The Last 10 Seconds

The reporter didn’t have much of any importance to say and was just repeating what had happened the previous night. Thankfully, the police officer who’d been shot was stable in hospital, and his injuries were not thought to be life-threatening. The big news from the reporter’s view was the identity of the kidnap victim, and the fact that he’d been charged only hours before with the Night Creeper murders. Police, he said, were keeping an open mind regarding the motive for the snatch, and although he reiterated the usual stuff about a major manhunt being under way, with a number of leads being followed up, the subtext seemed to be that no one knew who’d done it, why, or where he was now. He finished by saying that a police press conference was set for ten a.m. that morning.

The camera then returned to the studio where an immaculately dressed female newsreader moved on to the next story, which was a fire at an abandoned hotel in Hertfordshire, from which two bodies had so far been recovered. There was a quick shot of the previous night’s rendezvous, which was now little more than a heavily smouldering pile of ash and stone, with a number of fire engines in front of it. Parts of the outbuilding where I’d discovered Haddock’s body were still standing, and I could make out the generator poking above what was left of a stone exterior wall. I assumed that one of the bodies they’d recovered must be his, but I doubted there would have been much left of it. The newsreader was stating that arson was suspected, and quoted Hertfordshire’s chief fire officer as saying it was possible there were more bodies inside. So far, unsurprisingly, no connection had been made between the two stories, but sooner or later DNA or dental work would be used to ID the victims, and then they’d merge into a superstory that would catch the imagination of journalists and police alike as they, like me, hunted for answers. The difference was, at the moment I was several steps ahead of them.

I froze. The door was opening behind me. And then there was another sound that I knew well enough from my firearms training.

The metallic click of a gun being cocked.

Forty-six

It was seven a.m., and Tina felt a sudden rush of apprehension as she parked the hire car in a resident’s bay across the road from Anthony Gore’s grand four-storey Notting Hill townhouse. All the way there Grier had been asking her if she was sure she was doing the right thing, and suggesting that it would be far better to get authorization before barging in on a government minister and effectively accusing him of murder. To his credit, though, he hadn’t refused to come along. ‘If it all goes wrong, I’ll say I forced you into it,’ she’d said in an attempt to mollify him.

As they got out of the car now, Grier looked pale. ‘He’s the Minister of Home Affairs, for God’s sake, ma’am,’ he said again, with something close to fear. ‘I don’t like the idea of doing this at all.’

But it was too late for that, and once again Tina told him she knew what she was doing. ‘Just leave me to do the talking,’ she said, walking up to the front door and rapping hard on the knocker. ‘You’re just going to be back-up. Look stern.’

He said something she didn’t catch under his breath, but which she was sure wasn’t complimentary, and then she heard footsteps coming from inside.

‘Who is it?’ came a voice from behind the door that she recognized from the occasional TV programme she’d seen him on as belonging to Gore himself.

‘Police, Mr Gore,’ she answered firmly, holding up her warrant card to the spyhole in the centre of the imposing oak door. Grier did the same.

There was the sound of locks being turned on the other side, then the door opened on a thick chain and a very irritated-looking Anthony Gore looked out at them. He was wearing a grey silk dressing gown and his collar-length silver hair was a mess. Even so, he looked sleek, well fed and prosperous, as if he’d never had to struggle for anything in life, and Tina’s dislike for him immediately hardened.

‘It’s seven on a Saturday morning, this had better be bloody important,’ he said, examining the warrant cards before finally opening up to let them in.

‘It is,’ Tina answered, determined not to be intimidated, even though there was a charisma about Gore that hinted at real power. In spite of herself, she could understand why an attractive woman like Roisín, more than twenty-five years younger, could fall for him.

They followed him as he stalked down the grand hallway to a room at the end. It was a large study, tastefully furnished in mahogany and leather, with floor-to-ceiling bookcases lining two walls and a view out on to a walled garden. Gore took a seat behind an imposing desk so that it looked like he was in charge, and motioned for them to take seats opposite.

As she sat down, Tina stole a glance at Grier, who seemed to be wilting under Gore’s grim, lawyerly demeanour.

‘My name’s DI Tina Boyd, and this is—’