Simon Kernick - The Last 10 Seconds

Derval nodded, and led them through to her father’s study where she booted up his PC and located the camera’s digital footage for the previous day. But Tina was right. The footage didn’t show anything suspicious, although that was to be expected. If anyone had killed Kevin O’Neill in his own home, they wouldn’t have allowed themselves to be caught on camera.

Unfortunately, it also left them with nothing. They thanked Derval for her time, Tina reiterating her promise to keep her informed of developments, as well as taking the number of the doctor who’d certified her father dead.

As they drove out of the gates of the O’Neill property, Grier asked if they were finished for the night.

‘Soon.’

He raised his eyebrows. ‘Really? What else are we going to do?’ ‘First of all, I want to call the doctor. We need a time of death for Kevin O’Neill. Then we’ll have something to work with.’

As they reached the bottom of the road, where it joined the A404 heading back into London, Tina stopped the car. She was feeling frustrated. They were still fumbling about in the dark, and she knew that Grier was rapidly losing interest in her theories, if he’d ever had any at all.

‘Where are you going now?’ he asked as she opened the car door.

She pointed up to a CCTV camera on top of a metal pole, partially obscured by one of the oak trees that lined both sides of the road, which she’d spotted on the way in. It covered the entrance to the cul-de-sac, and any vehicle that came in or out of it would have to pass under its gaze. Beneath the camera was a sign advertising the twenty-four-hour security company that operated it. ‘Maybe the operator saw something,’ she said, walking over to take down the company’s number.

The drizzling rain had stopped now and the night was warm.

‘Listen, ma’am.’ Grier had also got out of the car, and walked up beside her. ‘I think we could be wasting time here.’

She pulled out a cigarette. ‘I know. You’ve made that clear.’

‘O’Neill died of a heart attack. Not a bullet to the head. He was a big guy in his late fifties who’d had heart trouble before, and who’d been under a lot of pressure since his daughter’s death. This could just be the culmination of it.’

‘His daughter died eight months ago.’

‘I think you’re becoming a conspiracy theorist.’

Tina felt a punch of anger. ‘And I can’t believe you can’t see what’s happening. Kent’s been snatched for a reason. There are a lot of people involved, and now, when we look more closely at the one victim where the MO’s not like the others, we find that her father, who hasn’t had any recent health problems, has suddenly dropped dead. There is a conspiracy, and there’s no theory about it. It’s real.’

‘But even if Roisín’s murder is different, and wasn’t committed by Kent, why would the person who did it kill her father? And why, then, would they also snatch Kent? It just doesn’t make sense.’

Ignoring the rain, Tina lit the cigarette, noticing that Grier was giving her a look that might be construed as pitying. She’d received a fair number like that over the years from people who professed to admire her determination and tenacity, and her excellent record for helping solve high-profile cases, but who also wondered how someone who’d lost several colleagues in the line of duty and who’d been kidnapped herself, not to mention shot twice, could genuinely be ‘all there’. In truth, she should never have been a DI, since she was a far better detective than a manager, but the reason she’d been promoted was because she didn’t give up.

‘Maybe you’re right. Maybe I am barking up the wrong tree. But it’s better than barking up no tree at all.’

Grier made a play of looking at his watch. ‘There’s nothing else we can realistically do tonight, ma’am. It’s not long ’til midnight, we’ve been on duty for fifteen hours, and phoning doctors or security companies, or whoever else, isn’t going to help us find Andrew Kent. But a good night’s sleep might.’

Tina was beginning to realize she didn’t like being called ma’am. It suggested she had a responsibility towards the people reporting to her that she wasn’t sure she could handle. After all, today she’d almost got Grier killed. ‘Do me a favour, Dan. For tonight at least, call me Tina.’

He sighed. ‘OK, Tina. Just for one night, why don’t you take a step back, relax a little, and get a decent night’s sleep?’

She wanted to say because this job, and the fact that I’m good at it, is all I’ve got. Instead, she turned and walked back to the car, wondering how long she had left before she finally burned out.

I lay in the darkness for a long time, wondering why Wolfe hadn’t killed me when he’d had the opportunity, but without coming to any conclusions. All I knew was that I had to try to get out of there.

But when I finally felt ready to get to my feet and try the door, I found it was stuck fast, and it wasn’t budging, however hard I pushed. So I sat back down and waited for Wolfe and Haddock to come back and finish off what they’d started, trying to recover as much as possible from the beating in the meantime so that I’d be ready to make a break when the opportunity arose. My injuries, though painful — especially the ribs, one of which was definitely fractured — were tolerable and wouldn’t stop me from making my move.

But it was hard being trapped in there, unarmed and waiting to die, trying to ignore a growing feeling of claustrophobia. I could hear occasional noises coming from downstairs — mainly banging about, no voices — and at some point I thought I heard the sound of a car driving away.

This was followed by silence, and I wondered whether the others had left the building. At first, the thought filled me with a delirious hope — if they’d left me here, it meant they weren’t going to kill me — but the realization quickly dawned that I was also imprisoned in an abandoned building miles from anywhere, and would almost certainly starve to death before I was discovered.

So I got back up and repeatedly shoulder-barged the door, no longer concerned about drawing attention to myself, until finally, my shoulder sore with trying, I gave up and sat back down again. Waiting. Although for what, I wasn’t sure.

I wondered if Kent was still here, if he was even still alive. More than that, though, I wondered why he’d been snatched in the first place. He’d claimed to know something, and Wolfe had been extremely keen to shut him up before he said any more. What could he have known that was so important that it was worthwhile for someone to pay for him to be broken out at gunpoint? And what did it have to do with the killings he’d been accused of?

I was in the process of cursing myself for ever getting involved in such a terrible mess when something happened. All the lights in the building went out. I could tell this because even though I was in a tiny windowless room, there’d been a thin orange glow in the crack beneath the door. Now, suddenly, it was gone.

I got up and listened at the door.

For several minutes there was nothing, then I heard the sound of footsteps, quiet yet unmistakable, coming up the staircase, accompanied by the creaking of old wood.

I clenched my fists, took a deep breath, and waited.

The footsteps came closer, slow and cautious.

I could hear my heart beating. This was it.

‘Hello?’ The footsteps stopped. ‘Hello?’

The voice was female and heavily accented. It was Lee, Wolfe’s girlfriend, and she sounded worried.

Straight away I decided it couldn’t be a trick. ‘I’m in here,’ I called out, rapping on the door. ‘It’s bolted from the outside.’