car.'
'Can't be his life, and that's for certain,' said Runk who was struggling to keep his seat. 'Why don't we just call up a patrol car and pull him for speeding? That way we can have him searched for whatever he's carrying.'
'Good idea,' said Hodge and had been about to send out instructions when the Corporal had taken radio refuge in the motorway tunnel and they'd lost him for twenty minutes. Hodge had spent the time blaming Runk for failing to have an accurate fix on his last position and calling for help from the second van. The Corporal's subsequent route near the power lines and below the river bank had made matters still more awkward. By then the Inspector had no idea what to do, but his conviction that he was dealing with a master-criminal had been confirmed beyond doubt.
'He's obviously passed the stuff on to a third party and if we go for a search he'll plead innocence,' he muttered.
Even Runk had to agree that all the evidence pointed that way. 'He also happens to know his car's been wired for sound,' he said. The route he's following he's got to know. So where do we go from here?'
Hodge hesitated. For a moment he considered applying for a warrant and conducting so thorough a search of the Wilts' house that even the minutest trace of heroin or Embalming Fluid would come to light. But if it didn't...'There's always the tape recorder,' he said finally. 'He may have missed that in which case we'll get the conversations he had with the pick-up artist.'
Sergeant Runk doubted it. 'If you ask me,' he said, 'the only way you're going to get solid evidence on this bugger is by sending Forensic in to do a search with vacuum-cleaners that'd suck an elephant through a drain pipe. He may be as canny as they come but those lab blokes know their onions. I reckon that's the sane way of going about it.'
But Hodge wasn't to be persuaded. He had no intention of handing the case over to someone else when it was patently obvious he was on the right track. 'We'll see what's on that tape first,' he said as they headed back towards Ipford. 'We'll give him an hour to get to sleep and then you can move in and get it.'
'And have the rest of the bloody day off,' said Runk. 'You may be one of Nature's insomniacs but if I don't get my eight hours I won't be fit for'
'I am not an insomniac,' snapped the Inspector. They drove on in silence broken only by the bleeps coming from Wilt's car. They were louder now. Ten minutes later the van was parked at the bottom of Perry Road and Wilt's car was announcing its presence from Oakhurst Avenue.
'You've got to hand it to the little sod,' said Hodge. 'I mean you'd never dream to look at him he could drive like that. Just shows you can never tell.'
An hour later Sergeant Runk stumbled out of his van and walked up Perry Road. 'It's not there,' he said when he got back.
'Not there? It's bloody well got to be,' said the Inspector, 'it's still coming over loud and clear.'
'That's as may be,' said Runk. 'For all I care the little shit's tucked up in bed with the fucking transmitters but what I do know is that it's not outside his house.'
'What about the garage?' Runk snorted.
'The garage? Have you ever had a dekko in that garage? It's a ruddy furniture depository, that garage is. Stuffed to the roof with junk when I saw it and if you're telling me he's spent the last two days shifting it all out into the back garden so as he could get his car in there...'
'We'll soon see about that,' said Hodge and presently the van was driving slowly past 45 Oakhurst Avenue and the Sergeant had been proved right.
'What did I tell you?' he said. 'I said he hadn't put it in the garage.'
'What you didn't say was he'd parked the thing there,' said Hodge, pointing through the windscreen at the mud-stained Escort which the Corporal, who hadn't been prepared to waste time
