by Vic Marelle
But it wasn’t viewed from above. As the mechanical snake approached the college, several miles away on the coast the police helicopter was only just lifting off from Woodvale airfield. Its mission would be useless. The cars it had been sent up to follow had already dispersed and its time spent searching would be futile.
Approaching the former college, Fraser slowed and pulled onto the grass verge. The rest of the cavalcade continued past, each knowing his or her allotted task, the whole operation moving like a well oiled machine. Except for the three vans and the Jaguar of DI Davies, which pulled onto the verge behind Radcliffe and Fraser, each vehicle turned and passed between the huge stone gateposts to disappear into the college estate. Beyond their view, using one of the many access roads on the estate, the convoy took a right turn off the driveway to run past the impressive frontage of the main building. The further they drove, the shorter the convoy became, as each vehicle stopped at its predetermined point, until all access points from the estate were covered.
With all the vehicles out of sight, Fraser re-started the ignition in anticipation of their own move forward. Waiting wasn’t easy for either of them, both he and his inspector eager to move on to the next phase of the operation. Seconds ticked away far too slowly for Radcliffe, who felt the responsibility for the mission as he waited for the signal that all his officers had taken up their allotted positions successfully.
The silence in the car seemed to slow the passage of time. Neither man could do anything until the signal came, but with no traffic on the isolated road and all his men hidden from view, Radcliffe felt that his powers of sight and sound had been severed.
A sudden tap on his side window surprised him and he jerked in response, as his door was pulled open.
‘What’s the problem?’ asked DI Davies, bending down to face his colleague. ‘Why did you rush off from the mere? I was on my way there when I got a message from Lescott to meet here instead and I had to about turn.’
Before he could answer, a brief rush of static on the car radio had Radcliffe and Fraser craning forward to listen and Davies leaning in through the open door. The announcement, ‘C-Two in place,’ was crystal clear. The operation was at last ramping up.
Now wasn’t the time to engage in chitchat. ‘I’ll tell you later,’ said Radcliffe as Davies pulled back out of the car. ‘Best get back to your car Frank, we are about to go in,’ adding, ‘when the vans tuck in, jump ahead and keep with us, we’ll do this together.’
Davies sprinted back to his car as Fraser inched the car off the verge. Checking his mirrors he saw the three vans and the Jaguar following suit, the little group quickly covering the short distance to the entrance gates. Once on the driveway the vans pulled off once again, Davies’ Jaguar falling in behind the Vauxhall.
Passing the right turn, Radcliffe glanced along the front of the building. His men were in-place and waiting. So far so good. Driving slowly to keep their arrival as quiet as possible, the two cars continued along the side wing of the building to where the driveway narrowed as it passed the little chapel close to which, on his earlier visit, Simon Charlton had parked his car. An ideal place to block the final exit point, they left their cars across the narrow access and made their way stealthily on foot to the far end of the chapel wall.
Looking cautiously around the gable, Radcliffe could see the building Charlton had described as the car store. Charlton’s groundwork had been impressive and Radcliffe wished that some of his own officers, though competent, had similar powers of observation and used their initiative to the same extent. As well as the list of registration numbers, the investigator had also passed over digital photographs and identified individual buildings on Google satellite imagery. Overall, Radcliffe had been able to plan the operation without additional covert observation and what he was now looking at seemed already familiar, so well had Charlton’s work helped him prepare.
The car store was exactly as he had imagined. It’s main doorway partly open, he knew without further investigation what was inside and how many external doors there were. He also knew how many cars were inside – and now thanks again to Charlton, how many of them had been removed in the last hour. What he did not know was how many people remained inside the building, although having what amounted to two complete rings surrounding the site, one covering all exits from the estate and the other around the detached car store, he was confident that however many there were and whoever they turned out to be, by the end of the operation they would all be in custody.
No more than fifty metres away he could see his men pressed against the wall on either side of the big doors. He knew that other officers were ready at each of the three other doors – one single door midway down each side wall of the long building and another garage style double-door entrance at the opposite end that exactly matched the one he was now watching. Officers awaiting his command flanked all entrances.
‘This is it Frank,’ Radcliffe whispered to Davies. ‘Is everyone ready?’
‘Yep,’ he replied. ‘Sean is now at the gates on lookout so that’s the lot. We are ready when you are.’
With the operation swinging into action, Radcliffe and Davies ran towards the building as the men either side of its main doors sprang out of their cover and burst through the big double doors. Once inside, one group remained at the entrance to block any means of escape while the other moved forward, the two inspectors following. All other doors remained closed, officers waiting should anyone attempt an exit.
The group inside the building fanned out checking every area of what Radcliffe could see was basically one huge open space. Several vehicles were lined up, each of them a perfectly maintained example of a classic car marque. Nearest to Radcliffe was a Daimler SP250 sports car more normally referred to as a Daimler Dart. Resplendent in a deep blue, its tyres glowed with a deep black eggshell sheen. Next to it was an Austin Healey 500, itself finished in the classic cream over red two-tone colour scheme and sporting perfectly restored matching red leather seats and upholstery. All together, eight vehicles were lined up along one long wall, all of them classics and all of the pristine. With one exception. In the middle of the row between an MG and a Jensen was a deep red Ferrari. Or to be more correct, Steven Wilson’s DNA replica.
During their initial entry, the noise made by the team had rivalled that of a football crowd as they had rushed in shouting, the noise of their boots on the gravel outside, the bursting open of the huge doors and then their running from place to place inside all adding to the cacophony. Now, silence prevailed. It was clear that the big building held only a collection of classic cars, though clearly it had held several more until recently. Very recently.
As Radcliffe strolled around the vast building, he quickly formed a view of how the building had been used. Wilson’s cars were along one side taking up about half of the length, Arranged with their rear bumpers backed close to the wall and just enough room between each to open a door they looked for all the world like exhibits in a motor museum. Along the opposite wall were a number of wheeled metal cabinets, with racks of tools on the wall and a four-post garage lift at the far end.
Silence pervaded everywhere – and the floor shone. Where most garages and workshops he had been in were oily and grimy, this was immaculate. Painted with light grey concrete paint, there was not even one spec of oil or grease anywhere. Drip trays ran in a line on the floor along the centre of each bay and every clip on the wall racks held its designated spanner or tool. The whole appearance was of an immaculate facility where attention to detail was paramount. It reminded him of the pits garage at Silverstone when two years ago he had been a guest of McLaren.
‘Looks like we’ve drawn a blank boss,’ said one of the entry team. ‘There’s nobody here and the cars have gone too. All that’s left are those old sports cars over there. There’s nothing of any value here. My hot hatch is worth more than this lot. Shall I call everyone off then?’
‘No, not yet,’ replied Radcliffe.
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��You are way off anyway,’ added Davies. ‘The blue Dart is worth more than my Jag and the Bentley more than four years of your salary my lad,’ adding, ‘and that’s before the extra year to cover its special upholstery.’
Several large clear plastic tents took Radcliffe’s attention. Taking up the remaining space along the wall between the entrance and Wilson’s vehicles, each was slightly larger than a car but smaller than a single car garage and much lower. From the rear of each tent ran a corrugated tube similar to the vent tubes on old-fashioned tumble dryers. Each tube connected to a small electrical appliance, some of which were making a whirring noise. Strange items, he could see no apparent purpose. Why would somebody want a transparent room inside a building with no windows? It did not make sense. Walking over to the nearest, he lifted the full width end flap. Made of the same material as the rest of the tent, it felt like a thicker version of the transparent material used for cheap instant greenhouses. But who would want a greenhouse inside this dark space?
As he dropped the flap back down, a sewn-on logo patch caught his eye. Squatting he looked at the patch. Carcoon he read. The name conjured up images of cars cocooned in protective shrouds but that was hardly a requirement in the real world. This was a heated building with pristine cleanliness so further protection was superfluous. On the drives of houses without garages he had seen some cheap constructions made from plastic tarpaulins but they never lasted long in a British weather, particularly with Southport’s salty sea air, but these were something quite different.
‘Carcoon Don,’ said Fraser, crouching down beside him.
‘Yes, I can see that for myself Kyle,’ he replied. ‘But what the hell is a Carcoon when it is at home?’
‘It’s like bringing a bit of the Mojave Desert inside,’ replied the sergeant.
‘The Mo what?’
With a chuckle, Fraser explained. ‘That’s where they take redundant aircraft and park them up. The atmosphere is perfect so they don’t deteriorate. This is similar. It’s like putting your car inside a sealed box and then linking it to an air conditioner. The air inside is free of damp and the car is kept in perfect nick. Car collectors with more money than sense use them to keep the cars they don’t drive from one year’s end to another in perfect nick.’
‘Looks as though they left in a hurry,’ observed Radcliffe. ‘You can see tyre marks from each of these, what you call them . . . .’
‘Carcoons Don.’
‘Yes, Carcoons. And though the machines are still running, all the flaps are open.’
‘It must have been a hell of a rush out Don,’ replied Fraser. ‘They left the Bentley before it was properly off the ground.’
Swivelling around to look at where the sergeant was pointing, he took a longer look at the opposite side of the building. At the far end, Davies was just walking past the four-post lift, its ramps flat on the ground and its corner posts looking like something out of a giant Meccano set. At this end of the building was another car lift of a different type. It had no ramps and only two vertical posts, each sprouting upwards from a vee shaped structure bolted to the floor. Between the posts, the Bentley referred to earlier was supported on similar vee shaped arms, their points fixed to the posts and the outstretched arms under the vehicle.
Looking closely, Radcliffe saw that although the Bentley’s tyres were still touching the floor, the lift had actually risen enough to take the weight of the vehicle so that its suspension was no longer holding the bodywork at its usual level and the car had the appearance of an off-road 4x4, riding high and with lots of space between the top of its tyres and its wheel arches.
‘I see what you mean,’ replied Radcliffe. ‘And from this angle I can see that they’ve left a holdall of some sort in their hurry to get away.’
Walking over to the lift, Fraser dropped down onto his knees and peered under the car. ‘Christ Don,’ he shouted, ‘there’s somebody under here.’
Dashing across to his side, Radcliffe crouched to see for himself. ‘How do you operate these things,’ he asked, ‘do you know?’ Then, turning, ‘Quick, does anybody know how to work this bloody thing? We’ve got somebody underneath.’
As everyone rushed over to see what the commotion was all about, Fraser straightened up and punched a button on the control panel. With the barely audible whine of a well-maintained machine, slowly the Bentley rose.
‘Looks like they were in a real hurry Boss,’ said a voice from the group of onlookers. ‘Instead of stopping when the car was only just being lifted, it looks like it was actually coming down and this poor sod didn’t have time to get out.’
Inch by inch the Bentley moved higher as the little group around it looked on, the car’s wheels remaining on the floor until the suspension had reached its full extent. After what seemed like an eternity, the car had risen sufficiently and Fraser crawled underneath.
‘He’s only just alive,’ he said over his shoulder, ‘at least I think so. There seems to be a pulse but it is very shallow and I’m not sure. He could be a goner.’
Radcliffe swung into action, putting out an urgent call for paramedics and detailing two of the liveried cars to go out and escort the ambulance back.
Davies joined the group. Looking down at the man he observed, ‘doesn’t look much life left there I am afraid Don. By the time the paramedics get here he’ll be cold.’
Looking around the building as he walked towards the entrance with Radcliffe he continued, ‘There’s nobody here except this chap. It looks to me as though you’ve got the right guy in the nick. Except for the Bentley these are all Wilson’s cars so I bet that when this guy heard you’d got his boss locked up, he got all of the suspect cars out of sight. Probably he was going to move the Bentley himself but some bright spark dropped the lift on him in a hurry to get out.’
You could be right,’ ventured Radcliffe. ‘But that doesn’t gel with . . .’
Davies held his hand up to silence his colleague, reaching into his jacket pocket and pulling out his Blackberry. After listening for a short while he said ‘I’ll be right there sir, there’s nothing more I can do here. They are all long gone apart from one dead body. Give me about twenty minutes.’
Putting the mobile back in his pocket, Davies added for Radcliffe’s benefit, ‘the master calls I am afraid. I’ll see you back at the ranch then.’
……….
In the distance he could hear sirens. His trained ear identified the distinctive sirens of an ambulance mingling with those of police vehicles and, as they grew nearer, he hoped that they were those of the ambulance he had requested and the patrol cars he had sent to escort it rather than some other emergency.
‘They’ve got a bloke at the front Don.’
‘The front of where?’ asked Radcliffe.
‘The main building,’ responded Fraser. ‘Apparently there’s a caretaker lives on-site and when we all drove past his window it scared him to death. His quarters are near the front entrance and he stayed there until he thought that we had gone. Then when he came out to check, the lads watching the front nabbed him. They’ve got him in the big entrance foyer of the building, you know, where the big stone columns and the oak panelled doors are, but he’s a bundle of nerves from what they say.’
‘And why’s that?’ asked Radcliffe. ‘If he is just the caretaker then he shouldn’t have anything to be nervous about. Perhaps he knows something.’
‘I doubt it Don. It was probably just several vehicles trundling past his window giving him a bit of a fright. Don’t forget that this is a private estate and nothing normally comes in so even one car would be unusual. Then if blokes in stab vest jump out and take up position it must be scary.’
‘Maybe at that,’ responded Radcliffe. ‘But if I was caretaker of a place like this and there were some comings and goings going on at the back then sure as hell I would want to find out what they were. Let’s go and have a word with him shall we?’
Reaching the open doors of the car storage building, an uncann
y stillness after the feverish activity of the previous quarter hour hit him. The sirens had stopped and the eerie quiet that had pervaded before the operation had returned. Walking across the gravel towards the chapel, the two officers mulled over what they had seen in the storage building. Given that all the vehicles except the Bentley had been owned by Wilson and that the Bentley seemed to have been being worked on at the time – perhaps its legal identity changed – then as Frank Davies had said, Wilson did seem to be implemented.
‘Go back and check something for me will you?’ asked Radcliffe. Get the Bentley engine and chassis numbers. If the VIN plate is still there, take the details. Then run it past DVLA. See what checks out. It’s not got any registration plates on but there are other ways to find out where it came from.’
As Fraser returned to the building, headlights appeared around the chapel. Three vehicles with flashing blue lights came around the corner, sliding on the gravel in their haste and stopping in front of the open doors of the car building. Turning to retrace his steps, Radcliffe walked over to a Ford estate car that had been escorted by the police patrol cars. As he approached its doors opened and two paramedics jumped out.
‘Sorry to bring you out on a wild goose chase,’ Radcliffe said to the nearer paramedic, a tall gangling man of about thirty. ‘He’s been squashed under a car and my guys couldn’t get a pulse I am afraid but I thought it best to let you try anyway. Do your best for me will you?’ Then, as the paramedics grabbed their bags and ran into the building, ‘I’ve called for the doc. He should be here soon to certify death.’