Simon Kernick - The Last 10 Seconds

I still wasn’t entirely sure myself about my theory. It seemed inconceivable that Captain Bob, the man who’d been my boss for getting on for ten years, could be Alpha, the man who’d set this whole thing up.

Yet it fitted. Tina thought that Alpha was Paul Wise, but he couldn’t be. It had to be someone who knew enough about the police investigation into the Night Creeper to be able to make Roisín O’Neill’s murder look like his work. Although Bob wasn’t a part of the inquiry, he was senior enough to have been privy to the details if he’d chosen to look.

I’d always known that Captain Bob had good contacts in the London underworld. After all, he’d played a major part in getting the contract Jason Slade had taken out on me lifted. And then there was Tommy’s shock in the warehouse when I told him I was an undercover cop. ‘No way,’ he’d said. ‘I had you checked out. Thoroughly.’

Was that because the person checking me out wasn’t Wolfe at all, or Haddock, but a senior handler of undercover officers in CO10, someone whose word could be relied upon — someone like Captain Bob?

The thing was, because the Wolfe infiltration had been an unofficial job, I’d done everything possible to make sure my bosses didn’t find out about it. I’d used an old ID from when I was temporarily seconded to Soca a couple of years earlier, and because Soca was a wholly separate organization from the Met, Bob wouldn’t have been able to tell that it was an undercover ID. Also, I’d changed my appearance hugely for the job. Not just by growing my hair and adding big sideburns, but also by putting on more than a stone in weight. It was possible that if Bob had been given a photo to look at, and it wasn’t a particularly good shot, he wouldn’t have recognized me.

Having someone like Bob looking out for them would explain why Wolfe and his crew had always remained several steps ahead of law enforcement. And I suspected that if the police dug deeper into their activities, they’d find that the man they bought their drugs from was Paul Wise, one of whose central activities was drug smuggling.

And then there was the way Bob had hurried out of the room when I mentioned the tape.

It all fitted. But it was still just a theory, and one that was so vague and lacking in evidence that it would be laughed out of a police incident room, let alone a court. A part of me wondered whether I was reading too much into it, that everything that had happened over the past days had made me paranoid. It was difficult to believe that my boss was protecting the men he knew were my brother’s killers. Yet there are many cases in this world of men doing terrible things in the pursuit of money, and perhaps Captain Bob, a man for whom the term ‘self-interest’ might have been invented, was one of them.

I tried Tina’s landline. There was no answer, so I left a message, asking her to meet me at my flat and telling her it was urgent. I then tried her mobile, with the same result, and left the same message.

I stepped away from the bank of phones. I had no idea if she was home or not, or whether she was in real and immediate danger, but I wasn’t going to be able to rest until I’d got hold of her, and if I couldn’t do it by phone, I was going to have to turn up in person.

And do what? Stand guard over her, an invalid with a bad leg who’d just discharged himself from hospital, until she handed over the tape to the journalist?

In truth, I wasn’t sure what the hell I’d do, but I had to do something, so I limped back to my room, wincing against the continued stiffness in my leg. I had a clean set of clothes I’d got Simon Tilley to bring from home when he’d visited, and I changed into them, careful not to dislodge the bandages that still covered most of my stomach area. I was a long way from fighting strength but, incredibly, neither of the bullets I’d been hit with had damaged any vital organs, and my injuries were healing well, stiff leg aside. In fact, my ribs, two of which had been fractured, had been giving me far more pain, and they ached now as I moved around the room.

The clock on the wall said 10.14. An hour at least, probably more, since Captain Bob had left in such a hurry.

I hurried out the door, hoping I wasn’t too late.

Tina Boyd was allowing herself to float gently in a mildly drunken haze, largely ignoring the documentary on the TV.

She was bored and restless, wanting to get the meeting with Nick Penny, the Guardian journalist, over and done with so that she could wrap this whole thing up and finally put her nemesis in the spotlight.

It had taken her days of thinking to work out what was the best thing to do with the Anthony Gore confession tape. At one point she’d seriously considered handing it over to Mike Bolt to deal with, knowing that he would never cover anything up. But, though she trusted him totally, she’d decided against it. He’d already done her enough favours, and as a result had found himself in plenty of trouble of his own. Far better to give it to an experienced investigative journalist like Penny, who specialized in sniffing out big stories, and who had a strong anti-establishment background. She knew it would mean the end of her career, as there was no way she could avoid the tape being traced back to her, but frankly, at that moment in time, she was past caring.

Tina was currently suspended on full pay, but she wasn’t going to be hanging round the flat for much longer. The days were too long and empty, the opportunities to drink too many. No, as soon as Penny made the contents of the tape public, she’d take a holiday — somewhere warm, exotic, and a long way away — and kick the booze for good.

She yawned and picked up the empty wine bottle, wondering whether to open another, just for a quick nightcap. It was crap stuff, but drinkable, at least. But when she got to her feet, her head spun and her vision blurred for a couple of seconds, which meant it was definitely time for bed.

She tottered off down the hallway in the direction of her bedroom before realizing she hadn’t turned off the TV.

But as she turned back round, she heard the lock on the apartment’s front door click loudly as it was turned. Then, as she watched, wondering if she was imagining things, the door slowly began to open.

For a moment, Tina froze, unsure what to do, her thought processes slowed by the booze. But the door kept opening inch by inch, and then a gloved hand appeared round it, finally jolting her into action.

Moving as silently as possible in her stockinged feet, she darted into her bedroom. The light was on from earlier and she looked round frantically for her mobile, but couldn’t see it. Nor could she remember where the hell she’d had it last, though she thought it might be back in the lounge. She vaguely remembered hearing it ring earlier, and ignoring it, because she didn’t want to be bothered.

She heard the living-room door being opened, the sound of the TV growing louder. Someone was searching her flat, looking for her. Even in her befuddled state, she knew it had to have something to do with the tape, although how Paul Wise had found out about it was anyone’s guess.

There was no time to think about that now. The most important thing was self-preservation.

She crossed the bedroom floor and opened the old wooden wardrobe that had been here when she bought the apartment. It creaked loudly, and Tina had to resist the bizarre desire to laugh out loud, because as she stepped inside, pushing the coats and suits out of the way and shutting the door behind her, the whole thing reminded her of games of hide and seek at childhood parties.

And then, as she heard footfalls moving stealthily down the hall in the direction of the bedroom, the fear set in again. She pushed through the coats in front of her, burrowing as far back inside as she could, desperately trying to focus on not making a noise.