Target

But at least he'd bought the story.

Now that I'd got rid of the only person who'd actually believed me, I was effectively on my own, and as I was an investment analyst turned writer, not a detective, this meant I needed some expert help.

I was still thinking what I was going to do about this when the landline started ringing. I sat up suddenly and my vision blacked out temporarily, taking several seconds to return. Still feeling pretty awful, I looked at my watch for the first time since Ramon had been killed, surprised to see that it was almost half past midnight. I reached for the receiver.

'Mr Fallon,' said Tina Boyd. 'Have you sobered up yet?'

I almost laughed at the sound of her voice. Even after everything that had happened, Tina Boyd still gave me confidence. But I was also aware that the man who'd come here tonight was no idiot and might have left behind some kind of bug to record any calls I made. It was time to start thinking like them.

I knew from research I'd done for Conspiracy that it was almost impossible for a private individual to bug a mobile, so right then it was my best bet.

'Can I call you back?' I said. 'Five minutes?'

'I'll be waiting,' she said, and cut the connection.

Seventeen

Tina was sitting at her desk drinking her third coffee of the night when Fallon called back.

'Where are you speaking from?' she asked him.

'I'm walking down my street.'

'Is it safe at this time of night?'

'A lot safer than my flat. I had a visit tonight.'

'What happened?'

'One of the kidnappers broke in and threatened me with a knife. He knew I'd been speaking to the police and he was the one who made me call you.'

'Which of them was it?'

'The Irish guy. The one who'd had the plastic surgery.'

'Can you give any further description of him? Something you may not have mentioned last night?'

'He had scarring round his chin. It looked a bit like someone had cut him with a bottle, but it wasn't that pronounced. I think the plastic surgery must have got rid of most of it, which makes me think that at one time he must have been hurt pretty badly.'

Tina frowned as she wrote down this information. It all seemed so improbable somehow, yet her initial suspicions that Fallon had indeed been telling the truth were turning out to be correct. 'This man didn't hurt you, did he?'

'No, but he left me in no doubt that he would if I carried on searching for Jenny. That's why I'm phoning you from four hundred yards down the road. I don't want anyone else listening in.'

'And are you sure you're not being followed now?'

'I'm being extra careful, I promise.'

'Glad to hear it. And don't worry. We can offer you protection if you need it.' But even as she said the words, Tina wondered if they actually could.

Fallon sighed. 'I think I'm going to need it. What did you find out that made you call me?'

She told him about the doctored CCTV footage and the doorman's criminal record.

'So, the bastard was involved.'

'Almost certainly, and that makes it a major criminal operation. If they're going to this much trouble and planning, then there's a very specific reason why they kidnapped Jenny. Her father claims that nothing's happened to her-'

'He's lying. He's got to be.'

'I agree. And I think he's lying because he's under duress, which means the kidnappers are in contact with him. But we still don't know why.'

'It's usually money, isn't it?'

'Usually, but I'd be surprised if it was in this case. I've got some background on Roy Brakspear. He's a widower who lost his wife to cancer five years ago, and he's the director and part owner of a reasonably profitable mid-sized company based in Cambridge which supplies raw materials to the pharmaceuticals and technology sectors. He takes a salary of one hundred and seventy thousand pounds per year and he holds fifteen per cent of the company's shares, which if he sold them tomorrow would net him about three hundred thousand. He's not going to be hitting the poverty line any time soon, but it doesn't make him a rich man. So there's something else, and I think we need to focus on Brakspear himself to find out what it is.'

'What do you need me to do?' asked Fallon, sounding eager to help.

'Right now, nothing. Go back home, get some sleep and leave the investigating to us.'

'Are you going to take finding Jenny seriously now? She's been gone twenty-four hours, and I'm really worried about her.'

'We've got enough evidence to move on this now so, yes, we are going to take it seriously. And I'll keep you informed of progress too, you have my word on that. But I want you to promise me you're not going to speak to anyone about this. Because if you do, it could jeopardize our inquiry.'

Fallon said he wouldn't, and she ended the call, returning to the pile of witness statements for the stabbing on the Holloway Road that afternoon.

It made the usual grim reading. A loud argument between a bunch of school kids, insults thrown, followed by a flurry of fists and feet, then suddenly one of them pulls a knife and plunges it into his nearest opponent. A single stab wound to the chest, delivered without thought of the consequences, and now a fifteen-year-old was in a hospital bed fighting for his life. Tina had never become inured to the casual violence she had to deal with and she found incidents like this – petty, pointless disputes that ended so horrifically and with so much attendant suffering – profoundly depressing. The only positive was that it wasn't going to be difficult to ID the perpetrator. This meant that CID resources could be freed up to look for Jenny. Tina had now decided to speak to DCI Knox about it as soon as she finished her shift. With Jenny missing for twenty-four hours now, time really was of the essence. It crossed her mind to go straight to the Met's Kidnap Unit but she knew they were snowed under with drugs-related cases and probably wouldn't take what she had that seriously. It would be easier if Knox referred it.

She yawned and reached for her cigarettes, deciding that she could probably get away with having one more at her desk, rather than puffing out of the toilet window. But as she lit it she saw an exhausted-looking DCI Knox approaching along the corridor. She'd just thrown the cigarette into the dregs of her coffee cup and deposited it under the table when he opened the door and came inside.

Knox was usually annoyingly upbeat and full of motivational psycho-babble, but tonight he didn't look very happy at all. 'Bad news,' he said wearily. 'Our stabbing's just become a murder. The kid died at midnight.'

Tina's heart sank. Not just because a fifteen-year-old had lost his life and a family would now be grieving, but also because of what it meant for Jenny Brakspear.

Tina would never get the resources she needed now.

Tuesday

Eighteen

When Tina Boyd was nineteen years old and in her first year at university, she was out drinking one night in one of the student union bars with some of the rowdier elements of her psychology course when some bright spark suggested they have a competition to see who could down a pint of lager the fastest. Two minutes later, eleven people – nine men, Tina, and a girl called Claire – had lined up along the bar with their drinks in front of them, while another of the girls acted as timekeeper.