Simon Kernick - The Last 10 Seconds

‘And what did Wise say he’d do, Mr Gore?’ asked Grier, intervening so that Tina had a chance to recover herself.

‘He said he’d take care of things. He told me to remain where I was and that I’d hear from someone shortly. That person would identify himself as Alpha, and he would let me know what to do.

‘The next half an hour was the longest and worst of my life. I had to stay in the apartment with Roisín’s body while I waited for the call, wondering if I’d be discovered. But then, finally, it came. This man, Alpha, asked me a lot of questions: the address; which rooms I’d been in; the security arrangements for the building. He was very calm and businesslike and he covered everything. He told me to leave the address with Roisín’s keys, lock the door, and put them under the front passenger side wheel of the nearest car to the front door of the building. Then I was told to leave the rest to him and just forget it ever happened.’ Gore sighed. ‘I did what I was told. I wish to God I hadn’t, but I did.’

‘Did you ever meet Alpha?’ asked Tina.

He shook his head firmly. ‘No, and I didn’t want to, either. Anyway, the next thing I knew, Roisín had been added to the list of the Night Creeper’s victims.’

Tina was suddenly aware how tense she was. She forced herself to sit back in the seat and relaxed her shoulders, resisting the urge for a cigarette. ‘You had access to the Night Creeper file in your role as Home Office minister, so you would have been able to check his MO easily enough. Are you claiming that you didn’t tell Alpha what to do to make Roisín look like one of his victims?’

‘I am, yes. You must believe me. I had nothing to do with any of the. . mutilations Alpha may have carried out.’

Tina and Grier exchanged glances once again. Grier looked sceptical. Tina felt the same. If Gore was telling the truth, it meant that Alpha must have had some kind of inside knowledge of the police investigation, which just wasn’t possible. Gore might have been trying to paint himself as as much of an innocent as he could under the circumstances, but it wasn’t a true picture. However, that was for a jury to decide.

‘When did you find out that you were on film?’ Tina asked him.

‘When I received a phone call at my constituency office two weeks later. The caller identified himself to my secretary as Mr Roisín, which is why I took the call. I knew it had to be something to do with what had happened, and I was terrified. As I’ve already told you, I thought our affair was a secret. And I had good reason to be. The caller told me that he had film footage of Roisín’s death, and if I wanted it destroyed, I would have to pay him fifty thousand pounds. He made me give him my email address, and said he would send a sample clip, which he did.’ Gore shuddered visibly. ‘It showed everything.’

‘Did you keep it?’ asked Grier.

He shook his head. ‘No, of course not. I destroyed it immediately.’

A thought occurred to Tina. ‘And the clip didn’t show Alpha performing the cover-up?’

‘I don’t know. I didn’t watch it the whole way through. I couldn’t.’

Tina thought how surprised Andrew Kent must have been when he discovered film footage of a government minister killing his own intended victim. Blackmailing him was a dangerous move, but one that would have been hard to resist.

‘At the time, of course, I had no idea who could have taken the footage,’ continued Gore, ‘but fifty thousand pounds is a lot of money, and I knew that if I paid it, the blackmailer would come back for more. So I called Paul Wise. I had no choice. Again he was calm. He told me to arrange the delivery of the money, and that he would use Alpha to find out who the blackmailer was, get back the money, and make sure that I wasn’t bothered again.’

‘By killing him?’

‘I don’t know. I didn’t ask.’

But Tina wasn’t going to let him off the hook that easily. ‘It must have occurred to you that Wise and his fixer were going to kill him.’

‘I was terrified. I knew it could destroy my whole life, and more importantly, the lives of my family. I was desperate to make it go away.’ He paused for a moment, shaking his head. ‘But it all went wrong. The blackmailer set up the delivery of the money in Epping Forest, and he managed to get away with it without Alpha managing to identify or catch him.

‘For a while, I didn’t hear from him, and I hoped and prayed that he’d let it go, but then a couple of weeks ago he made contact again, demanding another fifty thousand pounds, or he’d release the footage to the media. I was mortified. It was hard enough to come up with the first demand. Contrary to popular belief, we politicians aren’t all filthy rich. Thankfully, Mr Wise came to my aid and supplied the money. We set up a second delivery of the money, this time on Hampstead Heath. Once again the blackmailer got away with the money, but this time Alpha managed to get enough information to ID him, and find out where he lived.’

Tina frowned. ‘What day was this delivery made?’

‘Monday last week.’

Only days before the team had identified Kent and put him under twenty-four-hour surveillance.

‘But Alpha never got to him, did he?’

‘No. Mr Wise told me that my blackmailer was the Night Creeper, which was a shock. I wasn’t expecting it. I thought it might be some ex-boyfriend who’d been stalking Roisín. Mr Wise also told me the suspect was close to being arrested.’

Tina heard Grier exhale as he too realized that Wise had someone within the police investigating team reporting back to him.

‘Why was Kent kidnapped?’ she asked Gore.

‘I was terrified that once in custody he would say something, and that my secret would be exposed. I know Mr Wise tried to deal with him while he was under surveillance, but that proved impossible. I last spoke to him yesterday evening, and he told me that everything was under control, that no evidence had been found linking me to Roisín’s murder, and that he and Alpha had a contingency plan to silence Kent and recover the missing footage.’ He looked Tina in the eye. ‘That was the last I heard. I didn’t want to be responsible for another death but I felt I had no choice.’

‘There’s always a choice, Mr Gore,’ said Grier, with uncharacteristic venom in his voice.

‘Paul Wise certainly put himself out to help you,’ Tina added, feeling nothing but contempt for the man seated opposite her, but trying not to show it.

‘I’ve helped him in the past.’

‘You know the crimes he’s been involved in?’

‘Allegedly.’

This time her contempt boiled over. ‘Fuck allegedly. You know what he’s done.’

‘By the time I heard the rumours, it was too late. He already owned me. He owns a lot of people.’ Gore sighed and looked at them both in turn. ‘Is there anything you can do to help me?’

Tina was amazed that after a confession like the one he’d just given, he could possibly think he was going to wriggle out of his crimes, but perhaps that was simply the hubris of the powerful. ‘The fact that you’re cooperating will count in your favour,’ she told him. ‘And if you’re prepared to testify against Paul Wise, that’ll also help. Will you do that?’

‘If it helps matters, then yes, of course I will,’ he answered, giving her an earnest look.

‘It will,’ she said.

Tina got to her feet and read him his rights, thinking that it was a strangely liberating feeling, arresting a government minister on suspicion of murder, and that it demonstrated the fact that no one, whoever they were, was above the law.

Including Paul Wise.

Gore didn’t resist as Tina and Grier each took an arm and ushered him out of the study and into the hallway.