Hancock shook his head. ‘No, that’s all taken care of. We’ll release the body as soon as we’re able, but it may not be for a while yet.’
‘Did she suffer?’
‘Your wife was very close to the bomber. She would have died almost instantly. In fact, she probably never felt a thing.’
‘And there’s no doubt?’
‘No. There’s no doubt at all. I’m sorry.’
‘Thank you, officers. It must be a very hard job you have to do.’
A long time afterwards, DS Chris Hancock remembered this being the point when he thought there was something wrong with Crossman’s reaction. He was acting more like a politician doling out well-earned praise than a man who’d just lost his wife, but at the time all Hancock experienced was an uneasy feeling he couldn’t quite put his finger on.
Crossman must have seen something in his expression. ‘I have to admit, my wife and I were planning to split up,’ he informed them. ‘We’ve had a number of arguments and she was planning to move out in the next few weeks. Even so, it’s still a terrible loss to our family.’ He took a deep breath, and looked up towards the ceiling.
DC MacDonald put a hand gently on his arm. ‘If there’s anything we can do, Mr Crosssman …’
‘No, it’s fine,’ he said, wiping his eyes with the sleeve of his shirt. ‘I’ll do what has to be done.’
‘It may be best for you not to be alone. We can organize a grief counsellor to come and talk to you and your children.’
‘I really appreciate your offer, but we can manage.’
There was a finality in his tone that told them that they were done here. They left the boardroom and walked back through reception, nodding at the receptionist as they left.
‘God, I hope we don’t have to do any more of those for a while,’ said DC MacDonald when they were outside.
‘I wouldn’t bet on it,’ said Hancock. So far, twelve people — not including the bomber — had been confirmed dead, a figure that was still rising. ‘I always seem to get these jobs.’
‘I thought he took it pretty well in there, considering.’
‘So did I. Too well.’
‘Really?’
He shrugged. ‘There was something about him I didn’t like.’
‘I think you’re beginning to get cynical in your old age, Chris.’
‘I disagree,’ he said, as they got into the car. ‘I can see the good in people. But I can also tell when it’s missing. And it was missing in there.’
Back in the boardroom, Garth Crossman sat in contemplative silence. He’d made numerous presentations in this room to investors, shareholders and clients, yet in many ways the one he’d just made to the two police officers had been the most important. It was essential they believed in his grief, and he was pretty certain they had.
He sat back in his seat and allowed himself a small smile. There’d been some unnerving moments, but so far his plan was working perfectly.
And the exciting thing was, it was only just beginning.
Twenty-three
14.30
Jetmir Brozi’s name alone wasn’t a huge help to Bolt’s team. At the moment they only had the word of a suspected mass murderer that he was involved in the Stanhope siege and today’s attacks, and Tina knew this meant a major and possibly lengthy evidence-gathering mission. The first priority was to locate him, which was why Mo Khan and Omar Balachi had been dispatched to keep watch on the brothel in King’s Cross, while she and Bolt had just turned off the Pentonville Road and were driving to his house in Islington. A surveillance team from Tina’s old station, Islington nick, was already there at Bolt’s request, keeping an eye on the place until they arrived.
Bolt was driving and, as he approached some red lights, Nikki Donohoe’s voice came over the radio to tell them that Brozi had been positively ID’d leaving his house, and was now being followed by the surveillance team.
‘Christ, I hope they don’t lose him,’ said Bolt, bringing the car to a halt.
‘How big’s the team they’re using?’ asked Tina.
‘Six.’
Tina frowned. ‘Is that all?’
‘Right now, everyone’s on the hunt for the bombers, and this is just one of a hundred leads. We were lucky to get anyone at all.’
Most police surveillance teams were an absolute minimum of eight strong, with twelve being the average, while the terrorist chasers in MI5 liked to use up to twenty-five people to follow one suspect. As far as Tina was concerned, sending six was worse than sending no one at all, because they were more likely to get spotted, ruining everything.
It wasn’t long before they were driving past the address they’d been given for Jetmir Brozi — a well-kept Georgian townhouse on a leafy residential street not far from Liverpool Road. ‘Not bad for a thug who should have been deported years ago,’ Bolt remarked.
They found a spot yards metres further down the road, and took up position facing his front door. Now it was just a matter of waiting for authorization to carry out a covert entry on Brozi’s house and plant cameras and audio equipment inside. Usually this could take days, but Bolt had asked his boss, Commander Thomas Ingrams, the head of CTC, to do everything he could to fast-track it and, given Brozi’s record as a known criminal, they were both hopeful they’d get it sooner rather than later.
The car fell silent bar the radio chatter coming from the surveillance team as they followed Brozi through heavy traffic on the Pentonville Road. Tina recognized a couple of voices as cops she used to work with, and wondered if she’d end up running into any of them later.
‘So, how’s life, Mike? Are you still with that girl? The one you were engaged to?’
‘Claire. It didn’t work out.’ He shrugged. ‘It’s not easy to hold down a relationship in our line of work.’
‘That’s true, but it’s not impossible either. How come you broke up? I thought she was meant to be the one.’
‘Blimey, Tina. What is this? Twenty Questions?’
Now it was her turn to shrug. ‘I’m just interested, that’s all.’ But it was more than that. She was interested in him. She wanted to find out why a tall, good-looking, charismatic guy like Bolt couldn’t hold down a relationship. She wanted to know if he still had commitment issues. And the reason was simple. Since seeing him that morning for the first time in two years, the attraction she’d once felt had suddenly, and totally unexpectedly, been rekindled.
‘Anyway,’ he said, turning things round, ‘how’s your love life?’
She laughed. ‘Non-existent. I’m about as good as you at holding down a relationship, so I guess I shouldn’t be lecturing. I split with my last boyfriend because he wanted me to tie him up and spank him. Can you believe that?’
‘I’ve been a copper for more than twenty-five years. I can believe anything.’ He grinned. ‘I’d have thought that was right up your street, Tina. Knocking men about without getting into trouble.’
‘What got me was that it all started off totally normally. He was a really nice guy. Smart, good-looking. Good taste obviously.’
‘Obviously.’
‘We even went to meet his parents in Vancouver. Then one day he tells me out of the blue that he’s always wanted to be dominated sexually, and he asks if he can call me Mistress when we’re on our own.’
They were both laughing now.
‘I reckon you’d make a good mistress.’
‘I tried to play along — I like to think I’m a game girl — but it all just got a bit silly.’
They both fell silent, looking at each other, and she remembered how close she’d come to falling into bed with him last time, and she could feel the same thing happening now.
They were interrupted by the voice of Nikki Donohoe coming back over the radio. ‘Control to Alpha One. Authorization for the creep at suspect property given. I’m emailing through the paperwork now. Over.’
‘Alpha One to Control,’ said Bolt into the radio. ‘Received and understood. Over.’