It was the shock of Mike’s death that had been like a hammer blow to her. Tina had seen violent death too many times before but even so, she’d only rarely lost people close to her, and none of them had she actually seen die. Mike had died right in front of her. Big, strong, dependable Mike – a good cop, and one who’d faced extreme danger before and come out the other side unscathed, who’d been only months from retirement; the man she’d never have expected to succumb to the job. And now he was gone. Worse still, he’d only been there because Tina had phoned him and he’d been trying to save her. It made her feel doubly responsible for his death.
The police had already questioned her about what had happened, and she’d told them. The two detectives, both women, had been sympathetic rather than hostile, and had told her that the first officer she’d seen shot had also died of his wounds.
The detectives had gone now, leaving two armed officers outside her door for, as they put it, her protection, but Tina was pretty certain they were also there to stop her from leaving.
It was ten p.m. and she was lying in her hospital bed, staring up at the ceiling, knowing that she needed to borrow a phone to call her brother in Spain to let the family know what had happened before they heard about it on the news. They’d be horrified and would want to come home to see her. Her mum would insist on it. And Tina didn’t want that. She felt guilty enough as it was, without ruining their holiday too, and putting them in needless danger. All she wanted was to be left alone to grieve for Mike in peace.
But it didn’t look like that was going to be an option because, barely ten minutes after the departure of the detectives, there was a knock on the door and someone she was very much not expecting stepped inside, carrying a large bunch of flowers, and shut the door behind him.
‘How are you feeling?’ asked George Bannister, the Home Office minister and, as anyone who watched the news would know, Alastair Sheridan’s permanent sidekick, his unofficial campaign manager for the job of Prime Minister.
Tina stiffened at the sight of him, and sat up in bed. ‘Mr Bannister, isn’t it? What are you doing here?’
‘I need to talk to you,’ he said, leaning the flowers against the wall and approaching the bed. ‘Do you mind if I sit down?’
‘Go ahead,’ she said, watching him as he sat down warily on one of the plastic chairs. He was a small, fussy-looking man with thinning hair and tense body language. From what she knew, he was academically very bright and highly efficient in his governmental roles, but was missing any of the charisma that a leading politician needs, which made him the perfect foil for Sheridan.
Bannister leaned forward in the seat. ‘I want to assure you that we’re not being recorded,’ he said, ‘which means I can speak frankly, and I want you to speak frankly too.’
He paused there, and Tina felt the first flickering of contempt for him. His discomfort told her all she needed to know: he’d been sent here by Alastair Sheridan.
‘First of all, I want to say that I’m very sorry to hear about what happened to you today. I understand that you were a friend of one of the officers who was killed.’
‘Thank you, Mr Bannister, but I’d prefer it if you ditched the niceties,’ she told him, ‘and got on with what you came here to say.’
He nodded. ‘All right. Would you mind putting your hands where I can see them so that I know you’re not recording any of this?’
Tina put her hands over the covers. ‘I haven’t got my phone right now, Mr Bannister. It was left in my car when I was abducted. I’m still waiting for the police to give it back to me. Perhaps you could help on that.’
‘I’ll see what I can do.’ He glanced back towards the door, then back at Tina, and specifically her hands, as if he still didn’t quite trust her. He looked very, very nervous. ‘I suspect’, he said at last, ‘that you know a lot about …’ He swallowed hard. ‘The real Alastair Sheridan.’
‘If you mean that he’s a serial killer, yes, I do.’
‘He’s an incredibly dangerous man,’ Bannister said quietly.
‘Then why are you helping him?’
Bannister sighed. ‘He has something on me. Something that he’s been blackmailing me with for a long time.’
Tina didn’t say anything.
‘He has to be stopped, Miss Boyd. But I can’t do that. Answer me a question. You have my word it goes no further than this room. Are you still in touch with Ray Mason?’
Tina suspected Bannister’s word counted for next to nothing but he’d given her something so she decided to give him something in return. ‘I may be able to get hold of him if I have to,’ she answered carefully.
‘I know he’s not in the country,’ said Bannister. ‘And I also know that he was smuggled out, and by whom. A few hours ago, the French police raided a holiday home where it was believed Mason was hiding. He wasn’t there, but the police were of the opinion that he had been and that they’d only just missed him. Which they had.’
Tina frowned, thinking that Bannister was worryingly well informed. ‘How do you know?’
‘Because I phoned the house and warned him to get out.’
‘Why?’
‘Alastair is out of control, and has to be stopped. And I know Mason wants to kill him, just like he killed Cem Kalaman.’
‘It was Sheridan who set Ray up on the Kalaman hit,’ said Tina.
‘I thought as much,’ said Bannister. ‘I’d been warning him for a long time that his association with Kalaman would come to haunt him if he wasn’t careful. It looks like he took me
