The sun was beginning to wane, getting paler, lower, more distant. The home-time traffic trying to escape Colchester was well into its gridlock of the Colne Causeway all the way through to the Avenue of Remembrance, drive-time radio of one sort or another soundtracking the long journey home. The other world going about its daily business while, down on King Edward Quay, Phil stood behind a rusted metal fence watching the armed response unit, weapons ready, take up their positions around the target houseboat.
Wade gave the signal. The team moved swiftly and silently into place. Phil found he had stopped breathing. Forced himself to start again.
The takedown was smooth. One team surrounded the boat, giving back-up and support if needed, the main team boarded. Over the gangplank, on the deck, down the stairs. A battering ram of testosterone, muscle and metal knocking down all before it. Screaming, shouting, creating noise and confusion for the target, years of training making them able to operate with clinical clarity of thought and precision timing within that confusion.
Seconds. That was all it took.
Seconds.
Joe Wade made his way back up on deck, looked over at Phil, shook his head. Phil ran over to him, joined him on the boat.
‘Gone,’ Wade said, unable to hide the disappointment in his voice. ‘But he left his hostage.’
Phil was straight down into the belly of the boat.
Rose Martin was being propped up by an officer, his gun at his side. Her hands were tied behind her body, her eyes wide with fear, pain and shock. Phil crouched before her.
‘How you feeling?’
She just stared at him, eyes roaming and pinwheeling in terror, like the rescue was just another weapon in the armoury of pin to be inflicted on her.
‘Rose, it’s me, Phil Brennan.’ He took her face in his hands. ‘Rose…’
She flinched from his touch but he kept his hands there. Tender but firm. Eventually she managed to bring her eyes back into focus, look at him. No words, but definite recognition.
‘Yeah, it’s me. You’re safe now.’ He smiled, emphasising the point.
She nodded, going along with him.
‘Good. There’s an ambulance on its way. We’re going to get you to the hospital now. You’re OK. Everything’s OK.’ He turned to the officer at her side, pointed to the plastic cuffs attached to her wrists. ‘Can we get these things cut off?’
The officer took out a knife, cut them through.
‘Not standard issue, but I’m glad you brought it along,’ said Phil. He took over from the crouching officer, helped Rose to her feet.
‘All right?’
She nodded once more, rubbing her wrists. ‘He… he…’ Her mind slipped somewhere else, somewhere unpleasant. ‘I tried to stop him, but he… oh God…’
‘Never mind that now,’ said Phil, wishing that just the act of saying those words could make things better but knowing that it couldn’t.
‘I’m sorry… I’m sorry…’ She grabbed hold of his vest, clung to him.
‘Don’t worry. You’re safe. Let’s get you out of here.’
He started to move her, walking her slowly across the floor. As he did so, he took in the walls. The photos, magazine clippings, images of women with their eyes scored out.
Nutter, he thought, using the kind of technical term he was sure Marina would approve of. He scrutinised the images as he walked, taking Rose to the stairs.
Then froze. He had seen one of the pictures before.
And he knew where.
He began to move her with more of a sense of urgency. There was somewhere he had to be.
‘DI Brennan.’
He turned. The officer who had freed Rose was standing at the far end of the boat, looking down. He had flipped the lid on an old, wooden box, scarred and battered, and was staring inside.
‘What is it?’ said Phil.
The officer looked up. ‘Get out now, sir.’ Then louder, more generally, ‘Out now. Everyone off this boat, now. Go go go…’
Phil didn’t need to be told twice. He hurried Rose, who had jumped hearing the officer’s voice and started sobbing, up the stairs as fast as he could. On the deck and over the gangplank. He hurried her away. Behind him, armed officers were running for cover.
Phil just managed to make it back to the fence he had been behind at the start of the operation. He didn’t have time to settle because a huge wave of heat, forceful and strong, knocked him face down into the road.
He lay there, panting for breath, eyes closed. Not daring to move, wondering whether his legs were broken, his head still had hair, his back still had skin or whether it had been ripped off in the explosion. His ears more than ringing, sounding like he was stuck inside a tunnel with two highspeed trains passing each other at the same time.
He opened his eyes. Moved his legs. They still worked. Pushed himself up to his elbows. No real pain in his back. Got slowly to his feet.
He had managed to get outside the blast radius and was, apart from cuts and aches and gravel burn to the side of his face, relatively unharmed. He looked round. The warning had been given in time. No one had been caught in the blast.
The boat was belching out oily black smoke, flames licking their way up to the sky. On the Colne Causeway, the other-world inhabitants were staring out of their cars. People in the opposite flats coming to their windows, doors.
‘We need a fire crew here ASAP,’ Phil shouted, then looked round for Rose Martin. She was lying on the ground, curled up in a foetal ball. Unharmed.
‘Bastard was waiting for us,’ said Wade, walking up to Phil. ‘Must have been tipped off. We’ll get him.’
‘See she gets to a hospital,’ said Phil, walking off.
‘Where you going?’ said Wade, clearly not happy at the paperwork he was being left to face alone.
‘I’ll be back,’ said Phil. ‘Just have to go talk to the person who can tell us where he is.’
88
Mark Turner looked like an unremarkable man sitting in an unremarkable room.
His longish, dark hair was swept to the side in an identikit student indie manner, his clothes – jeans and a T- shirt – were dull, boring and uniform. Even the nonsensical slogan on his chest was nothing but a regulated attempt at individuality.
The room matched its inhabitant. Office surplus chairs and table. Grey scratched metal and worn, pitted and scarred wood. Depressing overhead strip lighting made Turner’s eyes look hooded, his face gaunt. A still, empty vessel waiting to be filled. A doll waiting to be wound up.
And that was just what Mickey Philips intended to do.
‘Look at him.’ Marina stood in front of the two-way mirror in the observation room, watching him sit there. Unmoving. Barely breathing. ‘Was it Flaubert or Balzac, which one?’
Mickey, standing next to her, gave her a blank, confused look.
‘What is it?’ she said. ‘That quote. I will live like a bourgeois so my art will be revolutionary? Something like that. Do you think that’s an accurate description of our friend Mr Turner?’
Mickey frowned, genuinely puzzled. ‘What? You think what he’s been doing is art?’
Marina shook her head, her eyes compassionate, like she was explaining something complex to someone who spoke a separate language. Not patronising, just different.
‘No,’ she said, ‘I don’t. I just mean that he’s been giving the impression of a normal, boring life, you know,
