by Jo Bannister
Brodie was ready with that too. ‘Appletree Farm, Cheyne Warren.’
Windham nodded. ‘I know the place. Eleven o’clock suit you?’
‘Perfect,’ said Brodie. If he’d said midnight she wouldn’t have argued: if all went to plan not one of them, not her nor the pony nor Windham himself, would be there.
She told Deacon the arrangements that she’d made, noting with quiet satisfaction that he didn’t query any of them or wish she’d done something different, just jotted them down.
‘Who are you sending to Essen?’ she asked.
‘Jill Meadows,’ he said. ‘She can pass herself off as a groom and Windham shouldn’t even notice her. I’ll need to arrange a car for her – once the pony’s on the lorry I want her to follow it. I want her to be able to say that the lorry left the Calais road at such-and-such a time and went into a yard at this address, and emerged an hour later and drove non-stop to the ferry. When the address turns out to be a vet, or a dealer’s yard where a vet just happened to be present, that’ll be another nail in their coffin.’ He raised his voice, shouted for Charlie Voss. ‘I’m going to need a Eurostar ticket to Essen for Meadows, and a car for her when she gets there.’
Voss was taking notes. ‘When?’
‘The pony’s being collected on Tuesday morning. We want her at Mannheim’s yard sometime on Friday.’
‘Fine,’ said Voss.
‘Fine,’ said Deacon.
‘Fine,’ nodded Brodie, ‘only make it two tickets.’
A good part of everything she said was chosen for effect. She loved the way people’s eyes came round to her as if drawn by magnets, widening with alarm, and the careful way they picked their words as if she might be dangerous when provoked.
Voss said, ‘Yes?’ uncertainly, and Deacon said, ‘What?’ and made it sound like steel-capped boots.
‘Of course I have to be there,’ said Brodie, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. ‘I set this all up. If something comes unstuck at the last minute, somebody’s going to have to fix it on the wing. Can Jill Meadows do that? Can you do it, from here? Jack, I don’t know if I could do it from here. I need to be on the spot. If Jill can pass as a girl groom, I’m sure I can.’
‘Of course you can,’ growled Deacon, ‘if we bury you in the midden for three days first. Brodie, I could pass as a girl groom before you could.’
She didn’t take that as a insult. ‘It doesn’t matter what I look like because Windham mustn’t see me. We’ve met, remember? I’ll keep out of sight while he’s in the yard. Jill can chew on a bit of straw and tell me what’s happening. Then we’ll follow him at a distance.’
‘What’s this we nonsense?’ demanded Deacon. ‘You’re not a police officer. You’re not one in this country so you’re certainly not one abroad. You’re a private citizen. You’re here to be protected and served.’
‘And as a private citizen,’ she replied smoothly, ‘I’m free to travel to Germany whenever my business requires it. This pony is my responsibility, remember – I promised Herr Mannheim I’d take care of it. If it comes to some harm it’s my reputation at stake.’
Deacon gave in with a bad grace. ‘As long as you’re not wanted by Interpol I suppose you’re free to go anywhere you want. OK, Charlie, make it two tickets. God knows how I’ll get the expenses approved.’
‘By pointing out that I was the one who made it possible for you to wrap up a major drugs operation,’ Brodie said tartly. ‘You’re talking as if this was a holiday!’
He sniffed at her. She flounced at him. Charlie Voss went and booked the tickets.
Chapter Seventeen
They dressed to be inconspicuous in a working stable-yard. Meadows wore faded jeans, a sweatshirt over a checked shirt and wellingtons, and carried a video camera in a battered backpack. Brodie wore designer jeans, a suede jacket and a pair of fringed leather boots from a brief and now inexplicable sortie into line-dancing.
The liaison officer from the local force who met them at Essen station introduced himself in near-perfect English as Hardy Schroeder. Meadows produced the documents she’d been furnished with to enable her to do what she was here for.
Schroeder looked Brodie up and down in a manner that was only kept from being offensive by the merriment in his eyes. ‘And this must be your friend The Singing Cowgirl?’
Brodie offered him an elegant hand. ‘Brodie Farrell,’ she said sweetly. ‘If this happens, I’m the one you’ll have to thank.’ She’d been expecting a big Aryan blond but they must all have gone to work in the movies. Schroeder was a dark-haired man of about thirty, of average height and build, entirely unmemorable. She put two and two together and, although he said nothing to confirm it, decided he worked with the German equivalent of the Drugs Squad, where being unmemorable was a survival strategy.
He had the car waiting outside. He handed Meadows the keys. ‘This is now the property of the English police force. You are booked onto the Dover ferry for Tuesday afternoon. Your licence and insurance are in order. Please remember to drive on the right.’
‘Aren’t you coming with us?’
Schroeder nodded. ‘I’ll take you to Mr Mannheim’s stables. Then on Tuesday I’ll travel with you as far as the border. If anything happens before then, it’s my business. Afterwards it’s yours.’
Brodie’s expectations were confounded again when they reached Mannheim’s yard. All she knew of the horse world were Dieter Townes and Johnny Windham and Alison Barker and Mary Walbrook, creating the impression that attractive athleticism and lasting good looks came with the territory. Talking to Erich Mannheim on the phone had done nothing to disabuse her. The gutteral accent made it hard to judge his age, but beneath it was a sort of solemn sexiness that made her look forward to meeting him. And it doesn’t take two grown women to watch one pony for a weekend. She told herself a little harmless flirting would pass the time nicely.
Herr Mannheim was sixty if he was a day, no taller than Daniel but twice as far round, surrounded by a gaggle of grandchildren. He greeted them courteously, had some of the larger children take their bags and showed them to a room over the stables where they would be sleeping. Then he took them to meet Gretl.
Even to Brodie’s inexpert eye she was a plain pony. She was an interesting colour – something between clotted cream and custard – and had a nice friendly eye, but apart from that there was little to recommend her. Except, just possibly, to someone wanting to smuggle drugs inside her. She was quiet and easy to handle, broad without being big, and of minimal value. If a package ruptured in transit, a modest cheque would cover the loss. If the other animals Windham was collecting this trip were sports horses worth thousands of pounds with knowledgeable owners waiting for them, Gretl would be his mule of choice.
Assuming he was doing what they thought he was doing. There was no hard evidence. If he was, there was a good chance that this was how he was doing it, and other things followed from that – including the possibility that Stanley Barker’s death was neither accident nor suicide and his daughter had survived a murder attempt. But that basic premise, that Johnny Windham was using his business to smuggle drugs from Germany into England, could yet be disproved. If all this time, effort and expense was for nothing, Jack Deacon would not be a happy bunny. Fat, solemn, polite Herr Mannheim was looking a better prospect all the time.
The weekend stretched ahead. Brodie found herself missing Paddy. She’d gone to her father for the weekend. Brodie had explained that she needed to travel to Germany on business but not the precise nature of that business: if she’d known it involved ponies the child would have stowed away in her mother’s luggage. Now Brodie leaned on half-doors and rails and watched the animals eating and working, and lent an unpractised hand at grooming some of the quieter ones, and was surprised at the big achy space that was the absense of her daughter.
Meadows made a point of checking Gretl every couple of hours, watching her fed twice a day, and even got up in the middle of the night to check that
she was still in her stable – not because it was necessary but so that she could tell a court she had. Brodie knew she went out after midnight because there were bunk beds in the grooms’ flat and Meadows had the top one. Brodie thought about offering to do one of the late checks for her, but it was cold outside and her bed was warm.
In reflective moments Brodie worried – not much but a little - that she was getting selfish as she got older. The woman she was today bore no resemblance to who she was the day John Farrell said he wanted a divorce. The upheaval had made her reappraise her life in every conceivable way, and she’d emerged from it stronger, tougher, meaner probably, but ready to cope with life’s vicissitudes as she never was when she was kinder and more caring. She’d done the nice-girl-becomes-devoted-wife bit, and where it got her was the divorce court. Now she was much more her own person than she was ever bred to be: Paddy came first, herself second, her friends third, and after that she didn’t much care what people thought of her.
The weekend passed. On Monday Brodie and Meadows accompanied Gretl to the surgery of Mannheim’s vet, where the X-ray showed all normal on the intestinal front. Meadows took it into custody as part of the chain of evidence.
Then it was Tuesday morning. Hardy Schroeder arrived at the yard at seven and the three of them went over the plan together. They hid the silver car round the back of the house, and after that retired to Herr Mannheim’s sitting room from where they could see anything coming up from the road.
The dealer furnished them with the promised statement that nothing had been administered to the pony other than feed. Brodie thought he must have had an idea what they were doing but he was polite enough not to ask. Perhaps it suited him better not to know for sure.
At twenty past nine the familiar red and white lorry with the name of Windham Transport emblazoned on the side turned into the yard. Meadows got it on her camera through the gap in the curtains. ‘I need a shot of the driver,’ she said tensely.
Brodie didn’t dare go with her for fear of being spotted. ‘Be careful.’
‘You think?’ The detective constable left the house via the kitchen garden.
Five minutes later she was back. She showed Brodie what she’d shot. ‘That’s him, isn’t it? Windham himself.’ She’d had only a brief glimpse of him in the yard at Peyton Parvo.
Brodie had spent almost an hour in his company. She nodded. ‘That’s Johnny Windham, all right. Which is interesting. He didn’t tell me he’d be driving himself.’
‘Maybe he wasn’t planning to until you provided him with a suitable mule,’ suggested Meadows. ‘And he’s on his own. Mannheim’s girls helped him load. They put Gretl in the end stall. As far as I could see the lorry’s full. If he picks up anything else it’ll have to travel in the cab with him.’
Which was just what Brodie wanted to hear. Everything that was happening was consistent with what they believed was going on. ‘Then he’ll meet with his vet friend next.’ She felt a quiver of satisfaction that it was all coming together. Of course she was anxious too, and would be until the pony was safely in Deacon’s hands and whichever of his officers had been annoying him most was wearing rubber gloves and an expression of terminal distaste.
But one way or another, they were going to find out if Windham was just doing his job or had a particular interest in Brodie’s unremarkable little pony. It wouldn’t quite exonerate him if he didn’t take advantage of the opportunity it presented, but it would suggest that Alison Barker was the one who was up to no good.
But if Windham took the bait the whole complicated exercise would have been justified. Deacon would owe her big-time. Even apart from that, no one with a child can afford to be disinterested in the drugs culture. Capping one pipeline, jailing one smuggler, would keep a lot of other people’s children safe. All she could hope was that someone would do the same for her when Paddy was a vulnerable age.
When the ramp of the horse-box was up Windham disappeared for a couple of minutes into Erich Mannheim’s office. Then he climbed into his cab and drove away. The first phase of the operation was complete.
Meadows drove the car, with Schroeder beside her to help with directions. Brodie made herself at home on the back seat.
In the course of setting this up Brodie had spoken to a horse vet – to check that what Alison Barker told her was feasible was in fact feasible, and to ask how long such a procedure would take and what facilities would be necessary. She was told that it would require nothing you couldn’t carry in the back of a car and could be done in minutes without unloading the pony as long as she was accessible. For instance, the last one onto the box.
So Windham’s vet could meet him at a lay-by anywhere along the road, drop the ramp and get to work on the pony. In the unlikely event of someone asking, Windham would say he thought it might be unwell and arranged for a vet to see it. Fifteen minutes later he’d be back on the road, with nothing to show for his detour except a somewhat hung-over Gretl.
And there would be nothing to show for the next day or so. Customs at Dover could strip his lorry to the chassis without finding anything incriminating.
Meadows hung back as far as she dared. Once they hit the autobahn at Duisberg she was able to keep the lorry in view from quarter of a mile back, too far for Windham to notice he was being followed.
The road headed for the Channel ferry almost as a crow would fly it. The names on the signs were familiar ones: Eindhoven, Antwerpen, Brugge, Calais. After fifty kilometres they reached the Dutch border. Reluctantly, Shroeder had them drop him off. ‘Let me know how it works out.’
‘We will,’ promised Meadows, and then they were on their way again. Brodie checked the map. Another eighty kilometres - an hour at this rate – would take them into Belgium. She began to feel terribly uneasy. She couldn’t see why, if he was going to do what she needed him to do, Windham would leave it to the last minute.
But halfway across Belgium the big lorry took the slip road off the motorway Brodie heaved an audible sigh of relief. Jill Meadows flicked her a tight grin. ‘Looks like we’re in business.’
On the roads they now found themselves following she had to close the distance to keep the lorry in sight. It was a balancing act between losing it and being spotted. A couple of times it got so far ahead they began to fear it had made its surreptitious stop all unseen. When she speeded up, at least once she found herself pulling up behind it at a junction.
‘He’s heading for someone’s yard,’ guessed Brodie. ‘If he was just pulling off the road he could have found somewhere much closer to the motorway.’
Meadows nodded but said nothing. She was concentrating on the pursuit, grateful for the flat landscape that enabled her to see the high-sided vehicle at a distance across the fields.
And it was across a couple of fields that they saw the lorry slow down and then turn into a driveway. The drive was lined with white post-and-rail fencing and there were horses in the paddocks on either side.
‘Keep going,’ hissed Brodie; and Meadows cast her a barbed glance and said, ‘Really? You don’t think I should follow him into the yard, then?’
She found a belt of trees three hundred metres further on and parked there, shielded from sight. ‘Stay in the car,’ she told Brodie. ‘I need to find out where we are, get some kind of an address for this place. Don’t worry, I’ll be back before the lorry leaves.’ She took her backpack with the camera in it.
For twenty minutes Brodie stayed with the car, watching the end of the drive which was all that she could see from here, listening for the lorry’s engine, feeling her nerves wind tighter and tighter until she knew that the first sign of action would jolt her to the core.
Then Meadows was back, appearing silently from among the trees because she hadn’t wanted to be seen on the road. ‘He’s on the move,’ she said shortly, starting the car.
‘Did you manage to get him on film?’ asked Brodie.
Meadows shook her head. ‘I couldn’t get close enough. But I got a shot of t
he lorry in the yard. It should be enough.’ Brodie could hear it in her voice that she wasn’t as confident as she would have liked to be.
Between the trees they saw the red lorry appear at the foot of the drive and turn left, heading back the way it had come. Meadows allowed it to get a head start before following.
‘Calais next stop,’ said Brodie to reassure her.
‘From your mouth to God’s ear,’ gritted Meadows, and Brodie laughed out loud because for a moment she sounded just like Deacon.
But almost as soon as they returned to the motorway Windham pulled off again, this time into a service stop. He parked in the commercial lot and walked across the concourse.
‘Do we follow him?’ asked Brodie.
Meadows shook her head. ‘We watch the lorry.’
Where he’d left it, hard against the garage wall, they had a clear view of the cab. Even if Windham suspected he was being followed he could not have sneaked back and driven off without being seen. And indeed, after a few minutes he reappeared with a paper under his arm and a fast-food carton in his hand, and got back into the cab. There he stayed for another fifteen minutes, eating his lunch and reading his paper. Then he started the engine and pulled back onto the road.
Meadows let him regain his lead before following.
What neither of the women saw was that, parked beside the garage immediately behind the large red lorry, was a small white lorry which let the silver car get out of sight before it too drove out onto the motorway.
Chapter Eighteen
At quarter to five Meadows phoned home. ‘We’re on the ferry, sir. So’s Windham, and so’s the pony.’