Target

'Her dad's the key,' said Bolt. 'He's the one they've got to be blackmailing. What did Obanje find out about him?'

'He's a company director of a gas wholesaler based in Cambridge. Good salary, and he's a part owner of the company, but there's not enough to hold him to ransom over. If he liquidated all his assets tomorrow then Kris reckons he could probably raise a few hundred thousand, but he hasn't even attempted to do that. The company's listed on AIM, the small company stock exchange, and there've been no share transactions this week, which there would have been if he'd been trying to raise money by selling his shares.'

'So it's something else.'

They both stood in silence for a minute.

Then a thought struck Bolt. 'You said Brakspear's a director of a gas company. What type of gases do they deal with?'

Mo shrugged. 'I don't know, and I don't think Kris looked into it in too much detail. But they wouldn't be ransoming her for gas, would they? It can't be worth that much money.'

'But if it's not money, I don't know what else it could be. Have you got a name for the company?'

He flicked open his notebook. 'Mainline Gas Services.'

'Let's look them up.'

Mo Khan always kept his laptop with him on jobs. It was currently under the seat in the Jaguar. They got inside the car and he looked up Mainline on the net, using a plug-in stick.

The company's website was pretty basic. It gave a brief history and an even briefer description of the services offered, and the gases they dealt with, none of which looked particularly controversial, although Bolt knew that this didn't mean much.

Mainline had two directors. One was Roy Brakspear, and when Mo double-clicked on his name the photograph of an ordinary-looking man in his fifties with grey hair and an avuncular smile appeared. His background was equally ordinary. A Masters degree in Chemistry from Cambridge; twelve years as a chemist at ICI before founding Mainline with an ICI colleague in 1987; one adult daughter. No mention of a wife. The ICI colleague was Miles Cavendish, now managing director, a younger-looking guy with red hair in a side parting and a much more confident, go-getting smile in his website photo.

'We need to speak to this guy,' said Bolt, pointing at Cavendish's mug.

'He's not going to be pleased being woken at this time in the morning.'

'It's an emergency. We've got no choice.'

It only took a few minutes to find Cavendish's number. SOCA had access to every registered telephone number in the country, but in this case Bolt bypassed HQ and phoned directory enquiries, immediately striking gold.

'This guy must be one of the last people in the country listed in the phone book,' he said as he wrote down the number. 'I'd never have my number there for every Tom, Dick and Harry to see.'

Mo shrugged. 'Saira insists on it. Just in case any of her old friends are trying to look her up.'

'And do any?'

'No. All we get are calls from Indian call centres.'

'I think when he finds out what this is about, Cavendish is going to wish we were an Indian call centre.'

He dialled the number. The phone seemed to ring for ever. Bolt was just about to give up when a hugely irritated male voice came over the line. 'Yes?'

'Miles Cavendish?'

'That's me,' he answered, still not sounding quite awake. 'Who am I speaking to, please?'

Bolt introduced himself and heard the audible intake of breath. No one likes a call from SOCA.

'How can I help you?' There was concern in his voice.

Bolt knew he had to choose his words carefully. He needed answers but he didn't want to have to give too much away. 'Can you tell me if your company, Mainline, handles any gases that could be described as expensive? Or dangerous?'

'Excuse me, can you explain what on earth this is all about? It's half past one in the morning.'

'Can you please answer the question, sir?'

'Look,' snapped Cavendish, 'how do I even know you are who you say you are? You could be anyone. Let me call you back.'

'I'm on a mobile.'

'In that case, goodbye. I'm not talking to people whose credentials I can't see.'

Bolt started to say something else but he was talking into a dead phone, and when he called back it was engaged. He shook his head angrily. 'Arsehole,' he cursed.

'You can't blame him, boss. You wouldn't give out information to someone who called you at home, would you?'

Bolt sighed. 'We're going to have to get his address and drive up there.'

'We could arrange for local CID to go round there if we told them what we needed to know. It would save us a long journey.'

Bolt looked at his colleague. There were big black bags under his eyes and he looked shattered. 'I'd rather do it myself, but there's no need for you to come with me. Honestly. I can drop you back home on the way. It's different for me. It's personal.'

Mo frowned. 'I was never a major fan of Tina Boyd, boss, but I still want to find her. And I want Hook just as much as you do. I worked the Leticia Jones case as well, remember?'

'I just thought maybe you could do with the rest. You look pretty whacked out.'

'I am. But look in the mirror. You do, too. We're in this together, boss. And also, there's still the matter that you saved my neck tonight, whatever you might think. So I owe you. Make the most of it. It won't last for ever.'

Bolt smiled. He felt touched, but didn't know quite what to say. In the end, he turned on the Jag's engine, backed out of the parking space, and once again they were on the move.

Forty-five

Miles Cavendish lived in the village of Stretham, about ten miles north of Cambridge on the A10, and it wasn't far short of three in the morning when Bolt and Mo finally pulled up in front of an attractive barn conversion set back a hundred yards from the road down a quiet lane.

Security lights illuminated the whole of the well-kept front garden, and as they got out of the car more lights came on in the house. By the time they got to the front door it had been opened on a chain by the man from the website photo. He was in a dressing gown and striped pyjamas and his hair was a mess. He eyed them with a mixture of suspicion and concern.

'Mr Cavendish, we spoke earlier.' Bolt placed his warrant card in the gap so that Cavendish could examine it as carefully as he wanted.

'Oh God,' said Cavendish, releasing the chain and opening the door. 'So it wasn't a hoax.'

'I'm afraid not,' answered Bolt as he and Mo stepped inside.

They followed Cavendish through to a traditionally decorated lounge and he invited them to sit down. 'I'm sorry about earlier but I've been the victim of identity fraud before and I'm very careful what I say on the phone to people I don't know. Could you please tell me what this is about?' He looked at them anxiously.

They'd decided on the way up to treat Cavendish as if he was a suspect. Which meant not giving much away.

'We can't tell you very much, I'm afraid,' Bolt replied. 'Right now, we just want you to answer our questions.'

Cavendish went white. 'We're a very respectable company, officers. We've got nothing to hide, I promise. We pay our taxes on time-'

'Firstly,' said Mo, 'can you tell me what your organization does?'

'We're a gas wholesaler. Basically, we buy certain specialist gases, directly from the manufacturers in this country and Europe, and sell them on in smaller quantities to our clients, who are mainly in the pharmaceutical and technology sectors.'

'And are there any gases your company handles that could be classed as highly expensive?'

'Yes. Some of the loads are worth a lot of money. A mixed batch of, say, xenon, tungsten hexaflouride, helium-3 isotope, could be worth as much as a hundred thousand pounds.'