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too much of a
step to imagine him hurting her like this.
    And yet . . . Pat was one of the only people in
the world who knew she had cash reserves she
could call upon without attracting too much
attention. Near enough half a million pounds of
cash reserves, in fact. Nor was he whiter than
white. He'd admitted to her that years earlier, as a
young man, he'd had a few scrapes with the law,
and had even served a few months for receiving
stolen goods. Receiving stolen goods was a long,
long way from abduction, but even so, in her
weakened state the thought preyed on Andrea's
mind that the man who, for all his faults, she still
loved might have betrayed her dramatically.
    'Please don't let it be you,' she whispered,
staring at the phone. Because she knew if that was
the case, she'd be totally on her own.
    Another hour passed, and as the clock ticked
towards midnight with still no word from him,
her doubts grew stronger. It crossed her mind
more than once to call the police, but the people
she was dealing with were ruthless, and clearly
well organized, and they'd already told her what
would happen to Emma if she did. Andrea didn't
have much faith in the forces of law and order
anyway. She'd had too much experience of them
for that.
    No, she needed someone she could trust.
Someone who'd know what to do.
    There was one person who could help. She
might not have spoken to him for more than a
decade but she was sure he would respond in this,
her hour of need. The problem was, if she brought
him back, she might also be unleashing forces
outside her control.
    But what choice did she really have? She
couldn't do this alone.
    There was a grandfather clock in the hallway,
bought from an Islington antique dealer at an
exorbitant price several years earlier, which had
always looked out of place. Something about its
relentless ticking tended to soothe her, though,
and when it chimed midnight she stubbed out
her latest cigarette in the ashtray and made her
decision.
    She retrieved a small black address book from
her handbag on the kitchen top and found the
number she wanted in the back, with no name
next to it. She turned on the overhead light to dial,
stopping at the last second. Thinking. They might
have bugged the landline, and if they heard her
. . . She couldn't risk it. Instead, she fed the digits
into her mobile and stepped out into the back
garden.
    The night was silent as she walked to the pear
trees at the end, thirty yards from the house, and
stopped. She looked round, listening, remembering
what the kidnapper had said: We're
watching you. But they couldn't see her in the back
of the garden, she was sure of it.
    So, taking a deep breath, she pressed the call
button on the mobile.
    And took her situation to a whole new level.

Two
    Jimmy Galante answered on the third ring.
'Hello,' he said quietly, his accent still firmly east
London.
    There was no background noise that Andrea
could make out, which surprised her. Jimmy had
always been something of a nightbird. Maybe
he'd changed.
    'It's me,' she said, keeping her voice low,
knowing the risk she was taking.
    'Who's me?' he asked.
    'Andrea. Andrea Devern.'
    He gave a raucous laugh down the phone.
'Jesus, now there's a ghost from the past. How
you doing?'
    'Bad. Very bad.'
    'Shit, I'm sorry to hear that,' he said, but she
could almost hear the smirk in his voice. Jimmy
Galante was not the kind of man who wasted time
or effort on sympathy. 'How did you get my
number? You been keeping tabs on me, Andrea?'
    She had, but she wasn't going to tell him that.
At least not yet. 'Someone gave it to me.'
    'Oh yeah? Who?'
    'That doesn't matter. What matters is I need
your help.'
    'To do what?'
    Andrea took a deep breath, looked round in the
gloom. 'My daughter's been kidnapped. I need
you to help me get her back.'
    Jimmy's husky trademark chuckle rumbled
down the line again. There was something inherently
cruel in it. It made Andrea think of a child
pulling the wings off a butterfly, or cutting a
worm