“Where?”
“Behind us.”
I adjusted the wing mirror with the remote control, so I could see it without turning my head. It was R registered, silver, with four headlights. “Looks expensive,” I remarked as I made a note of the number.
“Series seven,” Annette stated. It sounded about right to me but cars aren’t my strong point. She produced a tube of mints and offered me one. I shook my head. The clock changed from 17:50 to 17:51.
“Let’s have some music,” she said, pushing the radio power button. A politician was sounding off about something or other. He used the expressions spin doctor and mind set in the same sentence, and would probably have slipped in a sea change had Annette not hit a station button. Two more tries and she was rewarded with Scott Walker’s warm tones. “That’s better,” she said.
“We haven’t been for a meal for a while,” I remarked.
“No,” she agreed.
“It’s Thursday.”
“So it is.”
“If Chilcott’s not on this train we could go for one.”
“A girl’s got to eat,” she declared, throwing me a big grin.
I smiled at her and started to say: “You should laugh more often. It suits you,” but the phone started warbling somewhere in the middle of it.
“Heckley,” I said.
“He’s on his feet, heading for the door. Looks like this is it.”
“Understood. Out.”
I needed a pee. It’s always the same: the least bit of excitement and I remember that I haven’t been to the loo for four hours. “This could be it,” I told her, and clicked the send button on the RT. “Charlie to the Young Turks,” I said into it, “it’s looking good for us.” Three cars down in the facing row Dave raised a finger off the steering wheel in acknowledgement, and a face in a window to my left raised an eyebrow. I wish I could do that. Smoke puffed from the exhaust of the car in front as he started the engine. I reached forward to kill Scott Walker and we both pulled our seatbelts on.
It all went off like a dream, exactly as planned, but you’d never have believed it. The Regional Crime Squad DCI was called Barry Moynihan, and he was one of the grumpiest little piggies I’ve ever come across. Now he was slumped in a chair in the corner of Mr Wood’s office, elbows on his knees, face in his hands. He’d ranted and raved all the way to the station and plenty more when he was inside, but it’s hard to take a bollocking from somebody wearing three-quarter length Burberry check shorts and a Desperate Dan T-shirt. Gilbert was lounging back in his executive chair, staring at the blank wall opposite. I was on a hard seat, left ankle on right knee, wondering if breaking the silence would be polite. I picked up my coffee cup and took a long loud slurp. Gilbert glared eloquently at me, but didn’t attempt to put his feelings into words. I shrank into my jacket and placed my mug back on his desk as if it might explode.
Moynihan leapt to his feet and paced across the office. “She might be in Le Havre now, for all I know,” he declared. He thrust his hands into the pockets of his shorts, then took them out again. “God knows where she and the kids are.”
“Try ringing her again,” Gilbert suggested.
“How can I?” he snapped. “How can I? The daft cow’s got the friggin’ mobile switched off.” He was back at his chair. He spun it round and crashed down on it, back to front, resting his chin on his forearms. “She’s never driven the Frontera before,” he informed us.
“You should be able to join her tomorrow,” Gilbert ventured.
“Where?” he demanded. “Portsmouth? France? I only popped across to arrivals to see if my parents were there.” He banged a palm against the side of his head, saying: “And my friggin’ passport’s in the glove box.”
I had to admit it; he was in a predicament. No money, no credit cards, stranded in Yorkshire without a passport, in clothes like that. I must have smirked or sniggered, because suddenly he was on his feet again, pointing at me. “You’re history,” he snarled. “You’re fuckin’ history.”
“That’s enough,” Gilbert told him. “I’ll not have you talk to one of my senior officers like that.”
“He deliberately didn’t arrest him,” Moynihan ranted. “A target criminal, and he let him go.”
“He had his reasons,” Gilbert said.
“He deliberately disobeyed instructions.”
“Listen,” I said, looking at Moynihan. “We had less than forty minutes notice that he was on a train that stopped at Heckley. Two minutes notice that he was getting off. RCS had taken all our firepower. We’d had no time to evacuate the station and I wasn’t going to risk the lives of my officers and any civilians on your say-so. We contained the situation and have isolated the target. We have also identified his accomplices. I’d call that good work.”
“God!” Moynihan cursed, “What a friggin’ hole.”
There was a knock at the door and Mr Wood snapped: “Come in!” so loudly my ankle slipped off my knee and my foot slammed down. The door opened and DS Jeff Caton emerged, leather jacket flapping, hair plastered down with sweat, grinning like a new dawn. He had a red line over his bloodshot eyes and down his cheeks, where the helmet had pressed.
“Good,” Mr Wood said. “So what’s the position, Jeff?”
“Pretty hunky-dory,” he replied, flexing the fingers of his right hand. “We followed him over the tops and he turned off on to the old Oldfield Road, then down a narrow lane that goes right over towards Dolly Foss, past the dam. You know where I mean, Boss?” he asked, turning to me.
“I think so,” I replied.
“By the way, this is DCI Moynihan from the Met RCS,” Gilbert told Jeff.
“Pleased to meet you,” Jeff said, extending a hand. Moynihan ignored it and Jeff said: “Suit yourself.”
Gilbert had acquired the appropriate OS map and we leaned over his desk as Jeff traced the route they’d taken. “That’s the house,” Jeff said, laying a finger on the map. “It looks to have a name.”
“Ne’er Do Well Farm,” Gilbert read out, because the map was the right way up for him.
“Ne’er Do Well?”
“That’s what it says.”
“Sounds appropriate.”
“What’s the layout like,” Gilbert asked.
“Couldn’t be better, I’d say,” he replied. “It’s an old farmhouse, with signs of some restoration work, so it’s in reasonable condition. There’s a dry gill behind it and about five hundred yards away, on the other side of the gill, there’s a rock outcrop, not far from a track. It’s a perfect place for an OP.”
“We won’t need an observation post,” Moynihan asserted. “As soon as we’ve enough bodies we’re lifting him. Where can I use a phone?”
He spent half an hour on the telephone in the secretary’s office and Gilbert used the time to ring the Deputy Chief Constable. His advice was to let them get on with it. Give any assistance they might ask for, but otherwise leave it to them. Jeff told us about tailing Chilcott and I made some more coffee. He’d alternated with the Fiesta, hanging about a quarter of a mile behind, and was certain they hadn’t been spotted.
“You did well,” I told him.
“He did bloody well,” Gilbert told us, nodding towards the adjoining office where Moynihan was brewing something. “All that way, without being rumbled.”
“Dressed like that,” I added.
Moynihan came back in and we fell silent. “Right,” he said. “From now on it’s an RCS shout. A team from the Met are coming up to lift him, probably on Saturday morning. In the meantime — tonight and tomorrow — number three district RCS will keep an eye on the farm. Thank you for your help, gentlemen, but we won’t require any more assistance from you. If you don’t like it, contact Chief Superintendent Matlock.”
With them it’s personal. Chilcott was as good as a cop killer, one of their target criminals, and someone at the Met wanted the pleasure of feeling his collar. It would look bad if a bunch of hicks from Heckley did the job for them.
“Good,” Gilbert said. “Good. That takes the pressure off us. All the same, we will keep a weather eye on
