Tina shoved the warrant card back in her pocket. 'I'm leaving, and I want to take her with me.'
'You don't get it, do you, Miss Boyd? She won't go with you. Not in a thousand years. Because she's mine.'
'Slavery was outlawed in this country two hundred years ago, Daroyce. Maybe you missed the bicentennial celebrations.'
'She can leave if she wants to, Boyd. But she won't. Because she owes me, and she's paying her debt.'
'I don't care about—'
'Enough!' His hand slammed down on the table, silencing her. 'The reason I showed you that is so you know I don't fuck about.'
'You're a bully.'
He wagged a finger at her. 'No, I'm no bully. Bullies only pick on the weak. I'm prepared to take on everyone. And I'm also a man of my word, so when people break theirs, I take great offence. And I make them suffer. That little whore fucked me about once, and now she's paying for her stupidity. Just like Pat Phelan will pay for it when I get hold of him.' He stood up, and even though at full height he was still shorter than Tina, he radiated the kind of cruel, low menace that would have intimidated men twice his height. 'Now you've made me a promise as well,' he said quietly, making a point of showing his teeth as he spoke. 'So, if you find the whereabouts of Phelan, I want to hear about it. Otherwise, Miss Boyd, my people will come for you too. Do you understand?'
Again, Tina held his gaze, but she was finding it hard to keep her nerve. She was scared, and he knew it.
'I understand,' she answered.
'Good. Would you like my men to drop you off where they picked you up?'
She shook her head. 'No, it's OK. I'll walk.'
He moved aside to let her pass, and she caught a subtle waft of expensive and very nice cologne that almost made her pause to take in more of it, until she thought about what he'd just done.
'Watch yourself out there,' he whispered. 'The streets round here can be very, very dangerous.'
She ignored him and kept walking, out into the narrow hallway. The big black guy in the shades materialized from a room ahead of her, unlocking the front door for her in silence. She couldn't see the girl anywhere, but if she was honest with herself, she wasn't looking too hard, so eager was she just to get out of there.
There were all kinds of things Tina could have taken from the conversation she'd just had: the large amount of cash Pat Phelan owed Daroyce; the way he'd recently asked Daroyce for just a few more days to pay the money; the fact that he was having an affair with his wife's business partner . . . But she couldn't seem to concentrate on any of them as she walked rapidly through the back streets, going in no particular direction, haunted by the face of an anonymous girl who got down on her knees and waited to be beaten by a thug – a man who'd just threatened to turn on Tina as well if she didn't do what she was told.
She felt the pressure building inside her head. She was a tough person. She'd had to be to put up with what life had thrown at her these past few years, but occasionally her strength wavered, and it was wavering now.
She needed a drink. Badly.
There was a pub up ahead, a spit-and-sawdust type of place with a chalkboard outside advertising football games on Sky, and a couple of potbellied builders standing by the door smoking. The door was open. It seemed to welcome her.
She knew she shouldn't do it. Knew what one drink meant. But it was hard. So damn hard. She felt a desperate need to put a glass to her lips, to soften the blows that had rained down on her this afternoon – no, shit, that had rained down on her over the last four years.
You never drink on duty, she told herself. Never. You work hard, you do well. They might not all like you, but they respect you. If you weaken now, you're finished.
A picture of her dead lover walked uninvited into her mind's eye. John Gallan. He'd been a good man, a nicer, better person than she could ever be. He'd loved her; he'd said so many times and she'd believed him. John wasn't the sort to lie. Part of her had loved him back, too. Thought that maybe it could come to something. And then he died.
And then he fucking died.
She walked inside the pub, ignoring the slimy look she got from the jaundiced old codger sitting at the bar, and ordered a double gin, no ice, ignoring the voice inside her head that screamed for her not to do it. The decision had been made.
She drank it down in one.
'Bad day?' asked the barman, a gangly teenager with a haystack's worth of red hair.
'Fucking fantastic,' she said, and ordered another.
She put a tenner on the bar and drank the gin slower this time, savouring the fiery taste as the alcohol slipped down her throat. The kick was instantaneous, and she felt the familiar lightheadedness come on, knowing that if she had another, that would be it. There'd be no going back. The work day would be written off. The leads she'd gained, leads that could help save a teenage girl from death, wouldn't emerge until she'd sobered up. Tina wasn't the sort who could work drunk. She became clumsy and lethargic. Her colleagues would notice it straight away, and her guilty little secret, the one she'd carried for so long, would suddenly be out there for all to see. And she couldn't have that. Tina had her pride. She suffered, but she suffered alone. She didn't want pity, she didn't want help, and right now, she really didn't want to be off this case.
Fuck Leon Daroyce. He wasn't going to beat her. She finished the drink and banged the glass on the bar harder than she'd planned before picking up her change and heading back out into the sunlight.
It was time to get back to work.
Part Four
Twenty-two
'I've got authorization for the money,' said Big Barry grimly, looking across his desk at Bolt. 'It wasn't easy. One or two of the top people favoured calling in the negotiators. It took some persuading that not letting on about our involvement was the best course of action. And as you can imagine, no one wanted the responsibility of signing off half a million pounds.'
Bolt nodded. It had just turned four o'clock and he was back in Big Barry's office. Despite the sunny day, the heating was on full blast and the room felt hot and airless. Bolt had an empty feeling in his stomach. He'd tried to eat on the way back to HQ, stopping off at a Pret a Manger to buy a sandwich and a bottle of juice, but two bites and the juice was all he'd managed. The tension running through him made it hard to sit still, let alone concentrate on what Barry was saying.
'If we lose this money,' Barry continued, 'both you and I are going to be in serious trouble. We really can't afford to screw this one up, old mate.'
Bolt nodded again, didn't say anything.
'We'll be providing the bag containing the ransom, and I'm going to have two separate tracking devices sewn into the material where there's absolutely no chance they'll be found.
We'll also have two more trackers buried right in among the money, just in case they change bags. Obviously, though, these things aren't foolproof. They can lose their signal. We all know that. So we're going to need major surveillance back-up. I suggest two ground teams. One will follow Mrs Devern, the other will be sent to stake out the rendezvous as soon as the kidnappers confirm where it's going to be, so we have complete coverage of the area and the ransom itself. Then, as a final layer of surveillance, I want a helicopter on standby to take over the pursuit of the money so we make absolutely sure it doesn't disappear on us. Then it's simply a matter of following it to its destination, and that's the moment we bring in the negotiators and try to end things peacefully. The girl gets released, the perpetrators get nicked, and the money lands safely back in our hands.'