Deadline (15 page)

'I thought you said only the cleaner had access to
the house, Mrs Devern,' said Mo as Bolt reentered
the living room.

Andrea was back on the sofa, looking flustered.
'Sorry, I forgot that I'd given a key to Isobel. It was
last year. I asked her to check the place while we
were on holiday.'

'And there's definitely no one else we should
know about?'

She shook her head firmly. 'Definitely not.'

Bolt thought of what Isobel had said on the
doorstep.

'Do the two of you get on well?' he asked.

Andrea nodded. 'Well enough. She's my business
partner. I've known her for years.' Then her
expression changed. 'You're not saying she's got
something to do with this as well, are you? First
you accuse Pat—'

'No, no,' he said hastily, 'of course not. But we
don't think this is a random act. If your husband
wasn't involved, we still need to know how the
people targeting you knew your movements, and
one of the ways would be by bugging your
house.'

'But you said you found no bugs.'

'There were none when we looked this
morning, but if someone other than you had
access, they could have removed any listening
devices.'

'Jesus, this is ridiculous. Isobel's a lawyer, not
something out of MI5. What would she gain by
any of this?'

'We're just trying to cover every angle, that's
all,' he said, knowing that if he told her about
Isobel's affair with her husband it would probably
prove the last straw.

Andrea reached over to the coffee table and
picked up her cigarettes again, taking one out of
the pack and lighting it.

'Mike,' she said, looking him squarely in the
eye, 'is there something you're not telling me?'

The question caught him off guard, as did the
fact that she'd called him by his first name again
in Mo's presence. Bolt had to consciously resist
looking at him.

'No,' he said, shaking his head. 'As I say, these
are just routine enquiries.'

As he spoke, he caught sight of an old framed
photo of Emma on top of an antique chest of
drawers in the corner next to the French windows
– a smiling child's face staring at him from an odd
angle. For a second he couldn't drag his gaze away,
and he felt a bead of sweat run down his temple.

Andrea stood up. 'Well, if you haven't got any
other questions, I'd like to lie down for a while.'

He nodded. 'Of course. Matt and Marie will
stay here with you.'

She left the room, and Bolt wiped the bead of
sweat from his brow. It had been a long day, and
he knew that tomorrow was going to be an even
longer one. There wasn't much more they could
do, so, having instructed Turner and Marie to
keep a close eye on Andrea, and promising Turner
that he'd be relieved later, he and Mo said their
goodbyes and went outside.

Bolt felt a surge of relief to be away from the
pictures of Emma. It was torture looking at them.

'I still get the feeling Mrs Devern's not telling us
everything,' said Mo as they walked back to the
car.

'Shit, Mo,' Bolt snapped, 'her daughter's
missing. She's going to tell us everything she can
to get her back, isn't she?'

He stopped by the car and took a deep breath,
surprised by the anger in his tone. Mo looked
taken aback.

Bolt sighed. 'Sorry, I shouldn't have said it like
that. It's just, you know . . . I don't think she's
going to be holding anything back.'

They got into the car in silence. Bolt took
another deep breath. The pressure was getting to
him. The knowledge that he might lose the only
child he'd ever had, and before he'd even met her,
was affecting every step he took, and he was
beginning to doubt his ability to handle it.

'What is it, boss? What's wrong with you?'

Bolt avoided Mo's concerned gaze. 'Nothing.
I'm fine.' It was his stock response, and it sounded
utterly hollow. He couldn't even bring himself to
instil any meaning into it.

'No, you're not. This isn't like you. I've worked
with you, how long now? Four years, five? You
never let things get to you. Not like this. You care,
but not so much it brings you right down. And
you're down now. You haven't been right all day.'

There was a long pause. Bolt sat there with the
key in his hand, inches from the ignition,
unmoving.

'Come on, tell me,' said Mo eventually, his voice
quiet. 'We've shared things in the past.'

'I know.'

'Important things. Things that no one else
knows.'

'I know.'

'So, talk to me now.'

In that moment, Bolt knew that the dam had to
give, whatever the consequences. He put the key
in the ignition but made no move to start the car.

'I had an affair with Andrea Devern fifteen
years ago.'

'I thought there was something between the
two of you. Back at the house—'

'There's more.'

Mo didn't say anything for a moment, then it
seemed to click.

'Oh shit, boss. You're not saying that . . . that
Emma's something to do with you?'

'It looks that way.'

He told Mo what Andrea had told him earlier.

'How do you know Mrs Devern, Andrea, isn't
bullshitting you?' Mo asked when Bolt had
finished. 'Especially as that's exactly what she
told Jimmy Galante as well.'

Bolt sighed. 'I don't know, Mo, but the dates fit.
I checked them.'

'But she was seeing Galante at the same time,
right?'

'That's right. And she was married too.'

'Well, she certainly got around,' Mo said, a hint
of disapproval in his voice.

'I don't know what to do. It's ripping me to
shreds.'

'Chances are she isn't yours, boss. That's the
way you've got to look at it. No offence, but if she
was married, seeing another man, and seeing you,
it's likely there were others as well.'

'But if it's true . . .'

'If it's true . . .' Mo paused, thinking. Choosing
his words carefully. 'Then we've got to make sure
we bring her back.'

Bolt ran a hand across his face, the fingers
finding the scars on his left cheek. He rubbed hard
at the shallow divots in his flesh.

'You saw what those bastards did to Galante.
They're not going to let her go, are they?'

'You've got to have faith, boss.'

'Faith in what, Mo? Faith in what?'

'If you haven't got faith in God, and I know that
you haven't, then at least have faith in our abilities.
We've got out of tight corners before.'

'It's a lot easier said than done, Mo. It really is.'

'I know.'

'Do you?'

'I've got four children, boss. Believe me, I
know.'

They were silent again. Bolt felt the tension
flowing through his veins, tightening every
muscle in his body.

'You know,' said Mo eventually, staring out of
the window, 'there's a village in India, somewhere
along the Ganges, where they consider cobras
sacred. It means they're not allowed to harm
them, and because of that, the whole village is
teeming with them. In schools; in people's
kitchens; in kids' bedrooms; all over the place. But
no one takes a blind bit of notice because they're
convinced they're not going to get bitten. And,
you know, even when one of the villagers is
bitten, they think it's a mistake on the cobra's part,
and that the poison won't have any long-lasting
effect because they worship it. Now, cobra venom
can kill if it's not treated. That's a medical fact. But
do you know what? In that village there's not one
recorded incident of anyone dying of a snake
bite. Like I said, boss, you've got to have faith. It'll
be OK.'

They looked at each other, and Bolt was
impressed by the determination in the other
man's expression. It made him feel a little better,
glad that he had shared his feelings. He was also
surprised by the fact that Mo hadn't suggested he
say something to Barry Freud. Mo was his friend,
but he was also a professional, and he would
know that he was taking a risk by keeping his
boss's relationship with both the kidnap victim
and her mother silent.

'Not a word about this, OK?' Bolt told him. 'It
won't affect how I run this op, I promise.'

Mo nodded. 'OK, boss, but only as long as it
doesn't. If it looks like the pressure's getting too
much . . .'

'It won't. I promise.'

'But if it does, I'm going to have to say something.
You understand that, don't you?'

'Yeah, I understand that.'

Bolt started to turn the key in the ignition, but
Mo's next words stopped him dead.

'You were in the Flying Squad when you were
seeing Andrea, weren't you?'

Although there was nothing accusatory in the
tone, the meaning was clear. The Flying Squad
dealt with armed robberies. The woman Bolt had
been having an affair with was also sleeping with
an armed robber. The potential for corruption was
obvious, and it wasn't as if the Flying Squad
hadn't had its fair share of corruption problems in
the past. Bolt wasn't offended, but it hurt him that
his friend had felt the need to ask the question.

'As soon as I found out she was seeing Galante,
I finished it,' he said firmly.

'Good. That's all I wanted to know.'

There was another awkward silence. Bolt had
crossed the line with Mo once before, two years
earlier, and the implicit trust that had always
existed between them had come under a lot of
strain. It felt like something similar was
happening again.

'Come on,' he said, starting the engine, 'let's go.'

Home for Mike Bolt was a spacious studio apartment
on the third floor of a converted warehouse
in Clerkenwell, one of the quietest places in
central London, and not far from where he'd first
been based as a uniformed cop. He'd been there
for four years now, having moved in the year after
his wife's death, and ordinarily he'd never have
been able to afford a place one quarter of the size
on his SOCA salary, but the rent he paid was
minimal. The reason for this was that it belonged
to a wealthy Ukrainian businessman, Ivan
Stanevic, whom Bolt had helped out years before
in his National Crime Squad days.

The case was remarkably similar to the one he
was involved in now. Stanevic's twelve-year-old
daughter Olga had been abducted from the street
by business rivals of her father's, and Bolt had led
the team tasked with getting her back. On that
occasion it hadn't taken long to find out who they
were dealing with and consequently where Olga
was being held. It was Bolt who'd personally
negotiated her release with the kidnappers,
and she'd been freed unharmed, for which her
father had been eternally grateful. It was the only
other kidnap case he'd ever been involved with,
and the grim irony wasn't lost on him as he
stepped inside his apartment and shut the door
behind him.

Usually he loved this place. It was hard not to
love it since it had been refurbished with
absolutely no expense spared. The floors were
polished teak; the high, angular ceiling was crisscrossed
with mighty timber beams carefully
restored to their former glory; but the
pièce de
résistance
was the way the old windows had
been knocked out and replaced by a huge strip of
floor-to-ceiling tinted glass that ran the entire
length of one side of the apartment, facing east
out on to the bright lights of London, with the
high towers of the Barbican rising up behind
the buildings opposite. Only the night before
he'd sat in his armchair with a glass of 2005 Côtes
du Rhône staring out across the city while an
old Herbie Hancock CD played on the stereo,
feeling quietly satisfied that the money laundering
case had been brought to a successful
conclusion, and looking forward to a weekend
away with Jenny Byfleet. The world then had
seemed a good, decent place, and for the first time
in a while he'd actually felt contented. And all the
time the clock was counting down to when it
would all go suddenly and horribly wrong. Just
like it had that night five years ago when he and
Mikaela waved goodbye to the friends they'd
spent the evening with, got into his car and driven
off to their doom.

It had just turned eight o'clock as Bolt kicked off
his shoes and poured the remainder of the
previous night's Côtes du Rhône into an oversized
wine glass, taking a big slug and trying hard
to relax. He'd phoned Jenny on the way home
and, trying to sound as casual as possible, had
apologized for the fact that he was going to have
to postpone. She'd asked if he wanted to
rearrange, and he'd said he'd get back to her,
hearing her disappointment down the other end
of the line as he'd hung up. That was probably it
for the two of them, but he was past caring about
that. All he could think about was the case, about
how Andrea had come back into his life and, even
after all these years, managed once again to turn
everything upside down for him.

He sat down in his armchair, but almost immediately
stood up again. It didn't feel right resting
his legs. Not with his mind going like the clappers.
Instead he paced the room, thinking about
what Mo had said about Andrea not being
entirely truthful, and holding something back. He
remembered Isobel Wheeler's words:
Watch her
.
And most of all he thought back to his own experience
with Andrea, and of how one night
fifteen years ago, a mere eight weeks into their
relationship, she'd dropped such a bombshell that
it had ended everything between them with a
bang that echoed even now.

He recalled the night perfectly. It was in the
days when mobile phones were still the size of
house bricks, and long before Bolt had taken to
carrying one as a matter of course. He'd arrived
home after a few drinks with a couple of Flying
Squad buddies to find that he had a message from
Andrea on his answerphone, asking him to call
her urgently if he received the message before
10.30, giving him a number he didn't recognize,
and adding that under no circumstances was he to
call the number after that time. If she didn't hear
from him before then, she'd call back later when
she got a chance. The message had been left at
twenty to ten, just fifteen minutes earlier, and
Andrea had sounded uncharacteristically scared.
He'd called her back immediately, and she'd
picked up on the first ring, obviously waiting for
the call.

'Mike, thank God you've called. I don't know
how to tell you this.'

'Whatever it is, you can talk to me about it, OK?
I can help.'

She took a deep breath and spoke quietly.
'There's going to be an armed robbery. Tomorrow
morning, between ten and ten thirty. A police van
carrying a load of cocaine for incineration from
Lewisham Nick to Orpington.'

The shock of her announcement left Bolt cold.

'How do you know about this, Andrea?' he
asked.

'I just do,' she said unconvincingly.

'You're going to have to do better than that. I
need details. Like where you got the information.'

There was a silence at the other end of the line.

'Andrea, I can't go to my bosses and get authorization
to do anything about this until I know
more.'

This wasn't entirely true. He could have done if
he really wanted to, but the most important thing
was to find out how the woman he, a Flying
Squad officer, had been seeing for the past two
months had details of exactly the kind of major
crime he specialized in investigating.

'I've been seeing a guy,' she said. 'His name's
Jimmy Galante.'

'While you've been seeing me?' he asked,
knowing the answer already.

'Yes.' Pause. 'I'm sorry, Mike. I've been seeing
him a while. Since before you.'

He resisted the urge to shout at her, even
though he wanted to. Instead, he listened while
she continued, telling him how she'd always
known that Jimmy was a bit dodgy and operated
on the wrong side of the law, but hadn't ever realized
the extent of his misdemeanours. Until that
evening, when she'd been at his place and overheard
a conversation he'd had on the phone in
which he'd discussed the robbery with a fellow
conspirator. 'He was in the other room, and
thought I couldn't hear him, but he's been jumpy
all day so when the phone rang I listened at the
wall and heard everything he said. When he came
back in the bedroom, I was in bed, so he didn't
suspect a thing. Then he said he had to go out, and
he'd be back about half ten.'

To this day, Bolt remembered how gutted he felt
when she told him about getting back into another
man's bed, how he'd got that wrenching feeling in
his stomach as if someone was tying it in knots.
He hadn't seen Andrea for close to a week because
she'd said she'd been so busy, and all the time she
was fucking some lowlife robber.

'So, you're at his place now?' he said.

'Yeah. I'm meant to be staying tonight. Billy's
away on business.'

Bolt sighed. 'And you're absolutely sure about
this?'

'Positive. I'd bet my life on it.'

'So why are you telling me this now?'

'Isn't it obvious?'

'Not really, no. I'm surprised you're so keen to
shop your . . . your boyfriend.'

'I'm scared of him, Mike. I've been wanting to
finish it for a while, but he's not the sort to take no
for an answer. He even threatened to hurt Billy if
I left him.'

'Tell me something. When you met me, was it a
coincidence, or did you plan it?'

'Course I didn't plan it. How could I have done
that?'

Bolt was silent. He wanted to believe her, but
even though he was a lot younger then, he wasn't
entirely naive. Something didn't feel right with
her story. But she was giving him a tip, and he felt
duty bound to act.

'Do you know where they're meeting up to do
this robbery?'

'No. I've given you all the details I know.'

'If we try to stop them, and they're armed, you
know what might happen, don't you? Your
boyfriend, the guys he's with . . . They might end
up getting shot.'

Andrea said that she understood. 'He's the one
going out there with a gun,' were her exact words.

And that had been that. The next day the Flying
Squad had hastily set up an ambush, following
the police van and its cargo of more than a
hundred kilos of cocaine, which was being driven
by their officers, on its journey from Lewisham
police station to an incinerator in Orpington. Sure
enough, the robbers made their move, boxing the
van in on a busy dual carriageway and forcing it
to a halt before appearing, balaclava-clad,
weapons in hand. Such was their speed and
brazenness that they caught the Flying
Squad team off guard, but only for a couple of
seconds.

The Flying Squad ambush ethos is surprise,
aggression and overwhelming force. As their own
cars roared on to the scene, forming a loose
cordon around the van and the robbers' vehicles,
and disgorged their screaming officers, the back of
the security van flew open and more gun wielding
cops leapt out. The shouts of 'Armed
police, drop your weapons!' filled the air and Bolt
felt an adrenalin kick like he'd never felt before as
he stood, legs apart, Colt revolver held two-handed
in front of him.

Which was the moment it all went wrong.

There were four robbers with guns outside the
car, two more – the drivers – inside. One of them
opened fire and a Flying Squad guy called
Hammond, who was thirty-one and just celebrating
the birth of his child, got hit in the
shoulder. Passers-by dived for cover as another of
the robbers raised his shotgun, but this time he
never got the chance to pull the trigger. Bolt and
the guy standing next to him both opened fire,
hitting the robber a grand total of four times. Dean
Hayes was twenty-five, only months older than
Bolt, with a criminal record stretching back into
his mid-teens. He died three hours later on the
operating table. Only one of the bullets was fatal.
It had pierced his heart. A later PCC investigation
revealed that it was Bolt who'd fired it.

The cops from the back of the security van
grabbed another of the robbers and slammed him
to the tarmac with guns in his back, while the
fourth robber got off a wild shot before taking a
bullet in the shoulder that sent him sprawling. But
the first robber, the one who'd shot Hammond,
had managed to scramble into the back of one of
the getaway cars, a powerful Sierra Cosworth,
whose driver then reversed suddenly, knocking
down one of the advancing cops and breaking his
hipbone. It then smashed into the Flying Squad
car that was blocking it in, pushing it into the
central reservation and narrowly missing Bolt in
the process, before accelerating through the
narrow gap it had created.

Several of Bolt's team had been carrying
pickaxe handles, and one of them managed to
smash the driver's side window as the getaway
car passed, showering the driver with glass, and
another threw his into the windscreen; but, faced
with no direct threat to their lives, they were
unable to shoot at the occupants. Bolt remembered
being cool-headed enough, even after
shooting a person for the first time, to take aim at
the Cosworth's tyres, but the car had taken off at
such a speed that it was thirty metres away before
he had a chance to fire, and with civilians everywhere
he knew it would be too dangerous to pull
the trigger again.

Police patrol cars from Lewisham station had
descended rapidly on the scene and there was a
high-speed chase which ended only minutes later
when the Cosworth crashed into a parked van.
The driver, a well-known face in the criminal
fraternity, was captured, but the gunman was
nowhere to be seen, having fled the vehicle on
foot, still wearing his balaclava.

With the other five gang members accounted
for, it soon became clear that none of them was the
mysterious Jimmy Galante, a man who at that
time had never shown up on the Flying Squad
radar. An arrest warrant was hastily put together,
and at four a.m. the following morning a Flying
Squad team that included Bolt had raided his flat,
finding him apparently asleep. Bolt had half
expected to find Andrea there still, having not
heard from her the previous day, but it turned out
Galante was alone, and remarkably unfazed at
being prematurely woken from his slumber by
half a dozen men in black, all shouting and
pointing guns at him.

Galante was a cocky bastard from the start.
Even if he hadn't been sleeping with the woman
Bolt had fallen in love with, he would have hated
him anyway. It just made it worse that he was a
criminal, and a good-looking one at that. But his
cockiness was justified. Although he had several
cuts to his head and bruised ribs, strongly
suggesting that he'd been involved in the
Cosworth's crash, he'd denied involvement in any
robbery and produced a cast-iron alibi for his
whereabouts at the time (a café in Islington where
he'd apparently been seen by at least half a dozen
witnesses, including the owner). Worse, there was
no sign of the clothes he'd been wearing, or any
firearms residue on his hands. Everyone knew
that he could have removed this simply by
washing them thoroughly, but there was nothing
they could do about it, and because none of the
surviving robbers fingered him, Galante wasn't
even charged with, let alone convicted of, any
offence.

Bolt burned with the intense frustration any
police officer feels when a criminal he or she
knows is guilty gets off through lack of evidence;
the fact that he'd shot one of Bolt's colleagues
made it almost unbearable. But bear it he had to,
and shortly afterwards Galante disappeared off
the scene, moving to Spain, away from the
watchful eyes of a vengeful Flying Squad.