‘Sergeant Campbell, antiterrorism.’ He waved his pass at the woman stood by the desk, ushering the guests through the door to the street. ‘I need to know the source of the alarm.’ He spoke with such authority, the hotel woman abandoned the evacuating guests and turned to the computer.

‘It’s floor three, smoke detectors in room…’ she screwed his eyes up at her screen, ‘…room 312.’

‘Who was in that room and when did they check in?’ said Campbell.

‘Shouldn’t I be helping them get out?’

Campbell stared hard and said nothing. She gave a nervous smile and tapped away on her screen. ‘Two men, checked in last night at 10.30, just one name, Samuel Frazer.’

‘How did they pay?’

‘Cash up front.’

‘Don’t you insist on a credit card? Or ID?’

‘Not if they pay up front. We have a lot of customers who value their privacy.’

‘Bloody great.’ Campbell looked around. ‘Is that CCTV operational?’

‘Of course,’ said the receptionist.

‘Do you think you could let me have a look at it. Like now?’

The receptionist led Campbell into the back room. ‘We really should be out of here. The fire…’

‘I’m guessing you have fire doors, yes?’ She nodded. ‘Designed to contain a fire?’ Again, she nodded. ‘Then we’ve got a few minutes. But better be fast, eh?’

The receptionist set to work. It took just forty seconds for her to pull up the CCTV images from the night before – she sped the file forwards until 10.31.

‘That’s him,’ said the woman. It was a grainy black-and-white shot of two men. One, the taller of the two, had a hoodie pulled over this head and kept his face to the floor. But the other man, a stocky figure in a bomber jacket, was looking up.

‘Can you get a copy of this emailed to Scotland Yard?’

‘Not really – we can’t do screen grabs of this.’

‘You’re not making this easy for me, are you?’ Campbell took out his phone and took a picture of the screen.

#

CTOC, St Pancras, London

Tennant’s voice was weary over the video link from Gold Command.

‘The mainline stations are covered, but if the gunmen slip into the Tube, we’ve little chance of stopping them amid the chaos,’ he said. ‘What now?’

Gabriel felt the pull at her sleeve. A DS she didn’t know was urgently trying to get her attention.

‘Sorry, ma’am, but we’ve got an image of one of the suspects,’ the woman said. ‘DS Campbell was on the scene and grabbed it off the hotel CCTV.’

‘Get it distributed,’ Gabriel said. She turned back to the screen. ‘You hear that, boss?’

‘I did,’ said Tennant. ‘Get it out. And not just the usual channels – send it via the WhatsApp group the armed response units use.’

He ended the call as Bose came over. ‘Ma’am.’ Her face was stony. ‘It’s the NRF. They’ve claimed the attack.’

#

Central London

The art of concealment was not to look disguised, or at least that’s what his old sarge had said. But right now, Rod Houghton wished he could hide his face a little more. His baseball cap was pulled down hard, so the brim was wedged into his eyebrows, but he couldn’t get away with sunglasses on a miserable day and there was no refuge in his jacket.