“Hang on,” Tyler said, placing a hand on her arm. There was a large crane situated just beyond the car park, from where it towered above the quay. If he wasn’t much mistaken, he could see the silhouette of a vehicle parked behind it, almost completely hidden from view.
“Let me just quickly go and check out whatever’s behind the crane,” he said, unclipping his seat belt and opening his door.
“Wait, take this,” Susie shouted after him. When Tyler returned to the car, she handed him a Maglite four-cell torch that was about twenty four inches long and made of metal.
“I didn’t think we were allowed to use these big long torches anymore,” he said with a wry grin.
An edict had been issued by the Yard that officers were only permitted to carry two-cell torches, which were half the size of the hefty beast he now held, whilst on duty. This had come about following several incidents in which officers wielding the four-cell Maglites had used them to defend themselves when situations suddenly turned nasty. Those on the receiving end had complained that the torches had inflicted far worse injuries than police issue batons would have done if used in their place. Of course, many rank and file officers had seen that as a glowing recommendation for the product, and the attempted ban had merely led to a noticeable increase in sales.
“Oh, really?” Susie said, her face a picture of innocence, “I guess I must have missed that memo.”
Shining the light in front of him, Jack carefully made his way through the darkness towards the big blue crane.
Up close, it seemed massive.
As he reached the other side, he saw that it wasn’t a Land Rover he’d glimpsed from the road, rather it was an old mini-bus, and it was owned by a local church judging from the livery on the side. As he turned to go back to the car, the wind eased off and he thought he heard faint voices coming from the quay. Could it be a couple of his detectives, following his instructions and checking out the boats that were moored there?
Jack decided to find out.
He set off in the direction that the mysterious sounds had come from, moving away from the road and working his way closer to the river. The wind had picked up again and all he could hear now was its fierce howling.
A few seconds later, having negotiated his way through some very thick foliage, he emerged onto a concrete path that ran along the side of the quay. He gingerly walked to the edge and glanced over, looking down into the murky water. To his left, a variety of boats were moored in close proximity to each other along the side of the river. A few were stern in, but most were tied with their bows facing the quay.
One boat immediately grabbed his attention. It was a thirty footer and, not only were the lights on in the wheelhouse, its diesel engines were running loud and smooth.
The voices he had heard had presumably originated from the two men who were huddled together on the wooden jetty that protruded from the quay.
He couldn’t make out much about them in the near stygian conditions, except that one was shorter than the other and seemed to be in charge. From the way he moved and the stoop of his back, Jack would have put him at sixty, give or take a few years. He wore a fisherman’s cap at an odd angle. The other man, who was taller and far bulkier, had a shaven head and carried what looked like a Pick Axe handle in his right hand.
As he watched, they were joined by a tall, slim male who wore a thick coat and a woollen hat. Jack couldn’t be sure, but he thought the first two men were white and the newcomer was black.
His heartbeat started to climb.
Had he just stumbled upon the crew of The Eclipse?
He was too far away to be able to read the boat’s name, and there was no way he could get any closer without the risk of showing out. If these were the people smugglers, they would be deeply suspicious of anyone moving about at this time of night, especially a stranger. In tight-knit communities like this, everyone knew everyone else.
Jack was about to retreat, intending to circle around them and try to make his way back from the other side, when the man in the cap lit a cigarette. For an instant, his face was bathed in light, as was the face of the third man. That was long enough for Tyler to recognise them from the stills he had seen of Kenny Meade and Deontay Garston.
A slow grin spread across his face. “Gotcha,” he said.
For a moment, Tyler stood there, watching the tip of Meade’s cigarette dance around in the cold night air like a demented firefly, and then he turned to go.
Maybe this debacle was salvageable after all.
◆◆◆
The SFO team hurriedly formed up outside their van. Dressed in their Ninja costumes, and toting enough firepower to start a small war, they checked and rechecked their weapons as they waited for the word to move forward to be given.
The briefing had been rushed. PC Collier had just returned from carrying out a covert recce of the quay, scuttling forward on his stomach like a crab until he could get no closer and then using night vision binoculars to get a clear view inside the boat. He had confirmed that the vessel Jack had spotted was The Eclipse and that it was being made ready to sail.
Apart from the three men up on the jetty, he had seen that there were only two people in the wheelhouse, a gigantic black man with dreadlocks and a stocky white guy. Tyler had asked if there had been a woman present, feeling certain that
