‘You’re the boss,’ Umar responded sullenly.
‘God give me strength.’ Jumping off the escalator, Carlyle headed after his man.
With the Northern Line enduring one of its all too frequent service glitches, the platform was almost completely full. After some searching, Carlyle caught a glimpse of Gregori under the indicator board, staring at an advert for Greek holidays. In the event, he let two Edgware Road trains go through the station without getting on either. According to the board, the next train, due in three minutes, was for the High Barnet branch. Carlyle consulted the map on the wall on the far side of the tracks. ‘If he’s going on the High Barnet line, that means he’s not gonna get off before Kentish Town at the earliest.’
‘There’s another nine or ten stations after that,’ Umar fretted.
‘I know, but we’ll have to busk it.’ Carlyle gestured back towards the escalators. ‘Get Gapper and head towards Kentish Town. I’ll give you a bell once I know what’s going on.’
‘Not much of a plan,’ Umar grumbled.
‘Thank you for your support,’ Carlyle replied politely. ‘Now bugger off and find the driver.’
By the time the tube train rumbled into Finchley Central, the passengers had thinned out to the point where, apart from a pensioner and a couple of schoolboys playing hookey, Carlyle had an entire carriage to himself. Gregori was in the next carriage along, towards the far end; far enough away to be unconscious of the inspector’s presence but close enough to make it hard for Carlyle to disembark unnoticed. They were back above ground now; once the mobile operator had finally condescended to provide him with a signal, he sent Umar a text: go to the end of the line.
Someone had discarded a copy of the Telegraph on the seat next to him. Picking it up, Carlyle was disappointed to find the Sport section missing. Ignoring all the political nonsense, he went to the Obituaries section, alighting on the story of a Spitfire pilot from Tunbridge Wells who had been shot down over Sicily during World War II. After escaping from a German firing squad and trekking over the Alps to Switzerland, the guy had survived to the ripe old age of ninety-one.
‘Not a bad innings,’ the inspector mumbled to himself. ‘Not bad at all. If you offered me that, I’d bite your hand off.’
As the train pulled into Woodside Park, two stops from the end of the line, Carlyle returned the paper to where he had found it. Looking up, he saw Sebastian Gregori get up out of his seat and move towards the doors. ‘Shit.’ Quickly he rang Umar’s number. The sergeant answered on the first ring.
‘Where are you?’ the inspector demanded.
‘About ten minutes or so away.’
‘Change of plan – he’s getting off at Woodside Park.’ He paused while Umar held a quick conflab with Gapper.
‘We’ll meet you there.’
‘OK, hurry up.’ Keeping the line open, Carlyle glumly surveyed the empty platform. With no one else around, it would be impossible for him to follow Gregori undetected. As the tube came to a halt, he watched the doors open and gave a quick glance to his right to confirm that the German had indeed got off. Fortunately, he was walking away from the inspector. Jumping to his feet, Carlyle hovered at the doors for as long as possible. As they began to close, he slipped on to the platform, head bowed.
To leave the station by the main exit, you had to take a bridge over the tracks. Jogging up the steps, Carlyle kept himself out of Gregori’s line of vision, staying well behind the German until he had disappeared into the station building. Counting to ten, the inspector followed cautiously. As he stepped through the ticket barriers, he heard the sound of a car engine revving up, and saw Gregori driving out of the car park behind the wheel of a black BMW.
‘Brilliant,’ he hissed. ‘What are you going to do now, genius?’
It was almost fifteen minutes later when Gapper screeched up to the kerb in the green Astra. The passenger window buzzed down and Umar looked at his boss expectantly.
‘What time do you call this?’ Carlyle complained.
‘Sorry, boss, the traffic was a nightmare,’ the sergeant explained. He looked around. ‘Where’s your guy?’
‘He legged it in a black Beemer.’
There was a pause while all three men contemplated the myriad frustrations of police work.
‘So what do we do now?’ Umar asked finally.
‘Fuck,’ Carlyle said emptily. ‘I dunno. Let’s go and get a coffee.’
Leaving the car in a side street off the High Road, they picked a café at random, Carlyle ordered a smoothie and began checking the emails on his BlackBerry while Umar and Gapper played a game of table football in the back. The smoothie, when it came, was rather sharp. Sucking on his straw, Carlyle winced, his mood not helped by a message from Alice’s school about a proposed hike in fees for the next school year. He was forwarding the email to Helen when there was a whoop of delight from behind him. Moments later, Umar pulled up a chair and sat down. ‘Eight-three,’ he announced. ‘A massacre.’
‘Glad to know our little day trip hasn’t been a complete waste of time,’ Carlyle said coolly.
‘It was your idea,’ Umar reminded him, opening a bottle of Coke.
‘That makes me feel a lot better.’ Looking out of the window, he scanned the ugly main road. For many years, Finchley had been Maggie Thatcher’s constituency. A Conservative stronghold. That figured. To Carlyle this part of the city – N12 – had absolutely nothing in common with ‘his’ London. And then, from the corner of his eye, he caught a flash of movement. An expensive-looking car was pulling out of the road opposite.
A black car.
A black BMW.
‘It’s him!’ Carlyle jumped to his feet, spilling the remains of his smoothie over Umar.
‘Hey!’
Ignoring his sergeant’s protests, Carlyle gestured at Gapper. ‘Get the car, quick.’ Sitting at the junction, Gregori patiently waited for a break in the traffic, before turning right and heading north towards High Barnet. Fumbling for some cash to pay the bill, Carlyle pushed his driver out of the door. ‘Quick,’ he repeated. ‘Let’s not lose him again.’
‘Urgh. This stuff is all sticky.’
Carlyle looked in the rear-view mirror. ‘Stop whining,’ he chuckled, his good mood restored as much by his sergeant’s misfortune as the renewal of contact with Sebastian Gregori.
‘But it’s all over my jeans,’ Umar wailed. ‘It looks like I’ve pissed myself.’
‘Don’t worry, your secret’s safe with us.’
Gapper and Carlyle exchanged grins. Putting his foot down on the accelerator, the driver eased them past a lumbering bus and through Whetstone. The traffic had finally begun to thin out slightly and they were soon making steady progress along the A1000. Gregori’s black BMW could be glimpsed half a dozen or so cars ahead of them.
‘So where do you think he’s going?’ Umar asked as they eventually passed Barnet Playing Fields.
‘Dunno,’ Carlyle yawned. ‘Maybe he’s heading for the M25.’
In the event, Gregori ignored the orbital motorway, instead taking the A1, in the direction of Stevenage. The inspector glanced nervously at the dashboard. ‘How much petrol have we got?’
‘Enough,’ was Gapper’s only response.
The BMW was still safely in sight, moving at a steady speed, when Umar piped up from the back seat. ‘I need a piss now, for real . . . all that Coke.’
‘For God’s sake.’ Carlyle shook his head.
‘If you mess the seats,’ Gapper said grimly, ‘I’ll kill you.’
Almost an hour later, the BMW turned off the motorway at a place called Biggleswade. Careful not to get too close, Gapper followed suit. For several minutes they headed down a narrow two-lane road without seeing another vehicle. On both sides of the road were fields, surrounded by low hedges. Apart from the occasional group of sheep, the fields were empty. It reminded Carlyle of the landscapes of Skåne where a fictional Swedish detective ran around dealing with a non-stop crimewave that was far worse than anything a real-life London copper ever had to deal with.