Nigel faced up to him, saying: “I came to have a conversation with the Big Issue seller, not his mongrel.”
“We were talking about floaters,” I said to Dave.
“Floaters?” he queried.
“Yeah. Do you ever get them?
“Floaters?”
“Mmm.”
“Well, now and again. Especially if I’ve been eating chicken chow mein.”
We agreed to meet on Wednesday evening and Nigel drifted off to organise a caravan in the market place where all the males of the town would have six hairs plucked from their heads, or would donate some other body sample, if they so preferred. It would be voluntary, but a close eye would be kept on those who didn’t attend. Superintendent Isles would have prepared a list of the usual suspects, and they’d be encouraged along. I told Dave what Nigel was doing.
He said: “Les Isles will have his balls for a paperweight if he finds out that Nigel’s been talking to you about it.”
I said: “There are certain similarities with our Mrs Silkstone job.”
“Copycat,” he replied. “All the gory details were in the paper.”
“That’s what I said.”
In the afternoon a superintendent from the Met RCS came in and introduced himself. He was obviously on a damage limitation exercise, shaking my hand, calling me Charlie, saying what a good job we’d done. I showed him Ne’er Do Well Farm on the map, then took him there, via the lane at the other side of the gill where the rock outcrop was.
Barry Moynihan was in charge, wearing a shell suit that somebody two sizes smaller had loaned him, with a decent growth of stubble on his face. Three others, from number three district, were also there; two of them permanently watching the farm. I had a look through their binoculars, but the place was as still and silent as a fog-bound airport.
Two more arrived, bringing flasks of soup, blankets and waterproofs. As they lifted them from their boot I glimpsed the dull metal of a Heckler and Koch rifle barrel. I had no doubt they had a whole armoury of weapons in their cars: H amp; K A2s for general purpose killing; Glock PT17s for close range killing; and perhaps a Heckler 93 sniper rifle, for long-range killing. I had an uneasy feeling that Kevin Chilcott would not be walking away from this one.
They were reluctant to discuss tactics in front of me and I began to feel like a rogue sausage roll at a bar mitzvah, so I glanced at my watch and said I’d better be off. It was just after half-past four when I left, and ten to five when I walked into the office, quietly whistling to myself: The hills are alive, with the sound of gunfire. At twenty-six minutes past five the phone rang. It was Superintendent Cox, the RCS super that I’d just taken up on to the moors.
“Did a motorcycle pass you, Charlie, on the way back to Heckley?” he asked.
“A motorbike? Not that I remember,” I replied.
“Shit! A bike left the house, about one minute after you. We clocked him heading that way, but lost him soon afterwards. He was probably in front of you.”
“You think it was Chilcott?”
“Yeah, didn’t you know? A bike’s his chosen mode of transport when he’s on a job. He can handle one. Used to race at Brands Hatch in his younger days.”
“No, I didn’t know that.”
“Christ, Charlie, I hope this is a dummy run and not the real thing. If it is the shit’ll hit the fan.”
And I bet I knew who’d catch it all. “Do you have a number for the bike?” I asked.
“No. Just those of ones stolen locally in the last couple of weeks.”
“You have done your homework. What make did he race?”
“What did he race? No idea, why?”
“Because bikers are often loyal to one make, that’s why.”
“Christ, that’s a thought, Charlie. That’d narrow it down. Well done.”
He was telling me that they’d asked traffic to look out for him when someone at that end attracted his attention. “Wait a minute, Charlie,” he said. “Wait a minute…he’s back. Thank fuck for that. We can see him, riding towards the house.”
I hung about for another hour, but no reports of gunshots or dead bodies came in, so it must have been a training spin. Cox didn’t bother to ring me back so I went home via Sainsbury’s and did a major shop. My favourite check-out girl wasn’t on duty, which meant that the ciabatta bread and feta cheese were pointless purchases.
I had them for supper, toasted under the grill with lots of Branston pickle until they were bubbling. Welsh rarebit, Italian style, but it wasn’t a good idea. I lay awake for most of the night, thinking about a man who was loose in society with the intention of killing someone. Thinking about Annette. Thinking about her friend.
What if…what if…what if Chilcott shot his target, who, by the type of coincidence that you only find in cheap fiction, just happened to be Annette’s friend? Would I be pleased? Would she turn to me for consolation? Yeah, probably, I thought, to both of them. That’s when I dropped off, just before the cold breath of a new day stirred the curtains and the bloke in the next street who owns half of the market and drives a diesel Transit set off for work.
Saturday is his busiest day, and I had a feeling that this one might be mine too. I had a shower and dressed in old Wranglers, cord shirt and leather jacket. I put my Blacks trainers on my feet, designed for glissading down scree slopes. You never know when you might need to.
According to the electoral role, the tenants of Ne’er Do Well Farm were Carl and Deborah Faulkner. According to the DVLA, the series seven BMW that picked Chilcott up at the station belonged to Carl Faulkner. According to our CRO, Carl Faulkner had a string of convictions long enough to knit a mailbag and Deborah had a few of her own. His were for stealing cars, bikes, household items and bundles of bank notes, plus GBH and extortion. Hers were for receiving, causing an affray, and a very early one for soliciting. The one thing that they certainly weren’t was farmers.
“Nice couple, aren’t they?” Dave said as I returned the printout to him. He sat in the spare chair and placed his coffee on my desk.
“He saved her from a life on the streets,” I commented, sliding a beer mat towards him.
“Blimey, you’re in a good mood,” he said.
“And why not? It’s a new day, the weekend.”
“Chilcott might be the Met’s,” he responded, “but these two are ours.”
“They haven’t done anything.”
“Well that’ll make it harder, won’t it,” he declared. He had a sip of coffee and continued: “There’s harbouring a fugitive, for a start. And conspiracy. And probably stealing a bike. And I bet they don’t have a TV licence.”
“First time they poke their heads above a windowsill they’ll probably have them blown off,” I said.
“Yeah, that’s a strong possibility,” he agreed.
Word came through that strange policemen were congregating in our canteen and eating all the bacon sandwiches. They were the Met’s Regional Crime Squad. At nine o’clock Mr Cox came in to my office on a courtesy call, to tell me that they were having a meeting in the conference room and they’d be very grateful if I could make myself available to answer any questions that might arise about local conditions, whatever they were. He looked as if he’d spent the night on a bare mountain, which he had. I said: “No problem,” and followed him downstairs.
They were an ugly-looking bunch, chosen for their belligerence in a tight situation and not their party manners. Any of them could have moonlighted as a night-club bouncer or a cruiserweight. A couple wore suits and ties, some wore anoraks and jeans, others were in part police uniform, bulging with body armour. I gave them a good morning when I was introduced and settled down to listen.
It was the usual stuff: isolate; control; maximum show of power, minimum violence. There was only one road going past the farm, with junctions about half a mile away to one side and two miles away at the other. A bridlepath crossed one of the roads. I told them that it was not negotiable by a car but a Land Rover or a trail bike might do it.