He tried to purge his mind of the poor souls in the container. He hoped they were OK and was desperate to release them out into the world. His instructions had been to drive to a business address in Rossendale where he would be met by an ‘agent’ who would take control of the illegals.
That moment could not come too soon. . but. . he still needed a break. Ten minutes just to cool down, to chill. He had travelled far enough now, he guessed.
Normally Whitlock, a driver proud of his road skills, spent a lot of his driving time using his mirrors. It was imperative that a lorry driver be totally aware of everything going on around, but on this particular journey, he had hardly looked in them, his mind so preoccupied with his predicament.
That was why he did not clock the black Citroen van which had been sitting behind him for most of his journey along the M62.
The frustration of the stop-start, but mainly stop, journey made Karl Donaldson switch off his CD player and fume. He was getting annoyed now, an annoyance on top of what he was feeling with regards to the cock-up at Hull, and was beginning to think that maybe he should have gone due south — and home. If the M1 had been clear, he could have almost been there by now.
Instead he was sitting in virtually motionless traffic somewhere on the bleak moors above Rochdale. One of the signposts he saw pointed to Saddleworth Moors and he realized he was quite near the spot where in the 1960s Myra Hindley and her murderous lover Ian Brady buried the bodies of the children they had abused and killed, crimes so appalling they were internationally known. Donaldson looked at the bare, brown moorland and shivered at the thought that there were still bodies out there unrecovered. ‘Bastards!’ he said under his breath.
He shrugged and brought himself back to the present.
Suddenly his whole body tensed.
The traffic had started to move again where the roadworks came to an end, fanning out across three lanes. But it was the van in front of him which held his attention rigidly. It was a black Citroen van, similar to a Ford Transit. From his elevated viewpoint in the Jeep he had a good position from which to look inside the van through the windows in the rear doors.
There was a driver and a passenger and a couple of huddled shapes in the back, four guys in total.
Not that that in itself was significant. It could have been a group of men on their way back from, or going to, some labouring job or other.
What grabbed his attention was what he thought he had seen.
He could not be 100 per cent, but his gut instinct told him he was right. One of the men in the back had passed something to the man in the front passenger seat. Donaldson had excellent vision which had not diminished with age. If anything it was even better and he was pretty sure that what had been passed forwards was a sawn-off shotgun.
OK, it was just a glimpse. An impression more than anything. But everything that the American knew, all his points of reference, told him he was correct.
The Citroen accelerated lumpily away from the roadworks ahead of him.
Donaldson hung back slightly, curious, alert, as the van drew alongside a heavy goods vehicle also speeding up after the roadworks. There was a container on the back of the HGV and as Donaldson saw it and his brain dealt with this information, he emitted a groan.
He had seen the heavy before. He had watched it rolling off the ferry at Hull, one vehicle ahead of the one his uninspired team had pulled over.
The Citroen drew parallel with the lorry and Donaldson made out the passenger ‘me-mawing’ to the driver of the HGV.
Donaldson dropped back. The passenger’s left arm was out of the window, gesticulating to the driver.
Then both arms came out, holding the shotgun briefly, then it was gone.
The passenger continued to gesticulate, pointing and, Donaldson assumed, shouting. He was telling the driver to pull off the motorway at the next service area, which was fast approaching.
Donaldson had stumbled on a robbery about to take place, he believed.
Suddenly he felt naked. He had no gun because he wasn’t allowed to carry one as a matter of course in the UK, and just occasionally he would have liked to have touched the coldness of a weapon for reassurance. Like now.
Instead he reached for the next best thing. . his mobile phone. Dialled treble-nine.
The three hundred metre marker for the exit on to Birch Services came into view. The HVG signalled the intention to pull off. The Citroen dropped in behind into the heavy’s slipstream. Donaldson eased even further back off the gas. A man’s face pressed up to one of the windows in the back of the Citroen and glared through the glass. Donaldson rammed his foot down on the gas pedal and surged out into the middle lane of the motorway, accelerating past the Citroen, pretending to pay it no heed. He sped past the HGV too, and with little room to manoeuvre, he managed to tuck the Jeep in front and swerve on to the exit lane leading up to the service area, angling across the chevrons in the road and churning up dirt as he did. He hoped that the occupants of the Citroen were taking no notice of him.
He drove far too quickly up the lane, one hand on the wheel, the other holding the phone to his ear, steering the big 4x4 recklessly into the designated area for car parking, close to the entrance to the shops and cafes. He veered into a tight parking spot and sank down into his seat, craning round to watch the HGV enter the service area and drive toward the appropriate parking area. The Citroen was behind it.
No one had yet answered his treble-nine.
Donaldson cursed, ended the call, redialled, all the while his eyes fixed on the progress of the two vehicles which were stopping on the far side of the service area, as far away as possible from prying eyes.
‘Can you give me your name and telephone number, please?’ the operator said when, at last, the call was answered. Despite wanting to yell at the individual, Donaldson kept his calm and gave the required details, then asked to be connected to the police. The connection was answered immediately. Quickly and succinctly Donaldson relayed his position and what he thought might be happening, always watching the HGV and the Citroen.
The HGV had looped around the far perimeter of the lorry park and pulled up at such an angle that the container on the back obscured a decent view of the front cab. The Citroen looped around, too, almost out of sight on the other side of the HGV. Donaldson saw four men leap out.
Sometimes, Karl Donaldson hated himself.
In his bones he knew exactly what was going down here. A robbery. An armed one at that. The knowledge and experience of his time as a first-class FBI field agent screamed at him. But what was worse, what really annoyed him, was that he was powerless. . powerless, that is, to stop himself getting out of his car and making his way across and intervening. Even though he knew it was the most stupid, foolhardy thing he could do. He should stop right where he was, stay safe, and wait for the police to arrive. Be Mr Sensible.
Naah. . not his style.
He jumped out of the Jeep, fighting the urge all the time, but letting his will-power collapse under the desire for action.
He dropped low between a line of parked cars and began a bent, loping jog towards the situation. There was a wide area of no-man’s-land between the car park and the point where the HGV had stopped. He wanted to get into a position from where he could approach unseen from a blind spot. When he reached it, he ran hard and low across the tarmac, feeling as exposed as a soldier storming a machine-gun emplacement. It was at least one hundred metres before he slammed up against the rear nearside corner of the container, where once again his foolishness overwhelmed him. It would have been an easy option, maybe the right option, to run back to the Jeep and keep his head down.