The delay had been almost half an hour.
Nightmare.
Then the line started to edge slowly forwards.
With great will-power, Whitlock pushed the clutch in and engaged the gears, started to move down the ramp, just as something deep in Whitlock’s mind clicked and he felt something was very wrong. Other than the fact he was carrying twenty illegal immigrants and three holdalls containing something he didn’t even want to think about. There was a difference in the feel of the truck, just a subtle one, and he could not decipher what it was. Something was missing and his brain could not quite pin it down.
On the quayside, Karl Donaldson and his mix ’n’ match team were overjoyed to see the vehicles start to roll again off the ferry. There had been a three-vehicle shunt which had stopped everything in its tracks. Soon their target would be in their grasp and they would all be able to go home — when the paperwork was done.
In fact they could see it now, rolling slowly down the ramp.
Sharp paused patiently as Easton replaced the glass on the ledge in front of him, then ran a set of shaking fingers through his thick hair. Then he embarked on a slightly different tack. ‘How many suspects did you have in this case, Superintendent?’
‘Only the one,’ he croaked.
‘And that is my client?’
‘Yes.’
‘No more suspects at all?’
‘No.’
‘That’s not true, is it?’
‘It is absolutely true.’
The QC consulted a sheet of paper in front of him. ‘No, it is not true, because there were at least two other suspects, weren’t there?’
‘No.’ It was almost a whisper.
‘In fact, you received several telephone calls from the public naming two other people who could have committed this horrible crime.’
‘Not so.’
‘In fact the man who was murdered — a man who lived in the criminal underworld — was someone who had many enemies, wasn’t he? He owed a lot of money to a lot of people. He had upset many people in many ways and I find it very odd that there was only one suspect in this case.’
‘Rufus Sweetman was the only suspect,’ Easton insisted.
‘I’m afraid not, and I have the documentary proof in front of me showing that at least two other men were strong suspects.’
There was an aura of triumph about Sharp as he stood facing Easton and steepled his fingers together in front of his chest while he surveyed the officer over the rim of his glasses. The unsaid word, Gotcha!, hung in the air.
The team moved in, signalling for the driver of the heavy-goods vehicle to pull out of the line and into a specially erected marquee which would protect everyone from the elements as a search took place.
Donaldson watched as the customs officer swung up to the cab and spoke to the extremely worried-looking driver. Some questions were asked and answered as both the officer and driver climbed down then approached Donaldson.
‘This is bollocks,’ the driver was saying. ‘Total bollocks.’
Donaldson shrugged. ‘If that’s the case, you’ve nothing to worry about, have you?’
‘What’s a bloody Yank doing here?’ the driver demanded to know.
Donaldson gave him a slit-eyed stare which shut him up. ‘Have you got anyone or anything in your vehicle you shouldn’t have?’
The driver hesitated. ‘No.’
‘Look-see time, I think,’ said Donaldson.
Whitlock had been certain that he would be pulled. When he was waved almost regally through and the hi-viz-jacketed officials went to the lorry behind him instead, he almost died of relief.
He had made it through.
Five hundred pounds richer and with twenty illegals on board, plus a shag that was pretty hazy in his memory, but so what?
And it had actually turned out to be painless. There had been no need to worry, as the man had said. There were probably a hundred other illegals secreted on the ferry anyway and maybe the authorities had caught some in the lorry behind him. But they hadn’t caught him.
Jesus, he’d done it!
He slammed his fist on the steering wheel and as he accelerated towards the motorway network, he gave his horn a blast for good measure.
Whitlock was feeling good.
The one, cowering, terrified, illegal immigrant in the back of the lorry was not what Karl Donaldson wanted to see. An old man, badly hidden between boxes of Spanish tomatoes, was not what should have been there.
The team ripped the vehicle apart, found nothing else.
‘I didn’t know he was there, I swear on my daughter’s life,’ the driver insisted passionately, as both he and the stowaway were led away to be processed. ‘The bastard hid there.’
‘I know, I know. . let’s just get the paperwork sorted,’ one of the immigration officials said, taking the driver’s arm and shooting a glance at Donaldson which said it all — and more.
‘And who’s gonna repack my lorry?’ the driver whined, his voice getting less audible the further he got out of earshot. Donaldson was glad to get shut of him because he was dangerously close to laying one on him.
He strutted angrily to the quayside, hands thrust deep inside his pockets, kicking an imaginary stone into the murky water. Fuming did not come close to describing his mental state. He raised his face to the sky, nostrils flaring, wishing to scream.
‘Ah well,’ a voice said behind him. ‘It’s always hit and miss.’
He turned and looked through a pair of very pissed-off eyes at the woman detective from the local force who had been assigned to the job. ‘It’s always a hit with me,’ he growled dangerously. ‘I don’t do misses.’
She smiled coyly. ‘Does that apply to women too?’
Donaldson blinked and the devil in him replied, ‘Oh, yes.’
‘You going back to London now?’
‘Not necessarily.’
She remained silent, brushed the windswept hair back from her face, raised a well-made-up profile to the grey sky and then dropped her chin and looked up seductively at the American through two wide-spaced, elliptical eyes that shone with promise.
‘How about a coffee somewhere?’
Eight
By the time Henry Christie eventually arrived home, his brain was definitely the consistency of porridge oats. He felt jet-lagged and not a little weak. He needed to sleep and hoped that the night ahead would be lacking in dead bodies.
It was three p.m. when he walked in through the door, which he knew gave him about an hour uninterrupted before his youngest daughter arrived home and a couple before Kate landed. He did a quick phone call to Burnley to see what stage the domestic-murder inquiry was at. He was told that the offender, the knife-wielding drunken wife, had been interviewed once she had sobered up, but that it was unlikely she would be put before court for the morning; she had admitted the offence, apparently, claiming she had been a victim of domestic violence for over four years. Henry could see her walking free at the end of proceedings. He also spoke to Rik Dean at Blackpool, but was told that Roy Costain had not yet been found.
The work done, Henry did not hesitate further. He took the stairs two at a time and almost ran into the bedroom, divesting himself of his clothes as he went. The bed, a king-size, looked totally fantastic and it was all his! Within seconds he was naked and underneath the cool duvet, drawing it up over his head, which was resting on his soft, favourite pillow.
Moments later he was flat out and snoring gently.
Outside the Crown Court it was chaos as Rufus Sweetman emerged a free man, all charges against him having been dismissed. He nodded, waved, and smiled enigmatically at the banks of press cameramen, turning as his name was called and posing for photos.