You never drink on duty, she told herself. Never. You work hard, you do well. They might not all like you, but they respect you. If you weaken now, you're finished.

A picture of her dead lover walked uninvited into her mind's eye. John Gallan. He'd been a good man, a nicer, better person than she could ever be. He'd loved her; he'd said so many times and she'd believed him. John wasn't the sort to lie. Part of her had loved him back, too. Thought that maybe it could come to something. And then he died.

And then he fucking died.

She walked inside the pub, ignoring the slimy look she got from the jaundiced old codger sitting at the bar, and ordered a double gin, no ice, ignoring the voice inside her head that screamed for her not to do it. The decision had been made.

She drank it down in one.

'Bad day?' asked the barman, a gangly teenager with a haystack's worth of red hair.

'Fucking fantastic,' she said, and ordered another.

She put a tenner on the bar and drank the gin slower this time, savouring the fiery taste as the alcohol slipped down her throat. The kick was instantaneous, and she felt the familiar lightheadedness come on, knowing that if she had another, that would be it. There'd be no going back. The work day would be written off. The leads she'd gained, leads that could help save a teenage girl from death, wouldn't emerge until she'd sobered up. Tina wasn't the sort who could work drunk. She became clumsy and lethargic. Her colleagues would notice it straight away, and her guilty little secret, the one she'd carried for so long, would suddenly be out there for all to see. And she couldn't have that. Tina had her pride. She suffered, but she suffered alone. She didn't want pity, she didn't want help, and right now, she really didn't want to be off this case.

Fuck Leon Daroyce. He wasn't going to beat her. She finished the drink and banged the glass on the bar harder than she'd planned before picking up her change and heading back out into the sunlight.

It was time to get back to work.

'I've got authorization for the money,' said Big Barry grimly, looking across his desk at Bolt. 'It wasn't easy. One or two of the top people favoured calling in the negotiators. It took some persuading that not letting on about our involvement was the best course of action. And as you can imagine, no one wanted the responsibility of signing off half a million pounds.'

Bolt nodded. It had just turned four o'clock and he was back in Big Barry's office. Despite the sunny day, the heating was on full blast and the room felt hot and airless. Bolt had an empty feeling in his stomach. He'd tried to eat on the way back to HQ, stopping off at a Pret a Manger to buy a sandwich and a bottle of juice, but two bites and the juice was all he'd managed. The tension running through him made it hard to sit still, let alone concentrate on what Barry was saying.

'If we lose this money,' Barry continued, 'both you and I are going to be in serious trouble. We really can't afford to screw this one up, old mate.'

Bolt nodded again, didn't say anything.

'We'll be providing the bag containing the ransom, and I'm going to have two separate tracking devices sewn into the material where there's absolutely no chance they'll be found.

We'll also have two more trackers buried right in among the money, just in case they change bags. Obviously, though, these things aren't foolproof. They can lose their signal. We all know that. So we're going to need major surveillance back-up. I suggest two ground teams. One will follow Mrs Devern, the other will be sent to stake out the rendezvous as soon as the kidnappers confirm where it's going to be, so we have complete coverage of the area and the ransom itself. Then, as a final layer of surveillance, I want a helicopter on standby to take over the pursuit of the money so we make absolutely sure it doesn't disappear on us. Then it's simply a matter of following it to its destination, and that's the moment we bring in the negotiators and try to end things peacefully. The girl gets released, the perpetrators get nicked, and the money lands safely back in our hands.'

He paused, looking pleased with himself.

'What do you think?'

'I think,' said Bolt, trying desperately to be objective, 'that it's very risky.'

Barry looked mildly irritated. He didn't quite roll his eyes but the movement wasn't far off. 'Of course it's risky. This is a professional kidnapping we're dealing with, Mike. It's the type of op that's always risky. It was risky this morning, and you were arguing for it then.'

But this morning there hadn't been the possibility that 'the girl', as Barry had described her so dispassionately, was his daughter. On the way over, Bolt had thought about laying things on the line. Admitting everything. But he'd quickly dismissed this as a bad move. With such a huge personal involvement, Barry would have had no choice but to remove him from the case and there was no way he was going to allow that to happen.

'I've had time to think,' Bolt said. 'These people haven't put a foot wrong so far. If we don't get this exactly right, then they're likely to kill her.'

'Then we get it right,' said Barry firmly.

'You don't think we might be better off bringing in the negotiators? It's possible that if they realize we're on to them, they might cut their losses and let Emma go.'

'And it's also possible that they might not. You said that yourself.'

Bolt exhaled. 'I guess that's true.'

Barry frowned. 'Are you all right, old mate?'

Bolt nodded. 'Yeah, I'm fine.' But he was sweating, and his shirt felt clammy against his skin.

'We've made the decision now,' Barry continued. 'There's no point going back on it. SOCA needs a nice high-profile success. If we get this right – and, make no mistake about it, we will, because we're going to plan it properly – then it's going to look extremely good on the organization, and on us in particular. We don't often get much in the way of praise. Let's make sure we get some this time.'

'OK, but I don't like the idea of the helicopter.

The kidnappers get so much as a sniff of it, they're going to panic.'

'We'll keep it well away from whatever rendezvous they choose, don't worry. And it'll only be used as a back-up.'

Bolt wasn't convinced, but he didn't argue. There was no point. Barry had made up his mind about how they were going to play it. In fact, he'd made up his mind before the meeting had even started, which made Bolt feel that his presence was largely irrelevant.

'How's Mrs Devern?' asked Barry.

'She's holding up.'

'Hertfordshire CID still aren't entirely happy with her story.'

Bolt wiped sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. 'Why not?'

'Well, their officers did find her covered in blood having just left the scene of the violent murder of her former lover.' Barry allowed himself a thin smile. 'You have to admit it's more than a little suspicious.'

Bolt felt like slapping that smile off his boss's face. For the first time in his life he suddenly had an insight into what it must be like to be a victim of crime – the lonely frustration of dealing with officials who were never going to care enough to deal with your plight.

'I'm sure they don't like her story,' he said, trying to keep his voice as calm as possible, 'but her child's definitely been kidnapped. I saw her on the video the kidnappers sent just three hours ago. And the people holding her are definitely after a ransom. So, unless Mrs Devern somehow set this all up herself, and is deliberately putting her daughter through a huge trauma, then we've got to accept that her story's true.'