Free Deadline by Simon Kernick

on the case had approached SOCA rather than the Met's overstretched Kidnap Unit, hence the call to Bolt.
It had just turned seven a.m. when he arrived at the office where his team was based. The Glasshouse, as it was known, was a 1960s ten-storey office block with windows that were tinted with the grime of age rather than lavishness of design, set on the corner of a lacklustre shopping street a few hundred metres south of the river in Vauxhall. It was a fine sunny morning, the fifth such day in a warm spell that had followed one of the wettest, most disappointing summers on record – which for England was really saying something – and if it hadn't been for the fact that he was missing out on seeing Jenny, Bolt would have been in a good mood. He liked cases he could get his teeth into, and they didn't come much more meaty than this. More and more these days, his work took him and his team into long drawn-out inquiries where the slow and usually laborious process of evidence-gathering took weeks, sometimes months, to complete. The money-laundering job they'd just finished was a case in point, having started right back in early June; and he'd once been part of a people smuggling investigation that had lasted the best part of a year. During a career that had spanned two decades, Bolt had learned the art of patience, but even so, the idea of taking charge of a case whose resolution could be measured in hours was one he was never going to pass up.
Bolt's team was based in an open-plan office on the fourth floor of the Glasshouse, and when he arrived about half of its dozen members were already there, drinking coffee and generally looking pretty groggy. They'd all been rousted from their beds earlier than they'd been expecting, and Bolt knew he wasn't the only one whose day off had been interrupted before it had even got going. The team had had a major drink-up two nights earlier in the West End to celebrate the arrests of the money-launderers, and it looked like one or two of his people had continued the celebration the previous night as well.
At least Mo Khan looked fairly ship-shape. Mo was one of Bolt's team leaders and the guy he trusted most. They'd been colleagues for close to five years now, first in the National Crime Squad, then at SOCA, and though, with his big round face and friendly, twinkling eyes, he bore more than a passing resemblance to a short, squat cuddly bear, the appearance was deceptive. Mo Khan was tough, efficient and unflappable under pressure, and these were three traits Bolt knew were going to come in very useful today. There was no sign yet of Tina Boyd, his other team leader, or his overall boss, SG2 Barry Freud, although Bolt knew he would be around somewhere since he was the one phoning everyone up at half past five.
He'd only just managed to say his hellos to the team members when Mo came over and collared him.
'Our mystery lady got here twenty minutes ago,' he said as Bolt poured himself a cup of strong black coffee from the percolator. 'Big Barry wants us to start the interview straight away. She's been up all night and he thinks that if we leave it much longer she's going to be too exhausted to talk.'
'Fair enough. Where is she?'
'Over in Interview Room B. Everything's set up and we're ready to go.'
'Blimey, you're quick off the mark this morning,' said Bolt, following him out the door and down the corridor. 'What time did you get in?'
'Half an hour ago. I was moving fast.'
Bolt grinned and gave him a playful punch on the arm. 'You never move fast, Mr Khan. How did you get here? Levitate?'
'I'm a man of many talents, boss.'
'So, have you seen her yet? This Mrs Devern?'
He nodded. 'I spoke to her briefly. She looks absolutely shattered, but she's very keen to talk to us.'
'I'll bet she is.'
Bolt slowed down to take a sip from his coffee, burning his lip in the process.
'Have the Hertfordshire cops checked her story out?'
'Parts of it. She's definitely got a fourteen-year-old daughter, but they