The Final Minute (36 page)

‘And you decided to go along with that?’

‘No,’ he said, ‘I didn’t. I was trying to think of ways to save you and when I went upstairs looking for you, a way presented itself. You see, Jennifer Jones wasn’t dead. She’d taken a real beating from that sadistic bastard Victor, but somehow she’d managed to get to her feet and walk around. When I got upstairs she was leaning against the landing wall, bleeding all over the place but still conscious, and you were just standing there, staring at her. I think you were in shock.’

‘I was. I was in love with her, so to find her half naked in someone else’s house, and dying too …’ I shuddered at the intensity of the memory.

‘You remember what I told you to do?’

I shook my head and swallowed. I could remember my emotions: the anger, the jealousy, the sense of doom. But I couldn’t remember what had happened next. ‘No, I don’t. Tell me.’

Jack’s face creased into a tight frown that showed a lot of new lines on his face, and for the first time it occurred to me how much older he looked since I’d seen him last. He took a deep breath. ‘I handed you a knife, and I told you to kill her. I did it because I thought it would show Hanzha that, like Victor’s friend, you could be trusted. I did it so you could live, and I’ll tell you this, I’m not proud of it, but at least it gave you a chance.’

Still the memory wouldn’t come to me. I wondered if my mind had deliberately suppressed it.

‘And did I? Finish her off?’

The car slowed in traffic, and Jack turned to me. ‘No,’ he said. ‘You didn’t.’

The moment he said those words, I took a deep breath, feeling a surge of relief.

I’m not a bad man.

‘You couldn’t do it,’ he continued. ‘Neither could I. I’ve never killed anyone in my life. We had to wait for Mr Hanzha’s man. I dragged you into another room while he shot her. Then you both took the bodies of the two girls away for disposal.’ He sighed. ‘Only you know what happened after that, Sean, because the next time I heard from you was five hours later in the middle of the night. You phoned and called me a double-crossing bastard. You said you’d killed Mr Hanzha’s bodyguard and buried all three of the bodies, and that you were going to deliver a letter to your solicitor to be opened in the event of anything happening to you, which would detail everything that had gone on that night, and give the location of the bodies. You told me you wanted a hundred grand in cash to ensure your silence. I actually said that we could do that, and you finished the call by saying you’d be back in touch. Except you weren’t, because that was the last time we spoke before today.’

‘But you knew I was alive, right?’

‘Not right away we didn’t. Not until the blackmail started.’

I frowned. ‘Blackmail?’

Jack nodded. ‘Yeah. The Home Secretary, Crossman – his people made contact a few months later. They said they had you alive in a safe place. They even supplied us with footage of you, although you looked out of it. They said that the Crossman group was going to launch a counter-bid for Mr Hanzha’s company, and that if he didn’t accept the offer, they’d release the information on what happened, and give up the location of the bodies of the whores. They claimed there would still be enough DNA evidence on them to link their murders to Victor.’

‘But what I can’t understand is how Crossman’s people knew anything about the bodies.’

‘I’ve thought about that a lot, and the best explanation is that their spy, Jennifer Jones, had bugged your flat, so when you made the threatening call to me they heard everything you said. I don’t know what happened next but I reckon they were trying to intercept you when you had your accident. For all we know, they were responsible for it, and that would conveniently explain your lack of ID and how they knew what hospital you were in.’

I shook my head in exasperation. ‘Jesus, I can’t believe this whole thing’s just about a company takeover.’

‘It’s big profits, Sean. The Crossman group stood to make a hundred million pounds if Mr Hanzha played along and sold his company to them on the cheap. People will do a lot for that kind of money. That’s why we had to pull out all the stops to find you. It took a long time but we finally tracked down one of Crossman’s people in St Lucia who knew where you were being held, and he coughed up the information. Then we brought in these two to deal with you once and for all.’ Jack paused. ‘Except they didn’t, which is why we’re here now.’

‘Help me get my family back, Jack,’ I said. ‘You’re better than this.’

‘I’m sorry, Sean, I can’t. You’re thinking of your family. I’m thinking of mine.’

A mobile phone started ringing in the back. It was the big guy’s. He made a moaning sound but made no move to get it.

‘That’ll be his girlfriend,’ said Jack.

The big guy’s mobile stopped ringing and Jack’s started. He looked at me. ‘I’m going to have to answer this. If I don’t, she’ll know something’s wrong and she might hurt your family. She’s not a nice woman, Sean. Not a nice woman at all.’

‘I know. I’ve met her. Take out the phone and give it to me.’

He did as he was told and I put the phone to my ear. ‘This is Sean Egan,’ I said. ‘If anything’s happened to my wife and daughter, I’ll kill your boyfriend nice and slowly.’

‘Let me speak to him,’ she hissed, but I could hear the fear in her voice.

‘No. He’s hurt, but he’s going to live if we get him to a hospital. Let my family go, and you get him back.’

‘You don’t make demands on me, you worm. I’ll cut your daughter’s eyes out unless you let me speak to Tank right now.’

I swallowed hard, knowing I had to stay strong. Knowing too that I was gambling with my child’s life. ‘No,’ I said with a cold edge to my voice that I had to work far too hard to produce. ‘I’m going to send you a short video of him to prove he’s alive but that’s all you’re going to get. Then we’re going to meet and exchange your boyfriend for my family.’

She started to say something but I ended the call, found the camera setting on the phone, and turned it on the big hulk in the back. As if on cue, he moved in his seat and his eyes flickered open. He gave me a vaguely puzzled look, as if I’d just disturbed his sleep, before closing them again. The blood had completely drenched the top half of his white dress shirt now, and he didn’t look in a good way, so I knew I was taking a big risk sending the film. Unfortunately, I didn’t have a lot of choice.

‘How much is she willing to sacrifice for this guy?’ I asked Jack as I finished filming. I still had the gun trained on him but he looked more relaxed now, as if he knew I wasn’t going to shoot him.

‘Shit, Sean, I don’t know. I only met these people twice.’

‘Take a guess,’ I snapped.

He shrugged. ‘They’re engaged, and the way she looks at him makes me think they’re pretty close. But she has a reputation as one of the most cold-hearted people in the business.’ He turned to look at me. ‘Listen, acting like this isn’t going to work, Sean. It’ll just get your daughter killed.’

‘If she dies, so do you, Jack. Tonight. I will kill you. Do you understand?’

He glanced at me and nodded. ‘Yeah,’ he said wearily. ‘I understand.’

I pressed the send button on Jack’s phone and watched as the text containing the film was sent to the number the woman had just called from.

A minute later the phone rang again, but this time all I could hear down the line was a woman screaming in the background. I recognized the voice immediately as belonging to Claire, my ex-wife, but it was the words coming out of her mouth that caught my attention: ‘Please don’t hurt her! She’s only a child!’

‘What the hell’s going on?’ I shouted into the phone. ‘Talk to me now, you bitch, or I swear to God I will cut your boyfriend’s nuts off right now.’

‘I’m about to cut your daughter,’ she said, coming on the line, her voice calm now. ‘And I’m going to film it for you.’

‘Touch her and I kill him now,’ I came back, just as calmly. ‘I guarantee it. All I want’s a straight swap. My family for your boyfriend.’

‘It’s not a straight swap, is it? You’ve hurt my man.’

‘I shot him with a .22. It’s not a big-calibre bullet, and it hasn’t caused a life-threatening injury. He’ll be as good as new when he’s had the right medical attention.’

‘So will your daughter. I’m only going to cut her face. And your ex-wife’s. They won’t be life-threatening injuries either.’

She ended the call.

I called back immediately, my fingers fumbling on the buttons, the sweat pouring down my face.

It rang once.

Twice.

My hands were shaking now and I had a sudden, desperate urge to put the gun against my own temple and pull the trigger, just to end all this terrible stress once and for all.

She picked up on the third ring. All I could hear was terrified screaming. A woman’s. And a child’s.

‘You can have me!’ I shouted. ‘You can have me as long as you don’t hurt them!’

‘That’s more like it,’ she said as the screaming subsided. ‘And good timing. I hadn’t actually started cutting. Is Mr Duckford still driving the car?’

‘Yes.’

‘Put him on.’

‘No. You can have me, and you can have your boyfriend – exactly what you wanted – but only when I see that my family are free and unharmed. I know you’re holding them at an airstrip and we’re coming directly there now. We’ll contact you when we arrive. Is that a deal?’

She was silent for a good five seconds. ‘Deal. But if you do anything else, I will hurt them real bad.’

‘I know,’ I said, and ended the call.

Fifty-six

Tina was following the car that had picked up Sean along the A40, keeping about a quarter of a mile back, when she finally put a call into Mike Bolt. She’d ignored his calls until Sean was safely in the car and driving, knowing that if she got the police involved too quickly then it might compromise the safety of Sean’s family.

Bolt answered straight away, and he wasn’t happy. ‘Why haven’t you been answering the phone? I’ve just received word that the two detectives watching Egan’s ex-wife’s place are lying in their car with their throats cut and the house is empty.’

‘That’s because his ex and kid have been abducted. The deal is Sean’s got to go to a rendezvous where the kidnappers will let the wife and kid go and take Sean in their place.’

‘How did they manage to contact him?’

‘An NCA man, Jack Duckford, knows Sean from the past. Sean got in touch with him and Duckford set him up.’

‘Shit.’ There was a short pause at Bolt’s end. ‘Where’s Egan now?’

‘In a car travelling west on the A40, just going past the Swakeleys Road turn-off now.’ She read out the registration number. ‘I’m following them.’

‘You should have called me straight away, Tina.’

‘I called you as soon as I could,’ she lied. ‘But the important thing is I’m following Sean now and he’s wearing a tracking device. I can give you its serial number and code so you can track it too. You can also track my phone signal.’

‘Do we even know he’s still alive? If I were them, I’d kill him straight away.’

‘I don’t know. I couldn’t get close enough to check, but he was armed with the same gun he shot the guy in the hotel with, so I don’t think he’s going to go down without a fight.’

‘Jesus, Tina, this is a total bloody mess.’ He paused again, and Tina could picture him in his office with a face like thunder. ‘Give me the details of the tracker.’

She knew the information by heart and reeled it out. ‘We’ve got to play this carefully though, Mike. If the people holding Sean get wind of what’s going on, they’re not going to hesitate to kill their hostages.’

‘You don’t have to tell me. I’ve met Claire and Milly. What can you tell me about the people holding them? Do we have any idea of their numbers? The location of the hostages?’

Tina sighed, knowing she’d put herself in a hugely compromising situation. ‘No, I’ve got nothing, except what I’ve told you.’

‘OK, but stay back and wait for us, Tina. And whatever you do, keep your phone on and make sure you answer it.’

‘Sure,’ she said, once again agreeing on a course of action she had no intention of following.

Up ahead, the car carrying Sean accelerated so that it was now travelling at more than eighty miles per hour.

Tina kept her distance, biding her time.

Fifty-seven

The clock on the dashboard said 20:39 as Jack turned into a private road.

The car was so silent I could hear the hammering of my heart. It had been like that for the past twenty minutes of the journey, ever since the last phone call from the woman holding what was left of my family. I still had my gun trained on Jack while the guy in the back moaned softly in a state of semi-consciousness. His complexion had gone a fish-scale grey, and if he didn’t get help soon, he was going to die.

‘This is the place,’ said Jack as he drove us slowly down the access road past a Keep Out – Private Property sign, and another stating that the land was going to be developed for executive and starter homes by some company I really didn’t care about. Thick, overgrown bushes sprouted up on either side of the road, and up ahead I could see a high mesh gate that looked like it had been pulled open in a hurry. It was dark here.

‘Stop the car,’ I said, leaning back in the seat, conscious that this was a good spot for an ambush. ‘What’s the layout?’

‘There’s a single runway, and a two-storey terminal building with a tower attached across the other side. This road takes us straight up to the runway. The building’s then straight opposite us, about fifty metres away. That’s where your ex-wife and daughter are being held.’

I thought fast. ‘Drive very slowly up to the runway then stop and kill the lights,’ I said, crouching right down in the seat so I would no longer be visible from the outside. ‘But keep the engine running. And remember this,’ I added as he put the car into gear and moved forward. ‘If this is an ambush, I’ll still have time to kill you.’

He didn’t say anything, and thirty seconds later we’d stopped again, having driven down a slight incline. He killed the lights. ‘We’re here.’

Slowly, I sat back up in the seat, half expecting to get a bullet in the head from somewhere outside but keeping my gun trained on Jack.