better than cure. OK, it made a better statistic and certainly put a bigger feather in the police cap, and in Stan Rose's cap in particular, if they got a positive result by taking Mate Polchard's gang in the act. But no matter how fast they moved in on trouble, there was always a chance the security guards could get hurt. Better by far in his opinion to have flashing lights and screaming sirens before and after the van, sending all the low-life scurrying back to their murky crevices.
But that was before the discovery of Lee's corpse.
Now as he tracked the South Yorkshire car on his Thunderbird, he was longing for the expected ambush to occur, to put bodies in reach of his stick and his hands.
Ahead a huge sign with a direction arrow said Estotiland – Visitors and a quarter of a mile further on the slip road slid away to the left. Good planning that, he approved. The complex itself was five miles further, but feeding the visitors off so early considerably reduced the chance of a tailback extruding dangerously on to the main highway. Even as he let these thoughts of traffic control flow across the surface of his mind, he knew he was trying to damp down what the Estotiland sign really said to him. And I need you now tonight… and I need you more than ever… and the foul canal water forcing itself down Lee's throat and into his belly, his lungs…
He shook his head violently as though shaking it free of water and forced his attention back to Operation Serpent, scanning the way ahead for the first sign of danger.
Peter Pascoe stood on the threshold of Franny Roote's flat.
Getting the key had been easy. Getting away from Mrs Thomas, the key's keeper, had been more difficult. But after suffering a lengthy and seamless encomium of her lovely young neighbour, Francis, who was such a parcel of virtues you could have sent him as gift-aid, he had finally been released by the announcement of the next horse-race on her television set.
Now as he stood there looking into what he thought of as his enemy's lair, he wondered once more, not with self-doubt but with amazement at the gullibility of his fellows, why it was that he always seemed to be swimming against a tide of Rootophilia.
He also wondered what the hell he imagined he might gain by coming here.
Indeed it occurred to him that the mention of the spare key might simply be a lure to make him waste his time, the kind of stratagem the youth loved.
Well, if he was going to waste time he might as well waste it quickly!
He stepped inside and began a methodical search.
Marcus Belchamber stood before one of the most treasured items in his study – a life-size model wearing the uniform and equipment of a military tribune of the late empire.
On his desk stood a high-powered radio illegally tuned in to police frequencies through which he had surfed until he hit the one that interested him.
Operation Serpent! What dull plod had thought that one up? It was like saying, if you want to keep track of our anti-heist plans, here's the channel you should be listening to.
It did mean, however, that either the Sheffield grass or poor little Lee had said enough to alert even a dull plod.
But according to Polchard it didn't matter that they knew. In fact the plan was always going to assume they knew anyway. But not of course everything.
He was, for such a terrifying man, comfortingly reassuring.
For all that, Belchamber had a packed bag in the boot of his Lexus and a plane ticket to Spain in the glove compartment. When trouble comes, the professional criminal rings his clever lawyer. But who does the clever lawyer ring? No, at the first sign of things going wrong, he was going to vanish and oversee developments from a safe distance.
The uniform was necessarily eclectic; a bit here, an item there, put together over many years and at the expense of many thousands of pounds. Only the cloth and the fine purple plume in the helmet weren't original. He was particularly fond of the helmet. He liked to put it on at moments of crisis. When he was alone, of course. The only person who ever saw him wearing the uniform in part or whole was the dead boy.
Don't think about him.
With the helmet on, he sometimes had the fancy he was that hypothesized ancestor, Marcus Bellisarius. Certainly he seemed to see things more dearly when he wore it, perhaps with the ruthless eye of the military tactician, balancing so many men lost against so much ground gained.
He took the helmet down now. Was something happening? The voices on the radio no longer sounded quite so bored and routine.
He raised the helmet high and placed it on his head.
Stanley Rose was beginning to sweat. He hoped his colleagues wouldn't notice, but when you've got five big men packed together into a medium saloon, sweat is hard to hide. If they did notice, they'd know the reason. And behind their grimly blank faces, they'd be grinning. When Operation Serpent got the go-ahead, he'd revelled in being The Man and he hadn't been able not to let it show. Try as he might, he knew that at briefings he'd come on strong, always having the last word, making sure everyone knew whose show they were in. Christ, when he'd gone to the bog, if there'd been any of the team there, he'd even pissed with more authority I
Logically, if the Hoard got safely delivered to Mid-Yorkshire, that was a job well done. But it wouldn't read like that back in Sheffield. If he'd been a little more tentative in his approach, he might have got away with some heavy ribbing. But when you'd strutted your stuff as The Man, a no-show with its expense of time and effort and manpower was going to be chalked against you almost as heavily as a successful heist.
They were approaching the Estotiland underpass. Another twenty minutes beyond that would see them home. Polchard! he screamed mentally. Where the fuck are you?
A hundred and fifty yards ahead. Mate Polchard back at Rose's car through the mirror of the security van.
The pigs were still keeping their distance. He'd banked on this. Not for them the plain fare of successfully escorting the Hoard to the Mid-Yorkshire Heritage Centre. No, they wanted to dip their snouts in the great steaming trough of arrests, and bodies in cells, and headlines in papers. But they hadn't thought to escort the empty van down from Mid-Yorkshire. Forcing it to divert into the Estoti service area off the underpass had been easy. And while the strong-arms in his team dealt with the driver and guard, the substitute vehicle, its call-sign signal carefully adjusted, emerged from the southern end of the underpass.
Reversing the process required a bit more guile.
'Keep it steady’ he said to his driver.
They'd gradually diminished their speed for the past quarter-hour so that now they were barely doing forty- five. Were the pigs suspicious? Why should they be? In any case it was too late now, he thought, focusing his gaze beyond the trailing car.
The pantechnicon coming up fast in the outside lane had no problem in getting past the police car just as the van began its shallow descent into the underpass. Signs warned, no stopping or overtaking, but the pantechnicon flashed its indicator after passing the police saloon and began to pull in front.
'Plonker!' yelled Rose. 'Get past him, for Christ's sake.'
His driver began to flash to pull out, but there was a white transit van slowly overtaking him now, blocking the manoeuvre.
Polchard watched all this in his mirror, then said 'Go,' when the saloon was completely out of sight.
The driver rammed down the accelerator.
Ahead was a sign with an arrow pointing off left, saying estotiland service area – authorized vehicles only. The security van roared along the slip road. Further on, down the exit slip road from the service area, the original Praesidium van joined the underpass road at a sedate pace.
'It's all right, guv, he's turning off,' said Rose's driver reassuringly as the pantechnicon began to move over on to the exit slip road. 'No need to worry. There's the van up ahead.'
'Where the fuck did you expect it to be? Vanished into thin air?' snarled Rose, annoyed to have let his anxiety show so clearly. 'Close up a bit, will you? And try not to let any other fucker get between us.'
'… fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen… there they are,' said Berry as the blip reappeared on the computer screen. 'Not long now. Beginning to look like much ado about nowt, isn't it?'
'Yeah’ said Hat Bowler. 'Nowt.'
