“We wondered where he’d got to, and that sister of his is doing sphinx impersonations – or should that be gargoyle?” MacMillan muttered. “We raided his place yesterday and discovered the remains of Slick Grannell’s bike there. I could do with a word with the mysterious Mr Post myself.”
“I’m sure if you can get him away from the
“Hmm,” was MacMillan’s only reaction to that. “Oh, there is one thing you might be interested to learn,” he went on. “Once we’d recovered Grannell’s motorcycle we were able to compare paint traces we found on a Transit van abandoned the day after the accident. Of course, we’ll have to wait for the lab to do their stuff for it to be definitive, but our lads are pretty sure they’ll be a match.”
He paused again, as though carrying out some internal debate on how much more to tell me. Eventually, when I didn’t interrupt him, he sighed and said, “The van was reported stolen, as you would expect. But, interestingly enough, the registered owner is a property company based in Northern Ireland – the director of which is one Isobel Nash. In light of what you’ve just told me I think we might well be having a word with Mrs Nash in due course.”
“I think the person you should really be aiming to talk to is her boyfriend, Eamonn Garroway,” I said. “And watch your step when you do. His idea of a conversation tends to hurt.”
Sean tapped his watch and I nodded to show I understood.
“Sorry, Superintendent,” I said, brusque, “but we need to get moving.”
“All right, Charlie,” MacMillan said, resigned. “I should know by now that trying to talk you out of whatever it is you’re going to do is a pointless exercise so I’ll save my breath, but . . . good luck.”
“Thank you, John,” I said gravely. “We’re going to need it.”
Twenty-seven
We were just on the outskirts of Dundalk, less than ten klicks from the border, when we finally caught up with the van that had taken Jamie. If it hadn’t been for Isobel’s information, I would have begun to believe we were heading in totally the wrong direction long before then.
As it was, William and Daz voiced their doubts several times during the frantic ride north. When they had the breath to do it, that is. It made no difference to the pace Sean set. He’d abandoned his previous laid back style and was going like a lunatic. I tried to work out where the rustiness had worn off his riding abilities. Somewhere between the ferry to Belfast, and here, Sean had shed his inhibitions like a second skin.
Now he went for hairline gaps in traffic that made me wince, surviving on gut instinct and sheer brass neck. The rest of us followed him with a kind of reckless faith that where he could get through, so could we.
Nevertheless, all I could hear in my ear-piece was Daz swearing as he missed yet another collision by fractions. Paxo was probably being quite vocal with his opinion, too, but nobody could hear him. He’d given Sean his headset and radio before we set off.
“You’re going to need this more than I am,” he’d said, dumping the whole lot onto the seat of the Blackbird. Jamie’s headset had been still in his helmet, but the radio itself was missing, otherwise we would have had a spare.
Sean had looked up from carefully packing the bottles we’d prepared into his tank bag. We’d loosely wrapped them in more towels filched from the hotel bathroom to stop them clashing together.
“You’ll need this, too,” Paxo had said and handed over his Zippo lighter. “And it’s my favourite, so don’t lose it, all right?”
“Thank you,” Sean had said, and meant it. “I won’t.”
Paxo had nodded and rammed on his helmet, cutting short any further talk. He’d slotted the Ducati in behind me as we roared out of the car park. I’d glanced up at the hotel just once as we’d ridden away past the front of it.
Gleet had said he’d give us a half-hour head start before he called the cops. As we howled round the outside of Dublin and headed north, that time seemed to be trickling away. And the further we went without any sign of the Merc van, the faster the minutes seemed to be running out on us.
Unless you wanted to go the scenic route, the only clear way from Dublin up to Newry was the N1, the same road we’d taken on the way down. It was largely fast and open and what little traffic there was on a Sunday was moving quickly on it.
“That’s the one!” Sean’s voice sounded loud in my ear, edged with triumph as he recognised the registration number Gleet had given us. “Just overtake and don’t look at it too much,” he warned. “We need to get ahead of him and we don’t want to tip him off.”
The Merc driver was doing a steady sixty-five and not looking as though he was pushing hard to keep that up. We slipped past trying not to give the van more than casual attention and accelerated away hard afterwards, putting some distance between us.
I couldn’t resist a brief glance sideways into the cab as I drew alongside, taking in an almost subliminal flash of three figures spread across the front seats. None of them were Jamie.
The driver was in short sleeves and had a chunky gold bracelet around the hairy wrist nearest to the window. He had the glass wound halfway down and he was smoking. He didn’t look at all like a man who’s just been part of kidnapping, theft and murder.
We’d already been cruising in bursts over a hundred but Sean stepped it up for the next few miles, then eased off as we passed the signs for a lay-by coming up.
“That should do it,” he said. “We’ll stop up ahead.”
We all backed off accordingly. Paxo overshot me before he got the idea, braking hard to make it into the lay- by itself.
The road was almost straight at this point, slightly raised up on an embankment that dropped away sharply at either side to a stout post-and-rail fence and then into grassland. For our purposes, it couldn’t have been
