Relentless (9 page)

years but I recognized the diagonal stitching on the fingers
immediately, and as I did so my heart jumped high in my chest.
The bloody things were mine.

11

Bolt and Mo were just coming off the M4 near Heathrow,
heading back to HQ, when Bolt got another call on his mobile.
He pulled the phone from his pocket and checked the number
on the screen. He didn't recognize it, and said a curt hello, not
wishing to give out his name over the airwaves to someone he
didn't know.
'Is that Mike Bolt?' asked an unfamiliar female voice.
'Who's speaking, please?'
'My name's Tina Boyd. I'm a former police officer.'
Bolt knew the name straight away. Tina Boyd had been
relatively famous in the small, incestuous world of the Metropolitan
Police. She'd even made the cover of Police Review in happier times, being just the kind of young, attractive, go-getting
female cop the Brass love. Before it had all gone wrong. Now
people called her 'The Black Widow'.
'I'm guessing that you're the Tina Boyd,' Bolt said, exchanging
glances with Mo. 'From the cover of the Police Review.'
'That's me, yes.'
'I was sorry to hear about what happened.' Bolt knew he was
going to have to bring up her past at some point, and decided he

might as well get it out of the way now. 'My understanding was
that you were a very good copper.'
'I did my best,' she said, clearly not interested in exchanging
pleasantries. 'I'm calling because I understand you're dealing
with the suicide of the Lord Chief Justice.'
'That's right,' answered Bolt carefully, surprised that she'd
found out about his involvement. It wasn't that it was a top-secret
investigation, but there was no publicity surrounding it either.
'I have some information.'
Bolt felt his copper's antennae perk up. 'What kind of information?'
'Not
the sort I want to talk about on the phone, but it's
something you're definitely going to want to hear about. I would
have called you earlier but it took some string-pulling to get
hold of your number, and I also wanted to check you out to
see if you were trustworthy enough to be given this information.'
'I'm
assuming I passed that test.'
'You did,' she said, without a trace of humour. 'And that's
why I'm on the phone.'
'And I'm very keen to hear what you have to say. Forgive me
for asking, but how did you come by this information?'
'I'll tell you everything when I see you, but I promise I'm not wasting your time.'
'I'm intrigued. When can we meet up?'
'Are you in London tonight?'
'I can be easily enough.'
As he said this, Mo pulled the car up outside their building.
There were no cars in the spaces and it looked empty inside.
Jean had obviously gone home.
'I live in Highgate,' she told him. 'There's a pub called the

Griffin, just off the high street. How about meeting me there?
Can you make eight?'
Bolt looked at his watch. It was just short of seven o'clock,
and already his mind was whirring. 'Let's make it nine. I've got a
few things to do first.'
'OK, nine it is. And something else. I don't want what I
tell you to be on the record. This is just a lead for you. No
mentioning my name or anything like that, at least not for the
moment. And I need your word on that. Otherwise everything's
off and you can forget I called.'
Bolt was surprised. This didn't sound much like a police
officer talking, even a former one, as she now was. 'All right, it's
a deal,' he said, knowing that if it came to it, he might have to
reconsider the terms of his agreement. 'But I may bring one
of my officers with me, a man who's also completely trustworthy.'
He winked at Mo when he said this, and Mo smiled a
little and pulled a face that was full of mock flattery. 'Is that all
right?'
There was a pause while she thought this through. 'OK,' she
said reluctantly. 'I'll see you at nine, then.'
'One question,' he said, before she hung up. 'We've just come
from the scene of a very violent murder, which happened only
hours ago. Off the record - and this is one hundred per cent off
the record - the victim was the Lord Chief Justice's personal
lawyer. Could this possibly have something to do with the information
you have for us?'
There was an audible intake of breath at the other end of the
phone, and then another silence. Finally she spoke. 'Possibly,'
was all she said before hanging up.
'Well?' said Mo as Bolt pocketed the phone. 'What did the Tina Boyd want?'

'She wants to meet up. She has a lead. It sounds like it might
be a big one.'
'All happening today, eh? Now even the Black Widow wants
to get in on the act.'
'You don't have to come with me if you don't want to. You've
put in enough hours on this case already today.'
'What? And let you get all the glory? No, boss, I won't let you
slave away on your own, and if it's a decent lead, I want a part of
it. Are we meeting Boyd in a pub?'
'We are.'
'And it's an unofficial chat, right? So I can have a drink?'
'I guess so.'
'Then I'm in. Let me check in with the other boss. Let her
know what's happening.'
Bolt watched as Mo climbed out of the driver's seat and
phoned home. He had only met Mo's wife once, when he'd
gone round there to pick him up for a job. He remembered
her as a short, well-built girl with a very attractive moon-shaped
face which lit up when she smiled, and who seemed to be
permanently surrounded by young kids. She was very friendly,
with a calm, easy-going manner, and Bolt had thought at the
time that she seemed to be perfect for the trials and tribulations
of motherhood. Mo clearly adored her, kissing her on the head
and ruffling her hair in a surprisingly affectionate manner as
he'd said goodbye, before kissing and making a fuss of each of
his kids in turn. Bolt had seen in the look she'd given him that
she felt the same way.
And now he was keeping them apart. Bolt knew that one
of the reasons Mo had agreed to work with him tonight was
because he felt sorry for him. Everyone who knew about the
life-changing event that had happened three years ago, and

which had left Bolt with physical and mental scars that would
probably never heal, felt sorry for him, and it inevitably
made them treat him differently. Of all the people he worked
with, only Mo Khan was able to seem perfectly natural in his
presence, and this was one of the reasons he liked him so much.
But even Mo couldn't help letting the knowledge affect his
behaviour on some occasions, such as this one. The irony was,
Bolt would have been happy to carry on alone tonight. He
enjoyed his own company, always had. It was why he was coping
now, and why he'd continue to do so.
He got out of the car and unlocked the office door. He wanted
to check whether the police national computer system, the PNC,
held anything on either Tom or Kathy Meron. At the same time
Mo, who'd been pacing up and down in front of the building,
came off the phone.
'Is Saira all right?' Bolt asked him.
Mo nodded. 'She's fine. Happy not to have me getting in her
way. I told her not to wait up.'
Bolt could tell he didn't mean it. There was a look of disappointment
on his face that he was trying hard to hide, but he
couldn't quite manage it. It was obvious that Saira had given him
a bit of a hard time, and he couldn't blame her.
As he moved through the office doorway, he only hoped their
lead was worth it.

12

Fifteen minutes later they were driving through the back streets
of west London, heading north in the direction of the Meron
residence, which was about fifteen minutes east by car from
where Jack Calley had been murdered. The PNC had given Bolt
the information that Thomas David Meron had never been in
trouble with the police, but his wife, Katherine Cynthia, did
possess an ancient conviction for obstruction, earned at the age
of eighteen during a student demonstration in Cambridge city
centre. A whopping £25 fine had been the result. Hardly the
work of a major criminal.
But the timing of the call from Calley was bothering him.
The police surgeon at the scene had stated that he'd died no
later than 3.30 p.m. that afternoon. Calley had therefore been
confronted by the men who'd killed him at some time before
3.30. They'd come into his house, forced him up the stairs, tied
him to the bed and tortured him. The whole process must have
taken at least ten minutes, probably longer, because somehow
Calley had managed to get free, which presumably meant he'd
been left on his own for a time. There'd then been a chase that

must have lasted a further five minutes before he was finally
butchered on the forest path. The absolute latest they could
have come for their victim was, by Bolt's reckoning, 3.10, nine
minutes after he'd made that last call. But that was if he'd died
at exactly 3.30, which seemed very unlikely, given that the
surgeon's time range spanned an hour. So it was possible the call
had been made after he'd been confronted. If so, the Merons
had to be involved somehow.
It was ten to eight when they pulled up outside Tom and
Katherine Meron's house. A high conifer hedge bordered the
front of the property, obscuring the view of the house. Next
to the hedge was an empty two-car driveway in need of retarmacking
that led up to a double garage. It wasn't immediately
obvious where the entrance was.
The sounds of lawnmowers and kids playing in unseen back
gardens drifted across the cool breeze as the two detectives
stepped out of Mo's car. The earlier wall of cloud had thinned
and broken in places, revealing slithers of pinkish blue sky that
glimmered in the last of the setting sun's rays.
They found a wooden security gate with intercom system in
the top corner of the drive that had been hidden by the angle of
the hedge. It wasn't usual to see a gate like this on a suburban
estate property. Usually only the rich and paranoid bothered
with them. Bolt wondered if it might signify something. He
pressed on the buzzer. There was no answer. He pressed a
second time.
'Do you think it's worth vaulting over and having a look,
boss?' asked Mo.
But Bolt never got a chance to answer him. There was a sound
of footsteps behind them and a confident female voice asked,
'Caa I help you, gentlemen?'

The two men turned round and were immediately confronted
by a pretty uniformed policewoman in her mid-twenties. She was
about five feet three and of commensurate build, and looked as
if she'd have had some difficulty handling things if they'd been a
pair of villains who'd decided to turn nasty. Then a second
uniformed officer, a male, slightly older, approached from a
house across the road from where they'd obviously been watching
the Merons' address.
Bolt gave her his best smile and produced his warrant card.
Mo did the same. They introduced themselves and Bolt asked
her name.
'I'm PC Nicki Leverett,' she said, inspecting the cards carefully,
and making doubly sure that the photos that appeared on
them corresponded to the faces in front of her. Bolt thought that
the country's crime rate would probably be slashed by 20 per
cent if everyone was as careful as she was. 'And this,' she added
as the other uniform approached, 'is my colleague, PC Phil
Coombs. Phil, these guys are from the National Crime Squad.
They're looking for the Merons.'
Coombs nodded curtly, and grunted a greeting. He looked
like a man with an inferiority complex, as well as a bit of an
unrequited crush on his colleague.
'We need to speak to them in connection with a murder
inquiry,' explained Bolt.
PC Leverett nodded. 'You're talking about the girl at the
university. I didn't know the NCS were involved in that.'
Bolt shook his head, caught out by this sudden revelation.
'No,' he said, 'I don't know anything about that.'
'A woman was murdered over at the university today,'
Leverett explained. 'Mr Meron was arrested in connection
with it, and they're looking for his wife. Apparently, she worked

with the dead woman. We were told to come over and keep an
eye on the place, in case she returned.'
'Have you got the university victim's name?'
She told him, but he didn't recognize it.
'How long have you been here, Nicki?' asked Mo.
'Since five thirty, but you're the first people to show up.'
'This is actually our second time here,' said PC Coombs. 'We
got called out to a burglary here earlier on this afternoon. It was
an anonymous tip-off on a nine-nine-nine. The caller said the
burglar was still inside. When we got here, we clambered over
that gate and took a look, but it was a false alarm. We were here
within fifteen minutes and there were no signs of forced entry,
and all the doors and windows were shut and locked.'
'And no witnesses saw anything suspicious?'
He shook his head. 'We did a door-to-door on the neighbouring
properties and no-one saw anything.'
Bolt and Mo exchanged glances. What all these events meant,
and what they had to do with the suicide of the Lord Chief
Justice, was anyone's guess. But there was a single, loose link
connecting them, and that link was the Merons. The wife might
be missing, but the husband was in custody. They needed to
speak to him.
Nicki Leverett gave them the number of the station where he
was being held and Mo stepped away to call the CID there to
make sure they held on to him.
Less than a minute later, as Coombs was telling Bolt about his
desire to join Special Branch and hunt down terrorists, Mo came
striding back, his phone still glued to his ear. The expression on
his face was grim.
'Bad news, boss,' he said. 'They've only gone and released
him

13

When it was obvious I wasn't going to tell my interrogators any
more, they reluctantly brought the interview to a halt. They gave
me ten minutes alone with Douglas McFee, who said he'd do
his utmost to get me released because of the obvious lack of
evidence linking me to Vanessa's murder. He looked like he
actually meant it too - not least, I was sure, because then
he could go home. After that, the two detectives came back and
led me down to the cellblock, where I was given an empty cell at
the end.
'You're going to have a bit of time to think now,' said Caplin,
holding open the metal door. His expression remained wearily
sympathetic. 'I want you to use it to decide whether there's
anything more you want to tell us about this case, because if
you're holding anything back, it'll be a lot better for you if we
hear it from your lips rather than having to find it out for
ourselves. Do you know what I'm saying?'
'I've told you everything I know,' I said, and turned away as
the cell door was shut behind me and the key turned in the lock.
It was a small room, ten by ten feet, with a single barred
window high up on the dull grey wall, and a strip light overhead.
A cast-iron cot screwed into the floor was the only furniture.
A yellow plastic sheet covered the mattress, and it made an
unpleasant crinkling sound when I went over and lay on it. I
stared up at the ceiling and tried to make sense of what was
happening to me. I knew that Kathy couldn't have had anything
to do with the murder, not least because I'd run into the man
who must have been the killer, and he was a lot bigger and
stronger than my wife. Not that I would have thought her
capable of it anyway. She was too good a person for that. I
mean, she gave money every month to Great Ormond Street
Children's hospital; she bought the Big Issue from homeless
people; she wept when she saw footage of famine victims on
television; and, being a political person, she railed against the
government corruption and Western double standards that
brought such situations about. She was, I would swear on my
own life, not a killer. But that still didn't explain what her
fingerprints were doing on the murder weapon. Nor did it
explain where she was now and why she hadn't been answering
her mobile for the last four hours.
It struck me then that I could easily find out whether Jack was
dead. It would only take a quick word with Caplin and Sullivan;
they'd be able to make the necessary enquiries. But if he was
dead and the call he'd made to me came to light, then I might
find myself in more trouble. It seemed a lot better simply to
keep my mouth shut and my head down, and hope they let me
go. Then I might be able to find out what the hell was happening
out there, and also how a pair of my gloves that I hadn't worn
for at least two winters had ended up at the scene, which was
something else I couldn't for the life of me explain.
I'd lied about the gloves, telling the police I'd never seen them