Relentless (15 page)

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 ny 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.
'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?1

137
A
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 ParnhamJones's
home computer away for analysis. Turner wasn't answering
so Bolt left him a message to check all the files on the