Target Page 16

  For a moment, Bolt was too shocked to say anything. Barely five minutes earlier he'd been driving to his informant's house to follow up on a lead. Since then he'd discovered his corpse, done a mad dash to try to intercept his killers, run over Rob Fallon, probably written off his second car in a year, and narrowly avoided being shot dead.

  But there was no time to dwell on any of that now. Shaken but unhurt, he jumped out of the car and, using the door as cover, scanned the trees ahead for the gunman, wondering for the first time if it had been Hook. Because if it had been, and they could catch him, then maybe they could find out what had happened to Tina.

  But it was clear he was gone.

  Bolt leaned back inside the car. 'Are you OK?' he asked Mo, who was scrabbling round on the floor for the radio.

  'Just peachy,' Mo replied, picking it up, but his thick wedge of greying hair was standing upright and he looked like he'd seen a ghost. 'I think you might have saved my neck.' He pointed at one of the bullet holes in what was left of the windscreen. It was at head height on the passenger side.

  There wasn't time for Bolt to acknowledge the gratitude in his colleague's voice. 'Get on that radio and tell them to get helicopter support here as soon as possible. We need to track down that shooter. And get ambulances here too. ASAP. I'll go check on our casualty.'

  Leaving Mo in the car, Bolt ran back in the direction of the pub, the adrenalin-fuelled excitement he was experiencing tempered by the fact that he'd run down the one man they desperately needed to speak to.

  A crowd had gathered outside the pub – about a dozen people in all, mostly men. Most appeared to be milling around, seemingly unable to take in what had just happened, but one was bent down beside a man lying on the ground, giving him what appeared to be an increasingly desperate heart massage.

  Bolt's heart sank. Surely he hadn't killed Fallon. That would be the most terrible irony of all.

  One of the men saw him coming. 'There he is, the one who hit him!' he shouted in a loud upper-class voice that carried all the way down the street.

  Bolt pulled out his warrant card and waved it at the group. 'I'm a police officer,' he called out with as much authority as he could muster, knowing he needed to take control of this situation. 'Move out of the way please.'

  The crowd parted a little, letting him through, although they aimed angry mutterings at his back.

  'He's dead,' said the man giving the heart massage, looking up as Bolt stopped next to him, his expression one of utter disbelief. 'Jim's dead.'

  Bolt looked down and felt a guilty surge of relief. Jim was a well-built man in his fifties, wearing a check shirt and corduroy waistcoat. There was a blackened, coin-shaped hole where his right eye should have been.

  'This man's been shot,' he said firmly so that everyone could hear him. 'An ambulance'll be here in a few minutes. We're trying to locate the killer right now, but there's another casualty round here as well.' Then, wiping away the raindrops on his face, he pushed through the group, looking for Fallon, praying he was OK.

  He found him lying in a narrow alleyway just up from the pub. He was on his side in an approximate fetal position, and he wasn't moving.

  Cursing, Bolt crouched down beside him, feeling for a pulse. 'Mr Fallon, Rob... can you talk to me?'

  Sirens began wailing in the distance, coming from more than one direction.

  Fallon moaned. He was bleeding from the mouth, but he also had a strong pulse. Slowly his eyes opened and he rolled over so he was staring up at Bolt, his face a mask of numb shock. There was a gash above his eye that was weeping a thin trail of blood down one cheek and he had a cut on his head as well.

  'It's all right, Rob, you're safe now. I'm a police officer, and an ambulance is on the way.' He showed him his warrant card. 'Can you speak?' he asked, conscious that the sirens were getting closer, and that he had only a short time to talk to Fallon before he was taken to hospital.

  'Yeah,' he said weakly, 'I can speak. But I think I might have broken my arm.'

  Bolt looked down. His right arm was on the ground beneath him, and for the first time he saw that it was bent at an unpleasant angle.

  'The doctors'll fix that. But I need to know about Tina Boyd. Do you have any idea where she is? We need to find her urgently.'

  Fallon managed to shake his head a little. 'No. I was trying to get hold of her earlier.'

  'Have you been in contact with her today?'

  'Yes.'

  'Where was she when you last spoke to her?'

  Fallon winced in pain. 'Outside the doorman's place. John Gentleman.'

  'Doorman?'

  'The one at Jenny's place. Jenny Brakspear.' Fallon struggled to sit up, but failed. 'Listen, you've got to find her. The Irish guy, the one with the gun...I think he's got her.' He started to say something else but his words were drowned out by the blaring sirens as the first of the emergency services vehicles came to a halt on the road behind them.

  Through the noise, Bolt told Fallon once again that he'd be OK now and squeezed his good hand. But inside he was in turmoil.

  Where the hell was Tina Boyd?

  Thirty-nine

  When the phone in his left pocket began to vibrate, the man in the cream suit excused himself from his conversation with the mayor and his wife – a mountain of a woman who'd single-handedly polished off two plates of canapés – and weaved his way through the clusters of guests lining the swimming pool over to the cobbled steps leading down to the beach.

  'Where are you calling from?' he demanded, walking along the sand away from the party.

  'A phone box,' answered the man he knew only as Hook. 'We've got a problem. The witness I told you about. Fallon. We didn't get him.'

  The man in the cream suit hissed through his teeth. It was a sound he made whenever he became angry or frustrated. In this case, he was both. 'I thought I told you specifically to get rid of him.'

  'You did, but he managed to evade us.'

  'If you'd dealt with him in the beginning, as I wanted you to do, we wouldn't have this problem, would we? Right now, he's a major threat to everything. I want him dead. Put all your resources into it.'

  'It's too late. He's in the hands of the police.'

  The man in the cream suit hissed again. 'I can't afford problems on this. There's too much riding on it. Neither can you. I'm sure I don't need to remind you that the two million you're being paid is conditional on events reaching a successful conclusion. If Fallon talks, that's not going to happen.'

  'He's hurt. I'm not sure how badly, but he was hit head-on by a car travelling at speed which knocked him high into the air. I saw it happen. It's possible he might even be dead.'

  'It would be useful if he was, but we can't leave it to chance. Can you get to him in the hospital?'

  'It's possible, but it might be too risky.'

  'I didn't think you were the kind who scared easily, Mr Hook.'

  'I'm not, but I'm no fool either. That's why I'm still here.'

  The man in the cream suit thought about pushing him further but decided against it. He was used to getting his own way, but he was also pragmatic enough to know that Hook had a point. 'Do what you can, but events are very close to fruition and nothing can go wrong now. There's too much riding on it. How far away are we from receiving the goods?'

  'A matter of hours. As soon as we have them, no one's going to be able to stop us.'

  'So everything's in place?'

  'Absolutely.'

  'Good. Kill Fallon. I'll sleep easier with him gone. And keep me posted on developments.'

  He hung up and stopped walking, looking out to sea at the squid boats on the horizon. As with everything in life, there were complications, but the man in the cream suit was not the type to worry unduly. He was a gambler by nature. This was just a bigger gamble than usual. Even if it failed he would still be insulated from its repercussions, because he was also an expert at covering his tracks.

  As he returned to the party, he heard his wife's
high-pitched, faux upper-class laughter rising above the buzz of chatter as she talked to two middle-aged men in suits, one of whom was gazing unashamedly at her new breasts. The party had been her idea. Charmaine liked to act the glamorous hostess, and the man in the cream suit was happy to go along with it. She was a useful trophy, but little else. His real interest lay in much younger company, and he tended to travel overseas for his gratification, to Phnom Penh, Saigon and Manila.

  Charmaine caught his eye as he took a glass of Krug from one of the waitresses, and flashed him an expensive smile. 'Darling, where have you been? I wanted to introduce you to some friends. This is Mohammed.' She pointed to the one focusing on her cleavage. 'And this is Atul. They're in import/export.'

  The man in the cream suit came over and put out a hand to each of them in turn. 'Paul Wise,' he said, flashing a smile of his own. 'Very pleased to meet you.'

  Forty

  Mobile reception in the village was almost non-existent so Bolt found himself shouting into the phone as he walked away from the jumble of emergency services vehicles clustered around the pub. 'I need an armed guard on Robert Fallon. A minimum of three officers. He's currently en route to Wexham Park Hospital in Slough. This is absolutely top priority. He's the only live witness we have to what's been going on here.'

  The man Mike Bolt was talking to was Frank Carruthers, the assistant chief constable of Thames Valley Police, currently in charge of the force while his boss was sunning himself on the Algarve, and who up until a few minutes before had been relaxing at home in front of the television. He sounded shell-shocked to find himself suddenly presented with a double murder investigation and absolutely no sign of any suspects.

  'It's going to take me time to get a team over there,' explained Carruthers. 'All our ARVs are currently hunting for the gunmen involved in this incident, and we just don't have the resources you lot have got in London.'

  'We haven't got time, sir. Mr Fallon was the gunman's target tonight. He managed to get away, but we believe that the gunman is a professional shooter called Michael James Killen, also known as Hook. He's currently wanted for a number of murders, and may well have another go at Fallon.'

  'And we're trying to find him now, which is our first priority.'

  'Well, you could do worse than try the hospital.'

  'There are procedures to follow, Mr Bolt. You know that. I've got to make sure that the area's secure and that there's no immediate threat to members of the public.'

  Bolt could have predicted this kind of reaction. Police officers, at senior and junior level, tended to play things far more by the book these days and were discouraged from using their initiative too much. He could sympathize with Carruthers. Everything was target- and procedure-related now, and as one of the brass, if he didn't do everything the right way, he was in trouble.

  So he changed tack. 'As I said, Fallon's pretty much the only witness to what happened here tonight. If we do catch Hook and charge him with the murders, we'll need Fallon to give evidence. It's essential he's protected.'

  'How serious are his injuries?' asked Carruthers.

  'He's hurt, but he's also conscious and talking.'

  'And why is he a target exactly?'

  'I'm not sure yet, but as soon as I find out anything I'll let you know.'

  There was a short silence at the other end. 'OK,' said Carruthers eventually. 'I'll get people over to the hospital as soon as I can.'

  Bolt thanked him, knowing he'd done all he could. He wasn't going to leave anything to chance though, and he hurried back to where Mo was leaning against a marked patrol car next to the police cordon, drinking a mug of coffee and talking into his mobile. He still looked shocked, which Bolt could understand. He wasn't feeling it so much himself, partly because he'd been shot at before on more than one occasion, and was better prepared to handle it. Perhaps later, when he was alone, it would hit home. Right now it was something he didn't have time for.

  The rain had eased to a light drizzle, and the lane was busy with a mixture of curious onlookers, horrified witnesses and swarms of local uniforms who seemed to have materialized in huge numbers, and SOCO, busy kitting themselves up to begin the fingertip search of the crime scene. Above their heads, a police helicopter circled steadily, although already its presence was obsolete. Hook – and Bolt was now convinced it was him – was long gone.

  As Bolt reached him, Mo came off the phone. 'That was Saira,' he said, referring to his wife and the mother of his four children. 'I was telling her not to wait up for me. I didn't have the heart to tell her that someone just tried to shoot us.'

  Bolt smiled grimly. 'Probably just as well.'

  'You know, boss,' he said, sounding subdued, 'I'll vouch for you that Fallon was in the middle of the road, and you weren't driving erratically when you hit him. In case they bring the IPCC in.'

  'Thanks, I appreciate it.' He gave Mo's arm an affectionate pat. 'Right now, though, it's the least of our worries. We need to get over to the hospital. The armed guard's not set up yet and I want to make sure nothing happens to Fallon.'

  'How are we going to get over there? We've lost our transport.'

  'No we haven't.' He motioned for Mo to follow and set off through the mêlée, conscious of the fact that he had to keep his colleague distracted so that the shock didn't begin to overwhelm him. Right now, he needed Mo.

  The Jag was still parked halfway up the bank at the end of the village, temporarily forgotten. A single uniform stood guard over it, since technically it remained part of the crime scene. Pulling out his keys, Bolt flashed his warrant card, said he had permission from Assistant Chief Constable Carruthers to remove the vehicle, and carried on walking.

  'I don't think we should do this, boss,' said Mo once they'd climbed in. 'We have the slight problem that we can't actually see anything out of the windscreen.'

  Bolt would never have described himself as impulsive, but he took a huge amount of satisfaction from his next move, which was to reach down behind the driver's seat, lift up the Enforcer – the heavy cylindrical tool used for breaking down doors – and smash it through the ruined windscreen. The driver's half disappeared completely as glass flew across the bonnet and on to the grass below. 'We can now,' he said.

  He manoeuvred the car back on to the road with a loud bump so that it was facing away from the murder scene, relieved to realize that the vehicle was still in good working order. In his rearview mirror, Bolt saw the uniform staring at him aghast. Bolt had a moment's doubt too, but it didn't stop him from accelerating away, weaving around the Road Closed sign and heading in the direction of Slough.

  Forty-one

  The room was small, square and empty, save for the heavy office chair Tina Boyd was strapped tight to. She was cold and tired – naked too, apart from her blouse and socks.

  He'd removed all her other clothes when they were alone together earlier, slicing them off with a knife before tossing them casually into the corner. Tina had been expecting him to rape her, but strangely he hadn't, preferring to use his hands to stroke and paw her, every so often breaking off and pacing slowly around the chair, taunting her in cruel little whispers.

  Are you ready to die yet?

  Do you want me to fuck you now, or should I wait for the others?

  She'd said nothing, enduring his attention in cold, defiant silence, trying to ignore the way her skin slithered and crawled under his touch, preparing for the inevitable.

  But the inevitable had not yet come. It was as if he'd suddenly lost interest, replacing the hood on her head and leaving the room with a final, almost half-hearted taunt.

  Later, bitch.

  That had been hours back now; since then there'd been nothing but silence. She couldn't even hear anything outside. She was freezing cold and starving hungry, and worst of all she was utterly alone, with no prospect of help.

  The thought scared her. Her life had been hard these past four years, and in some ways it had been getting worse, particularly the constant fight
with the booze, but she wasn't going to give it up without a fight. In a fit of sudden desperation she struggled against her bonds, howling her frustration from behind the gag as the realization that her efforts were utterly pointless hit her once again. The only part of her body she could move was her head. It was as if she was paralysed from the neck down. Her ankles were tied to the chair's base with ropes, and her hands and elbows were lashed to the arm rests. Several rolls of thick masking tape had been wrapped round and round her chest and stomach, giving her the appearance of a half-dressed mummy. Thankfully, the set of picks in her sock hadn't been discovered. She might not have been able to reach them but they still represented some sort of hope, however faint.

  Suddenly she heard something. It was a muffled cry, coming from beyond the wall.

  For a second, she thought she'd imagined it. Then it came again. Someone was trying to call out to her but whoever it was was gagged too.

  Jenny Brakspear! It had to be her. So she was still alive...

  Tina made a noise in return, using her weight to try to force the chair nearer to the wall. But the damn thing wouldn't budge. Someone had removed the wheels, and it was way too heavy. She made more noises, wanting to let Jenny know that she wasn't entirely alone. Relieved herself, that she wasn't the only prisoner here.

  Tina waited for a response, but the cries from beyond the wall had stopped. Then she heard something else, much fainter this time. The sound of weeping.

  Tina made some supportive noises, hoping this would encourage Jenny to stop, but the weeping continued, then finally it stopped altogether, and the cold silence returned.

  She wondered what Jenny had had to put up with from the man who'd kidnapped her, what kinds of torments he'd put her through. She also wondered what it was that was going on here. They'd kidnapped Jenny two days ago and were clearly keeping her alive. They were keeping Tina alive, too.

  The burning question was, for how long?