It was nearly 2 p.m., and Roger unwrapped the second sandwich and can of Coke. The next day, he would come better prepared with a flask of coffee he would make before leaving his new home.
It was close to three hours before Kevin drove out of the pub car park. He turned right, heading back the way he had come. Once again, Roger followed at a discreet distance. The 4x4 seemed to be wandering from side to side like the driver was drunk. Roger didn’t know how much Kevin had had to drink, but he thought you wouldn’t spend three hours in a pub and only sip one pint.
From what he had learned of the O’Connor family, they liked their drink. This had been the reason his daughter had been killed. In court, they said the police officers visited Kevin’s home after the accident and taken him to the police station where he was given a drink-drive alcohol test and it had been positive. Even after the elapsed time, he was still three times over the limit. If something wasn’t done to stop him, it was only a matter of time before he did the same to someone else. Another incident involving the son or daughter of some other unfortunate family.
Roger spent the time wisely, sitting in the layby opposite the Lion and Lamb. He used his phone to search eBay for covert vehicle tracking devices and found a listing for ‘Covert Magnetic GPS Tracker TK104’. The company listed them at £85 each and the sales blurb said ‘The 104-Pro is supplied ready to use out of the box and once powered, it will automatically start reporting its location and speed along with many other useful parameters to our cloud tracking software GPSLive’.
So rather than try to follow the Transit or any of Kevin’s other vehicles and risk being seen if he could manage to attach one of the devices to the vehicles he could follow at a much greater distance to avoid being noticed. He ordered three of the devices. That way, given a chance he could attach them to the different vehicles Kevin used. He’d seen the Transit and the 4x4 but from the court case it seemed the vehicle Kevin had been driving on the day he hit Julie and Sarah was a vehicle not registered in Kevin’s name. It had been stolen in Birmingham a few days earlier.
During his online search, Roger also purchased what the website described as a Travel Continence Aid. In other words a plastic bottle with an attachment he could use to pee in to.
After following Kevin back to Fen Road, Roger drove the short distance to his new address. He just needed to find a local shop to buy some fresh milk and bread.
Chapter Eighteen
TRACKING
The next morning, with only a short distance to travel, Roger arrived and parked up on Fen Road as he had done the previous morning.
To be on the safe side, he arrived at 6.30 a.m. Based on the previous day, he expected the Transit to leave at around 7.30. However, at 8.20 there was still no movement of any vehicles. He needed to have a better view of what was happening inside. That would be tricky, but Google maps had shown the house backed on to the River Stern, and there was a public footpath that ran past the back of the house.
Roger decided if no one was going to leave, it was worth having a look around the back. Maybe there was a chance to set up a surveillance camera so he could learn more about the activities of Kevin O’Connor.
One thing was certain. Taking on this man and his family was not going to be easy. It certainly wasn’t like the movies where you have a computer wizard who can hack into systems and traffic cameras and follow suspects across town. This was going to be far more complex and time-consuming. But nothing was going to put Roger off. He was going to find evidence of this man’s illegal activities and present a watertight case to the police so they could take him to court.
The only thing Roger had going for him was the fact he was a wealthy man. He could afford it and was prepared to spend whatever it took to destroy this evil family before they hurt someone else.
The pathway from Fen Road down to the river was about fifty yards along from Kevin’s house. As Roger got to the end of the path and proceeded to walk towards the house, he noticed what looked like Kevin unloading boxes from a canal boat that, from what he could see, was moored directly behind the property. Rather than risk being recognised, Roger turned left and walked in the opposite direction. About 400 yards further on was a bridge. It might have been a good idea to get a better view from the other side of the river, especially as there were open fields over that side and behind the path on that side was a raised bank. That would give Roger a better chance of seeing what Kevin was up to.
Roger walked over the bridge and stood behind one of the grey metal pillars so he could observe what was happening without being seen. He wondered what Kevin was up to. Roger was fairly certain it couldn’t be legal the way they were skulking round. He wondered what was in the boxes.
He watched as Kevin and two extremely scruffy men unloaded the boxes and take them through a gate in the high metal fence that stands at the rear of the property. In total, Roger counted twenty-seven boxes but he knew there must have been more unloaded before he arrived. Once they finished,
