The Final Minute (21 page)

‘And he’s unhurt?’

‘Yeah. He’s sitting in the car over there.’ He pointed at a patrol car on the far edge of the car park, away from the crowds. Two uniforms stood next to it. ‘We’ve cuffed him to be on the safe side. He hasn’t been searched.’

‘We need to get an incident room set up at Barnet and get him down there ASAP.’

‘I’ve got Grier on it now. We should be operational in the next hour.’

‘Has anyone spoken to this witness yet?’

‘Well, that’s the strange thing, boss. He’s refusing to speak to anyone below the rank of DCI. The DI from Barnet tried. So did I. But no go, and he’s not saying why either.’

‘What about the victim? What have we got on him?’

Mo shook his head. ‘Nothing. He’s an IC1 male, early to mid-forties, shot four times at pretty close range. He wasn’t carrying any ID, but interestingly he was wearing gloves.’

‘That
is
interesting,’ Bolt agreed. Not many people wore gloves inside on a warm sunny day, and most people carried ID. ‘What about the other guy? The witness. Did he have gloves on?’

‘No, but if he’s tried to get rid of them, we’ll find them.’

‘And when our suspect was walking past the cleaner back to his room, he was alone, right?’

‘That’s right. And apparently acting normally. He even said hello to her.’

‘And how long after that did she think the shooting occurred?’

‘Not long. She reckons she’d almost finished cleaning the room when she saw the suspect, and she was doing his one next. Only a couple of minutes. And she says she didn’t hear any sound of an argument before that. In fact she said she heard nothing.’

Bolt nodded slowly. ‘So these two guys were waiting for him in his room. He turns up, and a few minutes later one of them’s dead and the suspect’s charging through the hotel with a gun. Have we got an ID on the suspect yet?’

‘A couple of guys from Barnet CID are talking to reception. I was just on my way to see if they’d got a name when you called.’

‘OK, why don’t you do that now? In the meantime, let me see if our witness fancies breaking his silence with me and telling us what the hell’s going on.’

‘I’ll tell you something, boss,’ said Mo as Bolt turned away. ‘He doesn’t look much like your average criminal.’

Bolt smiled. ‘The best ones never do.’

But in truth, he was already a little perplexed. If their witness had been part of some kind of ambush, or dodgy business deal gone wrong, why had he hung around waiting to be questioned? Most criminals were stupid and their motives simple. Greed, jealousy or drunkenness generally covered the whole spectrum. If something went wrong during one of their crimes, and especially if someone ended up dead, they tended to panic and run. But this guy hadn’t. Then again, by refusing to speak, he wasn’t acting like a frightened witness either. Bolt was intrigued.

He was even more so when he opened the back door to the patrol car and looked down at a fairly ordinary-looking man of about fifty, dressed like he was sixty, with a badly fashioned comb-over that had clearly come somewhat askew during the events upstairs. His hands were cuffed behind his back but he didn’t look remotely scared. There was a confidence about him that belied his appearance, and he looked more pissed off as Bolt introduced himself as a DCI and the SIO of the team that would be investigating the murder, and climbed inside next to him.

The witness asked to see Bolt’s ID, and Bolt held the warrant card in front of him so he could read it properly.

‘Can I have these restraints taken off?’ he said in an educated accent that suggested he’d probably gone to a half-decent public school.

‘Not until we establish who you are. I understand you didn’t want to talk to any of the other officers.’

‘I was waiting for the head of any investigation.’

‘Well, you’ve got him now. So, who are you?’

‘If you reach into the inside breast pocket of my jacket, you’ll find my ID.’

Bolt did as requested, and pulled out a small plastic card. One look and he knew why the man in front of him, who according to his MI5 identity card was called Carl Hughie, wasn’t talking.

Bolt sighed. ‘You’re a spook.’

‘Yes. I’m going to give you the name and number of a man right at the top who can establish my bona fides. My colleague and I have been involved in a very sensitive operation. We were at the hotel room this afternoon to meet an individual of interest. However, the individual produced a handgun and shot my colleague before fleeing the scene.’ He spoke the words calmly and matter-of-factly as if he’d been rehearsing them in the car.

‘What was your colleague’s name? And why was he carrying no ID?’

‘I’ve said everything I’m prepared to say. You need to speak to my superior. You can have his number.’

‘This is a murder investigation, Mr Hughie. You’re a witness. In fact, right now you’re actually a suspect. You can’t just pick and choose the questions you answer.’

‘I’m involved in a matter of national security, DCI Bolt, and there are very good reasons why I can’t help you right now. My superior will give you, or your superiors, a more detailed explanation.’

Bolt took a deep breath. Hughie didn’t come across like a man who was going to budge very easily. ‘OK, at least tell me the name of the suspect we’re meant to be chasing.’

Hughie shook his head. ‘I’m sorry. I can’t tell you anything more right now.’

‘We’re going to find out, so your lack of cooperation is just holding things up and allowing our suspect to escape – which I’m assuming, as this is a matter of national security, is something you don’t want.’

Hughie said nothing.

‘All right, have it your own way. You’re going to be transported to Barnet police station shortly, and we’ll take a full statement there. In the meantime, I’m arresting you on suspicion of murder.’ He gave Hughie his rights and started to get out of the car.

‘Can you please remove the restraints now that you know who I am?’ asked Hughie.

‘No,’ said Bolt, and slammed the door shut behind him.

That was when he saw Mo hurrying towards him, a puzzled expression on his face. At the same time, the mobile in Bolt’s pocket rang. For the moment he ignored it, wanting to speak to his colleague. ‘What is it?’ he asked.

‘This whole thing gets stranger, boss,’ said Mo, breathing heavily from the effort of the brisk walk over. ‘The suspect was booked into the hotel under the name Matthew Barron, but it’s probably an alias because he gave a fictitious address. But it was paid for on someone else’s credit card. You’ll never guess who.’

‘Go on, surprise me,’ said Bolt, pulling the mobile free from his trouser pocket.

‘Tina Boyd.’

The mere mention of her name brought out all kinds of reactions in Bolt, none of them productive. Frowning, he looked down at the mobile screen, and put the phone to his ear.

‘Hello Tina,’ he said. ‘That was good timing. I think you and I may need a little chat.’

Twenty-nine

I lied to Tina. I hadn’t got rid of the pistol that I’d used to shoot Blackbeard. I still had it. I wasn’t quite sure why. It wasn’t for safety purposes. I’d already discovered that I could look after myself in a fight. But somehow, deep down, I knew that having it gave me options. There was only one bullet in the chamber but, if all else failed and I was facing arrest and certain imprisonment, it might offer a way out.

Still, that wasn’t something I wanted to think about.

More interesting was the fact that there was an iPad on the front seat of the car I’d stolen. The only reason I knew anything about them was because Jane had owned one. She hadn’t liked me looking at it – which in hindsight I could now understand – but I’d persuaded her to let me mess about with it a couple of times, so I knew the basic ins and outs. Like Jane’s, it was locked with a four-digit passcode, but I remembered a crime prevention programme I’d seen on daytime TV the other week where the presenter bemoaned the fact that people used such obvious number combinations to secure their possessions, such as 1111 and 1234. So while I’d been waiting for Tina earlier, I’d tried 1111, and it had opened immediately.

Now, two hours later, I was parked on a residential back street in Bedford having put what I hoped was enough distance between me and the hotel to finally relax. I needed to get rid of the car. It wasn’t exactly inconspicuous and I knew there’d be a major alert for it out by now, but with barely forty quid to my name (Blackbeard hadn’t been carrying much cash in his wallet), I’d already decided I was going to sleep in it tonight. What happened after that was anyone’s guess. My strategy was not to think too far ahead as, quite frankly, it was too depressing.

Instead, I decided to see if I could find out more about myself, so I typed in my real name and a whole bunch of results came up. The most recent ones referred to my rape trial and subsequent conviction. I wasn’t strong enough to read about that yet. The memories that had come back had convinced me I was innocent, but it was also clear I wasn’t backward in coming forward either, as my actions with Tina earlier had shown. The pass I’d made at her had come out of nowhere. It had been instinctive. I’d just wanted some human warmth, some physical contact with a woman. But she’d reacted like I was some kind of lunatic, and I felt a wave of embarrassment remembering it.

So I put it out of my mind.

Looking further down the list, I saw that the results turned to the undercover operation that had seen me fired from the police. I hadn’t had a chance to read about that before, thanks to Combover and Blackbeard’s intervention in the A and E department.

The undercover op had happened five years earlier, and it had been completely unofficial. While on long-term leave for stress I’d infiltrated the gang of armed robbers responsible for the murder of my brother back in the nineties, and become involved in the kidnapping of a murder suspect. All three of the gang had ended up dead, while I’d been shot twice while saving the life of a police officer, Tina Boyd. Although I’d shot dead one of the gang, it had been treated as self-defence as he was the one who’d shot me, and he’d also been trying to kill Tina.

After I’d finished reading, I tried to remember the events. They’d certainly been dramatic enough. For a while nothing came, and I almost gave up, but then a vision of a house on fire flashed across my mind, and I saw myself fighting with a man in the semi-darkness, looking up into his hate-filled eyes, knowing that he was doing everything he could to kill me. For a couple of seconds I could feel my own fear – the knowledge that I was only seconds from a bloody death – before the vision slipped away, back into the recesses of my mind, leaving me tense and shaking in the driver’s seat.

Something else hit me before I could recover fully. A single jarring memory of my first day in prison. Standing in a room, handing over my possessions to a bored-looking prison officer with tattoos covering both his arms, while he made an inventory of them. Stripping off. Handing over my clothes. Waiting while he and another officer searched me in every orifice. The final thing the one with the tattoos said to me before I was led away in my new uniform to begin my time. ‘It’s going to be hard for you in here.’ There was no sympathy in his voice. No anger either. He was simply stating a fact. At that moment I recalled those words perfectly. Remembered the fear I experienced as he said them. And the anger too, at the injustice of what was happening. As if the whole world had turned on me for no good reason, and all the good things I’d ever done suddenly counted for nothing. And then I was taken through a door and a key turned in the lock behind me – a signal that my life as I knew it was over.

I waited until the memory had faded before taking a gulp from the bottle of water on the seat beside me. I stared down at the iPad screen, wondering if I should read any more. In the end, I opened up a story from the Mail Online about my trial for rape and, with a thick sense of dread, began reading.

It was a short piece without photos stating that ‘Disgraced ex-police officer Sean Egan’ had been found guilty of rape and sentenced to five years in prison. There wasn’t really anything in there that Tina hadn’t already told me, except for the fact that I’d apparently been drunk at the time, and the woman I was supposed to have raped hadn’t been. The article stated she’d been taking antibiotics that reacted extremely badly to being mixed with alcohol and, according to her own story, and that of two of her friends she’d been with earlier that evening, she hadn’t been drinking at all on the night she’d met me. I wasn’t sure this made any difference to anything but the tone of the article suggested it did. The victim wasn’t named but the article finished with her saying that I’d ruined her life and that the sentence of five years was laughable. I didn’t read it through a second time and I was relieved that it didn’t dredge up any memories of what had happened.

I switched off the iPad and threw it in a black wheelie bin outside a house a few yards further down. I would have kept it but they’d said on the same programme where I’d learned about easily deciphered passcodes that iPads had a function that allowed their owner to locate them anywhere in the world, so I guessed it would be a lot easier to find than the car.

As I got back into the car and pulled away, it struck me that I’d been involved in some pretty heavy stuff over the years, so it was no real surprise that I’d found myself in the situation I was in now. I thought back to the dream that had started all this off. What the hell had happened that night with the blonde woman and her friend, the one Tina was searching for?

And where were the bodies?

Thirty

Back at home in her living room, a cigarette in one hand, a coffee in the other, Tina felt as if everything was running out of her control.

As soon as Sean had told her what had happened at the hotel, she knew she had to call the police and tell them what was going on. She’d given him an hour before she made the phone call. She wasn’t sure why. It wasn’t like he deserved it. His actions had risked getting her in a huge amount of trouble and then, to top it all, he’d made a seriously unwanted advance to her, barely any time after killing a man, which didn’t say a huge amount about his empathy for his fellow human beings. But in the end, whether she liked it or not, he’d saved her life five years earlier, and for that reason she’d always owe him.