Deadline

Twenty-two

'I've got authorization for the money,' said Big Barry grimly, looking across his desk at Bolt. 'It wasn't easy. One or two of the top people favoured calling in the negotiators. It took some persuading that not letting on about our involvement was the best course of action. And as you can imagine, no one wanted the responsibility of signing off half a million pounds.'

Bolt nodded. It had just turned four o'clock and he was back in Big Barry's office. Despite the sunny day, the heating was on full blast and the room felt hot and airless. Bolt had an empty feeling in his stomach. He'd tried to eat on the way back to HQ, stopping off at a Pret a Manger to buy a sandwich and a bottle of juice, but two bites and the juice was all he'd managed. The tension running through him made it hard to sit still, let alone concentrate on what Barry was saying.

'If we lose this money,' Barry continued, 'both you and I are going to be in serious trouble. We really can't afford to screw this one up, old mate.'

Bolt nodded again, didn't say anything.

'We'll be providing the bag containing the ransom, and I'm going to have two separate tracking devices sewn into the material where there's absolutely no chance they'll be found.

We'll also have two more trackers buried right in among the money, just in case they change bags. Obviously, though, these things aren't foolproof. They can lose their signal. We all know that. So we're going to need major surveillance back-up. I suggest two ground teams. One will follow Mrs Devern, the other will be sent to stake out the rendezvous as soon as the kidnappers confirm where it's going to be, so we have complete coverage of the area and the ransom itself. Then, as a final layer of surveillance, I want a helicopter on standby to take over the pursuit of the money so we make absolutely sure it doesn't disappear on us. Then it's simply a matter of following it to its destination, and that's the moment we bring in the negotiators and try to end things peacefully. The girl gets released, the perpetrators get nicked, and the money lands safely back in our hands.'

He paused, looking pleased with himself.

'What do you think?'

'I think,' said Bolt, trying desperately to be objective, 'that it's very risky.'

Barry looked mildly irritated. He didn't quite roll his eyes but the movement wasn't far off. 'Of course it's risky. This is a professional kidnapping we're dealing with, Mike. It's the type of op that's always risky. It was risky this morning, and you were arguing for it then.'

But this morning there hadn't been the possibility that 'the girl', as Barry had described her so dispassionately, was his daughter. On the way over, Bolt had thought about laying things on the line. Admitting everything. But he'd quickly dismissed this as a bad move. With such a huge personal involvement, Barry would have had no choice but to remove him from the case and there was no way he was going to allow that to happen.

'I've had time to think,' Bolt said. 'These people haven't put a foot wrong so far. If we don't get this exactly right, then they're likely to kill her.'

'Then we get it right,' said Barry firmly.

'You don't think we might be better off bringing in the negotiators? It's possible that if they realize we're on to them, they might cut their losses and let Emma go.'

'And it's also possible that they might not. You said that yourself.'

Bolt exhaled. 'I guess that's true.'

Barry frowned. 'Are you all right, old mate?'

Bolt nodded. 'Yeah, I'm fine.' But he was sweating, and his shirt felt clammy against his skin.

'We've made the decision now,' Barry continued. 'There's no point going back on it. SOCA needs a nice high-profile success. If we get this right – and, make no mistake about it, we will, because we're going to plan it properly – then it's going to look extremely good on the organization, and on us in particular. We don't often get much in the way of praise. Let's make sure we get some this time.'

'OK, but I don't like the idea of the helicopter.

The kidnappers get so much as a sniff of it, they're going to panic.'

'We'll keep it well away from whatever rendezvous they choose, don't worry. And it'll only be used as a back-up.'

Bolt wasn't convinced, but he didn't argue. There was no point. Barry had made up his mind about how they were going to play it. In fact, he'd made up his mind before the meeting had even started, which made Bolt feel that his presence was largely irrelevant.

'How's Mrs Devern?' asked Barry.

'She's holding up.'

'Hertfordshire CID still aren't entirely happy with her story.'

Bolt wiped sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. 'Why not?'

'Well, their officers did find her covered in blood having just left the scene of the violent murder of her former lover.' Barry allowed himself a thin smile. 'You have to admit it's more than a little suspicious.'

Bolt felt like slapping that smile off his boss's face. For the first time in his life he suddenly had an insight into what it must be like to be a victim of crime – the lonely frustration of dealing with officials who were never going to care enough to deal with your plight.

'I'm sure they don't like her story,' he said, trying to keep his voice as calm as possible, 'but her child's definitely been kidnapped. I saw her on the video the kidnappers sent just three hours ago. And the people holding her are definitely after a ransom. So, unless Mrs Devern somehow set this all up herself, and is deliberately putting her daughter through a huge trauma, then we've got to accept that her story's true.'

Barry waited for Bolt to finish. 'I agree with you,' he said eventually, 'but I do get the idea with Mrs Devern that all is not what it seems. I think we need to watch her.'

Bolt nodded. 'Fair point.'

His boss was right. Andrea was a frighteningly enigmatic woman. She was also a manipulator, as Jimmy Galante had found to his cost, and Bolt himself was finding now.

There was a knock on the door, and one of the newer team members, Kris Obanje, a tall, good looking black man with a fondness for amateur dramatics, appeared.

'There's been a development,' he said with a typical flourish.

Bolt felt his heart race and he clenched his teeth. What the hell kind of development?

'We've just heard back from the phone provider who runs the network Emma Devern and Pat Phelan both use,' he continued, his voice a rich baritone that seemed to resound around the room. 'Phelan's phone was switched off at 4.47 p.m. on Tuesday afternoon in the car park of the dental practice. According to the receptionist, this would have been while Emma was in with the dentist. Emma's own mobile was turned off twelve minutes later at 4.59, a few hundred metres from the surgery, and on the same street. It would have been just after she'd left.'

'That solves the mystery of where they snatched her from, then,' said Barry. 'It must have been in the car park. Shows our kidnappers are willing to take risks.'

'It also shows how technology savvy they are,' said Bolt, 'getting rid of the mobiles straight away.'

'That's the media for you,' snorted Barry. 'They publicize all the ways we can track people. It's no wonder the criminals catch on. We're going to have to interview everyone who was at the surgery that afternoon, see if anyone saw anything.'

'We've also managed to trace the route the car took away from the surgery,' Obanje told them. He unfolded a sheet of A3 paper and laid it on the desk between the two men. It was a photocopied large-scale map of north London, with a curving line of red crosses drawn on it in marker pen running from Hampstead in the south to Barnet and the M25 in the north. 'Here's the surgery,' he said, pointing at the bottom-most cross. 'Here's where Emma's phone was turned off. And here's where they went afterwards.' He traced a finger along the line of crosses, stopping at one in the middle. 'We got a good CCTV shot of Phelan's car here at 5.14.' He unfolded a second piece of paper, this time showing an overhead black and white camera shot of a Range Rover. 'It looks like it might be Phelan driving, and it looks like it might be an adolescent in the seat next to him. We've sent the image over for enhancement. We should have the results back by tomorrow.'

'We're going to have to,' said Bolt, 'because after tomorrow they'll be irrelevant.'

He looked more carefully at the photo as Obanje moved his finger away. The figure in the passenger seat – the girl who might be Bolt's daughter – was a lot smaller than the man next to her, and she had her head turned to one side, making a positive ID impossible. But it was Emma. There was no doubt about that, and he felt a twinge of emotion as he stared at her image.

'If this is Phelan driving, and he's involved in the kidnap, why on earth did he bother taking her to the dentist's first?' demanded Barry.

'Look at this,' said Obanje, producing a third piece of paper. It was another overhead camera shot but this time it was a close-up taken of the rear of the Range Rover. 'This is from another camera on the same street, two minutes later at 5.16. You have to look closely.'

Bolt and Barry both leaned forward so their heads were almost touching. It wasn't difficult to see what Obanje was referring to. There was no mistaking the figure in the back seat, directly behind the driver.

'So there was someone else involved in the initial snatch,' said Barry. 'He gets in the car, presumably at the dental surgery, and either forces Phelan to drive, or it's possible that Phelan's involved, and this gentleman's just helping him.' He turned to Obanje. 'Have we got any better shots than this?'

Obanje shook his head. 'No, this is the best we've got at the moment. And after the car crosses the M25 on the A1 at 5.49, we lose it altogether. Hendon haven't got a single sighting of it after that.'

'So, Phelan's Range Rover could have been abandoned round here somewhere,' said Bolt, prodding the map near to the final cross.

'Could have been, but it's also possible that if they turned off the A1 and took back roads, they could have driven miles without being picked up by cameras. I'll keep on to Hendon, see if we can come up with any more sightings, but I wouldn't hold out much hope.'

'We'll also have a word with the local police, see if they've got any reports of the car being abandoned on their manor,' Barry said. He turned to Obanje. 'Thanks, Kris. Keep up with the good work.'

'It's coming along,' he said. 'She's a sweet looking kid. We all want to get her back.' He picked up the papers and left the room, the other two watching him go.

The tightness in Bolt's stomach had eased just a little. If the man in the back of the Range Rover had got in the car in the dentist's car park, then it was possible he might have been seen by a passerby. It wasn't much, but it represented a chink of hope.

He stood up. He needed to get out of Barry's stifling office. 'I'll get a couple of the team to go down to the surgery,' he said, and went outside.

But he didn't go back to the incident room straight away. Instead, he walked down the empty corridor and into the toilet. He splashed water on his face and stared at himself in the mirror.

He wasn't a bad-looking guy. His hair was still more blond than grey, although turning faster than he'd have liked, and he had a long, lean face with well-defined features and the kind of strong jaw that would stand up in a fight. Even the scars – an S-shaped slash on his chin, two small ragged lumps on his left cheek – added to rather than detracted from his appearance, and their effect was softened by his eyes. 'Laughing eyes' Mikaela used to call them. They were a bright, lively blue, and shone with a friendly and disarming interest.

But today they were duller, more brooding, and Bolt could see that he looked haggard and stressed. All his adult life he'd had to cope with pressure. The pressure of being a young man in uniform policing the streets of modern-day London had given way to the pressure of chasing some of the capital's most dangerous armed robbers during the ten years he'd spent with the Flying Squad. He'd been involved in some extremely dangerous operations, but the difference was that in those days he'd been part of a team, sharing the tension with a group of men and women who knew exactly how he was feeling, their support always providing a measure of comfort. Today he was completely on his own as the investigation into the kidnapping of the girl who could be his daughter went on around him.

He'd been operating pretty much on autopilot all afternoon, constantly turning over the various scenarios in his head, thinking back to those long ago days when he and Andrea had had their brief and passionate affair, trying to work out whether he really was the father of someone he'd never met, and whose first fourteen years he'd completely missed. Wondering now whether he was ever going to meet her, or whether he'd be the man staring down at her dead, broken body. Every time this last thought took hold, he felt himself wince and his heart pound faster.

He forced himself to concentrate on the task at hand. They desperately needed a break, a single mistake by the kidnappers that would provide them with a clue to their identity, and hopefully their whereabouts. But if no one had seen the kidnapper get into Pat Phelan's Range Rover in the surgery car park, it was looking less and less likely that they were going to get one.

For a long moment, Bolt stood there watching the water drip down his face, listening to the constant drumbeat of his heart, knowing that whatever happened today, his life would never be the same again. 'Pull yourself together,' he whispered. 'She needs you.' And he vowed then and there that if he got Emma out of this, he was going to introduce himself to her, and if he was her father – and Christ knows he might never know for sure – he was going to make her part of his life whether Andrea liked it or not.

But in the meantime, he had to force her out of his mind.

His mobile started to ring. He looked at his watch. Twenty past four. He pulled it from his pocket.

It was Tina calling.