A couple of hours or so after she'd recorded the message to her mum, telling her it was Saturday and that she was coming home soon, there'd come the familiar sound of the cellar door being unlocked, and she'd wondered if it was the smelly one coming down to collect the plate she'd used for breakfast. She'd had to push the bed as hurriedly and as quietly as possible back against the wall, and slip on her hood.
But his footsteps hadn't come. There'd simply been a cold, dead silence, and she'd known without a shadow of a doubt that it was the cruel one who'd come to visit, the one whose footsteps she could never hear.
An icy sensation had crept slowly up her spine as she sensed his presence in the room with her. Watching. Could he have spotted what she'd been doing to the wall? Had he heard her move the bed? Was this the end? Right now?
'Die, bitch!'
The voice was mocking and close.
She'd felt a sudden rush of air, and his hand had grabbed her shoulder in a tight, vicious grip. She'd screamed, instinctively – a terrified wail – and he'd laughed.
And that had been it. He released his grip, and she thought she heard something click, like a tape recorder. His parting words were delivered in a quiet sing-song voice, just before the cellar door shut again: 'Back later, bitch, back later.'
Ever since then she'd been working frantically, stopping every so often to yank at the chain, ignoring the frustration when still it seemed no looser. The sheer terror she was feeling kept her going, but it was also tiring her out. She wanted to sleep desperately, to lie down and shut her eyes. Forget this awful nightmare. But she refused to stop, knew that if she did she'd probably never start up again.
And then finally she got her break. For the first time, the brickwork really started crumbling. Full of hope, she scratched away even harder, and a load more brick dust poured down so that two of the screws holding the plate in place were almost completely revealed. She grabbed the chain and pulled furiously. Something gave, and one of the screws came out completely. She kept at it, but she simply didn't have the strength to tear it free.
But she was nearly there. A quick rest, and she'd carry on.
She lay back on the bed, her eyes shutting almost immediately. She was so tired, so weak. She felt herself dozing, drifting away . . . tried to come back, but never quite made it . . .
Forty-four
Bolt was sitting in heavy traffic on Tottenham High Road, only a few hundred metres away from where it had all gone so badly wrong. Darkness had fallen, and the sound of the sirens was becoming more sporadic. The helicopters still flew overhead, but their constant circling felt pointless and redundant. Not for the first time in his life he was left on the outside, no longer wanted on an investigation he'd helped to get started.
He didn't want to go home, not with Emma still out there somewhere. The two mobile phone calls the kidnappers had made to Andrea's landline had come from round these streets, and he doubted that the guy with the money had gone far. Much easier to disappear into a nearby house, away from the helicopters, the pursuing cops and the prying eyes of the CCTV. It would take some nerve to organize the ransom drop so near to where they were holding Emma, but nerve had never been in short supply with these people. He was sure that suspect number one was Scott Ridgers, and if necessary he'd drive round and round hoping that at some point Ridgers emerged from his hideout. It was the longest of long shots but it had to be better than doing nothing.
The traffic was moving at a snail's pace, and the worn-out buildings around him – cheap takeaways, charity shops, a few boarded-up wrecks – felt foreboding and claustrophobic. It was on nights like this that he hated London with its noise, its litter and its gridlock, and he felt an almost physical yearning for space. He remembered back to the day he'd bumped into Andrea on the Strand, and how it had been the start of their affair. What if he hadn't been there? What if he'd been doing something different, and their paths had never crossed that second time? How much happier a man would he be now.
Which was when that old nagging thought struck him. What if their meeting hadn't been spontaneous? What if it had all been a set-up? Perhaps Andrea's lover, Jimmy Galante, had wanted inside information on the Flying Squad and had encouraged her to take up with Bolt in order to get it. He thought back, trying to remember if she'd ever pumped him for information, but nothing came to mind. But then, of course, she might not have been doing it on behalf of Galante. She might have taken up with Bolt of her own accord, using him to bring Galante down, either because she was genuinely desperate to leave him and could think of no other way of doing it, or . . . or what?
God knows. He sighed, wiping sweat from his brow and turning the air con higher.
The sound of his mobile ringing jolted him from his thoughts. He looked at the screen but didn't recognize the number. He flicked it on to hands-free and took the call.
'Mr Bolt?'
Bolt recognized the slightly officious tones of Lisa Bouchera's father and tensed a little.
'Mr Bouchera, how can I help you?'
'He's called my daughter.'
Bolt felt a sudden flash of excitement. 'When?'
'Just now. I was outside in the garden but when I came back inside she was crying. She told him she didn't want to see him any more and he started calling her all these filthy names.'
'I'm very sorry to hear that,' Bolt told him. 'We can make sure he doesn't call her again. Have you got access to your daughter's phone?'
'I can get it. Hold on.'
A few seconds later he was back on the line. Bolt asked him to go into the Calls Received screen.
'OK, let's have a look.' There was a pause. 'All right, I'm in.'
His hands shaking, Bolt pulled out his notebook and pen.
'Read me out the top number.'
The moment of truth.
Bouchera reeled off a mobile number and Bolt wrote it down. By using a mobile to make the call to his girlfriend, Scott Ridgers had effectively given out his location, and, Bolt hoped, Emma's location as well. The excitement he was feeling was so powerful it actually made him nauseous for a few seconds.
'And he was the last person who called her?'
'Yes. It was just now.'
Bolt looked at his watch. Five to eight. Just under an hour since the money had disappeared.
'Thank you, sir,' he said, 'you've been a great help.'
'And you. Let me know when you've got the bastard in custody.'
'Course I will,' Bolt said, ending the call.
He took a deep breath, brutally aware that he was suspended and that unless he played things right this lead counted for nothing. He had to do something, and fast. Mo or Tina – who did he call? Who did he trust?
Mo was the colleague he'd always trusted the most, but things had changed between them these past twenty-four hours, possibly irreversibly. Tina, meanwhile, was the person on the team with the best access to the phone companies, and he remembered the look she'd given him in the meeting that morning. Was it empathy? Some kind of understanding? He was stepping over a line by contacting her, he knew that. Asking her to put her own job in jeopardy as a favour to him. And she was such an enigmatic person, so difficult to read, that he had no idea whether she'd help him or not.