motorcycle bucked, a leg tried to steady it but the bike spun sideways and shot from under its rider. Policemen were running towards him, guns pointing, shouting orders across each other.
The leather clad figure rolled over onto his back, one leg smeared with mud.
“Stay still!” Someone shouted.
He stayed still. In seconds he was surrounded by enough guns to blow a battleship out of the water, except we’re taught that you can never have enough. And I’d proved it to be true, once, a long time ago.
“Don’t move.” Hands reached down, pressed against him, passed over his limbs and torso, feeling for hard objects.
“Now, sit up, slowly.”
The figure sat up, very slowly.
“Now, very slowly, remove your helmet.”
A gloved hand moved deliberately towards the chinstrap and fumbled with the fastening. Then the other hand came up and started to ease the helmet over the rider’s head, twisting it from side to side, forcing it upwards over flattened ears. A chin emerged, then a nose and eyes as it lifted clear. The rider’s hair was still inside the helmet. When it was high enough the hair fell down, a cascade of shoulder-length peroxide — blonde locks that would have looked good on any Page Three girl. “Was that slowly enough?” she asked with a smile.
“Oh fuck!” Cox exclaimed. I couldn’t have put it any better myself.
I phoned the nick and told them what had happened. T2 stopped the BMW, driven by Carl Faulkner, which meant that Chilcott was in the Land Rover and had probably fled cross-country, bypassing our roadblocks. Deborah Faulkner, the motorcyclist, was handcuffed and taken to Leeds, her husband to a different nick in that city, but they both played dumb, refusing to answer questions. The helicopter came thumping over the hill, somewhere up in the clouds, and made a wide banking turn before heading back towards the valley and civilisation.
Cox liaised with our control, with number three district RCS and with the Met RCS before admitting: “That’s it. It’s out of our hands, now.”
“I’m going to the house,” I said, walking in that direction. I’d almost reached it when the depleted convoy overtook me.
Barry Moynihan and the rest of the observation team had already arrived, walking across the moor from their overnight position. He’d borrowed a waterproof coat and leggings, but was still wearing the sandals with the rugged soles and more buckles and straps than an S amp; M salesman’s sample case. His colleagues were brandishing guns as if they were no more lethal than walking sticks, and the whole scene could have been newsreel footage from the latest East European war zone.
“We’ve swept the house, Mr Cox,” a tall guy with a bristly moustache and a military bearing said as he came out of the front door, “and it’s clean.” He was carrying a Remington pump action shotgun, probably loaded with CS gas cartridges.
“Thanks, Bruce,” Cox replied. “Let’s see what we can find, then.”
“Gentlemen,” I called, raising my voice above the hubbub. They all turned to me. “Can I remind you that this is a crime scene,” I continued, “and ought to be inspected with that in mind, by the appropriate people.”
“Don’t worry, Charlie,” Cox said. “We’ll be careful.” He wandered inside followed by his acolytes, and after a few gestures of helplessness I followed. They moved through the kitchen and into the living rooms. I headed for the fire burning in the iron range and stood with my back to it. They could trample on as much evidence as they wanted, but this was as far as I was going. The house had triple glazing, but any attempts at modernisation ended with that. The kitchen floor was stone-flagged, and ashes from the fire had spread away from the hearth, crunching under your feet as you moved around. All the furniture was bare wood, working class antique, and the sink was a deep stone set-pot.
Barry Moynihan came in and looked around. “They’re all through there,” I told him.
He joined me by the fire, saying: “I’m perished,” as he balanced on one leg and tried to dry a soaking foot against the flames.
Suspended from the ceiling by a system of strings and pulleys was a rack filled with clean washing, hung up to dry. I pulled a wooden chair from beneath the table and stood on it. The washing was dry. I removed a threadbare towel and a pair of hiking socks from the rack and handed them to Moynihan. “Put them on,” I told him, “or you’ll catch pneumonia.”
He took them from me and sat on another chair, drying his feet. When he’d finished he stood up, stomped around a few steps, then pronounced: “That’s better. Thanks.”
“We got off to a bad start,” I said.
“Yeah, well.”
“Have you contacted your wife?”
“Yeah. She went home. At first it sounded a daft thing to do, but I suppose it was for the best. I’ve spoken to her a couple of times and she’s calmed down. Now I’m hoping the firm will recompense me.”
“They ought to,” I told him.
There was a shout from the next room that sounded like my name. We stood there waiting for it again, until Cox appeared in the doorway and said: “We’ve identified Chilcott’s target, Charlie. Come and look at this.”
We followed him through into what was the living room. It was gloomy, even with all the lights on, furnished with overstuffed easy chairs and flowery standard lamps. Centrepiece of the room was a highly polished table that was no-doubt worth a bob or two, and spread over it was a series of black and white photographs.
“We found them in this,” Cox said, showing me a cardboard folder. “What do you think?”
The cops around the table parted to make room for me. There were six pictures, arranged in a big square. Top left was simply the frontage of a house, such as an estate agent might produce. Next one, a male figure was emerging from the door at the side of the house. After that it was his car, focusing on the numberplate. Then the man himself, stooping to unlock the car, followed by two more of him behind the wheel.
I picked up the last print and held it towards the light. It was taken through the side window of the car, and the driver was completely unaware of it. Next time, it might be a gun, blowing his brains out. Somebody coughed.
“It’s me,” I said, looking at Cox. He didn’t reply. Everyone was silent, empty expressions on their faces. “It’s me,” I repeated. I placed the photo back on the table, carefully aligning it with its fellows. “Why would anyone want to kill me?” I wondered out loud, and I swear they all shrank back a step.
Chapter Nine
Four days is the magic figure. The chopper clocked the Land Rover entering the multi-storey car-park in Heckley and that was as much as they could do. It was later found neatly parked on the next-to-top floor, with the doors unlocked. It had, needless to say, been stolen two weeks earlier. From the car-park there are covered walkways leading to the shopping mall and the old town area, and other exits at street level. He could have taken any one of them. Within minutes the place was flooded with Heckley’s finest, all twelve of them, but Mr Chilcott had vanished. We suspect he had a safe house somewhere, and was holed-up in that.
Back at the farm I’d requested assistance from Heckley nick, which didn’t come because they were busy, and from the scenes of crime people, who never have anything better to do on a Saturday lunchtime. Having a fatwa on me earned a certain amount of respect from the RCS team, so when I ordered them all out of the farmhouse they did as they were told. They piled into their vehicles and hot-footed it to Heckley, desperate to salvage some credibility. I stayed behind and they kindly left a car and three men with me, just in case. We stoked the fire and made coffee.
Four days is the time a terrorist on the run is trained to stay concealed. The police employ psychologists who have worked out that a fugitive would stay underground for three days before making his bid for freedom. After that time, we assume we’ve lost him. So the terrorists enlist more expensive psychologists who tell them to hide for four days before legging it. Fortunately our anti-terrorist people have become wise to this, and they brought it to our attention. OK, Chilcott wasn’t a terrorist, but they all download the same manuals.
Nigel extended his hands towards me so that I could extricate my new pint from between his fingertips. He
