Simon Kernick - Deadline

They sat in silence for a few moments, finishing their drinks, oblivious to the noise around them.

'How well do you remember Richardson and Ridgers?' asked Bolt.

'Not very. There wasn't much to say about either of them. They were just two robbers prepared to get nasty to get what they wanted. I doubt many people'll have fond memories of them when they're gone.'

'Do you think either of them could be capable of the kidnap of a young girl? A fourteen-year-old?'

Doyle frowned. 'Is that what this is about?'

'Between you and me, yes.' Bolt knew he was treading on shaky ground here, talking about the investigation to someone outside it, but he also knew it was the only way he was going to get answers.

'A kidnap for ransom?'

'Yeah. But I can't tell you any more than that, and you've got to keep what I do tell you under wraps, OK?'

'You know me, Mike. I don't blab. What makes you think those two are anything to do with it?'

'Just a hunch.'

'Shit, pal, you sound just like Columbo.' Doyle fingered his empty glass. 'I wouldn't put it past either of them to be involved in something like that. They're criminals, and they're greedy bastards, so if there's money to be had, there's a good chance they'll be there.'

'Do you think they'd hurt her? The girl?'

'Christ, Mike, I don't know. The one thing about armed blaggers is they're pros. They don't add years on to their sentences unless they absolutely have to.'

Bolt felt relieved, even though he knew this was irrational. Jack Doyle was no criminal psychologist.

'You look shattered,' Doyle told him.

'I am. It's been a long day.'

'Maybe you should get home.'

But Bolt didn't want to go back yet. He picked up the empty glasses. 'No, let me get you a drink.'

'Cheers. I'll have a pint of Stella.'

When he returned with the drinks they made small talk for a while, but Bolt found it hard to concentrate on anything other than Emma, and he was conscious that he wasn't good company. It angered him that he couldn't relax with an old friend over a few beers at the end of a long, hard day, and the anger was aimed at Andrea, because it was her doing. If she'd just kept her mouth shut, he might have been able to do his job properly instead of flailing round from place to place, tearing himself apart.

He finished his second pint and got to his feet. 'I'd better go, Jack. Early start tomorrow.'

Doyle stood up as well and they shook hands.

'Good luck with the case, Mike.'

'Thanks. I hope we don't need it.'

'Don't worry, she'll be all right. Blokes like that, they just want the money. They won't risk going down an extra twenty years by killing her.'

Easy for you to say, thought Bolt as he said his goodbyes and walked outside into the cool night air. It was a two-minute taxi ride home or a fifteen minute walk. He decided to walk, hoping it might calm him down a little, but he'd only got a few hundred yards when his mobile started ringing.

It was Mo. Bolt had left him back at the Glasshouse a few hours earlier. He'd said he was just finishing up and was about to go home, but maybe he'd decided to stay later. He flicked open the phone and put it to his ear.

'Mo?'

'There's been a development.'

His tone was grim, and Bolt felt his stomach constrict at the prospect of bad news.

'What is it?'

'I'm at a house in Tufnell Park. I think you'd better get over here.'

It had just turned twenty past ten when Bolt arrived at the address Mo had given him – a bedsit on a residential road of rundown whitebrick Georgian townhouses on a hill a few hundred yards north of Tufnell Park Tube station. There were a dozen or so police vehicles as well as an ambulance double-parked on both sides of the street, blocking it off entirely, and small clusters of onlookers, some of them in dressing gowns, standing at the edges of the cordon talking quietly among themselves, clearly both appalled and fascinated by the crime that had taken place in their midst.

Bolt's taxi stopped a few yards short of the bright yellow lines of scene-of-crime tape.

'Christ, what's going on here?' asked the driver as he took the fare.

'Murder,' Bolt told him, and got out of the car.

He showed his ID to one of the uniforms ringing the cordon and was directed to a van where he put on the plastic coveralls all officers are obliged to wear when entering crime scenes. He was exhausted, the remnants of the two pints of Stella he'd had with Jack tasting sour and dry in his mouth.

Mo met him in front of number 42. He looked a little queasy. 'It's pretty bad in there, boss. You might want some of this.' He produced a tube of Vicks and Bolt dabbed some under his nostrils.

Bolt sighed. The last thing on earth he wanted to see right now was a body, and it wasn't essential to the inquiry that he did so since he could easily get the details of what happened from other people, but he wasn't the sort to shirk the unpleasant aspects of the job. 'Let's get it over with,' he said, following Mo through the open front door and into a dusty foyer with plastic sheeting over the bare stone floor. Long threads of cobweb hung from the corners of the ceiling and there was a stale, airless smell, mixed with something else. Something much more pungent.

'She's down here,' said Mo, walking past a threadbare-looking staircase and down a dark, very narrow hallway to an open door at the end, the smell of decay getting stronger with each step.

By the time they reached it, it was pretty much unbearable, and Bolt had to stop himself from gagging.

'Jesus,' he whispered.

'It looks like she's been dead for days,' said Mo, moving aside to allow him access.

The room was small and cramped, dominated by an unmade double bed which took up well over half the floor space. Flies were everywhere, their buzzing irritatingly loud as they vied for space with the four white-overalled SOCOs inside, who were testing the various surfaces for DNA, and taking samples from the body. Bolt could get no further than the doorway, which suited him fine.

A woman lay on her side in an approximate fetal position, her feet and ankles wedged under the bed. She was wearing a pink T-shirt with writing on it that Bolt couldn't make out, and a lacy black thong. Her body was bloated and discoloured where the first stages of decomposition were beginning to take effect, but the maggots that were eating her up on the inside had yet to burst out. From his basic knowledge of forensics, Bolt knew this meant that although death had definitely not been recent, it was also unlikely to be more than four days ago, particularly in comparatively warm weather such as they'd been having.

He stood still for several seconds, staring at her dead, ruined body. The abject humiliation of death depressed and horrified Bolt. It always brought home his own mortality, and the sure knowledge that one day he too would end up like this. Nothing more than rotting flesh, all thoughts and memories of a lifetime gone.

'Have we ID'd her yet?'

Mo nodded. 'That's why I called you. Her name's Marie Aniewicz. She's Mrs Devern's cleaner.'

'Jesus Christ,' he whispered, tensing. 'How old was she?'

'Twenty-five,' answered Mo. 'She'd worked at Mrs Devern's place for just under three years.'

He thought of Emma, only eleven years younger, and was unable to stop himself from picturing her here in the same position.

'It's no age, is it?'

'No, it's not.'

Bolt took a deep breath, temporarily forgetting the thick stench of rancid meat.

'What a waste.'

No one said anything for a while. The SOCOs continued to work methodically, as if this was just a routine task for them, which of course to a large extent it was.

'Do we know how she died yet?'