The Final Minute

by Simon Kernick

  I was just passing one of the wall-mounted speakers on my way to the door, and realizing I could now hear what the anchor was saying, when he suddenly announced something that stopped me in my tracks.

  ‘Earlier, Egan’s former wife appeared at a police press conference to plead with her former husband to give himself up.’

  Reflexively, I turned towards the screen where an attractive dark-haired woman with a nervous look on her face sat between a couple of senior-looking cops, a microphone on the desk in front of her.

  ‘Sean,’ she said, her voice steady yet full of tension, ‘if you can hear this, please give yourself up. If you’re innocent, then the best thing you can do is hand yourself in and explain the truth of what happened. I know you won’t do it for me, but please do it for your daughter. Milly’s really worried about you, and she needs a father.’

  I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Or seeing. Here was a woman on TV to whom I was meant to have been married. The more I stared at her, the more familiar she became, yet I had no real tangible memory of her, nor of the girl who was supposed to be my daughter.

  Milly.

  My ex-wife – on the TV it gave her name as Claire Nixon – stopped speaking and one of the cops next to her took over, but I was no longer listening. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the barmaid looking at me just a little too closely, but I kept walking as casually as possible, and sped up as soon as I was on the street.

  Now more than ever I was convinced that I had to see Dr Bronson again. It was clear he’d been manipulating my mind when he’d been giving me the hypnotherapy because, although my memory was returning, key parts of my life were missing, as if they’d been locked out. I also urgently needed to speak to Jack Duckford.

  Somehow I had to get to both of them, and for that I needed Tina. I pulled out the piece of paper with her number scrawled on it, and switched on the mobile phone I was carrying.

  It was time to play my last card.

  Forty-five

  Tina owned three mobile phones. One was registered in the company name and was used for official, above-the-board work; the other two were unregistered pay-as-you-go models for calls she didn’t want traced back to her. She was in the kitchen making her third coffee of the day, and contemplating making a trip to Camden to pick up her car, when the unregistered phone she used the least rang. As far as she knew, only one person had the number of the current SIM card inside this one, and that was Sean Egan.

  She walked into the back garden before answering.

  Sean’s voice was thick with tension. ‘Are you on your own?’

  Tina kept walking, going out of her back gate and along the narrow alleyway that led to the hill that rose beyond her house. ‘I am now. And this line’s secure.’

  ‘Have you seen the news?’

  ‘I heard you had a run-in with the police, if that’s what you mean.’

  But it wasn’t. ‘You must have known about my wife and daughter, so why didn’t you tell me about them?’

  ‘Because they might not have wanted to see you.’

  ‘Isn’t that up to them to decide?’

  Tina sighed. ‘I was going to talk to them, but what with everything else going on, I haven’t had a chance.’

  ‘What do you know about them?’ he asked, a desperation in his voice that she hadn’t heard before. ‘How old’s my daughter?’

  ‘She’s three, I think.’

  ‘Her name’s Milly. That’s what my ex said on the TV.’ He took a deep breath. ‘You know, Tina, I had no idea. I was a family man, married with a daughter, and I had no fucking idea. I still don’t have any memories of either of them.’

  ‘Your wife was pregnant when you were arrested for the rape,’ Tina told him. ‘I read it somewhere.’

  ‘Jesus. What have I done with my life?’

  ‘I really don’t know, Sean, but it’s looking pretty bad right now. You need to give yourself up.’

  ‘I will, I told you, but not until I’ve remembered everything. How are things your end?’

  ‘Nearly as dramatic as yours. I almost got killed last night.’ As she started up the hill, away from the houses, Tina told him about the events at Sheryl’s flat.

  ‘Jesus,’ Sean said when she’d finished, sounding genuinely concerned. ‘Are you OK?’

  ‘I’m talking to you, aren’t I?’

  ‘They’re definitely the same people who killed Jane and Tom back at the house. A good-looking American woman and a big, ugly guy built like an ox. So they’re after you as well.’

  ‘Something else. Jen Jones, the blonde-haired woman who went missing with Lauren, the one who appeared in your dream. I think she was your girlfriend.’

  ‘You’re right,’ said Sean. ‘I’ve got that memory chunk back since I last saw you. I remember meeting her in a bar. I was in love with her, Tina. I can feel it. But at the moment I still can’t remember anything about our relationship.’

  ‘What about the dream? Any idea what you were doing in that?’

  ‘I’m almost certain I was in an undercover role, and that’s what I was doing in the house, but that’s as far as I’ve got with it. But I do have a new lead. I was working for an old police colleague of mine called Jack Duckford. The last I knew he was working with SOCA. Can you get me a number for him?’

  ‘You’re going to contact him? I’m not sure that’s a good idea, Sean. If you were working for him, he may well be connected to the man you killed at the hotel.’

  ‘I’ve known him a long time. I remember we were friends once. I think if I call him, he’ll talk to me. Don’t worry, I’m not an idiot. I won’t do anything stupid like arrange to meet up with him. I just want to ask him a couple of questions over the phone.’

  Tina sighed and dragged a hand through her hair. ‘OK, I’ll try to find his number for you, as long as you promise not to tell anyone where you got it from.’

  ‘You have my word,’ he said solemnly. ‘And have you had any luck tracking down Bronson? I’m sure he’s responsible for at least some of the gaps in my memory.’

  ‘I’ve got some photos of men who may or may not be your Dr Bronson. If you can ID him then we might be able to locate him. I’m guessing you haven’t got an internet connection where you are.’

  Sean grunted derisively. ‘I’ve got nothing, Tina. I don’t even have any money any more.’

  ‘If you can find an internet café and create an email account, I can mail you the pictures.’

  ‘I don’t think you’re hearing me. I have nothing. Nothing at all.’

  ‘Then give yourself up, Sean. You can’t keep running.’

  ‘If I do that, we’ll never find Bronson, I’ll never talk to Jack, and we’ll never solve the mystery of those two missing girls.’

  There was a long silence as they both thought this through.

  ‘Can we meet somewhere?’ Sean said at last. ‘I can take a look at those pictures, and if one of them’s Bronson, then we can track him down.’

  ‘No way, Sean. I can’t implicate myself in your case any more than I have done already. If I meet you, I’m leaving myself open to some very serious charges.’

  ‘You’re doing that already, aren’t you? Please, Tina. Help me, one last time.’

  She didn’t say anything for a few seconds as she looked back down the hill to the village where she’d lived for the past five years. She could see two old ladies talking outside the corner shop where they sold fruit and vegetables direct from New Covent Garden, recognizing one as her next-door-but-one neighbour, a widow called Mrs Maybury who always smiled at her. A mother pushed her child in a pushchair along the pavement outside the pub while a group of hikers walked in a narrow trail like ants across the hill that rose on the other side. It was a scene of utter normality, made all the more so by the fact that she couldn’t see the marked patrol car parked outside her house.

  ‘Tell me something,’ she said eventually. ‘You said your memory’s coming back in pieces, so answer me this question
honestly. Did you rape that woman?’

  ‘No,’ he answered emphatically. ‘I didn’t. I slept with her. I remember that. And I knew she was married too because she told me. But it was consensual, I promise you that.’

  He could have been lying. He was, after all, an undercover cop by trade. Even so, Tina believed him.

  ‘Where are you now?’

  Now it was his turn to hesitate. ‘I’m trusting you here, Tina. Please don’t let me down.’

  ‘Ditto, Sean.’

  ‘I saved your life once, remember?’

  ‘You’re not letting me forget it.’

  ‘I’m in Cambridge. Can you come and meet me?’

  ‘You need to get back into London. It’ll be easier for me to meet you there on neutral ground. If I drive out of here and head straight for Cambridge, I may arouse suspicion.’

  ‘I’ve got no money.’

  ‘You’ll find a way. When you’re back in London, call me on this number and we’ll arrange to meet. In the meantime, I’ll try to track down a number for Jack Duckford, but if you have to talk to him, do it from a phone box. Somewhere they won’t be able to trace you.’

  ‘Thanks, Tina. I really appreciate this.’

  ‘You’d better,’ she said, ending the call and taking a deep breath before lighting a cigarette, not even wondering any more why she was doing this.

  The powerful sense of anticipation she was experiencing had already given her the answer.

  Forty-six

  Pen de Souza was nineteen years old when they released her from Juvie for the attack on her father, a year before the official end of her sentence. She’d been a model prisoner, and had convinced all those who came into contact with her that she was a reformed character who wanted to make amends for the terrible crime she’d committed as a child, in a temporary moment of insanity. This was 2002, in the still-fresh aftermath of 9/11, when the whole of America’s world had been turned upside down, and a new spirit of patriotism was in the air. Like many others, Pen had asked to be given the opportunity to serve her country. The prison chaplain, Reverend Bower, a pious and influential man whose brother was a local politician, had formed a significant emotional bond with Pen, fuelled in part by the incredible blowjobs she regularly gave him, and he’d petitioned the authorities on her behalf, and done more than anyone to get her a place in the US army.

  Four years in Juvie was perfect preparation for the military. Institutionalized already, Pen had fitted in perfectly, and over the course of the next five years, during which time she did two tours of Iraq, she rose to the rank of lieutenant. But the army was never going to be enough. She was a good-looking and highly intelligent young woman who’d shown herself to be cool under pressure, and with a streak of ruthlessness that would be a liability in civilian life but in certain professions was a real asset. So it was no surprise that she eventually came to the attention of the CIA.

  At the time, certain sections of the CIA were heavily involved in so-called ‘black ops’ – secret and often illegal operations designed to destabilize America’s enemies and keep the country safe. And so began a new and more lethal phase of Pen’s career: one of clandestine meetings in dusty Middle Eastern back streets, romantic trysts in five-star hotels, blackmail, and finally murder. Pen was excellent at her job. People – especially men – trusted her. They underestimated her too, not realizing what they were up against until it was far too late. She became a proficient assassin and in the space of less than two years did more to destabilize Iran’s burgeoning nuclear programme than sanctions could ever do by killing two of the country’s most gifted young scientists in separate incidents: one in London by poison, the other in Mumbai in what was meant to look like a bungled street robbery. No one ever suspected her.

  The problem was, she eventually became a liability to her bosses. Pen knew too much, and the way the CIA operated was changing as Obama took over from Bush. A male colleague she trusted tried to set her up for her own assassination in Prague but she got out, making her own way back to the States and resigning from the CIA before disappearing off the grid for a couple of years.

  During this time she was offered work by a former agency man who’d set up a niche outfit that specialized in various clandestine services, including murder, for any company or government with deep enough pockets. That man had been Bryan Coombs, aka Tank, and the rest was history. Over the years they’d killed off the other employees, and now it was just the two of them working and building a future together.

  Soon they’d have enough money to retire and get married, and then she’d become Pen Coombs. She liked that name. There was something sweet and suburban about it. She and Mr Coombs would buy a beach house somewhere in the Caribbean. She liked the idea of St Thomas or St John, maybe even Puerto Rico, but with their budget it was more likely to be Panama. Their plan was to have enough money to while away their days in the sunshine, making love and living off the land and the sea. She and Tank together. The fairytale ending.

  First, though, they had to make enough cash, which was why they needed this current job to work. Kill the man identified as Sean Egan before he was detained by the police and they’d be half a million richer – money that could immediately be invested in property. But things had already gone badly wrong. First they’d missed their chance to kill Egan, and then they’d failed to take out the new target they’d been given, Tina Boyd. It was the first real run of misfortune they’d had in five years of working together, and now the client was furious. Worse still, they didn’t know how to find Egan, and if the police got him before they did – which by now was highly likely – the job was off, and their reputation for getting things done would suffer permanent damage.

  Pen had been through enough in her life not to worry unduly, though, and right now she was relaxing in bed, enjoying the warm post-coital glow of an intense lovemaking session with her husband-to-be. It was difficult to describe how satisfied Tank made her feel, and impossible even to think what she’d do without him.

  On the hotel room TV, Sean Egan’s ex-wife was talking at a police press conference, encouraging her former husband to surrender to the police for the sake of their young daughter who, apparently, was very worried about him.

  Pen looked up as Tank came into the room, a towel wrapped round his waist, beads of water still clinging to the perfect contours of his body, and immediately she felt another stab of pure desire.

  He motioned towards the TV. ‘What’s happening?’

  ‘That’s Egan’s ex-wife. Apparently they have a kid together.’

  Tank nodded. ‘Yeah, I saw that in the dossier. I wonder if he even remembers he’s a dad.’

  Pen smiled. ‘It doesn’t matter if he does or not. As soon as he sees this, he’s going to want to get in touch with her.’

  Tank shrugged. ‘The cops will know that though, won’t they? They’ll have people watching the ex-wife’s house in case he shows up. Standard practice.’

  ‘True, but it still gives us an avenue. A parent will do anything for their child. Don’t you remember that doctor back in Vermont? The one who went underground and wouldn’t show his face until we sent him footage of his son with the razor?’

  ‘Oh yeah,’ said Tank with what looked to Pen like a slight shudder. ‘I still can’t believe you did that to him.’

  ‘It worked though, didn’t it? Daddy came running even though he knew what was going to happen to him.’

  ‘Yeah, but we were able to get a message to that guy. We’ve got no way of contacting Egan.’

  ‘So what? We don’t need to. Remember. If we take the wife and kid and get the client to keep them alive somewhere, we can get an anonymous message to Egan, even if he’s in custody, to let him know that if he opens his mouth to anyone, they die. He hears that, he won’t say a damn word, I can guarantee it. The beauty is, the wife and kid can be kept like that for weeks, months even, while we work out a way to finish off Egan.’ She looked up at him. ‘It’s foolproof. And we get to keep our
money.’

  Tank whistled through his teeth, then ran the back of a hand softly down her cheek. ‘Jeez, sweetcheeks, I’ve got to hand it to you. You think of everything.’

  Pen leaned over and pulled his towel away. ‘It’s all for us, baby,’ she whispered. ‘It’s all for us.’

  Forty-seven

  Tina wasn’t sure giving Sean the contact details for Jack Duckford was a particularly good idea, but she was intrigued to find out more about Duckford’s background. With the death of Jeff Roubaix, she’d lost her best inside contact in the force, but she still had people who owed her favours.

  Two calls and twenty minutes later she had a direct line for Duckford at his current place of work, the NCA’s Organized Crime Arm. Duckford was a vet. Forty-eight years old, with the full thirty years’ service, he had an unblemished record, which included a citation for bravery during the arrest of a knife-wielding robber fifteen years earlier.

  Could Duckford and his NCA colleagues have been running an unofficial undercover operation using a disgraced ex-con, Tina wondered? Sean certainly seemed to think so, and Tina knew from past experience that such things, though certainly illegal, did occasionally happen. However, even if this was one such case, Duckford was unlikely to want to help Sean now. Friend or not, he was already eligible for retirement with a full pension, and if he was involved in something illegal he was going to want to keep it very quiet.

  Sitting up on the hill behind her house, with the sun on her face, she took a few moments simply to enjoy the view, knowing that by aiding and abetting a known offender she was risking all of this. But that was who Tina was. She took risks. She had the kind of dogged determination that meant she’d do whatever it took to find out what had happened to Lauren Donaldson, and make whoever was behind her disappearance face some sort of justice, regardless of the cost to herself.