This information didn’t make my situation any clearer. ‘So, what were you told about me? How come I suddenly became a target?’
‘I’ve been on the periphery of Lench’s outfit for about six months now, doing fairly minor things. A few threats to debtors, or people who haven’t been playing ball, but not really on the inside. There’s only a handful of people – three or four – who are on the inside. Mantani’s one of them, and I’ve been working mainly for him. Lately, they’ve been letting me in further – I’ve met Lench a couple of times, and he seems to approve of me – but I’m still considered a bit of an outsider. At least I was until this morning. Then Mantani and me get called in to see Lench and it’s obvious something’s up. He says we’ve got an emergency on, and that we’re to stand by and wait by the phone for orders. On no account are either of us to be non-contactable, even to take a piss. He keeps Mantani back to tell him a few other things he doesn’t want to tell me, but later on Mantani lets slip that the orders are coming from Lench’s boss and that it’s him who’s in trouble. He needs to find something. I have no idea what it is, and neither does Mantani, but we both know that it’s been hidden by someone, and that it absolutely has to be found, whatever the cost.’
‘And that’s what they’re after me for? They think I’ve got it?’
‘We got our orders at six o’clock. We had to track you down and get you over to a secure place where Lench could find out what you knew. So, yeah, to answer your question, Lench and his boss seem to think you’ve got it. I guess Mantani wanted to get the information out of you before Lench turned up. That way he’d earn himself some plaudits.’
I thought about the way Mantani had questioned me, never once identifying what it was he was looking for, and decided that Daniels’ story was plausible. But this left me with a very grim conclusion. I didn’t know where it was, but could it possibly be that Kathy did?
‘Our instructions were very specific,’ Daniels continued. ‘You were named as the man we wanted. Tom Meron. You live at number two St Mary’s Close, don’t you?’
I nodded slowly. ‘That’s my address.’ I thought about the man I’d seen inside my house and the 3.01 phone call I’d received from my old friend Jack Calley. I asked him what he knew about Jack’s death.
‘Nothing,’ he answered, with a shrug of his shoulders. ‘I’ve never heard of the guy.’
I sighed wearily. ‘So, Lench is going to keep coming after me until he finds me?’
‘You and your wife.’
‘You don’t think he’s got her, do you?’
‘I doubt it; we’d have heard. But I’m telling you this, Tom. He’s looking now, so it’s essential we find her.’
‘Then what?’
‘Then we put you under police protection.’
‘The police still want to talk to me about a murder at the university this afternoon. A woman called Vanessa Blake was stabbed to death. She worked with my wife. You don’t know anything about that, do you?’
‘I know what I’ve told you. Nothing else. You had nothing to do with it, did you?’
‘Of course not. I told you, I’m a fucking software salesman.’
‘Then you’ve got nothing to worry about.’
‘The police let me go, but I think they must have made a mistake, because as I left the station they chased after me. That was a few minutes before I ran into you.’
‘Where’s your wife, Tom?’
I felt a cold chill going up my spine. Something was wrong. ‘If you weren’t aware that the police had arrested me, how did you know where I was going to be this evening?’
He didn’t miss a beat with his reply. ‘Mantani took a call about half seven. They’d tracked you down to the police station. We were told to wait nearby. Then he got another call saying you were going to be released.’
‘Oh Jesus, so they’ve got someone inside?’
‘North London is our main target’s stomping ground. His roots are here, and he’s been doing business on these streets for close to twenty-five years. In that time he’s built up a network of very good contacts, including elements within the police. Put bluntly, you’re not safe in this part of town. We need to get you and Kathy to a secure venue, then my people can look after you properly.’
‘And who exactly are your people?’
‘The NCS,’ he answered. ‘National Crime Squad. Specifically, a specialist undercover team called the Guardians. You won’t find us listed anywhere on the website. Our work’s a complete secret.’
‘Very James Bond. And is that meant to make me trust you? The fact that you work for a team that no-one even knows exists?’
He fixed me with the kind of leaden glare that demanded attention. ‘You want me to let you go, Tom? Pull up here and say my goodbyes? Is that what you want? Fine, I’ll do it, but let me reiterate, since you’re obviously not a very good listener: a man like you isn’t going to last five minutes against the people coming after your blood.’
As he spoke, he pulled up at the side of the road. It was still raining, if anything harder now, and we were on another residential road, this time dominated by modern low-rise blocks of flats that had all the aesthetic beauty of Lego houses and looked like they’d been constructed from the same material. The street was deserted.
‘What I want,’ I said firmly, ‘is to have some proof that you are who you say you are.’
He surprised me then by smiling. ‘I thought you might insist on that,’ he said, switching off the engine and stepping out of the car. ‘I’m going to be a couple of minutes,’ he added, ‘then I’ll be back. You want to get out and run, now’s your chance. The nearest tube’s left at the end of the road and first right after the lights. But remember, you’ll be on your own.’
He disappeared through the entrance of the nearest block, using a key to let himself in, and leaving me on my own in the darkness, listening to the rhythmic patter of the rain and knowing full well that he was right. Alone, I didn’t have a chance. The people I was up against had, it seemed, killed many times before without suffering a single conviction, or even receiving the attention of the media. It was hard to believe, but then so had a lot of things been today, and that hadn’t made them any less true. The people hunting me operated with impunity and had resources at their disposal that included hired killers and police insiders. As Daniels had pointed out, I was also severely short of friends, which was the main reason I made no attempt to open the car door and walk away. The other reason was that in the end I had nowhere to walk to, which was in some ways a more disconcerting feeling than the fact that I was being hunted.
It suddenly struck me that since being released from police custody close to an hour ago I’d made no attempt to call Kathy. I doubted if it would do any good, but I tried her again anyway. The call went straight to message, and I ended it with a frustrated stab of the thumb. I thought about phoning my mother-in-law and checking on the kids, but decided against it. There was no point alarming her, and I was fairly sure that they’d be safe in her care. No-one knew they were there, and it would be difficult to find them given that Irene didn’t share the same last name as me.
When I looked up, I saw Daniels walking purposefully towards the car, speaking into a mobile. He was looking straight at me as he approached, something triumphant in his wiry features, and I wondered whether I was making the right decision, pinning my colours to his mast.
He got back in the car, flicked on the interior light and dangled a warrant card in front of my face. The photo was him all right, staring almost cockily into the camera, head tilted a little to one side, and the identification indeed stated that he was National Crime Squad. His forefinger covered the name underneath and I guessed this was deliberate. I didn’t ask him to move it but inspected the card carefully, concluding eventually that it was either genuine or a stunningly good forgery.
‘Satisfied?’ he said, putting it in the inside pocket of his leather jacket and reaching over to the cigarettes.
&nb
sp; ‘It looks real enough.’
‘That’s because it is.’
‘Who were you talking to just now?’
‘My boss. I was leaving him a message. Now, tell me, where do you think your wife could be?’
The moment of truth. For thirty-five years the path of my life had run comparatively smoothly before its sudden and violent derailment today. Its future direction would be dictated by what I did now.
‘There’s only one place where she might be,’ I said, at last. ‘If she knows she’s in trouble, and I think she does, she’ll be there.’
22
Bolt and Mo spent another twenty minutes with Tina. They didn’t tell her about the identical nature of the suicide notes, though it was clear she’d guessed the significance. In fact they didn’t tell her a lot, citing confidentiality reasons when she asked. Instead they listened as she went over everything she’d told them. There was nothing new. She hadn’t found anything that backed up Gallan’s claims when she’d gone through all his possessions.
‘The only thing was,’ she told them, ‘I couldn’t find his personal laptop anywhere. I checked with Karen, his ex-wife, and Rachel, but they hadn’t taken it.’
Bolt asked her if she thought it could have been stolen, and her answer was that it would have been typical of John to have stored all the information on the laptop and destroyed the hard copy, so yes, if someone had killed him, then it had definitely been stolen. ‘Which means whoever did it took all the evidence away.’
But there were still problems with Tina’s story. Whatever John Gallan might have thought, it still seemed that he hadn’t been in possession of any meaningful evidence against Lord Parnham-Jones, so why kill him and risk opening up a real can of worms? Unless he’d had something else, something that actually was incriminating.
‘Didn’t the police get interested in what John was investigating after his supposed suicide?’ Bolt asked Tina.
‘I was interviewed by the officers investigating his death, the local CID, and I told them everything I knew, but to be honest I think they thought I was mad, coming up with all these conspiracy theories. It was the way they looked at me. Like I really was the black widow everyone was calling me behind my back. I also tried to get hold of the people at Scotland Yard John was dealing with, but I didn’t know their names and everyone I spoke to claimed ignorance. Then my calls stopped being returned. I was becoming an embarrassment.’
She lit a third cigarette, her expression betraying her sense of isolation.
‘It was all a long way from the cover of the Police Review. Anyway, I became disillusioned with everything, and that’s why I left the force. Last month, when the inquest came in as suicide, that was just the icing on the cake. They didn’t even call me to give evidence. Just an open-and-shut case. A tragedy for all concerned.’
These last words were delivered in a tone of mocking sarcasm, and Bolt realized how badly beaten down Tina Boyd had been by the events that had befallen her these past few months. He felt genuinely sorry for her because he too knew what it felt like to have the world you’d built up suddenly collapse. It was like having every ounce of will and enthusiasm sucked out of you in one fell swoop. Your whole desire to live, to get up in the morning and follow your daily routine, disappeared, and you had to fight like you’d never fought before to bring things back on track, because the alternative . . . Well, the alternative didn’t bear thinking about.
Mo, perhaps sensing that Bolt wanted to speak personally to Tina, excused himself to go to the toilet. When he’d gone, Bolt leaned forward.
‘I appreciate you telling us what you’ve been through,’ he said, putting his hand on hers in a more intimate gesture than he’d planned. ‘I know what it’s like to lose someone.’
Tina looked down at their hands, and then back at him. He suddenly felt self-conscious and a little foolish, and pulled away.
‘I remember reading about what happened to you,’ she said. ‘You’ve done well to get everything back together.’ She picked up her wine and drained the rest of the glass.
‘I know you must be pissed off with the way the police treated you, and I can understand that.’
‘It wasn’t just that. It was everything. Simon Barron dying; being held hostage at gunpoint last year . . . It got to the point where it was no longer worth it.’
‘What are you doing now?’
She smiled without humour. ‘Not a lot. Spending what money I’ve got left and deciding what I want to do with the rest of my life.’
‘When it all happened to me, I thought long and hard about leaving. Almost did it too. I was going to go travelling round the world, see if all those palm-fringed beaches and gorgeous sights could help me forget things, but in the end I stayed put. Because I always knew that some day I was going to have to come back, and then I’d still have to face the past all over again.’ He saw Mo returning from the toilet. ‘I heard you were a very good cop, Tina,’ he said, turning back to her. ‘Whatever you may think now, the force needs people like you.’
‘I think they said the same thing to Simon Barron to coax him back from retirement. It didn’t do him a lot of good.’
Bolt wasn’t offended by the cold directness of her words. He’d expected it. But he did genuinely believe what he was saying.
He stood up as Mo arrived back at the table, and put out a hand. ‘We’re going to need to make a move, Tina. Thanks for providing us with this information. I think it’s going to prove very useful.’
She stood up and shook, her grip dry and firm. She was a woman who might be down, but he could see now that she was definitely not out.
‘You know neither of them committed suicide, don’t you?’ she said.
‘I believe it’s very doubtful,’ Bolt replied carefully.
She looked him right in the eye then, her expression surprisingly strong. ‘Then find out who killed John. Please. He deserves that.’
‘We’ll do everything we can,’ he told her, and turned away.
23
When they were outside and passing the window, they saw Tina going back to the bar to order another drink, the middle-aged men on the barstools moving slightly to let her in, giving her appraising glances through the fug of smoke that she either chose to ignore or simply didn’t see. Bolt found himself wishing she’d go home and try to rethink her life without the benefit of alcohol. She didn’t belong in a place like that.
‘That was some pretty explosive stuff she came up with in there, boss,’ said Mo as they made their way back to the car through the quiet, wet streets. ‘Do you think all this is connected to that dossier?’
‘I think that unless Parnham-Jones had amazing psychic powers, then he was murdered. And if he was murdered, then so was John Gallan. There’s no other explanation for the fact that those suicide notes were exactly the same.’
‘Well, they weren’t exactly the same, were they? Our man never signed his.’
‘It’s still too much of a coincidence.’
Mo shook his head wearily. ‘You can’t believe that someone like the Lord Chief Justice would be involved in that sort of shit. It kind of wrecks your faith in the system.’ He tried to light a cigarette but the rain was coming down too hard, and he replaced the pack in his pocket. ‘And what about the lawyer, Jack Calley? Or our man, Meron? What part do they play in all this?’
‘You know, Mo, I honestly have no idea,’ said Bolt, hunching his shoulders against the rain. He thought of Tina and her grief. ‘But one way or another, I’m going to find out.’
By now they were back at the car. They got inside quickly and, as Mo turned on the engine, Bolt switched his mobile back on, having turned it off for the meeting with Tina. He called DC Matt Turner, the member of his team who’d taken Parnham-Jones’s home computer away for analysis. Turner wasn’t answering so Bolt left him a message to check all the files on the Parnham-Jones PC, see if there were any encrypted or otherwise interesting files, and to call back as soon as possible.
‘Where to now, boss?’
Home seemed tempting. It would have been useful to take some time out to mull over everything that had happened today and to look for connections and further avenues of inquiry. The case was definitely one for mulling over, preferably with a cold beer and a Thai takeaway in the dry comfort of home, but he wasn’t quite finished today yet.
He told Mo they had one more call to make.
24
The cottage in the New Forest was one of those purchases you make on a whim, without thinking through the consequences. I’m normally quite good with money, but like Kathy I got caught up in the dream, and it really did seem like a good idea at the time.
We’d been having dinner with a couple we knew from the estate, and there’d been a second couple there, people we hadn’t previously met. Warren and Midge. Stupid names when you think about it, but nice people. After a lot of wine, and plenty of talk about that most boring and suburban of topics, work, Midge, who had copious amounts of curly auburn hair, lots of hippy-style jewellery and an unavoidably huge bust, and who didn’t look at all like the City accountant she was meant to be, announced that she and Warren were buying a share in a holiday home. Not just any holiday home either, but a delightful 150-year-old crofter’s cottage set in acres of protected forest that was barely a two-hour drive from London, and fewer than ten miles from the unspoiled Dorset coast. ‘It’s a piece of paradise,’ Warren had exclaimed, as if quoting from an estate agent’s blurb (which he probably was), ‘a bolthole from all the hassles of the modern world. Our kids are going to love it.’
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