The Last 10 Seconds

By my calculations, the light would stay on for about two minutes, which meant moving fast. Like any good copper, I know the tricks of the thief’s trade, and getting into an old car like a Fiesta is easy. All it requires is a length of garden wire and about a minute’s effort. The light turned off a few seconds after I’d got inside, but the sensor couldn’t pick up my movements inside the car, giving me the opportunity to use a screwdriver to break the steering lock at leisure. The locks on older cars are far easier to break, but though I know what I’m doing, I’m no expert, and it took me a while to get the wheel turning. I counted slowly to five hundred, desperate to get going but knowing that it was also better to be patient, then released the handbrake and slowly manoeuvred the car down the drive. When I was at the bottom, I used the screwdriver, and the car started with an angry sputter.

The drive back to London was uneventful, although it took me a long time to find the main road. It was 4.57 according to the clock’s dashboard when I finally pulled up on a backstreet in Colindale, half a mile down the road from the two-bed 1930s terrace that was my real home. I felt bad about stealing the car, and even toyed with digging out the owner’s number and calling him to say where he could find it. But I quickly thought better of it. After what I’d done to it, the damned thing was ruined, so he might as well collect the insurance money.

Ten minutes later, and as the first grey light of dawn flickered over the tower blocks on the horizon, I finally stepped inside my front door, having avoided being spotted by anyone on the way. I was shattered and desperately needed to sleep, so allowed myself an hour’s power nap before the alarm clock woke me up. Then I cleaned up, had a shower and made myself a strong mug of coffee.

The thing was, I couldn’t leave matters as they were. As soon as the fire brigade realized their fire had been lit deliberately and that the building contained the remains of five people, including a dangerous fugitive and his likely kidnappers, there’d be a huge hunt for whoever was behind it. It was going to be hard to trace the client, given his lack of direct involvement, but there was a possibility that my name could end up in the frame. My undercover op to become one of Wolfe’s gang might have been unofficial, but Captain Bob, for one, knew I’d been lobbying to infiltrate them for years. Someone might also have seen me getting into Wolfe’s car in Doughty Street earlier that evening. My image might have been caught on CCTV.

If I kept quiet and my name ended up in the frame, my silence would count against me hugely. But if I came forward and admitted everything, there was still no guarantee that I’d be believed. I knew I couldn’t count on Captain Bob for support. He was a career man first and foremost, and would drop me like a stone if he thought I was liable to become an embarrassment to him.

But there was one person who could help me. It had been a long time, but I trusted him, which was hugely important because I was going to need to tell him the whole truth. The time for operating on my own was over.

I pulled out a mobile, then stopped. This was going to have to be done face to face. It would be too dangerous otherwise.

I was going to have to turn up at his door.

Forty-three

Tina Boyd was in a deep, dreamless sleep when the constant ringing of her mobile dragged her back to reality. The alarm clock read 5.35 as she fumbled for the phone on the bedside table.

It was Mike. ‘Sorry to wake you,’ he said, sounding surprisingly perky. ‘I’ve got some news.’

She sat up in the bed, rubbing her eyes. ‘Don’t apologize. You’re the one doing me a favour.’

‘You’ve stumbled on something big, Tina,’ he continued. ‘I don’t know how you do it.’

She grabbed the notebook and pen she always kept by the bed, feeling the familiar thrill of a lead coming to something. ‘What have you got?’

‘The anonymous mobile number that showed up on your victim’s phone records is definitely a pay-as-you-go, and it hasn’t been used since November the twenty-second last year.’

‘That was the day before Roisín was murdered.’

‘That doesn’t necessarily make the person who used it the murderer, though. It could just be that he was a lover who didn’t want to get sucked into the police inquiry. In fact, that’s far more likely than your theory.’

‘Someone killed her, Mike, and it wasn’t the Night Creeper. It still had to be someone who could get past the alarm system, though. Someone who knew her. So a lover’s as likely a scenario as any. Is it possible you can find out the locations where the mobile was used before it was abandoned?’

‘I’ve done it. We’ve also managed to triangulate the location where it was switched off, which is also the location it was used from on a number of occasions. It’s a residential address.’

Tina felt her excitement rising. She’d woken up completely now. ‘Whose?’

‘This is big, Tina. Very big.’