She ripped the gag free. 'Get us out of here,' she wailed, her eyes bulging.
'It's all right,' Doyle said, frowning as he finally recognised the cloying smell.
The marzipan odour.
'He's rigged the house,' Julie shouted, snatching up her daughter and bolting for the front door.
'Jesus Christ,' hissed Doyle.
The odour was plastic explosive.
The building must be packed with it.
'Get out!' Doyle bellowed.
Robert Neville looked at his watch.
He'd driven about two miles.
No sign of anyone following.
The police would be inside the house by now.
He pressed the detonator button.
10.16 A.M.
The explosion was deafening.
The entire upper floor of number ten London Road seemed to rise into the air, propelled by a blast of such thunderous proportions it sounded as if the sky itself had been split apart.
Roofing tiles, pieces of guttering, lumps of wood and stone all erupted upwards in a shrieking funnel of fire, the concussion blast rolling across the street, knocking those nearby off their feet, deafening them.
Doyle lay face down, arms covering his head as he waited for the debris to begin raining down.
What had gone up, after all, had to come down and, seconds after the massive detonation, pieces of brick, wood and all manner of materials began raining down from the heavens.
A screaming plume of flame shot twenty feet skyward, mushrooming outwards into a thick cloud of black and reddened smoke, the pall spreading rapidly across the heavens like ink across blotting paper. A noxious man-made cloud from which the debris seemed to be pouring.
Doyle glanced up and saw bricks landing on parked cars.
A length of timber fully six feet from tip to tip crashed through the windscreen of a police car, the men nearby ducking even lower, one of them falling heavily as a lump of tiling struck his shoulder.
Glass from the upper storey of the house also sprayed outwards and Doyle hissed in pain as a sliver laid open the back of his right hand. He kept the bleeding appendage clapped to his head until the last of the smoking debris had come to earth, though.
Slowly, he picked himself up and turned to look at the house.
Close by, Julie Neville was clutching her daughter to her, her eyes also fixed on what remained of her home.
Three policemen were gathered around her, one of them holding a blanket which he was attempting to wrap around her shoulders.
Calloway and Mason moved cautiously across towards Doyle, who was standing in the street slowly bandaging his hand with a handkerchief.
Sirens were wailing in the distance.
Lisa Neville was crying.
Doyle looked across at the child impassively as she and her mother were helped away.
'Are you OK?' asked Calloway, nodding towards Doyle's injured hand. Blood was soaking through the material.
The counter terrorist nodded slowly, his eyes still riveted on the destruction the bomb had wrought.
'Neville's fucking crazy,' Mason rasped. 'Christ knows how many people he could have killed with that bloody bomb…'
'I don't think he wanted to kill anyone,' Doyle said quietly.
'Are you stupid?' the DS shouted. 'Look at that fucking house.'
Doyle grabbed the smaller man by the lapels and dragged him close, pressing his forehead against the policeman's nose.
'Yeah, look at it, fuckhead,' he rasped. 'Look at the way it's blown.' He pushed the DS away.
'What the hell are you talking about?' Calloway asked.
'The blast went upwards,' said Doyle, making an expansive gesture with his hands. 'Up and out. The houses on either side are barely damaged.'
'I don't get it,' Calloway said, gazing at the wreckage.
'The bottom floor is still intact. My guess is he only wired the attic, maybe only the roof,' Doyle said. 'That's a neat piece of work. Clever.'
'I'm glad you approve,' Calloway said irritably, walking towards the house.
He stepped over burning timber as he approached the front door.
Beneath his feet, broken glass crunched loudly. It was like walking on a crystal carpet.
The stench of burning was heavy in the air and millions of tiny cinders were spinning around like filthy snow.
Calloway coughed as he inhaled the acrid smoke.
Doyle moved inside the house, into the sitting room.
'Watch it, Doyle,' Calloway said. 'The fucking ceiling might give way.' He glanced up nervously but the counter terrorist seemed unconcerned.
There were several deep cracks in the plaster, a diaphanous white dust drifting down from these rents.
Doyle moved back out of the sitting room and headed for the stairs, taking them carefully, feeling them give, hearing them groan protestingly beneath his weight.
Halfway up he stopped, but from this vantage point he could see what was left of the upper storey, the light pouring in through the gaping hole made by the explosion.
The walls were blackened and there were dozens of tiny fires on the landing carpet, even on the walls. Pictures which had hung there lay smashed on the floor, and there was more glass scattered around.
And everywhere, the acrid stench of smoke clogged in Doyle's nostrils.
'What did he use?' Calloway asked.
'Semtex, I could smell it when I came in. He'd have needed three or four pounds to do this kind of damage.'
'It looks like somebody fired a fucking cannon through the roof,' Mason interjected.
'This was a controlled explosion,' Doyle said almost admiringly. 'Neville would have known exactly what damage he was going to do, what angle the blast would take. Like I said, this is a clever bit of work. When they said he was an explosives expert they weren't taking the piss.'
'Where the hell would he have got Semtex?' Mason asked.
'The same place he got those guns,' Doyle said indifferently. 'And my guess is he's got more of it somewhere.'
Doyle turned and headed back out of the house.
'How can you be so sure?' Calloway prompted.
'I know Neville.'
As he headed up the path he noticed that there was a small teddy bear lying amidst the debris.
It was blackened on one side but Doyle stooped and picked it up, rubbing as much of the soot away as he could.
He dropped it into his jacket pocket and headed towards his car.
'Doyle,' Calloway shouted after him. 'Where are you going?'
