Target

'You're my mate, Rob. Course I'm sure.'

I was touched. So much so I felt like shedding a tear, though thankfully I managed to stop myself. Instead I immediately climbed out of bed, desperate to get out of the place. Hospitals aren't much fun at the best of times, but when someone's tried to kill you in one, it acts as a pretty sizeable incentive to leave.

However, what with my somewhat unusual circumstances, coupled with the British penchant for bureaucracy, it didn't prove all that easy. First of all, I had to get permission from Thames Valley Police, who were in charge of guarding me, who had to phone Mike Bolt, who agreed in principle with me leaving but wanted a forwarding address in case he needed to reach me, before the assistant chief constable finally rubber-stamped my request. It was then the turn of the hospital itself to be convinced that I was in a fit state to be released from its care, and for some reason they were even more reluctant to see the back of me than Her Majesty's finest, insisting that I wait for the duty doctor to give me a thorough going-over, even though he was only a third of the way through his rounds. So it was well over an hour before I at last got into Dom's car for the journey back to London, laden down with enough painkillers to knock out a football team.

We didn't speak much. I was still a little shell-shocked by events, and all the drugs I'd had were making me dopey. But when we reached Dom's palatial pad in Wanstead and he cracked open a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc and told me to relax while he cooked a late lunch, I began to perk up. Dom had never been the best cook in the world – takeaways were our main dietary staple when I was living there – but this time he actually put together a half-decent king prawn stir fry, although given the lack of food over the last few days I'd have devoured pretty much anything.

After we'd eaten, we retired to the front room with the wine and talked about what had happened. Dom asked me plenty of questions but he seemed to take particular interest in the actions of the pale murderous Irishman. 'He sounds stone cold,' he commented after I'd told him about the casual murder of Ramon in my bedroom, and I thought I caught just the slightest hint of admiration in his voice. 'Maybe now Maxwell's gone you should consider writing a book about all this. It'd probably sell millions.'

Dom had always bought into the glamour of the criminal underworld, which was why his bookshelves were full of sensational true crime books, and why he'd been so keen to meet Maxwell. His attitude irritated me, but then I'd been seduced in exactly the same way.

'He was an animal,' I said with a conversation-ending finality.

'Shit, I'm sorry mate, I didn't mean it to sound flippant.' He looked genuinely remorseful. 'It's just, you know, I didn't know people like that really existed.'

The drink continued to flow and we moved on to happier subjects. We began to reminisce about the old days: the laughs we'd had in school; the disastrous teenage double date we'd been on with the twin Queen sisters, when Dom made his date Sam cry and mine, Justine, attacked him with her shoe; the disastrous camping holiday to the south of France when the two of us, aged seventeen, got on the wrong train at the Gare du Nord in Paris and ended up spending four rainsoaked days in Belgium… Good times, too long ago now, when the world was a fun and easy place, one in which stone-cold killers had never roamed.

As we laughed and talked, I genuinely forgot my troubles in that soft, comforting embrace of alcohol, but then I remembered that Jenny Brakspear was still out there somewhere, and the thought made me feel guilty.

Seeing the change in my expression, Dom asked me what was wrong, and when I told him, he too grew serious. 'I know how you feel, mate, and if it's any consolation, I feel the same way. But neither of us can beat ourselves up about it, especially you. You did all you could to find her, and now, thanks to you, there are plenty of people out there looking.'

'That doesn't mean they're going to find her, though, does it? Not if she's well enough hidden.'

'You can't think like that, Rob. You've got to be positive. You know with all the technology they've got these days, they can find anybody. Shit, look how easy the Irish guy and his mate found you. One tiny GPS transmitter and they can trace a person down to the nearest metre.'

'I suppose so,' I said, not really sharing his confidence.

He picked up the empty wine bottle from the pine coffee table. 'Shall I crack open another one?'

'I don't know. I'm feeling it already with the painkillers.'

He gave me a sly smile. 'Come on. Drown the sorrows. You can always sleep it off later. Remember, you've done your bit.'

Like a lot of City boys, Dom had always drunk a lot. It was an easy way to handle the pressure and the long hours. I'd never caned it to quite the same extent, but I figured another bottle probably wouldn't do a huge amount of harm. There was nothing else I could do to find Jenny, so I might as well forget about it for a while. 'Go on then,' I said. 'In for a penny and all that.'

He looked pleased – after all, no one likes to drink alone – but as he left the room I realized that something was bugging me, although in the fog of the booze it was difficult to identify what it was.

Then I remembered.

I hadn't told Dom about the GPS transmitter in my mobile. I went back through the conversation we'd had, trying to work out if I was mistaken.

Then something else hit me, its ramifications so immense and terrifying that I suddenly sat bolt upright on the sofa.

Maxwell didn't have mobile reception at his place.

He used to say he was happier without it because only a handful of people had his landline number, which meant only people he wanted to speak to could get hold of him. It meant that when I interviewed him for the book, I never got interrupted.

So the kidnappers couldn't have used the GPS to find me there. Which could only mean one thing: they'd had inside information from somewhere.

And as I turned towards the door, I knew immediately where it had come from.

Fifty-four

The smile on Dom's face died the moment he came into the room and saw my expression. I think in that moment he knew that I'd found him out.

'What is it, Rob?' he asked with a casualness that seemed forced as he put the bottle of Sauvignon Blanc down on the table.

'Where's Jenny, Dom?' I demanded.

'What are you talking about? How should I know?'

I told him about the lack of a mobile reception at Maxwell's place.

'What the hell's that got to do with me?'

'You knew where Maxwell lived, didn't you?'

'Well, yeah, but so did quite a lot of other people.'

'But none of them were intimately acquainted with Jenny, were they?'

Part of me couldn't believe I was saying what I was saying. After all, Dom was my friend of more than twenty years, a normal guy who'd lived a normal life and who'd never been in trouble before. Yet when I'd spoken to him on the phone in Dubai the other day, something hadn't rung true. It was the way he'd denied that he'd talked to Jenny for months, even though she'd told me he'd been calling her, trying to get back together. Because why on earth would she have made something like that up?

'You were lying when you said you hadn't spoken to Jenny for months, weren't you? So tell me,' I said, raising my voice now, 'where the hell is she?'

'Christ, Rob, don't be so fucking stupid. Why the hell would I ever get involved in a kidnapping? I'm a businessman, not a criminal. You're delirious, mate. You need some rest.'

He tried staring me out, wearing an expression of righteous indignation and surprise that I'd seen him use plenty of times, usually when he was trying to convince someone he was telling the truth. It usually worked, too, and was doubtless one of the reasons he'd been so successful in business. Back in the old days it had always convinced our teachers he was telling the truth. But I knew him too well. Most of the time he did it when he was lying.