Knife Edge

11.41 A.M.

Doyle stood beside the black Granada, gently rocking from one foot to the other.

'This is bollocks,' he muttered, glancing around the hospital car park.

A red Metro had just pulled up close by and he watched as two elderly women clambered out, one of them carrying a Cellophane-wrapped bunch of flowers.

'He's not going to call back,' Doyle insisted, watching as the women linked arms and headed off towards the hospital's main entrance.

Calloway was seated behind the steering wheel, his eyes fixed on the mobile phone which lay on the parcel shelf, as if by mere power of thought he could make it ring.

'Come on, come on,' Doyle muttered.

The phone rang.

Calloway snatched it up.

'It's him,' DS Mason said on the other end of the line. 'He wants to speak to Doyle.'

'Patch this through the radio too,' Calloway instructed. 'And get a fucking trace going on the call.'

'He won't be on long enough for that,' Doyle said.

'He will if you keep him talking,' Calloway snapped, handing the mobile to the counter terrorist.

The DI himself grabbed the radio and pressed 'Receive'.

Doyle looked at the phone for fleeting seconds then pressed it to his ear.

'Neville,' he said.

'Is that you, Doyle?' the voice at the other end said.

'You asked for me, didn't you? Why bother me with your bullshit?'

'Because I know you'll listen.'

'What makes you think that? What if I switched you off right now, shithead?'

Calloway waved his hand frenziedly, fearing that Doyle would carry out his threat, but the counter terrorist held the phone firmly to his ear.

'Why did you try to kill your wife and kid, Neville?' Doyle enquired.

'I didn't, you ought to know that.'

'Yeah, I know that. What do you want, a fucking medal for your handiwork? So, you can blow the roof off a house without damaging anything nearby. What do you do for an encore?'

'You'll see,' Neville said softly. 'I used ten pounds of Semtex to lift that roof, I've got plenty more.'

'How much more?'

'Enough to put a fucking crater where the centre of London used to be.'

'How much?' Doyle persisted.

'A hundred and fifty pounds of it.'

Doyle and Calloway looked at each other but if Doyle was surprised it didn't register in his expression.

'Jesus fucking Christ,' whispered the policeman, swallowing hard.

'So, what are you going to do with this explosive then, Neville?'

'I know you're tracing this call.'

'Good for you. Then you'll know that I'm going to find you.'

'You're not going to find me. Not you or any of the fucking coppers listening to this conversation.'

'Look, just tell me what the fuck you want, will you? You're starting to bore me,' Doyle said.

'I want my daughter back.'

'No chance,' Doyle said flatly.

'In fifty minutes a bomb will explode somewhere in the centre of London,' Neville informed him. 'If you don't give me my daughter back then another one will explode every hour after that. Different locations. Different lives, Doyle. You know what it's like. You've seen what bombs can do. A lot of people are going to die if I don't get my daughter back.'

'Fuck you, Neville.'

'One bomb every hour,' Neville continued. 'You'll never know where. And if you haven't seen sense by eight o'clock tonight, if I haven't got my daughter by then, if you're not sick of filling fucking body bags, then that's when the big one goes up. Eight tonight, Doyle. One hundred pounds of C4. Now get my daughter.'

The radio crackled.

'We've got the trace,' DS Mason said triumphantly.

'Where's he calling from?' Calloway asked anxiously.

'Euston station,' Mason almost shouted. 'The bastard's on Euston station.'

Doyle looked at the humming mobile phone. 'He hung up.'

Calloway glanced at his watch. 'We've got fifty minutes to find that bomb,' he said frantically. 'What the fuck do we do?'

'My guess is it's near him,' Doyle said. 'I reckon the bomb's at Euston.'