Unlawfully At Large, page 45
part #2 of DCI Tyler Series
The phone rang, making him jump. If it was Rodent calling to confirm he’d received the text he would not be impressed.
“What?” he demanded, answering without bothering to check the Caller ID.
“Someone’s in a bad mood,” Meade taunted. “What’s-a-matter? Wrong time of the month?” The fisherman cackled at his own joke.
“I’m assuming that you have something worthwhile to say and haven’t called just to annoy me?” Garston snapped.
“Keep yer knickers on,” Meade told him, the outbreak of humour over. “A car’s coming to pick you up at eleven o’clock sharp. Be ready.”
Garston’s eyes narrowed. “What type of car? And who will be driving it?” he demanded.
“A car with four wheels and an engine,” Meade replied, sarcastically. “You don’t need to know the driver’s details. He’ll knock on yer door when he arrives. Don’t keep him waiting.”
“That’s not good enough –” Garston objected, but Meade had already hung up.
“Motherfucker,” he cursed, throwing the phone down onto the wooden table.
Angela looked over her shoulder, alarmed by his raised voice.
“What you looking at?” he shouted, seeing an outlet for his anger.
“Nothing,” she said, quickly looking away.
◆◆◆
An agonisingly slow hour had passed since Reggie had sent the text message. That equated to sixty minutes or 3,600 seconds, and Jack Tyler felt as though he had been staring at the clock on the office wall for every painful one of them.
Depressingly, there hadn’t been any response from Garston.
“Do you want me to try again?” Reggie offered, but his face told Jack that he didn’t think there was any point in doing so.
They were sitting in the main office with Dean and Wendy. The Carpenters were singing their 1975 hit, Please Mr Postman, in the background.
Jack shook his head. “No, but thanks for offering.”
He retired to his office and flopped down behind his desk, head thumping. Even taking into account the poor signal issues, Jack had would have expected Garston to have replied by now.
Was it possible that the text they had so carefully drafted had made him suspicious?
Could Garston have worked out that it wasn’t from Rodent?
They had thought long and hard about how best to phrase the wording so that the text wouldn’t look odd, but perhaps they had inadvertently got something wrong?
Maybe Dawlish would have signed off as Rodney, not Rodent?
Maybe, he hadn’t stayed with Winston and Garston overnight as they had surmised?
Tyler let out a frustrated sigh and reached into his top drawer for some paracetamol. He wondered if it was worth trying to speak to Rodent again, to see if he would be more reasonable this time around? He dismissed the notion almost immediately. The chances were that Dawlish had never been to the address he’d taken them to before and would have no idea how to get back there.
As he washed down the two pills he’d just popped into his mouth with a swig of water, a thought occurred to Tyler, stopping him in his tracks. A tremor of excitement rippled through him. Could it be as simple as that? he asked himself.
Springing to his feet, he rushed out of his office, straight along the corridor, and into Andy Quinlan’s main office, where he found Susie Sergeant and Carol Keating locked in conversation. “A quick word,” he said as he slumped down in a chair next to them.
They stared at him with puzzled faces.
“I don’t suppose there were any pieces of paper amongst Dawlish’s possessions, were there? Something with an address scribbled on it?”
Susie shook her head. “Sorry, boss, I went through everything he had with a fine-tooth comb. There was nothing like that.”
Jack’s shoulders slumped with disappointment. “Never mind,” he told her. “It suddenly occurred to me that, as Dawlish hadn’t been to the address before, he would have written it down in case he got lost and needed to ask for directions.” He stood up to leave, but then sat down again as another idea sprang into his head.
“What about the van?” he asked. “Has that been searched?” If Dawlish didn’t have it with him, perhaps there was something with the address written on it in the van.
“Not by us,” Susie said. “SO19 arranged for it to be lifted to Charlton for us to search properly at our leisure.”
“We need someone to scoot over there now and check out that van,” Jack said, eyes brimming with excitement.
“I’ve already sent Kevin Murray over there with the local SOCO,” Susie told him. “I’ll give him a ring right now, and he can have a gander while we wait.” Excusing herself from Carol, Susie popped off to retrieve her mobile and make the call.
“Getting a little tense, isn’t it?” Carol observed when she had gone.
“A little too tense, if you ask me,” Jack said with a wry smile. “I can feel it in my water Carol, if we don’t get him tonight, he’s going to get away.”
Carol placed a motherly hand on his arm and gave it a gentle squeeze. “You’re doing everything humanly possible, don’t make yourself ill over this.” Her eyes were full of concern.
“Yes, Matron,” Jack said, finally succumbing to addressing her by her nickname.
Carol beamed at him. “Trust me,” she said, “Matron knows best.”
Susie reappeared, her mobile glued to her ear. “Kevin’s checking the van’s cabin out now,” she informed them. “Yes, Kevin, I appreciate it’s a plumber’s van and it’s full of notes and receipts and the like,” she said testily into the phone, “but this is crucial so don’t leave anything unchecked…Yes, I appreciate it could take you ages…” She raised her eyebrows in exasperation. Murray had that effect on people. “Yes, I am familiar with the expression ‘a needle in a haystack’. Are you familiar with that good old Irish saying, ‘Get on with it and stop your whinging or you’ll feel my toe up your arse.’?”
“I must say, I’m not familiar with that particular expression either,” Carol said with a smile.
Susie covered the speaker with her hand. “Made it up myself,” she grinned. “I was going to say, ‘Is minic a gheibhean beal oscailt diog dunta!’ which in Gaelic means ‘An open mouth often catches a closed fist,’ but I thought that might be a bit too complicated for him, so I kept it simple.”
Carol laughed. “I’ll have to try and remember that one,” she said.
I kept it simple…
A lightbulb came on inside Tyler’s head. “Susie,” he said, standing up and placing a hand on her arm to get her attention. “Ask Kevin if the van has a Sat Nav fitted. Maybe the address isn’t written down on paper after all. Maybe it’s been inputted straight into a navigation device.” That would be the simplest thing to do, after all.
Susie relayed the message, and they all waited on tenterhooks while Murray checked.
“Come on, come on,” Tyler muttered under his breath.
“He’s found one,” Susie said a moment later. “He’s just powering it up and he’s going to check it for recent addresses.”
It seemed to take forever, and the three of them sat in strained silence until Murray finally came back on the line.
“What’s that?” Susie said, plugging a finger into her ear. “You’re sure?” A big smile broke out over her face as she turned to look for a pen. “We’ve got the address,” she said excitedly.
Chapter 34
“Boss, you do know you’re doing just over a hundred, don’t you,” Susie said as she glanced nervously at the speedometer.
“I know,” Jack said, pressing his foot down even harder, “but I can’t seem to squeeze anything more out of this heap.”
“What a pity,” Susie said, lacking any sincerity. Without taking her eyes from the road, which was flying by at an alarming rate, she checked her seatbelt to make sure that it was working properly. Not that it was likely to make much difference to her chances of survival if they crashed at this speed.
“Don’t worry,” he reassured her, “I’ve done the fast car course so I know what I’m doing.” The fast car course was given to officers who worked on specialist squads and were required to drive high powered, unmarked cars on blues and twos. It was one down from the pursuit course in terms of skill level.
“I can tell,” Susie said, fearfully.
They were on their way to Sussex. As SIO, Jack knew that he really ought to have remained at the office to maintain overall strategic control of the operation and leave Dillon free to implement tactics out in the field for him. The trouble was, Jack liked being hands on whenever he could, especially when the stakes were as high as they were in this particular case.
Leaving Carol Keating to run things in his absence, he had grabbed hold of the log book and keys for the last remaining car in the building, an aging Vauxhall Astra covered in dinks and dents, and dragged Susie off with him in a mad dash down to the Sussex coast.
Dean had sent a CAD message to IR asking them to notify Kent and Sussex Constabularies that an unmarked MPS car was about to enter their territory on an emergency run and to request that their Traffic patrols give it free passage and not try to stop it if they came across it.
The van’s Sat Nav had yielded the address that Winston was holed up in, and to everyone’s surprise and annoyance, it hadn’t been in either of the two hamlets that AMIP officers had been staking out since the fake text had been sent. In fact, it had been located in a tiny settlement consisting of half a dozen properties about a third of a mile further along the road.
Dillon had passed the information onto PS Newman, the SFO team leader, who had immediately dispatched an officer to carry out a recce while Dillon rushed off to obtain an out of hours search warrant.
Jack knew it was going to be ridiculously tight, but he wanted to be there when the armed entry was made; he wanted – needed – to see Winston dragged away in handcuffs.
They were making good progress and had already crossed the Queen Elizabeth Bridge at Dartford. Jack didn’t have a Sat Nav of his own, and he was having to rely on the map reading skills of his co-pilot. Luckily, Susie seemed to be a very competent map reader, unlike Tony Dillon, who usually got them lost at least once whenever he was charged with getting them anywhere.
“Okay, we’re going to stay on the M25 till we reach the Sevenoaks by-pass, at which point we take the A21 and stay on that until we get to the A268, “Susie said after checking the map again.
Jack’s phone rang.
“Get that for me, would you,” he said, removing the handset from his inside jacket pocket and handing the mobile to her, all without taking his eyes from the road.
“DCI Tyler’s phone,” Susie said, balancing the Geographia on her lap and tracing their route along the page with her left index finger while holding the phone to her ear with her other hand. She listened for a few seconds, said, “Wait one,” and turned to face Tyler. “It’s Tony Dillon,” she informed him. “He’s got the warrant and is just leaving the Magistrate’s house to return to the target address and meet up with PS Newman and his team. He reckons they’ll be ready to effect entry in around thirty minutes.”
Jack considered this. “Tell them our ETA is about forty minutes. I would prefer they await my arrival unless operational safety makes it necessary to make entry before then, in which case they should just crack on.”
Susie relayed the information and there was a brief pause while she listened to Dillon’s response.
“Tony says he’s happy to wait, but he wants you to be aware that they don’t have visual control of the cottage because the area around it is far too exposed to park a car up in.”
Jack wasn’t impressed. “Can’t he just put someone out on foot, get them to hide behind a tree or something?”
Susie dutifully passed this suggestion on and then listened to Dillon’s reply. “Apparently, the SFO who scoped out the property said it’s too risky to deploy a footie,” she reported back. “Tony says there’s no cover whatsoever, and they would stick out a mile unless they were wearing a ghillie suit.” A ghillie Suit was a type of specialist camouflage clothing, typically worn by military snipers, designed to help its wearer blend into the background.
Susie made a few ‘uh-huh’ noises as Dillon provided further information, and when he stopped speaking she turned to Tyler. “Tony says someone did a drive-by about twenty minutes ago, at which time there were lights on in the downstairs living room but no sign of movement.”
Jack grunted his disappointment and shrugged. “It is what it is, I guess. Tell Dill to do whatever he thinks is best.”
Susie passed the message on and said goodbye. As she put the phone down, a Kent traffic car materialised behind them, its blue lights flashing.
“For fuck sake,” Tyler fumed, “why can’t these poxy County Mounties just do as they’ve been told and keep out of our way?” He knew he would have to pull over; otherwise, the idiots might put it up over the radio as a fail to stop, but he would give them the bollocking of their lives for slowing him down.
At that point, the Traffic car pulled into the middle lane, accelerated until it was level, and the female operator mouthed the words, ‘follow us,’ and gave them a friendly smile. With that, the car slipped in front of them and took up station as their very own escort.
“Oh,” Jack said sheepishly. He hadn’t expected that.
“Shame on you,” Susie said with a wry smile, “bad mouthing those poor County Mounties when all they wanted to do was help us out. Tut-tut-tut!”
◆◆◆
Kenny Meade reversed out of his gravel drive, sending stones spraying everywhere. No doubt, his wife would give him an ear full for doing so when he got back home, but he was in too much of a rush to care.
He drove his old Land Rover along the narrow winding lanes at reckless speeds, figuring that he would see the headlights of an approaching vehicle in plenty of time to stop. Unlit, some of these narrow roads were barely more than tracks. There were some nasty bends in them, too, and, over the years, he had seen many an unsuspecting motorist misjudge them and end up in the hedge. Luckily, only locals tended to use this route during the hours of darkness. Meade wasn’t remotely worried about having an accident; he had lived around here all his life and he knew these roads and all their danger spots like the back of his calloused hand.
Not long after setting off, he had noticed headlights a little way behind him. It was unusual to see another vehicle on the back roads at this time of night and he had thought it strange, but they had long since disappeared, so it couldn’t have been anything to worry about. Dismissing the thought, he concentrated on negotiating the last sharp bend and then he was at the A259. He signalled left, pulled out when there was a gap, and set off towards the cottage to pick up the first of his passengers.
◆◆◆
Dick Jarvis unbuckled his seatbelt and opened the driver’s door with a shaking hand. He got out gingerly, placing his weight on legs that felt like jelly. He didn’t think he was injured, but he was badly shocked by the crash. He had been driving too fast, he knew that, but the smuggler had been going like a bat out of hell and he had been in danger of losing him. He hadn’t even had time to put it up over the radio.
The impossibly tight bend had appeared out of nowhere and, as Jarvis had stamped on the brakes and desperately tried to steer the Astra around it, the vehicle had locked up and skidded straight into a great big bush. There had been no warning chevrons or anything to alert him to its presence, and he was furious with himself for having misread the road so badly. Now Meade had got away and it was all his fault.
He walked around to the front of the car and shone his torch on the bonnet, expecting to see it mangled. He was pleasantly surprised to see that it appeared intact. Maybe he would be able to reverse out and get after Meade? First, though, he needed to let Steve Bull know what had happened.
Jarvis pulled out his mobile, but he was in a dip and the signal was rubbish. Cursing, he ran back to the car and searched for the Cougar radio, conscious that with every passing second, Meade was getting further away. The radio had slid under the passenger seat and become wedged, and he had to open the back door and wriggle his arm underneath to reach it. Finally, panting from his exertions, Jarvis had it.
“Jarvis to Bull, urgent message, over.”
“Go ahead,” Bull responded almost immediately.
“Steve, Meade’s on the move. He’s in his green Land Rover,” Jarvis reeled off the registration number from memory. “I’m sorry mate, but I’ve lost him in the back roads. He was heading towards the A259, so presumably, he’s on his way into Rye. Can you and Paul get to the boat ASAP?”
“How the hell did you lose him?” Bull demanded, sounding very angry.
“I stacked the car on a tight bend,” Jarvis confessed, feeling incredibly stupid. He cringed in anticipation of the scathing comments that were sure to follow.
“Are you injured?” Bull asked, surprising Jarvis. He had expected to be shouted at.
“No, just a little shaken,” he admitted.
“What about the car – is it drivable or do you need a garage skipper to report the POLACC?”
A POLACC was police speak for a police accident.
“No, miraculously, I can’t see any damage at all to the car. I just slid off the road onto the verge and ended up stopping with the bonnet buried in a bush. There might be a few superficial scratches, but this car is so old and battered anyway that it’ll never notice.”
“Okay,” Bull said slowly, and Jarvis could hear the cogs turning as his sergeant thought things through. That was one of the things he really liked about Steve Bull. He was so mellow, and always calm under pressure, unlike Charlie White, whose default setting tended to be one of ranting and raving in such an unintelligible Glaswegian accent that no one could understand a word he said. Invariably, he had to repeat everything again when he had calmed down.
