‘Did my grandmother teach me to suck eggs?’ McGirl shook his head. ‘Who found this place, Clodie, who showed you how it could be done?’
She placed her hand gently on his arm. ‘I’m sorry, Pat, sure I just got carried away there for a minute.’
To his surprise she kissed him, albeit briefly on the cheek, in full view of Muldoon and Doran. They shuffled their stance uncomfortably.
She turned on them sharply. ‘Right, while we do the tape recording, you unload the explosives. This place is going to be turned into one gigantic bomb.’
‘Where are they now?’ Casey asked.
She had just returned from a late pub lunch at the Elephant and Castle in Holland Street. It was someone’s birthday and a group of them had followed on to a wine bar to celebrate. Now she was feeling deliciously lightheaded.
Eddie Mercs was just back from the AntiTerrorist Branch’s briefing. ‘Where they always are, Paddington Green. One Irishman — no name released, but I got it on the nod that it’s none of those you named. The other bloke was a local lad, maybe an unwitting accomplice.’
‘And it was a farm?’
Mercs nodded. ‘Near Henley. Bleedin’ great barn full of fertiliser explosive. Reckon if the place had gone up it would have been like a nuclear explosion. It would have levelled the pub just down the road.’
‘God, how awful.’
A shrug. ‘They don’t care about things like that. Caches are always turning up in flats and garages in residential areas.’
The telephone rang on her work station.
‘Mullins — features.’
‘It’s Bill here, friend of Tom’s. I expect he’s mentioned me.’
Casey laughed. ‘Tom’s got a lot of friends, Bill! But anyway, I’m sure he has mentioned you, I’ve just got cloth ears, that’s all.’
‘Look, sorry to trouble you, but I’m trying to reach him. It’s quite important.’
‘Oh, I see. Well, he’s sorting out some paperwork at Vauxhall Barracks this afternoon.’
‘Where’s that?’
‘Near Oxford.’ She frowned. ‘You’re not with EOD then?’ The drink had slowed her reactions, at first allowing her to miss the Ulster accent that slipped into his speech. Suddenly she experienced alarm bells ringing. ‘Not Irish, Bill, are you?’
‘Listen, cow, this is AID AN!’ The strident Ulster voice was unmistakable now, the strangulated vowels harsh with his anger. ‘Don’t say anything! Don’t call anyone! We’ve got Harrison’s son and his wife. Understand? You take one step out of line and they get blown away, got it?’
She’d already beckoned Mercs closer, now she pushed him away. He thought she was joking, pressed forward. She glared with enough ferocity to draw blood. ‘Yes, I’ve got it.’
‘Shut up and listen. Tell him his wife and son are sitting on three pounds of explosive. It goes off in exactly one hour and thirty minutes unless he hands himself over to us. In return they go free.’ He was speaking faster, carried away on his own adrenalin rush. Mercs now sensed that something was wrong, saw it in the frozen rigidity of Casey’s stance, her knuckles white on the receiver. He edged closer and she tilted the earpiece so that he could share the words. ‘He drives alone to the village of Inkpen, that’s to the west of Newbury. Check your watch. It’s four forty-five now. We don’t. want to kill them because of a silly mistake like that, do we? He must be there by six fifteen. I’ll want to check his progress, so he’ll need a mobile phone. I’ve also got a tape of his son I’ll play him.’
Casey thought quickly. ‘I don’t think he’s got a mobile.’
‘Then he’d better borrow one,’ McGirl snapped. ‘I’ll phone you back for the number in half-an-hour.’
Christ, she thought, I can’t be stuck here. ‘Look, I’ve got a mobile, take the number. It’ll be more secure than going through our switchboard.’
‘Give!’ he ordered, jotting it down as she told him. ‘Remember, no police, no reporters, nothing t/that wee boy and his mother are going to live out the next two hours.’
The telephone went dead in her hand, the tone drilling harshly into her ear, leaving her with an aching sense of uselessness.
‘AIDAN?’ Mercs asked. She nodded. ‘And he’s talking about Tom?’
‘They’ve got Archie and his wife. They’re offering a swap.’ She felt the panic swelling in her chest. ‘God, there’s no time to do anything.’
Mercs stared at her, still not quite comprehending. ‘I suppose that’s the idea… I’ll call the police.’
‘No, Eddie!’
He started at the fierceness of her words. ‘This is between me and Tom -1 shouldn’t have let you hear anything. Please, please don’t say anything,’ she pleaded.
Mercs raised his hands. ‘Okay, okay.’
Already she was dialling Harrison’s number. ‘Tom must decide about the police.’
She caught him at Vauxhall Barracks just minutes before he was about to leave for the drive back to her flat. He was laughing, sharing a joke with the duty officer as he answered. Suddenly his world collapsed, her words sending his head swimming in shock and disbelief.
Then there was silence for a brief moment as he struggled to recover. ‘I’ll have to check with the school,’ he said at last.
‘Of course.’ She hadn’t thought of that. ‘But I’m sure it was genuine, Tom. He actually said he had a tape of Archie’s voice. No one would pull a practical joke like that.’
‘Hold on,’ he ordered and used another line. It took just four minutes to confirm the story without revealing his identity or alerting the headmaster to the nature of the problem. He prayed it was a cruel hoax, believed that somehow it just had to be. It wasn’t. His voice was quaking with emotion as he came back to her. ‘Look, there’s a mobile I can use and I’ve got the car. I’m not sure where this Inkpen is, but presumably they’ve left sufficient time.’
‘Tom, you can’t go!’ she protested.
‘I’ve no choice.’
‘You’ve no guarantee they’ll let them go.’
‘But I’ve got to try it, Casey. I’ve no other option.’
‘You must tell the police. I can call…’
‘NO!’ There was a brief hesitation. ‘Sorry. Christ, this is a nightmare. Look, they’.ve allowed us no time. If we involve the police, it’ll be the local plod, some inexperienced rural chief constable who sees this as his moment of glory, some gungho regional SWAT team.’
‘Tom, think it out, for God’s sake. If you don’t call the police, nobody will know where you or Archie and Pippa are.’
Be rational, he told himself. ‘Archie and Pippa are no use to them. It’s me they want, Casey, I’m the senior British officer they’ll want to swank about — to kill or to hold hostage, although God knows why?’
Suddenly she realised. ‘The Trafalgar House talks, Tom. To use you as a bloody bargaining chip, that’s why. It must be.’
‘Then no police.’ He was adamant. ‘Let them dump Pippa and Archie somewhere, then we’ll bring the police in.’
She had an idea, but time was running out. ‘I must see you, Tom. I’m leaving now and I’ll meet you somewhere on the road. Give me the number of your mobile.’
As soon as she’d taken it down, she hung up without giving him the chance to argue. She looked around frantically, surprised to find that Mercs had already located a road atlas and had spread it out on the empty work station next to hers. ‘I’ve found Inkpen. I can see why they chose it. It’s in the North Downs and bloody, miles from anywhere. All farmland and country lanes.’ He looked up. ‘And he won’t call the police?’
She shook her head. ‘He says there’s no time. It would just lead to a cock-up. I see his point.’