The Last 10 Seconds Read online

  I nodded slowly, appearing satisfied. ‘I trust you, Tommy, so if you vouch for them, that’s OK with me.’

  His face cracked an almost paternalistic smile, even though he was only a dozen years my senior. ‘Good lad.’ He turned to Wolfe. ‘I can vouch for Sean as well, Ty. He’s reliable.’

  ‘I don’t like the look of him,’ Haddock grunted.

  ‘I don’t like the look of you, either,’ I snapped back, ‘but I’m not complaining, am I?’

  Haddock’s eyes narrowed and he glowered at me with an almost theatrical rage, but the other two laughed. ‘Lighten up, Clarence,’ said Wolfe, standing up. ‘Come on, Sean,’ he said. ‘Why don’t you, me and Clarence take a walk?’

  I could think of any number of reasons why not, but I knew that unless I went with them, this op was dead before it had even begun. I glanced over at Tommy and he gave me a nod in return to tell me it would be OK. He might have been a thug and a career criminal, but there was something about Tommy I implicitly trusted (maybe it was this paternal air he had), so when he let me know that it would be OK, I believed him.

  Wolfe led the way out of the door, and I followed him, conscious of Haddock’s looming form falling into place behind me, so close that I could hear his low breathing. I tensed, not liking the fact that I was vulnerable, but knowing better than to act scared.

  We walked through a narrow corridor and then out into the nightclub proper – a dimly lit, windowless space of low balconies, cluttered with tables and chairs, surrounding a dancefloor and stage. The decor was cheap and tired, the two gleaming poles in the middle of the stage the only things looking less than twenty years old.

  ‘You ever been married, Sean?’ asked Wolfe without looking back as we slowly circumnavigated the room in single file.

  ‘No.’

  ‘You ever served time?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘How long?’

  ‘Seven years.’

  ‘Where did you serve it?’

  ‘Parkhurst. Then Ford.’

  The questions came thick and fast as we did slow laps of the club, but always delivered in a casual manner, as if he wasn’t too worried about the answers. What wing was I in at Parkhurst? Who did I know in Ford? Did I have kids? When did I get out? Did I know such-and-such the armed robber? Where did I grow up?

  Wolfe was testing my legend, hoping to trip me into a mistake, but I’d learned my part perfectly, every last detail. Because if you don’t, you’re dead. You have to go through this rigmarole on every op you do, and the higher up the food chain the target, the more detailed the interrogation. I answered everything. Without complaint. And, more importantly, without a pause.

  I was using an old alias I’d first used several years earlier when I was seconded to Soca, that of Sean Tatelli, an ex-con from Coventry who’d served a seven-year stretch in the 1990s for supplying class A drugs, firearms offences, and the attempted murder of a police officer during the course of his arrest. Anyone making detailed enquiries would find that Sean Tatelli had indeed served seven years, first at Parkhurst Prison, then at Ford Open, and that his partner in crime was a Midlands-based gangster called Alan ‘Hocus’ Pocus, who’d ended up serving five years for drugs offences.

  It was all bullshit, of course. My details had simply been made up by Soca and put on all the relevant databases, including the PNC, with flags in place so that if anyone accessed them looking for information, Soca would know. And Hocus might be a kosher criminal who had actually served his time, but he was also now a police informant who’d been drilled to give me a glowing reference.

  Finally, Wolfe stopped at the top of a flight of steps leading down to the stage and turned to face me, his hard, narrow features lit up bizarrely in the pink fluorescent glow of an overhead light. ‘You ever shot someone, Sean?’ he asked, fixing me with his squint.

  I was beginning to feel extremely uncomfortable. The room was quiet and I was boxed in, with railings on one side, a cluster of tables and chairs on the other, and Haddock looming up behind me. But the trick when you’re cornered is to do the same as they do in the animal world: make yourself big, not small. So, straight away I went on the offensive. ‘Hold on here. You’re getting a little bit personal for someone I don’t even know. Now why don’t you help me out here and tell me who the hell you are, and why I should be answering your questions. Because right now you haven’t exactly made it clear.’ At the same time, I turned round and faced down Haddock. ‘And why don’t you give me some space as well, instead of breathing down my neck like something out of the fucking Munsters?’

  To my surprise, he took a step backwards, while Tyrone actually apologized and immediately introduced himself and Haddock. ‘The reason you’re here,’ he explained, ‘is because I’ve got a vacancy in my firm for the right person and Tommy tells me you’re a decent bloke who might fit the bill. So, consider this a job interview.’

  ‘What sort of work do you do?’

  ‘A bit of this,’ he answered, with the beginnings of an unpleasant smile, ‘a bit of that. Not all of it strictly legal.’

  ‘Well, let me tell you something. I’ve been out of nick eight months. No one wants to hire me for legit work. I’ve done some jobs for Tommy but I’ve still got debts up to my eyeballs, and I need something now. Not minimum-wage shit, or flipping burgers in McDonald’s. Real work, that pays real money. You know my background – I know you’ve checked me out, otherwise I wouldn’t be standing here now – so you know I’m not afraid to handle a gun, and you know I’m no hotheaded kid who pulls the trigger and asks questions later. I’m reliable, so if you’ve got something you want to talk about, talk about it now. Otherwise I’m out of here. Your choice. But do me a favour and make it now.’

  I knew that whole spiel back to front. I must have delivered it a thousand times in front of my mirror, probably another twenty out in the field in situations like this one, occasionally substituting the odd word and phrase, but always with the utter conviction of a man at ease with his conscience. To work in undercover as long as I have, you’ve got to be the consummate method actor, a copper’s Robert de Niro, immersing yourself in the part, working with an ever-changing script, which means you’ve got to ad lib on demand and be able to bullshit your way out of every tight corner. Let me tell you something else, too. That spiel never fails. It’s always the one that breaks the ice and gets me in.

  Wolfe and Haddock exchanged glances, Wolfe’s expression questioning, as if he was deferring to his immense colleague.

  Haddock nodded once, and Wolfe turned back my way. ‘I’ve got one day’s work,’ he said quietly. ‘Short notice, definitely in the next few days, but the date’s not finalized yet. The pay’s a straight hundred thousand cash. Interested?’

  Of course I was interested. I hadn’t been expecting much from the initial meeting but already I had Wolfe offering me an armed job. I didn’t show too much enthusiasm, though, because that kind of thing sets people’s alarm bells ringing as well. Instead, I shrugged and said, ‘Depends what it is.’

  ‘It’s a job against an unarmed vehicle in transit.’

  ‘I’d prefer a share of the proceeds.’

  Wolfe shook his head. ‘It’s not that kind of job. The cargo’s human. One man.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘I can’t tell you that. Not yet. But I can tell you that it’s thirty grand up front. Seventy on completion.’

  I acted like I was thinking about it. I wanted to find out more because that way I could finish the job pretty much on the spot, but knew better than to push things at this early stage. ‘I like the sound of thirty grand, but I’ll need to know more before I commit.’

  ‘I’ll tell you everything, but first I want you to do a little job.’

  ‘What kind of job?’

  It was Haddock who answered, leaning down so his mouth was uncomfortably close to my ear, his words delivered in that strangely effeminate voice. ‘The kind that’ll prove to us beyond doubt that you’re not a copper.�
��

  Four

  It was hot and stuffy in the interview room and DI Tina Boyd was longing for a cigarette. ‘If you’re innocent of all charges, why did you run away from us, violently assaulting two police officers in the process?’ she asked.

  ‘Why do you think?’ demanded Andrew Kent, wearing the same panic-stricken expression he’d been wearing since Tina and her boss, DCI MacLeod, had begun questioning him in the interview room almost two hours earlier. ‘I was on my way home from work and suddenly all these people came out of nowhere screaming and shouting. I panicked and made a run for it.’

  ‘But they clearly identified themselves as police officers,’ Tina persisted.

  ‘I didn’t hear them, OK?’ protested Kent, in tones not far short of hysteria. ‘I just ran, and when they grabbed me, I thought they were trying to mug me or something, so I fought back. I’m sorry I hurt those officers, but it wasn’t my fault.’

  His brief – a young, studious-looking duty solicitor wearing big glasses with the Nike emblem on the frames, and reeking of ambition – put a reassuring hand on his shoulder. ‘It’s all right, Andrew,’ he said soothingly. ‘You can answer in your own time.’

  Kent nodded.

  Across the table, he looked even smaller and more harmless than he had done when Tina watched him walking home the previous evening, just before his arrest. His whole demeanour was one of submissive fear, his pale eyes awash with confusion. But Tina had seen the way he’d fought the arresting officers, the cold determination he’d shown, and she wasn’t fooled, although she had to give him full marks for his acting abilities.

  ‘For a terrified civilian, you gave a pretty good account of yourself, Mr Kent,’ she continued. ‘Both officers needed medical treatment, and I had to use CS spray to subdue you.’

  ‘I’m a black belt in karate,’ said Kent with a sigh. ‘I’ve been mugged twice in the past so I wanted to make sure I was able to defend myself when it happened again. I’ve been going to classes for the past six years, and I’m not going to make any apologies for it.’

  ‘It doesn’t make my client guilty of anything either,’ put in his solicitor, whose name was Jacobs.

  Tina ignored him. ‘So you’re still protesting your innocence about these murders?’ she asked Kent.

  ‘Of course I am. I’ve never killed anyone, and I don’t understand why you think—’

  ‘How do you explain your DNA being at the properties of every one of the five victims then?’

  ‘Because I fitted the alarms at all the different properties. I’ve already told you this.’

  ‘Not very good systems then, were they, Mr Kent, if the killer managed to bypass every one of them?’ said DCI MacLeod.

  ‘I thought they were.’

  ‘My client’s not being questioned about his skills as an engineer, now is he?’ Jacobs looked at MacLeod over his half-rimmed glasses with the gravitas of a man twice his age.

  MacLeod wasn’t deterred. ‘Don’t you think it’s a bit of a coincidence that every one of our five victims had their brand-new alarms fitted by you? What do you reckon the odds of that are?’

  ‘Look, I’ve fitted thousands of alarms over the years. I’m a hard worker. I can do two or three clients in one day, so the odds probably aren’t that great.’

  ‘What about the odds of the killer being able to bypass every one of your alarms?’

  Again Kent protested his innocence, and again Jacobs intervened with the same objection – that it wasn’t his client’s work-related capabilities that he’d been arrested for.

  ‘So, how come your DNA was found in four of the victims’ bedrooms if you were only fitting the alarms?’ Tina asked, keen to move the interview on.

  ‘I had to have access to the whole of each property while I was doing the work, because I needed to fit sensors in different rooms.’

  ‘But you didn’t fit sensors in any of the victim’s bedrooms. We checked. Nor did any of your employers think you should have been in them. So what was your DNA doing in there?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ answered Kent. ‘Maybe it got carried in there somehow from other places in the house. Is that kind of thing possible?’

  Technically, it was within the realms of possibility, but only just. When Tina pointed this out to him, Kent gave an exaggerated shrug and said he couldn’t understand it.

  ‘Our understanding is that the victims were subjected to violent sexual assaults before being murdered in a brutal fashion. Were any of the DNA samples from the bedrooms that you say match that of my client found on the bodies themselves?’ Jacobs asked, his tone carrying just the right mix of weariness and scepticism.

  Tina and MacLeod exchanged glances. This was their big problem. The killer had cleaned up the bodies scrupulously, using bleach, and so far they’d given up no DNA evidence at all.

  ‘No,’ MacLeod admitted reluctantly, ‘but that doesn’t mean a thing.’

  ‘Well it does, DCI MacLeod, because my client’s already provided a perfectly adequate explanation as to why his DNA might have been in the bedrooms of some of the victims. Now, if you have no further evidence then I’m asking that you release him immediately.’

  Tina fixed Kent with a cold stare. ‘Tell us about the hammer,’ she said baldly.

  Kent’s eyes widened. ‘What hammer? What are you talking about?’

  ‘The hammer we found in your bedroom, Mr Kent. The one covered in blood and brain matter, which we’ve just been told belonged to your last victim, Adrienne Menzies. Your DNA was also on the handle.’

  Kent shook his head. ‘No. No way.’

  ‘Yes. The lab did the tests twice, just to make sure.’

  ‘I . . . I don’t know anything about a hammer,’ he stuttered. ‘I really don’t. Jesus, this can’t be happening.’ He looked desperately at Jacobs, who also seemed caught out by this revelation, then back at Tina and MacLeod. ‘I’m innocent, I promise you. Someone must be setting me up.’

  He resembled a frightened child, sitting there barely as tall as Tina and with a skinnier build, seeming to shrink in the chair as the evidence was steadily laid out against him. For the first time, Tina began to doubt that they had the right man. All the evidence seemed to point to him but it was the way he was reacting. He came across like an innocent man. Most of the people she faced didn’t. Most of them were guilty, and tended to limit their answers to a monotonous refrain of ‘no comment’, but Andrew Kent was acting like an ordinary man caught up in a terrifying situation over which he had no control.

  ‘Who do you think set you up?’ demanded MacLeod, his voice laden with scepticism.

  ‘I told you, I don’t know. I honestly don’t. If I was ever going to do something like this, why would I keep the murder weapon in my room? That would be madness . . .’

  The words died in his throat as he saw the looks on his interrogators’ faces.

  Tina was just about to respond when MacLeod tapped her arm and shook his head. ‘OK, you probably need some time with your client, Mr Jacobs, so you can discuss this latest piece of evidence. Interview suspended at eleven forty-six a.m.’ He got to his feet, motioning for Tina to follow him out the door.

  ‘We had him on the rack there. Why did we stop?’ Tina asked when they were out in the corridor.

  ‘There’s been a development. DC Grier just called through on the earpiece. Apparently, there’s something we need to see.’

  ‘Any details?’

  ‘No,’ he said, looking at her seriously, ‘but I don’t like the sound of it.’

  Five

  The incident room on the fourth floor of Holborn station, where CMIT had been carrying out the Night Creeper murder inquiry, was absolutely silent as Tina and MacLeod entered.

  Half a dozen officers, all members of Andrew Kent’s arrest team, were gathered in a loose circle around a widescreen Apple Mac laptop on a desk in the middle of the room. DC Grier stood closest to the desk, his features pale and drawn, his prominent Adam’s apple, still bruised fro
m its encounter with Kent’s hand, visibly pulsating, as if he was trying to keep something down. The expressions on the faces of the other officers present – a grim mixture of nauseated, depressed, tense and stoical – told the same story. Whatever they’d just witnessed had affected every one of them, and the eyes of DC Rodriguez were wet with tears.

  ‘What have we got then?’ asked DCI MacLeod, his soft Edinburgh burr somehow easing the tension in the air. There was a quiet decency about MacLeod that naturally drew people to him, as did his air of calm unflappability, that made you look beyond the beer belly, the thinning grey hair and unfashionable moustache, and see only a natural leader. Once again, Tina was glad she worked for him.

  ‘We’ve found stuff on here,’ sighed Grier, running a hand roughly across his face as if he were trying to remove the memory of whatever it was. ‘Films.’

  ‘What kind?’ asked Tina, feeling a twitch of morbid excitement.

  ‘Footage of the murder of two of the victims. It looks like he filmed it himself.’ Grier paused. ‘It’s extremely graphic.’

  ‘It’s more than that,’ said DS Simon Tilley, normally an exuberant copper with a big personality and a laugh like a bass drum, but who was also the father of two young children. ‘It’s the worst thing I’ve ever seen.’

  MacLeod took a deep breath. A father himself, he clearly had little appetite for the task ahead, but was far too professional to let that stop him. ‘We’d better take a look then.’