Deadline (11 page)

One of Mike Bolt's problems in his younger days
was an inability to say no. He should never have
carried on the affair with Andrea Devern after that
first night of passion in the Bloomsbury hotel. She
was a married woman, with a wealthy husband
who looked after her, and he was an impetuous
twenty-four-year-old cop, so it was always going
to end in tears. But Bolt had somehow convinced
himself that this didn't really matter. He was just
going to see how things went and not get too
involved.

But he had got involved, and in the eight weeks
the affair had lasted he'd found himself driven
ever deeper into Andrea's web. In the beginning
he'd been in control, but that control had evaporated
rapidly as he'd become more and more
obsessed with her. He was driven to distraction by
the difficulties in getting hold of her, and in
meeting up for their illicit liaisons. In those eight
weeks they slept together on only six occasions,
and then suddenly it was all over. Just like that.
Not with a whimper either, but with a bang he'd
never forget.

But could he really have fathered her child? The
thought nagged at him ferociously as he drove
back to HQ. But the dates fit. Andrea had
convinced him of that back at the house. 'Our
daughter's birthday's the second of April,' she'd
said. 'We were seeing each other in June and July.'

Our daughter. His daughter. She could be
wrong, of course. As he'd found out afterwards,
she was also seeing Jimmy Galante at the time.
And she was married too, although she'd always
claimed that her husband, Billy Devern, was
impotent, which was why he'd allowed her to
take lovers. Whether that was true or not was still
largely immaterial, because the dates fitted. Check
them, Andrea had said, and he had, going back in
his head to those giddy days, and the truth
shouted at him so loudly he could barely hear
anything else. It was possible Emma Devern
wasn't his child, but there was a damn good
chance that she was.

On the seat next to him were photographs of
Emma and Pat Phelan which he was taking back
to the incident room. Phelan's was face up, but
Emma's was face down. He couldn't bear to look
at her. Couldn't bear to think that she might be his
flesh and blood, and the first he'd known about it
was when he'd been put in charge of investigating
her kidnapping.

He thought of Mikaela, the woman he'd met a
couple of years after Andrea, who'd gone on to be
his wife. Mikaela had always wanted children. A
boy and a girl, she'd always said. Children, and
the big, rambling house with a nice garden. It was
Bolt who'd always held back. He'd feared the
immense commitment required; with the long
hours he worked, he didn't think he could
provide the necessary support. But eventually,
after seven years together, he'd reluctantly agreed
to Mikaela's increasingly persistent requests that
they should start trying for a baby.

She was two months pregnant when the car he
was driving left the road and smashed into an oak
tree, crunching it into a shape that made it unrecognizable.

He'd spent six weeks in hospital and
now carried three small scars on his face as a
permanent reminder of that night. Mikaela's life
support system was turned off three days later,
without her ever regaining consciousness. Bolt
had been too ill to leave his bed to say goodbye.
He hadn't even been told of the decision, made by
her parents, until almost two days later because it
was thought the news would be so traumatic it
would worsen his condition.

And all that time – all the time he'd ever been
with Mikaela, and through those long hard years
since – he might already have had a child. A child
growing up whom he'd never seen, and knew
absolutely nothing about.

His fingers tightened on the steering wheel and
he clenched his jaw, feeling a sudden burst of
furious resentment towards Andrea. If he was the
father, why had she said nothing to him all these
years? And if he wasn't, how could she manipulate
him like this?

He pulled over to the side of the road before the
fury got the better of him, and took some long,
deep breaths, trying to calm himself down. But it
was hard. Incredibly hard. That morning he'd
been a reasonably happy man with a new girlfriend,
coasting towards his fortieth birthday –
now only a few months away – having got used to
the idea that he was probably never going to have
children. And now he'd been told not only that he
might have one, but that her life was in terrible
danger, and he was the one responsible for getting
her back safely.

He sat there for a full minute, his heart
thumping so loudly it felt like the only thing he
could hear. Then he picked up the photo of Emma
– blonde, smiling, fourteen years old, in her school
uniform – and stared at it, searching for resemblances.
Was she his? There were similarities,
there were differences. He thought of the man –
the men – holding her. The men who might not
want to return her alive. The men they were now
going to try to set up. For the first time, he truly
imagined what could happen if their plan went
wrong, and his stomach lurched violently. The girl
who could be his only child would die.

He put down Emma's photo, but he kept it face
up so that he could see the girl he had to rescue. It
was time to take responsibility and think straight.
Technically, the position hadn't changed; it was
just that the stakes had now become infinitely
higher.

He took a final deep breath, flicked on the indicator,
and pulled out into the traffic.

It was half past two on Friday afternoon when
SG4 Tina Boyd stopped outside the Lively Lounge
Club and Casino, a turd-coloured slab of a
building straight out of the 1960s school of bland
architecture, which sat at the Colindale end of the
Edgware Road, about three miles and a thousand
years as the crow flies from the leafy Hampstead
suburb where Pat Phelan now lived. Looking at it
made her feel mildly pleased that gambling
wasn't one of her vices. It wasn't that she wasn't
interested. She just didn't dare place a bet, even on
something like the Grand National, because she
knew if she got a bit of beginner's luck and started
winning, she'd probably never stop. Tina had an
addictive personality. It was part of her genetic
make-up. All through her early and mid-teens
she'd resisted the peer pressure to start smoking,
then at seventeen she'd tried her first cigarette at
a party and she'd been putting away twenty a day
ever since, with every attempt to stop ending in
rapid failure.

She wondered if Phelan was the same. Because
he definitely had a gambling problem, and the
Lively Lounge Club and Casino was where he
sank the lion's share of the money he spent on his
betting. And he spent a lot. Tina's team had got
hold of copies of the previous year's statements
for the five credit cards and one debit card held in
his name, and during that period his outgoings
amounted to a grand total of £87,288.36 – and this
from a man with no actual income that they could
find, other than a £1,500-a-month standing order
paid into his personal bank account from
Andrea's own account, which was held at a separate
bank. There'd been a number of further
payments into his account over the course of the
year, more than twenty-five grand's worth in all,
but they were sporadic which meant they almost
certainly represented winnings. Even with his
wife's £160,000-a-year salary it was an unsustainable
amount, and already Phelan's credit limit
was maxed out on every one of the credit cards,
while he was currently overdrawn at the bank by
more than six thousand.

It wasn't that someone getting himself into this
situation was all that uncommon. As Big Barry
had pointed out earlier that morning, people got
themselves into serious debt the whole time. What
was interesting about Pat Phelan's finances from a
SOCA point of view was that his spending had
tailed off dramatically in the last two months, by
more than 90 per cent, and in the same period
there'd been no deposits of winnings in his bank
account. Either he'd turned over a new leaf or, in
Tina's opinion far more likely, he was funding his
habit from a different source. Since the financial
statements all pointed to the Lively Lounge as the
venue of choice for his gambling, Tina had
decided that it was as good a place as any to start
digging into Phelan's background. She could have
left it to one of the more junior members of the
team but, like a lot of detectives, she liked to get
out and about; and if she was entirely honest with
herself, she wasn't much of a delegator, preferring
to rely on her own ability to get things done.

The needs of the compulsive gambler tend to be
of the twenty-four-hour variety, and the club was
open. Tina went through the tinted double doors
and into the darkened lobby. A blonde girl was at
the reception desk talking to an older woman with
hair extensions and far too much make-up. The
girl smiled politely as Tina approached, wishing
her a good afternoon in a Polish accent. Her
colleague, meanwhile, said nothing but gave her a
more suspicious look, clocking immediately that
she was police, even though Tina wasn't wearing
a uniform and always made a conscious effort
never to give off that aura. Some people simply
have a nose for spotting coppers, and they're
usually the ones who have the most to fear from
them.

Tina smiled at the girl. 'Good afternoon, my
name's Tina Boyd from the Serious and Organized
Crime Agency.' She held up her warrant card. 'I'd
like to speak to the owner, please.'

'I'll deal with this, Barbara,' said the older
woman in a deep voice that was midway between
a bear and Demi Moore. 'The owners aren't here.

They're not based in this country.' Her expression
seemed to add, so what the hell are you going to
do about that? 'Is there anything I can help with?'

'That depends. Are you the most senior person
in the building at the moment?'

There was a moment's hesitation that told Tina
the answer was no.

'Well, Mr McMahon's here, but—'

'And what's his position?'

'He's the manager, but I think he's—'

'Well, I'll see him then, thank you.'

'He's busy, Miss whatever-your-name-was,' the
woman growled.

Tina wasn't deterred. 'That makes two of us.
Can you take me to him, please?'

'I'll call up and see if he's available.'

She picked up a phone behind the desk,
scowling at Tina, who stared back at her impassively,
amazed why some people always had to
put up a token resistance to the police before they
acquiesced, even though the end result was
inevitable.

The woman hung up. 'OK, he can see you now.'

Tina followed her through the main gambling
area, a big, windowless place with all the charm of
an aircraft hangar. Only a handful of the gaming
tables were in use, the clientele mainly quiet
Chinese men wearing inscrutable expressions as
they placed their bets. None of them looked up as
Tina and her guide passed by in silence.

Mr McMahon's office was at the far end of the
building, up a flight of stairs and along a short
corridor. The woman knocked on his door and
moved out of the way for Tina to go in, giving her
a last glare of defiance as she did so.

'The Serious and Organized Crime Agency,'
said the man standing behind the desk as Tina
shut the door behind her. 'I've not had any dealings
with them. Malcolm McMahon,' he said,
putting out a hand. 'Pleased to meet you, Miss . . .'

'Boyd. Tina Boyd.'

They shook hands, and Tina took the seat on
her side of the desk.

Malcolm McMahon was a big man who looked
like he enjoyed a drink. He was good-looking in a
brutish sort of way, with slicked-back grey hair
fashioned into a widow's peak as sharp as an
arrowhead, and a straight one-inch scar edging
away from his top lip. He was dressed in a badly
ironed shirt and unfashionable striped tie, while
his casino clothes – black suit and dress shirt –
were hanging up on one wall, next to a bank of
eight small screens that showed the gaming area
from various angles.

'I hear you SOCA people aren't even police any
more,' he said with a smile. 'You're special agents
or something. So, what do I call you?'

'Miss Boyd'll do fine.'

He nodded slowly, accepting this. 'Well, Miss
Boyd, we run a tight ship here, and we don't
tolerate anything illegal, so I don't know how we
came to the attention of SOCA. Do you mind if I
check your ID again? Just to make sure you are
who you say you are. It's amazing how many
charlatans there are these days.'

'Sure.'

Tina produced the warrant card from the back
pocket of her jeans and handed it to him, noticing
the nicotine stains on his thick, stubby fingers as
he took it. He examined it carefully before
thanking her and handing it back.

'It's about one of your customers.'

'I don't like talking about our customers, Miss
Boyd. They value their privacy, and so do we.'

'This is a very serious case, Mr McMahon. If
you want me to get official and bring officers
down here to interview all your staff, I can. But
I'm also prepared to talk off the record, and I can
guarantee that anything you tell me will be
treated in the strictest confidence.'

'So, you want me to grass up one of my paying
punters?' he asked evenly.

Now it was her turn to smile. 'No, I want you to
help him. His name's Patrick Phelan, and I know
he spends a lot of money in your establishment,
and has done so for a long time.' McMahon didn't
say anything, so she continued. 'Mr Phelan's gone
missing, and we're extremely concerned about his
welfare.'

'I don't see how I can help.'

'But you know him?'

McMahon sighed and sat back in his seat. 'Yeah,
I know him. He's been coming here for a while.
Nice bloke, friendly enough. Not the sort to piss
people off.'

'When was the last time you saw him?'

He drummed his fingers on the desk. 'Last
week some time. I can't remember for sure, but I
definitely haven't seen him this week, and I don't
think he's been in. I could check for you.'

'No, it's fine. Who does he usually come in
with?'

'Various people. The occasional girl, sometimes
with a couple of mates. Sometimes alone.' He
shrugged. 'I didn't really know any of them.'

Tina reached into her jeans pocket and pulled
out a pack of Silk Cut. 'Do you mind if I smoke?'
She knew from the way McMahon wasn't settling
that he was itching for a cigarette, and from the
stale smell in the room it was obvious he usually
puffed away in here.

He grinned, and leaned down behind the desk.
When his hand re-emerged, it was holding a huge
half-full ashtray.

'Didn't realize you were a smoker,' he said.
'Now that it's against the law to have a fag in your
own office, I thought I'd best be careful when you
came in.'

'That's one law I'm happy to break,' she said,
offering him a cigarette.

He took it, and she lit for both of them. A
rapport had been struck based on their shared
identity as social outcasts, just as Tina had hoped.
It was amazing what you could do with a rapport.

'According to his bank statements, Mr Phelan
was a big spender, and it didn't look like he was
very successful.'

'He wasn't. He'd have a few drinks and he'd
start getting reckless. Sometimes it worked – you
know, who dares wins and all that – but most of
the time it didn't.'

Tina took a drag on her cigarette. 'The thing
is, the statements also show that his spending
plummeted in the last couple of months, but it
sounds like he was still coming here.' She paused.
'Any idea where he might have been getting his
money from?'

'We've got credit lines we can extend to valued
customers. Pat's a valued customer.'

'But you weren't extending credit to him for
two months solid, were you?'

He shook his head. 'No, we weren't. We
stopped a few weeks back. He still owes us more
than three grand. He asked the other week for
more time to pay. He told me he had what he
called an alternative means of income. I wasn't
happy. I like Pat, but this is business.'

Tina kept her interest in check. 'Did he give you
any idea what this alternative means of income
was?'

'Nah. He just promised me it was kosher.'

'Was he borrowing money from any other
sources, as far as you know?'

This time, McMahon's silence didn't sit naturally.
He looked evasive.

'Remember, Mr McMahon, this talk's purely off
the record. If you know anything, I can guarantee
it won't get back to you.'

McMahon continued to sit there smoking. Tina
didn't push things. She waited.

'Look,' he said at last, 'I like Pat. He's a nice
bloke. I wouldn't want to think anything bad's
happened to him. But if it has, I'd want whoever's
involved to suffer. You know what I mean?'

'Sure.'

'This is definitely, definitely off the record,
right?'

Tina nodded, realizing something significant
was coming.

'Pat doesn't just owe us. He also owes someone
you really don't want to be in hock to. Man by the
name of Leon Daroyce.'

'I don't know him,' she said, making no attempt
to write the name down. Producing a notebook
might give this talk an official air and spook him,
and she didn't want that. She'd remember the
name easy enough.

'He's a loan shark, and a big player round these
parts,' McMahon continued. 'I think a few of our
punters have used his services, but you've got to
be pretty desperate. The rates he charges are high
and, like I said, he really ain't a nice bloke.'

'Have you got any idea how much Phelan owes
him?'

He shook his head. 'Pat never told me about
Daroyce. I just heard rumours. It was one of the
reasons I cut the credit lines to him. I was worried
we wouldn't get paid.'

Tina was going to have to find out as much as
she could about Leon Daroyce and how much
Phelan was in the can to him. If Daroyce was such
a brutal operator – and with a man like McMahon,
clearly no stranger to violence himself, saying it
then she was inclined to believe he must be – it
was also possible that Pat Phelan had gone to
extraordinary lengths to get the money to pay
him. Maybe even resorting to the kidnap of his
stepdaughter.

'I think that's everything, Mr McMahon,' she
said, standing up. 'Thanks for your time, and for
being so candid with me.'

He stubbed out his cigarette. 'I'm trusting you,
Miss Boyd. If word gets out that I pointed you in
Leon Daroyce's direction, things ain't going to
look good for me.'

'I keep my word.'

'Yeah,' he said, watching her carefully. 'You
look like you do.' He lit another cigarette, blew
out some smoke. 'A word of advice. Be careful.
Leon Daroyce tends to take things personal.'

Tina opened the door, gave him a cool smile.
'Don't worry about me, Mr McMahon, I'm always
careful.'