“Wasn’t Star Lane one of the few roads that got missed when the night duty had to abandon the street search to rush off and deal with a fatal RTA?” Charlie White asked.
“It was,” Dillon said, “and although our illustrious leader –” he nodded towards Tyler “– was desperate for us to send staff down there this morning to finish it off, we had well and truly run out of people by that stage.”
“Anyway,” Wilkins continued, “Rodney’s nickname is Rodent, as in the name that the HEMS pilot overheard.”
“Thank you, Tom,” Jack said. He took a deep breath and studied the faces of his subordinates one by one. “I think it’s fair to say that almost all of the pieces of the puzzle are now in place. On Monday afternoon, all we knew for sure was that Winston had escaped from the RLH with the aid of two unknown suspects in a hijacked helicopter. After it put down in wasteland near Canning Town the trail went cold. Since then, through sheer hard work and tenacity, we’ve worked out that someone called Rodent picked them up in a red Rover 216. We’ve identified Winston’s helpers as Deontay Garston and Angela Marley, and we’ve worked out they’re using mobile telephones that end with the respective numbers 777 and 321. Thanks to the TIU, we know that these numbers have been predominantly pinged by the cell covering Star Lane, going to sleep there every night and waking up there every morning. Finally, we’ve received information that Rodent is Rodney Dawlish and he lives in the vicinity of Star Lane. When you add all this information up, it’s not unreasonable to conclude that Winston, Garston, and Marley are staying with Rodent at his place in or near Star Lane. Unfortunately, we don’t know the actual address. What we do know is that at some point overnight, the gang are planning to drive Winston down to the coast where, presumably, he’ll hop onto a boat and be smuggled across the channel. Without wishing to be overly dramatic, I think that the manhunt for Winston and his odious little crew is likely to reach its zenith tonight, and I’m really worried that if we don’t have him in custody by the morning, it’ll be because he’s slipped the net and made it to France.”
Steve Bull frowned. “Surely, if the TIU is still live monitoring their phones, it’ll be simple enough for us to follow them?”
Jack pulled a face like someone had just passed wind. “We’ll be able to follow their general direction, Steve, yes. But we’ll be playing catch up every step of the way, and we’ll only know the rough area the handsets are in, not their specific location. If Rodney drives somewhere remote and Winston jumps straight in a boat when they get there, we won’t be able to get to them in time to stop him. And consider this: what happens if they split up or turn their phones off or go into an area without reception?”
“I hadn’t considered any of that,” Bull admitted, sounding depressed.
“I have,” Jack said. “I’ve been thinking about little else since Tom came in and told me that the girl had called the MIR.”
“So, what do we do?” Dillon asked. “Knowing you as I do, I’m confident that you have something in mind.”
“There are two questions we have to address,” Jack told him. “Firstly, what’s our plan of attack to arrest them all tonight, before they leave Rodent’s address? Secondly, what’s our back up plan if we miss them and they set off for the coast?”
“Oh, is that all?” Carol asked, managing to sound underwhelmed. “And here was me thinking this was going to be hard.”
Even Tyler had to laugh at that.
“Perhaps it’ll be easier if I tell you my initial thoughts and we can build on that,” Jack offered.
“Och, I can hardly wait,” Charlie White said with a wry grin.
“I’ve had Reg check in with the TIU to make sure that they’re going to continue to live monitor the 777 and 321 numbers for us,” Tyler said. “They’ve been appraised of the situation and they’ve promised to continue the live monitoring throughout the night as long as we pay the overtime bill.”
Dillon rolled his eyes. “It always comes down to money,” he said, scathingly.
“Right now, both phones are still in the same cell where they’ve been for the majority the past two days,” Jack continued.
“The cell that covers Star Lane?” Steve asked.
“That’s right,” Jack confirmed. “The chances are that they won’t dare move Winston until the early hours when the roads are at their quietest. With that in mind, DI Dillon’s arranged for the Technical Support Unit to deploy a signal detector van before midnight to see if it can narrow down the location of the two phones to a specific address. Dill, what’s the score with that?”
“Sorry – a what?” Wilkins asked, looking confused. He wasn’t the only one. Carol and Charlie White appeared equally bewildered.
“It’s a van equipped with directional tuning equipment that can search for individual IMEIs and isolate where phone signals are coming from,” Dillon explained. “Unfortunately, they can’t deploy until after eleven p.m., but that might work in our favour as telephone traffic will be considerably lighter by then.”
“I would have been much happier if we could have got them out on the streets for
