Simon Kernick - Deadline

Barry massaged his head with pudgy hands, and tipped his chair back. 'Well, I'm going to send it upstairs. See what the head honchos have to say. I'll let you know their decision as soon as I've got it.'

As Bolt got to his feet, sensing that the meeting was over, there was a knock on the door and Tina Boyd entered the room, carrying several sheaves of paper in one hand.

Tina was a relatively new member of the team, whom Bolt had brought on board after he'd met her during a case a few years earlier. At the time she'd just resigned from the force, and it had taken a lot of persuading to get her to join the team. An attractive woman just short of thirty, with dark hair cut into a jaunty bob and smooth, delicate features that shaved five years off her easily, she had that look that was unmistakably educated and middle-class, and she could have passed as a primary school teacher just as much as a cop. But the look belied the tough time she'd had down the years. Bolt knew that Tina had seen and done it all. Shot during a hostage-taking drama four years earlier, she'd also lost two colleagues, both murdered. One of them had been her lover, earning her the unwelcome nickname of the Black Widow in some quarters.

When she'd finally joined the team a year or so back, Bolt had harboured the odd romantic aspiration where Tina was concerned, but any attempt at warmth or even flattery had come up against a brick wall, and he'd quickly realized that he was on a hiding to nothing. Tina was polite and she was pleasant, but it seemed you didn't get close to her. Even when she socialized with the team, she was always one of the first to leave, making her excuses before heading home alone.

'I've got some interesting news,' she said, approaching the giant glass desk.

'Tell us more, Tina,' said Barry with something approaching a leer.

She looked at them both in turn. 'Andrea Devern might be a high-flying businesswoman but her company's not doing that well. Turnover in the last financial year was £4.81 million but the overall operating profit was only forty-eight thousand pounds, which for a company that size is piss poor. It's also a seventy per cent drop on the year before on a higher turnover, and they've got serious debt to service with the banks. Andrea owns sixty per cent of the company. Her main business partner, and fellow director, is a woman called Isobel Wheeler.' Tina consulted one of the sheets of A4. 'She's a forty-two-year-old lawyer, divorced with no children, who bought into the company ten years ago and now owns the remaining forty per cent. Both women pay themselves generously. They draw salaries of one hundred and sixty grand each.'

'Nice work if you can get it,' grunted Barry.

'Very nice, but it's not going to last. With profits that feeble, the banks are going to be having serious words. And Andrea and her husband are big spenders. Their joint credit card bills mount up to a hundred and twenty K a year.'

'So, what's the interesting part, Tina?' asked Barry, cutting to the chase. 'They're big spenders.

So are most other people in this country. It's why the economy keeps doing so well.'

Tina gave him a mildly dismissive look, but when she spoke her tone was even. 'Well, I Googled Andrea's name and her company, and it seems that there've been a couple of articles about her in trade publications, but nothing of any significance. She certainly hasn't got a public profile. She earns good money but nothing special, so the question is, why on earth target her?'

Bolt nodded. 'It's what I've been thinking. This isn't random. It's personal.'

'You need to talk to Andrea herself, old mate,' Barry told him, manoeuvring himself slowly to his feet, 'and find out who the hell knew she was sitting on that half million in cash.'

'I will, but I reckon we can count in Pat Phelan straight away, and I reckon her business partner's a strong possibility too. Which means we need to turn up everything we can on the two of them.'

'We're on it already,' said Tina.

Bolt felt a rush of excitement. It was the knowledge that the clock was ticking; the realization that this case was going to be concluded in hours rather than months; and that he was in the centre of things.

It was a good feeling.

And one that wasn't going to last.

She had to be brave.

Emma Devern had said this to herself countless times since they'd brought her here. But as the hours dragged into days and still there remained no prospect of her being released back to her mum, it became harder and harder for her to manage it.

They were keeping her in a dank, carpetless cellar with one narrow window coated in grime, high up on one wall and well out of reach, which let in thin shafts of daylight. She had to wear a pair of handcuffs, and was chained to the wall by one ankle. The chain was long enough so she could move around, but she couldn't reach the steps at the end of the room or the far wall, and she knew in her heart that there was no way she was going to be able to escape.

She thought this was the third day she'd been here, which meant it was Friday. It was difficult to know for sure because the days simply flowed into one another, but she was trying hard to keep track. At nights it was cold. She slept on a horrible little bed with filthy sheets and she was forced to wrap herself up in them to keep warm, even though they smelled awful.

On the first night she'd been too shocked about what had happened even to cry. She remembered very little about how it had all started. She was going back to the car after the dentist appointment. Her dentist was called Mr Vermont, after the American state. He always said what good teeth she had, and she did too, because she looked after them well and didn't stuff her face with sweets like a lot of her friends. It had just been a standard check-up. She liked Mr Vermont. He was good-looking with a nice tan, even though he was a bit old and his hair was beginning to go a bit thin on top. The check-up had gone well. For the third visit running nothing needed doing – which was just as well because she hated having her teeth messed about with – and she'd been in a good mood as she crossed the car park at the front of the building.

Pat had been in the driver's seat with the paper in front of him, checking the sports pages, like he always did, but as she opened the door and got inside, something immediately felt wrong. He didn't greet her like he usually did, with a big grin and an 'All right, baby, how'd everything go?' in his rough London accent. Instead, he turned and stared at her, and she saw that he looked really frightened. His eyes were wide and there was sweat running down his forehead.

Then she heard a noise behind her, a kind of shuffling, and before she could even take in what was happening she was grabbed round the neck and pulled back into the seat. The next second, a wet cloth that smelled of chemicals was pushed against her face, and suddenly she couldn't breathe any more and she was struggling and kicking, trying to attract attention, help, anything…

It was all over so quickly, even now it didn't feel quite real. Her last image was Pat turning away from her and starting the car's engine with a low rumble. Then everything went black, and she couldn't remember another thing until she'd woken up in this cold, featureless room with a terrible headache and feeling really sick.

She wondered what had happened to Pat. She'd always liked him. He was good fun. They liked to joke together, and he seemed to make her mum happy. At first she hadn't been sure about him. She was used to it being just her and her mum. That was the way it had always been, the way she'd always preferred it. She didn't know her real dad. She'd never met him and she didn't even know who he was. Whenever she asked her mum about him, she'd always said that it was just a man from a long time ago, that he'd gone away, and that it would be best just to forget about him. She wanted to find her dad, but she didn't push it with her mum, and anyway, Pat made quite a good dad. And her friends were jealous because he was nice-looking, and not too old either.