destroyed after they had attacked a crying child and almost torn the brat to shreds. At his villa on La Gomera, a couple of Dobermans patrolled the grounds with evil on their minds. He loved them dearly.
The chance to own a lion had been too good to pass up. Nero had been sold to him by an Arab drug dealer and shipped secretly across from Morocco without bothering the Spanish authorities. Crane planned a new enclosure for Nero on La Gomera which would give the beast more space and a better environment. Maybe then Crane would find a mate for him.
He hoped Loz was looking after him properly.
The plane touched down without a hitch. Crane passed through Customs, no problem, and was met by a driver on the other side. Five minutes later he was in the rear of a Ford Granada speeding northwards. He picked up the mobile phone and began to make some arrangements. He wanted to conduct his business swiftly and get back to Tenerife as soon as possible.
The last collection was made at lunchtime. The discreet but heavily armoured security van drew up outside the bank in Carlisle. Two guards jumped out of the front cab, leaving one man at the wheel and another locked inside the rear of the van. All the men were dressed in identical protective clothing: full-face crash helmets, bulletproof Kevlar vests and body armour to protect arms, legs and groins. Even the one inside the back of the van was required by strict company regulations to wear this outfit at all times, although he rarely wore the helmet.
Following a prearranged signal, the two guards were allowed into the side door of the bank. The money was already waiting for them in four suitcase-sized boxes with carrying handles. They were locked, of course. The guards picked up the containers and signed the receipt. A minute later they were outside again. The shute on the side of the van opened and the boxes were slid quickly into the waiting hands of the guard inside. He stacked them up alongside all the other boxes, just under fifty in total, collected from banks all over Southern Scotland and Northern England.
The guards jumped into the front cab. One of them slid on to the seat behind the driver. The doors were locked and the van set off.
Within minutes they were travelling south on the M6.
The driver was a man called Colin Hodge. He gave his workmates a sidelong glance as they chatted with relief. The last collection meant there had been no hitches and now they were on the motorway, it was plain sailing. Hodge smiled thinly, trying hard to mask his evil thoughts.
He turned his attention back to the driving.
His heart was beating fast and he was sweating. The palms of his hands were slimy and damp, making gripping the steering wheel difficult.
None of the security guards knew the exact amount they were carrying in the van. However, it did not take too much discreet nosying about, a few questions here and there, a little listening at doorways, plus the professional guesstimates of people familiar with heaving large amounts of cash about, to make a pretty good stab at the size of the load, all of which was in used, crinkled, sometimes damaged — but eminently serviceable — Bank of England or Scotland notes which were being transported to be incinerated to nothing.
Hodge nearly whimpered in frustration at the thought.
What a waste of perfectly good money!
He pressed his foot on the accelerator and increased the speed of the van to sixty, the maximum it was permitted to travel. He tried to keep his mind focused on the three lanes ahead, blocking the thought from his mind that very soon, if all went well, some of that money would be bypassing the incinerator and going into his pockets instead.
Henry Christie stared at the grease-laden meal in front of him. Typical transport-cafe fare. The Trucker’s All- day Breakfast Special. No wonder, he thought, so many drivers died of heart attacks. All that cholesterol must clog up their veins. The new, health-conscious Henry Christie, the man who had shed half a stone, who had motivated himself to run for twenty minutes every day, found the thought terrifying. His alter ego, Frank Jagger, however, was not so fussy. He tucked in with relish, whilst keeping a wary eye on the comings and goings around him.
He was sitting in a cafe on the A580 East Lancs Road, south of Leigh, near to Junction 23 of the M6. It was an establishment catering almost exclusively for long-distance lorry drivers. There must have been over sixty heavy goods vehicles outside in the huge lorry park, and the cafe itself was bubbling with the last dregs of the lunchtime trade. Although he was not certain, Henry suspected that Jacky Lee had some financial interest in the place. Even if he hadn’t, it was an ideal place to do business, particularly involving large shipments of stolen goods, because it was one of those busy, stop-start places where everyone and everything is transient.
Henry cut into a thick, burned sausage and placed a segment of it in his mouth. It was like biting into a piece of cinder. He nearly spat it out. Instead he washed it down with a mouthful of tea from the cracked mug. It was two in the afternoon. Henry was expecting to meet his contact here soon, after which he was supposed to call Jacky and say, ‘Game on.’
At quarter past, a Mercedes 7.5 ton Rigid Box Van pulled off the main road and stopped in a line of HGVs. Henry watched the driver hop down from the cab and get into a laughing conversation with a couple of other good buddies as he walked towards and into the cafe. Henry smiled inside, glad to see his old friend Terry Briggs. Still on the National Crime Squad after seven or eight years, having been an undercover cop on and off for about half that time. It had been the combination of Terry and Henry that had put Jacky Lee on the path to prison six years before.
Henry watched Terry and thought he was good, bloody good. The lorry driver legend was one of Terry’s undercover roles and he played it like a natural. If anyone is playing a role, they have to be at ease with it and Terry had trained as an HGV driver before joining the cops, but had never actually worked as one. When the chance of going U/C as a trucker presented itself, he jumped at it. But there is far more to being a lorry driver than simply holding a licence. There is the culture, the camaraderie, knowing things about places and people; there are the mannerisms, they way you fit in; there is the language and the accompanying body language, the unwritten dress codes. Terry had them all off by heart, slipped easily into the persona, and no one could begin to tell that out of the role he was a shy, retiring guy, quiet and studious.
Terry bought himself a Trucker’s Dinner — plate meat pie, chips, peas, thick gravy, three rounds of bread and butter and a mug brim-full of tea. He came across to Henry’s table and sat down opposite.
‘ Frank,’ Terry nodded.
‘ Eric, how are you, old mate?’ Henry reached across and shook Eric Barnes by the hand. They never, ever called each other by their real names, even when they were a hundred per cent certain they were not being overheard. To do that was a dangerous game. One slip could easily mean at best blown cover, at worst… Both men always stayed deeply in role.
‘ I’m good.’
‘ You got it?’ Henry went straight to the point.
Terry nodded.
Henry stood up, reaching for his mobile which was clipped to the belt of his jeans. He left the cafe and made a call.
Once again, Henry was feeling uncomfortable and vulnerable — two feelings which often sit alongside the term ‘undercover’. The result of the ‘Game on’ phone call he’d made to Jacky Lee was that, forty minutes later he was sitting in the Jaguar in a lay-by a couple of miles east of the transport cafe, tapping the steering wheel nervously with his fingertips.
The tinted-window BMW which had tailed him the other night around Manchester drew in behind. Henry watched it through the rearview mirror. It looked a sleek and sinister car, all black. There was a blast from the horn. Henry’s nostrils flared. He got out of the XJS and walked slowly back towards the BMW. A rear window opened and Jacky Lee shoved his face towards Henry.
‘ What’s going on?’ Henry, now in role as Frank Jagger, wanted to know. He placed both hands on the shiny roof of the car and leaned in. The front doors opened and Lee’s two minders slid out. They stood behind Henry, one on either side of him. He looked up and eyed them with disdain. Real fear, however, gripped his balls; he could feel his testicle sac contracting in his underpants.
‘ I’m still a nervous man, almost paranoid actually,’ Lee explained. ‘And I’ve made a solemn vow never to
