Simon Kernick - Ultimatum

‘Where’s Maddie?’ I asked, looking around.

‘She’s having a nap. She’s got a bit of a cold at the moment. I think it’s the time of year.’

‘Can I go up and see her?’

‘I don’t want you disturbing her.’

‘I’ll just look in on her. That’s all I want to do.’ I hadn’t seen Maddie in close to two weeks and there was no way I was leaving without seeing her.

Gina sighed. ‘OK. But if you wake her …’

‘I won’t. I promise.’

I made my way up the narrow staircase, remembering when this had been my home. It was the first place we’d bought together, almost ten years back now. The house wasn’t much, nor was the area, but for the most part my memories of it were good which, to be honest, just made the situation feel worse.

Maddie was fast asleep on her side on top of the covers, wearing jeans and the Dora the Explorer top I’d bought her the day I was released. A small lamp in the corner cast a dim glow over the room, showing the posters covering the wall and the toys that littered the floor.

I approached the bed and looked down at my daughter. Gently, I lifted a lock of blonde hair from her forehead and touched a finger to her face. I wondered what the future held for this four-year-old girl. Was she really going to become like a foreigner in her own country, as Cain had suggested, or was she going to go on to do great things? Become a doctor or an architect? I didn’t honestly care so long as she was happy. And so long as she wasn’t ashamed of her father, which made it essential that she never found out what I’d done today.

I mouthed the words ‘I love you’, and kissed Maddie once on the head, half-hoping she’d stir and smile up at me like she’d done when she was a toddler, so we could share a few snatched words before she fell asleep again.

But she didn’t move, and reluctantly I turned away and went back downstairs.

‘You didn’t wake her, did you?’ asked Gina. She was still watching the news. The Prime Minister had been replaced by an aerial view of the block of flats in Bayswater where the second and third explosions had occurred. The death toll from these two was now five police officers and a civilian.

‘Don’t worry,’ I said, ‘she’s fine. A pack of hyenas wouldn’t wake her right now.’

‘Good.’ She gave me a lopsided smile. ‘Thanks for the money, Jones. It’s a real help.’

‘Look,’ I said, feeling a sudden flash of hope, ‘do you fancy going out for a bite to eat one night? Somewhere nice. You could get a babysitter.’

The smile disappeared, and her expression saddened. ‘I don’t think that’s a good idea.’ It looked like she was going to elaborate but she stopped herself, and I was reminded of something she’d said to me during one of the few infrequent prison visits she’d made: ‘When the light goes out, it doesn’t come back.’

‘Sure,’ I said, turning away, conscious of an unfamiliar ringtone coming from my pocket.

It was the phone Cain had given me.

‘Where are you?’ asked Cecil as I let myself out of the house. He sounded excited.

‘Visiting my kid,’ I told him.

‘Stay where you are. I’ll be with you in five minutes.’

‘What’s going on?’

‘You know that meeting Cain was telling you about? It’s on. Now.’

He ended the call before I had a chance to reply, leaving me staring at the phone and wondering how he could only be five minutes away, unless he’d followed me here.

I put the phone back in my pocket and zipped up my jacket against the cold. I thought about calling Mike Bolt but something stopped me. I wasn’t sure what. Maybe it was just instinct.

Either way, it turned out to be one of the best moves of my life.

16.10

Tina stood in the doorway of Brozi’s house smoking another cigarette and stamping her feet in an effort to keep out the cold.

About two dozen uniforms had now arrived at the scene, their vehicles blocking both ends of the street as they milled about, waiting for orders. Brozi’s Lexus and the Land Rover Freelander she and Bolt had been in earlier were still in the middle of the road where they’d collided, waiting for the photographer to turn up and take some evidence shots of the dramatic scene. So far there was no sign of anyone from CTC or Islington CID. Tina wondered if, when the Islington guys did turn up, she’d see anyone she used to know. She hadn’t done a good job of keeping in touch with her old colleagues, which was a habit of hers. When she moved on, she tended to leave her past behind completely, as if it was something best expunged.

She turned and caught her reflection in the glass of Brozi’s front window. She was slimmer than she’d been in a while, courtesy of her obsession with the gym. Her hair looked different too. She’d dyed it jet black and had it cut short like it had been a few years ago — more to differentiate her from the woman whose photo had appeared all over the media after the Stanhope siege than because she liked the look, although it had begun to grow on her. She still looked attractive, but there was a hardness about her that seemed to become more pronounced year on year, as if it represented an accumulation of all the bad things that had ever happened to her. And Jesus, there’d been plenty of those.

A thought suddenly struck her just as she was about to start feeling sorry for herself. When Brozi had been threatening her and Bolt on the street with the gun, he’d had a mobile phone sticking out of his front pocket. But she didn’t remember seeing it when they’d arrested him. She hadn’t seen him drop it either, but then he could easily have done so when he’d been running away from her down the street.

Stubbing her cigarette underfoot, she called Mike Bolt, but he wasn’t answering, which she supposed was no great surprise under the circumstances. She left a message asking him to find out if Brozi had had a phone in his possession when he’d been nicked, then walked back down to the area where she’d wrestled him to the ground. A single drop of blood on the pavement marked the spot, and she wondered whether Brozi would try to press charges against her for assault.

If he’d thrown away the phone when he was running, it would be round here somewhere. He’d had the gun in his left hand the whole time so he’d have to have thrown the phone away with his right, meaning it would most likely be in the road or under one of the parked cars. She crouched down and looked beneath the nearest one. There was nothing there, so she looked under the next one, then the next, slowly retracing Brozi’s steps, pleased at least that she now had something to do, however mundane it was.

She’d been absorbed in this activity for several minutes when, out of the corner of her eye she saw a group of uniforms looking across at her. One said something and the others laughed, although they all looked away fast enough when she returned their gaze. She ignored them and continued her careful search, almost level with Bolt’s Freelander now, beginning to lose hope of finding anything.

Then she saw it. A newish-looking black iPhone, identical to the one Brozi had been using in his bedroom. It was on the tarmac beneath the bumper of a stationary van, about a foot from the kerb. Not exactly well hidden, but then Jetmir Brozi had been a man in a hurry.

Feeling a rush of vindication, she picked it up and switched it on. There was no password lock, as was often the case with criminals who were constantly changing their mobiles, and it was clear that Brozi hadn’t had it long because there were only six calls in the call log, all of them made in the past four days to different mobile numbers. The last call was the one Brozi had been making in the bedroom. He’d been speaking English then, even though she hadn’t been able to hear what was being said, but Tina had a feeling that the conversation might have been important. She checked the email section but it was blank, then almost as an afterthought, she opened the photos section.