'So we got him at last, boss,' said Mo, patting Bolt on the shoulder. 'It's what he deserved.'

Bolt nodded, then slowly made his way between the squad cars over to where the bodies lay, exhaustion finally beginning to take hold. He had no real desire to view the charred corpse of the man he'd been after these past five years, but something drove him on. Perhaps it was the memory of Leticia Jones's small, stiff body on her uncle's floor. Or the other bodies he'd seen these past twenty-four hours. Roy Brakspear, Rob Fallon, the unidentified woman beside the road the previous night…

He stopped a few feet away from the bodies, flinching against the overpowering smell of burnt flesh. Bolt might have been a police officer with more than twenty years' experience, but he still found it very difficult to look at dead people. They reminded him too much of his own mortality, and burns victims were possibly the worst. The intense heat melted their fat and shrank them into nightmarish charcoal sculptures, almost unidentifiable as human.

One was very tall, and he guessed that this was the body of the as yet unidentified man who'd been found on the barn floor when the armed officers had gone in.

Bolt took a deep breath and stared down at the other corpse – all that was left of his nemesis. Although some form of natural justice had been done here, he found it difficult to feel any real satisfaction.

Something caught his eye on the body. A smoke-blackened gold ring on one of the gnarled, twisted fingers.

He bent down, looking more closely. Which was when he felt a surge of pure shock. There was a second gold ring on the finger next to it, unmistakably feminine in design.

Bolt wasn't looking at Hook at all. He was looking at the body of a woman.

And straight away he knew it must be Jenny Brakspear.

Hook had waited until the pretty paramedic with the spiky red hair turned her back to him to prepare a shot of painkillers, then slipped an arm free and released the chest strap holding him to the gurney. He'd attached a small plastic blade, four inches long and very sharp, to the inside of his wrist with tape earlier, and he pulled it off, the noise alerting the paramedic, who started to turn round.

Hook had been far too quick for her. Drawing her back into a tight embrace, he'd clasped his hand over her mouth and driven the blade deep into her neck. A geyser of blood from the severed jugular vein spattered hard against the back window before slowing to a sputter as she died, shaking, in his arms.

He'd placed her body gently on the floor, then discarded the makeshift blonde wig he'd sliced from Jenny Brakspear's head and leaned through the partition into the cab, putting the dripping blade to the unsuspecting driver's neck and ordering him to pull over.

The shocked driver had been sensible enough to cooperate. 'Let me go and I won't raise the alarm for another ten minutes,' he'd said calmly as he brought the ambulance to a halt. 'That should give you enough time.'

It was a fair offer, but Hook hadn't been tempted to take it. Instead, he'd yanked the driver's head backwards and dispatched him in exactly the same way as he'd dispatched his colleague, sinking the blade up to the hilt in his neck. This time there'd been more of a struggle. The driver had made some loud choking noises and had lurched forward in his seat, the blood spraying everywhere. Somehow he'd managed to break free, and he'd grabbed wildly at the door handle.

For a moment Hook had thought the driver was going to yank open the door, which would have been a problem because there were headlights coming the other way, but thankfully all energy had then seemed to leave him and he'd slumped to one side, lifting one arm in a useless show of resistance.

He'd pushed the driver into the passenger seat, then clambered through the partition and taken the wheel, pulling away as two police squad cars passed him heading in the other direction.

Hook had allowed himself a small smile as he picked up speed, checking his location on the GPS. It wouldn't be long before they realized their mistake, but by then it would be too late.

Once again, it would be like he'd never existed. A shadow disappearing into the night, leaving only terror and destruction behind him.

Seventy-three

The helicopter rose swiftly above the smoking ruin of the barn before turning south towards London. Below him, Bolt could see the wide cordon of flashing blue lights stretching out in the darkness across the countryside, with the crashed phosgene lorry in the centre, illuminated by the search beams of a circling police helicopter.

It was now half an hour since he'd discovered that the body he'd assumed was Hook was actually female, and therefore almost certainly the kidnap victim, Jenny Brakspear. Ominously, the ambulance taking the person they'd thought was Jenny to hospital had not arrived. Nor had the crew responded to radio contact or calls to their mobile phones. The assumption was that they'd been carrying a disguised Hook, and that he'd managed to overpower them and escape. Only someone with his ruthlessness and nerve could have carried something like this off, and Bolt almost felt a grudging admiration for him.

He sat back in the cramped seat, frustrated at the way events had once again twisted out of his control, fighting the exhaustion that was now taking hold as the adrenalin-fuelled tension of the past twenty-four hours subsided. He knew he'd achieved a lot. He'd helped to avoid what would have been a disaster for London and the UK, and he'd rescued Tina from certain death. He'd just spoken to the hospital again, and the doctor had told him she was expected to make a full recovery, although it would be some months before she regained full use of her foot. So, in the end, he had a lot to be proud of.

Except it wasn't enough. Hook remained free, and Bolt knew he'd probably murdered the paramedics as well. Portman remained free too. As did Paul Wise. Justice, then, had not been served on those who deserved it. Bolt felt like sleeping for a week, but he knew he wouldn't be able to until matters had been brought to a close.

In the cramped helicopter cab with him were Mo Khan and Big Barry Freud. Mo was dozing, while Big Barry, who still had a long night ahead of him, sat in the seat next to Bolt, staring into space. He was on his way to Scotland Yard where he would help coordinate the capture of all outstanding suspects involved in the plot.

Bolt turned to him now. 'I want my team on the Henry Portman surveillance,' he said firmly. 'I think we deserve that.'

'Get some sleep, old mate. And don't worry about Sir Henry. He's not going anywhere.'

'I don't care. I still want to be a part of it.'

Big Barry looked reluctant, but he was also pragmatic enough to know when to give ground. 'All right, I'll speak to DAC Bridges and see what we can do. There's a new team taking over at two a.m., and they're on until ten tomorrow. I'll try and get your people to take over then.'

Bolt looked across at Mo, who'd opened one eye and was listening to the exchange. 'Does that give you enough time to sleep?'

'If I have all the sleep I need,' he answered, yawning, 'then I won't be awake until Saturday. But I don't want to miss out on this either. Someone's going to have to pay for this, and I'd love to see the look on that pompous sod's face when we nick him for conspiracy to murder.'

Bolt cracked a half-smile. 'My feelings exactly.'

Mo closed his eye and went back to dozing while Bolt stared out of the window at the sweeping curtain of lights that signalled their approach into London. Somewhere down there was Hook. Hiding among the city's ten million citizens. The immense apparatus of the state would be hunting him down, using all the latest technology, but Bolt knew that it wasn't going to be enough. Their quarry was too good for that, and right now the slippery bastard was winning on points.