Deadline

by Simon Kernick

  Oh God, no. He's got a knife.

  Fourteen

  There were serious logistical issues to be addressed in order to get Andrea back home, and Bolt spent most of the remainder of Friday morning organizing them. He had to operate on the assumption that the kidnappers were watching the place, even though he thought it highly unlikely. It didn't take long to confirm that no properties with views on to Andrea's house had been rented out for more than eighteen months, so any observation point being used by the kidnappers would have to be on the street itself. With Big Barry's authorization, he managed to get a twelve-person surveillance team from another area of SOCA pulled off their current job, and they were sent to Andrea's neighbourhood. Having discreetly confirmed that there was no one suspicious hanging about, either on foot or in a car, they'd set up at various points and now had the street under continuous observation.

  With the area secure, Bolt had given Andrea's card key, house keys and the burglar alarm code to one of his team, SG5 Matt Turner, who'd gone to check out the property. Although Jimmy Galante had searched the place for bugs, he'd bought a cheap device from a spy shop, so it was likely he'd only have been using a radio frequency detector, and not a very good one either, which would have been inadequate for the task at hand. Bolt knew that RF detectors were designed to pick up signals from active transmitters and radio telephone taps, but couldn't detect switched-off or remote control devices, nor could they find hardwired microphones and telephone taps, or recorders. In other words, the place could have been bugged to the hilt and neither Jimmy nor Andrea would have known about it. Turner was armed with the latest cutting-edge counter-surveillance equipment, including a Time Domain Reflectometer used to detect breaks and splices in cables; a Harmonic Radar to find cables and mikes buried in walls, cavities and furniture; and a Multi-Meter to measure line voltages within the telephone line.

  However, when he called Bolt just after midday, Turner hadn't found anything either. 'The place is clear, sir. I've given it a complete once-over, and there's nothing here.'

  Bolt trusted Turner's judgement on this kind of thing.

  'Any sign of a struggle in there, Matt? Something that might suggest Emma Devern was snatched at the house?'

  'Nothing like that. The place is spotless. Also, I reckon it'd be too risky trying to abduct someone here. There's a security gate running round the property, with only one entrance from the front, and it's pedestrian access only. No room to get a car through it. So the kidnappers would have had to take her out on to the street, and I think that would have been too risky in broad daylight. That's my take on it, anyway.'

  Bolt sighed. The kidnappers had managed to track Emma's movements on Tuesday, and find out about Jimmy Galante's involvement in the ransom drop, but for the moment, how they'd done so remained a mystery.

  He thanked Turner and rang off, then went to tell Andrea that he would drive her home. She'd been kept in the only office in the building with a sofa all morning and, according to the female liaison officer assigned to her, had spent most of the time asleep on it. She was awake when he went in there, though, and seemed pleased by the news that she was going back to her house, even if it was without her daughter.

  It felt strange for Bolt being so close to Andrea again, and their conversation for much of the journey was stilted. He wanted to bring up the past, to talk about the old days, but Marie Cohen, the very short, very earnest liaison officer, was in the back seat of his car, which made any such conversation impossible. Eventually Andrea fell asleep again, leaning against the passenger side window. Occasionally Bolt glanced across at her, trying to look natural in front of Marie Cohen. Andrea was still a very attractive woman, but the lively spark in her eyes that had drawn him in all those years ago had long since gone.

  Poor, rich Andrea. She'd never really had much luck with men, and Bolt wondered whether in Phelan she'd made the worst choice of all.

  She woke up when they were stuck in traffic on Hampstead high street.

  'How long have I been out for?' she asked, rubbing her eyes.

  Bolt checked the clock on the dashboard: 12.49. 'A while. The traffic's been murder.' In his rearview mirror, he saw that Marie had also gone to sleep in the back. Clearly his effect on women wasn't quite as electric as he would have liked.

  Andrea yawned. 'Do you mind if I smoke?'

  He smiled. 'Well, technically it's illegal as this is a work car, but I guess under the circumstances we can make an exception. I'd ask Marie, but she looks flat out.'

  Andrea looked round, checked that she was, and opened her window halfway before lighting up.

  'Thank God for that,' she whispered, looking at Bolt. 'She means well, but I wish she'd just leave me alone.'

  'She's just trying to help.'

  'Yeah, but sometimes you can try too hard.'

  Bolt watched as she put the cigarette to her lips. Her hands were trembling and the drags she took were short and urgent. The tension was coming off her in waves.

  'You know, Andrea,' he said, turning off the high street, 'we've checked out your house, and the area round it, and we can't work out how the kidnapper could have known Emma's movements so thoroughly.'

  'So you still think it might be an inside job?'

  'It's a strong possibility.'

  Andrea sighed, taking another drag on the cigarette. 'I just can't see it being Pat, that's all. He's got faults – big ones, like the fact that he's a waster – and if I'd known about them when I first met him I'd never have married him, but he wouldn't have done something like this to Emma. He's not cold enough. And I've met some cold people in my time.'

  Bolt thought of Jimmy Galante. She was right on that score.

  They were almost there now, and Bolt used a dual-band radio to call the surveillance team. He needed confirmation that the area round Andrea's house was still secure. When this had been given by the team leader, he slowed the car down and turned into Andrea's road.

  It was a leafy avenue of grand semi-detached houses, lined with mature oak trees planted fifteen yards apart, with expensive-looking sports cars and 4_4s parked on both sides. Instinctively, Bolt checked for occupants, but they were all empty, although he spotted a white van with blacked-out windows and the name of a plumbing firm down the side, which he recognized as a SOCA surveillance vehicle. A pretty young woman with oversized sunglasses who was busy putting a toddler in the car seat of a brand-new Range Rover seemed to be the only person around.

  Andrea's place, one half of an impressive-looking three-storey Edwardian redbrick building, was about halfway down on the right hand side. It was fronted by a brick wall approximately head height, mounted with freshly painted black railings, which enclosed the entire property but wouldn't have put off a determined intruder. Bolt found a parking spot about thirty yards further down between a Mercedes and a BMW people carrier. In the back, Marie woke up with a start.

  As Bolt got out of the car he saw a shadow move across one of the upstairs windows of the house opposite. It had been turned into an observation post by the surveillance team, giving them a perfect view of the portion of the street to the front of Andrea's house.

  Bolt let Andrea lead the way, with Marie bringing up the rear. He thought about how much Andrea had moved on since the old days when he'd first known her. It was all down to her own efforts as well. He admired her for that, but then she'd never been short of spirit and drive. It was spirit she was going to need now.

  'We've got something called a trace/intercept set up on your landline,' he told her as she pressed the buzzer on the security gate and waited for Turner to let them in. 'It means that if they make a call to your home, we'll be able to pinpoint the location of the caller very quickly.'

  'I don't want you to do anything that risks hurting Emma, Mike.'

  'We won't,' said Bolt, but it was a lie, and he knew it. Whatever they did, they risked hurting Emma.

  Matt Turner buzzed them in, and as they stepped inside the gate Bolt was immediately struck by t
he strong scent of flowers. The garden was a riot of colour, well kept with neat flowerbeds bordering the house's exterior wall. It was also very well stocked, with thick walls of greenery rising all round the terraced lawn. His wife Mikaela would have loved this place. She'd always wanted to live in a big, rambling house with a couple of kids and a couple of dogs and plenty of space, somewhere that with his copper's salary and hers as a primary school teacher they were never going to be able to afford.

  Turner met them both at the door, greeting Andrea with a formal 'Mrs Devern' and moving out of the way to let her pass.

  The front door led into a rather grand tiled hallway with a flight of stairs disappearing up to the next floor. The decor was all very neutral, with off-white colours dominating, which in Bolt's opinion gave it a rather soulless feel – not that he was any kind of expert in interior design. Straight ahead of him, above a vase containing partially wilted orchids, was a large professional portrait photograph of Andrea and Emma. It was a good shot of both mother and daughter, who were smiling widely at the camera, their faces side by side and touching, and the twinkle was firmly in Andrea's eye. Emma was a pretty kid with dark blonde hair down to her shoulders and a cute button nose. She looked young in the picture, probably no more than ten.

  Bolt looked away quickly, not wanting to draw attention to the photo. Marie asked whether anyone would like a cup of tea.

  Bolt smiled at her. 'I'll take coffee, thanks, if it's going.'

  Turner said he'd have the same.

  Andrea didn't appear to have heard her. She was staring at the picture.

  'What do you think of her, Mike? Isn't she beautiful?'

  'Yes,' he said, keen to keep Andrea's spirits up. 'She's beautiful. And we're going to bring her back.'

  'You've got to.'

  The hallway fell silent and Marie and Turner went into the kitchen, leaving Bolt and Andrea alone. She ran a hand through her hair, turning away from the photo.

  'I don't know what to do, Mike. It's the waiting.

  It's killing me.'

  'Why don't you lie down for a bit?' He felt uneasy standing so close to her. 'We'll let you know of any developments.'

  She nodded, and started up the staircase.

  Bolt watched her go, then went to get his coffee.

  The kitchen was large and modern with a breakfast island in the middle, and gleaming pots and pans hanging from hooks all around. Again, he thought about how much Mikaela would have loved a place like this. She'd been a great cook, but had had to do all her cooking in a place about a quarter of this size.

  Marie and Turner were at the far end of the room, talking while she poured boiling water into the cups. Turner was approaching thirty and still resolutely single, a situation he seemed increasingly desperate to remedy. He tended to get first dates – he was a proud member of at least a dozen internet agencies, so was always getting introductions – but second ones proved a lot more elusive, which Bolt thought was a pity. Prematurely balding with a long hangdog face designed for frowning, and an obsession with the technical, the guy was definitely the kind of acquired taste a lot of people never get round to acquiring, but Bolt liked him. Turner might have had a geeky exterior, but he also had a bone-dry sense of humour, he never moaned, and there was a certain vulnerability about him that Bolt found endearing. Lately, he'd been smiling a lot more, as if he'd been taking charm lessons.

  When Bolt walked in, Marie was laughing at something Turner had said, and he almost felt as if he was interrupting something. They both stopped speaking and turned his way, and Marie looked a bit sheepish.

  'Andrea's gone to lie down,' he told them with a smile to show he hadn't seen or heard anything untoward.

  He took the coffee cup from Marie and added a couple of sugars to it. There was another photo of Emma attached to the cupboard above the kettle, this time just a snapshot. In it she was flanked by her mother on one side and a lean, good-looking guy with unkempt brown hair on the other. They looked like a typical family. It made Bolt feel slightly jealous, although he wasn't a hundred per cent sure why.

  'Do you think the husband's involved, sir?' asked Turner, seeing Bolt looking at the photo.

  'Part of me says definitely,' he answered quietly, aware that he had to be careful what he said in front of Marie, who wasn't officially part of this inquiry, 'because it would explain how the kidnappers knew Emma's movements. But the other part says that if he is, why on earth did he then disappear? Surely he'd have known it would only arouse suspicion. It'd be far better to let the kidnappers know when and where to make the snatch, then act completely innocent. Even if we suspected him, there'd be nothing we could do about it.'

  'That's what I was thinking,' said Turner. 'It's all wrong somehow, isn't it?'

  Bolt was about to tell him not to speculate too much out loud when he heard a rapid set of footfalls on the stairs, and Andrea came rushing into the room dressed in a full-length dressing gown, her mobile phone in her right hand.

  'They've called.'

  'When? Just now?'

  'Yes. On the mobile.'

  'What did they say?'

  'He asked if I was getting the money together for tomorrow night. I said I was, and he told me to turn my computer on and check my emails.'

  She took a deep breath, and Bolt could tell she was using all her strength to hold things together.

  'They said they've sent me a warning.'

  Fifteen

  While Andrea fetched her laptop and turned it on, Matt Turner called in to HQ and asked them to run an urgent trace on the last number to call Andrea's mobile. 'They'll get back to us in five,' he said as he and Bolt followed Andrea through the hallway and into a large, spacious study at the back of the house.

  Andrea set the laptop down on a desk at the far end of the room which faced out on to the back lawn, and sat down to wait while it booted up. Bolt and Turner stood behind her while Marie Cohen remained further back, in the doorway. The desk itself was expensive mahogany and scrupulously tidy. There were two framed photos on it: one of Emma as a toddler, dressed in a pink swimming costume and playing with a hosepipe, laughing at the camera; another more recent one of mother and daughter smiling.

  'What do you think they mean by sending me a warning?' asked Andrea, turning round in her seat and looking up at Bolt.

  'Let's just see,' he said calmly.

  'That's easy for you to say, isn't it?' she snapped, turning back and double-clicking on her internet icon.

  Bolt didn't answer. The problem was that he wasn't very good around victims of crime. He never had been. He much preferred the process of detective work, of breaking up criminal enterprises. Of identifying targets and hitting them. He might have suffered his own private tragedy but the fact remained that he wasn't trained for this, and being intimately acquainted with this particular victim wasn't helping either. He looked over at Marie Cohen, wondering if she was going to intervene with soothing words, but she remained silent, motioning him just to leave it.

  Andrea's homepage appeared on the screen and she clicked on her emails. There were a dozen or so unread messages but it was the one at the top, sent from a numbered hotmail account, which was the one they wanted. The word WARNING was written in block capitals in the subject column, and there was an mpeg attachment.

  Without speaking, Andrea opened it. The message said simply WATCH THE FILM.

  'Oh God,' she whispered.

  Bolt tensed. 'Maybe it's best if we watch it first, Andrea,' he told her, putting a reassuring hand on her shoulder. He didn't add 'just in case', but he knew he might as well have done.

  She took another deep breath. 'No. She's my daughter. I've got to watch it.'

  'It might not be a good idea, Andrea,' said Marie, moving into the study.

  'I am going to watch it. End of story.' Her words were loud and decisive, cutting across the room.

  She clicked on the mpeg file and waited the twenty seconds while it downloaded. The room was silent, with just the peac
eful sound of birdsong coming from outside. With trembling fingers, Andrea pressed play.

  Immediately the screen was filled with the top half of a person sitting against a wall in a darkened room lit by a bulb somewhere off camera. The quality of the recording was very good, and Bolt knew that he was looking at Emma even though she had a black hood over her head. The arms beneath the black T-shirt she was wearing were pale and skinny – kid's arms.

  Andrea let out an audible gasp.

  For two or three seconds Emma sat there, absolutely still, then very slowly she lifted a copy of The Times until it was in full view. The main headline was about the run on the Northern Rock bank. The camera panned forward until it was fixed on the date in the top right-hand corner. It was today's.

  'See, Andrea, she's alive,' said Bolt, trying to sound positive. 'And it's in their interests to keep her that way.'

  Andrea didn't reply, but her shoulders were shaking, and he realized she was crying silently as she stared at the screen.

  The camera panned back so that Emma's upper body filled the screen again, and then the camera suddenly jerked as the cameraman reached forward with a gloved hand and roughly removed the hood, revealing the pretty teenage girl with the dark blonde hair and blue eyes whose photo was all over Andrea's house.

  Her face was terrified and wet with tears as she stared uncertainly at the cameraman. He appeared to give her some sort of off-camera prompt because she started to speak slowly and carefully, her voice shaking with fear. 'Mum, they say that if you get the money, they'll let me go tomorrow night.' There was a pause again while she appeared to get a second prompt. 'But Mum . . . they said that if you don't pay, or you call the police . . . they said they'd hurt me really bad.' As she spoke these last words, the tears began streaming down her face again.

  Then she gave a short, tight gasp. She was staring at something they couldn't see, her eyes widening.

  'Oh God, Emma,' whispered Andrea, her own voice cracking under the strain. 'My darling.'