He staggered round the front of the Mondeo, conscious that he was outside a parade of shops, some of which were open. Shocked onlookers were gathering fast, the majority of them looking at something round the back of the car.
'He's got a gun!' someone called out, and the small crowd moved backwards quickly.
Doyle was lying on the pavement about ten feet from the back of the car, propped up precariously on one elbow, the revolver hanging loosely from his hand. He must have been flung out of the back window, but somehow had managed to retain his grip on the gun, which was typical of him. He'd always been single-minded. Blood stained his shirt and sports jacket, and a huge gash had opened up one cheek like a second, bleeding mouth. He was in a bad way, but when he saw Bolt, something flashed in his eyes and he tried hard to lift the gun.
For a long moment they simply watched each other, oblivious to everyone around them, each man trying hard to come to terms with this terrible turn of events that had destroyed things between them for ever. Then Bolt began walking towards him, steady, confident strides that ate up the distance fast.
Doyle's eyes narrowed, but he was having difficulty focusing and the gun was shaking in his hand. Several people in the crowd gasped but no one made a move to intervene. It was as if they were watching the last dramatic scene in a TV cop drama.
Blood leaked out of the corner of Doyle's mouth, running down his chin. Bolt saw his finger tighten on the trigger, the end of the barrel pointed towards his belly, and he felt a lurch of adrenalin that almost lifted him off his feet. In that second, he leapt forward, stamped on the wrist of Doyle's shaking gun hand and drove it into the pavement. Doyle grunted and fell down on his back, losing his grip on the revolver.
Bolt snatched it up and pointed it, two-handed, down at Doyle's chest, holding it steady, his face as hard as stone.
'Don't do it!' someone in the crowd cried out, shrill and fearful.
But he was never going to. There was no point. Emma was safe, Jack Doyle was finished, and finally his rage was fading, to be replaced by a leaden sense of regret that an old friendship he'd once thought so strong could have ended up like this. Tattered, bleeding, and ultimately hollow.
Doyle's eyes closed and his head rolled to one side, more blood trailing out of his mouth and dripping on to the concrete.
Bolt took a step back, then another, until he reached the car. He propped himself up against it and noticed the crowd watching – twenty, thirty strong now – for the first time.
'Someone dial nine-nine-nine,' he said with as much strength as he could muster.
Then tiredness seemed to overwhelm him and, still clutching the revolver, he slid down the car and landed in a sitting position on the tarmac.
It was over.
Fifty-eight
Tina Boyd stood in the shadows thrown by the low-rise council flats and looked through the darkness at the brand-new four-door Lexus GS parked behind the chainlink fence on the other side of the road. It had just turned twenty past ten and she'd been standing there for more than an hour already. She wondered if she was wasting her time. Probably. But Tina wasn't the sort to give up that easily. She'd give it another half an hour before calling it a day.
She stifled a yawn. It had been a manic weekend but at least events had come to a comparatively clean conclusion, which, as most police officers would tell you, is very rarely the case. Pat Phelan had at last turned up, although the manner in which he did so left something to be desired. A thorough search by Enfield SOCO of one of the farm's outbuildings revealed his dismembered remains inside a barrel of sulphuric acid, where they were dissolving steadily; they would probably have been little more than sludge had they been left for another week. His teeth had been forcibly removed, and identification had only been possible because a large 'Ban the Bomb' tattoo on what was left of his upper arm was still just about visible, and was recognized by Andrea Devern.
The other main development that day had been the uncovering of the third person involved in the kidnap, DI Jack Doyle of the Flying Squad. A woman who lived a hundred yards from the farm had heard the gunshots the previous evening and had gone outside to investigate. She'd seen an unfamiliar car parked down the lane from her house, and because of the circumstances she'd written down the registration number. A few minutes later she'd seen a man return to the car and drive away. Because there were a number of farms in the area, and the sound of shotguns being fired wasn't that unusual, the woman hadn't called the police. But when they'd turned up at her door earlier that day as part of their general enquiries, she'd told them about what had happened. The car was quickly traced to DI Doyle, and when the witness was shown his photo she was able to say that it bore a very strong resemblance to the person she'd seen. Not enough for a conviction perhaps, but ample justification for an arrest warrant to be issued, and from that moment on his fate had been sealed. However, before he could be arrested, he'd been involved in a car crash, and was now seriously ill in hospital. A gun recovered from the scene with his fingerprints on it had subsequently been confirmed as the weapon used to murder Scott Ridgers at the farm.
The reason why it was only a comparatively clean conclusion rather than an absolutely perfect result was that Matt Turner was still very ill and Mike Bolt, who more than anyone deserved credit for the op's overall success, was suspended until further notice. It didn't seem fair. And this was the main reason Tina was hanging around in the dark in a bad part of town, waiting. Because sometimes doing the job and upholding the law didn't necessarily provide the justice it was meant to. Sometimes you had to dispense that justice yourself, as an individual. Like Mike had done yesterday.
There was movement across the road. A group of men emerged from the entrance to the monolithic tower block, three of them in all, moving purposefully, their voices low. They stopped at the Lexus and got inside, pulling out seconds later.
Tina retreated further into the shadows and took out her mobile as they drove past her. It was an unregistered pay-as-you go she'd bought on Tottenham Court Road earlier that day, and as the Lexus came to the end of the road and turned left, she dialled 999, asking for police.
'Hello, can I help you?'
'I've just seen three men get into a car armed with guns.'
'Are you sure about this, madam?'
'Absolutely,' she said breathlessly. 'They walked right past me.'
She gave her location, the make and model of the car, and the direction it was travelling in, waiting patiently while the operator took all the information down.
'And can I have your name, madam?'
'I don't want to get involved, I'm too scared.'
And with that, she ended the call, switched off the phone, and walked back to her car.
When she'd phoned the number Leon Daroyce had given her an hour earlier she'd disguised her voice and said he could find Pat Phelan at a flat in Colindale, where he was holed up with a lover, hoping he'd take the bait. And now it looked like he had done. She had no idea whether Daroyce and his two associates would be armed or not, but it didn't really matter since when the police stopped the car they'd find the five grams of cocaine she'd planted in the glove compartment. It had taken all the burglary skills she'd learned at SOCA to bypass the Lexus's sophisticated alarm system, as well as one hell of a lot of nerve, but it would be worth it. Armed with the coke, the police would be able to execute a search warrant on Daroyce's premises, a place she was absolutely sure would be full of illegal contraband.