Deadline (16 page)

Bolt had never heard from Andrea again after
that. He'd tried to make contact with her several
times but she hadn't returned his calls, and he'd
been forced to accept that their relationship was
over. But for him, personally, it had been a coup.
His information had led to a huge result for the
Flying Squad, marred only by wounding and
injury to two of their own, and the fact that he'd
shot dead one of the gang only increased his
kudos among his colleagues. There'd been no
repercussions from the PCC – his shooting of
Hayes was considered totally justified – and
although he'd been asked on several occasions to
name the source who'd told him about the
robbery, he'd always claimed that it was an
informant, and gave no further details. Because
the op had been a success, no one had ever
pushed him on it.

He continued to pace the room. Continued to
think. Always about Andrea. How her information
had foiled a major robbery and put a lot of
very nasty people out of business, at least one
permanently. How she seemed to have turned her
life around so formidably in the years since. And
how she could have made some serious enemies
along the way.

He stopped pacing and put down his wine on
the marble kitchen top. He had an idea, and for
the first time in the last few hours he felt a twinge
of hope, coupled with something approaching
excitement.

Pulling the mobile from his pocket, he dialled a
number he hadn't called in far too long.

Emma dug away in the gloom with the rusty nail,
trying to shut the constant fear out of her mind,
forcing herself to concentrate totally on what she
was doing. It had been dark for over an hour now
but still she kept going, even though every part of
her body seemed to ache with the effort. It was a
slow, painful job, but she was getting somewhere.
She'd created a gap of almost a quarter of an inch
between the wall and the plate on the left-hand side,
enough almost to get a finger underneath, and when
she tugged at the chain it definitely felt looser. If
she could just keep at it, eventually it was going to
come free. She was sure of it. But God, it was hard.

She heard a noise upstairs – footsteps. She
froze. If they saw what she was doing, they'd
punish her. The cruel one might even decide that
keeping her alive was now too risky, that it was
time to get rid of her altogether.

She jumped up, lifted the bed, straining with
the effort, and pushed it back against the wall,
trying to be as quiet as possible but unable to stop
it from scraping loudly on the stone floor.

Please don't let them hear it.

Gritting her teeth, she lay back on the bed, put
the nail under her pillow, and reached for the
hood.

The footsteps stopped. Was one of them outside
the door?

She put on the hood and closed her eyes, hardly
daring to breathe, terrified that this might be it.
The last few seconds of her life. Had all her efforts
of the last few hours been wasted?

But the door didn't open.

Five minutes passed. Then ten.

She lay there in the darkness, her heart going
faster and faster, cold beads of sweat running
down her forehead as she listened as hard as she
could for any sound in the room, knowing that the
cruel one always liked to creep up on her.

But she could hear nothing. Only silence. And
eventually she plucked up the courage to remove
the hood and look around. But the room was
empty.

So, he wasn't coming for her tonight.

But she couldn't help thinking it was just a stay
of execution.

In the old days, everyone in the Flying Squad had
had a nickname. Bolt's, not altogether surprisingly,
was Nuts, while Jack Doyle, the man he was
going to meet, had been known as Dodger.
Although he was five years older, Doyle had probably
been Bolt's best mate in the squad. He was
also the most accident-prone guy Bolt had ever
known.

Doyle's long litany of injuries was legendary:
three months in traction after falling off a ladder
trying to retrieve a football from his roof; a
rare and potentially deadly blood infection
when he'd stepped on a fishbone on the first
day of his honeymoon; and in the most bizarre
instance of all, a month off sick with concussion
after a pool tournament during which a wildly
mishit cueball flew off the table, hit him in
the temple and knocked him spark out. Somehow
his injuries always coincided with times when
the squad were in action, hence the nickname,
and it irritated him hugely because he'd
always been one of its hardest members, and as a
highly successful former amateur boxer was not
afraid of a fight. He simply considered himself
unlucky.

Jack (Bolt had never called him Dodger) was
one of the few of the old team still left at Finchley.
He'd moved up the ranks and was now a DI. His
experience, coupled with a near photographic
memory, meant that if there was ever anyone who
could provide Bolt with the information he
needed, it was him. Although they'd kept in touch
over the years, and still did the occasional fishing
weekend away, it had been months since they'd
last spoken. Even so, as soon as Bolt explained
that he needed to meet up with him urgently,
Doyle hadn't hesitated, and told him to name the
time and place.

And so it was that barely an hour after arriving
home Bolt walked in through the door of the
King's Arms, a busy, old-fashioned drinkers' pub
just off the King's Cross end of the Gray's Inn
Road. He had to look around for a few seconds,
pushing his way through the buzzing crowd of
drinkers, before he saw Doyle sitting in a booth in
the corner, two pints of lager set out on the table
in front of him.

Doyle stood up as Bolt approached and they
shook hands. As always, the other man's grip was
vice-like. With his jutting, granite jaw and square shaped
head, topped with thick black hair, Jack
Doyle bore a strong resemblance to a
Thunderbirds
puppet – not that it was advisable to tell him that.
He wasn't a particularly big man – no more than
five nine, and of slim build – but the look was
deceptive. He was all sinewy muscle, and even
now, in his mid-forties, there wasn't an ounce of
fat on him.

'How are you, Mike?' he asked in a thick
Glasgow accent that hadn't mellowed, even
after more than a quarter of a century down
south. He gestured at one of the pints. 'I got you
one in.'

Bolt smiled as they sat down opposite each
other.

'Thanks, Jack, I'm all right,' he said, determined
not to show the turmoil he was going through.
'You?'

'Not bad,' said the other man wearily.
'Counting the days until retirement.'

They clinked glasses.

'What is it you've got left now? Five years?'

'Four. And I tell you, pal, I can't bloody wait.
How's life at SOCA?'

Bolt took a gulp of his beer. It tasted good.

'Busy,' he answered. 'That's why I need your
help. You remember the Lewisham robbery, back
in ninety-two? The police van carrying the coke
for incineration?'

'How could I forget? It's the one where you
made your spurs. Took out that toe rag Dean
Hayes.'

Bolt nodded. 'That's the one.' He'd never been
proud of the fact that he'd killed Hayes. He might
have been, as Doyle put it, a toe rag, but that
didn't make ending his life any easier, and Bolt
felt mildly uncomfortable at it being mentioned
now. 'Do you remember what happened to the
people who got put away for it?'

'Is this to do with a case you're working on?'

He knew there was no point denying it. 'Yeah,
it is.'

'It must be a pretty big case if you wanted to
see me this urgently. Can you give me any
details?'

'It's an ongoing op, so I can't say too much at
the moment.'

'Not even to an old mate?'

'You know I'd tell you if I could, Jack.'

'Fair enough. And you think some of the guys
we put away might be involved in it?'

'We don't know yet. But at the moment, I'd like
to know their current status, and any intelligence
you've got on any of them.'

'Well, you tagged one, and we put away four,
didn't we? Vernon Mackman – he was one of the
drivers. One of the best there was, I always
thought. He died of cancer five years back while
he was still in the Scrubs. As for Barry Tadcaster,
he's back inside. He was out six months, then
teamed up with a couple of old-style blaggers and
got done for conspiracy to rob when one of them
turned grass. I don't think he's expected out until
after I retire.'

'And the others? Marcus Richardson, and who
was the other? Scott somebody?'

'Scott Ridgers. They've been in and out since
they got released for the Lewisham job. You know
what it's like with blokes like that, professional
robbers – they never change. Ridgers carried on
blagging; Richardson branched out into smuggling
coke into the country. But as far as I know
they're both on parole and keeping their noses
clean. I haven't heard anything about either of
them for a while now.'

'How long did they go down for?'

Doyle thought for a moment. 'Ridgers got fourteen
years, I think, and served seven. Richardson
got longer – seventeen, eighteen, something like
that – because he fired a shot before he got hit
himself, so he did time on an attempted murder
charge as well, even though he always claimed
the gun went off by accident. He served eight or
nine.'

'You got an address for either of them?'

Doyle's face broke into a craggy smile. 'My
memory's good, Mike, but it's not that bloody
good. They'll be on the PNC, though. I'm sure
they're both still on licence.'

'I'll check them out.'

'You haven't asked about the one who got away.
Jimmy Galante.'

'Oh yeah, I remember him. He ended up in
Spain, didn't he?'

Doyle nodded. 'He did, but I heard from one of
my snouts that he was back in the country.
Someone saw him the other day in a pub in
Islington.'

Bolt feigned interest. 'Really? I must look into
that.'

Doyle took a slug of his own beer and at least
a quarter of it disappeared. For a small guy,
he'd always had a prodigious capacity for the
booze.

'Whatever you think our boys Richardson and
Ridgers might be involved in, you've got to
remember they weren't the brightest of sparks.
Galante was always the brains of the outfit.'

Bolt tried to picture the two men, to remember
anything about them, but they were a blank. It
was all too long ago. He wondered whether he
was wrong to think that there might be a connection.
The Lewisham robbery was ancient history,
and as far as he was aware no one, either inside or
outside the Flying Squad, knew that it was
Andrea who'd helped to foil it. And even if
someone had found out, there was still no reason
to wait until now, fifteen years later, to do something
about it. When he thought about it like that,
the whole thing didn't make much sense. But it
was all he had, and the fact that Jimmy Galante
had been involved in both cases meant that it was
better to be here asking questions than sitting
around at home.

They sat in silence for a few moments, finishing
their drinks, oblivious to the noise around them.

'How well do you remember Richardson and
Ridgers?' asked Bolt.

'Not very. There wasn't much to say about
either of them. They were just two robbers
prepared to get nasty to get what they wanted. I
doubt many people'll have fond memories of
them when they're gone.'

'Do you think either of them could be capable of
the kidnap of a young girl? A fourteen-year-old?'

Doyle frowned. 'Is that what this is about?'

'Between you and me, yes.' Bolt knew he was
treading on shaky ground here, talking about the
investigation to someone outside it, but he also
knew it was the only way he was going to get
answers.

'A kidnap for ransom?'

'Yeah. But I can't tell you any more than that,
and you've got to keep what I do tell you under
wraps, OK?'

'You know me, Mike. I don't blab. What makes
you think those two are anything to do with it?'

'Just a hunch.'

'Shit, pal, you sound just like Columbo.' Doyle
fingered his empty glass. 'I wouldn't put it past
either of them to be involved in something like
that. They're criminals, and they're greedy
bastards, so if there's money to be had, there's a
good chance they'll be there.'

'Do you think they'd hurt her? The girl?'

'Christ, Mike, I don't know. The one thing about
armed blaggers is they're pros. They don't add
years on to their sentences unless they absolutely
have to.'

Bolt felt relieved, even though he knew this
was irrational. Jack Doyle was no criminal
psychologist.

'You look shattered,' Doyle told him.

'I am. It's been a long day.'

'Maybe you should get home.'

But Bolt didn't want to go back yet. He picked
up the empty glasses. 'No, let me get you a drink.'

'Cheers. I'll have a pint of Stella.'

When he returned with the drinks they made
small talk for a while, but Bolt found it hard to
concentrate on anything other than Emma, and he
was conscious that he wasn't good company. It
angered him that he couldn't relax with an old
friend over a few beers at the end of a long, hard
day, and the anger was aimed at Andrea, because
it was her doing. If she'd just kept her mouth shut,
he might have been able to do his job properly
instead of flailing round from place to place,
tearing himself apart.

He finished his second pint and got to his feet.
'I'd better go, Jack. Early start tomorrow.'

Doyle stood up as well and they shook hands.

'Good luck with the case, Mike.'

'Thanks. I hope we don't need it.'

'Don't worry, she'll be all right. Blokes like that,
they just want the money. They won't risk going
down an extra twenty years by killing her.'

Easy for you to say
, thought Bolt as he said his
goodbyes and walked outside into the cool night
air. It was a two-minute taxi ride home or a fifteen minute
walk. He decided to walk, hoping it might
calm him down a little, but he'd only got a few
hundred yards when his mobile started ringing.

It was Mo. Bolt had left him back at the
Glasshouse a few hours earlier. He'd said he was
just finishing up and was about to go home, but
maybe he'd decided to stay later. He flicked open
the phone and put it to his ear.

'Mo?'

'There's been a development.'

His tone was grim, and Bolt felt his stomach
constrict at the prospect of bad news.

'What is it?'

'I'm at a house in Tufnell Park. I think you'd
better get over here.'