Manticore

by rafanski

A European terrorist organisation descends on Sun Hill. This is set several years ago, as I stopped watching the current series a while back. It's not quite finished yet, but I look forward to any comments!

Manticore

9:47am
Thursday

Detective Chief Inspector Jack Meadows ducked under the police cordon surrounding the back entrance to St Hughes Hospital, the whirling blue lights of emergency vehicles uncomfortably in sync with the pounding in his head. Police radios blared and crackled, morbid onlookers gabbled excitedly, and the occasional flash of a camera stung his eyes. A fine mist of rain swirled on the cold wind, the low-hanging clouds shutting out much of the morning light. He straightened slowly as two uniformed officers stepped out of his way with quick nods, and he saw the body.

Richard Paten, local councillor for Canley, popular moral-man and re-election certainty, lay face down on the wet concrete with his own blood and brains splattered around the crimson-soaked cloth covering his head. Jack rubbed his stubbled chin as he stared down at the corpse, unconsciously noting the smart pin-striped suit, polished shoes, and the discreet tie that lay congealing in blood, its tip fluttering half-heartedly in the wind. A bunch of trampled cottage flowers lay wrapped in blue tissue paper lay by his outstretched right hand.

"Guv," Tony Stamp greeted neutrally, trying not to look at the body but his eyes drawn to it like iron filings to a lodestone as he strode over to the DCI.

"Richard Paten," Jack said quietly.

"Yeah, that's what we've been told," Tony replied just as softly, grimacing. "You wouldn't know it to look at him, though – half his head is gone."

Jack nodded silently, staring down at the body, all the orders he wanted to give crowding into his brain but not finding their way to his tongue. Richard Paten – outspoken advocate of morality and family values, and hush-hush kerb-crawler. Paten had been almost haunting Sun Hill station over the last two weeks, agitated and, it seemed, rightly afraid. Three burglaries at his home, his car broken into and his office ransacked – and all with no trace of how the perpetrator was gaining access. A rival, Jack had thought at the time, or a blackmailer prodding for payment – either were likely, given Paten's nocturnal habits. But not this. Not murder. How could anyone have foreseen this?

Tony Stamp seemed to recognise the DCI's hesitation. "We've started the ball rolling, Guv," he said smartly. "The shooting happened twelve minutes ago. Paten got out of a black cab and was shot a few seconds later. It took him in the back of the head. Armed Response are en-route – they got caught in traffic around an accident – and we've gathered up all the reporters with cameras and video recorders in case they caught the killer on film. A lot of the other witnesses had scarpered by the time we got here, but there are a few inside – Reg Hollis is babysitting them."

"Right," Jack murmured, dragging his eyes away from Paten and up to Tony's face. The glistening sheen of rain on the taller man's face flashed blue in the emergency lights. It made Jack's eyes ache. With an effort, he dragged his scattered thoughts together. "Did anyone see the shooter, Tony?"

"No, Guv," Stamp replied, pulling his notebook out of his pocket. "Apparently the shot came from over there -" he pointed vaguely further down the back of the houses along the narrow side-street, "but apart from the sound of the shot, no one saw or heard anything. Once we start the house-to-house, though, we'll probably find something."

Jack drew a long breath, unsure if he was imagining the taste of cordite that suddenly burned in his mouth. He glanced at the body again and scanned the crowd pushing against the cordon, thrilled horror on every face, eyes riveted on the slow progress of the blood trickling across the concrete. He could see the photographers and reporters arguing with Inspector Gold about their footage of the shooting.

"Hang on," Jack said suddenly when that observation clicked into place. "What were reporters doing here when Paten was shot?"

Tony looked startled. "Paten's wife, Guv," he said uncertainly. "She was attacked yesterday afternoon behind the Green Archer and badly beaten. She's in intensive care – all the press were onto it. They knew he'd be here this morning."

"Publicity," Jack muttered, knowing that Paten would use any kind of attention to further his campaign; even his own wife's assault was food for the hungry press.

"I think his chances for re-election just went down the pan," Tony commented dryly. "The punters tend to like their candidate alive."

Jack snorted. "Alright, Tony. Let me know when the ARV gets here."

"Right, Guv." Tony nodded and moved off.

Jack moved slowly over to the body, careful not to step in the trails of blood that meandered across the pale concrete, fingers of red spreading fine tendrils like creeping fungi in the shallow puddles. He gathered up his coat to stop it trailing on the wet ground, and squatted by the dead man's head. He gingerly lifted the cloth covering Paten's head and quickly glanced underneath.

His throat seized involuntarily, choking off a sharp intake of breath. Tony hadn't exaggerated – the left side of Paten's head was almost completely gone. The wet glistening of blood and something else he didn't care to think about made him retch. Jack quickly dropped the cloth back and stepped back sharply, pressing his fist to his mouth, all too aware now of the fragments of a man's mortal life staining the pale stone under his feet, fragments of bone probably embedding themselves in the soles of his shoes. He turned away, eager to find something, anything else, to take his attention.

"Gina," he said in relief as Inspector Gold threaded her way through the barricade of officers keeping the crowds back. Her hat was on crookedly and her smile was brief and sardonic. The dampness made her short dark hair curl outwards, each upward curl tipped with a glistening droplet.

"Just the excitement we needed, this time of the morning, Jack," she greeted, turning down the volume on her police radio as she reached him. "The Super is out of contact at Area, and here we are, out in the wet chasing mad gunmen – you've got blood on your hand," she pointed out, taking his wrist.

Jack's skin crawled as he looked at the smears of red on his fingers. What else besides blood was on his skin? His hand shuddered with revulsion.

"Go into the ER and wash it off," Gina said. "I hope your shots are up-to-date – you know as well as I do what Paten liked to do in his spare time."

"Yeah," Jack replied quietly. "Yeah, I'll do that."

Gina gave him an odd look. "Are you okay, Jack? Why don't you head back to the nick – I can cover this."

Jack shook his head. "It's just a migraine," he said, holding his bloodied hand out awkwardly at his side, turning at the sound of an approaching siren, the spinning blue lights reflecting off houses and cars far ahead of the armed response team.

"That'll be the ARV," Gina said. "I'll go and deal with them. You go and clean yourself up." She nodded distastefully at his bloody hand. "And see what they can do for your head, Jack. We'll need you on the ball today. MIT should be here any minute as well – they wouldn't pass this up."

10:23am

Jack eased himself gingerly into his chair, distractedly looking over the piles of folders and forms that covered his desk, jobs left over from the three days he hadn't been here, stuck in a hollow Direction Strategy conference in the West End. He riffled through them, finding it harder to concentrate now than with the migraine. His head felt oddly light; the deep pounding was still there, but pushed back into the shadows. Both his upper arms throbbed from the injections the nurses had given him – something for the migraine and some other cocktail in case Paten's blood was infected. The jabs hadn't hurt at the time, but they surely ached now.

He blinked when he momentarily saw the name 'Paten' written on a page, and shuffled through the pile hurriedly to find it again. A photocopied form, creased and blurred by the ever-malfunctioning machine in the hall, but legible.

The preliminary report on Veronica Paten's attack behind the Green Archer. Jack scanned it quickly.

She had left home at around noon and was found a little after three by two schoolboys taking a shortcut. No witnesses to the attack, no apparent motive – her handbag containing more than three hundred pounds intact. A vicious assault, the probable weapon found beside her – a short length of steel pipe. Jack shook his head and laid the paper down on top of the ragged pile, digging his fingers hard into his temples, trying to clear away the haze.

He looked up when the door burst open after a peremptory knock and Superintendent Adam Okaro rushed in.

"I just heard, Jack – Richard Paten," Adam said distractedly. "The front office is full of press – they've heard about his recent troubles. The Borough Commander is on his way. He and Paten go way back, apparently. I hope everything's been done by the book – Sun Hill is going to be under a very fine microscope over this."

"We're hardly to blame for the man being killed," Jack shot back, getting to his feet, bristling at the suggestion of fault. "A man like Paten must have enemies but there was nothing to suggest anyone wanted him dead. If anything, it seemed that they were looking for something. It wasn't at his house, his office or in his car, whatever it was, and he wouldn't let us anywhere near his work or his private life."

"You know what I'm saying, Jack," Adam countered. "Paten's high-profile. He's known to have had several dealings with the police recently, and now he's dead and his wife's been beaten to within an inch of her life. The press are screaming for answers." He passed a weary hand over his eyes. "This is all Sun Hill needs right now. Just when we were getting back to normal after the sniper."

Jack glared at Okaro but said nothing. There was nothing 'normal' that had happened at Sun Hill recently, and Okaro was still touchy after the deaths of his wife and children, still prone to over-react – or worse, to under-react. Any suggestion that he was still not over it usually resulted in an explosion of rage, which proved the point but did nothing else except make the man dig his heels in even harder.

"MIT are moving in," Adam said quietly after a lengthy silence. "I know they can count on our best, Jack. They're stretched pretty thin with that triple murder at Barton Street the other day, and we'll be asked to plug the gaps. We need to be transparent, everything dotted and crossed, all by the book. The quicker this is wrapped up, the better."

"I couldn't agree more," Jack said tensely as Okaro moved to the door, closing it firmly behind him.

10:57am

The Detective Inspector from the Murder Investigation Team – Julie Burl, a concrete block of a woman – conversed quietly with a member of her team by the door to the CID office. Jack stood with his own DI, Neil Manson, neither speaking, both watching her. The normal bustle of the office seemed muted, people speaking quietly, almost creeping as they went about their work. Ringing phones were answered quickly, as if the sound would offend Burl. People looked askance at her, quick looks out of the corners of their eyes, and gave her a wide berth. Julie Burl was known for her strict by-the-book attitude, one that did not suffer fools or permit deviation from her orders without instant reprisal. "My way or the highway" was her unspoken motto.

Jack had to admit, though, she knew her job. In her late forties, her large bosom and round body gave the appearance of merry plumpness from behind, but her hooded dark eyes were flint and she never bothered with the niceties of makeup or troubled to colour the greying, mousey-blonde hair pulled back into a severe bun at the nape of her neck. In dress, too, she gave the appearance of ferocity. Matte black, unrelieved but for the bright triangle of her crimson blouse above her buttoned jacket, a razor-sharp pleat in each trouser leg, her only ornamentation a heavy gold chain with a lock settled at the crest of her deep cleavage. Her voice was an angry bark that had been known to quail Borough Commanders. Julie Burl was not someone Jack cared to have in his office for too long.

Her conversation ended abruptly with the young DC nodding and hurrying quickly through the swinging doors and out of sight. Burl cast around quickly and her flint eyes settled on Jack and Neil, and she strode over to them.

"We're about ready to start, sir," she stated with military precision, her lips hardly moving. "I appreciate your offer of assistance. We are very stretched at the moment with the triple homicide at Barton Street. Any resources you can provide are greatly appreciated. We should begin. DC Grafton is informing the Superintendent."

"Whenever you're ready," Jack replied, trying a smile. It was wasted – Burl nodded once violently and executed a precision turn on her heel and marched over to the large television screen displaying the words "Operation Scorpion" in white letters on the blue Met' background. She picked up a large black envelope and extracted a thick sheaf of paper, thumbing through it impatiently as she waited for Okaro to arrive.

"Tough cookie," Neil observed under his breath.

"You don't know the half of it," Jack replied, spotting Okaro through the glass panels in the swinging doors. The Superintendent was almost running. Jack stepped forward. "Alright everyone," he announced loudly as Okaro made his entrance, DC Grafton slipping in silently behind him. Jack pretended not to see the sharp look Burl directed at him. This was her show, and no one else was allowed on stage. "Heads up and pay attention. DI Burl, over to you."

"Thank you, sir," she said flatly and inflated her large bosom, casting a steely eye over the faces turned towards her. Her hooded eyes made reading her expression nearly impossible. "Operation Scorpion," she began in her usual barking voice. "As you are all aware by now, local councillor Richard Paten was murdered at nine thirty-five this morning outside the rear entrance of St Hughes Hospital. We have a preliminary report from the coroner, nothing written in stone as yet. Paten was likely shot with a high-velocity rifle, the bullet striking him in the back of the head. The ammunition used has not yet been identified, but is likely to be either explosive- or hollow-tipped, either of which could account for the damage inflicted. Death would have been instantaneous."

She drew a deep breath and was off again. "Security footage from the rear entrance and surrounding area has given us little aside from Paten's death. We have been able to account for seventeen of the probable thirty-one witnesses caught on film. Twelve of the seventeen are reporters, the rest hospital staff and general public. The rest have no doubt found reason to be elsewhere." She directed her eyes at Manson. "They must be located quickly."

"I'll see to it," Manson said unenthusiastically.

Burl nodded sharply again. "Sun Hill uniform officers are conducting the door-to-door of the surrounding area but as yet have not located anything." She paused momentarily, pursing her lips. "Richard Paten has recently had frequent contact with Sun Hill station. From these records," she jabbed a sausage-like finger at a stack of paperwork on a nearby desk, "DS Nixon was in charge of that investigation. Please give us a brief summary." Burl stepped back, eyes fixed on Samantha Nixon as she got to her feet with careful casualness.

"Richard Paten had reported three burglaries at his home," Samantha began, turning to her colleagues, "A break-in at his office in the Council chambers and to his car. Frankly, there has been little evidence to go on. There was no sign of forced entry at his house on any of the three occasions, and nothing immediate to suggest a burglary, nothing missing, only Paten's insistence that small belongings in the house had been moved around – knives on a magnetic strip, pictures on the walls, dining chairs pulled out, that kind of thing. He and his wife both insisted that there are no spare keys, and the security system was active at the time of the break-ins, all of which apparently occurred at different times of the day over two weeks.

"His office was certainly ransacked, but Paten reported that nothing had been stolen there either, and forensics came up with nothing. As for his car, Paten reported that he started it up in his locked garage on Monday morning and found that a heavy-metal CD was in the player, the volume turned up full blast. It obviously gave him quite a shock when he turned the key, but he insists that both car and garage were locked and alarmed since he returned home on Sunday afternoon, and he has never seen the CD before."

"Thank you, DS Nixon," Burl broke in as Samantha took a breath to go on. "A succinct appraisal of the facts." Samantha stiffly took her seat again. "From the forensic reports, I agree with DS Nixon that there was little to go on besides Paten's word that his privacy had been invaded, though the break-in at his office is almost certainly genuine. With the benefit of hindsight we can see that more could have been done, but hindsight is not evidence nor is it helpful to our immediate investigation."

Jack blinked at that – Julie Burl not leaping onto a potential oversight that had lethal consequences? What was she up to? Or had she softened? But Burl was ploughing resolutely on.

"Now, Paten's wife Veronica was assaulted yesterday afternoon. DS Hunter is the investigating officer. DS Hunter, will you give us your summary, please?"

Phil Hunter got to his feet with nothing of his usual swagger – he seemed to recognise that it would do nothing for him today under those hooded eyes. "The, um, Veronica Paten left home at around noon yesterday, according to a neighbour," he began, casting frequent glances at Burl. "She was on foot, destination unknown. She was found at five past three in the alley behind the Green Archer pub by two schoolboys on their way home. Now, the Green Archer is nearly seven miles from the Paten house, but we've been unable to establish how she got there as yet.

"The hospital report has confirmed that the length of steel pipe found next to Mrs Paten was likely the weapon used in the assault. Forensics haven't got back to us yet. The doctors think it likely that she was hit first on the back of the head and around the shoulders, then on her face when she was on the ground. Bruising on her chest and stomach indicate she was also kicked repeatedly. It doesn't appear to have been a robbery and according to the friends and family we've spoken to, she doesn't appear to have had an enemy in the world."

"But Richard Paten evidently did," Burl barked, and Phil took this as his cue to quickly sit down. "On the surface, everything points to something in Richard Paten's life that someone wanted badly, whether to keep or destroy, we don't know as yet.

"Richard and Veronica Paten have one daughter. They left it quite late to start a family – both were in their mid-forties when Harriet was born. She is now six years old, and as there's no family in the immediate area, she's being cared for by a friend until other arrangements can be made. As a precaution, Harriet's current location will not be disclosed to anyone, friend or family, until they have been checked and cleared."

Burl hesitated for a moment, thin lips writhing with distaste. "Richard Paten had a taste for soliciting prostitutes," she went on. "According to the records, the cheaper and nastier the sex, the better he liked it. For those of you unaware of this, it's to stay under wraps for the time being. People may be more inclined to tell us the truth if we keep his saintly image intact, at least for now."

Her hesitation was longer this time, looking down at the thick file she had removed from the black envelope before the briefing had begun, bending it back and forth between her hands as if choking it. She drew another deep breath, her chest swelling out. "We have a possible, very tenuous lead on the killer."

There was a sudden outbreak of small sounds in the office; people shifting in their chairs, leaning forward with interest. Burl glanced up sharply and waited for everyone to settle before continuing. She looked at Neil Manson for a long moment before continuing. "Some of the more experienced officers in here may be familiar with the name Manticore."

Neil looked stunned and Jack drew himself up very straight, but most other faces were blank or confused.

Manticore, Jack thought in disbelief. A whisper, a rumour, nothing else, or so most people believed. A network of terrorists-for-hire, mercenaries and assassins, so deeply underground that not even Interpol could put a single face to the name. In the past six or seven years, Manticore had been whispered in relation to any number of brutal slayings and scores of others were suspected to be their work.

"What makes you think Manticore is involved in this?" Neil asked in the ensuing whispers, effectively silencing them. "An East-End politician with an appetite for cheap sex isn't exactly their usual target."

"Agreed," Burl replied, "and as I said, the information is tenuous but I feel it must be understood how dangerous this organization is. For those among us who have not heard of Manticore, DC Grafton will give us a short history."

Burl stepped back as Grafton made his way into the centre of everyone's attention. Tall and strapping, he projected a confidence only a little squashed by Burl's presence as his senior officer. He didn't look at her as he began to speak.

"The name Manticore was first heard six years ago in Serbia," he said in a thick Scottish accent. "It was rumoured to be an ultra-violent faction in one of several opposing armed forces, carrying out brutal slayings with no apparent motive but to terrorize the population. A year later it was heard in Germany, and again in Switzerland. The targets were no longer military but civilian. It seemed to be a network of killers and terrorists with no political agenda. No one was ever definitely identified as belonging to Manticore and only three prosecutions have ever tried to bring the name into public knowledge, all unsuccessfully, as the victims were known criminals.

"Three years ago, Manticore made its first appearance in the UK. Again, civilian targets, but nothing ever proved as to who was responsible. Our records indicate that there have been six murders, two attempted murders and nine kidnappings where the name Manticore has been mentioned. Present intelligence and a lot of speculation indicate that it is a tight-knit organisation with relatively few members, spread across Europe and the Near East.

"The only evidence ever received that Manticore actually exists was a square of cardboard delivered by general post to an Inspector of police in Berlin three years ago. He had been investigating several murders attributed to Manticore, but died of small-cell lung cancer before the investigation got far. On one side of the card was a photocopy of a heraldic animal with human features – the Manticore – and on the other side was this text." He unfolded a piece of paper. "'The gleam of my scarlet hair mingles with the reflection of the great sands. I breathe through my nostrils the terror of solitudes. I spit forth plague. I devour armies when they venture into the desert. My claws are twisted like screws, my teeth shaped like saws, and my curving tail bristles with darts, that I broadcast right and left, before and behind.' It's from 'The Temptation of St Anthony' by the French poet Gustave Flaubert."

"Nice," Phil Hunter muttered shaking his head, and steeling himself visibly, he stood up. "If this is some international terrorist ring," he said doubtfully, "why hasn't it gone to the National Crime Squad or MI5 or whatever?"

"A valid question," Burl said brusquely. "The simple fact is that Manticore's existence has never been proven. It is a rumour, nothing more. The card that DC Grafton just described to you, while fascinating and suggestive, may simply be a wild prank played by someone who enjoys James Bond films and had heard the rumours. I can assure you that Manticore has been discussed at far higher levels than I operate at, and the general consensus is that it is most likely a myth perpetuated by the criminal fraternity to be bandied about and draw attention away from them after a violent crime. If Manticore does in fact exist, no one has yet admitted to it."

"But you don't believe that," Phil said shrewdly, sitting down with a little of his swagger returning.

Burl stared at him. "I do not discount the possibility, but we must work within the boundaries of evidence, DS Hunter. So far, there is none."

"So where did this information come from?" Samantha interrupted. "This tenuous lead?"

Burl directed her hooded stare at DS Nixon. "As with most cases in the UK where Manticore has been mentioned, it came from a number of informants who had little other information than the name. 'Manticore is in London.' 'Manticore has a job in the East End.' That sort of thing. When pressed for more, they only say that they heard it from someone else who heard it, from someone else who heard it – so far the trail has proven to be untraceable." Burl inflated herself again and raised her voice.

"Manticore is a possibility, a fragment given by usually reliable informants who nonetheless claim to know nothing else about it. It may be nothing, but so far it is the only scrap of information about this murder that we have. I only decided to mention it because of the nature of Manticore's activities. If they exist, they are terrorists, not opposed to violence toward anyone. Forewarned is forearmed, so they say. If Manticore turns out to be piss in the whiskey bottle, at the very least we have an armed killer to find, not to mention whoever paid him. I've requested that armed officers be assigned to Sun Hill for the foreseeable future, and the Borough Commander has agreed to it. They will be looking out for you, but they are useless if you do not follow their orders. Anyone deviating and putting themselves or others in potential danger will be dealt with. Severely."

Silence greeted that pronouncement, and Burl glared at every face in the office before continuing.

"Now then, DCI Meadows, DI Manson and I must discuss what resources Sun Hill is able to give us. DC Grafton, will you go down to CAD and find out if uniform have come up with anything yet?"

"What the hell is a manticore, anyway?" Phil Hunter asked no one in particular as the DCI held the door to Manson's office open for Burl, and all three disappeared inside. The buzz of conversation started up immediately.

"It's a myth from the Middle East," DC Zain Nadir replied, folding his arms behind his head and swinging back in his chair. "A man eater. As I recall, it has a lion's body, a human face and a scorpion tail."

Phil snorted. "Operation Scorpion," he muttered. "I don't fancy this. Terrorists running around – at least they could give us guns."

"Scared, Phil?" Samantha asked, a small sneer on her face. "I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to show us how manly you are."

Phil grimaced at her. "Laugh all you want, Sam, but I don't fancy being in the line of fire of some terrorist organisation, and I doubt you do either. Maybe you should go down to the morgue and see what's left of Paten – half his head was blown off, Tony Stamp said."

"No one wants to get shot, Phil," Sam replied, "but you heard what Burl said. How did she put it? 'Piss in the whiskey bottle'? There are enough people out there happy to take cash to kill someone without bringing networks of assassins into Sun Hill. Who around here could afford it, for one? Don't get so wound up about it."

"I'm not wound up, Sam," Phil snapped, "I just said that I don't fancy it. Of course, this might be a chance for you to dust off your profiling hat and slip into something revealing – I don't think Burl would go for it, but you never know."

"Shut up, Phil," Sam replied, clinging to patience. "Try and maintain at least the appearance of intelligence. Keep your mouth closed."

13:17pm

The pin-board by the door in the CID office had sprouted a web of linked circles over the past few hours. Photographs of Richard and Veronica Paten, alive and dead or maimed, were in the centre. Spider-webbing out were lines leading to more names – friends, family, rivals, associates, enemies – and from them to still more names.

Word had come from the post-mortem that the bullet that had killed Paten had completely disintegrated and only tiny fragments had been recovered. They were on the way to forensics for chemical analysis. Statements were trickling in, along with prints of photographs and stills from videos taken by the reporters who had been at St Hughes, trying to get a scoop from Richard Paten as he arrived to visit his wife in intensive care. Security tapes from the hospital and surrounding streets. Car registration numbers and parking tickets. A growing mountain of paperwork to be sorted through and cross-referenced, passed from hand to hand up and down the chain of command, analysed and examined. And Jack Meadows was prepared to bet that they were wasting their time.

He stood by the window in his own office, the door shut, and stared out into the street below. Most of the reporters had gotten sick of waiting and had scurried away to try and get a scoop from another source, but a few still shuffled their feet down there. The rain was coming down harder now, splashing around their ankles, their umbrellas quivering in the wind. They seemed to be arguing among themselves, hands gesticulating from under the scanty protection of the umbrellas. Occasionally someone would peer out from underneath one, scanning the upper windows of the police station.

Jack touched his stubbled chin. Richard Paten - why did the man's death bother him so much? His brain had been jammed in neutral since the call had come in that morning. He didn't remember anything of the drive to St Hughes. The taste of cordite, most likely imagined, but still faint on his tongue. Blood and sinews spattered on white concrete. Blood on his own hand.

He was no stranger to violence and death – he'd seen enough of it over the years. Not only the bodies, but the consequences and reverberations that filtered out into the general public, adding to the ambient fear of the faceless violence that people had come to expect on their streets. It should have been unacceptable to them. Who would willingly live amidst such a nebulous threat? Every day the newspapers spouted more violence, more horror, and the public lapped it up with relish. But few would raise a hand to help prevent it or prosecute it, instead blaming the police or society as a whole, and put another lock on the door.

Times had changed. The neighbourhood bobby was a thing of the past – the man who knew everything and everyone on his beat, the face of authority that the population recognised and largely approved of. Now the police were only seen in body armour, bogged down in procedures and regulations, increasingly frustrated and enraged by the system that protected the criminal and spat on the victim. Look at a child playing in the park and you must be a pervert. Pat a colleague on the back and you might be a rapist. Defend yourself against an attacker and be accused of a greater crime than that committed against you. It was a system – a world – gone mad. Kids playing up? A smack on the backside stung for a second and put a point across, but now it was child abuse. Do-gooder social workers and politicians living in ivory towers.

Jack glared down at the reporters. It was down to them as well. Fear was the name of their game. Instil fear, and people would pay through the nose. He was a copper, old school perhaps, but he hadn't joined up to refer junkies to counsellors and treat teenage thugs like porcelain dolls. The law was to be enforced, not served. He couldn't get his hands into kid gloves and didn't want to.

Whatever had been in that injection this morning had done the trick – his migraine was nearly gone, but the vagueness remained. What was wrong with him? The lengthy reign of terror by the Sun Hill Sniper hadn't done this to his wits, why should this happen now? Everything felt like it was slipping away. Why?

"Come," he said to the sudden tapping on his door, and turned toward it. He blinked at Reg Hollis and waved him in. Reg settled himself in front of the desk, folding his hands and assuming an expression of police deference. Jack stepped heavily behind the desk and sank into his chair. "What is it, Reg?" he asked tiredly.

"Well, Guv," Reg began in his nasal voice, "I don't know if this is at all relevant, but I thought I should pass it on."

Jack waited for a few seconds, but Hollis evidently wanted some acknowledgment of his efforts. "What is it, Reg?" he repeated.

Hollis drew himself up a little straighter and smiled a little. "Well, Guv, I was on patrol in the Canley Street markets today with PC Hemmingway. I only just found out, but Richard Paten was meant to be there yesterday afternoon, some kind of election walk-about, I think. He never showed up."

Jack stared at him, a little bewildered. Reg seemed to notice, for a wonder.

"You see, Guv, everyone's been saying that Paten wouldn't have missed the chance for some publicity, and to not turn up to a scheduled event? It doesn't sound like him, does it?"

"He probably heard about his wife being attacked," Jack replied, losing interest. "He didn't have a heart of stone, Reg, just bad taste and a big appetite for sleaze."

"I figured that, Guv," Reg went on, a little faster, "but there's something else. A lot of the shops and buildings along the market are derelict, but one of them had a load of paint pots and things up on the roof, like it was being redecorated. I was talking to one of the stallholders this morning and she said that someone was up there for a couple of hours yesterday afternoon, not doing anything, just watching the market. She figured it was some kind of police surveillance, but when I checked, there wasn't anything listed."

Jack stared at Hollis incredulously. "Have you spoken to the owners of the building?" he asked.

Hollis shook his head. "No, Guv. I checked them out but there was no answer when I called. I've got the details here." He produced a folded slip of paper and handed it to the DCI.

Jack took it, a little bewildered. "What put you onto this, Reg?" he asked.

Hollis seemed flattered by the question and drew himself up, smiling. "I like to keep my ear to the ground, Guv," he said, his voice becoming sing-song. "I talk to a lot of the stallholders at the markets; I've gotten to know some of them quite well. This particular lady liked Mr Paten a lot and was looking forward to meeting him. When he didn't show up she didn't think much of it, but she was quite upset this morning when word got out and asked if we knew that someone was after him – she thought the person on the roof was one of us, keeping an eye on Paten."

"But it just might be the shooter, ready to kill Paten there," Jack finished, nodding at the possibility. "When he didn't show up, the shooter had to find another opportunity."

"Yes, Guv, that's what I thought, too," Reg said, satisfied and smiling.

Jack stood up, unfolding the piece of paper Hollis had given him. In neat handwriting it outlined the name of the owner of the building and their contact phone numbers, and the details of the woman who had given Reg the tip. "I'll pass this on to DI Burl," he said. "Well done, Reg."

Hollis opened his mouth to wax lyrical some more, but Jack forestalled him by quickly striding to the door and wrenching it open. Putting valuable information forward was one thing, but Reg Hollis in full cry was quite another.

"Guv!" Sam Nixon called as Meadows strode into the CID office. She stood up as Jack approached, waggling a sheet of paper. "Uniform have found the place they think the shot came from," she said, handing the paper to the DCI. "It's an empty house on Canterbury Lane, just up from St Hughes. The direction ties in with the footage we have on the shooting."

Jack's mind went back to the back entrance of St Hughes, and Tony Stamp pointing down a narrow side-street. He nodded and Sam went on.

"Honey Harman is there now with Forensics, and DI Burl is on her way down. According to Honey, the neighbour heard what could have been the shot coming from next door. He's elderly and half-deaf, and hadn't heard about the shooting until Uniform knocked on his door."

"It's a start," Jack said, staring at the sheet of paper. "What kind of distance are we talking about?"

"Honey said it's about a quarter mile," Sam replied.

Jack handed the paper back to her. "Let me know what Forensics come up with, will you?"

Sam nodded and began to turn away when Jack remembered why he had come in there.

"Sam, I need this checked out," he said, and Sam turned back to face him, extending a hand to take the small piece of paper Jack held out. "It's a possible location for a first attempt at the shooting. Check out the firm that owns the building, and talk to the woman – her name is at the bottom. She says she saw someone up on the roof of a derelict building at the markets. A load of decorating equipment was up there as well, which doesn't sound right for the markets – the whole place is ready to fall down. Richard Paten was meant to be down there yesterday afternoon."

"Where did this come from, Guv?" Sam Nixon asked, looking up wide-eyed from the piece of paper to the DCI. "How reliable is it?"

Jack grinned sardonically. "Reg Hollis gave it to me," he replied. "The plod on the street, doing what coppers have been doing for a hundred years - talking to the great British public."

Sam stood up, eyebrows raised. "I'll get down to the market then, and see what the story is. I'll get Zain to check out the owners of the building."

13:47pm

DS Nixon stepped lightly around puddles and trash as she strolled down the crowded market. The rain had lessened back to the fine mist of this morning, enough to dampen her blonde hair and give the wind an extra bite on her exposed face. She paused briefly at stalls, not touching anything but running her eyes over the displayed wares, most under clear plastic to keep the weather off. She also surreptitiously scanned the rooftops for what Reg had described to the DCI – paint pots and buckets and brooms. The buildings lining the markets were almost all derelict and empty, though a few struggling businesses clung on.

Rounding a small tent selling children's clothes, she found what she was looking for – perched on the edge of the roof of a truly ancient, crumbling ruin were the large white plastic pots and handles of brooms and paint rollers. It was three floors up, the doors and windows below boarded over and liberally sprayed with graffiti. She stared at it for a few moments, wondering how to get in, before setting off again in search of the woman who had given Reg the tip.

Middle-aged, thin with bright red hair, her stall selling second-hand books and old magazines. Sam spotted her immediately – she did have a good view of the building. Sam made her way over.

"Mrs Daniels?" Sam said to the red-haired woman.

"That's me," she replied, giving Sam a quick, sharp look-over. "Who wants to know?"

"I'm Detective Sergeant Nixon, Sun Hill CID," Sam replied, holding her warrant card out low over the table. "I've come about the information you gave to PC Hollis this morning."

Mrs Daniels' face fell. "Yes, it's a tragedy about Richard Paten," she said. "Such a good man – who would want to do that to him? He did nothing but good for the people around here. Have you caught the psycho who did it yet?"

"Not yet," Sam said apologetically. "The Murder Investigation Team have a number of strong leads, though."

"Strong leads? That means you're fishing, doesn't it?"

Sam refused to rise to the bait. "Mrs Daniels, I understand you told PC Hollis that you saw someone on the roof of that building over there yesterday." She pointed quickly over her shoulder, not turning.

"That's right, I did," Mrs Daniels said, her expression sliding slowly from grief to mild alarm. "It wasn't one of your lot, then?"

"No," Sam replied softly. "There's nothing logged for surveillance at the markets for yesterday."

Mrs Daniels stared, wide-eyed, up at the pots and brushes on the roof, licking her lips. A slight tremor passed through her. "So who was it, then?" she asked faintly.

"It might not be anyone involved with Mr Paten's murder," Sam said. "But all the same we need to check it out. What time did you see this person?"

The woman squinted at the rooftop. "I don't know, it was in the afternoon. The school kids were starting to come through the last time I looked up there and saw someone."

"Can you describe the person you saw?"

Mrs Daniels swallowed hard, not looking down from the rooftop. "Not really. Just someone up there moving around, looking over the edge. I thought it was a decorator, with all that stuff up there." Her breath was coming a little faster now. "Was it – was it –"

"It's alright, Mrs Daniels. Try to relax – there's no one there now. Can you give me any kind of description? Skin colour? Hair? Clothing?"

"It – it was only for a second," Mrs Daniels said softly. "But I think, I think white."

"Caucasian?" Sam asked.

"Yes, I think so."

"What about clothes?"

Mrs Daniels bit her lip, eyes darting left and right now. "How can I work here now? How can I stay here?" Her voice was rising, in pitch and volume.

"Mrs Daniels, please calm down," Sam hissed. "You're in no danger here. Just relax. Now tell me, what clothes was this person wearing?"

The woman turned her frightened dark eyes on Sam, her mouth open slightly. Slowly, then rapidly faster, she shook her head. "No. No, I'm not saying another word. Not a word! I'll move the stall somewhere else. I'm not staying here!" She began to dig into her pockets, pulled a battered mobile phone out and began to dial with a trembling thumb.

"Mrs Daniels, whether or not the person you saw is connected to Richard Paten's murder, there's no reason for you to be in any danger whatsoever. Please, just tell me –"

"Go away!" Mrs Daniels almost shrieked at her, flapping her free hand, the other holding the mobile to her ear. "I'm not saying another word! You're the police, you get paid for this sort of thing. Leave me alone!" She spun around. "Tom? Tom, is that you? Get the van down here right now – I'm not staying here. Right now! Now!" She hung up and shoved the phone back in her pocket, then quickly began pulling cardboard boxes out from under her tables and packing up her books and magazines, eyes frantically scanning the crowds milling up and down the market.

Sam strode in front of the woman. "Mrs Daniels," she said firmly, "take my card. We really need your help – anything at all you can tell us, no matter how small. Call me any time on that number." She jabbed the small rectangle at the woman. "Take it!" she commanded.

Mrs Daniels' hand fluttered, and then she snatched the card from Sam's fingers and shoved it in her pocket, still not looking up, piling her stock back into the boxes.

Sam drew a short, irritated breath and turned to look up at the innocuous rooftop. Was there a way to get up there? There must be. Junkies and homeless people wouldn't let an empty building go to waste. She walked over to it, taking in the crumbling brick façade and the words "Sully & Co. 1898". The windows that weren't boarded up were broken or had newspapers pasted over them. At street level the graffiti was layers thick over the old bricks and boards. She stepped into the recessed doorway on the pretence of adjusting her shoe, recoiling slightly at the smell of urine that hung about the place. She leaned lightly against the door as she fiddled with her shoe, and it swung inwards slightly. Casting a quick look around the crowded marketplace – she couldn't see anyone watching her – she casually slipped inside.

Inside, the smell of urine was stronger, and something else that didn't bear thinking about. Sam grimaced and pulled her pocket torch out and flashed the narrow beam around in the gloom. It was almost completely dark on the ground floor, damp and squalid. Piles of rubbish lay everywhere. One of the inside walls had fallen in, and bricks and rotted timbers were everywhere underfoot. The old building creaked and groaned around Sam as she tiptoed forward, searching for stairs to get up to the roof. She pulled her asp from another pocket and flicked it open, the length of metal reassuring in her hand. She swallowed hard to dislodge the clenched knot in her throat, telling herself that there would be no reason for the killer to be here now – the job was done.

The stairs lay near the back of the old building where an open door led into an equally dismal and filthy alleyway and she crept up the stairs cautiously, wary of rotten wood underfoot. The next floor was equally empty but brighter, a few of the windows not boarded over. A few discarded syringes glinted in the light of her torch. A gaping hole in the ceiling revealed the second floor. The stairs leading up there had fallen in, but a rusted, paint-splattered ladder stood in their place. Folding the asp in on itself, Sam stuck the torch in her mouth and jiggled the ladder in its place. It squeaked and rattled as she stepped on the lowest rung, but held together. She abandoned all efforts at quiet as she made her way up – it sounded like the ladder was screeching in pain.

The second floor was relatively clean compared to below, but the floorboards underfoot felt like rubber. Sam eased herself across to another rusty tradesman's ladder that led to the broken skylight in the roof and clambered up.

Peering cautiously over the edge of the skylight, Sam's stomach unclenched when she saw no one, and she climbed out. The sloping roof led down to a narrow balcony with a raised balustrade, half of which had fallen away. The buckets and paint pots were there, conspicuously near the edge, and she gingerly lifted the lid of one.

It was empty. Someone had put some of the bricks from the fallen balustrade inside it to weight it down. Inside and out it was crusted with different coloured paints, the sign of a sloppy workman. The others were the same. The brooms and long-handled paint rollers were equally worn and stained. To Sam's mind it was an obvious cover for someone who didn't want their presence noticed beyond the superficial. The far end of the narrow balcony, where the balustrade was intact, had been swept clean of dirt and debris, which now lay in a muddy puddle against the far wall.

She crouched down in that small cleared space and peered over the balustrade. It was a clear view of the markets in both directions. She could almost feel the malicious intent of the person who had been there waiting for Richard Paten, a loaded weapon to hand, and the promise of a large reward when the job was done. She had no doubts now – this was the first site of a planned murder, a plan which had been hastily reorganised when the victim failed to show up. The assault on his wife had given Richard Paten another few hours of life – another few hours of fear and grief.

Sam made her way back down the creaking ladders and the rotting stairs to the ground floor. It wouldn't be too conspicuous to back a tradesman's van down that alley out the back and bring in the tools of the redecorator's trade, though anyone who came into this building must know it was good for nothing but demolition. Still, it meant that the killer could get in and out of there with a minimum of notice – hardly anyone would pay attention to someone going about their work.

She stepped out into the alley for a better look. Barely wide enough for a car to pass through, more rubbish crowded into its corners and against the walls of the derelict buildings surrounding it. The cobbles underfoot were slick with the rain and slippery. Black, empty windows yawned out of crumbling bricks stained with illegible graffiti. A wary rat sniffed the air by a hole in one wall, disappearing through it when Sam approached.

There was nothing to see there – nothing to suggest anyone had been there recently. Sam drew a long breath and continued along the alley, scanning the upper walls near its end for security cameras. There were none. She found herself back on the market street and made her way quickly back to where her car was parked, passing Mrs Daniels and her husband, both of whom were packing up their rickety tables for good.

Sam pulled the door of her car shut and locked it with a sense of relief. Frustration came quickly, though – no security footage, no description, nothing. Uniform would have to come down here and ask around to see if anyone else had seen anything. Forensics would also be required, to see if the killer had left anything behind. Sam resolved to get Zain to check the crime reports for stolen decorating equipment – it was a long shot, but there wasn't much else to go on. She pulled her police radio out of her pocket.

"Sierra Oscar from DS Nixon," she said.

"Go ahead, Sarge," Dean McVerry's voice crackled back a moment later.

"Dean, can you please pass a message to DI Burl. I've found a possible location for a first attempt at the murder of Mr Paten. Canley Street markets. I've spoken to a witness, Mrs Ann Daniels…"

15:53pm

"Anything, Leela?" Sam asked PC Kapoor. The two women stood in the scanty shelter of a police van at the end of the markets, at least out of the wind if not the rain.

"Nothing, Sarge," Leela replied apologetically, wiping her face. "We've almost covered the whole market now, and only a few other people admit to seeing someone up on the roof, but they can't or won't give us a description. The story's got out about Paten and no one wants to talk to us. No one saw a decorator's van down the alley and no one wants to know about it. It's a complete blank."

"Alright, well finish up and I'll let Gina Gold know you're almost done. Thanks for your help."

Leela nodded and moved off. Sam frowned at the activity in the markets and shook her head. People looked at the uniformed officers out of the corners of their eyes, skulking away if they came too close. Others stood staring up at the rooftop where Sam knew the killer had been. They whispered among themselves and pointed, fearful and curious but not curious enough to ask any questions.

Forensics would be a while yet. Not many people would have had access to the second floor of that derelict building, so maybe they could pull a footprint from the rotting boards, or a fingerprint from somewhere else. It was possible, but Sam didn't think they'd find anything conclusive. Someone who killed people for a living had to know at least the basics of covering themselves.

Sam got back in her car and started the engine. It was getting dark already, the rain coming down heavier. She pulled out into the thin flow of traffic.

15:59pm

DCI Meadows pushed open the front door of the Green Archer pub, Phil Hunter trailing reluctantly behind him. Off all Jack's favourite places for a quiet pint, this place was far down the list. For what must have been the hundredth time he considered getting the brewery in and shutting the place down – there must have been a dozen breaches of regulations in there, if not more. But Bob Anderson liked to lean on the bar with the criminal element of Sun Hill, and he did pass on good information, if only enough to keep the local police buttered up. Anything heavy and he would shut up tighter than a clam.

Sue Anderson spotted them first. Standing behind the bar, Jack could almost mistake her for Julie Burl. She was the same build, same hooded eyes, and equally as tough. Bob owned the Green Archer but Sue ran it, and him, with an iron fist. She sniffed ostentatiously as Jack and Phil made their way to the bar, and waddled out the back to get her husband. She made a point of never speaking to the police.

"Jack!" Bob Anderson greeted as he came out of the back room. He was as thin as his wife was fat, his cheekbones sticking out like elbows. He could have been mistaken for a dosser in his tattered t-shirt and threadbare jumper, and dark circles under his eyes added years to him. "Who've you got with you today then?"

"This is Phil Hunter," Jack replied, pulling up a bar stool and gazing around at the other customers. There were only a few. Two businessmen having a quiet discussion over a fat envelope between them on the table ,two couples in the corners, three burly tradesmen almost glued to the dog races on the television, and an attractive woman sitting further along the bar, idly swirling a half pint in one hand, fiddling with a mobile phone with the other.

"Phil, pleased to meet you," Bob said with a smile like he'd won the lottery, flinging out a hand. Phil took it with a non-committal smile and nearly had his arm jerked out of its socket by Bob's vigorous handshake. He took his hand back quickly.

Without asking, Bob flipped over two half pint glasses and filled them to the brim with amber fluid. He put them on the bar in front of the two men with a flourish, and waved Jack's money away when he proffered a ten pound note. "On the house, Jack," he said heartily. "You saved me bacon last month; it's the least I can do." Jack shoved the note back in his wallet and raised his glass while Bob poured himself a similar measure and took a long pull at it. He smacked his lips. "That's the stuff," he said, setting his half-empty glass down on the bar. "So, what brings you today, Jack? We've not hand any trouble in here for more than a month now."

"Richard Paten," Jack said.

Bob's smile slipped. "What would I know about that, Jack? You know me, I might skim the cream a bit, but I don't have no truck with killers."

"His wife was found beaten nearly to death behind your pub, Mr Anderson," Phil said quietly.

"But I spoke to your uniform lot yesterday," Bob protested. "We didn't know nothing about that – the only time I use that back alley is when deliveries come, and there weren't none yesterday."

"It must have occurred to you that we'd come, though," Phil pressed. "She's beaten to a pulp, then her husband has his head blown off?"

"It ain't exactly rocket science, is it?" Bob muttered. "He used to come in here, you know, Richard Paten. Happy to hear you out if you'd buy him a pint. He never spent a quid in here, not once. A lot of quiet chats in the corners, and not with the kind of person you'd expect."

"Meaning what?" Phil asked.

"Meaning that Richard Paten had his fingers in a lot of pies. He didn't get that big house of Mayfield Road by kissing babies and pushing speed bumps and security cameras through the council. And he didn't buy his suits down at the local menswear store, either. Designer stuff, and only the best."

"Spell it out, Bob," Jack said impatiently.

Bob managed to look both extremely put upon and worried at the same time. "Look, Jack, I appreciate what you did for me last month, but I don't want to go the same way Paten did, and I don't fancy having my face rearranged either, if what happened to his missus is anything to go by. I never told you a thing, okay?"

"Just tell me," Jack snapped.

Bob sighed explosively. "I saw him just about every week talking to Vic Willis."

Jack sat forward. "Vic Willis? The West End drug baron?"

Bob nodded miserably. "They'd always sit there, in the corner," he said, pointing to a booth mostly in shadow, furthest from the door. "They'd talk for more than an hour, most nights, then go their separate ways. Then there's Tommy Cole. Him and Paten would play darts or pool, and it always wound up in an argument."

"About what?" Phil asked, sharing a look with Jack. Tommy Cole had slithered through the net so many times he must have thought he was coated in Teflon. Guns and illegal immigrants were his specialities.

"I didn't care to ask," Bob said primly. "They weren't loud arguments. There'd be some finger-pointing, maybe a push now and then, but never anything more. Come on, Jack," he moaned. "You know me, I don't go in for the heavy stuff. I've said more than is healthy already. Leave it be, hey?"

"I'm not finished," Jack said. "Tell me what happened to Veronica Paten."

"I don't know!" Bob protested. "A couple of kids came running in and said they'd found her. I called an ambulance. That's all I know."

Jack stared at him, drumming his fingers on the bar. The silence stretched out, and Bob fidgeted uncomfortably under the scrutiny. Eventually Jack turned his head toward Phil but kept his eyes on Bob. "What's the number of the brewery, Phil?" he asked.

"Alright! Alright, Jack. This will be the death of me, you know," Bob said, leaning forward on the bar and cocking an eye toward his wife who was refilling a glass for the blonde woman at the bar. The two women were conversing, Sue frowning as she spoke. "If Sue hears about this, she'll squash me flat."

Jack didn't doubt it. Sue Anderson may have looked like a lump of lard but she had a nasty temper and the beef to back it up. "Let's have it then."

Bob's lips writhed, and his eyes kept flickering back and forth between Jack and Sue. "I saw who dumped that woman out the back," he said finally in a hoarse whisper.

"Dumped?" Phil asked at the same time Jack asked "Who?"

"Shh!" Bob hissed, looking from one to the other a few times. "Keep your voices down. It was Andy Sumner. You know him, Jack."

"Yeah," Jack agreed. Andy Sumner fancied himself as a hard-man, but didn't have the brains for the job, only the muscle. He'd done time in Shadwell for GBH. "But why should Sue care if you tell me about it?"

"Because he's her scum of a brother!" Bob whispered. "She won't hear a word against him, not since her other two brothers were killed in a car wreck a few years ago. He's all she's got left. I know, I know," he went on, forestalling Jack's next question. "What did I see, right? He pulled up into the alley in a blue van, tossed her out the back doors and drove off. I was in the cellar, I saw it all through the window. Before you ask, no, I didn't see the registration. And I didn't tell your uniform lot because Sue would have pounded me into mince."

"Did he assault her there?" Phil asked.

Bob shrugged. "He pulled up, opened the back doors, tossed her out the back of the van like a sack of spuds and drove off. She never got up that I saw. You can think what you like," he said with a touch of anger, glaring at Phil, "But I came straight up to the bar and was going to call an ambulance when those schoolkids came in and raised a ruckus. She wasn't lying there more than two minutes."

Jack passed a hand over his eyes, still fighting the vagueness in the middle of his head. He felt not quite all there, like he'd left something behind. There was a question that needed to be asked, but he couldn't think of it. Phil stepped in before the silence could stretch this time.

"Where can we find this Andy Sumner?" Phil asked.

Bob stared at Phil for a long moment before draining his half pint. "If Sue hears about this," he protested again feebly, and then jumped when Jack banged his fist down on the bar. "The snooker club on Eider Lane," he said quickly but just as quietly, "and for god sake don't tell him I sent you. He's there most nights from about seven. Before you ask where he lives, I don't know and I don't want to know. I think that about makes us even, Jack."

"We'll see," Jack replied, standing up. Phil quickly emptied his half pint and set the glass down on the bar. The two men made their way toward the door, both glancing over when the woman sitting at the bar turned towards them.

Jack blinked. She was beautiful! Clear blue eyes, full lips, short white-blonde hair. Dressed all in black – coat, pants and boots – she looked both men over without embarrassment and then smiled at them before turning back to her drink. Jack put a restraining hand on Phil's arm as the younger man made as if to go over to her. "Leave it in your pants for once, Phil," he muttered. "You've already got enough on your plate." He led the way out into the gathering darkness.

16:38pm

Jack Meadows and Julie Burl took seats in Superintendent Okaro's office to compare notes on what they had learned. They discussed at length what Sam Nixon had reported from Canley Street markets, and Andy Sumner's possible involvement with not only the assault on Veronica Paten, but the murder of her husband as well. There was also the report from forensics on the bullet that had killed Richard Paten.

"From what they've recovered," Adam read from the report, "it was an explosive head. The chemists had a job identifying the explosive material. According to them, a hollow-tipped round wouldn't have caused such extensive damage to the skull. Forensics weren't able to come up with a make for the round what with it being in a million pieces, but explosive-tipped ammunition can't be bought off the shelf, so it's possible that it's a custom job. Very tricky to make, apparently, but it did the job as far as Paten was concerned." He laid the report down on his desk and looked at the two officers. "Who have we got on the patch who could make that sort of ammunition?"

Jack shook his head. "The name Tommy Cole has come up once already today, but as far as we know his expertise is in activating replica weapons, not necessarily making ammunition. Other than that, I'd say only Michael Rowan would have the know-how."

"And he's doing six years in Longmarsh for weapons offences," Okaro finished. "So it's conceivable that either our information is seriously out of date, or the shooter has a supply from elsewhere. What about the location of the shooting?"

"Not much to go on, sir," Burl replied, shaking her head. "It's an empty house, but looks like it has been used as a squat recently, though no signs of current occupation. Forensics think they've found residue from the shot by a window on the second floor – there's a decent view of the back entrance to St Hughes from there. I wouldn't hold much hope on any other forensics, though. No one admitted to seeing anyone there this morning, and out the back is a network of lanes between the houses letting out into four different exits on three streets. Unfortunately no cameras have been fitted near there."

"Needle in a haystack, then," Okaro said, sighing heavily.

"Sir, we need to get a team together to take this Andy Sumner character," Burl put in. "If the information DCI Meadows has been given is accurate, Sumner will be in Eider Lane in a little over two hours. He's only been out of Shadwell three months and the address he gave his bail officer turned out to be false. We need to move quickly."

"I agree," Okaro said. "Take some uniform with you – we can cover the overtime. The Borough Commander is breathing down my neck for a quick result on this."

19:21pm

"Who stitched me up?" Andy Sumner demanded, writhing in the grip of Tony Stamp on one arm and Roger Valentine on the other as they led him down the front steps of the snooker club. The rain had mercifully blown over and cold stars glittered overhead. Eider Lane lay in relative darkness, the street lights spaced too far apart to give much light, the one hanging above the snooker club occasionally flickering into life, but for the most part dark. The police van's headlights illuminated the scene as Sumner was brought out. "Who? I'll rip their bloody heads off! Get off me, filth! Pigs!"

"Shut up," Tony said impatiently but without anger – he was far too used to the name-calling to care beyond the noise in his ears giving him a headache. It had been a long day – hopefully the overtime would end once they got Sumner back to the nick. "Can't you come up with anything more original than that?"

"Get him in the van, Tony." Jack Meadows said, coming down the stairs with the rest of the team. It hadn't been a difficult arrest – Sumner had been too caught up in his snooker game to notice them coming up behind him, though Jack had been careful to ensure that the team knew to get the snooker cue off Sumner as their first priority.

"Forget it!" Sumner yelled, balking. "You can put me in there dead, copper!" He struggled violently in their grip.

A loud, metallic clang suddenly froze everyone in their places. Something had hit the lamp post behind Sumner as he struggled. He was the first to react, though. "Get off!" he shrieked, throwing his weight into Roger Valentine. "Get off me!" He managed to slip out of Tony's grip, knocking Roger to the ground. Before anyone could grab him he was running, hands cuffed behind his back, away down Eider Lane.

He didn't get more than three steps. Tony heard the sharp crack and the whistle of a projectile pass near his head but before he could register either, Andy Sumner flew forwards bonelessly, rolling to a halt on his back, unmoving.

"Get down!" Meadows yelled. No one needed telling twice; everyone dropped to the wet tarmac. A hundred yards down Eider Lane where Holt Street connected, a car door slammed and an engine revved, tyres squealing. The sound of a car disappeared into the night.

"Go!" Meadows roared. "Go! Get after them! Move!" Tony and Roger scrambled to their feet and sprinted for the patrol car.

"Sierra Oscar from DS Hunter, urgent message" Phil said breathlessly into his radio, still kneeling on the wet road.

"Go ahead," the radio blared.

"Urgent assistance required. Shots fired outside the snooker club, Eider Lane," Phil said, his radio trembling in his hand. "Ambulance required for one casualty. The suspect has made off, heading north on Holt Street. Sierra One in pursuit."

In response, Tony slammed the Area Car into reverse and swung the car violently around, the lights and sirens coming on. He skidded around the corner into Holt Street and was gone.

"Received," came the reply from the radio. "Who's injured?"

"The prisoner, Andy Sumner," Phil said, getting to his feet and walking over to the still form lying near the gutter. The overhead streetlight suddenly flickered into life. Phil turned away quickly, pressing his hand over his mouth.

Andy Sumner's face was gone.

19:48pm

Neil Manson pulled up near the corner of Eider Lane and Holt Street, turning off the engine but not getting out of his car. Emergency lights of police and ambulance whirled a little way down Eider Lane, the silhouettes of people hurrying to and fro, a gaggle of press being kept forcibly back from the scene. Neil folded his arms on the steering wheel and watched for a few moments.

Two murders in one day.

Manticore.

The jagged scar just above his right hip twinged. It was healed and almost forgotten except when he happened to catch a glimpse in the mirror, but for that moment he could feel the stitches in it, or at least the memory of them.

The shot had only glanced off him, nothing vital damaged, but it had been a mess. He'd hobbled like a war veteran for a month afterwards. Three years ago.

It must have been the first time Manticore had been mentioned in the UK, Neil mused, or at least one of the first times. Two abductions and an attempted murder. All had survived, but only just. Timely intervention and one big risk on Neil's part had seen to that. The risk had paid off, but the hole in his side had ached for months.

And now Manticore was back.

Neil shuddered, glancing around at the bright lights a little up Holt Street where the forensics team were trying to find traces of the suspect's car. Tyre rubber could give narrow the type of car down considerably, though without a specific make or model, it was almost useless information.

There was Jack Meadows, standing on the side of the road, staring at the ground under his feet. Or was it the body he was staring at? Neil opened the car door and climbed out, buttoning his coat closer against the chill of the night wind. Stuffing his hands in his pockets, he walked as calmly as he could towards the DCI.

Jack looked caught between fury and frustration and throwing up. His lips moved soundlessly as he stared down at the bloody remains of his prisoner. Neil could sympathise – Andy Sumner had been in police custody at the time of his death – Jack would have some explaining to do, and enough paperwork to keep him busy for a month.

"Guv, are you okay?" Neil asked, coming up beside him.

Jack looked up at him furiously. "Do I bloody look okay?" he snarled. "Sumner's dead, the shooter's gotten clean away and any chance we had of a quick result on this has just gone down the pan!"

"I know," Neil said placatingly. "But getting wound up about it isn't going to help anyone." Jack's eyes returned to the sheet-covered body on the ground, one end darkened with congealing blood.

Neil unclenched one hand and gingerly put it on the DCI's shoulder. "I'll arrange for a guard to sit on Veronica Paten – if it's the same shooter as this morning, Veronica could be next on the list. Why don't you go home, Jack? You look knackered. Forensics won't be able to give us much tonight, and CAD can call you at home if anything else comes up."

Jack's head swung back toward him sharply, but the anger on his face melted away quickly. "Yeah," he said quietly, hunching his shoulders and stepping away from the body. "Alright then. See you later." He took one final, hunted look at the body of Andy Sumner before striding off into the shadows.

"Bad memories, Neil?"

He turned at the sudden voice in his ear, surprised to see Julie Burl's expressionless face only inches from his. "Bad enough," he replied, stepping around her to bend over and twitch back the cloth covering Sumner's head. He grimaced and let it fall again. The light was poor, but enough to see what was never meant to be seen. He straightened. "Have you got anything new?"

"Neil, you're one of the few police officers in Britain to have not only heard of Manticore but to have had direct dealings," Burl said quietly, putting a hand under his elbow and guiding him away from the corpse. "What does your instinct tell you about this?"

Neil let himself be led out of the light and stopped by the stairs leading up into the snooker club. "I only heard the name Manticore after it was all over," he said quietly, not looking at Burl. "The situation was completely different to this. We were dealing with a double kidnapping. A security guard was nearly killed when he tried to intervene. A hundred grand was paid off to the kidnapper and never recovered. The operation was a total disaster."

"But you got the two women back alive," Burl pressed. "I've read the statements from everyone involved. Everything went off within two days, no time to think, only to react. You put yourself on the line and saved their lives, Neil."

"What's your point?" Neil asked impatiently.

"My point is that it's happening again," Burl said, leaning in close. "Every time Manticore's name comes up in an investigation, everything happens fast, one event after another, planned to the smallest detail with every possibility covered. We may only have a few days, maybe only a few hours, to get to the bottom of this, and then Manticore will slither off into the shadows again."

"And what is it you think I can do to help you?"

Burl studied him for a moment, the dim light reflecting in tiny points in her flinty eyes. She never seemed to blink.

"You've dealt with Manticore," she repeated finally. "You've come in their line of fire. What do you think is going to happen next?"

Neil smiled mirthlessly. "How the hell would I know?" he asked quietly. "That Andy Sumner was involved in this has been unarguably proven, I'd say. All we had left to go on was him. The DCI has dealt with him before – he said that Sumner was all muscle but no brains. He liked to brag about the jobs he'd done, or was going to do. Jack and Phil Hunter spoke to Bob Anderson, the landlord of the Green Archer. His wife, Sue, is Sumner's sister. They were close, apparently. She'll need to be informed that he's dead, at any rate."

Burl heard him out silently. "I was thinking more along the lines of Sumner being involved in Manticore," she said softly when he was done. Neil shook his head.

"I doubt it. Sumner was a complete liability from all accounts. He wanted to be seen as a hard-man, but didn't have two brain cells to rub together. He was violent but I wouldn't put him in Manticore's class."

"Which is what?"

"Professional," Neil replied.

6:28am

Friday

Jack Meadows pressed the cotton ball firmly over the bead of blood in the crook of his elbow and bent his arm to hold it in place. A plump nurse carried the tray with his blood sample out and swished the curtain closed behind her while a younger woman held out a short length of tape – Jack lowered his hand and allowed her to stick the cotton ball down in place.

"It shouldn't be too long before we have the results, Mr Meadows," she said in a lilting voice. "You said that you had the symptoms before the injections yesterday?"

"Yes," Jack replied quietly, stuffing his arms gratefully into the sleeves of his shirt and pulling it on. "The migraine went after the jab, but I just feel like my brain has gone on vacation, like there's an empty space in the middle of my head. I'm having trouble concentrating, can't think of routine things."

The nurse nodded sagely – she was too young to try that look of all-seeing wisdom. "I imagine you've been under a lot of stress lately," she said. "Stress can cause all kinds of functional impairments. The blood test should tell us what's happening. I'm glad you didn't wait too long before coming in, Mr Meadows – a lot of men wouldn't bother. Doctor Hamilton will be in to see you in a moment then you should be able to go home."

"Thank you," Jack said, buttoning his shirt, averting his eyes from the sway of her hips as she left.

The curtain twitched open again as Jack was straightening his tie, and Robyn Hamilton walked in, running her finger down a chart. She looked exhausted, with dark circles under her eyes and her shining dark hair somewhat dishevelled. She managed a smile as she looked up at him, though.

"Jack, long time no see," she greeted, extending a hand. Jack took it.

"Too long," he said, smiling.

"So," Robyn said without preamble. "Migraine yesterday, treated here with pethidine – it did the trick?" Jack nodded. "But other symptoms persisting. Difficulty concentrating, empty feeling inside the head – I'll bet you've never felt that before, Jack," she said with a grin.

"First time for everything," Jack chuckled.

"Well," Robyn sighed, setting the chart down on the examination bed and indicating for him to sit down, "The migraine and the difficulty concentrating could simply be down to stress. Did it come on quickly or gradually?" She pulled out an ophthalmoscope and thumbed Jack's eyelids open one by one, peering in.

"The headache's been hanging around a few days," Jack said, but it really kicked in yesterday morning. The vagueness started around that time."

"Hmm," Robyn said, stepping back and pocketing the instrument. "Nothing out of place in the eyes. The nurses took a blood sample? Good. Other than that empty feeling, are you feeling well in yourself?"

"Never better," Jack replied.

"Much stress at the moment?" She snorted, not waiting for an answer. "You live on stress, Jack. Two shootings in one day would have anyone crawling out of their skin. Are you sleeping alright?"

"I thought I'd never get to sleep last night, but I was gone as soon as I closed my eyes."

Robyn nodded, but her eyes were scanning the chart again. Her eyebrows suddenly shot up. "What's this? You been dipping your oar in unfamiliar waters, Jack? It says here you had another jab yesterday."

"Yeah," Jack said, smiling sheepishly. "I had some blood on my hand from Richard Paten. It was just a precaution."

Robyn gave him a searching, mischievous look. "Alright," she said at length. "I'll give you a script for some pills. They might make you a bit dopey, but if it is stress that's causing the symptoms, a slow-down will let all your systems catch up and slot back into place."

"I'm running a major operation," Jack protested. "I can't afford to be slowed down now."

"By all accounts your brain is already telling you it can't keep up, Jack," Robyn replied, folding her arms with a stern look. "These pills won't have you crawling under the desk for a kip. They're designed for people under high stress. Besides, you're not the man on the street any more. Don't you have lackeys to do all the running around for you?"

"Even so."

Robyn sighed again and shook her head. "Well, it's your brain, Jack, you're the boss. Look, take the script, and as soon as you can, get onto these pills. You should probably have a talk to your own doctor about long-term stress management as well. I'll let you know about the blood tests as soon as they come back."

8:17am

"Guv," Suzie Sim greeted as Jack walked into the main CID office. She picked up a sheet of paper and beckoned him over with it. "Forensics have pushed through the ammunition used in Paten's shooting. They've confirmed that it was an explosive-tipped round, likely fired from a long-range weapon. They've checked their database and come up with another round from a murder in Newcastle last year. It was an explosive-tipped round and the chemical content of the rounds are similar enough for them to say – unofficially at the moment – that it's the same ammunition."

"Was the murder in Newcastle one of Manticore's?"

"I'm waiting for DC Grafton to confirm, Guv," Suzie replied, handing the sheet of paper to Jack. "Also, DI Manson asked me to tell you that the Borough Commander has approved twenty-four hour armed guards on Victoria Paten for the foreseeable future."

Jack nodded. At least the killer would have a hard time getting to the woman. If she lived long enough to tell them what she knew, if she knew anything. He sighed. "What about the bullet that hit the lamp post last night?"

Suzie grimaced. "The news isn't so good there, Guv. The round almost completely disintegrated on impact. They have the fragments and are running a comparative analysis but the results will take a while to come in, what with the sample being contaminated by metal from the lamp post. I haven't been able to inform DI Burl – she hasn't come in yet. DC Grafton can't get her on her mobile, either. He's getting worried."

"It's not like her to take her finger off the pulse," Jack agreed, scanning the faxed report from forensics. "When did we last hear from her?"

"She called CAD for an update a little after midnight – nothing new had happened so she said she'd be in first thing."

"Okay, thanks Suzie," Jack said, turning to go. "Let me know when she comes in, will you?"

Suzie nodded and leaned over to pick up the ringing phone on Phil Hunter's desk.

"Sun Hill CID," she said into the mouthpiece. "When?" She looked up as Jack put out a hand to push the door open. "Guv, wait a moment," she called, returning her attention to the telephone. "Who's down there? And the address? Okay, we're on the way."

"What is it?" Jack asked, returning to the desk. Suzie put the phone down and pulled her coat on, picking up her mobile phone and car keys.

"Uniform had a call-out to a disturbance on Keys Lane an hour ago," Suzie said, flicking her long dark hair out from under the collar of her coat. "It was all quiet on arrival, but DC Grafton heard about it when he went down to CAD – it's DI Burl's address. It looks like the place has been turned over and he can't get an answer at the door and can't gain entry."

Jack stared at Suzie for a moment before turning away and screwing his eyes closed tightly. Think! he berated himself, mentally cursing the vacuum in his head that seemed to swallow up every coherent thought he could summon.

"Guv? Are you okay?" Suzie asked, touching him lightly on the arm. Jack shied away from her touch and strode toward the doors.

"Come on, let's get down there," he said.

8:32am

The apartment block on Keys Lane stood in its own grounds, well back from the road. The cars parked on the gravel drive were all well-kept if not necessarily the latest models. DC Grafton stood on the front steps with two uniformed officers, practically wringing his hands. His anxious face brightened a little at the sight of DCI Meadows striding purposefully toward him, and he trotted down the steps to meet him.

"Guv," he said gratefully. "I've had a look through the window in the front door and it's a shambles inside. One of the neighbours called in about an hour ago – she heard noises last night at about nine o'clock, nothing that sounded violent, just things being moved around and the occasional thump, but she is good friends with DI Burl – a Mrs Ellen Stone – and when she saw the DI's car was still here –"

"Okay," Jack interrupted. "Have you managed to gain entry yet?"

"Not yet," Grafton replied, looking up anxiously at the building. "The DI had the apartment burglar-proofed – steel plates on the back of the doors, bars on the windows – you'd need a key to get in there."

"Well, uniform carry a master key," Suzie Sim said, nodding at PC Stein who was unloading the steel battering ram kept in the boot of the patrol car.

DC Grafton's eyes widened. "If we kicked her door in and there was nothing wrong –"

Jack ignored him, gesturing for PC Stein to precede them up the stairs into the building.

It took PC Stein nearly five minutes to batter the door down. By that time a crowd of anxious faces had assembled in the hall, all murmuring worriedly among themselves about the multitude of police standing in the hall, three of whom carried deadly-looking weapons and wore heavy armour and helmets.

When the door finally burst open, the armed officers rushed in, sweeping quickly through the apartment. It was only when they had all called "Clear!" that Jack allowed the rest of his officers to rush inside.

Jack staggered on entering the apartment at the rear of the group – the heat inside was tropical. Following the other officers in, struggling to breathe the heavy air, he found himself in the living room.

The apartment had been almost completely trashed. Every chair and table lay on its side. The kitchen pantry had been almost emptied, every container torn open and their contents flung around in almost every room. The sickly smell of souring milk was rank in the air. Pillows and cushions had been ripped or cut open and their stuffing strewn far and wide, the curtains torn and curiously, pins were everywhere. There must have been thousands of them, tens of thousands, on every flat surface, glinting in the light. They crunched underfoot.

"My curving tail bristles with darts that I broadcast right and left, before and behind," Suzie Sim quoted.

Jack blinked at her. What? Oh, the quote about the Manticore. Suzie must have a photographic memory to remember that, he thought. "It fits," he agreed, nudging the small silver shapes around with the toe of one shoe.

"Where is DI Burl?" DC Grafton asked, returning to the living room after searching the rest of the house.

"Is there no sign of her?" Jack asked.

"Nothing," he said, almost panting with worry. "The front door was bolted from the inside. How the hell did she leave here?"

Everyone's eyes turned towards the tiny patio. The glass doors with their fancy iron grilles were closed, the key hanging on a hook three feet away; a large golden tassel hanging from it matched the tie-backs on the shredded curtains. Jack strode over and turned the ornate handle – the door swung inward without needing the key. He stepped outside.

There was just room on the patio for a single iron table and chair and a few pot plants. Jack looked over the railing at the lawn two floors below. The iron railing had been painted a glossy black and as Jack ran his gloved hand over it, he couldn't detect any sign that it had been damaged by rope or hook.

There was a drainpipe that ran down one side of the building, though, right next to the patio. Jack gave it an experimental shake, and it held firm.

"I doubt DI Burl could have gotten down there," Suzie said from Jack's elbow, standing on her toes to peer over his shoulder.

All sorts of unpleasant possibilities were creeping into Jack's mind by this time – creeping where they would usually burst like fireworks. Still, it was a distinct improvement on the vagueness. Burl could have been thrown over the balcony – sounds of a struggle, perhaps she'd been knocked unconscious or killed. Dismemberment was another possibility, though unlikely. One after another they marched into his mind.

"Get forensics down here," he told Suzie. "Get them to check the grass down there, and keep people away from that area until then. If Burl went over the balcony, there'll be traces. And get this down pipe checked too."

Suzie nodded quickly and pulled her mobile phone out of her pocket, quickly dialling the station.

Jack made his way back through the stifling heat of the apartment, through the crowds trying to peer in the door and downstairs to the car park. Tony Stamp was speaking to a number of residents on the gravel drive, and Jack made his way over.

Tony excused himself from the residents as Meadows came toward him. "Guv," he said, passing a hand wearily over his face. He looked exhausted after working nearly two shifts yesterday.

"Tony, which one is DI Burl's car?" Jack asked.

Tony pointed to a dark blue hatchback, nondescript at first glance, but with good tyres and transfers on the windows that indicated the engine had been upgraded and a security alarm fitted. Jack and Tony crunched over the gravel toward it and peered inside.

Burl wasn't lax about security. There was a steering lock fitted, all the windows were tightly shut and etched with security numbers, the doors locked. There wasn't so much as a radio and the glove box was open, revealing only a few road maps and a box of tissues. Nothing visible to tempt an idle thief. Jack made his way around the car, examining the ground.

He stopped at the back of the car, staring at a number of deep scuffs in the gravel. There was a long, jagged scratch next to the lock on the boot, fresh to Jack's eyes, tiny curls of paint still clinging to its edges. Tony Stamp followed Jack around and looked wordlessly at the scratch.

"Tony, call DC Sim and ask her to see if there are any spare car keys in the apartment," Jack said.

Tony nodded and lifted his radio. Two minutes later, Suzie Sim trotted down the front stairs of the apartment block and made her way over to them, holding out a keyring.

Jack took it. There was a car alarm button attached to it, a car key and two other keys – probably personal. He jabbed the button to deactivate the car alarm and nothing happened. He quickly fitted the key into the boot lock and turned it. The boot clicked open and Jack raised it cautiously.

"That's DI Burl's bag," Suzie said quietly as the three of them stared inside. Beside the black leather shoulder bag were two plastic shopping bags, the smell of cooked chicken still strong.

"Dinner, I suppose," Tony mused, sniffing the air. "It looks like she didn't make it inside."

"Whoever trashed her apartment must have ambushed her out here," Suzie mused. "Signs of a struggle," she went on, pointing at the scuffed gravel, "Damage to her car. She would have called in if she had escaped. They must have taken her, or killed her."

"But why go inside then?" Jack asked. "Why turn the heat up? Why trash the place? And why fill the place with pins?"

"A message," Suzie replied. "A message for us. A warning, maybe. Stay away from Manticore."

Jack grimaced in frustration, both at the disappearance of Julie Burl and at the vagueness inside his head. He drew a long breath, trying to calm himself. "Get forensics to start here," he said. "If there was a scuffle, there might be prints on the car. It looks like whoever did it took their time inside, the neighbours didn't hear much to alarm them – it took them all night to call us. What are you doing, Suzie?"

DC Sim had pulled on a rubber glove and was rustling the plastic bags in the boot. She extracted a receipt and stood up straight to examine it.

"Bought at the supermarket on Mayfield Road at 9:38pm last night," she said. "If DI Burl was followed home, maybe the supermarket security cameras caught something."

9:47am

"Nothing," Zain Nadir said, striding into the main CID office and throwing the two video tapes onto his desk. "The security footage from the supermarket shows DI Burl coming in and leaving, no one following. The car park tapes are pretty much useless – a few cars came and left while DI Burl was inside the supermarket, a few more came and left after she'd gone. I've got the registration numbers, but none of the cars that arrived after DI Burl left in time to be following her."

"What about cameras on the way to her place?" DC Sim asked.

"The same," Zain replied. "There's a shot of her driving past further along Mayfield Road, heading home, a couple of cars behind her, but they're all locals as well, by their registrations. There are no other cameras that I could find on that route."

"Forensics?" Suzie asked.

"Nothing so far," Zain said, frowning and shaking his head. "This doesn't make any sense. Why attack DI Burl? Was she onto something she didn't tell the rest of us about?"

"She's been with the Murder team for a long time," Suzie replied thoughtfully. "If it wasn't for all those pins I'd say it was possible that this is unrelated, but the only explanation I can think of for the pins is that quote about the Manticore."

Zain nodded. "It's got to be related, but why? Whoever the killer is – or are – they'd have to know that we wouldn't have much to go on. Maybe they took Burl to find out what we know."

Suzie cocked her head to one side. "They've never done it before," she said doubtfully. "Besides, they've already made the kill, what's left to do?"

Both were quiet for a few moments. Zain suddenly sat up.

"Veronica Paten," he said significantly.

"What about her?"

"Phil said that the landlord of the Green Archer saw Andy Sumner dumping her out the back of a blue van."

Suzie stared at him blankly. "So?" she asked after a moment.

"So," Zain went on, standing up and starting to pace up and down as though the theory in his head were still forming as he spoke, "If Andy Sumner beat Veronica half to death and dumped her behind the pub, then the same person who killed Richard Paten kills Andy Sumner…" He trailed off as though the point he was about to make had slipped away from him. He stood there, staring at the scattered paperwork on his desk, rubbing his hands slowly.

"Zain?" Suzie said.

Zain sighed explosively and sat down again. "Okay," he said, pulling out a notepad and pen. "If the killer was on that rooftop at the markets like Sam Nixon says, it would have been about the same time as Veronica was being assaulted – Sam said the stallholder last saw someone on the roof when the school kids were starting to walk through the markets. Veronica was found a bit after three." He paused, scribbling furiously on the note pad. "So that means," he went on after a while, "that means that maybe the two events were to happen simultaneously. Maybe Veronica Paten wasn't supposed to survive the attack."

"You think Andy Sumner's involved in Manticore?" Suzie asked incredulously. "He was a total liability! He liked to mouth off about jobs he did, the big villains he knew -"

"Maybe that's why he was killed," Zain said. "He'd done what he'd been paid for – or promised to be paid for, he didn't have much cash on him when he died – and Manticore thought he'd be better off out of the way, to keep the heat off them if he decided to spill his guts."

"So they spilled his brains instead," Suzie said grimly, nodding. "It's possible, I suppose, but why would Manticore use someone like Sumner?"

"He'd probably be easy to buy," Zain mused. "Anything to look the hard man. Promise him a few grand to beat up some politician's wife; he would have jumped at it."

"And at the same time, deflect attention away from them by using a local thug while they went after the bigger fish – Richard Paten." Both nodded and went over it again in their minds. "But it doesn't really get us anywhere, does it?" Suzie said finally. "Richard Paten is dead, his head blown off. His wife was beaten within an inch of her life. Three burglaries at their house, his office ransacked, his car targeted. Whatever these people wanted, Richard Paten can't give it to them any more."

In his office, Jack Meadows hung up the phone and sat staring at it. He could still hear Robyn Hamilton's voice in his ear.

"The blood tests we ran didn't show anything unusual. I'd say it's just stress, Jack, but if anything changes, come straight back in, just as a precaution."

Jack fingered the place where his wedding ring had been for all those years. No need to tell Laura when it was probably nothing. But he'd already had a heart attack a few years ago – what did Robyn think was wrong with him now? He stood up and stalked out of his office, trying to dismiss the thought.

Jack burst through the doors to the CID office just as Phil Hunter was hanging up his phone. "What have you got, Phil?"

"Forensics, Guv," Phil replied. They've covered Burl's apartment, car and the drain pipe, which you were right about, Guv. Someone has climbed down it recently. They were wearing gloves, but the marks are there. Nothing special on the ground below the balcony – a lot of people walk around there. There were a few spots of blood on the car, not enough to be a serious injury, Forensics think. The scratch on the paintwork is probably from the key. A bit of a scuffle and Burl disappears."

"Nothing else?"

Phil shook his head. "Nothing, Guv."

"Uniform are canvassing the area, Guv," Suzie Sim spoke up. "Someone must have seen something."

"In the dark, well off the road?" Jack snapped. "We'll be lucky if a squirrel saw something!"

10:55am

Jack tried to put the smells of formaldehyde and disinfectant away from his nostrils, but the smell was all-pervading and inescapable. The autopsy room was cold, and not just because the temperature was low. It was the deep cold of death and he could feel it eating into his skin. The coroner's officers were quietly preparing to conduct the autopsy on Andy Sumner, his body lying on the table, still mercifully covered with a sheet.

"Are you okay, Guv?" DC Terry Perkins asked when Jack shuddered.

"It's freezing in here," Jack hissed, irritated. The plastic gowns they all wore over their clothes crinkled, the noise unnaturally loud in the otherwise silent room. Jack's eyes went to the tray of instruments that one of the medical assistants wheeled over on a trolley.

Scalpels and scissors and forceps shone in the light of the overhead lamp that illuminated the table but left the rest of the room in vague shadow. Jack winced at the heavy secateur-like instrument lying to one side of the tray – for severing ribs, he supposed. There were hypodermic needles and tweezers, specimen trays and swabs there, all sterilized for Andy Sumner's post mortem.

Doctor Dirk Spencer approached Jack and Terry, drying his hands. He already wore his face mask and eye-protection, a surgical cap covering his balding head. He nodded to them and his eyes crinkled in what Jack supposed was a smile. He couldn't make himself smile in return.

"Jack, how have you been?" Dirk asked, holding out his scrubbed hands for an assistant to put the rubber gloves on.

"I've had better days," Jack admitted.

"Well, this could take a while," Dirk said, waggling his fingers to settle the gloves properly. "There are a couple of stools over there if you want to sit down. I know you've got a strong stomach, Jack, but this isn't going to be pretty at all."

He didn't wait for an answer, but turned toward the autopsy table and instructed one of his assistants to pull back the sheet.

Jack heard Terry's sudden intake of breath when he saw Andy Sumner's face, or what was left of it.

"Another explosive round, I take it?" Dirk asked, bending over Sumner and examining the gaping wound without a trace of disgust or horror in his voice.

"Yeah," Terry gasped, staring at Sumner as though he couldn't drag his eyes away. To Jack's eyes, Terry's face took on a distinct green tinge.

Dirk nodded. "It would account for the damage, messier than that Paten fellow I did yesterday afternoon" he said, putting his foot on the bottom of the trolley that held the instruments and drawing it closer to him. He stood up straight and nodded to one of the two assistants, who turned on the recording equipment. "Right, post-mortem of Andrew Thomas Sumner, thirty-eight year old male, length one hundred seventy-nine centimetres, weight one hundred and seven point three kilograms."

Jack drew a long, shuddering breath as Dirk lifted a shining scalpel from the tray and bent forward over the corpse.

11:42am

"Blimey," Terry muttered, stumbling out into the bright sunshine ahead of the DCI. "No lunch for me today, Guv," he said, trying a grin. It looked odd on his deathly-pale face.

Jack nodded in agreement. What was under the skin was never meant to be seen, particularly what lay beneath what had once been a human face. The metallic clatter of fragments dropped into the specimen dish still rung in his ears. Dirk's almost jolly voice echoed over and over in Jack's head as he announced each find, discarding some as fragments of bone. "No open casket for this one, eh? Entry wound to the right occipital bone, one centimetre from the lambdoid suture. Estimate the exit trajectory of the projectile to be toward the left supraorbital foramen. Extensive damage caused to facial structure. In other words, Jack, the bullet him on the right side of the back of his head and would have exited above the left eye, if it hadn't caused such massive trauma. Lucky for him, though, he wouldn't have felt a thing. You can see the extent of the damage yourself. Very nasty."

Both men made their way to the car, neither speaking as they got in and settled into their seats. Terry made no move to start the engine, though, instead leaning back and closing his eyes, taking a few long, deep breaths.

"I'm going to stink of that place all day," he muttered. "I hate this job sometimes."

Jack massaged his forehead, silently agreeing with Terry. Forensics would be a while with the material from the autopsy.

"Get on the radio, Terry," he said quietly. "See if they've managed to locate Burl yet."

Terry obligingly dug his police radio out of his pocket. "Sierra Oscar from DC Perkins," he said into the receiver.

"Go ahead, Terry," replied Dean McVerry, the CAD operator.

"Any word on DI Burl yet, Dean?"

"Negative. Superintendent Okaro is arranging for a media appeal for the two shootings and DI Burl's disappearance. If the autopsy is over, Mr Okaro wants DCI Meadows back at Sun Hill as soon as."

"Received, I'll pass it on," Terry replied, stuffing the radio back into his coat pocket and looking at Jack.

"This is going nowhere," Jack muttered, putting on his seatbelt. "How the hell are we supposed to catch ghosts?"

11:57am

Jack rapped on Superintendent Adam Okaro's door and walked in when bidden. Adam sat pensively behind his desk and didn't look up as Jack came in.

"How did the autopsy go?" he asked after a long silence.

"About as we expected," Jack replied. "Fragments of the bullet were recovered; they think the same type of ammunition as killed Paten. We'll have to wait for Forensics to confirm."

Adam nodded and another lengthy silence commenced. He pushed around a closed folder on his desk with one finger before looking up at Jack with an unreadable expression.

"I've been going through DI Burl's file on Manticore. She was right – it isn't much to go on, and she's done her homework. None of the jobs attributed to Manticore show any connection. The only evidence that has surfaced is this." He opened the folder and extracted a colour photograph, handing it to Jack.

It was a picture of a small, L-shaped strip of manicured lawn on a riverbank, with trees visible on the other side of the water. The picture had been taken looking down on the scene, probably from about three floors up, Jack thought. A few people and a van were all that he could make out.

"What's this?" Jack asked, frowning.

"Do you remember when Robert Lanning was killed?" Okaro asked, standing up and walking around his desk to join Jack.

"Yeah, the Energy Minister, Jack replied, returning his attention to the photo. "About eighteen months ago, wasn't it?"

Okaro nodded. "That picture was taken in Leeds within five minutes of the report of gunfire at the Novotel hotel on Whitehall Quay. The train station is directly opposite, but this was taken facing a different way." He pointed at the photo, to a running figure who was turning back to look behind. Jack squinted to get a better look.

It was a woman, he figured by the long dark hair streaming behind her as she ran. Short black leather jacket and dark trousers. Her face was obscured by sunglasses. She was running at full pelt by the length of her stride.

"About a hundred yards along the waterfront beyond that building is a car park," Okaro said, his finger tracing the route the woman was running. "It would take about a minute from there to get onto the A58 motorway. The hotel attendant at the Novotel who reported the shots also reported a woman in a leather jacket and long dark hair walking along the corridor away from him, not hurrying. Whoever she was, she managed to avoid the security cameras both coming in and going out. This picture was taken by a South African tourist who was testing out the zoom lens on his new camera from the fourth floor."

Jack stared at the woman in the photo. IC1, long dark hair, slim build. "Not much to go on," he said quietly.

"Agreed," Okaro said, "But this was the only evidence at the scene that was recovered. Leeds police had a report of a car stolen from the car park a few hours later, but it turned up within the day about five miles away. No forensics."

"And this is the only evidence tying this woman to Manticore?"

Okaro shrugged. "It's the only evidence tying this woman to the murder of Robert Lanning," he corrected. "Manticore's involvement, as always, was never proven." Adam sat down again. "As I said, this file is everything that's been collected on cases where Manticore has been mentioned. Whether or not they are connected is all conjecture at this point. There are six murders here – eight, if we count Richard Paten and Andy Sumner. All of them have different MOs, the victims range from the Energy Minster Robert Lanning to a freelance journalist to a prostitute. There are also seven attempted murders and nine kidnappings. None of the cases has been solved."

"And even if Manticore is involved in every one of these, there's nothing to say that this woman is involved in Richard Paten's death," Jack said.

Adam nodded and put out his hand. Jack gave the photo back to him. "The appeal is being arranged at the moment, to go out on the local radio and TV stations in a few minutes," Okaro went on, sliding the photo back into its folder. "I'm going to handle it personally. We'll need some bodies to man the phones."

Jack scowled. "It takes bodies off the streets," he said.

"I know," Adam replied, "But we don't exactly have much else to go on, do we? I'd better get down there – we'll be starting in a few minutes."

12:09pm

Jack followed Okaro back into the station, ignoring the flashing of cameras and the babble of voices from the assembled media on the front step. Okaro had kept the appeal mercifully brief, spelling out the facts as they were known, not mentioning Manticore. Thankfully the press hadn't gotten onto that particular nugget yet. It was only a matter of time, though. A careless word spoken in the front office or in the pub that afternoon and it'd be all over the press that a European terrorist organization had descended on Sun Hill with a blood-bath in mind. Jack made a mental note to give a very firm reminder to the troops about talking where there were other ears to hear.

He punched in the security code to the stairwell and swung the door open. Okaro trotted up ahead of him, heading for the room they had set up for the phone appeal. Jack followed more slowly, trudging up each step. He paused a few steps from the top when he saw DC Jo Masters waiting for him, her expression neutral, her arms folded across her middle. She smelled of sandalwood, Jack realised.

"Guv, we've just heard from the hospital," she said quietly. "Victoria Paten has regained consciousness."

Jack straightened. "Right," he said, nodding, "Grab your coat, Jo, let's get down there."

Jo winced slightly. "I can't, Guv," she said. "There's been a knife attack on three teenage girls at the shopping plaza; I'm off over there with DS Nixon now. If she ever gets off the phone."

Jack took the last few steps in one bound and strode past her into the CID office as Sam Nixon was hanging up the phone. She saw Jack and walked over to him, pulling on her coat as she walked.

"Guv, there's been a knife attack at the shopping plaza," she said.

"Yeah, Jo told me," Jack replied. "A couple of teenagers, isn't it? Perfect timing – Veronica Paten has just come around and the appeal is kicking off."

"I know," Sam said apologetically, "but these three girls are in a bad way – we can't drop everything else just to chase Manticore." She gave Jack a quick pat on the arm as she stepped past him and hurried out to meet Jo Masters.

"Guv, forensics are on the phone," Terry Perkins called out, waving a phone in one hand. Jack took it.

"DCI Meadows."

"Sir, this is Martin Daniels. We've finished the analysis on the first two rounds from yesterday and compared them with the one from Newcastle – they're definitely from the same source; the chemical analysis was just about spot on – accounting for foreign materials contaminating the samples. The round from the autopsy this morning is still going through, though."

"Good enough to be getting on with. Thanks." Jack put the phone back on its hook. "They've confirmed the ammunition from yesterday matches a round from a murder in Newcastle," he said to Terry.

"Well, it's a start," Terry replied.

"You busy at the moment?" Jack asked, but forestalled him as Terry opened his mouth to reply. "Never mind – grab your coat and come with me – Veronica Paten has regained consciousness. I want to talk to her before the press manage to get hold of her."

12:28pm

"She's only just come around, Mr Meadows," the nurse said quietly. "She won't be out of ICU until tomorrow at the earliest. Besides, the painkillers she's on have just about shot her to the moon – I don't think she'd understand anything you could tell her."

"We have to speak to her," Jack replied just as quietly. The two armed police standing outside a door a little way down the hall marked out Veronica Paten's room. "Her husband has been shot dead and the man identified as attacking her has also been murdered. If she knows anything about what's going on, we need to know it now, before anyone else gets killed."

The nurse gave Jack a hard stare, but after a moment she nodded. "Alright, you can go in," she said reluctantly. "But until she's a lot more stable, you're not to tell her anything that will upset her – she could haemorrhage again."

"Does she know about her husband?" Terry asked.

"No," the nurse replied flatly. "You can have a very few minutes."

The two armed guards recognised Jack and nodded, letting him and Terry and the nurse pass them into the room. The quiet beeping of a monitor was the only sound in the room.

Veronica Paten lay on the hospital bed, a light blanket over her. Her face was a mess of stitches and purple swellings. One eye was swollen closed. Her breathing was shallow and rasping, Jack noted. His impatience to speak to her dimmed a little – she looked as if she'd been hit by a train.

The nurse stepped up beside the bed and lay a hand gently on Veronica's. "Mrs Paten," she said softly, "can you wake up just for a few minutes?"

Veronica Paten's one good eye opened a little and she took a few slightly deeper breaths. The nurse stepped back and beckoned Jack over. "Very gently," she whispered, her eyes fierce.

Jack stepped over to the bedside and leaned down, trying not to look at the battered face. "Mrs Paten, I'm DCI Meadows, Sun Hill CID," he murmured. "Do you know who attacked you yesterday?"

Veronica's lips parted and she breathed, "No." Jack nodded and was about to go on when she spoke again, barely a whisper. "Richard is dead, isn't he." It wasn't a question. "He would be here. Guards on my door. They've killed my husband." Tears welled in her eyes and trickled over her swollen cheeks, but she gave no other sign of grief.

"Who?" Jack asked urgently. "Who killed him?"

"Too late," Veronica sighed. "Too late now." She drew a shuddering breath. "What about Harriet? Is she dead too?" Her voice was suddenly flat, dull, as though she couldn't bear to hear his response.

"No," Jack replied. "Harriet is safe, I promise you that. Mrs Paten, who killed your husband?"

"Too late," she repeated faintly. "Should have …" Her voice trailed off into silence and she appeared to have fallen asleep.

"Mrs Paten," Jack said, touching her hand. "Mrs Paten, please, who killed your husband?"

Veronica opened one eye again and regarded Jack weakly. "He," she swallowed painfully. "At home, a card left after the last break-in. An animal with a man's face. Richard tore it up. He said it was nothing but he called it… I can't remember…"

"A Manticore?" Jack asked just as quietly.

Veronica's gaze became intense as she stared up at him with one eye. Her face began to contort into a spasm of grief.

Jack and Terry dodged around the hospital staff running towards Veronica Paten's room, two of them wheeling a crash trolley. Jack's wrist throbbed where the nurse had grabbed him before forcing both him and Terry out the door.

"He knew," Terry muttered at Jack's side. "He knew Manticore were after him. Why the hell didn't he say something?"

"I'm beginning to think there was more to Richard Paten than council meetings and cheap prostitutes," Jack replied. "Vic Willis and Tommy Cole, for a start. A lot of quiet chats in dark corners, and not friendly chats by all accounts."

"You want to pull Tommy Cole in, Guv?"

"No," Jack said, shaking his head slightly. "Let's just go and have a quiet chat with him ourselves."

12:35pm

Jo Masters tapped her fingers impatiently on the steering wheel, waiting for the lights to change. She could see the entrance to the multi-storey car park up ahead on the left, and the signs of the shopping plaza just beyond.

"What floor was the attack on?" Sam Nixon asked, craning her neck to see ahead.

"The second," Jo replied, putting the car in gear and beginning to edge forward. "All three girls were injured, uniform said?"

"All cut on the face and arms," Sam replied, easing back in her seat as the lights changed to green and Jo accelerated toward the car park entrance. "Honey and Amber are at the hospital now with them - they're going to let us know when the girls have been sewn up." Sam clung to the seat as Jo swung into the car park and braked hard at the boom gate, winding down the window to take the ticket from the machine.

"I just don't get it," Jo said as she gunned the engine again and began the spiralling climb to the second floor. "All three of them cut on the face – if they were being attacked, why didn't they run?"

Sam wriggled in her seat, trying to get the door handle out of her hip and almost falling over sideways as they careened around corners and dodged oncoming cars, finally coming to a jarring halt on the second floor. Jo briskly jumped out without a word or a glance at her, and strode over to where Reg Hollis and Yvonne Hemmingway were speaking to a small group of witnesses.

Sam took a moment to gather her scattered wits before following. Jo's driving never failed to terrify her. Reg and Yvonne excused themselves from the witnesses and stepped aside with Jo.

"What have you got, Reg?" Jo asked as Sam came within earshot. Reg waited until Sam had joined them before replying.

"No witnesses to the actual assault," he said. "Two of those ladies were returning to their car after a morning's shopping when they found the three girls. They were on the ground just over there." He pointed to an empty parking space and Sam saw the spatterings and puddles of blood on the greasy concrete. "They were all bleeding and in a lot of pain, by all accounts."

"Did they say anything about their attacker?" Jo asked.

"The ambulance was just leaving with them when we arrived," Reg replied. "The driver stopped long enough to tell us that there was nothing life-threatening but all three are a real mess. They've been taken to St Hughes."

"What about CCTV?" Sam said quickly, seeing Jo about to speak again.

"It's been vandalised on this floor," Yvonne said. "There are a few cameras around the entrance to this level of the car park, so we may be able to spot any familiar faces."

"Except if they took the stairs or the lift from another floor," Jo muttered, shaking her head in frustration. "Why does this always happen just where the camera happens to be broken?"

Yvonne shrugged. "We'll get all the footage we can and go from there. The scene examiner is on her way, so do you want us down at St Hughes when we're done here, Sarge?"

Sam shook her head. "Honey and Amber are already down there. We'll head over there now and see if we can talk to any of them yet. See what the scene examiner comes up with, and make sure you get all the footage you can."

Both the uniformed officers nodded and turned back to the witnesses. Jo stood silently for a moment, hands on hips, staring at nothing and shaking her head slightly. With a sigh she turned to Sam.

"Ready to go, Sarge?"

"Yeah," Sam replied, and put out her hand. "But I'm driving this time."

1:07pm

Sam flashed her warrant card under the nurse's nose at reception. "DS Nixon, Sun Hill. We're looking for the three girls injured in a knife attack."

"One had to go into theatre," the nurse replied, barely glancing up from her computer screen. "She may need reconstructive surgery to her face. The other two are being cleaned up – they're in the last two cubicles."

"Thanks," Sam replied to the top of the nurse's head. She didn't reply.

Sam led the way up the narrow corridor, weaving around hospital staff and aimlessly wandering visitors. Jo followed silently, the crease in her forehead deepening as they passed the sign directing visitors to the Intensive Care ward, where Veronica Paten was. Jo hadn't wanted to come on this job. Every line of her face said she'd rather be chasing Manticore.

Sam pulled the dividing curtain aside on the end cubicle and stepped inside. A teenage girl sat on the edge of the examination bed, sniffling, and a male nurse was gathering bloodied sponges onto a tray. He looked up sharply as she entered, but she brandished her warrant card again and he subsided, gathering his instruments and brushing past her. Jo pulled the curtain closed around the three of them.

"I'm DS Nixon from Sun Hill CID," Sam said, taking a closer look at the girl. A name popped into her mind. "It's Shelly Green, isn't it?" She hardly recognised the girl. Three lines of stitches patterned her face, on each cheek and slanting down her forehead and across her nose. Her green t-shirt was liberally spattered with blood, the sleeves ripped off above the elbow and exposing more stitches and grazes. More blood stained her jeans. "I spoke to you about some shoplifting last year, I think," Sam went on. "Do you know who did this to you?"

Shelly snuffled and gingerly dabbed at her nose with a tissue. "No," she said after a minute, and turned her face away. "I heard the nurse saying that Rachel had to go into surgery," she said after a long pause. "Is she going to die?"

"Not that we know of," Jo said. "The nurse said she may need to have reconstructive surgery, that's all."

"All?" Shelly said, swinging around to face them. "Did you see what that psycho did to her? To us? Marissa nearly had her eye cut out!"

"Okay, take it easy," Jo said, stepping forward and laying a hand on the girl's shoulder. "Let's just start at the beginning, shall we? What are the other girls' names?" She pulled out her notebook and flipped it open.

"Rachel Peters and Marissa Reilly," Shelly said quietly, turning away again. Jo scribbled the names down.

"And why were you at the plaza instead of at school?" The girl didn't answer. "Okay, how old are you?" Jo asked instead.

"Fifteen," Shelly muttered. "It's Marissa's birthday tomorrow."

"So, birthday shopping, were you?"

"Yeah," Shelly said after a thoughtful pause. Sam and Jo glanced at eachother.

"So why were you in the car park?" Jo went on. "None of you are old enough to have a car, so what's the story there?"

"Look, is this important?" Shelly snapped at her, looking up at them. She gestured to her face. "Shouldn't you be asking me about this? About who did this?"

"Who knows what's important at this stage?" Jo said, cocking her head to one side. "But okay, who did this to you?"

"Some psycho woman," Shelly said. "She, she jumped out at us. She had a knife. We tried to fight her off, but…"

1:15pm

"It's all rubbish, of course," Jo said as she and Sam stood by the coffee machine down the hall from the emergency ward. "What were they doing in that car park? There's no reason for them to be in there."

"I've dealt with two of those girls before," Sam said, digging in her pocket for change. "Shelly Green and Marissa Reilly. They had quite a little shoplifting racket going last year, but I haven't heard from them since. I thought maybe they'd come to their senses."

"Well, they didn't have any gear on them," Jo said thoughtfully. "Maybe they were just skiving off school."

Sam dropped her coins in the slot and selected a white coffee, no sugar. "I don't think so," she said. "Shelly looked too guilty for just skipping school."

"And the description they gave – does it ring any bells for you, Sarge?"

Sam lifted her coffee and took a quick sip, shaking her head. "It sounded like she was making it all up on the spot. This woman just attacking them for no reason? There's got to be more to it than that."

"Gang rivalry? Drug war? Boyfriend trouble?" Jo rattled off in a bored tone, and sighed heavily. "We just don't have time for this at the moment." She glanced at her watch.

"We're not going up to ICU," Sam said pointedly.

Jo looked surprised. "I didn't say anything about – "

"Even so," Sam cut in. "This is a serious assault, Jo. We can't ignore everything else to go off chasing Manticore. Come on, let's see if Marissa Reilly has anything to add."

1:25pm

Jo and Sam walked side by side out the back entrance of St Hughes Hospital. Only a few people milled around outside, all wary of being too near the place where Richard Paten had been killed the day before. A few uniformed officers were randomly pulling over cars and questioning the drivers, approaching pedestrians and generally wasting their time, Sam thought. No way was Manticore going to make a mistake like that. There wouldn't be any witnesses. No getaway car, no smoking gun.

"Well, those girls agree on the description, at least," Jo said, breaking in on Sam's thoughts. "IC1 female, twenties, short blonde hair, tall and deadly with a knife."

"But no motive that either will admit to," Sam added. "A random attack just doesn't make any sense."

"Back to the nick, then," Jo said. "Uniform might have come in with some CCTV by now."

2:48pm

They hadn't. Reg was yawning by the time Yvonne put the fourth security tape into the VCR and pushed the 'play' button.

"This is the entrance to the parking lot ramp on the third floor," she said around a mouthful of her late lunch. There had been nothing on any of the other tapes except for a shot of the three girls walking into the shopping centre through the first floor carpark. That was eighteen minutes before the triple-nine call.

The grainy black-and-white image shuddered as Yvonne wound the tape forward to a few minutes before the attack. She leaned back in her seat, taking another bite of chicken sandwich as she watched the screen, eyes dull. There were still a stack of other tapes to check after this one.

Both officers watched the seemingly endless stream of people walking past the ramp entrance, and the thinner traffic going in and out of the doorway to the third floor parking lot.

Yvonne checked the time displayed in blurry numbers in the bottom right corner of the screen. "Two minutes until the triple-nine call," she sighed.

"And there's pay dirt," Reg replied, leaning forward and pointing. "There are our three girls."

Yvonne wound the tape back a few seconds. Sure enough, three teenage girls walked into frame on the right side, pausing by the doorway of a craft shop. A few seconds later they started walking again, down the parking lot ramp.

"Wind it back," Reg said as the girls disappeared from sight. "They were waiting for something."

Yvonne jabbed the rewind button and then let the tape run again.

"They're watching that woman," she said, pointing at the screen as a woman walked into frame ahead of the girls, and proceeded casually down the ramp. The three girls paused by the door of the craft shop when the woman glanced back towards them.

Yvonne sniffed. "They're dippers," she said, shaking her head. "They're following her, waiting for a chance to jump her." She wound the tape back and watched the scenario again, looking for details now.

The woman in the shot was tall and slim, wearing a baseball cap over short fair hair and dark-rimmed rectangular glasses. She wore a dark leather jacket and dark pants, and carried a shopping bag with a Gucci label printed on the side. The look she directed at the three girls over her shoulder was casual, yet something about the gesture made Yvonne frown. She knew the girls were following her, and yet she made no move to stay in the relative safety of the crowded shopping centre. Indeed, a security guard walked straight by from the other direction – the woman passed within two feet of him!

"Well, the story was half-true," she said to Reg as they watched the three girls proceed down the ramp after the woman. "But I don't think it was an unprovoked attack on those three girls."

"Mm," Reg agreed. "No one would believe self-defence, though – not with the injuries those girls have."

Yvonne nodded and wound the tape back again. "Do you recognise her?" she said, leaning in and squinting at the blurry, black-and-white image. Reg followed suit, and they ran the short sequence three more times before giving it up.

"We'll have to look through the other tapes," Reg said finally, "and see if we can spot her anywhere else. You make a start there, and I'll call security at the shopping centre and see if there were any reports of dippers today, and let DS Nixon know what we've found."

"Thanks a lot," Yvonne muttered as Reg disappeared through the door.

3:25pm

"You didn't recognise her?" Sam Nixon asked Reg, who shook his head.

"It wasn't a very good angle," he said apologetically. "Yvonne is still going through the other tapes to see if we can pick her up anywhere else."

"Okay, Reg," Sam said, nodding. "Keep at it and let me know if you find anything else," she called after him as he walked away.

"What was that about, Sarge?" Jo asked, perching on the edge of Sam's desk.

"Reg said they've found footage of a woman matching the girls' description of their assailant. He said the girls looked like they were following her out of the shopping centre into the car park."

"Dippers?" Jo ventured, and Sam nodded.

"It looks that way, though they've certainly picked on the wrong person if that's the case. Reg and Yvonne are going through the rest of the tapes to see if they can spot the girls or the woman anywhere else."

4:47pm

Sam stifled a yawn as she flipped through the witness statements from the assault for the third time. There was nothing about a blonde, knife-wielding woman in any of them. She glanced at her watch – she only had ten minutes more overtime left unless some new information came in – Neil was adamant about it. She could see him in his office, talking to the DCI. Jack and Terry had come back from looking for Tommy Cole empty handed only a few minutes ago.

She looked over at the Murder Investigation Team officers standing around the pin boards, talking quietly amongst themselves. Julie Burl's photo was pinned up there now; she seemed to be glaring fiercely over DC Grafton's shoulder.

When Reg pushed the swinging doors open, followed by Yvonne, Sam sat up straight. Both were carrying video tapes, and both had an air of suppressed excitement about them.

"We've got something, Sarge," Reg said, walking over to the CID's VCR and turning it on. Sam and Jo followed the two uniformed officers to the VCR and found seats, watching Reg push a tape into the machine as Neil and the DCI came over.

"Any progress, Sam?" Neil asked.

"We're just about to see," Sam replied, nodding to Reg to continue.

"This is the first shot we found of the girls leaving the shopping centre," he said, playing the short clip. He pointed out the woman as she walked into the frame. "See how the girls stop when she looks back?"

Sam nodded impatiently. "Is that the best shot we have of her? We don't get a full face shot here."

Reg ejected the tape and inserted another. The screen flickered and another angle of the shopping centre was revealed. It was an open area on the top level, surrounded by shops, with a merry-go-round in the centre. Women and children were swarming around it, the children excitedly waiting their turn to ride the bobbing plastic horses.

"Look here," Yvonne said, jabbing a finger at a man standing a few metres back from the merry-go-round, watching the children. He stood with his back to the camera. Tall and heavily built, he wore a dark business suit and carried a Gucci shopping bag identical to the one they'd seen the woman carrying in the last video. Short greying hair was sleekly combed back over his head.

Yvonne's finger now pointed to a woman entering the frame from the other side. From opposite the merry-go-round, the woman circled the excited crowd of children. She kept her face lowered, hidden by her cap. The man spotted her and they approached eachother, his arms wide. The two embraced, then kissed. It went on for some time.

"And here come the three lovelies," Yvonne said, pointing at the three as they appeared from the same direction as the woman had approached. They stopped well back, watching the couple, who eventually broke apart. The woman adjusted her cap as the man handed her the shopping bag. She reached inside and pulled out something that looked to be fabric – the quality of the tape was too poor to tell what it was. The two conversed, walking a short distance closer to the camera, then appeared to be arguing, the woman jabbing her finger into the man's chest. Whatever she said, he seemed to agree with her and nodded furiously, making placating gestures. She stuffed the fabric back in the bag and walked away, the man watching her go. The girls began to follow. After a few seconds, the man walked toward the camera.

"Stop it there," the DCI said suddenly. "Pause it there, pause it!"

Reg quickly jabbed the 'pause' button and the DCI leaned in closer to the screen, staring at the man's face.

"Do you know him, Guv?" Yvonne asked. "We couldn't identify him."

"Yeah, I know him," Jack replied quietly, running his hand across his jaw.

"Guv?" Sam asked, staring at him as he stepped back. The DCI looked like he'd just seen a ghost. "Who is he, Guv?"

Jack took a deep breath.

"I think we've just found Manticore," he said.

5:22pm

Jack refused to say anything else until Reg had run to fetch Adam Okaro. He stood silently, staring at the screen, ignoring any questions put to him. Fortunately, Okaro answered the summons with alacrity.

"What is it, Jack?" he asked as he strode into the CID office across to the VCR player. When Jack quickly described the assault on the three teenage girls, Okaro frowned.

"I don't understand, Jack. Reg said that you'd found something to do with Manticore."

"I believe we have, sir," Jack replied. "Yvonne, wind the tape back and run it again."

The group watched the security footage in silence, and Jack again instructed Reg to pause the footage when the man's face was shown.

"When Phil and I went to the Green Archer," Jack said quietly, "the landlord told us that Richard Paten had clandestine meetings there with some known villains." He paused and nodded at the screen. "That's one of them. That's Vic Willis, the West End drug baron."

Okaro stared at Jack before answering. "But what makes you think – "

"Watch the tape again," Jack said, indicating to Reg to re-run it.

"See here," Jack said. "She takes something out of the bag, then looks in the bag at something else, maybe payoff money. Then they talk…" Jack paused, waiting for the tape to catch up to his thoughts, "…then they argue. Vic Willis is not a man to back down to a woman – he's been arrested at least four times for domestic violence against his wife – but look how he backs off from this woman." The tape ran on and everyone of interest passed out of sight. Reg stopped the tape.

Okaro sighed. "I don't know, Jack."

"The picture you showed me of the Novotel in Leeds," Jack replied quietly. "Even if it wasn't proven, Manticore's name came up there. A woman was involved – different hair, but same height and build. And what would Vic Willis, a drug baron, be doing meeting a woman in a shopping centre in the East End, and losing an argument to her? His name has already come up in this investigation, a man with known violent connections, and he has been seen with the victim, arguing."

Okaro was frowning by now, and beads of perspiration had appeared on his top lip. "It's possible," he agreed slowly, "but Vic Willis is a big fish. He'd have surveillance all over him. We couldn't go near him without talking to the Drug Squad first."

"Then there's the attack on those three girls," Jack said as if he hadn't heard Okaro speak. "If this woman is involved with Manticore, and she saw three teenage dippers following her, what would she do? If she's just been paid off, she wouldn't risk losing the cash."

"So she cuts them up," Sam finished, nodding. "You've sold me, Guv. Reg, are there any shots of this woman where we can see her face?"

Reg shook his head.

"How about shots of her coming in to the shopping centre? She went out through the car park, so she might have driven. Get the tapes of the entrance and exit and check them carefully. Look for Vic Willis as well."

Yvonne and Reg looked at eachother before Yvonne spoke up. "Er, our overtime only lasts – "

"I'll clear the overtime with Inspector Gold," Jack cut in.

6:07pm

Jack walked out of the CID office, his thoughts whirling faster than a hurricane. He stopped dead when he realised that there was no vagueness there now, no slow creep of thoughts and instincts. He moved on more slowly, trying to see inside his own head. What had changed?

Gina Gold was waving away cigar smoke when he walked into her office. A glass was on the desk in front of her, a residue of whiskey in the bottom.

"You never heard of knocking, Jack?" she asked waspishly as the DCI came in, but then she grinned and waved him to a chair. She sat silently while Jack told her what he'd seen on the security tapes, and agreed without hesitation to extending the overtime for Reg and Yvonne.

"If the payoff has been made, then Manticore might be on their way out the door," she said. "If we're not quick, they'll be gone again. I need another drink."

Without asking, she pulled another glass out of a drawer and sloshed whiskey into it, pushing it across the desk to Jack before pouring another measure for herself.

"You look like you're feeling better today, Jack," she observed as Jack took a mouthful.

"Yeah," Jack agreed, wincing slightly as the whiskey burned its way down into his stomach. Gina nodded and Jack was glad she didn't pursue the subject. What had changed? He had been in Neil's office, hardly able to concentrate, then he was watching a security tape and suddenly, without even realising it, the clouds had lifted. Was it stress, like Doctor Hamilton said? Maybe it was better not to dwell on it. He still had the prescription for those pills in his coat pocket.

"So what are you going to do now, Jack?" Gina asked after draining her glass. "The Super won't let anyone near Willis until we've checked with the Drug Squad about approaching him. We don't want to step on any toes," she added primly, but with a sour twist to her mouth.

"Heaven forbid," Jack murmured, taking another sip.

"Okay," Gina said, lifting the whiskey bottle again. She stared at it for a moment, grimaced and set it aside. "Okay, so Manticore steps in and beats Veronica Paten to a pulp, then blows Richard Paten's head off, then Andy Sumner's. Who's next? And where is our dear friend Julie Burl? Why did Manticore want her?"

"I've got Phil and Zain checking if Paten and Willis had any business connections," Jack said, draining his glass and setting it aside.

"They used to meet down at the Green Archer, didn't they?"

"Yeah, not exactly friendly meetings, either."

"But why snatch Julie Burl? She wasn't a real authority on Manticore, was she? She had the file, but she didn't compile it as far as I can work out."

"No, the file was made up from all the different investigating officers' reports."

"So why take her?" Gina asked, her fingers twitching towards the whiskey bottle again before she mastered herself.

Jack sighed. "I don't know. I'll go speak to DC Grafton – he's been on her team for nearly a year. He must know her better than we do."

6:32pm

"You wanted to see me, sir?" Bill Grafton peered around the open doorway of Jack's office.

Jack looked up from the Manticore file and made a valiant attempt at a smile. "Yes, DC Grafton, come in and take a seat."

The young man all but fell into the chair opposite the DCI's desk, and leaned forward anxiously on his elbows. "Is there news, sir?"

Jack shook his head. "Nothing yet. It's why I wanted to talk to you. Why do you think Manticore might have taken DI Burl?"

Grafton's shoulders slumped, but he drew himself up straight again. Jack noticed the dark circles around his eyes, the dishevelled hair.

"I have no idea why Manticore would want her," he said quietly. "I've been racking my brain since we went to her flat this morning. I can't think of a single reason. She's never been involved in a Manticore investigation before."

Jack frowned. "Okay, let's forget Manticore for a minute," he said, leaning back and steepling his fingers. "What about recent investigations? Has she got any big court cases coming up?"

Grafton shook his head. "The most recent cases we've had have all been domestic. There's no come-back from those – at least, none that I'm aware of. DI Burl wouldn't flinch at a threat. And there's nothing major coming up in court at the moment – just one committal hearing."

"Okay, so if there's nothing recent to explain her disappearance, and nothing in the near future, it must be this investigation."

"But Manticore – "

"Forget Manticore for a minute," Jack said, waving one hand. "What about this investigation? What did DI Burl know about this particular investigation – the people involved in it – that would make her a target for the opposition?"

Grafton stared at Jack in perplexity, then licked his lips and got to his feet and began to pace up and down the study.

"Did DI Burl know the Patens at all?" Jack asked.

"No," Grafton said distractedly.

"Okay, so when the Murder Investigation Team came onto this case, what were the first things you did?"

Grafton exhaled sharply, scrubbing a hand through his already unkempt hair.

"We sat down with you and Inspector Gold and went over what had happened," he said as though ticking off points in his head. "Then we went down to the mortuary and had a word with the post-mortem team, then we picked up Harriet Paten had put her into protection…"

Harriet Paten.

Fireworks went off inside Jack's head. He remembered Burl's words during that first briefing; "As a precaution, Harriet's current location will not be disclosed to anyone, friend or family, until they have been checked and cleared."

Jack stood up sharply. It fit – it was perfect.

"Sir?" Grafton asked uncertainly. "Is something wrong?"

"DI Burl knows where Harriet Paten is being kept," Jack said urgently. "Who else knows?"

Grafton looked taken aback for a moment, then his eyes widened with understanding. "Harriet – um, just DI Burl and myself, sir," he said faintly.

"Come on," Jack said, picking up his jacket and striding out the door. "We'll go down there now and get the girl. I'll get the ARV to meet us there."

7:13pm

"Slow down," Jack hissed as Grafton hurtled around the corner into Grove Road. "Take us in there quietly, and put your headlights out."

Grafton nodded and applied the brakes, dimming the headlights as they made their way down the quiet residential street. The houses that lined each side were neat, if not modern. Jack's conscience twinged as he passed the stretch of pavement where Viv Martella had been shot to death – it must have been fifteen years ago now. She'd been a good copper. Grafton drove past it and pulled up in an empty space two houses up from number seven, where Harriet was being cared for by Veronica Paten's close friend, Elaine Prester.

Both men hesitated before getting out of the car. They could see the lights on in the front room of number seven, the flickering colours of the television against the curtains. An elderly man walked a spaniel up the steps of number nine, unlocked the door and went inside.

Jack pulled his radio out of his coat pocket and lifted it.

"DCI Meadows to Sierra Oscar," he said.

"Go ahead, Guv."

"Can you get onto the ARV and check their ETA to seven Grove Road?"

"Stand by."

"It looks all quiet, Guv," Grafton said, craning his neck.

"DCI Meadows from Sierra Oscar," the radio blared.

"Go ahead."

"The ARV will be with you in six minutes."

"Received." Jack dropped the radio in his lap and kneaded the skin of his forehead with his fingers.

"Guv? We might not have six minutes."

Jack winced and looked up at the house. It looked innocuous, even innocent, the streetlight casting a flickering glow over the scrap of garden out the front. It suddenly reminded him of the lights in Eider Lane, where Andy Sumner's face had been blown off. He shuddered, quickly opening the door to hide it.

"Come on then," he said quietly. "But we back off at the first sign of trouble."

Grafton trotted at Jack's heels like an excited hound, desperately wanting to rush forwards but knowing how short the leash was. Jack tried to keep to a casual pace, but his eyes darted at every shadow, his every muscle taut as if expecting to feel a bullet punching through…

Get a hold of yourself, he berated himself silently.

It took only a few seconds for them to reach the low brick wall surrounding the small garden. A few dark shrubs bordered the footpath, with straggly lawn by the house, and a few stunted pot plants around the front door. Jack climbed the three steps to the tiny landing and rapped sharply on the door with the knocker.

The door creaked open an inch as Jack knocked. He took a sharp breath and froze, peering at the glow of light leaking through the crack.

"Oh no," Grafton groaned, then barged past Jack and kicked the door the rest of the way open.

"Grafton!" Jack barked, grabbing at the DC's coat but missing. He charged in after the younger man, who stopped only a few steps inside the door. Jack grabbed him furiously around the shoulders. "What do you think you're – "

Jack slowly released Grafton's shoulders, peering over his shoulder at the foot of the stairs.

A small girl, no more than six years old, sat on the bottom step. An old-fashioned rag-bag blanket was wrapped around her and her dark curls glistened damply in the lamplight. Her head rested against the wall, her eyes closed, face expressionless. Jack's throat tightened for a moment, but then he saw the steady rise and fall of the blanket as she breathed the deep breaths of sleep.

Grafton stood frozen, staring at her. Jack stepped around him.

"Hello, love, are you awake?" Jack cooed, kneeling at her feet and patting her gently on the knee. The girl slid forward and would have fallen to the floor if Jack hadn't caught her shoulders.

Grafton's gasp brought Jack around with a start. The man was rushing through the open door to the sitting room. "Sir, it's DI Burl!" he shrieked.

Jack picked the girl up and stood as Grafton suddenly flew backwards out of the room, stumbling over his own feet and falling heavily to the floor. He clutched at his throat, strangled gagging sounds escaping his wide mouth as he scrabbled helplessly on the tiles.

And suddenly another figure filled the doorway. A woman, tall and lithe, short blonde hair tumbling over her forehead, a black scarf tied over her nose and mouth. She paused when she saw Jack standing with the child in his arms.

Jack's lungs filled for an almighty yell, but the woman was already on him, moving like a viper, kicking out at his lower leg, connecting just below the knee, the heel of one hand striking upwards under his chin, cutting off his howl of pain as he fell sideways, the girl wrenched out of his arms as he sprawled over DC Grafton.

Pain exploded through Jack's head and with it a violent wave of nausea and a tunnelling of his vision into blackness. He fought it, forced himself to move, kicking out with his undamaged leg, tangling his left foot through her ankles. The woman stumbled, almost dropping the unconscious child, falling heavily against the door which slammed shut under her weight.

With almost numb fingers, Jack managed to pull the radio out of his coat pocket and jammed his thumb on the panic button. He heaved himself to his feet and dropped the radio next to Grafton. The CAD room at Sun Hill would be mobilising backup. The ARV wouldn't be far away now.

His damaged leg almost buckled under his weight as Jack came to his feet. It felt like an hour had passed since he'd hit the floor, but the woman was only just righting herself, adjusting the weight of the girl in her arms. Her eyes, blue above the black of the scarf covering her lower face, were ice-cold as she met his gaze.

Grafton gave a convulsive cough at Jack's feet, his eyes streaming, his hands still clutching at his throat, but at least he had stopped thrashing around.

Jack mustered himself and stepped over him. White-hot lances of pain shot up his leg, his knee wanted to give way, but Jack came upright barely two metres away from the woman.

"Put her down," Jack whispered, his jaw too painful to move.

The woman's hand was on the doorknob, her eyes never leaving his.

Jack took an excruciating step forward, and the hand on the doorknob suddenly had a long knife in it, and she raised the tip to the girl's throat.

"Stop," Jack whispered urgently. "Drop the knife."

The cold blue eyes above the scarf narrowed, and the girl suddenly slithered to the floor from the woman's arms.

Jack didn't dare take his eyes off the woman – off Manticore. Bile rose in his throat, rage and hatred, but the long knife in her hand glinted in the lamplight. He couldn't touch her. If Grafton could get to his feet, maybe they'd have a chance to capture her, but the young officer was still coughing and gasping on the floor, his face purple and swollen. At least he was getting air now.

"Drop it," Jack said quietly, and the woman smiled – actually smiled at him! He saw her eyes crinkle, her cheeks lift, and in one rapid movement, the knife in her hand became a gun, the black barrel extended with a silencer. She raised it, one handed, to his face.

Jack leaned back, unable to step over Grafton. He raised his hands.

"Alright," he said quietly, as calmly as he could manage. "Alright, take it easy. Just put the gun down."

Phut! Phut!

Two puffs of air razored past his left cheek, a lamp behind him shattered in a spray of glass.

Jack took the hint and threw himself to the floor, jarring his painful leg to the point where he almost passed out. There was a scuffle by the door then it slammed shut again. The sound of footsteps running down the front steps, then down the path outside, faded into the night. Jack raised his head painfully, black specks dancing in front of his eyes as consciousness reluctantly faded.

Harriet Paten was gone.

7:21pm

Jack supposed it was no more than a few moments later when he regained consciousness. Grafton was still coughing and retching nearby, struggling to sit up. Jack eased himself up onto one elbow, breathing deeply, hoping the gag reflex in his throat didn't become overwhelming. He desperately wanted to vomit. Instead he forced himself to sit up, to ignore the vicious pounding of pain in his head and his leg. He couldn't get up this time, though – his knee simply would not support his weight.

He could hear sirens screaming in the distance. Jack dragged himself across the floor to the doorway of the sitting room – Grafton had said Burl was in there.

Indeed she was, slumped on the couch next to another middle-aged woman, this one plump and curly-haired in a dark green dress and house-slippers.

Blood trickled from a thin cut on Elaine Prester's forehead and the makings of a dark bruise raised the skin around it, but it was Burl's face that caught Jack's attention.

Her lips were split open in several places, the flesh raw and blackened with dried blood. More blood had run in rivers from her nose, which looked broken. Her hands, lying neatly in her lap, appeared to have at least two broken fingers each.

Manticore broke her, Jack thought, rage flashing back to life inside him. They had taken her and made her tell where Harriet Paten was.

The sirens were almost deafening now, a raucous cacophony that filled his pounding head with agony. He slumped onto one elbow, barely able to make himself stay even that far upright. Grafton was sitting up now, gasping and panting, trembling violently. The two men's eyes locked, and both nodded to the unspoken question on the other's face.

They were alive at least.

9:52pm

Jack glared at the walking-stick as the nurse presented it to him, but he took it without a word. They had threatened him with a wheel-chair – it had seemed best to capitulate to the lesser indignity. Besides, the throbbing in his leg told him he probably couldn't get far, even with the stick.

Adam Okaro stood by the bed, his police hat tucked under one arm. He stood silently, watching Jack struggle to his feet, making no offer to help. It was only when Jack had settled himself on his feet, leaning heavily on the stick, that Okaro spoke.

"You constantly surprise me, Jack. And I don't mean that as a compliment." The soft words were at odds with the sudden fury in Okaro's face. "How dare you take such a risk? The information about Harriet Paten should have come directly to me! Walking into a situation like that without even waiting for armed backup – "

"Yes sir," Jack said calmly – he couldn't seem to find a scrap of emotion in himself. "Is there any word on the girl? Or the woman?"

Okaro bit down his furious tirade. His face writhed, but he took a breath and spoke more levelly.

"Nothing," he said. "It's like they disappeared into thin air."

"And Burl?"

"Tortured," Okaro said shortly, "but she'll live. She'll be in the ICU for a day at least. Grafton was punched in the throat, but no permanent damage was done."

"What about the woman – Elaine, is it?"

"Elaine Prester. I've already spoken to her. She said that Julie Burl came to the door – she recognised her voice. She knew not to open the door to anyone else. As soon as she opened it, something hit her on the head and she doesn't remember a thing after that."

"Probably just as well," Jack muttered, trying out a few steps. The painkillers didn't do much more than take the edge off the searing pain in his leg. He grimaced and returned to lean against the bed, his leg trembling.

"Jack, what about this woman who took Harriet?"

The DCI had deliberately avoided thinking about her. Cold, efficient, calculating. And she was familiar somehow – something about her eyes…

"Jack?"

The DCI started in surprise, then took a long breath. "IC1 female, late twenties, I'd say. Short blonde hair, blue eyes, about five foot ten, maybe more. She was moving too fast. Dressed in black, with a black scarf over her nose and mouth. I couldn't be sure it's the same woman from the shopping centre, but what are the odds of it being someone else?"

The words came out of Jack's mouth in a monotone. Those two bullets had missed him by inches – was that deliberate or a bad shot? If it was she who had killed Paten and Sumner, he had to assume the former. She had to know he wasn't a threat to her – she had disabled both him and DC Grafton within seconds. Two well-placed shots to get him back on the floor, time enough to make her escape with the girl.

Both men looked up as the curtain around the examination table was pulled aside and Bill Grafton took a step in. He was as white as a sheet and held an ice pack against his throat, but he smiled briefly and nodded to both men.

"Are you okay, Bill?" Jack asked.

Grafton nodded. "I'll be alright, sir," he said huskily. "The swelling will take a while to go down, though."

Okaro regarded them both impassively. "Well then, if the doctors are releasing you both, I'm ordering you – ordering, mind – that you both go home. If Manticore didn't finish you off earlier, I doubt they'd be interested in you now, but to be on the safe side I'll be having mobile patrols in your areas tonight."

"Sir," both men agreed, nodding as Okaro slipped out of the cubicle. There was no point in arguing, Jack thought – the Chief Super wasn't about to let this slide. Jack had no doubt he'd be on the receiving end of another rollicking before much longer. It didn't help that Jack silently agreed with him – it had been a stupid thing to do.

7:21am

Saturday

Jack hobbled into the CID office, the walking stick nowhere in evidence. The few officers sitting at their desks looked up and ragged applause broke out among them. Jack grinned and acknowledged them with a lazy salute as he made his way to Neil Manson's office.

The DI looked up at Jack with a deadpan expression and then leaned back in his seat with a trace of a sarcastic smile on his lips.

"Sore and sorry, Guv?"

"Not as sorry as that woman is going to be," Jack replied, sinking gratefully into a chair. "What have you got?"

"Not much," Neil admitted. "Uniform doorknocked the area and came up with a woman who saw a dark green transit parked around the corner from Grove Road at about the right time, probably half a minute's walk from the house. No one had seen it before. No index, though. The woman who reported it said it took off like a bat out of hell, and she thought the driver was a blonde IC1 female."

"Without an index it's not much use to us," Jack muttered, massaging his aching leg.

"I've got Suzie and Zain going through the CCTV around the area of Grove Road. There's not many cameras in that area, but we might get lucky."

"Somehow I doubt it," Jack said. "I'd put money on the van being stolen."

"No reports of missing transits in the last week," Neil said. "What about the woman? Was she the one in the shopping centre yesterday?"

"I'd put money on it," Jack replied, gingerly massaging his throbbing leg. "But I just can't get past the thought that I've seen her somewhere before. For the life of me, though, I just can't think where."

Both men looked up when Phil Hunter put his head around the door. "Are you okay, Guv? I just heard about last night –"

"Yeah," Jack said. "I've had worse."

"No idea who she is?"

"No," Jack sighed. "I was just saying that I'm sure I'd seen her before somewhere."

"What did she look like?" Phil asked.

"IC1 female, short blonde hair, blue eyes."

Phil stared at him. "That bird in the Green Archer," he said.

A confused frown started on Jack's forehead before he remembered. The description fit her perfectly – the eyes were hers! She'd been there in the pub when the landlord had told them about Andy Sumner – she'd been sitting close enough to hear if she'd been trying to. She'd looked at them, smiled at them! Jack silently cursed himself. There was no doubt in his mind – he'd looked Manticore right in the eyes twice.

"What's this?" Neil asked, frowning at Phil.

"The Green Archer," Jack said disbelievingly. "Bob Anderson gave us the tip about Andy Sumner. There was a woman sitting further up the bar. The same woman."

"What? Manticore was at the Green Archer?"

"And at the shopping centre yesterday, and kidnapped Harriet Paten last night," Jack finished. "I think we've just proved positive that Vic Willis is involved in Paten's murder. He paid the killer off. We need to bring him in."

"But what would Vic Willis want with Paten's daughter?" Phil asked.

"There's only one person left who can tell us," Jack said quietly. "Veronica Paten."

8:34am

Jack strode as quickly as he could up the hospital corridor, trying not to limp but unable to avoid shifting his weight as he walked. Sergeant Dale Smith from Uniform walked beside him – Jack had left Neil and Phil to get onto the Drug Squad and clear them to bring Vic Willis in for questioning about Paten's murder. Smithy was ex-army as well as ex-SO1. He didn't carry a gun any more, but Jack would have put money on there being more than a trigger finger to the man. Gina Gold trusted him implicitly.

"Do you think they'll let us see her, Guv?" Smithy asked as they came up to the ICU.

"They'll have to," Jack replied. "If she wants her kid back, we need to know what the hell is going on."

Their way was suddenly blocked by a nurse who stepped in front of them, arms folded, eyes almost blazing.

"Mr Meadows," she said in a quiet growl. "After yesterday, I'm surprised at you. Mrs Paten nearly died. She cannot see you now."

Jack stepped close to the nurse, Smithy crowding in close behind.

"Veronica Paten may very well be the next person marked for death," Jack snarled. "Her husband has been murdered, her daughter has been abducted, and she is the only one left who can tell us why. We have to speak to her." He was almost shouting by the time he'd finished speaking.

The nurse's face darkened and her top lip curled slightly. "You can talk all you want, Mr Meadows," she hissed, "but she won't be able to hear you. She's under heavy sedation. After you left yesterday she had her spleen removed."

Jack felt his shoulders sag and he stepped back, briefly closing his eyes. "All right," he said tiredly. "We'll have a word with her guards. Tell the other staff in ICU to report anyone they can't account for. We'll get onto security."

The nurse's face softened a little. "I understand," she said, nodding and stepping out of the way.

The two men continued up the corridor and turned left. Ahead, Jack could see one of the armed guards sitting outside Mrs Paten's door.

Smithy snorted in disgust. "He shouldn't be sitting down on the job."

"Where's the other guard?" Jack asked.

They looked at eachother and picked up the pace. Jack was almost hopping by the time they reached the seated guard; his leg was screaming in protest.

The guard sat back in a hard chair, his head lolling, his weapon slanted across his lap.

Thick rivers of blood were dripping down his protective vest.

"Jesus," Smithy breathed, quickly pressing his fingers against the man's neck, relieved to find a pulse. "He's alive," he said. "Where's the other one?"

"Nurse!" Jack yelled. "Nurse!"

Smithy jumped up and shouldered the door open. The second guard lay sprawled on the floor, smears of blood staining the tiles from the wound in his thigh. His face was a rictus of agony as he convulsed in pain.

"What happened?" Smithy asked, grabbing the man's arm. "What happened?"

The guard took a few quick, sharp breaths. "A nurse with a tea trolley," he groaned through gritted teeth. "She pulled a gun."

"When?" Smithy repeated, looking around for the guard's gun. It lay half under Veronica Paten's bed, six feet away.

"Seconds."

Smithy could hear running feet coming towards them, a woman's voice shouting for a trolley and security. He looked up as Jack limped, cursing, over to the bed.

The life support monitors were dark – switched off.

"Is she alive?" Smithy asked.

"She heard you," the guard gasped. "She swore and ran out."

"She's alive," Jack said.

"Which way did she go?" Smithy demanded.

"To the right," the guard replied. "I heard the tea trolley go as well."

Smithy looked at Jack. The two men stared at eachother for a moment.

"Be careful," Jack said.

The nurses nearly bowled Smithy over as he got to his feet. He dodged past them and out the door, briefly glancing at the guard outside who was being tended by more nurses. Smithy grabbed hold of his radio battery to stop it bouncing around and set off at a trot down the corridor to the right. There was another crossing about twenty feet away. He stopped at the corner and peered around. A tea trolley was standing against the wall next to the fire stairs.

"Shit," Smithy muttered. He looked around sharply – there was no one else in evidence. As quietly as he could, he trotted to the fire stairs and opened the door.

The concrete stairwell was dimly lit and he peered over the railing cautiously. It was empty save for a few empty crisp packets and cigarette butts. Up or down? There was no reason for her to go up – a quick exit was called for, and as discreetly as possible. He started down the stairs. The ICU was only one floor above the ground, and Smithy wrenched the door open at the ground floor level. He was about to charge through when he noticed something that had been left in the shadow of the stairs among an assortment of old buckets and brooms.

He let the door close and bent over to pick it up.

A nurse's uniform.

The fabric trickled through his fingers and he turned it over to look at the ID tag still pinned to the breast.

Tess Vickery, ICU nurse. Smithy's stomach contracted – he had asked Tess for a date more than once. If she was hurt… He left the uniform where he had found it and darted out the door.

The back entrance of St Hughes was only fifty feet from the stairwell down a straight corridor. He started towards it at a fast walk, scanning every face that he passed. He walked past a crossing corridor and glanced up both ways.

And stopped.

A head of short blonde hair.

He turned towards it. He couldn't tell if it was a man or a woman, but whoever it was had taken the corridor to the underground carpark.

Smithy broke into a trot and picked up his radio.

"Sierra Oscar from 54," he said quietly into the mike.

"Go ahead, Smithy."

"Suspect heading for St Hughes underground carpark, north entrance. Can you get onto security and get them to cover the exits. Suspect is armed, so keep them well back, surveillance only."

"Received."

Smithy took his ASP from its sheath and flicked it open. The long metal club was a reassuring weight in his hand, but he wished he could have taken the gun from under the bed upstairs. He approached the sliding glass door cautiously. The dimly lit car park beyond was barely visible through the reflections on the glass. His own face was indistinct but wide-eyed as he approached it.

The doors slid open with a slight grating sound as he came within range of the sensor. Underfoot the floor changed from smooth tiles to rough bitumen. He could feel his heart pounding in his throat as he stepped across the yellow lines warning drivers not to park in the doorway.

He stepped out into the driveway, scanning back and forth – there. A woman in a leather jacket and dark trousers – a blonde woman – walking up the ramp. Her back was to him. There was no cover to be had – he would have to follow her in the open.

Smithy stepped into the cover of a concrete pillar as she reached the top of the ramp and turned left. He waited five seconds before peering around the pillar – he couldn't see her. He quickly trotted out into the driveway towards the ramp and began to jog upwards. He reached the top and looked up and down the rows of cars.

The blow was so explosively quick it knocked the ASP out of his hand. The length of metal skittered away down the ramp and out of sight. Another blow followed, this one deflected by a quickly raised arm. Smithy leaped back from his assailant, his wrist throbbing furiously.

The blonde woman stepped out from her concealment behind the concrete pillar he had stopped next to and regarded him with narrowed eyes. Smithy fumbled his cuffs out of the clip on his belt – they were better than nothing and might be useful if he was quick. The woman glanced at them then returned her gaze to his face.

"Give it up," he said, crouching slightly.

She smiled fractionally at him.

"No."

It was a whisper, nothing more, and she turned sideways to him and began to back away.

"There'll be police all over this place in a minute," Smithy said, starting to follow. He stopped when she raised a hand.

"Don't make me kill you," she whispered.

"You won't get away," Smithy said. "Not this time."

"I think I will," she replied with another small smile, and raised her gun. A small semi-automatic, the barrel lengthened by a silencer. "Cuff yourself to that car," she whispered.

Smithy considered his chances – nil. Not taking his eyes off the weapon, he closed one end of the cuffs around his left wrist and tightened it, then knelt and secured the other end around the towbar on a gold 4WD.

"Throw the key over there," she said softly, indicating the other side of the driveway. Grimacing, Smithy did as he was told, then watched as the woman put the gun away inside her leather jacket. Then she leapt at him and something crashed against the side of his head.

8:54am

"54 from Sierra Oscar. Smithy, are you receiving?"

Jack listened to his PR in the corridor outside Mrs Paten's room. Smithy wasn't answering – they'd been trying to contact him for five minutes. It could just be that there was no reception in the carpark, but Jack's stomach was clenched in a knot and sour fumes filled his mouth. He'd sent an unarmed man after Manticore. Would that woman kill him just for following? All her kills so far had been deliberate and planned. She could have killed the two armed guards, but had hit one in the leg and the other in the shoulder. At a distance the width of a corridor, she could have put a bullet between their eyes if she'd wanted to.

And what of Veronica Paten? She was still alive, but the nurses had hustled him out of the room while they assessed her.

A huge bellow of rage was fighting to escape his lungs. Jack wanted to scream, to pummel Manticore into oblivion. His head felt ready to explode.

"Mr Meadows?"

Jack turned at the sudden voice. It was the same nurse who had accosted him earlier. She looked relieved.

"We've checked Mrs Paten and as far as we can tell, the monitors were turned off but nothing else was done to her. She's still sedated but she's stable."

One knot untangled itself in Jack's innards. He nodded silently.

"This was left by the bedside," she went on, holding out a plain white envelope. "It wasn't there when I checked Mrs Paten earlier, and the guards wouldn't have let anyone else in."

Jack looked at the envelope – at least the nurse had the sense to be holding it with a tissue. He fumbled in his coat pocket for his gloves – they were bulky but they'd do for now. He pulled them on and took the envelope.

It was unsealed. He lifted the flap and peered inside.

There was a ringlet of hair and a piece of white card with writing on it. Jack fished it out carefully.

The raised embossing at the top of the card was a Manticore. He couldn't drag his eyes away from it for several seconds, but managed to read what had been typed below it.

Baby is safe in Daddy's arms

Jack stared at the words. Lassitude washed over him – he wanted to curl into a ball and weep.

"What does its mean?" the nurse asked, reading over Jack's shoulder.

Jack blinked back the tears that pricked his eyes.

"It means Harriet Paten is dead."

Jack was still numb ten minutes later when word came through that SO1 had swept the carpark and found Smithy, unconscious but not seriously hurt, handcuffed to a car. Jack found himself walking into the Emergency department, almost as if his brain were on autopilot.

He had failed.

The only compensation was that Veronica Paten was still alive. Well, as alive as she could be – her husband and child were dead. And she was still marked.

He stopped and moved to one side of the corridor as a trolley was wheeled toward him. Smithy was on it, eyes open slightly and mumbling to himself. Jack watched as the emergency staff wheeled him around a corner and out of sight, then his feet started walking again.

Richard Paten dead.

Andy Sumner dead.

Harriet Paten dead.

Veronica Paten alive.

Three officers alive.

The living outnumbered the dead, at least.

Sunlight dazzled Jack's eyes as he walked out the rear entrance. The cordon tape had been taken away from where Richard Paten had been killed, the concrete scrubbed clean, but the area was filled with whirling blue lights and scurrying uniformed officers. The press were gathered there again. A commotion went up amongst them when they recognised Jack. Flashbulbs began to go off, voices shouted at him. He turned away from them.

"Jack?"

Gina Gold was there, peering concernedly up at him. "Jack, what's the matter?"

Jack wordlessly held the card out to her. She read it and looked sharply up at him.

"Harriet Paten?"

"'Safe in Daddy's arms'," Jack replied tonelessly. "There's a lock of hair in here as well." He handed her the envelope.

Gina squeezed her eyes shut after one look inside. "Manticore aren't terrorists," she muttered. "They're vermin."

"Vermin is too good for them," Jack replied, taking the card and envelope back again. "I'm pulling Vic Willis in. This has just gone beyond the Drug Squad."

13:03pm

Jack pulled in to the yard at Sun Hill. He hadn't found Vic Willis at any of his West End haunts, but the Drug Squad had obligingly given a few other locations where the man spent time. Sam Nixon and Phil Hunter had found and arrested him for conspiracy to commit murder. With any luck the custody process had finished by now and Jack could put him straight into an interview room.

He was in no mood for lawyers and due process. He wanted answers. A child was dead, and Willis was going to pay for it.

He stalked into the custody area, his seething fury irritated further by his aching leg, and immediately spotted Phil and Sam. They waited for him to join them by the internal door.

"Willis doesn't want a lawyer," Phil said before Jack could ask. "Reckons he has nothing to hide. He's in the interview room."

Jack led the way, dismissing the uniform officer with a wave of one hand. Sam and Phil filed in behind Jack and closed the door. None of the three sat.

Jack looked at Vic Willis and tried to crush down his anger. The man was in his early fifties, his thick hair heavy with grey, but his narrow beard was almost untouched by white. His eyes were dark enough to appear almost black, and a dead black at that. His suit was cut almost like a thirties gangster, only lacking the spats to complete the costume. He said erect in his seat, hands folded neatly on the table before him, his expression politely interested.

"Mr Willis," Jack said, sneering.

"Mr Meadows, it's been a long time," the man replied in a thick Scottish accent, his smile not touching his dead eyes.

"Richard Paten," Jack said, sitting down.

"Yes, I heard," Willis replied shortly.

"But not sorry to hear about it?" Sam asked, sitting beside Jack.

Willis turned his thin smile on her. "I'm interested to have this over with as soon as possible, Miss Nixon," he said smoothly. "I'm a busy man. You arrested me for conspiracy to murder. I take it you mean Richard Paten. Shouldn't you put some tapes into the machine there, if you mean to interview me?"

"Manticore." Jack's lips barely move as he spoke the word.

Willis' eyes snapped back to him. "A dangerous word to bandy around, Mr Meadows," he said after a long look at the DCI. He leaned back in his seat, his eyes wary now. "I won't deny I've heard of them, but why you would think –"

"A Gucci gift bag," Jack cut in, pleased to see Willis' eyes widen at the mention of his meeting in the shopping centre. It didn't take him long to recover, though. After glancing at Sam he gave a short laugh.

"Have you been watching me, Mr Meadows? Please don't tell me you think that my new bed-warmer is something to do with Manticore?"

"We've confirmed it, Mr Willis," Sam said softly.

"Beyond all doubt," Jack added.

"Rubbish," Willis snapped. "This is a fit-up. Why am I not surprised? I don't have anything else to say to you. Put me in a cell before I change my mind and call my solicitor."

Jack stood up, barely keeping back a grunt as his knee flared in pain. "Alright, Mr Willis. Sam, take him back to the cells." He opened the door, then turned back as Willis got to his feet.

"You know," he said thoughtfully, "I wonder how high the body count is going to get in this case. Richard Paten and Andy Sumner had their heads blown off. And Harriet Paten is safe in Daddy's arms, according to Manticore."

Willis' eyes widened in shock. "What?"

"You didn't know?" Jack asked, fishing in his coat pocket for the card left at St Hughes, now sealed in a clear evidence bag. He held it up. "Manticore left this for Veronica Paten. I didn't know terrorists had their own stationery, but I suppose they have to move with the times. I wonder if they registered their business name for tax purposes."

Willis surged around the table and snatched at the card, but Jack held it out of his reach while Sam pulled him back.

"'Baby is safe in Daddy's arms,'" Jack read from the card, then stowed it quickly back in his pocket. He couldn't bear to look at it. Willis was staring at him, half enraged, half disbelieving, his chest heaving as though he'd run a mile.

"Mr Willis," Jack said when the silence had stretched for almost a minute, "Manticore have already started a bloodbath. Whatever is going on here, you need to tell us before anyone else gets killed."

Willis stared at him, stared through him. Jack didn't think the man had heard, but after a while he drew a deep, shuddering breath.

"Take me back to the cells," he said quietly.

Jack suppressed a frustrated sigh and held out his hand. Willis came forward and the two men stepped out into the hall with Sam and Phil following. Jack took Willis' elbow and led the way back to custody, motioning for Sam to wait as he escorted Willis back to his cell.

"It's all gone wrong, hasn't it," Jack said as the jailer opened the door for them. "You may be a big fish in your own pond, Mr Willis, but Manticore are a pack of sharks."

"Spare me your simplistic appraisal, Mr Meadows," Willis replied just as quietly, not looking at Jack. "You have no idea, no idea at all." He stepped into the cell and turned around to face Jack, his face suddenly hard. "But if it's a bloodbath that Manticore want, they'll get one." Jack opened his mouth, but Willis spoke first. "I've changed my mind. Call my solicitor. I expect to either have some evidence presented against me or that you release me."

Jack slammed the cell door closed.

14:30pm

"I'm alright, I told you," Smithy grumbled irritably, wincing as the nurse peeled back the wad of gauze just above his left ear. His entire skull throbbed and his eyes felt like someone was hammering on them from the inside.

"You were lucky not to have had your skull broken," the nurse said in a no-nonsense tone, pushing him back down onto the bed when he tried to sit up. "The x-ray was clear, but you've got a concussion. You'll be staying overnight for observation."

Smithy opened his mouth to protest, but the curtain around the cubicle was pulled aside and DCI Meadows limped in.

"Guv," Smithy said, fighting to sit up but again restrained by the nurse's hand. She was only slight, but she held him down firmly. To his chagrin, Smithy found that he didn't have the strength to fight her – it just made his head ache worse.

"Smithy, glad to see you're alright," Jack said, giving him a quick pat on the shoulder.

"He's not quite alright, Mr Meadows," the nurse said, preparing a new dressing for the lump on Smithy's head. "He has a concussion."

"Well, that beats a hole in the head," Jack said with a brief, ironic smile that quickly vanished back into a worried frown. "Can you tell me what happened, Smithy?"

"Yeah," Smithy said, leaning back on the thin pillow and closing his eyes. The light made the throbbing behind his eyes feel like daggers.

"I'll go and organise a bed for you, Sergeant," the nurse said as she collected her tray and slipped out.

"Thank you," Jack said, closing the curtain behind her and turning back to Smithy. "Go ahead," he said quietly.

Smithy quickly recounted what had happened in the carpark, or at least, what he could remember of it. His memory was irritatingly vague after finding the two wounded guards in the ICU. After that it was just fragments.

"What did she look like?" Jack asked as Smithy hesitated at telling of her pulling a gun.

Smithy grinned. "Nice looking bird," he said, then grimaced. "Short blonde hair, blue eyes. Dark clothes – I can't think of anything else."

"What about the gun?"

"A semi-auto," Smithy replied, wracking his brain for details. "A Sig Sauer. It had a silencer." The ache in his head was quickly becoming a ferocious pounding that made him screw his eyes closed.

"That's enough for now, Jack," a woman's voice said as the curtain swished open again. Smithy opened one eye fractionally and recognised Doctor Hamilton. "Time to give Sergeant Smith some meds and put him to bed."

Smithy felt another reassuring pat on the shoulder from the DCI and heard him limp out.

17:05pm

"We can't hold him much longer, Jack," Gina Gold said irritably, dropping into her chair and directing a frustrated look at the DCI. "Unless we can get something concrete that links him to these killings, he'll have to go at the next review."

"I've got Zain and Phil going through his bank accounts, looking for pay-offs," Jack said, taking the chair opposite.

"You don't seriously think you'll find anything there," Gina replied. "The Drug Squad have been all over Willis for months. They know his every move. If pay-off money was moving out of his legit accounts, don't you think they'd have noticed it? And as far as I know, they haven't been able to identify where all his ill-gotten gains end up, either."

"Willis is behind this," Jack insisted angrily. "He said as much in the cells. If we let him out, he's going to start a war with Manticore. Three people have already been killed, Gina."

"Why would he start a war with Manticore?" Gina asked. "Didn't he hire them?"

"Whatever the reason, it's gotten out of hand. Willis thought he could control Manticore, but it's all blown up in his face."

Gina's hand twitched toward her bottom drawer where the half-full bottle of scotch was concealed, but she restrained herself and folded her arms. "What about Harriet Paten?" she asked. "Any sign of a body?"

Meadows shook his head briefly, leaning his elbows on his knees and studying the floor with a frown. "We wouldn't even know where to start looking," he said quietly.

Gina looked down at her hands and realised she'd taken the bottle out of the bottom drawer without even thinking about it. She set it on the desk and pulled out two glasses. Jack accepted his drink without a word and downed it in one gulp, wincing as it burned its way down his throat.

19:02pm

Eric Vanstone stood silently next to the custody desk, his dark-rimmed glasses perched on the tip of his nose, pretending to read from a leather folder. Jack could feel the man's eyes on him but refused to meet his look. The man was swathed in Armani. The price of his briefcase would have fed a third-world country. And he was Vic Willis' solicitor.

Willis had refused any further conversation since being put back in the cells. Vanstone had arrived an hour ago and been closeted with his client ever since, only emerging minutes ago with a significant glance at his watch.

Jack knew they couldn't hold onto Willis much longer. There was nothing concrete to hold him on. He could hear the custody officer unlocking the cell door to bring the man out.

Jack fingered the card Manticore had left at the hospital. The plastic covering crinkled under his fingers, slippery as the terrorist organisation itself. Through the envelope he could feel the slight bulge that was the lock of hair it contained. Was that all of Harriet Paten they would ever get back?

Vic Willis walked out of the cell corridor, his jacket folded neatly over one arm, his tie loosened. Eric Vanstone stood up straighter and closed his leather folder. No one spoke as the custody sergeant processed Willis' release. Property was returned to him and signed for. The sergeant quietly explained the terms of Willis' release and handed him the paperwork, which Willis handed to Vanstone without a word.

Meadows followed Willis and Vanstone to the exit and down the ramp. Fingers of mist floated on the chill breeze in the harsh yellow light of the yard. He opened his mouth to caution Willis to leave Manticore well alone, but Vanstone forestalled him.

"I don't think my client has anything else to say to you, Mr Meadows," he said in his rich Oxford accent. Meadows ignored him.

"How many more people are going to be killed before this is over, Willis?"

Willis turned back to face Jack and smiled sardonically.

"Just one," he said before turning away again. He and Vanstone had almost made it to the gate when Willis paused and turned thoughtfully back to Jack.

"Are you a betting man, Mr Meadows?" he asked.

Jack frowned. "Depends on the odds."

Willis pulled away from Vanstone's cautionary hand on his shoulder and shrugged into his jacket, turning up the collar against the chill night.

"I'm a gambler myself," he went on. "But not where my own security is concerned. I had my house alarmed a few weeks ago. Hydra Security, on Fell Road. I'd recommend them to you." He put a finger against his forehead and mimed a gun going off. Then both of them turned away and walked out of the yard, into the gloomy night.

"Is that meant to be a threat?" Jack called after them, but they were gone, out of sight.

Jack muttered under his breath as he made his way back inside and up to the CID office. Suzie Sim was still there, perched on the edge of the desk, one leg swinging back and forth irritably as she fingered through a stack of statements. She looked up as he came in, frowning at his heavy limp, but made no comment on it.

"Willis is released then, Guv?" she asked instead.

Jack snorted. "Yeah. He reckons I need security at my house."

"Oh yeah?" Suzie said with a disdainful sniff.

"Yeah. He even recommended a firm to me – Hydra Security."

Suzie frowned up at him. "Hydra Security? That's the mob who did Richard Paten's house. Didn't do him much good though, did it?" She shook her head and picked up her coat, jumping when Jack's fingers closed tight around her arm.

"Guv? What's the matter?" She tried to pull her arm away but the DCI was looking into space, then squeezed his eyes shut and pressed his palms over his eyes. Suzie put her hand on his arm concernedly but Jack came back to himself.

"Suzie, who else is still here?"

"Still here? Terry and Phil are in with the DI. I think Sam Nixon is still here somewhere."

"Get them in here," Jack said. "Something has just occurred to me."

19:25pm

Jack desperately wanted to sit down, his leg aching fiercely, but he couldn't make himself be still. He paced – well, hobbled – back and forth outside Manson's door, looking up as Suzie returned to the office with DS Nixon in tow. The two women sat down with the other assembled officers and they all looked at Jack expectantly.

Jack didn't bother with preamble. "I think Vic Willis has just given me a lead on Manticore," he said.

"What kind of lead?" Sam asked as everyone glanced at each other.

"Sam, you checked into the burglaries at Paten's house, didn't you?"

"Yeah," Sam replied cautiously.

"Did you speak to the security firm that had put the alarms in at the house?"

"Of course," Sam said, a touch of acerbity in her voice. "Hydra Security."

"Who did you deal with there?"

Sam frowned and shrugged. "A couple of flunkies who weren't much help, but then I got onto the manager, Charles Elton. You're thinking Manticore has some connection with Hydra Security, Guv?"

Jack made himself sit down on the edge of a desk, barely able to speak for a moment. The pain in his leg flared sharply. "Willis recommended the firm to me," he said after a moment, suppressing a groan. "At first I thought it was a threat, but I think he wants Manticore taken down as much as we do. At least, he does now."

"It does make sense," Suzie said as Jack unconsciously gripped his injured leg, grimacing. "If Manticore wanted a way into Paten's house without tripping the security alarm, they'd either need to know how to bypass it, or have an insider in the firm who installed it."

"I think it's more than that," Jack said when he could speak again. "Willis recommended them to me. I think that Hydra Security are more connected to Manticore than one man taking a back-hander for a security code. Sam, I want you to get a home address for the manager – what was his name?"

"Charles Elton," Sam said, getting to her feet. "What about a warrant?"

Jack shook his head. "No warrant. We're not going to do a search yet – I don't think we'd find anything, anyway. No, I just want to meet this Charles Elton and see for myself. He'd have to expect a lot of police questions given what's happened." Jack stood up – or tried to. His knee buckled under his weight and he fell heavily against Phil Hunter, who barely caught him.

"I don't think you're up to this tonight, Guv," Phil said as he righted the DCI.

"Like hell," Jack said.

20:17pm

The two CID cars pulled up outside 17 Frankston Street as a mist of rain began to fall. A heavy fog was descending on London, obscuring the well-manicured gardens and carpets of lawn surrounding the posh houses on the tree-lined street. Charles Elton's house stood behind a screen of tall shrubs, the upper floors in darkness. Soft light shone from behind the closed curtains downstairs, made hazy by the veil of fog.

"I didn't know padlocks and alarm boxes paid so well," Sam observed as she got out of the car, turning up her collar against the drizzle. The DCI dragged himself out of the rear seat, angrily hefting the walking-stick he'd been given. He didn't want to have to use it, but the pain in his leg was worse than ever. The painkillers hadn't had a chance to kick in yet. But this couldn't wait. Leaning heavily on the stick, he led the four other officers up to the front door of number 17.

For a man who ran a security business, there didn't seem to be much security on his house. The front door was frosted and tinted glass in patterns of curling vines and flowers. There was no automatic sensor light as the group climbed the few stairs up to the small veranda. Jack pressed the doorbell, and a ripple of chimes tinkled inside.

After a moment a rough silhouette could be seen approaching the door, and it swung inward a few inches. Jack was ready. He brandished his warrant card.

"DCI Meadows, Sun Hill CID," he said.

After a moment's hesitation, the door opened wider and a gangly, middle-aged man peered out at them, searching every face until he lit on Sam Nixon. He blinked in surprise and smiled warily at her.

"Sergeant Nixon," he greeted with a nod and a phlegmy cough. "It's a little late – can this wait until the morning?"

"No," Jack said shortly, now taking in the man's striped pyjamas and slippered feet. Dark circles hung heavily under his eyes and a sheen of sweat was on his pallid face. "No, I'm sorry Mr Elton, but this can't wait."

Charles Elton peered blearily at DCI Meadows and sighed, then coughed into his fist. "Alright then," he said, waving them inside.

The five officers filed in, all casting curious and cautious glances around. The house was sparsely furnished, but grand. For such a large house, it seemed that Charles Elton lived alone, for there were no feminine touches to be seen, no discarded toys lying around. Instead, there were books everywhere, even stacked in teetering piles next to armchairs. Every wall held at least one ornate bookcase, crammed to overflowing with volumes.

Mr Elton ushered the group into the well-lit kitchen and sank into a ladder-back chair at a small circular table by the windows. An assortment of medicine bottles and prescription medications were scattered on the tabletop, as well as many used tissues and a steaming bowl of hot water that emitted an herbal scent.

"Sorry to see you under the weather, Mr Elton," Sam offered as they followed him in. He greeted the remark with a cough and a nod, then directed his attention to the DCI as he limped in.

"Five CID officers, including the DCI himself," Mr Elton said huskily, his eyes watering. "What's happened now, Miss Nixon?"

As Sam explained that they were still looking into the death of Richard Paten, Jack sized the man up. He seemed too fragile to have any involvement with Manticore. His frizzy ginger hair was greying at the temples and his sinewy wrists and ankles suggested old age arriving early.

Jack drew a long breath. Charles Elton was very hard to put with Manticore. Perhaps too hard. No one would suspect him of involvement with anything illegal. Sam had done a few discreet inquiries about Hydra Security and come up with nothing suspicious. It was a very successful business, as evidenced by this grand house.

Jack invited himself to a chair at the table, sinking into it gratefully. There was no point pretending that he wasn't in pain. Charles Elton watched him sit down but didn't ask how Jack had come to be injured. Politeness, or foreknowledge? Hard to tell. The man was co-operative and if not exactly eager to please, did not appear to be holding anything back from them.

"Mr Elton, what do you know about Manticore?"

The man frowned at him, but didn't appear to be alarmed by the question.

"Well, I know the myths," he replied. "As you can tell, I enjoy my books. The Manticore is a legend out of –"

"I'm not interested in the legend," Jack cut in. "I'm interested in the death of Richard Paten."

"You've lost me, Mr Meadows," he replied, shaking his head. "What does a Manticore have to do with Richard Paten?"

Jack glanced at Sam. They had spoken about how to handle Charles Elton on the drive over. Jack leaned back and let Sam take over.

"Mr Elton, I don't think you realise the danger you are in right now," Sam said softly. "With the murder of Harriet Paten, the man who hired Manticore is now out to destroy the organisation."

"Harriet Paten?" Elton said. "Is she dead? I hadn't heard that. And what do you mean, I'm in danger? What do I have to do with it?"

"What you have to do with it, Mr Elton, is that you've been offered up to us."

Elton coughed violently but stood up and glared at all five officers in turn. "I thought it was the Sphinx that was the riddler, not the Manticore," he said. "I don't know what you think I have to do with Richard Paten's death, but all I know about it is that my company installed his home security system. Now, unless you have something more substantial than riddles, please leave."

"On a plate," Jack said as though the man had not spoken.

"Someone is trying to link me with what has happened to the Paten family, Mr Meadows?" Elton asked huskily, coughing again into a handful of tissues and sitting down again. "Who?"

"Someone involved, Mr Elton," Jack said.

"And what am I being accused of? Offered up on a plate? What exactly is it you think I've done?"

Jack smiled humourlessly. "Just consider for a moment, Mr Elton," he said quietly. "Close your eyes and imagine a young woman sitting in the cells at Sun Hill. An attractive young woman, blue eyes, short blonde hair."

Charles Elton blinked and frowned at him, cocking his head slightly.

"Imagine an evidence bag with a Sig Sauer in it." Jack added.

Another wracking cough shook Elton's shoulders but he didn't look away. The furrow on his forehead grew deeper. The silence lengthened.

"I'm afraid my imagination doesn't stretch that far, Mr Meadows," He said finally. "Perhaps if you were to lay down some clear facts, we would have a place to start."

"Facts," Jack said musingly, turning the walking stick in his hands. "A drug baron from the west end puts out a contract on Richard Paten. He has Veronica Paten beaten to a pulp. He has her attacker killed. He has a police officer abducted and tortured for information on Harriet Paten. He meets the killer in a shopping mall. Harriet Paten is taken. Veronica Paten is targeted again. One of my sergeants corners the killer in the hospital car park. Those are facts, Mr Elton."

Charles Elton stood very still as he listened, his rasping breath the only sound he made. He was silent for a long moment when Jack finished.

"I didn't hear any facts concerning me in that, Mr Meadows."

"I don't lay down my cards before the last bet, Mr Elton," Jack retorted dryly. "But you should consider the source of the information that has led us here. This is a very dangerous situation for you."

Charles Elton sat forward in his seat, his rheumy eyes fixed hard on Jack. "The last bet, Mr Meadows?" he said quietly. "You're either playing a bluff or you're a very large fool if you think you can draw me into this. I know who I'll be putting my money on when the time comes."

Jack leaned forward until his face was only inches from Charles Elton's. "I'm not playing a bluff," he said, so softly none of the others in the room could hear. "The threat was directed straight at you." He imitated Vic Willis' last gesture, putting a finger to his head like the barrel of a gun.

"And who is making this threat?"

"The customer."

To Jack's surprise, Charles Elton sat back sharply in his seat. What little colour he had, faded. His brows were drawn down tightly over the bridge of his nose and he stared at Jack half-disbelievingly.

"You're telling me that someone who paid to have Richard Paten killed is now threatening me?" he said. "Why? The only, only thing I know about Richard Paten is the security system I sold him."

"I find that hard to believe," Jack said quietly.

"You must have the wrong end of the stick somewhere, Mr Meadows," Mr Elton said tiredly, shaking his head and coughing. "I don't know anything at all about this. Now, if you don't mind I'd like to go to sleep. These 'flu pills are kicking in."

"All right, Mr Elton," Jack said, getting gingerly to his feet, testing his weight carefully on his injured leg. "We'll leave it there for now. But remember the danger you are in. I wasn't exaggerating the threat."

"I'll bear it in mind," Elton said dryly, standing and leading the way to the front door. He saw the five officers out and closed the door behind them without another word. The hall light was turned off a few moments later, leaving them all in darkness.

"What now, Guv?" Sam Nixon asked tiredly as she started the engine.

"Do you think he's with Manticore?" Jack said.

Sam shook her head. "On outward appearance, no, I'd never believe it. But the way he reacted was odd – he was certainly afraid when you mentioned the threat against him. But he didn't go to pieces and he didn't ask for police protection."

"So you think he's either as innocent as a babe in a cradle or up to his eyeballs in it."

"Oh, he's involved, all right. And if he didn't want our protection, that means he's already got it somewhere else. I think we can safely say, Guv, that war has been declared and the first battle is about to be fought."