failures.

  Having finished giving his statement, Grier walked over to her, his suit jacket tucked over one arm. He looked a lot calmer than he had done earlier, although Tina wondered how long that would last. She knew from experience that the shock often came hours, even days, later.

  ‘My God, what a night,’ he said, thrusting his hands into his trouser pockets and looking round at the crime scene.

  Tina thought about saying sorry for earlier, almost got the first words out, but stopped herself. Saying sorry would be an admission that she’d been wrong, a sign of weakness, and something an ambitious young man like Grier could use against her.

  Instead it was Grier who made the first move. ‘You know, about earlier. I know I got angry. It’s because I was shocked after getting shot at. You’re probably used to it, you know, the number of times it’s happened to you. But I think it was the right thing to do for us to give chase, and that’s what I told those guys.’

  He smiled at her, and she smiled back, feeling guilty. ‘Thanks. I appreciate it.’

  ‘How did your statement go? They’re not going to put the blame on you for anything, are they?’

  She shook her head. ‘I don’t think so. We had just cause to give chase, and I managed to pass the breathalyser. Just.’

  ‘I didn’t think you were drinking in the pub earlier,’ Grier said, looking puzzled.

  ‘I just had a couple,’ she answered, thinking he was far more observant than she’d given him credit for. ‘Listen, Dan, you can go home now if you want. It’s been a long day.’

  ‘And what are you going to do?’ He paused. ‘You’re going to carry on, aren’t you?’

  ‘We’ve spent months hunting down Kent and now someone’s snatched him from right under our noses, shot one of our people, and tried to kill us as well. It’s only natural that I want to find out who they are and why they did it.’

  ‘And where are you going to start?’

  ‘With Roisín O’Neill, of course. She’s the only break in Andrew Kent’s pattern.’

  Like MacLeod, Grier didn’t look convinced. ‘But she was just a normal girl. What could she have had to do with what’s going on now?’

  In Tina’s experience, even the most ordinary people could find themselves caught up in the most terrifying crimes. ‘I want to speak to her close friends and family, see if they can shed any light on her personal life that might throw up some leads.’

  ‘But we’ve just told them that we’ve arrested and charged the man who murdered their daughter.’

  ‘I know. And pretty soon they’re going to find out that he’s been broken out of custody, and they’re not going to like that much either. But we’ve got to work with the facts in front of us, and right now they’re telling me that there’s something wrong.’

  ‘I’m still convinced Kent had something to do with her murder, though. He was seen at her place, remember?’

  ‘I do remember. But someone else was also involved – they had to have been. And that person might have been known to Roisín, which is why I want to talk to the people who knew her well.’

  He nodded. ‘I’d like to help, then,’ he told her.

  ‘Sure you don’t need to go home?’ she asked, immediately regretting the vaguely mocking tone in her voice.

  ‘No,’ he said firmly, ‘I don’t. Do you want my help or not?’

  Tina often liked to work alone, which was a bad trait for any DI and was one of the reasons she never felt comfortable in the role. But she was also pragmatic enough to know that in a case like this, where time wasn’t on their side, she needed all the help she could get, and she was also beginning to realize that she hadn’t appreciated quite how savvy Grier was. ‘That’d be good,’ she said. ‘I want to start by talking to Roisín’s parents.’

  ‘I remember dealing with her dad. He took it very hard. His wife died when Roisín was still a child. She and her sister were all he had.’ He took out his iPhone. ‘I’ve still got his number on here somewhere. He lives in Rickmansworth.’

  ‘Can you call him? Apologize for the time but tell him we’ll be coming by in the next hour or so.’

  Grier walked off to dial the
number while Tina called directory enquiries and got a number for the nearest branch of Hertz. She was just about to call them to hire a replacement car when Grier came striding back, the phone no longer to his ear, his face etched with a potent mixture of concern and confusion.

  ‘What is it?’ she asked warily.

  ‘When I called Roisín’s dad’s home number, his daughter answered – the other one, Derval.’ He paused.

  ‘And?’

  ‘And she told me that Kevin O’Neill died of a heart attack.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Last night.’

  Twenty-eight

  I’d been dazed by the blow from the shotgun butt, but not fully knocked out, and although my nose had bled profusely, I didn’t think it was broken.

  In the half hour since then, I’d kept my mouth shut, my eyes down, and as low a profile as I was able to muster under the circumstances, while I tried to plan my next move. It had crossed my mind several times simply to jump out of the van and make a bolt for it, but what held me back was the fact that Haddock and Wolfe, or even Tommy, might use it as an excuse to put a bullet in me.

  But I knew I couldn’t hang around, not after what had happened. Wolfe had come very close to killing me earlier. It was eminently possible that he still would as soon as a more convenient opportunity presented itself, and as we pulled off the main road somewhere near the Hertfordshire/Bedfordshire border and drove down a long, winding road that was little more than a track, I began to wonder if that moment might soon arrive.

  It was around ten when we finally reached the rendezvous, an abandoned two-storey building tucked away among woodland and fields that loomed up in the darkness. It was a bizarre-looking place. The central section was at least a hundred years old and built from cobbled stone, but the rustic, traditionalist look was ruined by the two distinctly modern, cheap-looking extensions on each side, which didn’t fit with the ambience at all. There were several wooden outbuildings dotted about, making me think it must once have been an old farm which some budding entrepreneur, whose budget didn’t match his ambition, had tried to turn into a hotel. By the look of the ivy that had swarmed across the front, it had been shut down a good few years before, yet it still had electricity because there were lights on inside, on the ground floor.