hovered on the road where I'd parked the Merc, at more or less exactly the location of the lay-by.
'Has to be the Firm . . . The device wasn't the only thing they put in my car.'
'Tracker?'
I nodded. They'd probably slipped it behind the Merc's bumper or under the chassis, held in place by a strong magnet, maybe even connected to the car battery. Fuck it, who cared? Lynn, maybe – it meant both of us were targets. They were trying to kill him as well.
I pulled the mobile away from the laptop and threw it out of the window as Lynn missed the apex of another bend, confirming that the only thing he really knew how to drive was a desk. My own mobile swiftly followed.
I asked him about the Leptis message, but all I got was a blank stare. 'Why would Vauxhall Cross need to use you to lead them here? I draw a pension; they know where I live. So why not just hit you and me separately? Why the message?'
We screamed through another village. I couldn't stop myself doing some phantom braking as he narrowly missed a couple of parked cars.
A sign for Holt flashed by. The dashboard clock said nearly 2 a.m. Lynn went straight across a raised roundabout on the edge of town.
'OK, slow down. We're out of the shit, at least for the time being. Drive normally now. I need an ATM, not a fucking ambulance.'
40
We reached Holt and parked up outside Lloyds on the main street.
'Wait here, engine on.'
It was a nice, well-to-do town: lots of candle shops, cafes and estate agencies. That meant people around here probably liked to be nice too.
I got ?400 out on both my cards and was back in the car asap, now in the front passenger seat. I snapped my cards in half.
'Where's the charity shops?'
We went down the High Street and into a small square. Lynn drove slowly while I ran backwards and forwards between the car and the shop doorways and threw the nice people's bags of cast-offs into the back of the car like it was a rubbish cart. I didn't care if any CCTV saw us. We'd be shedding another layer of skin soon.
'OK, out of town now, towards Norwich – and slowly. How far is that?'
'About twenty miles.'
As we headed back into the darkness I hit the interior lights and ripped open the bin-liners.
'What about your family? You'd better phone them and get them out of the way.'
He shook his head and a muscle twitched briefly in his jaw. 'No need.'
'OK. So now we get dressed and cleaned up. Then we dump the car and train it to London.'
'I don't know what we can—'
'Need to know, Colonel, remember?' I grinned. 'And you don't need to know anything until you need to know it. Don't want you giving away the game plan.'
I gave him the once-over. The blood on his head had dried a little and the swelling had begun. It wouldn't have been that noticeable if he'd had any hair to cover it. 'Right now we need a nice quiet stretch of river so we can clean ourselves up, then we're going to need to find you a hat.'
He seemed to relax again and pointed at the rear-view. 'You're no oil painting yourself, Stone. If I need a hat, you need the full
His foot went back on the pedal.
'And slow down,' I yelled. 'We don't want to get stopped.'
We had to dump the car once we got into the city – somewhere it wouldn't stick out and get pinged too quickly. Main streets and multi-storey car parks were out, because of the CCTV, but we couldn't leave it anywhere too isolated either – it would stick out like a sore thumb.
'When's the first train?'
Lynn finally lifted his foot off the gas.
'Not sure; it used to be some time before six – to get into London for the start of the working day.'
The clock on the dash read 02.38.
41
Norwich
0334 hrs
I kept about two hundred behind Lynn as we walked into the city centre. It was bitterly cold. His breath hung
