Vanished

Chapter 41

Adam Border was a tall, slender man with long reddish-blond hair tied in a ponytail with a leather cord. He was dressed in jeans and a black sweater, and had fine gold bracelets on both wrists. He didn’t look particularly like any of the photographs Jack had seen of him, but he did look like the sketch provided by Henrick Chi.

The men stared at each other, each waiting for the other to speak first.

Eventually Jack broke the silence. ‘I’ve been looking for you for quite some time. It is Adam Border, isn’t it?’

Adam gestured to the two leather chairs sitting about a foot apart on the Mexican rug, then sat down himself in one of them.

Jack had so much to say and so much to ask. But he had to be careful and steady, because there was still the possibility that this enigmatic man sitting opposite him could be an integral cog in a huge drug-trafficking machine and, possibly even a murderer. Jack chose to start by asking about Jessica Chi.

Adam spoke very quietly. The tone of his voice was soft and Irish, with a slight European lilt. He took his time, as though choosing his words very carefully. ‘I read about her death in the papers. An accident, wasn’t it? I assume you’re a policeman.’

Jack saw no reason to hide the fact and nodded.

‘I cared for Jessica very much. She was damaged... I seem to attract damaged people. Or maybe they attract me. She was clean when we met but relapsed over time. When that happened, I’m afraid to say that I walked away. I’ve learnt over the years that if I don’t protect myself, then I’m of no use to anyone. Truthfully, I was very sad to read about Jessica... and my mother.’ Jack could tell that Adam’s sadness for Jessica was genuine, whereas his mention of Avril sounded very much like an empty afterthought. ‘I don’t know your name.’

‘DS Jack Warr. I knew your mother briefly, when...’ Jack realised that he didn’t know how to end his sentence, other than by saying, When I was investigating your thefts, psychological torment and death threat, but that might have put an end to their so-far amicable chat, so he left the sentence unfinished. ‘There’s been a lot of speculation around your relationship with your mother. Lots of gaps. Would you mind helping me to fill them in?’

Adam laced his fingers on his lap, ‘I bet you’ve heard that she was an eccentric, yet somehow loveable type. A free spirit who comes and goes on the wind, bringing fun and mayhem before drifting off into the sunset again. Until next time. That’s all lovely, unless you’re a five-year-old boy.’ Adam gave a hefty sigh before he continued. ‘I was left with various men who she’d married, lived with or just screwed. That, in her mind, meant they were obliged to show some sort of parental responsibility towards me which, to be fair, most reluctantly did. Others didn’t. Mainly I lived in Amsterdam with my actual father, in Leeds with my grandparents, or in various places with her and her lovers. Until she came here and met Shaun.’ Adam smiled. ‘It seems you’re familiar with all of the names I’ve said so far. You really have been looking for me for a long time.’

‘Your name seemed to change quite a few times. That made it hard to track you,’ Jack said with a smile of his own.

‘Well, bloody well done for finding your way here. Do you want me to carry on with the family history?’

Jack said that he did.

‘OK, my mother stole everything from Shaun that wasn’t screwed down and vanished back to the UK, leaving me behind. It was the only good thing she ever did for me. Shaun was the best father I’ve known, and he eventually gave me his name, so I’d feel like I belonged. And I did. For a time. I was fifteen when he died. I could have stayed here but by then I was ready to start life on my own. I went to London with the aim of going to art college. I needed a parent or guardian to sign some papers for that, so I had to detour through Leeds to track down my mother. My grandparents had died, but my uncle — her brother — well, he was no help on account of his psychological problems. She was horrified to see me. She launched into an explanation about her current man not wanting someone else’s kid in tow. She was relieved to hear that I only wanted her signature. I think she must have felt guilty for being quite so harsh, because she gave me some money and the name of a friend who was renting out rooms. That’s when I knew that her new man was rich. The next Chapter of my life started when I began lodging with Hester Mancroft and Julian in Chelsea. You know about this?’

‘From Hester, yes. But it’d be good to hear your version.’

‘She’s almost as idiotic as Avril, don’t you think? I expect you can’t answer that, being a policeman. Anyway...’

Adam turned away frowning, then he sighed, as if he felt some kind of pain in his soul. After a moment he continued. ‘Her son Julian was another damaged person. Self-inflicted. Julian and I were inseparable for a time. As well as college, living and studying together. But when I quit, he sort of followed me, and we travelled through Amsterdam and lived in Germany. I can’t remember the year, but he had to come home when Hester ran out of money and needed his help to sell the place in Chelsea. He OD’d — I presume you know that.’

Jack nodded without elaborating, as he didn’t want to break the flow of Adam’s recollections. As Adam filled in all of the gaps in the story so far, Jack was enthralled by his quietly engaging manner. With every moment that passed, Jack hoped more and more that Adam had done nothing at all illegal.

‘After two or three years in Germany, I moved back to Amsterdam. By this time, I’d met Jessica. Her parents — well, her father anyway — was on the art scene. And while I was getting my life in order in Europe, my mother was doing the same in the UK by marrying the poor, oblivious millionaire, Frederick Jenkins.’ Adam uncrossed his legs and sat forwards with his elbows on his knees. ‘Here’s something I bet you don’t know, Jack. My father, Andre Erik Boogaard, was still married to my mother because she couldn’t find him to divorce him.’ Adam sat back, laughing. He rested his elbows on the arms of the leather chair and pressed the tips of his long artist’s fingers together. ‘Has he passed, do you know?’

Jack confirmed that, during their investigations, they had found a death certificate for Adam’s biological father.

Adam’s mobile rang and without a word he got up and left the room. Jack checked his own mobile again: now he was indoors he had a three-bar signal which was a huge relief. Jack reminded himself that this eloquent, charming man could be a heartless psychopath. Jack was alone with him, far from civilisation, with no backup. And at that moment he had no idea what Adam was doing.

Jack got up and wandered the room browsing the stacks of paintings, ornate empty frames, and the huge range of art materials. Then he spotted something that caught his eye: a silver picture frame containing a wedding photograph of Avril and Frederick.

‘Why should she have fond memories when I have none?’

Adam was holding two ice cold beers. He handed one to Jack and retook his seat. Jack was desperate to know who Adam had just been talking to. Had Greg called to check that he was all right and was he now on his way, crowbar in hand? As Adam drank his beer, Jack asked about the artwork that surrounded them.

‘A hobby. Buying and selling. Freddy could be a vicious, belligerent old bastard, but he was an exceptional collector. He’d not share his treasures, though; instead, he hid them away in his secret chamber so that he — and only he — could sit there, with his dick in his hand, enjoying them. My mother had no notion of their value or of the importance of their carefully documented provenance. She had money, jewellery and a fine house, but no brains to speak of. I felt sorry for her in a way: her dream of being cared for by a rich, respectable man and therefore being accepted into polite society, never happened. Jenkins mocked her ignorance, showed her little love and made her deeply unhappy. She gave up all of her friends for him, and yet was never lonelier than when she was living in that huge house behind iron gates.’

Adam laughed as he took a swig of beer before continuing.

‘My mother suddenly needed me. After years of keeping me a dirty secret, she finally needed me. Well, that’s not exactly true. What she needed was a gardener. Freddie after a few years began suffering with arthritis in his knees and the house had become a burden. God, how I wanted to reject her like she’d rejected me. But the truth was, she paid me to stay. She gave me money and a car, and all I had to do was not reveal that I was her son.’ Adam looked away and emptied his bottle. ‘Anyway, I expect that’s about where you came in, isn’t it?’

Jack decided there was no reason to delay the inevitable tricky conversation. ‘Who grew the cannabis in the greenhouse?’

‘Why are you here, DS Warr? Greg said you had good news for me, and I’m trying to figure out what that could be. Is it that you’re looking to make an arrest for the cultivation of a class B drug?’

‘If I was here to arrest you for growing cannabis, I’d have sent the local Garda,’ Jack said.

‘In that case, yes, I grew it. Her greenhouse was brimming with weeds and dead plants. I made better use of it. I can sell CBD oil in your country, but I can’t grow the raw ingredients. I learnt how to grow the stuff out here, so I knew her greenhouse would be perfect. It was a modest enterprise.’

Adam stood sharply, as though he’d just remembered that he had to be somewhere. Jack’s fingers tightened around his half-full beer bottle. ‘Another?’

Jack declined, knowing full well that he shouldn’t really have accepted the first. Adam popped out of the room to fetch himself a second beer. He shouted from elsewhere in the studio, ‘Avril was grateful to have a little spending money of her own and Freddie, as time ticked by, was grateful to live and eventually die pain-free.’

Adam returned, beer in hand and returned to his seat. ‘The cellar gallery became a neat space for bottling the CBD oil and, as money ebbed and flowed with crop cycles, whenever we were short of ready cash Avril started selling off the odd painting. She had no idea of the price of anything, of course.’

Adam went on to explain that after the first successful crop, he started shipping the CBD oil to Amsterdam and Germany — while, at around the same time, Avril had engaged the services of Jason Marks to value and sell some of the paintings. Between them, they were earning enough to pay off Freddie’s eyewatering investment debts and maintain the house. Just.

‘We started making enough money from the cannabis alone, so I wanted her to stop selling paintings. But Jason was taking advantage of her ignorance. That’s when I started shipping them over here, out of harm’s way.’

‘You were stealing from her?’

‘I was preserving history.’ Jack’s gaze swept around all of the artworks stacked against the walls. ‘She didn’t know what I’d taken or what she’d sold. She’d become more interested in the cannabis side of things. She went to California to stay with her brother-in-law, and I had the brief freedom to move more and more artworks, but then she came back with some grand ideas she’d learnt from some professional stoners out there. She wanted the enterprise to become, as she put it, “a fuckin’ empire”.’ Adam stood, and as he walked across to the door he took a packet of cigarettes from his pocket. ‘The smoke damages the canvas.’ Then he disappeared outside, giving Jack no option but to join him.

The countryside surrounding the studio was truly stunning. Jack had never seen grass as green, or fields as rolling. Roads snaked through the landscape and over the horizon, urging you to follow.

Adam inhaled the smoke and let it drift from his nostrils. ‘A year or so ago, I came back from Ireland and she’d been to a funeral in Solihull, where she’d met an old school friend.’ Adam’s speech was now slower and he seemed more tense. ‘This friend said he could help her grow her business. Tenfold, was the word he used.’ Adam shook his head and took a long drag on his cigarette. ‘I warned her.’

Jack speculated on the identity of Avril’s old schoolfriend. ‘Mahoney?’

Adam claimed that to begin with he had not known how big a player Mahoney was, although he instinctively knew that he was too big for Avril. ‘He was a smooth, two-faced bastard of a man, but like my mother he had gained some kind of veneer of sophistication. She was very enamoured, and he played her like a gigolo — he might have even fucked her to keep her sweet. I could see stuff going on, his so-called helpers coming and going in trucks. I tried to persuade her not to get involved, but she was too stupid to listen, so I eventually left her to it.’

‘You kept going back for the paintings, though?’

Adam tipped his head skywards and laughed out a plume of smoke. ‘I went back for the paintings, yes. And the frames. And the equipment. And the provenance.’ He laughed again. ‘And the odd curveball to keep her guessing. Like fairy duvet sets. I even put a couple of ornaments in her dishwasher once. She was a greedy bitch, greedy and stupid. But I knew she was growing scared of him, which made it even easier for me.’

The lifelong animosity Adam felt towards his own mother was deep-rooted and impossible to hide.

‘Your turn, DS Warr. Why are you here?’

‘She left everything to you,’ Jack said. ‘She made a second will. In the end, she did right by you. The house and contents are yours.’

Adam barked out another sudden laugh. ‘Whatever will has been found is illegal. You need to be aware that only Freddie’s is legitimate. She was a bigamist, and she had a pre-existing child — me. Being a criminal and being a whore were both clauses that would exclude her in his will. I know because he told me. Towards the end he hated her. She should have got nothing. So, it’s not mine, it’s Terence’s. Give it to him.’

A momentary quietness descended. The men looked out across the landscape and seemed to share a serenity regarding Adam’s decision as it brought a certain closure. During the silence, Jack replayed the last hour of conversation. At best, he’d expected to hear a confession about the cannabis, but the theft of the artworks... that had come as a surprise. Jack watched Adam take the final couple of drags on his cigarette and stamp it out. Jack had to take control now. It was time to go.

‘Let’s go back inside, Adam.’ Jack didn’t want to appear challenging, not yet. He needed backup first. He needed to get indoors so that he had a phone signal. And then he needed to quickly work out how the hell he was going to bring Adam in.

In London, the convoy bringing Michael Mahoney to the Drug Squad’s main holding cell was making its way from Heathrow Airport. Two motorcycle out-riders were in front of the white covered transport vehicle, while inside were Mahoney and two armed response officers. Tailing them was a patrol car, carrying an array of Gucci suitcases owned by their prisoner. There had been a barrage of reporters held back at the airport, as they tried to locate and track the convoy: news of a major international drug dealer being arrested had spread fast.

Jack was becoming incredibly wary. Adam exuded a disarming confidence, even when he was confessing to a variety of class B offences. He behaved as if he was untouchable. Maybe he was? Maybe Greg was just seconds away? Adam made no attempt to head back inside.

‘Don’t let’s spoil things yet, Jack. I’ve got so much more to tell you.’ Jack tried not to flinch for fear of Adam sensing his discomfort.

Adam perched on a drystone wall indicating that he was going nowhere. ‘I had this old campervan. Jessica travelled back and forth with me to Amsterdam, to catch up with her parents, have a bit of a holiday. She knew the reason for the trips, but she was just a passenger, literally and metaphorically. I know you can’t hurt her now, but I’m very fond of her parents so... they know she made mistakes. She took the Rossetti. Jessica never had money, which didn’t bother me but did bother her. She wanted to pay her way and all she could think of was to steal from an exceptionally easy target.’

‘Sounds familiar.’ The words left Jack’s mouth before he could edit them.

‘No, no, no, Jack. I didn’t steal from Avril because it was easy, I stole because she didn’t deserve to have nice things. She had so much in her life that she should have cherished and looked after and kept safe, but no!’ Adam clearly included himself in that. ‘She had to treat it all like shit. I didn’t steal, I... rescued.’ Adam stared at Jack, challenging him to argue. He didn’t. Instead, Jack asked a question that steered Adam away from his hated mother.

‘What happened to the Rossetti?’

Adam took a second to regain his composure. ‘It was stupid of Jessica to show it to her father, but I guess she wanted it authenticated. When she told me what she’d done, we argued. She wanted to use the painting to start a new life together, but I wasn’t ready to leave. I took it from her. That was the last time we saw each other.’

Until this moment, Jack had not known the fate of the Rossetti. But now Adam was admitting that it had been in his possession, at least for a time. Jack would need to know its current whereabouts eventually, of course, but for now, there was a more pressing question that he wanted answered. ‘What did you mean, I wasn’t ready to leave?’

Adam lit another cigarette and paused for a considerable length of time as he allowed the nicotine to calm him down.

‘Freddie Jenkins had an astonishing, lifelong love of art, acquired from his father when he was just a child. So, his passion was sixty years in the making. Pair that with a callous disregard for provenance and you have one of the UK’s most prolific collectors — and forgers — of works of art.’

Jack couldn’t believe what he was hearing. During the investigation, he’d been made aware that some works of art in Avril’s possession were forgeries, but not once did he imagine that Frederick was the one who had painted them. Maybe that was because Frederick was already dead? Maybe Jack had elevated Adam into the position of mastermind because it suited him better. After all, he couldn’t chase a dead man.

Adam continued.

‘As Freddie became weaker, he asked me to act as a runner for him. Collecting and delivering, to and from dealers and other collectors.’ Adam folded his arms and smiled, as he remembered. ‘I’d buy boxes of oils, inks, parchments. And I’d buy up worthless paintings, beautiful centuries-old frames, complete with all the original canvases and nails. Then he’d copy an old master, including the provenance, and sell it on. He was a fucking genius.’

Jack found Adam’s tale fanciful. ‘I find that hard to believe. I mean, are you telling me that Frederick Jenkins fooled Jason Marks? Fooled the art world?’

‘For decades. Let me tell you a story, Jack. In 2007, Prince Charles rescued an eighteenth-century mansion in Scotland with a £20 million loan. Dumfries House. Charlie was a hero, and, over the years, millions of people came from across the globe to view the ever-changing art collections that were loaned out to adorn the walls of the principal gallery. Collectors were desperate for their work to be seen there. In 2017, Dumfries acquired another collection. Seventeen paintings. Among them works by Monet, Dali, Picasso, Chagall. Again, millions of art fans, critics, collectors, amateur enthusiasts came to view them and bask in their stunning beauty.’ Adam beamed a huge grin.

‘Fakes. Painted by a guy called Tony Tetro, on his kitchen table. And, as I recall, valued collectively in excess of £100 million. Stick provenance on the back of a frame dating from the same time period as the original was painted, and bingo. Provenance comes from the French provenir, meaning to come from. Provenance is the dealers’ gospel. The art world isn’t stupid, but it’s slow. It takes expertise and lots of man hours to spot a fake and sometimes months or years to prove a fake. But when no one’s even looking...’ Adam shrugged. ‘Fakes can hang for decades on Prince Charles’ wall, with no one batting an eye. Some of the collectors Freddie sold to might have known and not cared, I suppose. I think Jason knew. But he was on a nice cut, so...’

‘So, what did Freddie do with the originals?’

‘Locked them away in his dungeon, so that only he could enjoy them. Like he did with all beautiful, exciting things. The fakes would be delivered to their destination rolled up in my campervan and hidden, along with flasks of cannabis oil, amongst bedding, camping equipment and tins of baked beans. It was a tangled web, Jack. Because whilst Freddie was off his face on cannabis, Avril took the odd painting from rooms all over the house and — behind her husband’s back — asked Jason to sell it for her. So, sometimes Jason was being asked to quickly and clumsily sell paintings which he knew to be fake. He couldn’t refuse Avril, or he’d be kicked out of the house and lose his golden goose, and he couldn’t tell Freddie for the same reason.’

Adam shook his head with laughter. ‘He sold a Degas and I think a Picasso for her. She was involving galleries and dealers very close to home. Jason must have been shitting himself.’ Adam finally noticed that Jack was not laughing along with him. ‘You can go inside and make your call if you like. I won’t run.’

Jack stood up. ‘Come inside with me, please, Adam.’

‘Who’d win, do you think, Jack? If I resisted arrest.’

‘I’d win.’

Adam shrugged at Jack’s self-belief as though it was a façade. He was revelling in a confidence that Jack needed to challenge. Jack casually put his hand on his hip, letting his fingers slide into his back pocket and fish out a black cable tie which he always carried with him. Jack was just about to grab Adam unawares, cuff him and drag him indoors to call for backup when Adam spoke again. Deadly serious this time.

‘I’ve told you a lot of secrets today, Jack. But I’ve got one more. And after I’ve told you, you’re going to let me walk away.’

‘Really? That good, is it?’

‘It’s the only thing you really want.’ Jack knew that there was only one more secret left to tell. ‘I want my freedom, Jack and, in return, I’ll give you my mother’s murderers.’

Jack’s mind raced as he tried to work out if Adam was telling the truth or if this was all just a ploy to distract him. How the hell could Adam know who had murdered Avril?

Adam got to his feet, slid his hands into his pockets and surveyed the landscape before them. ‘I can’t go to prison. I’d not survive without beauty. Nature, art... they keep me alive. I sold the Rossetti in the US, you know. It bought Seamus’s farm for him, bought me a nice castle in western Europe, and bought this place together with land enough for the hemp farm — I’m joking about the castle.’ Adam turned to face Jack. ‘It took me a long time to find my place in the world, but I think this is it. It’s important to belong somewhere, wouldn’t you agree?’

‘How do you know who killed Avril?’

‘Are you still searching yourself, Jack, or have you found your place?’

Then it dawned on Jack that there was only one way Adam could know who the killers were. Jack had to take a deep breath before he could speak. ‘You have the missing CCTV footage!’

Adam nodded, smiling. ‘Jack, the cellar was Frederick’s, not Mahoney’s. The CCTV was Frederick’s, not Mahoney’s.’

Jack couldn’t believe they’d missed something so obvious. Michael Mahoney and his gang took over Avril’s home. They found the cellar, they stacked their boxes of guns and grenades in front of the rusty old filing cabinets and never gave them a second thought.

Jack continued to think out loud. ‘If you knew the CCTV footage locations, that’s how you got in and out of her property.’

‘Most of the time, I was already inside when she locked up for the night. I told you, she was stupid. Freddie became obsessed with monitoring every room in the house. The camera in the bathroom he used to observe the steaming of parchment paper to age it.’

‘Did she know about the monitors in the cellar?’

‘Of course not. She only knew where the external CCTV cameras were, at the front and back of the property. I even showed her how to watch those on the laptop she had, and when Mahoney took over I guess she could have showed him. But neither of them ever knew about or had access to any of the cameras on the inside of the house.’ Adam smirked. ‘Mahoney must have been spitting feathers when he stared to see one patrol car after another turning up.’

‘All the calls to the local police were down to Avril being scared.’

‘She was in so deep and had no clue how to make it stop. She was jeopardising everything.’ Adam cocked his head to one side. ‘I asked you a question, Jack. Are you still searching, or have you found your place?’

‘No more talking, Adam. Back inside.’ Jack was reeling. He needed to get control of the immediate situation, but he was also desperate to learn the identity of the sharp-suited man who’d arrived in a Jag on the night Avril was so brutally murdered. And if he believed what he had just been told, Adam knew who it was.

‘Are you still searching or—’ Adam pressed.

‘I found my place!’ Jack said angrily.

With that reply, Adam was back in control. He could see the yearning for justice in Jack’s eyes. He could see the guilt, and he knew he could now toy with Jack and he’d have to play along for fear of losing this golden opportunity to finally do right by Avril.

‘Why were you lost? Was it an errant parent, like me? Or were you the errant one?’

Jack sighed and gave a small shrug of his shoulders. ‘A little of both.’

‘Parents!’ Adam boomed. ‘Fuck ’em!’ He took a huge breath in, held it, then released. When he spoke again he was quiet. Quiet but full of venom. ‘Boogaard was decent when sober but a nasty drunk. She did that. She did that to all of them. I’d like to have known him properly but, the truth is, I’m not even sure if he was my father. I took his name and I do seem to have his enviable hairline, so who knows?’

Adam put his hands on his hips and began digging the toe of his boot into the soft, wet earth. He started to sound petulant. Childlike. ‘Perhaps it was Wolfgang Beltracchi, a man she once met in Germany and lived with for a long time or perhaps it was Chi in Amsterdam. The moment she landed in a country, she started shagging the locals, so anything is possible. Perhaps an Irish “uncle” is not an uncle after all. Perhaps Terence Jenkins is not so squeaky clean in the fidelity department. She lived in London for years — who knows, Jack? We could be brothers.’

This was the first time Jack had sensed any kind of vulnerability in Adam. ‘Biological parents aren’t all they’re cracked up to be,’ he said. When Adam looked up, he was fighting back tears. Jack kept the connection going — partly to keep Adam from doing anything rash, and partly because he felt compelled to. Jack felt as if his brain was turning cartwheels. Regardless of the fact that Adam was a criminal and was withholding the identity of a killer, they had an undeniable connection. It was an unsettling thought.

‘I never met my biological father,’ Jack volunteered. ‘But the more I found out about him, the less I wanted to know. He was a criminal and was murdered because of it.’

Adam’s pupils dilated, replacing violet with black. He tilted his head to one side, listening, so Jack continued.

‘He had no love for my biological mum, even though she adored the ground he walked on. I have no first-hand knowledge of either of them and I’m no worse off for that. My foster parents are the people I called Mum and Dad. They’re the people whose name I proudly use and that, Adam Border, is all you need to know.’

Adam looked directly at Jack. ‘Darkens the soul, though, doesn’t it?’ He walked forwards and placed his hand flat on Jack’s chest. ‘I can feel the scars each time I take that first breath of a new day. Right here. It reminds me that I’m damaged. But also, that I’m so much stronger for it.’ Adam lowered his hand and stepped back from Jack. ‘I’m ready to go inside now.’

In the corner of the studio was a stack of laptops. He opened the one on top. Adam clicked to open a blank email account — one that had never sent or received anything — and he handed the laptop to Jack. Then he opened his mobile phone. A couple of seconds later, an email pinged into the inbox on the laptop. There was no subject heading and no content, but there was a video file attached. Jack opened it.

Avril sat in the middle of the sofa in her front room. Her knees were clamped together, her fingers were clenched in her lap. Her body was pure tension. She was sobbing and looked petrified.

Jack recognised the sharp-suited man from the Jag standing over her. His collar was now down, but he had his back to the camera. The two men named by the Drug Squad as Alpha and Beta entered the room; both men were wearing navy forensic paper suits, with the hoods down — and they looked as if they were enjoying the show.

The man from the Jag bent at the waist and pushed his face towards Avril’s. She brought her hands up in a vain attempt to protect herself and begged him not to hurt her. Jag turned slightly, put his finger to his lips and with sinister calm shushed her.

This was the moment that Jack saw his face for the first time. Jack’s mind leapt back to watching the grainy bodycam footage of Michael Mahoney’s arrest in Lithuania. Was it him? Jack couldn’t be certain, but facial ID would be.

Avril immediately did as she was told. As she sat there with no way out of the nightmare, Jag kicked her ankles apart and stepped in between her splayed legs. He then hauled her to her feet by her hair.

He gestured for Alpha and Beta to take her. They stepped forwards, grabbed an arm each and lifted her off her feet. Avril was hysterical as she hopelessly struggled against them. Jag took a small plastic bag containing MDMA tablets from his pocket, tipping one out, and as his men held Avril tight, he forced her mouth open and pushed a tablet into her mouth, holding her nose and choking her to make her swallow.

Jack looked across at Adam — he had one earphone in and was playing a game on his mobile. It was clear to Jack that he’d seen this footage and had no desire to see it again. Jack turned back to the screen.

Jag was now by the fireplace, leaning on the mantel as though this house was his domain...

During the following minutes of silent footage, Jack noticed the floor of Avril’s lounge looked somehow different from when he’d been there. It looked out-of-focus somehow. When he finally worked out why, he felt the bile build in his stomach and his skin turn cold.

The lounge floor was covered in plastic.

When he was ready, Jag gave the nod to Alpha, who pulled Avril into the centre of the plastic sheet.

Jag took a pair of latex gloves from his pocket and pulled them on. He lifted an ornate poker from its mount on the wall and began doing practice swings, swiping it through the air again and again. Avril, now knowing without a shadow of a doubt that she was about to die, fought like hell.

Alpha and Beta held each of her arms high and wide by the wrists as Jag closed in. Then, with one fierce blow, he brought the fire poker down and split her skull. He then swung it wide one more time, this time virtually cracking her face open. Avril dropped like a stone. Alpha and Beta worked quickly, putting a plastic bag over Avril’s head and securing it with a draw cord, tight around her neck. They wrapped her body in the plastic sheet and then carried her out of the lounge. Jag got a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped the poker clean of Avril’s blood and his own fingerprints, then hung it back on its mount. He stepped back to check that it was straight, then removed the gloves, wrapping them in his bloodstained handkerchief and placed them into his pocket. He turned just as the poker slid to one side, so — with his index finger, he pushed the bottom of the poker a millimetre or two to the left. Perfect.

Jack was shaking as the screen turned to snow for a few seconds. Then it came back to life, showing Avril’s en suite.

Avril lay on the floor. The bag on her head was filling with blood. Alpha and Beta were securing their hoods, to make certain that their black clothing was completely covered. Alpha then cut Avril’s clothes from her body with a sharp, thin-bladed knife, tossing them to one side until she lay naked. He stuffed her clothes into a plastic bag, as Beta removed the plastic bag from her head, blood quickly poured out, expanding across the white-tiled floor. Beta leant out of shot, then back in, now holding a small, single-handed electric chainsaw.

The video became snowy again for a moment before it jumped to a short insert of the exterior of the property. The night vision was poorer quality, but it clearly showed Jag hurrying from the house and then driving his car away down the drive.

After another moment of static, the video jumped back to the en suite camera. Now the horror was in full flow as the men hacked at Avril’s lifeless torso.

Jack turned to Adam. ‘Jesus Christ!’

Adam lifted his hand to indicate that Jack should continue watching. ‘One minute more.’

Jack looked back at the screen and immediately realised why the men had left her part-dismembered body without completing the job. They were leaning over her head, saw in hand, when a flash of a red light suddenly illuminated the dark room. This was the moment the greenhouse had exploded. The video ended.

As Jack drew his hand back from the keyboard, it trembled beyond his control. The fury inside him manifested in a physical ball of intense pressure pushing against the inside of his sternum. He felt like he was about to explode. He leapt to his feet and moved quickly to the window, throwing it open and gasping the clean air while his mind replayed the very worst moment he’d just watched... not the moment that the poker split Avril’s skull, but the moment she realised she was definitely going to die. She’d fought so hard. Jack was filled with such raw anger that, at that moment, he just wanted to kill. He wanted to stop those men from breathing with the same degree of callous disregard and torturous glee they’d shown Avril.

Adam put his mobile away and gave Jack his full attention. ‘I think you must be an exceptional policeman, Jack, to muster so much anger on behalf of a woman you don’t really know. God, it must be petrifying to be on the wrong side of you.’

Jack became distracted by a fizzing noise, combined with a single high-pitched tone. He glanced back at the video he’d just watched to see the image disintegrating. Jack raced to the laptop shouting, ‘No!’ as though that could stop his evidence from disappearing. Once the video was wiped from the laptop, Jack glared up at Adam.

‘It must be obvious to you by now that I had access to — and am in complete control of — all the video footage from Avril’s home,’ Adam said. ‘It’s time now, Jack, I want a 24-hour head start. After which, I’ll forward that video to your email account. And this time it won’t corrupt and be wiped from existence after it’s been watched.’

Jack couldn’t contain himself. He charged towards Adam, fierce and uncontrolled. Adam responded by dropping to the floor, sitting on his heels, covering his head with his arms and freezing. ‘Get it back!’ Jack screamed. ‘Get it back!’ Jack stood over him, fist in the air, and slowly came back down to reality.

Jack walked backwards across the room until he was far enough away for Adam to dare look up. Adam smiled. ‘I think you’ve got more of your father in you than you’d care to admit. Twenty-four hours, Jack. Once we make this deal, it’s all down to trust. I trust you to give me a one-day head start, and you trust me to give you Avril’s killers.’

Adam drove Jack on his quad bike, back to the single-track road where he’d been forced to abandon his hired BMW. He then opened the storage hatch at the back of the bike and handed Jack a cardboard tube. ‘A gift,’ Adam said. ‘A thank you.’ Adam held out his hand for Jack to shake. ‘In the next life, Jack Warr, I have no doubt we’ll be friends.’