'No, I agree,' said Big Barry. 'Someone high-level like Wise would have been running things, but Sir Henry was a willing partner, as was Dominic Moynihan. I believe Moynihan went out with Roy Brakspear's daughter for a while so he would have been the one who volunteered the information about her father's connections with dangerous gases. Then Wise would have used his criminal contacts to organize the actual logistics and hire Hook. Whether or not they intended to carry out a mass slaughter or give some sort of warning before the bomb was detonated we don't know, but knowing someone like Wise, they'd probably take the mass slaughter route, because that would have the bigger impact on the stocks.'
Mo shook his head slowly. 'What kind of people would do something like that?'
'Greedy ones. And I reckon Sir Henry and Dominic Moynihan were probably under a lot of pressure from Paul Wise. He's not the type to be very understanding about people losing millions of pounds of his money.'
'But I can't understand how they'd have got away with it,' said Bolt. 'Surely it would have been a huge coincidence them making a fortune like that on exactly the same day this bomb goes off?'
Big Barry shrugged. 'I'm no economist, old mate, but I heard once that one third of the world's money passes through the City of London every working day. If that's the case, then the money they would have made – fifty, sixty million – is just a drop in the ocean. So I doubt if it would have been picked up. An attack like that would almost certainly have been blamed on Islamic terrorists trying to disrupt the British economy, and with no witnesses left alive to say otherwise it would probably have been left at that. I doubt if anyone would have suspected a couple of UK-born City financiers, one of whom's a peer of the realm.'
An unpleasant thought struck Bolt. 'What can we prove against Wise?'
'I don't know,' admitted Big Barry, his expression not inspiring a great deal of optimism. 'Probably not a lot. Wise is an intelligent, surveillance-aware operator so he'll have been careful with his side of the planning, and I expect he left a lot of the actual logistics to Hook. With most of the conspirators dead, we're going to have to rely on Sir Henry testifying against him, and even then it's going to be difficult to build a case.'
'Have we brought Sir Henry in yet?'
'At the moment we haven't got enough evidence to charge him with anything, but we've got him under twenty-four-hour surveillance and his house has been bugged, so even if he farts we'll know about it.'
Bolt took a gulp of his coffee. 'Fair enough,' he said, even though he'd have been happier with Sir Henry Portman in a place where they could lean on him. Bolt was sure a high-living socialite who'd never known true pressure would crumble immediately.
At that moment, a shout went up among the assembled firefighters in front of the barn. The fire was pretty much out now and two horrifically charred bodies were being brought out. As Bolt watched, they were laid down on the gravel track, and two paramedics with body bags and the duty doctor came forward to complete the formalities.
'So we got him at last, boss,' said Mo, patting Bolt on the shoulder. 'It's what he deserved.'
Bolt nodded, then slowly made his way between the squad cars over to where the bodies lay, exhaustion finally beginning to take hold. He had no real desire to view the charred corpse of the man he'd been after these past five years, but something drove him on. Perhaps it was the memory of Leticia Jones's small, stiff body on her uncle's floor. Or the other bodies he'd seen these past twenty-four hours. Roy Brakspear, Rob Fallon, the unidentified woman beside the road the previous night…
He stopped a few feet away from the bodies, flinching against the overpowering smell of burnt flesh. Bolt might have been a police officer with more than twenty years' experience, but he still found it very difficult to look at dead people. They reminded him too much of his own mortality, and burns victims were possibly the worst. The intense heat melted their fat and shrank them into nightmarish charcoal sculptures, almost unidentifiable as human.
One was very tall, and he guessed that this was the body of the as yet unidentified man who'd been found on the barn floor when the armed officers had gone in.
Bolt took a deep breath and stared down at the other corpse – all that was left of his nemesis. Although some form of natural justice had been done here, he found it difficult to feel any real satisfaction.
Something caught his eye on the body. A smoke-blackened gold ring on one of the gnarled, twisted fingers.
He bent down, looking more closely. Which was when he felt a surge of pure shock. There was a second gold ring on the finger next to it, unmistakably feminine in design.
Bolt wasn't looking at Hook at all. He was looking at the body of a woman.
And straight away he knew it must be Jenny Brakspear.
Seventy-two
Hook had waited until the pretty paramedic with the spiky red hair turned her back to him to prepare a shot of painkillers, then slipped an arm free and released the chest strap holding him to the gurney. He'd attached a small plastic blade, four inches long and very sharp, to the inside of his wrist with tape earlier, and he pulled it off, the noise alerting the paramedic, who started to turn round.
Hook had been far too quick for her. Drawing her back into a tight embrace, he'd clasped his hand over her mouth and driven the blade deep into her neck. A geyser of blood from the severed jugular vein spattered hard against the back window before slowing to a sputter as she died, shaking, in his arms.
He'd placed her body gently on the floor, then discarded the makeshift blonde wig he'd sliced from Jenny Brakspear's head and leaned through the partition into the cab, putting the dripping blade to the unsuspecting driver's neck and ordering him to pull over.
The shocked driver had been sensible enough to cooperate. 'Let me go and I won't raise the alarm for another ten minutes,' he'd said calmly as he brought the ambulance to a halt. 'That should give you enough time.'
It was a fair offer, but Hook hadn't been tempted to take it. Instead, he'd yanked the driver's head backwards and dispatched him in exactly the same way as he'd dispatched his colleague, sinking the blade up to the hilt in his neck. This time there'd been more of a struggle. The driver had made some loud choking noises and had lurched forward in his seat, the blood spraying everywhere. Somehow he'd managed to break free, and he'd grabbed wildly at the door handle.
For a moment Hook had thought the driver was going to yank open the door, which would have been a problem because there were headlights coming the other way, but thankfully all energy had then seemed to leave him and he'd slumped to one side, lifting one arm in a useless show of resistance.
He'd pushed the driver into the passenger seat, then clambered through the partition and taken the wheel, pulling away as two police squad cars passed him heading in the other direction.
Hook had allowed himself a small smile as he picked up speed, checking his location on the GPS. It wouldn't be long before they realized their mistake, but by then it would be too late.
Once again, it would be like he'd never existed. A shadow disappearing into the night, leaving only terror and destruction behind him.
Seventy-three
The helicopter rose swiftly above the smoking ruin of the barn before turning south towards London. Below him, Bolt could see the wide cordon of flashing blue lights stretching out in the darkness across the countryside, with the crashed phosgene lorry in the centre, illuminated by the search beams of a circling police helicopter.