Target by Simon Kernick

with.'
    Tina removed her feet from the desk and sat up in her seat, frowning. 'Are you sure?'
    'Course I'm sure. It wasn't even a very good job. It was just spliced and thirty seconds were taken out. I managed to retrieve it as well.'
    'And what did it show?'
    'A man and a woman coming up to the front door.'
    'Describe them.'
    'The man was an IC1, early thirties, with dark curly hair. She was late twenties, blonde, and very attractive if I may say so.'
    Rob Fallon and Jenny Brakspear. So something had happened. Tina felt a stab of excitement. 'Thanks, Matt,' she said. 'You've been a great help.'
    'So, it wasn't a hoax?'
    'I don't know yet. I'll keep you posted.' She rang off and stubbed out her cigarette, wide awake suddenly.
    Straight away, she did what Mike Bolt had suggested when she'd talked to him earlier that afternoon. She logged on to the PNC database and fed in the details of the man most likely to have doctored the CCTV footage.
    Forty-seven-year-old John Lionel Gentleman, the doorman at Jenny's apartment building, had eight separate convictions, mainly theft-related, and stretching back twenty years. Definitely the kind of man who could be bought.
    The question that was really interesting Tina now was, if Gentleman was bought, who had done the buying?

Sixteen
    I wasn't sure how long I was unconscious for. It could have been a few minutes, more likely it was an hour or two. It was impossible to tell because when I did finally open my eyes and clamber slowly to my knees, I was still quite drunk. My head felt like lead, and when I touched my forehead there was a big painful lump there. I looked round, waiting patiently while the room came into focus. There was no sign of Ramon. Nor any sign that he'd even been there.
    I got to my feet and staggered into the bathroom and over to the toilet, experiencing a wave of nausea. I fell to my knees and threw the whisky up into the bowl in violent spasms, staying in that position for a long time, head bowed, taking deep, painful breaths.
    Finally, I staggered back into the bedroom, trying hard not to picture Ramon sitting there lifeless, and lay down on the bed, staring up at the ceiling, knowing that I was incredibly lucky to be alive. Twice now I'd come within a hair's breadth of death, and twice I'd been given another chance to carry on. I knew that I should simply accept that this was a battle I'd lost and do what that callous saucer-eyed bastard had told me to do, because it was clear that he wouldn't hesitate to kill me if it came to it, not to mention my family.
    I'm the type of person who avoids confrontation. I've always preferred the quiet life. Maybe that's why I gave up the frenetic pace of the City and tried my luck as a writer. But I also have a strong sense of justice. I know that it's essential that people do the right thing, because if we neglect that basic tenet, then society collapses. Some people say that in the UK we've started doing it already: crossing the street to avoid the kids hanging around outside the shop, refusing to intervene to stop rowdy behaviour. I've done it myself. I once saw a school kid about twelve years old being mugged by a group of older kids. They were making him empty out his pockets and one of them looked like he had a knife. The kid seemed terrified. He looked over towards me, trying to get my attention, but I turned away and kept walking. I did phone the police, but only once I'd got round the corner where the muggers couldn't see me.
    I'd hated myself for that. Truly hated myself. I remember Yvonne asking me if anything was wrong that evening, and I was too ashamed to tell her about what had happened, because I knew that however much she might understand my actions, she'd be ashamed of me too. And if I did nothing now, I knew I would never be able to live with the guilt. It was as simple as that.
    For some reason, Jenny Brakspear had been snatched as part of a conspiracy (and whatever Tina Boyd had claimed, it was a conspiracy)