Relentless (22 page)

was used, and what you bought. If you use your mobile phone
and the person looking for you has the number, there will be a
record. Only the most serious and organized criminals, who
know all the tricks, pay with cash for everything and have
literally nothing registered in their own name, represent a more
taxing proposition. But even they can be traced. It's just a matter
of using their family and friends who aren't as careful.
The point is, you can find anyone if you know where to look,
and Dorriel Graham always knew where to look. Tonight he'd
been given two names, Thomas and Katherine Meron. He'd
been told to find out where their close relatives lived, starting
with the nearest first. It was, Lima 2 had added, a rush job; he'd
been given a time limit of two hours. Usually, he would have
told the client to forget it - after all, there was plenty of demand
for his services, and he didn't have to put himself out unless he
wanted to - but he'd been promised a hugely inflated fee of
three grand for this work, and he knew Lima 2 would pay it.
Taking a huge bite of the kingsize Snickers bar he was holding
in his left hand, Dorriel started with Thomas Meron. A quick
Google search revealed that he worked for Ezyrite Software
Services based in Harrow, and had been there for eight years.
The next step was to break into Ezyrite's employee database.
Dorriel assumed that, being an IT company, this would be a
harder proposition than might otherwise have been the case,
but his assumption was wrong. Their main firewall was full of
holes and it took only eleven minutes before Meron's details
were up on his screen. These gave Dorriel the names of Meron's
parents and younger brother. He then perfectly legally accessed
the electoral roll and discovered that the parents now lived in
Sidmouth, Devon, while his brother resided in east Kent.
Katherine Meron turned out to be a tougher proposition. He

located her place of work quickly enough, but the university
employee database proved surprisingly hard to crack, and it
took him twenty-seven minutes before he finally got inside. She
had one older sister who didn't turn up on the electoral roll or in
a Google search, and Dorriel was forced to use more basic
tactics by accessing Friends Reunited. Like millions of other
people wanting to catch up with old friends from school, she
used the site and had helpfully posted the information that
she now lived in Sydney, Australia, with a wonderful husband,
John, and 'her babies', two Dalmatian dogs called Harry and
Spike.
With that, Dorriel had found out everything he needed, and it
was only an hour and twenty-two minutes after receiving his
instructions from Lima 2 that he called him back with the
information requested. Not once did he consider what the information
could be used for. Dorriel was not a people person and,
frankly, he didn't care. It was one of the reasons he was considered
so reliable.
'Have you got what I need?' asked the voice at the other end.
'Yes,' said Dorriel, shifting his bulk in the chair while logging
on to a favoured porn site. 'I've been through all the relatives,
and the nearest one is Katherine Meron's mother, Irene Tyler.
Do you have a pen? I'll give you the address.'

33

DI Mike Bolt lived in the heart of London. Nestled in the quiet
area of streets that sprouted from either side of the Clerkenwell
Road between the points where the West End finished and the
financial district of the City of London began, Clerkenwell was
about as central as a man could get. At one time it had been
home to the printing and brewing industries, but in recent years it had undergone a prolonged period of gentrification as the
fashionable young rich moved in, creating residential lofts and
apartments among the old warehouse buildings.
Home for Bolt was an attractive studio apartment on the third
floor of a converted warehouse near the jewellery district of
Hatton Garden, not far from Farringdon station. He'd lived
there for a little under two years, and rented it from a Ukrainian
businessman called Ivan Stanevic. It was a stunning place,
done out to the highest specifications. Long and spacious, with
polished wood floors and an open-plan mezzanine containing the bedroom. The windows that ran its entire length faced east
on to the bright lights of London, the towers of the Barbican
reaching up like stubby fingers from behind the buildings

opposite. Stanevic, a property developer, could have got 500 pounds a
week for the place easily, probably more, but instead he charged 150 pounds a month. The reason: Bolt had once done him a big favour.
An extremely big favour.
Two and a half years earlier, not long after Bolt had been
seconded to the NCS, Stanevic's twelve-year-old daughter had
been snatched from the street outside her Chelsea school by business rivals, who'd then threatened to strangle her unless her
father signed over the deeds to his share in a hotel complex in
the south of France. After the intervention of his wife, Stanevic
reluctantly brought in the police, and the case had been handed
to an NCS team led by Bolt.
A meeting was set up between Stanevic and the kidnappers at
a cafe in Tottenham, during which the deeds were duly signed
over. Unfortunately, just to make sure that nothing got in the
way of their plans, the kidnappers decided to take Stanevic
prisoner too, while the transaction was being processed, so that
they could then sell their new share of the business on to
another party. But the meeting was being monitored by Bolt and
his team. Rather than intervene, he'd ordered that they allow
Stanevic to be taken and follow the kidnappers at a safe distance
to find out where they went.
It was the most difficult piece of surveillance Bolt had ever
overseen. The targets had been trained in anti-surveillance techniques,
and during the forty-five-minute journey through the
centre of the city they'd double -backed, performed illegal Uturns,
had at times hit speeds of seventy miles per hour down
Islington backstreets (a near physical impossibility, and something
Bolt had never seen since), and had even gone the wrong
way up a one-way street. All to make sure they avoided being
followed. They were almost successful too, but somehow, using a

combination of CCTV cameras and a lot of shouting down
various different phones, Bolt kept them covered all the way to
their destination - a basement flat in Fulham.
Bolt scrambled all available officers to the flat, and at the
same time called up SO 19 specialist firearms units to assist in
any possible rescue.
It was his call. Should he adopt a wait-and-see approach, or
should he go in hard, assuming that the girl was in the flat as
well? He was well aware that the kidnappers could kill the girl
and her father even as he waited. The Russian mafia were
ruthless operators.
In the end, Bolt decided on a third way. He got British
Telecom to supply him with the number of the flat's landline,
and, with the firearms team in place, he phoned the kidnappers
from his control room at Scotland Yard, assuming that curiosity
would lead to one of them picking up. He guessed right. The
kidnappers' leader did the honours, and in a marked departure
from the rulebook Bolt told him that he was never going to get
the deeds to the hotel, he was never going to sell them on, he
was never going to escape from the situation he'd put himself
in, because no-one in Britain ever negotiated with kidnappers,
and if he killed either of his prisoners he'd never see the outside
of a prison again. However, if he released them both
unharmed, there was a possibility that a judge would treat the
case leniently. He said all this before the man on the other end
had a chance to reply, and it was a massive gamble because the
girl might already have been dead: having alerted the kidnappers
to the fact that the police had them in their sights, they might
have decided they had nothing to lose by going for a shoot-out.
Bolt wouldn't have called himself a gambler by nature, but he
was decisive, and not afraid to take responsibility for his actions.

And, on that particular occasion, it worked. The kidnappers
were badly spooked, and after further telephone negotiations,
during which Bolt repeated the fact that they were surrounded
and didn't have a leg to stand on, they surrendered, releasing
both prisoners unharmed.
Stanevic had never forgotten what Bolt had done, and credited
him with saving both his and his daughter's life. They'd
remained in occasional contact after that, and when Stanevic
heard that Bolt was looking for a place to live, he'd offered to
help out by letting him stay in one of his properties rent-free for
as long as he liked. Bolt should have said no since it was against
all the rules, and was a sackable offence if anyone ever found
out. But at the time, pissed off with life, not too bothered with
what the rulebook said and, most importantly, flat broke, he'd
accepted, although with one proviso: he wanted to pay something
at least. Stanevic didn't want to accept a penny, but Bolt
didn't want to feel like he was in hock to anyone, and they'd
finally agreed on the 150 pounds figure, with Bolt moving in soon
afterwards.
It had just turned midnight when, having trudged up the stairs
to the third floor with a bag full of Thai food, he finally closed
the front door of his apartment behind him. Coming back to the
dark emptiness of his home occasionally gave him a deflated
feeling, particularly after he'd had a busy day, and tonight was
one of those nights. As he turned on the hall light, he thought of
Tina Boyd, of the loneliness he'd seen in her dark eyes, and
wondered if the same emotion had been reflected in his.
He put the bag on one of the metallic kitchen tops and cracked
open a Stella from the fridge, taking a much-needed gulp straight
from the can. He moved into the middle of the room, away from
the kitchen area, and stood in the semi-darkness, looking through

the window at the orange glow of the city at night, savouring the
faint sounds of people and traffic from the street below as they
rose up to drive away his gloom. Bolt had lived in London for almost twenty years, and he still felt a frisson of excitement
whenever he stood here, knowing that he was in the centre of one
of the oldest, most vibrant cities in the world. Plenty of people
criticized London, and he'd be the first to admit that there were
things wrong with it - the horrendous crime rate, for one - but he
still couldn't imagine living anywhere else. It gave him a sense of
security and belonging that he couldn't quite explain, but which,
to him, were as tangible and obvious as the wooden floor he was
standing on. The city was his crutch.
He was used to being on his own now. Although it had been
thrust upon him suddenly and in a way that no-one would ask
for, he found that it quite suited him. He didn't have to justify
his comings and goings, could cook what he wanted when he
wanted, and could make as much noise as he liked. The location,
with so much on his doorstep, also assuaged the worst of the loneliness and melancholy that afflicted him whenever he
thought too much about that night three years ago. And for the
moment, at least, he had no desire to change his situation.
Or so he liked to convince himself.
He was just serving up the food - sea bass in tamarind sauce
with coconut fried rice - and taking another long pull on the can
of Stella when his mobile rang.
It was Turner. He told Bolt he'd been out to the cinema
and had only got back a little while earlier. He'd been to see the
new Tom Cruise movie. 'It was bloody terrible as well. And
the girl I took said she was really tired and wanted to go home
straight afterwards. I think the film put her off relationships
for life.'

Bolt leaned back against the kitchen top and drank again from
the can. 'Ah, my friend, there's no justice in this world.'
'Too right, and life's too short to waste evenings like that. I
ought to sue.'
'Who? The girl or the film company?'
'Both.'
Bolt laughed. He liked Turner. The guy was an acquired taste,
there was no doubting that, and clearly his date tonight hadn't
acquired it. Prematurely balding, with a long, hangdog face, he
rarely bothered with a smile, preferring to rely on a bone-dry,
cynical wit that was always delivered in the same deadpan
manner. Why he'd chosen to be a copper was anyone's guess. He
certainly didn't attempt to connect with the general public, who
he viewed with a general disdain bordering on dislike. But he
was bright, could pick up bullshit a mile off, and was an expert
with computers. Plus, he was dedicated enough to phone his
boss back after midnight on a weekend.
'You obviously got my message, then. Have you had a chance
to look at Parnham-Jones's laptop yet?'
'There wasn't one.'
'Do we know whether or not he used a laptop?'
'Not at the moment, no. I just assumed he didn't. We can
easily find out, one way or another.'
'I'll call his cleaner tomorrow.'
'There was a PC, though. I had a quick look at it this afternoon,
but when I got your messa'ge tonight I had a much closer
inspection.'
'Anything on it of interest?'
'Yes,' Turner said after a pause. 'There is.'
Bolt tensed. 'Go on.'
'There's an email. It was saved in a folder in his personal filing

cabinet, the only thing in there. What caught my attention was
that it was password-protected. I broke through the security easy
enough - it wasn't designed to deter anyone who knew what
they were doing - and I've just finished reading it now. It's a
blackmail note.'
'Have you got it in front of you? I'd like to hear what it
says.'
'It's short and to the point. "Dear Lord Chief Justice. We
know everything. All the details. 1998. The girl. Her father's
dead too, isn't he? Hanged himself in jail. If you want to avoid
spending the rest of your days rotting behind bars as well then
we will need to make some arrangements. Otherwise we're
going public. You will be hearing from us soon.'" Turner paused
again, but Bolt didn't say anything. 'And that's it,' he added.
'I've no idea what he's meant to have done. There's no other
mention of anything untoward anywhere else on the PC that I
can find, and no other emails from the blackmailer.'
'Have you checked Parnham-Jones's Internet history?'
'I've had a cursory look. He doesn't seem to surf the net too
much, and none of the sites are out of the ordinary. Amazon, the
BBC, stuff like that. And he likes to read articles about himself.
Were you expecting to find something else, then?'
'No,' Bolt lied. 'Just checking.' He was still thinking about the
absence of a laptop. Could Parnham-Jones have had one which
he used for his more nefarious pursuits? Perhaps one that had
been stolen by his murderer, as appeared to be the case with
John Gallan?
'I've just forwarded the mail to you,' Turner told him.
'No idea who it's from, I suppose?'
'The address is a hotmail account. It's already been closed
down, and if the blackmailer knows what he's doing he'll have