“Okay,” Hammond said, “while we’re waiting for the results, check with the Met, find out how they are doing with the search for the device.”

Harvey nodded and on his way to his desk he stopped off at Farsi’s station.  “Anything in the boys’ reports?”  He asked.

“There were two cases where the kid who was abducted was with his mates.  I think we should get them in and show them some mug shots of our suspects.”

“Good idea.  Go for it.”  Harvey saw Hammond heading for his office and stopped him to explain their plan.

“That could be very useful,” Hammond agreed.  “Gray has no family, so if we can implicate his old army buddies we might have some leverage.  He must have some allegiance to them, and they to him, so if we can pin the abductions on them we might be able to convince him to end this.”

Harvey saw what Hammond was thinking.  “We can tell Gray they will get immunity from prosecution if he gives himself up, otherwise we charge them with kidnapping, ABH, accessory to murder, various offences under the Terrorism Act and send them to jail for life.”

“My point exactly.”

Harvey turned to Farsi.  “Get on to the company he sold and tell them to send over photos of everyone on their books, past and present, then arrange for them to be distributed to the police forces handling these cases.”

* * *

Harvey was going through the incoming reports from the dozens of police forces around the country.  So far they had identified, between them, over a thousand locations that would normally have thousands of visitors at midday on Friday.  Many had already been searched and discarded, but at the current rate, there would still be over three hundred to search when the deadline arrived.  Shopping centres were being asked to utilise all available staff in searching their own facilities, as were other venues such as exhibition centres and museums.  Despite their efforts, though, police were still required to visit each site and give it the once over before it was given the all clear.

Even if all possible venues were cleared before the deadline, there was always the possibility that the device might be mobile and delivered much nearer the time, negating their efforts.  The only way to be certain was to get Gray to reveal the location, but he had stopped answering his phone and certainly wasn’t going to give that information up readily.  If they could just get a break somewhere along the line they might stand a chance of stopping this, but as things stood, Gray still held all the best cards.

He glanced at his watch and saw that the voting would close in ten minutes: time to visit Gerald and see how things were progressing.

At Small’s desk he found him staring at the screen.  “How’s it going?”  Harvey asked.