by Vic Marelle
‘Steve,’ he heard through his headset, ‘there’s a car in our drive. Who’s at our house in a BMW sports car?’
Sitting high up behind her husband she could not see Wilson’s expression as he smiled to himself. He knew whose car was parked in their drive. He knew that when they returned it would still be there. He also knew that under a windscreen wiper there would be an envelope containing the gift card he had written just before leaving his office to pick his wife up to go to the airfield. Today was turning out good.
……….
A black Mercedes G-Class turned onto the narrow road. The German manufacturer’s top of the range 4x4 vehicle almost double the purchase price of its more common ML models, turned right at a tee junction after three hundred metres, picked up speed then slowed again to drive over a rail crossing, before turning left a further half a mile down the road. Some way behind, the driver of a Vauxhall hatchback had watched the big off road vehicle as it had negotiated the rail crossing. Keeping a reasonable distance behind he had then followed.
Travelling roughly parallel to the train line, the G-Class followed the winding road between open fields and over a humped bridge, slowing as it reached a crossroads. A short row of semi-detached houses ran down the right hand side of the road for two or three hundred metres, to where a small red brick church was located at the crossroads itself. Turning left, the Mercedes was driven half a mile to where three houses, an old dilapidated bungalow and a Post Office nestled next to a small unmanned station. With just four dwellings at this point and eight semis near to the crossroads, there seemed little need for church, Post Office or even the station.
The Mercedes turned onto a gravel access between the bungalow and Post Office, disappearing behind a large building that had obviously at some time in the past been a transport or haulage contractor’s depot. From start to finish the journey had been little more than two miles and taken but a few minutes. Having followed at a distance, the driver of the Vauxhall reversed into a small lane on the opposite side of the road, where it was unobtrusive to general passers by, and then switched off the ignition.
After five minutes, a black Jaguar was driven out of the gravel access into which the G-Class had disappeared. As well as the driver there were four passengers in the car. At the crossroads the car turned right, forcing a grey Ford that was approaching from the left to give way. Tucking in behind, the Ford gradually fell behind as the two cars followed the same route taken minutes earlier by the Mercedes, but in the opposite direction.
As the Ford was driven over the rail crossing, its driver could see the Jaguar taking a left turn. By the time the Ford turned, the Jaguar had already stopped on a concreted area outside a large modern industrial building. Driving straight past, the Ford continued for a quarter of a mile and over a bridge spanning a drainage culvert before its driver pulled off into a passing point layby. Getting out, he walked back to the culvert, where he was hidden by a row of trees yet could see the building clearly.
The building had no windows, though there were transparent panels in its roof. Its walls were of brick up to shoulder height, above which they were of a corrugated pressed coated metal material, presumably fixed to steel frames on a steel girder construction. Typical of modern industrial construction, it would have been quick to erect.
In the centre of the long wall facing the road was a big roller shutter entrance, with a small conventional door at its side for staff access, through which the five men all entered the building.
After a short while, the roller shutter rumbled upwards and four cars were driven out. One by one they stopped where the concrete met the road, then turned right and set off, the Jaguar following at a distance. When all the cars had turned at the tee junction, a car pulled up outside the building and a middle aged man got out. Then the car drove off.
Thirty-One
The shrill sound of a horn brought Simon Charlton out of his daydream as the brightly painted boat sailed past. Looking across to the canal, Simon recognised the man at the rear of the boat, one hand on the tiller and the other raised in a wave. Waving back, Simon smiled and watched the boat chug along at its regulation four miles per hour. Quite how anyone could be content with such slow progress was a mystery to him. He could, and did, enjoy beautiful scenery and the English countryside – why else had he bought a house with magnificent views? Yet spending four hours chugging upstream to travel a mere sixteen miles when by car it would take less than half an hour and you could spend the rest of the time enjoying your destination, was beyond him.
Some of the boats were holiday charters. High powered businessmen switching off from their everyday lives in the fast lane and idling along in a backwater to recharge their batteries. He could, with a little effort, understand that. But others, like old Amos, who was still alternating between sounding his horn and waving, owned their boats and sailed the same stretch of waterway time and time again. Liverpool to Wigan. Wigan to Liverpool. Again and again. Simon’s view was that such a schedule would be far too boring for words, a frustrating lifestyle with no particular purpose, never reaching your destination and with no originating point either, yet with no reason to stop. He supposed that Amos and his cronies must find some enjoyment from continually sailing in one direction or the other along the same section of the Leeds-Liverpool canal, but whatever that enjoyment was, Simon was not privy. Indeed, as far as he was concerned, the tight dimensions of the long slender boats – less than seven feet wide and often sixty or more feet long – went nowhere to defining comfort. Where would his big floppy overstuffed sofa fit?
But Simon had his own frustrations. Filling his working day with constant activity, time to daydream was usually not on his agenda. So the last few days had been difficult. After the excitement of battling to get past vehicles in the MotorFest cavalcade then chasing after the Bentley, not to mention the sense of involvement when he had recognised the poor bloke in the hospital, it had all come to a stop. And he was on the outside.
He was sure that Debbie was involved in something, though just what that might be he had no idea. After he had identified Rick Worth he had been all for going out to the caravan park and taking another look at the workshop but she had stopped him. In actual fact she had been extremely vocal on that score; under no circumstances was he to go anywhere near the caravan park, Kevin Archer or the hospital.
So here he was sat on his balcony watching boring old Amos chug by in his boring old narrow boat. If Amos’ lifestyle wasn’t frustrating enough, being inactive and just watching the old man chug by when there was something to be done was doubly so.
And then there was Debbie.
Dear Debbie.
She was special. Very special. And he must be special to her also. After all, hadn’t she put her job on the line for him? Nobody did that sort of thing if there was no feeling there, no special attraction. She was, to put it mildly, very very special. More special than he had felt about anyone else. Even more special than he had felt about his wife when they had been a newly married couple. Or was that just falseness, a dulling of the memory by the passage of time? No. No it wasn’t. He had been young and neither of them had been able to keep their hands off each other – or their clothes on. Yet Debbie had become the most important person in his life, both before and now in the present. He was attracted to her because she was different to anybody he had ever known. She supported him, exhibiting an unfailing trust and ultimate loyalty. She enjoyed the same interests. And though she had neither an hour glass figure nor fitted the image of a size zero model, he loved everything about her appearance too, her looks, the way she walked, her mannerisms and her smile. But despite how he was attracted to her, was it love? And, as Prince Charles had said so many years previous, what as love anyway
They had not slept together because their relationship had not developed that far. Or had it? Not for the first time he wondered if perhaps their relationship had actually developed further, sexual inactivity being more a result of mutual respect
and old fashioned chaste beliefs than any lack of physical attraction. Certainly he was attracted to her. Where others were flirty or erred on the edge of being common just to attract male attention, Debbie managed to look elegant and classy whatever the occasion and whatever she wore. Yet whenever they met and whatever they did, she always left before nightfall. Was she afraid of something? Did the existence of his wife in an earlier period make her hold back? Was she concerned that his feelings might not equal hers or that he might still harbour some unspoken affection for his wife that might come between them or prevent him ever being hers? And was all that real anyway, or plain and simple prevarication on his part?
Whatever it was, it resulted in frustration. Frustration at being on the outside of an investigation to which he had contributed. Frustration at not knowing exactly how Debbie felt or for what she was hoping. Frustration at not being in control.
……….
Approaching the fly-over, a small convoy of articulated trucks took the inside lane, then, after slotting into traffic on the roundabout, took the third exit and entered the container terminal. Where in past times the Liverpool docks had stretched for miles along the Mersey estuary, with the advent of containerised shipping loads, many of the docks had either closed or been redeveloped as tourist attractions, Albert Dock being the most high profile. Virtually all sea-going activity was now centred at Seaforth’s modern container facility.
The trucks trundled into the terminal, their drivers parking them in a designated area. Familiar with the system they booked the containers in and completed paperwork for the forty foot long containers of personal household goods destined for expats fleeing Britain’s harsh winters to live in the sunny climate of the TRNC, or, Turkish Republic of North Cyprus. Within a couple of hours the containers had been lifted off the trucks by huge cranes to join others destined for Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Their job done, the trucks left the container base and trundled up the M62 to their depot in Yorkshire.
……….
Walking back across the filling station forecourt, DI Frank Davies felt the vibration of his mobile phone in his pocket. Answering the call as he opened the car door and slipped into behind the wheel, he found that Handy Andy was calling him back to Albert Road. He was sorry to disturb him when he had been given the afternoon off etc, but it was important.
What a drag. Tied up on boring work that uniforms should be doing, and then at the first opportunity to have some time to himself, his boss phoned to spoil his afternoon. And all because Handy Andy wanted some additional information before he met with the men from the Home Office. What a waste of time. He had been tempted to ask Handley why he didn’t just read the bloody report for himself – but you only said that sort of thing to a junior, not your superior. Yet all the information was in the report if only Handley just used his eyes and his brain. Oh well, that’s what you did when you were a DCI he supposed. Roll on promotion time.
Davies checked his watch. From when he had closed the call, the drive back into Southport and to the police station had taken just a little more than ten minutes. If he could satisfy the DCI quickly, he might still be able to surprise his new wife by actually arriving home early.
But Handley insisted on going through the report paragraph by paragraph, page by page. Still no more than half way through the report more than a full hour after they had started, Davies had never seen his superior officer appraise a document so thoroughly.
‘I’m not sure I take your point on the vulnerability of delegates staying at the Prince,’ commented Handley. ‘The Prince of Wales Hotel is right on Lord Street. That’s Southport’s main street and we can’t close it down and all the shops in it for more than half a mile, just to get delegates to the Floral Hall.’
‘JFK was assassinated on a main street,’ countered Davies.
‘But the main delegates will not be at the Prince will they?’ observed the DI. ‘The PM and his cabinet will all be staying at the Ramada where there is a direct link to the convention centre. Are you not over reacting here Frank?’
‘That’s for the Home Office and uniforms to decide,’ replied Davies as Handley paused to take yet another phone call. ‘What I have done is a basic appraisal using local knowledge so that HO can have something on which to build,’ he said when he again had Handley’s attention. ‘They can bin it and do something completely different if they want. I don’t care.’
‘Well I think you should rethink that one,’ said Handley. ‘The reason I brought you back in was that the Home Office crew have already arrived. They called me and asked me to send you over to give them a preliminary walk through before tomorrow’s main briefing so I wanted to make sure that you were up to speed. They are staying at the Ramada – which is quite fortunate because you can demonstrate your concerns can’t you? You’ll have to put your skates on Frank, you are due there in fifteen minutes.
……….
Two floors below Handley and Davies, all interview rooms in the custody suite were in use. DI Don Radcliffe opened the door and entered room two. Two men sat at a table with their backs to the door. Although they knew somebody had entered, they had no way of knowing whom that person might be, a technique often used by Radcliffe. Opposite them sat DS Kyle Fraser. Radcliffe walked around and took the spare chair next to Fraser, putting several manila files on the table in front of him.
‘Good afternoon gentlemen,’ said Radcliffe appraising the two men in front of him. One was obviously subdued and worried, while at his side a well-known local solicitor wore his usual non-committal expression used at all official meetings. It gave little away but probably enabled him to lengthen meetings and increase his fees.
‘Has Sergeant Fraser outlined why we are here?’ asked Radcliffe, continuing after acknowledging nods of agreement from both of the men sitting opposite, ‘then let’s get on shall we?’ Addressing Fraser he added, ‘start the recorder Sergeant.’
Like a well oiled machine, Fraser went through the same procedure he had done so many times before; inserting tapes into the recorder and advising the two men of everything he was doing, that they could have a copy when the interview had been completed and that the others would be held on file.
‘This is outrageous,’ burst in the solicitor once the tape was running. ‘My client is just an innocent bystander caught up for no fault of his own. I demand that this fiasco stops immediately and he is released.’
‘Let’s just get on shall we?’ replied Radcliffe. ‘Your client was observed driving a vehicle we have reason to believe was stolen. If I can establish who stole it and when, perhaps your client might be in less trouble than he appears to be at the moment.’
‘Inspector,’ said the solicitor. ‘My client is the innocent party here. He was employed to drive a car from A to B, which he did, and nothing more.’
Leaning forward on the table and folding his arms, Radcliffe gave the solicitor an icy stare. ‘Let me remind you,’ he said, ‘that we are here so that I can interview your client. We did not invite you to a party so that you and I could have a chat. Your function here is to advise your client, not speak for him. The more you obstruct us in this investigation, the harder you make it for your client. Do I make myself clear?’
Having admonished the solicitor, Radcliffe turned his attention to the client, and continued in a much warmer tone. ‘Look lad,’ he said, ‘I’m not particularly interested in you. It’s the big boys that I am after. Several million quid’s worth of fancy cars have gone missing over the last few months, and three men have been murdered.’
All the colour suddenly drained from the face of the young man facing him. His eyes bulged and he clenched his fists on the tabletop.
‘Murder!’ he spat out. ‘Murder? I know nowt about murder. Looking first at his legal representative, then Fraser and finally Radcliffe, he was visibly shaken – but none of the three spoke. Having gained neither support nor information, in a shaky voice he added, ‘I don’t. Honest, I don’t.’
Still with h
is arms folded, Radcliffe leaned further forward, increasing the intimidation. ‘I don’t think you do at that son,’ he said. ‘Actually, I think that you are small fry. I think that you are just a little nobody.’ Letting it sink in before continuing. ‘Now that might not be so good for your ego lad, but if you help by giving us the information we need, then your lowly position might actually help keep you out of more trouble than you are already in.’
Looking the terrified man directly in the eye, Radcliffe continued to keep the pressure on. ‘I want you to tell me who runs this operation, what their names are, who does what, who lifts the cars and who changes their identities – you know, switches the VIN plates and alters the engine and chassis numbers. And who does the strong-arm stuff. In fact, everything about them.’
Opening the folder in front of him, Radcliffe looked at the first sheet and then returned his gaze to the man across the table. ‘I’ve just had a nice chat with your mate in the next room,’ he sad, ‘and he’s been very cooperative. So in return I’ll help him. He told me a bit about you too, so I can check that against what you tell me and see who’s telling the truth.’
Clasping his fingers together and keeping his elbows on the table, Radcliffe delivered his ultimatum. ‘It’s your choice son. We know that you are involved and one way or another I will get the information that I want. Are you going to give it to me or not?’
On the point of breaking down, under his breath the young man replied, ‘I can’t. They’ll k . . . . . . ‘
Closing the folder, Radcliffe knew he had made his point. The boy only needed a little push and he would be tipped over the edge, spilling everything he knew. But how much was that? Would it be enough?