'Want a lift back?'
'No, I'll walk. Let's see what's happening.' I undipped my mobile phone. 'Oops,' I said. 'Switched off. No wonder we've had a quiet morning.' I pushed the slider across to the red dot and pressed a memory button.
'It's Charlie,' I said. 'Anything happening?' There was a message for me. 'Did he say what he wanted?' He hadn't. 'Right,' I said, 'I'll ring him when I get back.'
I must have looked thoughtful as I clipped the phone back on my belt.
'Problems?' Dave asked.
'I don't know. Someone called Keith Crosby wants me to give him a ring.'
'The MP?' he asked, his eyes wide.
'Ex-MP. I'm not sure.'
'Bloody 'ell. It's been a long time since we saw him.'
'Hasn't it? I wonder what he wants.'
I was deep in thought as I walked back to the office. Keith Crosby had fallen from grace twenty-odd years earlier, and I'd been at the centre of things. The tall girl stepped out of Top Shop right in front of me and I banged into her. She told me to look where I was going and I said sorry. The tune blasting from within was Marvin Gaye's 'I Heard it Through the Grapevine', number one in 1969, and for a few seconds I lost track of time and place. It had been a long time ago, and was still unfinished business.
Chapter 3
I spent the afternoon on the phone talking to contacts in other regions and divisions. It's called networking these days, when everything has to have a name so that someone can do a PhD in it. I just call it normal. Our press office agreed to ask YTV and the local radio stations to put out a 'check your neighbours' warning when they reported the Joe and Audrey story. About four o'clock the troops came wandering back in, dragging their feet.
'The doctor gave me a couple of minutes with them,' Maggie told me as she pushed my door open with her hip and placed two mugs of tea on my desk.
'Thanks, you're a mind-reader,' I said, throwing my pencil down and clearing a space for the drinks.
'I asked the obvious,' she went on, sitting opposite me, 'but they were too shaken to be much use. Basically, it was a white van and there were two of them, carrying baseball bats and wearing masks. Near as I could find out it was about seven thirty, maybe a little later, and they stayed for a long time. The doctor made me leave it at that. He's a nice old dear. Joe, that is, not the doctor. Mrs. McLelland is still in shock.'
'The famous white van,' I said, nodding my head.
The door opened again and Dave came in, carrying two steaming mugs in his right hand. 'Oh, you've got one,' he said.
'Put it there,' I said, moving the first one a few inches to one side.
Nigel Newley and Jeff Caton followed him in.
'Maggie's had a fruitful day,' I told them when they were settled.
'Baseball bats and a white van, as expected. Any luck with the videos, Jeff?'
'Yep. White Transit going on to the M62 at precisely oh-eight-thirteen yesterday. Phoney number plate He spread a grainy ten-by-eight printout in front of me and laid two more alongside it. 'This is from the second robbery, in East Yorkshire, and this one is after the Penistone Road job. Can't read the numbers, unfortunately.'
Three white vans, coming towards the camera, an assortment of other vehicles around them. 'You reckon it's the same one?' I said.
Jeff pointed with a pencil, leaning across my desk with Maggie alongside him. 'Look at the similarities,' he told us, 'apart from the obvious ones, like they're all white Transits. See the radio aerial.
It's on the driver's side, just behind him; not the normal position for a Transit. Usually they're just above the windscreen, one side or the other. The tax disc in the windscreen is halfway up the screen in all of them. It could have been higher, it could have been lower. And there's a mark at the top of the screen, there and there. Perhaps once upon a time there was a sun shield stuck across it with some lettering, and a piece got left behind.'
'Sharon and Wayne?' someone suggested.
'Yeah, maybe,' Jeff said, 'but it's the same van all right.'
'Well, that narrows it down,' Sparky declared.
'We don't know they did it,' I warned. 'Let's not jump in with both feet half cocked. Maybe this van is running up and down the motorway all day.'
'It's a start, though.'
'Oh, it's definitely a start, and we have a number to look for now. See if the whiz kids can enhance those other plates for us, Jeff. Even if they can't give us a definite number they might be able to confirm that it's similar. Anything else, anybody?'
Sparky shook his head. 'Sorry, boss. Wasted day. The lack of information or even gossip must mean something, but I don't know what.'
'Right. Nigel…' I began.
He jumped to his feet and snapped me a salute. 'Yes sir!' He thinks he's being humorous.
'Circulate all our friends, will you, with what we've got. Especially Traffic. The next time that van turns a wheel I want to know about it.'
'No problem.'
'Good, in which case I suggest we all have an early night, for once.
Catch up on the gardening while the weather's good.'
'Tea on the patio,' Maggie enthused. 'Heaven.'
'Painting the mother-in-law's window frames,' Dave muttered. 'Hell on earth.'
'Cricket practice,' Nigel said. 'Absolute bliss, if it goes well.'
'Cricket practice!' I scoffed. 'It's wider bats you lot need.'
'Tell me something,' Maggie said. 'Where do these villains get their baseball bats from? Surely it would be much easier for them to use cricket bats?'
'Cricket bats!' Nigel spluttered, affronted. 'They wouldn't use a cricket bat!'
Sparky said: 'Somehow, a yob wielding a Stuart Surridge three-springer doesn't have the same menace, don't you think?'
In my PC Plod voice I said: 'Did you notice anything unusual about him, sir?' and then, in an upper-crust accent: 'Ye-es, Officer. His hands were too close together.'
'I thought it was a sensible question,' Maggie murmured, pretending to be hurt.
'It was, Maggie,' I told her. 'And the answer is: God knows.'
'Perhaps their counterparts in America use cricket bats,' Nigel suggested.
'Magnum see-mi-automatic cricket bats,' Dave added.
'Let's go,' I said, pushing my chair back from the desk. 'This is getting silly.'
'Did you, erring him?' Dave asked me.
'Who?'
'Keith Crosby.'
'Oh, no. I thought I'd wait for him to ring again. We've enough on our plates without resurrecting ghosts.'
'Keith Crosby? The disgraced MP?' Jeff asked.
'Not sure, but I imagine it's him.'
'What does he want?'
'I don't know.'
'He lives in Heckley, over near Dale Head.'
'So I believe. We had dealings with him a long time ago, didn't we, Dave?'
'You can say that again,' he replied.
'What did he do?' Nigel asked. He was from Berkshire, brought north by tales of streets paved with opportunity and warm-hearted women, and therefore unfamiliar with local folklore. He would also have been in
