“By all means do,” Tyler said, “but I’m confident that the number’s going to belong to a phone Susie’s bringing back from Plaistow right now. It was in Dawlish’s possession when he was arrested, and it suddenly started ringing a few minutes ago, with Garston’s 777 number showing up on the Caller ID. That’s what she was telling me about when you came in.”
Parker nodded thoughtfully. “That makes sense. I’ll still get the subscriber check carried out anyway, for the sake of thoroughness, and when Susie arrives back at the office, I’ll have a little look through the phone’s recent call history to see who else it’s been in contact with.”
As soon as Reggie departed, Tyler picked up his phone and called Dillon. The big lug had gone down to Sussex to lead the team from the front line. Jack wasn’t happy about the crew of the signal detector van taking a lunch break, and he wondered if Dillon was aware of this. His view was that it would be far more productive if they grabbed some sandwiches and ate them on the go, and he wanted Dillon to convey his displeasure to them in no uncertain terms.
◆◆◆
By eight o’clock the sun had long since bid them farewell for the day. Not only was it dark and cold, but in Sussex it had started to rain. Although the day had started out full of promise and excitement, the detector van’s failure to locate the suspects had quickly dented morale.
There was only so much that could be achieved by driving around the area in the forlorn hope of spotting the fugitives themselves, so Dillon had radioed the five cars that Tyler had deployed to East Sussex and told them to RVP in the car park of The Bell public house in nearby Iden. He had decided against choosing anywhere closer to Rye in case Meade saw them and got spooked.
“This place is in the arse end of nowhere,” Charlie White complained as they waited for the others to arrive. “It’s very pretty but I wouldnae wanna live around here.”
“To be fair, I don’t suppose they’d want you,” Dillon said. “With a face like that, you’d probably scare all the kids.”
“I cannae help my nose being a funny shape,” White objected.
“I know, but having a hooter that sits at a right angle to the rest of your mush doesn’t do you any favours, does it? No offence, Whitey, but you make Quasimodo look like Sean Connery.”
“Aye, well, at least I don’t resemble a poor man’s Arnold Schwarzenegger,” the Scotsman fired back.
Dillon laughed. “No, mate, you don’t. You just look like an ugly man with a bent nose and bowed legs.”
“My legs are no’ bowed. They’re –”
Dillon’s phone rang, killing the banter. The caller ID said: Number withheld, so it was obviously Job-related. “Dillon speaking,” he said.
“Dill, it’s Jack. How’s it going at your end?”
Dillon barked out a mirthless laugh. “It’s not,” he said. “I’ve just about had a belly full of Rye and its surrounds.”
“Look, I know they’ve already been at it all day, but I want the detector van to do one more circuit for us before they go. Who knows, maybe this time around they’ll be lucky? In the meantime, we’ve had a think about this, and come up with a cunning plan.”
Dillon responded with all the enthusiasm of a man waiting to have a tooth extracted. “Oh good, I can hardly wait to hear the details.”
Tyler ignored the sarcasm. “We know from the signal detector van’s earlier findings that there are two little hamlets where the 777 phone is most likely to be holed up. I want you to send a couple of units to each one and deploy people on foot to cover the addresses visually. When your troops are in place, Reg is going to send a text from Dawlish’s phone to Garston’s, saying he dropped something outside the cottage and asking Garston to go out and have a look for him. With luck, we’ll see which house he comes out of.”
“Good plan,” Dillon said, “but aren’t you forgetting something?”
“What?”
“If Garston’s got enough of a signal to receive the message, the detector van will be able to identify the address without your text message. If he hasn’t got any signal, then he won’t even receive your message and he won’t come out to play for us.”
“Believe it or not, we have considered that,” Jack said, sounding irked. “But Reg has spoken to the SPOC at the TIU, who’s spoken to the service provider, and the consensus of opinion is that the problem might just be patchy reception. They think the detector van’s having difficulty locking down the phone’s location because the coverage is sporadic and it keeps dropping off the grid when the van’s in the area. If they’re right, and I’m hoping they are, then a text message might take a little while to get through, but Garston will get it eventually. When it does, we might be able to identify the house they’re in.”
“As long as Garston goes out to check and doesn’t just ignore it,” Dillon pointed out.
Tyler sounded very tired, but there was resolve in his voice. “Dill, we blew out last night because Winston left London before the detector van was able to deploy. We’ve had no luck all day because the signal is lousy down there. We’re running out of options, and if this doesn’t work, we’re reduced to relying on Winston meeting Meade at his boat later tonight. What alternative do I have but to try this out?”
Dillon sighed in resignation. “Okay, we’ll give it a go, but it’s just started to rain down here, and
