you find him?'
'I'm not a fucking mind-reader, fatso,' Doyle snapped. 'I understand what he's thinking about, not what he's thinking. Prick.'
Mason took a step around the table.
Doyle rose to meet him.
Come on then, fuckhead.
Mason stopped and held Doyle's gaze for a moment longer.
'Just shut it, both of you,' Calloway interjected. 'We all know what we have to do. Julie Neville and her daughter have to be found, Robert Neville has to be stopped and the rest of those bombs must be located.'
'Just like that,' Doyle said.
He turned to look at the members of the bomb squad. 'You say the bombs were constructed the same way?'
Fenton nodded.
'Electronically activated,' Doyle added.
'So there's every reason to believe the others are the same?' Calloway said.
'It's highly likely,' Fenton told him. 'But we can't be certain.'
'So if we find Neville and blow him away, the bombs could still go off?' Mason clarified.
Doyle clapped mockingly.
Mason shot him an angry glance.
'What about Kenneth Baxter?' Doyle asked.
'We've got his place under surveillance, just in case you're right about him and Neville,' Calloway said.
Doyle lit up a cigarette and began pacing the office slowly.
'Neville still thinks we've got his daughter,' he said. 'As long as he believes that we're OK. If he finds out she's missing we're fucked.'
There was a knock on the office door.
'Come in,' Calloway called and a uniformed officer entered the room.
He crossed to the desk and handed something to the DI.
It was an envelope.
'This was handed into reception just now, sir,' the officer said. 'Some kid brought it in, early teens. He said a bloke stopped him on the street and promised him a tenner if he delivered it here.'
'Where is the kid now?'
'We've got him downstairs,' the officer replied. 'I thought it best to hold him until you'd seen the note.'
Calloway opened it, unfolded the paper inside and smoothed it out on his desk.
The other men gathered round.
I WILL CALL AT FIVE. I WANT TO SPEAK TO MY DAUGHTER THEN. I NEED TO KNOW SHE IS ALL RIGHT. IF I DO NOT TALK TO HER I WILL DETONATE ANOTHER BOMB. NEVILLE
Doyle looked at his watch.
'Unless we find that kid in the next hour,' he murmured, 'you'd better make sure you've got a good supply of fucking body bags.'
4.03 P.M.
Neville spooned sugar into his cappuccino, watching as it sank slowly through the froth.
As he stirred, he glanced out of the cafe window.
The Harley Davidson was parked directly outside the building, wedged between two cars.
A couple of dispatch riders were leaning against their bikes, sipping from Styrofoam cups and talking, both of them dressed from head to foot in leathers.
Neville took a sip of his coffee, decided it wasn't sweet enough and added more sugar.
Like so many of the other cafes in Dean Street, this one was barely large enough to accommodate four tables, a counter and some stools. Visitors came and went with great rapidity, taking drinks and sandwiches with them or occasionally sitting if there was an empty seat.
Apart from himself, there were four American tourists inside the cafe, seated around one table.
At another, two young women talked and shared a cigarette, much to the consternation of the man at the table next to them. Every time one of them exhaled he wrinkled his nose and glared disdainfully at them.
At the other table a man a little younger than himself was consulting one of the daily papers while his wife fed their baby using a plastic spoon.
Neville gazed intently at the woman.
Perhaps a little too intently.
It was as if she felt his gaze upon her and finally looked in his direction.
He continued to stare, watching her over the rim of his cup as he drank.
She tried to ignore him, concentrating on feeding the baby.
There was a roar outside as one of the dispatch riders revved his engine and pulled away, a sound which seemed to distract both Neville and the woman.
The child would take no more food and began to cry softly until it was lifted on to its mother's shoulder for winding.
Neville watched again, his fascination with the woman and her child restored.
He couldn't remember much about Lisa's childhood.
Not surprising really, he'd hardly been there.
He only ever saw her on leave visits. Months apart.
She seemed so different to him every time he saw her.
All those years lost.
He'd been in Londonderry when she was born.
The first he'd known of her arrival was a phone call from Julie that night when he'd returned to barracks after a patrol. It had been another two weeks after that before he'd finally seen her.
And when he had?
Neville had wondered if he was supposed to cry, supposed to feel some massive upswell of emotion at the sight of his first born.
He remembered how carefully he'd held her, as if she were formed from fine porcelain instead of flesh and bone. The tenderness required had been alien to him.
He'd loved her. He still did, more than anything in the world, but in the beginning her fragility had frightened him. He couldn't cope.
Tenderness was not his way. It never had been.
He'd been on road-block duty near the border on her first birthday.
Riding a convoy of trucks through Strabane on her second.
Whenever he came home he brought her presents. He came loaded with toys and sweets like some ill-timed Santa Claus. But all the time he was with Lisa, he wanted to be back in Northern Ireland.
She was the most important part of his life, the army was his life.
Had been.
There was nothing for him any more. Not there.
No army. No life.
No point?
He drained what was left in his cup and got to his feet, glancing at the young woman and her baby for the final time before heading out on to the pavement where he slipped on his helmet and climbed aboard the Harley.
He flicked on the ignition and the bike roared into life.
Neville swung left into Old Compton Street, and he turned right into Moor Street. He slowed down slightly as he emerged into Cambridge Circus.
