Private London

Chapter 66

A large group of uniformed policemen came running past the dancers, heading straight for me.

DI Kirsty Webb followed closely behind.

The crowd milled past the dancers who had stopped dancing and were watching me. The lead dancer pointed his finger at me like the barrel of a gun and mimed pulling the trigger. Then they were lost in the huge crowd that surged around them. I tried to give chase but at that moment the riot police arrived and a wall of perspex shields and raised batons blocked my way.

‘What the hell are you doing here, Kirsty?’

‘We got a call!’

‘What are you talking about? Got a call from who?’

Kirsty held her warrant card up and led me past the riot police who were attempting to ‘kettle’ the demonstrators behind us.

‘Division got an anonymous call. Telling us the missing package will be delivered at the Robert Peel statue here at ten o’clock. We got here as fast as we could.’

‘Yeah, well, you just might have served her a death sentence.’

She glared right back at me. ‘You got the same message, I take it? Seeing as you’re here.’

‘Something like that.’

She shook her head. ‘When, Dan? When did you get the message?’

I didn’t answer.

‘You already knew, didn’t you? Last night, all the time you were fucking me, you knew! And you didn’t tell me.’

Kirsty slapped me across the face. Hard.

Felt like old times.

‘They said they’d kill her if the police were involved.’ I had to shout to be heard above the noise. ‘What was I supposed to do?’ I said.

‘Maybe you could have trusted me.’

‘The person who called it in – man or woman?’

‘Man.’

‘Accent?’

‘I don’t know, Dan. The woodentop who took the call just wrote it down and stuck it on my desk. Didn’t think it was important.’

‘“Woodentop” was an expression the kidnappers used.’

‘What, you think it was me?’ she snapped sarcastically.

‘Of course not – just thinking out loud.’

‘Seems to me you’ve left it a little late for thinking. We had a chance here. You should have told me.’

‘I would have done if I could.’

‘Doing the right thing isn’t exactly your strong point, is it, Dan?’

‘You didn’t seem to have any complaints last night.’

Kirsty snorted angrily. ‘I wondered how long it would take you to bring that up. You got me drunk on cheap brandy, is all. Doesn’t change anything.’

‘You don’t have to tell me!’

‘And you have got more serious things to worry about.’

‘Yeah, I do know that.’

‘Do you, though?’

‘You got a point to make, Kirsty, how about you spit it out?’

‘Somebody told us where the exchange was going to take place.’ She looked across at Sam and Suzy as they forced their way towards us through the crowds. Brad Dexter was following behind with more of his security team trailing in their wake.

‘Yeah, so what’s your point?’ I had to shout again. Hundreds of the protesters had produced those vuvuzela horns from last year’s World Cup and were blasting away behind the perspex wall that the police had formed.

‘It wasn’t whoever took the girl who phoned us, was it?’

‘No.’

‘So who else knew?’

‘No one.’

‘Just you, Dan. You and your team of superheroes.’ Kirsty did practically spit the last couple of words out. I took in what she was saying but she spelled it out for me anyway.

‘Someone’s rotten on your team, Dan. Someone set you up.’