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  Bolt looked exasperated. ‘Come on, Tina. Your car was picked up on CCTV less than a mile from where the car used in the Kalaman hit was abandoned.’

  ‘One point six miles to be precise,’ said Arley, ‘and you’re not trying to accuse her of that, are you?’

  ‘No,’ said Mo. ‘But we believe Ray Mason was responsible for it, and we believe you picked him up after he abandoned his car. There were also reports of shots being fired.’

  ‘But I don’t know anything about it,’ said Tina. ‘You’ve tested my hands for gunshot residue, it’ll show there was none.’ She was well aware, just as Bolt and Mo were, and indeed Arley, that gunshot residue only stays on the skin for a maximum of six hours.

  ‘We’re not saying you fired the shots,’ said Mo. ‘But we believe you were there.’

  ‘Well, I wasn’t.’

  ‘Tina,’ said Bolt, doing little to hide his exasperation, ‘if you’re lying, you’re going to be in a lot more trouble than if you tell us the truth now, and help us find Mason. As you know, we’re searching your car and your house for DNA samples, so if he has been with you, we’ll know.’

  ‘I can’t help you because I don’t know where he is,’ said Tina, but she knew she was on much shakier ground here. She’d got the car valeted on the way home from London earlier that evening, and she’d got Ray to wash the bed sheets, but if they searched hard enough, it surely wouldn’t take them long to find DNA evidence of his presence, and it would be hard for her to argue that it was from the time before Ray had been arrested. DNA traces of a person tended to disappear after a few weeks. Luckily for Tina, the survival of DNA at a crime scene was still a very inexact science, and it was possible she could argue that Ray’s had simply lasted an unusually long time. With no other evidence against her, she was confident her chances of acquittal on any charges would be a lot better than fifty/fifty.

  ‘OK,’ said Bolt, changing tack. ‘Take us through the events of tonight, starting with how you came to be running out of Mrs West’s front door.’

  Tina told them everything, from the call to her mobile from Mrs West, which she knew they’d be able to confirm from her phone records, to the moment she’d driven away, giving as good a description as possible of the woman Ray had said was The Wraith. The only thing she missed out was any mention of Ray himself.

  ‘So even this killer believed that you knew where Mason was,’ said Mo, raising an eyebrow.

  Tina shrugged. ‘It seems like everyone does.’

  ‘Why did you wear a bulletproof vest round to your neighbour’s?’

  It was another thing she was going to have to blag. ‘Because it wasn’t like Mrs West to phone for help, and with everything else that’s been going on, I’ve just been getting suspicious.’

  Mo sat back in his chair and laughed. ‘You don’t expect us to believe that, do you? I get nervous on the job sometimes but I don’t wear a bulletproof vest.’

  ‘As far as I know, no one’s ever tried to kill you,’ Tina countered. ‘I’ve had attempts on my life going back fifteen years. It makes you paranoid.’

  Tina knew she’d got Mo with that one, but that was the thing with police interviews: if you wanted to look innocent on the tape, you had to play the game. Answer everything. Don’t hesitate. Parry and thrust. Never take the ‘no comment’ route, which just makes you look guilty. At the moment she was parrying well, knowing that events backed up her story.

  But now Mike spoke again. ‘We have a witness who saw you pick up a man in your car who came running out of your house.’

  Tina felt her insides tighten. She’d known there was a risk she’d been spotted but thought she’d got away with it. ‘Whoever it was must be mistaken,’ she said, adopting a puzzled expression for the camera. ‘I didn’t pick up anyone.’

  ‘You just ran out of Mrs West’s house and drove away?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Why?’

  Tina rolled her eyes. ‘Because I was scared. Someone was trying to kill me.’

  ‘But you must have seen the police in the rear-view mirror. They saw you easily enough.’

  ‘I didn’t see them. I was trying to put as much distance as possible between me and Mrs West’s killer.’

  ‘If you didn’t see the police, why didn’t you dial 999?’

  ‘I did, once I’d calmed down from the shock of what had happened.’

  Tina knew they knew she was lying. But she wasn’t playing to Mike and Mo right now. She was playing to a potential jury, and she’d long ago learned that if you wanted to be believed, it wasn’t necessarily what you said, it was the confidence with which you said it that counted.

  For the next twenty minutes they tried to break down her story. They even pulled out a photo of her in a hijab and tried to pin the passport incident on her. But Tina was too much of an old hand to waver, and it was clear they both knew that.

  ‘I think you need to get out and look for the killer,’ said Arley eventually, ‘rather than go round in circles here. My client has answered every one of your questions in detail, as well giving you a description of the killer. You’ve examined her. You can see she’s received injuries and come very close to death. So I’m requesting that you de-arrest her so that we can go and get her some treatment.’

  De-arresting someone exonerates them of all wrongdoing, and Tina knew that Mike and Mo wouldn’t go for that, and they didn’t. However, after a few more minutes of wrangling, they agreed to let her go for now.

  ‘You can’t go back home though,’ said Mike. ‘Your house is a crime scene.’

  ‘My client can stay with me for the time being,’ said Arley.

  Tina smiled at her, feeling grateful. Her chest hurt where the two bullets had struck her, and two large bruises had already formed when the police doctor examined her, but thankfully he didn’t think she had broken anything.

  As they were leaving HQ, Mike turned to Tina and asked for a quick word in private.

  Both Arley and Mo looked surprised but stayed back as Mike led Tina outside onto the street.

  ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ he demanded, grabbing her by the arm when they were out of earshot of everyone. ‘Protecting Mason like this? Whatever the rights and wrongs of the case against him, he’s a dangerous fugitive.’

  Tina yanked her arm free and glared at him. ‘There are much bigger criminals than him out there, Mike. Right under your noses in fact. Try digging a bit deeper on Alastair Sheridan and see what you find.’

  Mike tried to hide his surprise at the mention of Sheridan’s name but Tina saw it in his eyes.

  ‘Didn’t anyone tell you that Sheridan is one of the Bone Field killers?’

  ‘That’s bullshit, Tina.’

  ‘It’s not though, is it? Last year, Ray tracked down that lawyer, Hugh Manning. Remember him? The one who got murdered on, what was it, his fourth day in witness protection?’

  ‘The one who was going to testify against Cem Kalaman?’

  ‘It was Sheridan he was going to testify against. The man who’s possibly going to be the next Prime Minister.’

  Mike shook his head. ‘Look, you can’t come up with conspiracy theories and expect them to exonerate you from your own actions. If by some chance Sheridan is involved we’ll get him for it.’

  ‘Forgive me for saying so, but you’re taking your time.’

  Mike’s eyes flashed with anger. ‘That’s your problem, Tina. It always has been. You ride roughshod over the rulebook, totally convinced of the rightness of your cause. Just like Mason. The man who just over twenty-four hours ago executed an unarmed man in his underwear and shot several others. You can’t operate like that. It makes you part of the problem, not the solution. And I’ll tell you this: if we find any evidence that you’ve been harbouring him, don’t expect any favours from me.’

  ‘I won’t,’ she said. ‘Have you finished?’

  He stared at her for several seconds. ‘For now,’ he said finally, then turned and walk
ed away.

  ‘You had a fling with Mike Bolt, didn’t you?’ said Arley when she and Tina were in her car and driving back to her house in Essex.

  Tina settled back in the seat. Arley’s car was a Mercedes so obviously the lawyering was paying her well. ‘I did. A long time ago. We’re still friends, or at least we were until tonight.’

  ‘He’s a good-looking man.’

  ‘He’s a good detective too.’

  Arley nodded slowly. ‘I’ve heard that. I’m not going to ask you whether or not you did harbour Ray Mason, because I don’t want to know. What I do want to know is whether the police are going to find his DNA traces in your car and house.’

  ‘Almost certainly. But we were in a relationship so he’s been in both places before often enough. What do you think my chances of being charged are?’

  Arley sighed. ‘I think if they turn up DNA evidence showing that Mason’s been in your house and car, and the witness they’ve got who saw a man running out of your house and into your car can ID him as Mason, then they’ll definitely charge you. If the witness is wavering, I don’t think they will, not without some other hard evidence, because it’ll be too hard to get a conviction. You’ll be good in court, they know that. Because you’re a decorated former police officer, a jury will probably want to believe you. And because Mason’s been in your car and house before, albeit a year ago, we’ll be able to find an expert witness who’ll argue that it’s not entirely impossible for the DNA traces to have lasted that long, and the NCA and CPS know that too. But that’s all assuming they don’t find anything else that ties you to him.’

  ‘They won’t,’ said Tina, with more confidence than she was feeling.

  34

  ‘And in conclusion, ladies and gentlemen, what we need is not just strong leadership, not just a clear, ambitious vision of a streamlined, forward-looking Great Britain which rewards hard work and where rich and poor alike have a real stake, but the unwavering strength and self-belief needed to make it happen.’

  Alastair Sheridan paused for effect, looking confidently round the huge U-shaped table at which thirty-six MPs, including five junior ministers, sat hanging onto his every word, all having consumed a huge dinner and copious quantities of alcohol.

  ‘And if the Prime Minister does not possess those three traits – and although it truly saddens me to say it, it seems quite clear by her performance these past two years that she doesn’t – then it’s high time she was replaced by someone who does. Thank you.’

  There were shouts of hear-hear, and some of the more raucous of the group banged their empty wine glasses on the table in appreciation. Alastair was also pleased to see the MP for Ely South, the statuesque blonde Hannah Walker, grinning and nodding her head enthusiastically. He’d always wanted to have a go on her, and had never understood why she’d lasted as long as she had married to Geoffrey bloody Barker, a sweaty, slap-headed creep fifteen years her senior. One day he’d have her, he thought. One day. Then he’d wipe the smile off her face, by God.

  At that moment, Alastair was in his absolute element. He found this whole process of infiltrating the party and plotting against the leadership, while simultaneously giving the appearance of being a loyal servant forced into disloyalty out of a desire for the greater good, hugely entertaining. And these fools, the supposed elite of the country, were lapping it up. Politics, Alastair had found, was like finance. In other words, it was largely about using your common sense and sounding confident. You didn’t really have to learn anything in any detail. You didn’t even have to be that bright. And like everything else in life, it was simply a race to the finish line, by which time you’d either tripped up your opponents along the way, or persuaded others to do the tripping for you, until you were the only one left in the race.

  What you did after that was anyone’s guess. Alastair had no real vision at all for what he’d do for the country if, as was looking increasingly likely, he became Prime Minister. In truth, he was only interested in the status and power that such a role gave, and the respect people would be forced to give him.

  The dinner, which was being held in the private upstairs room of a country house hotel just outside the M25 in Berkshire, finally finished. All those present had offered their support to Alastair should he choose to run against the Prime Minister for the leadership of the party, and Alastair had suggested that each of them spend the parliamentary summer recess canvassing the opinions of their constituents on whether or not they supported a leadership election. Alastair, of course, had no intention of canvassing the opinion of his constituents on anything, but it sounded like the sensible thing to say. Instead, he was looking forward to going on holiday the day after tomorrow, flying on a private jet with his family to Dubrovnik, for a well-earned break.

  When it was only Alastair and George Bannister left at the venue, they settled down for a final brandy in one of the adjoining private rooms.

  ‘I’ve just seen the headline on my phone. What happened earlier this evening?’ said Bannister quietly. He looked both angry and concerned, something he’d done a good job of hiding during the dinner. ‘Tina Boyd’s neighbour, the old lady who was shot. Did that have anything to do with you?’

  Alastair knew there was no point in denying it. In truth, he’d been annoyed himself. He’d expected The Wraith, as she liked to style herself, to kill Ray Mason, and possibly Tina Boyd too (which would have been a nice bonus). Instead she hadn’t managed to do in either of them. Killing old ladies might have been permissible in South Africa, or wherever it was she came from, but over here it was like killing kids or dogs. It meant a whole lot of trouble.

  ‘It was a mistake,’ he told Bannister equally quietly. ‘It wasn’t meant to happen.’

  ‘You can’t just do this kind of thing, Alastair. It’s too dangerous. It could get us into huge amounts of trouble.’

  ‘It won’t if we keep our nerve.’

  ‘It’s getting out of hand. Things can’t continue like this.’

  Alastair knew there were only two ways to deal with Bannister. With threats or reassurance. He decided to go for the latter and put a hand on Bannister’s shoulder. ‘They won’t continue like this, I promise. Have you been kept abreast of the latest developments on the hunt for Mason, and the old lady’s murder?’

  ‘Obviously,’ Bannister answered testily. ‘I spoke to the NCA commander this morning and this evening.’

  ‘And still Mason stays on the run. This is becoming something of a humiliation for the NCA. For the government as a whole. It brings our entire policy on cutting police numbers to the forefront,’ Alastair continued, warming to his theme. ‘I’m going to authorize a big increase in police numbers if I become PM, and pay for it with an equal cut in the foreign aid budget, so no one can accuse me of not trying to balance the books. Have they any idea where Mason is?’

  Bannister shook his head. He looked uncomfortable, and Alastair could tell it wasn’t just about the fact that the authorities hadn’t been able to locate Mason. ‘No, but he’s not your average prisoner on the run. He’s ex-military intelligence, and he’s clearly resourceful.’

  ‘Do you think he’s out of the country?’ asked Alastair, who was keenly aware that his security might not be enough to stop a concerted attempt by Mason to kill him.

  ‘I really don’t know where he is, Alastair,’ said Bannister. ‘But we have a lot of people looking for him and his capture is top priority.’

  ‘What about Boyd?’

  ‘What about her?’

  ‘She could still be in touch with him.’

  ‘If she is, we’ll find out. But I don’t want any attempts on her life. Call off your dogs, Alastair, and let things settle. Boyd’s no threat. And right now, Mason will be too preoccupied trying to remain free to bother with you.’

  Alastair wasn’t so sure. Mason was one of those fanatical types who seemed prepared to risk everything in the pursuit of revenge. But he was more concerned with Bannister, whose attitude seemed test
y. He’d been fine over dinner – then again, like most politicians, he was a good actor – but the news about the old lady had clearly got to him.

  ‘Fine,’ he said. ‘I’ll let things lie.’ He stopped, and looked Bannister right in the eye. ‘Don’t lose faith in me, George. I’ll take us both to the top.’

  Bannister sighed and turned away from his gaze. ‘I know you will, Alastair,’ he said, but his tone was weary, as if he’d had enough.

  Alastair leaned down close to his ear, deciding that it might be time to replace the carrot with the stick. ‘Don’t ever fucking forget that photo of you throttling an underage prostitute, George,’ he whispered, feeling the other man tense. ‘Because I won’t. And if anything happens to me, I’ll make sure the whole world sees it.’

  35

  Driving home that night through the largely quiet streets of Clerkenwell, a place he’d always considered an oasis in the centre of London, Mike Bolt thought about what Tina had told him about Alastair Sheridan.

  It seemed ludicrous to believe that the man who could potentially be the next Prime Minister was a killer. Bolt himself hadn’t had any involvement in the Bone Field investigation, but he knew that it was ongoing, and that it was being overseen by the NCA. It had been, and to a large degree still was, a very high-profile case, which had started off with the discovery of the remains of seven women buried in the grounds of a private farm in mid-Wales some fifteen months back now. Only one of the women had been identified and it was believed that the other six had been illegal immigrants from eastern Europe, and their deaths had happened over a number of years.

  At the time, there’d been the usual clamour for results from the press and the public, and the ownership of the farm had eventually been traced via a series of shell companies to a lawyer called Hugh Manning. But Manning had been murdered while in police custody, which had got plenty of conspiracy theories going as it seemed he was going to name names of people involved.

  Since Manning’s death, the case had still periodically made the headlines, mainly because of the lack of progress in bringing anyone else to justice, but Bolt had always believed there’d been a lot more to it than met the eye. He also knew that it had been Ray Mason and Tina who’d discovered both the location of the Bone Field farm and what had gone on there, so they both knew more about the case than most people.