one answered the phone? Where was Hathaway? He'd promised her that there would always be someone at the end of the line. It was her get-out-of-jail-free card. Her lifeline. And the one time she'd needed it, it had failed her.
Fletcher indicated he was turning right. He used a small remote control unit to open a set of metal gates and then the car bobbed down into an underground car park. They parked close to an elevator. A balding man with a curved scar above his left ear and a black leather jacket was waiting by the elevator door.
Donovan hugged the man.
'Everything okay, Charlie?'
The man nodded. Donovan introduced him to Tina.
'Charlie Macfadyen,' he said.
'One of the best.'
'Pleased to meet you,' said Tina.
'Everybody here?' Donovan asked Macfadyen.
'Just waiting for the guest of honour,' said Macfadyen. He punched the elevator button and the door rattled open. The three men stepped to the side to allow Tina to walk in first. She felt her legs trembling but she kept her head up and her lips pressed tightly together. She walked into the lift and then turned to face them, feeling like a condemned prisoner about to be taken before the firing squad.
Macfadyen pressed the button for the top floor. The penthouse. The door rattled shut. Donovan hummed to himself as the lift rode upwards.
Macfadyen winked at Tina.
'All right, love?' he asked.
'Not scared of heights, are you?'
Tina shook her head. No, it wasn't heights that she was scared of.
The lift doors opened into a large airy hallway. At one end of the hallway was a window with a panoramic view of the Thames. Another man was waiting outside the door to the penthouse suite. He pushed the door open and grinned at Donovan.
'Okay, Den?'
'Perfect, Ricky,' said Donovan.
'I don't think you've met my date, have you? Louise, this is Ricky. Ricky Jordan.'
Jordan stuck out his hand and Tina shook. Jordan grinned at her with amused eyes. They were toying with her, Tina knew. They were all toying with her like cats torturing an injured mouse.
'In you go, Louise,' said Macfadyen.
Tina walked into the apartment. It was a large loft-style space with exposed brickwork and girders, and floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out on to the river. Three men were standing by the window, looking out and talking in hushed voices. They turned to look at her, their faces hard and unsmiling.
Tina looked to her right. Two men were tied to chairs, strips of insulation tape across their mouths. One of the men was black, the other white. Next to the two men was a third chair. Donovan gestured at it.
'Take a seat, Louise.'
'I'm okay, thanks,' she said.
Donovan's eyes hardened and he pointed at the chair.
'What's this about, Den?' she asked.
'You know what this about,' he said.
'Now sit down or I'll have the boys tie you down.'
Fletcher closed the door and stood with his back to it, his arms folded across his barrel-like chest.
Tina sat down. She looked across at the two bound and gagged men. The black man was staring straight ahead, his back rigid, his jaw tight. The white man was looking around as if trying to find a way out. His face was bathed in sweat and the tape across his mouth moved in and out in time with his breathing.
Donovan stood in front of the white man. He held out a sheet of paper. Tina looked across but couldn't see what it was.
'James Robert Fullerton,' said Donovan. He dropped the sheet of paper on to Fullerton's lap, then stepped across to stand in front of the black man.
'Clifford Warren.' Donovan held the sheet of paper a few inches in front of Warren's face. Tina could make out a crest on top of the sheet. The crest of the Metropolitan Police. Donovan placed the sheet of paper on Warren's lap.
He held out a third sheet in front of Tina. Her heart sank as she recognised it. It was her application to join the Met.
'Den .. .' she said, but Donovan put a finger against her lips.
'Don't speak,' he said.
'Don't spoil the moment. If you say anything, I'll have them gag you, okay?'
Tina nodded.
'Good girl,' he said.
'Christina Louise Leigh.' He held out the sheet. Tina took it but didn't look at it.
Donovan took a few steps back, then slowly began to clap. He clapped for several seconds, a sarcastic smile on his face.
'I want to applaud the three of you,' he said.
'You fooled me. You absolutely fooled me. I wouldn't have made any one of you as a narc, but then you're like no other narcs, are you? You're not in any undercover unit with the Met or NCIS and your handler was a spook.'
He smiled at the look of confusion on their faces.
'Didn't you know, Gregg Hathaway's a spook? MI6. You were being run by the Secret Intelligence Service.'
'No, that's not right,' protested Tina, but Donovan silenced her with a cold look.
'I've been trying to work out over the last twelve hours why you fooled me. Why I didn't spot you. I guess it's because you're none of you playing a part, are you? You are what you are. Even down to using your real names.' He turned to look at Ricky Jordan.
'I mean, what undercover agent uses their own name, right?' Ricky nodded at Donovan. Donovan looked at Mac-fad yen who also nodded in agreement.
'See,' said Donovan, 'it's not how it's normally done. Undercover cops and Cussies adopt a persona. They put on an act. But you, Jamie, you really are a drug-taking womaniser who deals in stolen art. Bunny, you're running with the guys you grew up with. You couldn't do that if you weren't one of them. They'd spot a fake a mile off. And Louise, you really are a lap dancer. And I think if we'd gone a bit further down the line, you'd have slept with me. I mean, is that above and beyond, or what?'
Donovan took the video cassette out of his jacket pocket and walked over to a wide-screen TV. He slotted the cassette into the video recorder.
'You were all playing yourselves, that's why I was fooled. You were real. But you were being used, every one of you. Whatever you thought you were doing, whatever noble cause you thought you were serving, Hathaway had his own agenda.'
Donovan picked up a remote control unit and pressed 'play'. Alex Knight had done a great job with the sound, and he'd used close-ups wherever possible. There was no doubt who the two men on the bridge were, or what they were saying.
Jordan and Macfadyen watched the video with confused looks on their faces. All Donovan had told them was that Fullerton, Warren and Louise were undercover cops they didn't know who Hathaway was. As the video showed Hathaway and Donovan walking along the bridge to the pub, the sound quality went down and Knight had put subtitles along the bottom of the screen so that they could follow the conversation, but the sound improved once the two men were sitting at the trestle table and working on the laptop computer.
Louise looked over at Donovan, but he kept his eyes on the television screen.
When the tape came to an end, Donovan switched off the TV. Fuller-ton's eyes were wide and staring and his nostrils flared from the effort of breathing. His face had gone a deep crimson. Donovan walked over and ripped the insulation tape off his mouth. Fullerton gasped.
