For all that, Belchamber had a packed bag in the boot of his Lexus and a plane ticket to Spain in the glove compartment. When trouble comes, the professional criminal rings his clever lawyer. But who does the clever lawyer ring? No, at the first sign of things going wrong, he was going to vanish and oversee developments from a safe distance.
The uniform was necessarily eclectic; a bit here, an item there, put together over many years and at the expense of many thousands of pounds. Only the cloth and the fine purple plume in the helmet weren't original. He was particularly fond of the helmet. He liked to put it on at moments of crisis. When he was alone, of course. The only person who ever saw him wearing the uniform in part or whole was the dead boy.
Don't think about him.
With the helmet on, he sometimes had the fancy he was that hypothesized ancestor, Marcus Bellisarius. Certainly he seemed to see things more dearly when he wore it, perhaps with the ruthless eye of the military tactician, balancing so many men lost against so much ground gained.
He took the helmet down now. Was something happening? The voices on the radio no longer sounded quite so bored and routine.
He raised the helmet high and placed it on his head.
Stanley Rose was beginning to sweat. He hoped his colleagues wouldn't notice, but when you've got five big men packed together into a medium saloon, sweat is hard to hide. If they did notice, they'd know the reason. And behind their grimly blank faces, they'd be grinning. When Operation Serpent got the go-ahead, he'd revelled in being The Man and he hadn't been able not to let it show. Try as he might, he knew that at briefings he'd come on strong, always having the last word, making sure everyone knew whose show they were in. Christ, when he'd gone to the bog, if there'd been any of the team there, he'd even pissed with more authority I
Logically, if the Hoard got safely delivered to Mid-Yorkshire, that was a job well done. But it wouldn't read like that back in Sheffield. If he'd been a little more tentative in his approach, he might have got away with some heavy ribbing. But when you'd strutted your stuff as The Man, a no-show with its expense of time and effort and manpower was going to be chalked against you almost as heavily as a successful heist.
They were approaching the Estotiland underpass. Another twenty minutes beyond that would see them home. Polchard! he screamed mentally. Where the fuck are you?
A hundred and fifty yards ahead. Mate Polchard back at Rose's car through the mirror of the security van.
The pigs were still keeping their distance. He'd banked on this. Not for them the plain fare of successfully escorting the Hoard to the Mid-Yorkshire Heritage Centre. No, they wanted to dip their snouts in the great steaming trough of arrests, and bodies in cells, and headlines in papers. But they hadn't thought to escort the empty van down from Mid-Yorkshire. Forcing it to divert into the Estoti service area off the underpass had been easy. And while the strong-arms in his team dealt with the driver and guard, the substitute vehicle, its call-sign signal carefully adjusted, emerged from the southern end of the underpass.
Reversing the process required a bit more guile.
'Keep it steady’ he said to his driver.
They'd gradually diminished their speed for the past quarter-hour so that now they were barely doing forty-five. Were the pigs suspicious? Why should they be? In any case it was too late now, he thought, focusing his gaze beyond the trailing car.
The pantechnicon coming up fast in the outside lane had no problem in getting past the police car just as the van began its shallow descent into the underpass. Signs warned, no stopping or overtaking, but the pantechnicon flashed its indicator after passing the police saloon and began to pull in front.
'Plonker!' yelled Rose. 'Get past him, for Christ's sake.'
His driver began to flash to pull out, but there was a white transit van slowly overtaking him now, blocking the manoeuvre.
Polchard watched all this in his mirror, then said 'Go,' when the saloon was completely out of sight.
The driver rammed down the accelerator.
Ahead was a sign with an arrow pointing off left, saying estotiland service area – authorized vehicles only. The security van roared along the slip road. Further on, down the exit slip road from the service area, the original Praesidium van joined the underpass road at a sedate pace.
'It's all right, guv, he's turning off,' said Rose's driver reassuringly as the pantechnicon began to move over on to the exit slip road. 'No need to worry. There's the van up ahead.'
'Where the fuck did you expect it to be? Vanished into thin air?' snarled Rose, annoyed to have let his anxiety show so clearly. 'Close up a bit, will you? And try not to let any other fucker get between us.'
'… fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen… there they are,' said Berry as the blip reappeared on the computer screen. 'Not long now. Beginning to look like much ado about nowt, isn't it?'
'Yeah’ said Hat Bowler. 'Nowt.'
This oppo couldn't finish too early for him. Though the extreme effects of whatever malaise had hit him over an hour ago hadn't been repeated, he still felt somehow physically cold and mentally spaced out. Another reaction had been a desire verging on a need to hear Rye's voice, so when Berry was called out of the control centre for a few minutes he'd taken the chance to ring the library, only to be told that Rye wasn't due in today.
This had surprised him. When he'd told her he was going to be tied up on Saturday, he'd got the impression she was working too. He then rang her flat. Nothing but the answer machine.
So she was out. What did he expect her to do when he wasn't around? Sit at home and mope?
But he felt uneasy though he knew no reason why.
The door of the control room opened.
'Hello, Superintendent. Come to check up on things?' said Berry. 'Must say you lot are taking this very seriously, but it's all going like a dream so far.'
Hat didn't turn from the screen. All his earlier symptoms were back mob-handed. He knew it wasn't Dalziel who'd come into the room, it was Death.
Death that master of role-play who was yet always himself. For he could come garbed as a nurse, or a close friend, or in the cap and bells of a jester, or as a great fat policeman, but the cavernous eyes and grinning jawbone were still unmistakable.
So he sat and stared at the light pulsing like a heart across the screen.
'Hat’ said Dalziel, 'could you step outside for a moment. I need a word.'
'Watching the van, sir’ said Hat stiffly. 'Won't be long now till it gets to the museum.'
'Mr Berry will watch for us,' said Dalziel gently. 'Come on, lad. We need to talk. Your office all right, Mr Berry?'
By now the manager too knew that a darkness more than the semi-dusk of a grey January day had entered the room.
'Sure’ he said.
Hat rose and, still without looking at the Fat Man, went out of the room.
'Will he be back?' said Berry.
'No’ said Dalziel. 'I don't think he will. You can manage here, I expect?'
'What's to manage?' said Berry, glancing at the screen. 'I reckon it's all over now.'
'I think you're right’ said Dalziel. 'It's all over.'
Pascoe was beginning to wish he'd stayed in bed. He sat on a chair and looked uneasily round Franny Roote's flat.
Normally he was the most meticulous of searchers, missing no possible hiding place in his pursuit of whatever it was he was pursuing, and just as assiduous in leaving no messy traces of his searching. In fact it was a standing joke among his less particular colleagues that if you wanted to give a room a good tidying, you got Pascoe to search it.
But something had gone wrong today.
Roote's flat looked like it had been done over by a disturbed juvenile on his first job.