The Last 10 Seconds

She watched him go, then stubbed the cigarette underfoot and, leaving the hire car where it was, walked off in the opposite direction without looking back, feeling a strange yet exhilarating sense of freedom.

Part Three

NINE DAYS LATER

Fifty-seven

Tina Boyd was surprised to see how healthy Sean Egan looked, given all he’d been through. He was propped up in his bed reading a book when she knocked and walked into his private hospital room, carrying a box of chocolates and a bottle of decent Scotch she’d picked up en route. She’d wanted to come before but for the first week of his stay he’d been effectively in police custody, and under armed guard, with visits strictly limited.

He grinned when he saw her and put down the book. ‘So, to what do I owe this pleasure?’

‘I came to say thanks for saving my life,’ she said, putting the chocolates and booze on his bedside table, and taking a seat.

‘Tommy wasn’t much of a shot. I think you’d have been OK.’

‘He managed to hit you twice.’

‘He just got lucky,’ he said, giving her a weary smile. ‘Anyway, if you hadn’t turned up, I’d have bled to death, so I guess we’re quits. Maybe we should share the bottle.’

Tina had deliberately chosen Scotch because she disliked it. ‘No, you keep it for when you’re feeling better.’

‘Fair enough,’ he said, ‘but at least tell me how you ended up in that building at eight o’clock on a Saturday morning. I’ve been answering a lot of questions these past few days, but no one’s been giving me any information.’

‘It’s a long story.’

‘Long stories are what keep me going in this place.’

So she told him everything.

‘Jesus,’ he said when she’d finished. ‘After all you did, and they end up suspending you?’

‘I didn’t follow the rules, and they don’t like that these days.’

He laughed. ‘I know the feeling. And if it’s any consolation, I’ve been suspended as well. But at the moment I’m just thankful I haven’t been charged with anything.’

‘I think there’d have been a public outcry if they’d charged you with anything. You’ve read the papers. You must have seen the coverage you’ve been getting. The Sun’s even nicknamed you Robocop.’

Not surprisingly, there’d been a media frenzy over the kidnapping of Andrew Kent and the revelations surrounding Anthony Gore and his connection to it, and the story had rarely been off the front pages. With the stock of mainstream politicians at one of its lowest ebbs in history thanks to the ongoing expenses scandal, the allegations of murder weren’t considered as unbelievable as they might otherwise have been. In fact, they were treated as still more evidence of the corrupt nature of the ruling classes, who it now seemed were capable of almost anything.

Most people – if you believed the tabloid headlines, at least – thought that both Andrew Kent and Anthony Gore had got what they deserved, and although the full extent of Gore’s involvement wasn’t yet public knowledge, there was a groundswell of support for Sean Egan. In tabloid eyes, he was the brave undercover cop, eager to avenge the long-ago murder of his brother, whose only crime was getting in too deep, but who’d redeemed himself by ridding the world of a sadistic killer.

Nobody, therefore, wanted to be the person to charge him with anything, even though the CPS could probably have created a file against him longer than the Bible.

‘Did they ever find the missing footage that Kent took of Gore killing Roisín O’Neill?’ he asked.

Tina shook her head. ‘It sounds like Kent only kept the one copy, and that was the one that was destroyed.’

‘And you think Tommy killed her father as well?’

‘He must have done. The car he was using, the one that led me to him and you, was filmed in Roisín’s father’s cul-de-sac on the night he died. It’s too much of a coincidence for it not to be related.’

‘But why kill him? Particularly then.’

It was a question that Tina had been thinking about a lot. ‘Gore must have been concerned that Roisín had told her father about their relationship. That wasn’t a problem while her murder was being treated as one of the Night Creeper’s. But when Kent was arrested in possession of information that implicated Gore in her murder, they must have decided it was best to get her father out of the way.’ She shrugged. ‘I think it was just a case of damage limitation.’

Egan sighed. ‘Jesus. He didn’t care who he killed, did he? But I still don’t understand who was organizing all this. Tommy said he was working for someone called Alpha.’

‘We think he was referring to Paul Wise, a gangster and thug based out of Northern Cyprus. He initiated everything on behalf of Anthony Gore – not that he got anywhere near the action himself. He used Tommy and Wolfe’s gang for that.’