The Last 10 Seconds

It had just turned one a.m. when Tina finally walked in her front door, physically exhausted but mentally wide awake. The first thing she did was open a bottle of Rioja, pour a third of it into a giant tumbler, and take a long, deep gulp, savouring the strong, rich taste. Keeping the glass tight to her lips, she took several more, feeling herself relaxing, then refilled the glass and carried it with her into the apartment’s shoebox-sized lounge, collapsing into the sofa and lighting a cigarette.

During the drive back home, she’d called the local GP who had certified Kevin O’Neill dead. He hadn’t been best pleased to hear from her, since the call had got him out of bed, but Tina was used to receiving less-than-warm welcomes and she’d brushed aside his complaints by telling him foul play was suspected, which had quickly galvanized him into action. He’d been able to say with some certainty that O’Neill had died between six p.m. and midnight the previous night.

Tina wasn’t a hundred per cent sure what ‘some certainty’ meant. Either you were certain, or you weren’t.

However, it had given her enough information to go on for her second call, to the security company operating the CCTV cameras covering the entrance to O’Neill’s cul-de-sac. After about ten minutes of being shunted around between those staff members still working at that time of night, none of whom seemed to be of any use to her, and being put on hold more than once, she’d finally been put through to someone who was willing to help her. His name was Jim, and he was a retired copper who liked to talk a lot.

But at least he didn’t faint when she told him what she needed, which was for him to go through all the footage taken by a particular camera from four p.m. to midnight the previous night, making a list of the plates of all vehicles captured that didn’t belong to residents of the road in question, and to get the results back to her as soon as possible.

While Tina remained on the line, Jim had looked up the account in question and told her that the footage from Thursday night was still there, and it should be possible to find her the information she needed, since the company kept a database of all the residents’ vehicles. ‘Will it help solve a case?’ he’d asked her, sounding excited at the prospect that he might be a part of something important once again.

In truth, though, it was the longest of long shots. There was, as Grier had pointed out several times, no evidence that O’Neill had been murdered, and even if he had been, it didn’t necessarily mean that the killer had driven up to his house. But that wasn’t what Tina told Jim. Instead, she’d said that she genuinely hoped so.

‘You don’t give up, do you?’ Grier had said with a mixture of admiration and exasperation when she finally got off the phone.

‘Someone once said there was a solution to every problem.’ ‘Do you believe that?’

She’d thought about her alcoholism, about the way her life had turned out, a long battle that never seemed close to completion, let alone victory. ‘No.’ She’d managed a smile. ‘But I always live in hope.’

When she dropped him off at home a little while later, he’d given her a strange look, as if he wanted to say something. But then the look had gone, and he’d got out of the car, asking if he was going to be needed tomorrow.

‘I’ll let you know,’ she’d said, and watched as he let himself in to his attractive redbrick townhouse where his wife, a successful corporate lawyer, was waiting.

Now, sitting in her poky little living room with her cigarette and her booze, Tina concentrated on the case, because she knew that as soon as she stopped thinking about it she’d slip into the inevitable self-pity. And there was plenty to think about. This case was one of the most puzzling she’d ever been involved in. On the one hand, they had a man against whom the evidence seemed overwhelming. There was the murder weapon in his flat, incriminating footage showing a number of the murders on his computer, and he had a direct link with every one of the victims. Yet, at the same time, they also had a murder that was different from the others, and for which their suspect had a cast-iron alibi. Added to the mix was Kent’s claim to have important information, something which he thought was worth killing him for. Whether or not he’d faked his poisoning in the cell back at the station, the fact remained that an armed gang had been prepared to break him free from police custody at gunpoint. Which meant that one way or another he was important to someone.

But who? And why?

She took another gulp of the Rioja. Booze wasn’t usually that helpful where intensive thinking was concerned, but she was hoping now that it might give her a new angle on things.