Knife Edge Read online

  She smiled bitterly to herself.

  Her life with Neville hadn't always been so intolerable. Most of the time he'd been away. The army.

  The army always came first for him. Even after Lisa was born.

  But in the beginning it had been different. She had loved him. She was sure she had. She'd felt a depth of feeling but never been certain that it was the all-embracing, enveloping sensation of true love.

  She'd told him she loved him. Usually in times of passion and, at the beginning, there'd been plenty of those too but, as the years had worn on, the words had begun to sound more empty to her. Their meaning less valid.

  So, why did you marry him in the first place?

  Her father had died when she was twelve, her mother two years later. Julie had moved in with her elder sister who'd provided the roof over her head more from duty than philanthropy. It had been an uneventful adolescence for her, apart from what her sister had described as an avalanche of blokes.

  Julie smiled to herself as she remembered the older girl's words.

  It was true. There had been many boyfriends. Too many perhaps.

  The boyfriends appeared and disappeared as quickly as her jobs in those days.

  Barmaid. Shop assistant. Supermarket cashier.

  Men and work in quick succession.

  And what did she want out of it all?

  Some security? Some love?

  Some hope?

  She'd been twenty-five when she met Neville.

  There had been a fire inside him. And it had burned in his eyes. That was what she remembered most about meeting him for the first time. His eyes. So hypnotic, so piercing.

  She'd looked into those eyes on that first night they'd shared his bed, she'd listened to him talk about the army, about his own background, which was not unlike hers. He too was without family.

  He was a way out for her.

  Her sister had welcomed Neville's arrival. The prospect of their marriage had been even more welcome.

  A little over a year later they did the deed at a register office in Tower Hamlets. Two weeks later, her sister emigrated to Canada.

  Julie had spoken to her twice during the intervening eight years.

  When Lisa had been born, she hadn't even sent her a congratulations card.

  Julie looked at her daughter who was prodding the piece of green gherkin she'd taken from her burger with a chip, as if it were some kind of loathsome fungus.

  'Have you finished?'

  Lisa nodded.

  'We'd better go.'

  'Where are we going, Mum?'

  Julie wished she could tell her.

  3.56 P.M.

  Doyle took a drag on his cigarette and regarded the photo on Calloway's desk blankly.

  The DI, his wife and two children.

  He guessed the older one was in her teens.

  Pretty kid.

  Her finely chiselled features were obviously inherited from her mother, he mused, glancing at Calloway's grizzled visage.

  If he and Georgie had had kids, what…

  He tried to brush the thought from his mind. Forget it.

  Tried to wipe her image from his memory.

  Not a chance.

  He put the photo back and glanced around the office at the other men.

  Calloway was seated behind his desk studying a map of central London.

  Mason stood behind him, looking down at the map, occasionally sipping from a cup of coffee.

  Two other men, who had been introduced to Doyle as John Fenton and Peter Draper, members of the bomb squad, were seated across from him. Fenton kept glancing at his watch. A nervous gesture, Doyle decided.

  Draper was chewing thoughtfully on a piece of gum.

  'So,' said Doyle finally, gaze fixed on the policemen.

  'So, what?' Calloway asked.

  'Four hours until the big one goes off and we're no closer to finding Neville,' Doyle reminded them.

  'Or his wife and kid,' Calloway said quietly.

  'So why haven't you found him, Doyle?' Mason snapped. 'You're the fucking expert.'

  Doyle ignored him. 'How many men have you got on the streets?'

  'Two hundred,' Calloway answered. 'We've got mobile units patrolling, men walking the streets, we've even got three helicopters in use. And we still can't find him.'

  Calloway got to his feet and crossed to the window of his office. 'I don't know what more we can do.'

  'Give him what he wants,' Doyle said flatly.

  'What guarantee have we got he won't detonate the rest of the bombs, even if we do give him what he wants?' Calloway said. 'Assuming of course that we had what he wants.'

  'Just be grateful Neville doesn't know you haven't got the kid,' Doyle added.

  'The policewoman who was injured during the escape seems to be improving,' Mason said. 'If you hadn't told Julie Neville we were going to use her child as a bargaining tool this would never have happened.'

  'Fuck you,' Doyle said dismissively.

  'Why aren't you out there looking for Neville?' Mason persisted. 'You claim to know how he thinks. Why can't you find him?'

  'I'm not a fucking mind-reader, fatso,' Doyle snapped. 'I understand what he's thinking about, not what he's thinking. Prick.'

  Mason took a step around the table.

  Doyle rose to meet him.

  Come on then, fuckhead.

  Mason stopped and held Doyle's gaze for a moment longer.

  'Just shut it, both of you,' Calloway interjected. 'We all know what we have to do. Julie Neville and her daughter have to be found, Robert Neville has to be stopped and the rest of those bombs must be located.'

  'Just like that,' Doyle said.

  He turned to look at the members of the bomb squad. 'You say the bombs were constructed the same way?'

  Fenton nodded.

  'Electronically activated,' Doyle added.

  'So there's every reason to believe the others are the same?' Calloway said.

  'It's highly likely,' Fenton told him. 'But we can't be certain.'

  'So if we find Neville and blow him away, the bombs could still go off?' Mason clarified.

  Doyle clapped mockingly.

  Mason shot him an angry glance.

  'What about Kenneth Baxter?' Doyle asked.

  'We've got his place under surveillance, just in case you're right about him and Neville,' Calloway said.

  Doyle lit up a cigarette and began pacing the office slowly.

  'Neville still thinks we've got his daughter,' he said. 'As long as he believes that we're OK. If he finds out she's missing we're fucked.'

  There was a knock on the office door.

  'Come in,' Calloway called and a uniformed officer entered the room.

  He crossed to the desk and handed something to the DI.

  It was an envelope.

  'This was handed into reception just now, sir,' the officer said. 'Some kid brought it in, early teens. He said a bloke stopped him on the street and promised him a tenner if he delivered it here.'

  'Where is the kid now?'

  'We've got him downstairs,' the officer replied. 'I thought it best to hold him until you'd seen the note.'

  Calloway opened it, unfolded the paper inside and smoothed it out on his desk.

  The other men gathered round.

  I WILL CALL AT FIVE. I WANT TO SPEAK TO MY DAUGHTER THEN. I NEED TO KNOW SHE IS ALL RIGHT. IF I DO NOT TALK TO HER I WILL DETONATE ANOTHER BOMB. NEVILLE

  Doyle looked at his watch.

  'Unless we find that kid in the next hour,' he murmured, 'you'd better make sure you've got a good supply of fucking body bags.'

  4.03 P.M.

  Neville spooned sugar into his cappuccino, watching as it sank slowly through the froth.

  As he stirred, he glanced out of the cafe window.

  The Harley Davidson was parked directly outside the building, wedged between two cars.

  A couple of dispatch riders were leaning against their bikes, sipping from Styro
foam cups and talking, both of them dressed from head to foot in leathers.

  Neville took a sip of his coffee, decided it wasn't sweet enough and added more sugar.

  Like so many of the other cafes in Dean Street, this one was barely large enough to accommodate four tables, a counter and some stools. Visitors came and went with great rapidity, taking drinks and sandwiches with them or occasionally sitting if there was an empty seat.

  Apart from himself, there were four American tourists inside the cafe, seated around one table.

  At another, two young women talked and shared a cigarette, much to the consternation of the man at the table next to them. Every time one of them exhaled he wrinkled his nose and glared disdainfully at them.

  At the other table a man a little younger than himself was consulting one of the daily papers while his wife fed their baby using a plastic spoon.

  Neville gazed intently at the woman.

  Perhaps a little too intently.

  It was as if she felt his gaze upon her and finally looked in his direction.

  He continued to stare, watching her over the rim of his cup as he drank.

  She tried to ignore him, concentrating on feeding the baby.

  There was a roar outside as one of the dispatch riders revved his engine and pulled away, a sound which seemed to distract both Neville and the woman.

  The child would take no more food and began to cry softly until it was lifted on to its mother's shoulder for winding.

  Neville watched again, his fascination with the woman and her child restored.

  He couldn't remember much about Lisa's childhood.

  Not surprising really, he'd hardly been there.

  He only ever saw her on leave visits. Months apart.

  She seemed so different to him every time he saw her.

  All those years lost.

  He'd been in Londonderry when she was born.

  The first he'd known of her arrival was a phone call from Julie that night when he'd returned to barracks after a patrol. It had been another two weeks after that before he'd finally seen her.

  And when he had?

  Neville had wondered if he was supposed to cry, supposed to feel some massive upswell of emotion at the sight of his first born.

  He remembered how carefully he'd held her, as if she were formed from fine porcelain instead of flesh and bone. The tenderness required had been alien to him.

  He'd loved her. He still did, more than anything in the world, but in the beginning her fragility had frightened him. He couldn't cope.

  Tenderness was not his way. It never had been.

  He'd been on road-block duty near the border on her first birthday.

  Riding a convoy of trucks through Strabane on her second.

  Whenever he came home he brought her presents. He came loaded with toys and sweets like some ill-timed Santa Claus. But all the time he was with Lisa, he wanted to be back in Northern Ireland.

  She was the most important part of his life, the army was his life.

  Had been.

  There was nothing for him any more. Not there.

  No army. No life.

  No point?

  He drained what was left in his cup and got to his feet, glancing at the young woman and her baby for the final time before heading out on to the pavement where he slipped on his helmet and climbed aboard the Harley.

  He flicked on the ignition and the bike roared into life.

  Neville swung left into Old Compton Street, and he turned right into Moor Street. He slowed down slightly as he emerged into Cambridge Circus.

  The phone box was to his left. Neville smiled.

  4.14 P.M.

  Kenneth Baxter stood with the phone pressed to his ear.

  Despite the fact that the line had gone dead he still kept the receiver there, as if the dormant device was suddenly going to spring into life once again.

  Then finally, slowly, he dropped it back on to the cradle.

  As he did so he checked his watch.

  The clock on the mantelpiece showed a different hour.

  The same hour it always showed.

  It had belonged to his mother. One of the few things he'd claimed when she died. The clock hadn't worked since. Baxter wasn't even sure if it had ever worked. It was what was affectionately known in families as an heirloom. In other words it was a piece of old junk which successive generations had tried to sell, found out was worthless and clung to because I hey had nowhere else to hide it away.

  So it was with the clock.

  It looked strangely incongruous on the mantelpiece. A relic of a bygone age. At odds with the more modern furniture and decoration in the rest of the place.

  Antique clocks didn't usually sit well with Ikea and MFI furniture.

  Baxter made his way to the bathroom, spun the cold tap and splashed his face with water, gazing at his reflection as he straightened up.

  He looked dark beneath the eyes, as if he were in need of some sleep.

  He'd napped for an hour or so earlier in the day, not long after returning from New Scotland Yard, and it had revived him somewhat. The cold water against his flesh seemed to complete the job.

  Through the open window he heard a train.

  His home in Newham was close to West Ham station, and on the still air, he could hear the rumble of another tube as it passed through.

  The sound competed with some noise coming from the recreation ground close by.

  Kids probably, Baxter thought. Skiving.

  He checked his watch again.

  No. School was closed for the day. They were entitled to be there.

  He remembered where he should be and pulled on a denim shirt, slipping it over his T-shirt, the tails flapping as he walked.

  Baxter dropped a packet of cigarettes into one top pocket and his front door key into the other as he headed out.

  The voice he'd heard on the other end of the…

  ***

  'Not bad,' said PC Mark Hagan, studying the photo of Julie Neville approvingly.

  It was a monochrome snap. Taken on holiday, he guessed.

  Julie was smiling into the camera, seated on a blanket spread out on the ground, slender legs drawn up beneath her.

  Beside him in the passenger seat his companion, younger by a year, PC Rob Wells glanced across at the photo then back at the two which he himself held.

  One was of Neville.

  The other of Lisa.

  The two policemen had already studied the pictures Christ alone knew how many times that day.

  Mind you, it gave them something to do while they sat in the unmarked car about twenty yards from Kenneth Baxter's house.

  Both men were dressed in jeans, Hagan wore a faded blue shirt, Wells a T-shirt which bore the legend: all this and money too.

  He put one foot up on the dashboard and started flicking idly at the laces of his trainers.

  Around his feet lay a couple of discarded Styrofoam cups and a McDonald's bag stuffed with empty quarterpounder cartons and soiled napkins.

  The car could do with a good clean on the outside too, Hagan mused, noticing the thin layer of grime covering the bonnet. Also there was a huge streak of bird shit on the windscreen. He thought about flicking on the wipers to dislodge it but then decided against it.

  'It's a pity we're not watching sortie bird, isn't it?' Wells said.

  'What?' Hagan murmured.

  'This stakeout stuff.'

  Hagan smiled.

  'You've been watching too many bloody American cop shows,' he said, flipping open the glove compartment and pulling out the packet of wine gums inside. 'Stakeout.' He grunted.

  'Well, that's what it is, isn't it?' Wells protested. 'We've been sitting watching Baxter's place for the last three hours.'

  'It's not a stakeout, it's surveillance,' Hagan reminded him.

  'Stakeout sounds better though, doesn't it? It sounds more exciting.'

  'I suppose so,' Hagan said, offering the wine gums to his companio
n, who took a red one.

  'Claret,' he said, reading what was printed on the confection. 'That's a load of bollocks, isn't it? I mean, they call them wine gums but they've got no wine in them. At least liqueurs have got real booze in them. I used to eat them when I was a kid. The sherry ones. I used to bite the ends off, suck out the sherry then chuck the chocolate away.'

  Both men laughed.

  'My gran always used to have this big box of them,' Wells continued. 'Me and my brother bought them for her every Christmas then ate the lot.'

  Hagan pushed another wine gum into his mouth and chuckled, glancing out of the side window.

  He was the first to see Baxter emerge.

  'Rob,' he said, still chewing.

  Wells looked over.

  'You call in, I'll follow him,' the younger man said.

  He watched as Baxter strode down the road, long legs eating up the ground.

  Wells snatched a two-way from the back seat, jammed it into the pocket of his jeans then climbed slowly out of the car. He leaned against the vehicle for a moment, glancing to his left and right, hoping his act of nonchalance was working

  'Don't lose him, for fuck's sake,' Hagan said, watching Baxter in the wing mirror. 'It looks as if he's heading towards the cemetery.'

  Wells ran a hand through his hair then set off.

  He was about thirty yards behind his quarry on the opposite side of the road.

  Hagan waited a moment longer then reached for the radio.

  4.27 P.M.

  This is bullshit and you know it.

  Doyle guided the Datsun over Blackfriars Bridge, glancing to either side swiftly, seeing the grimy water of the Thames snaking through the city like a long, parched reptilian tongue.

  Fucking bullshit.

  The car ahead stalled and Doyle muttered under his breath, glancing again at the pedestrians nearest him.

  In a city of nine million people you think you're just going to spot them?

  He waited for the car ahead to start moving again.

  Julie Neville and her daughter and, oh, wait a minute, there's Robert Neville too. What a stroke of quite amazing fucking luck.

  Doyle shook his head.

  The words needle and haystack sprang to mind.