‘Please!’ she blurted.

  He laughed and looked up at Gregor. ‘And there’s our leverage.’

  ‘Please,’ she begged again. ‘He’s just a boy! He’s got nothing to do with th–’

  ‘He has everything to do with this… if I say he does,’ he replied, looking back at the photograph. ‘Because I’m in charge. He’s a rather good-looking lad, isn’t he? At the moment, that is.’

  Hatcher felt the blood drain from her face.

  ‘I’m leaving this room in the next few minutes with either Turner’s location or this letter,’ Hammond said.

  ‘Oh God, no…’ she pleaded. Then before she could stop herself: ‘Boyd…’

  Hammond frowned. ‘That’s the inspector who interviewed me, right?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘DCI Boyd.’ She noticed a flicker of a reaction on the wiry old man’s face.

  The old man leant over and whispered something to Hammond.

  His brows raised in surprise. ‘Oh? Really?’ He turned back to Hatcher. ‘Gregor tells me we’ve already reached out to Boyd before. So… what’s he to me? Like I said, I want an address. Now.’

  ‘I think…’ she began. She knew there’d be a price to be paid for this down the line. ‘I think… I suspect… that Boyd knows where Turner is. He may even be in contact with him. They’re friends.’

  Hammond smiled. ‘Well, that is interesting. Very interesting. He is helping him, is he?’

  ‘Y-yes. I… I believe so,’ she said.

  Hammond’s face widened to a troll-like grin. ‘So we have a naughty dog. See how good we are together, Margaret! Well now… I see no reason to waste any more of each other’s time… Where am I going to find DCI Boyd?’

  42

  Boyd drummed his fingers on the dashboard impatiently as DI Shannon nudged the car through the traffic. The stop–start pulsing of red brake lights was starting to give him a headache.

  ‘See, this is why I don’t ever drive to Brighton,’ muttered DI Shannon. ‘It’s literally quicker to drive back to London along the M25 and back down the A21 than it is to drive the thirty bloody miles between us!’

  ‘It’s five past five,’ said DI Abbott. ‘Rush hour, ain’t it?’

  ‘Oh, well done, sunshine,’ said Shannon. ‘You just earned your “State the Bleedin’ Obvious” Blue Peter badge.’

  ‘At this rate it’ll be gone six thirty before we get back to the station,’ muttered Abbott. ‘And there’ll be sod-all overtime. Sutherland’s as tight as a camel’s arse.’

  ‘You’d just spend it in Greggs, Abbott,’ said Shannon. ‘He’s doing you a favour.’

  ‘Oh, piss off,’ Abbott muttered. ‘Cockwomble.’

  Boyd tried to tune out their wittering noise. His mind was on the quiet young DC in the back. O’Neal had already reported back that his SIO appeared to be dragging his feet; Boyd wondered how long it would be before Hatcher passed that information back up the chain to the Salikovs themselves. Or would she simply switch him out of the operation for Flack? Or even DI Shannon?

  His work phone buzzed in his pocket. He pulled it out to see it was the Chief Superintendent herself. Speak of the devil. He turned to the others. ‘Hold it down, fellas. It’s Her Madge calling.’

  The car was instantly silent.

  ‘Evening, ma’am. We’re on our way back from Bright–’

  ‘Boyd…’ She was breathing heavily, as though she’d just been for a run.

  ‘Ma’am?’

  ‘Boyd…’ She wheezed again. ‘The… the Salikovs…’

  He switched hands and ear so the phone wouldn’t bleed her voice straight to Shannon sitting in the seat beside him.

  ‘Yes? What about them?’

  He thought he heard her choke back a sob.

  ‘Ma’am… are you okay?’

  ‘They’re coming for you…’

  Boyd looked round at the others; all eyes were on him.

  ‘Pull over,’ he ordered Shannon.

  The DI signalled left and put the hazard lights on. He pulled out of the sluggish stream of traffic and onto the hard shoulder.

  Boyd unclipped his belt and quickly climbed out of the car, slamming the door shut behind him. ‘What’s happened?’

  ‘There’s no… fucking time,’ she said. ‘They came here, to my home. They’ve just left and they’re on the way to yours…’ She took a deep breath. ‘Boyd… I’m sorry.’

  Then the call ended.

  He kept the phone to his ear as he looked at his three colleagues sitting inside the car, curious eyes still on him, trying to read what the hell was going on. He kept his face neutral.

  Emma.

  He called her number. It rang several times, then went to voicemail. ‘Emma, it’s Dad. If you’re in the house, get out of it now! Then call me straight back.’ He ended the call and texted her the same message. She had to be at work or on the way there. Either was good.

  He called Okeke’s burner phone. She answered instantly. ‘Guv? Have… you spoken with Karl yet?’

  ‘They’re coming for me,’ he blurted out.

  ‘What?!’

  ‘I’ve just spoke to Hatcher. The Salikovs went out to her place. It sounds like they’ve done a number on her. And now they’re on the way over to my house!’

  ‘Fuck!’

  Beckley, where Hatcher lived, was a half-hour drive to Hastings. Forty-five if they got snarled up with the nearly-home-now traffic on the A21. ‘Okeke, I can’t get hold of Emma. Either she’s at work, or on the way to work or…’

  He didn’t want to vocalise the last ‘or’. He really didn’t.

  ‘I’m on it,’ she replied. ‘I’ll go find her and pick her up. Then what, guv?’

  He had no bloody idea. He hadn’t got anything even remotely resembling a plan – just blind panic.

  ‘Look, find Emma… please! Find her, then call me as soon as you’ve got her. I’ll work out the next steps.’

  ‘On it.’ She ended the call.

  Okeke dialled the club. Jay’s boss answered. ‘CuffLinks?’

  ‘Luigi… it’s Jay’s other half, Sam.’

  ‘Ahhh! The lovely Samantha! Yessss,’ he oozed disarmingly. ‘Listen! When is my big man coming back to work? We’re missing him!’

  ‘No, listen. Luigi… is Emma Boyd behind the bar?’

  He tutted. ‘No. She said she might come in early to help with stocking up, but she’s not turned up yet. It’s no problem. I can –’

  ‘Shit.’

  ‘Hey? What’s up?’ Luigi asked.

  ‘Look, when she does turn up, get her to call me… immediately. It’s urgent, okay?’

  ‘What’s happened, Samantha?’

  ‘Just tell her to call me, okay?’

  ‘Yes, okay.’

  She hung up and tried Emma’s number; after several rings the line was bumped to voicemail. Boyd would have undoubtedly left her a message. There was no point doing the same bloody thing. Instead she thumbed a quick text, then looked at the time on her phone. It was twenty past five. If the Russians had just left Beckley, then Okeke could beat them to Boyd’s house. She might even spot Emma walking down the hill into the old town.

  She grabbed her coat and shoulder bag and flew out of the front door.

  43

  ‘I know, I know,’ said Emma softly. ‘And, you know, it was pretty shit of me.’

  ‘Very shit, I think you could say,’ replied Daniel. She could hear him absently strumming his electric guitar while they spoke.

  ‘I mean, fuck… you dropped me like a shit second season.’

  She smiled. ‘Nice.’ Even though Daniel was baring his soul and effectively telling her there was little chance of a second chance because she’d broken his bloody heart… he was still finding some wriggle room for some bants.

  She took that as a good sign.

  ‘I just… I was an idiot,’ she continued. ‘He kind of, I don’t know, he seemed a lot more mature…’

  ‘Thanks,’ Daniel replied. ‘None taken.’

  ‘Look…’ She checked her watch; she was going to be late. She’d texted him for a chat and he’d called literally as soon as she’d stepped out of the shower. Her hair was hanging down her bath robe in wet, tangled ribbons and Ozzie was side-eyeing her from the floor as if to remind her she really needed to get a move on.

  ‘Look,’ she said again, ‘I get that you want us to be friends only, Dan. And I’ll take that. It’s more than I deserve it but maybe…?’

  She heard the soft zzzzing of a strummed chord. ‘I… shit… I dunno, Emma.’

  ‘Please,’ she whispered. ‘I miss you, Dan.’

  She heard him clack his tongue. ‘I missed you too. That’s the prob–’

  The front doorbell rang and Ozzie let loose a barrage of deafening barks.

  ‘I gotta go, Dan. There’s someone at the door. Can we talk in about ten minutes? I’ll be walking down to work… and –’

  ‘Sure. Okay.’

  She opened the door to her bedroom and let Ozzie cascade down the stairs barking loudly all the way.

  ‘All right,’ she said. ‘Ten minutes.’ She ended the call and followed Ozzie down the stairs. It was too early to be Dad standing with an apologetic ‘duh’ face and no door keys to let himself in, so it was most likely the Amazon guy with her order of vegan chocolate.

  Ozzie was right up at the inner door on his hind legs, barking at the frosted glass. She was about to drop her phone into the bathrobe’s pocket when she saw there were two texts she’d missed.

  One from Dad. And another one from Sam Okeke. She skipped her dad’s – it was almost certainly something about working late – and opened Okeke’s message instead.

  GET OUT OF HOUSE ASAP!

  ‘What?’ Emma paused at the bottom of the stairs. Three dots were dancing at the bottom of her screen… Another message from Sam was writing another one:

  I’m in my car. Come to pick you up!

  It had to be Sam at the door then. Emma hurried down the hall, pulled open the inner door and flicked on the foyer light. Ozzie barged past her onto the coarse-haired mat and then proceeded to bark at the figure standing just outside in the dark.

  She was about to reach for the handle when a third message pinged onto the screen from Sam.

  BAD PEOPLE coming fOr You gEt OUT!!!

  Emma froze. The figure outside wasn’t wearing a high-vis jacket, so not Amazon, and was far too tall to be Sam. She reached for Ozzie’s collar and took a step back from the front door with him still barking ferociously at whoever was waiting patiently outside for her to answer.

  She was just taking another step back when something hit the front door hard from outside and it rattled inwards, the old stained glass shattering as it did so.

  Standing before her was a tall, skinny man with black hair scraped into a man bun and a grin that glinted with gold fillings. In one hand he was holding a gun with a long, extended barrel on the end of it.

  Ozzie was barking ferociously now and lurched forward suddenly, freeing himself from Emma’s tight grip. The skinny man raised his gun…

  Okeke turned inland along the Bourne, heading up the gentle slope to Old London Road, looking for the right-hand turning onto Ashburnham Road. She’d been frantically scanning both sides of the street, wondering whether Emma preferred the promenade side or the shop side, but so far there was no sign of her walking to work.

  As her Datsun pulled up the steepening hill, the entrance to the old town’s High Street ahead and All Saints Hall on her right, she had hoped that she might catch Emma striding downhill, but there was still no sign of her.

  ‘Okay,’ Okeke muttered. ‘Still at home, then.’ She peddled the clutch to shift her Datsun into a lower, more responsive gear. ‘Come on, come on, you lazy old bitch! Come on!’ The engine went from a throaty rattle to a whine as it sped forward, and finally the turning for Ashburnham appeared.

  Okeke swung the car right, causing a bus heading downhill to brake suddenly and flash its headlights angrily at her.

  Gregor knocked the young man’s arm upwards and the gun puffed a muted gunshot into the hall’s ceiling. He pulled a coat from one of the hooks to his left and flung it over the dog charging towards them.

  It had the effect he was after. The dog paused to shake it off, giving him enough time to flip it over onto its back and jam a wellington boot into its snapping jaw.

  ‘Get the girl!’ he shouted in Georgian at the young man as he scrambled to find something to tie around the animal’s drooling muzzle.

  Roland watched the frantic scramble from just outside the front door, over Soprano’s beefy shoulders. He was actually rather impressed with the speed, agility and no-nonsense brutality of these chaps. He’d been somewhat underwhelmed with the three uncouth louts when he’d first met them. They looked like three inhabitants from Borat’s Kazakh village: scruffy, undisciplined and all reeking of stale cigarettes and beef jerky. But they had the dog and the girl subdued within seconds with the only sound being the dog’s bloody barking.

  All of a sudden, it was quiet. Gregor had the panting dog trussed up, Ronaldo had the girl in his arms, one hand over her mouth and the barrel of the gun’s silencer rammed up under her chin.

  Soprano hurried into the house and vaulted up the stairs with his handgun at the ready. A few moments later, he hurried back down and shook his head. ‘No person.’

  Okeke was halfway up Ashburnham Road when she noticed a dark grey SUV parked in the road right outside Boyd’s house. She kept on going uphill, keeping her speed slow but constant as she drove past. The front door was wide open and the lights were on. Through the window, she thought she caught a glimpse of a thickset man with a beard stepping into the lounge to look around before disappearing back into the hallway.

  She pulled over twenty yards further up the road and twisted in her seat to look out through the rear window. Several figures emerged from Boyd’s house, heading down the short path to the pavement. She thought she recognised the wavy blonde hair of Hammond among them. Behind him was a tall, skinny man with his arms wrapped around a figure with a towel over her head… It had to be Emma.

  ‘Oh, shit, shit, shit,’ she whispered.

  The headlights of the SUV suddenly glared to life, blinding her. She ducked down low in case any of them noticed her watching them from so stupidly close by. She heard the vehicle’s engine rumble and saw the beams of the headlights swing across the low canopy of her car as it sped past her and off up the road.

  She sat up and furiously tapped the vehicle’s quickly receding registration number into her phone. The SUV turned at the next left and swung out of view, leaving Ashburnham Road seemingly eventless and quiet, save for the distant squawk of seagulls circling in the dark sky above.

  ‘Oh God…’ she whispered. ‘Oh God, they’ve got her.’

  44

  Soprano drove, with Roland in the front passenger seat, while Ronaldo lay across the middle seat with the girl squirming beneath him. Gregor was in the rearmost seat, wrestling with the dog.

  ‘There is tape! In bag!’ shouted Gregor. He gestured a finger towards the passenger-side footwell. Roland reached down and found the bag. He unzipped it and blindly rummaged inside. His fingers brushed across the tacky side of a broad wheel of plumber’s tape. He pulled it out and handed it back to Ronaldo, who quickly wound it several times around the girl’s wrists, bit with his teeth to sever the tape and tossed it to Gregor.

  A few minutes further along the road was a turn-off for an empty car park. Gregor shouted something from the back and Soprano took the turning and drove towards a remote corner of the car park, away from the Homebase store’s well-lit front entrance.

  ‘Why are we bloody stopping?’ snapped Roland.

  ‘We need plan! What is plan?’ Gregor replied, look of incredulity on his face.

  Roland realised the old man was right. He’d hoped for Boyd, but he’d got whoever this young woman was instead. And a grumpy, seemingly wild dog. He needed to re-jig things. Instead of extracting an address out of the detective in the comfort of his own home, he was going to have to broker some arrangement with him. The girl – presumably Boyd’s daughter – was sure to get him what he needed.

  One location, for one girl, unharmed. Tonight.

  ‘Right, yes. Park there,’ he said, pointing at the spot that Soprano was already steering the vehicle towards. ‘Yes! That’s it! That’s good!’

  Soprano pulled into the corner furthest from the store and shadowed from the nearest amber street light by the low boughs of a yew tree, and he turned the engine off.

  There was silence for a few moments. Time for him to gather his thoughts, marshal a new plan. ‘Okay,’ he began. ‘All right… let me think.’

  He looked down at the girl trapped beneath Ronaldo. The silencer of his gun was resting heavily on her cheek: a reminder – as if she needed it – that before she could suck in enough breath to let out a scream, half her head would be smeared across the upholstery. She was in a white bathrobe and, he guessed, little else.

  Roland pulled the towel from her head and lifted a finger to his lips to ensure she understood that they were going to have a conversation that would be very quiet, and very calm. Then he spoke softly: ‘Hello there, lovely … what’s your name?’

  Her wide eyes locked onto him and for a fleeting moment she looked vaguely familiar.

  ‘E-Emma…’ she whispered.

  ‘Emma?’ He smiled. ‘Okay, Emma. My name is Roland. That was your home we just entered, I take it?’

  She nodded.

  ‘So your daddy’s the detective called Boyd?’

  Emma hesitated for a moment before conceding another nod.

  Roland reached down and gently pulled her bathrobe down to cover her exposed bare legs. ‘It’s probably best not to tease these horny hairy monkeys…’ he said, still smiling. ‘They’ve got work to do yet.’