After forty-five seconds of silence Birley’s voice crackled on the open channel. ‘Got ’em. Just through the roundabout by the water tower, heading south. He’s got his foot down.’
DC Campbell cut in. ‘We’re on the road. They went out the back to smoke. Left their drinks on the table.’
Valentine slid out on to the coast road, forcing the ageing Mazda to hit 75 mph. Shaw sat forward in the passenger seat trying to see tail lights ahead, but knowing they were losing ground with every mile. He’d been a fool to leave the Porsche at St James’s. He chewed over DC Campbell’s report: he didn’t like the sound of the half-finished drinks. What was suddenly so urgent they had to leave their drinks? Had they cut straight to business over the cigarette — and decided to go somewhere less public? It was a chilling thought, because going somewhere private with Bobby Mosse was literally the last thing Jimmy Voyce should do. And Shaw cursed his luck: his two prime targets were travelling in the car they hadn’t managed to bug.
Birley again. ‘Unmarked car’s picked ’em up at the Sandringham T-junction. Still doing eighty-five, sir. They’d like advice.’
‘Tell ’em to do ninety,’ muttered Valentine.
Shaw thought about it. If the unmarked CID car tried to stay with them at that speed they’d know they were being followed. But if the car backed off they’d almost certainly lose them. He had another car stationed at the ring-road roundabout at Lynn. If Mosse was going anywhere in the town they’d have to pass it before turning off the dual carriageway.
‘Tell them to follow — but at a distance. Don’t try to stay with them. Get through to the forward squad car, Mark. If they see the BMW they can follow from there.’
They drove in silence. It was an odd silence. Shaw remembered as a child listening live to the TV broadcast from Mission Control in Houston as the damaged capsule of Apollo 13 had fallen through the earth’s atmosphere: eight minutes of enforced radio silence, with the world waiting for a sound of life. Every ticking second added to the expectation of bad news. It was a silence like that.
Shaw checked the radio to see if the frequency was still open. South of Snettisham they got caught behind a line of caravans, forcing their speed down to 50 mph. Finally, they saw ahead the ringlet of high floodlights over the roundabout on the ring road. Traffic was light, a single HGV thundering around the curve. The convoy of caravans swung round and continued on the main road. With a sinking heart Shaw spotted the unmarked CID car in the lay-by — a Volkswagen Polo with spoilers and a ‘ball-of-fire’ paint job. Valentine parked behind it. No one moved.
After ten minutes Shaw got out and stood on the verge, thinking that a ring-road roundabout was one of the bleakest spots on earth. The air was laced with fumes, and there was some snow in the air, as apparently aimless as the circulating traffic. In the central reservation, on the grass, a teenager sat with his shirt off, drinking from a gold can.
Question: Where were Mosse and Voyce? Between the last sighting south of Hunstanton and the Lynn roundabout there were half a dozen turn-offs — all minor roads, leading either down to the tidal marshes or inland to the villages on the edge of the Norfolk hills.
He tried to imagine the conversation in the speeding BMW. Voyce trying to avoid the semblance of blackmail, Mosse playing dumb, both of them attempting to negotiate a number without actually talking money. And Voyce’s promise — that would be the key bargaining point, that he had a flight home booked, that he’d be gone in five days. So this was a one-off. But Mosse, thinking it through, judging, perhaps, that there was absolutely no reason that Voyce should turn out to be different from most blackmailers, who always, always, come back for more.
And that worrying unknown: with exactly what was he blackmailing Mosse? Just a stark threat to go to the police? Or something else — something more substantial, something that would put Mosse behind bars while Voyce would walk free or face a nominal sentence? Is that why Cosyns and Robins had died? Did they harbour the same lethal secret? If Voyce was trying the same game, he was risking his life.
Stress made Shaw’s vision blur, so that he had to blink until the image cleared.
The driver’s side window of the Mazda came down. Smoke drifted out.
‘I’ll buy you a drink,’ said Valentine.
15
Kirkpatrick’s Bar stood on the quay, just beyond the Grade I listed Custom House, close to the Purfleet, the black gullet of water that cuts into the heart of the Old Town. Outside the snow had thickened and was driving in with the tide. A chalk board offered oysters, mussels or crab. The bar was empty so Shaw and Valentine took a table by the window and ordered two pints of Guinness and a dozen oysters, from a waitress who appeared from the kitchen: mid-twenties, spider-thin, with blonde hair, tied up to one side and so thick it threatened to bend her narrow neck with the weight. Shaw had his radio and mobile on the table top, keeping track of the units he’d sent back up the road to Hunstanton to try to find the missing BMW and Voyce’s hire car. He had a traffic unit stationed near Mosse’s house with orders to alert everyone if he came home. Shaw’s stress level had hit a plateau: but it was a high one. Twice he’d actually imagined he’d heard his mobile ring tone, grabbing the phone only to find no incoming call.
‘Cheers,’ said Valentine, trying not to wince as he took the top three inches off the pint. He’d asked for a pint of bitter but they only had bottles, and he never drank wine if he was paying, so he’d gone for the black stuff. He looked at the glass now, knowing he’d made the wrong decision. ‘Christ,’ he said, wiping his hand across his lips. ‘How can you drink that?’
The events of the night so far suggested that both their careers were in danger of imminent collapse — a prospect Valentine found oddly appealing. He realized, perhaps for the first time, that since his demotion he’d been living a kind of half-life, waiting, scheming, and dreaming only of his return to St James’s and the reattainment of his lost rank. He could see now that this was not so much a healthy goal as his only goal. An obsession. Now that the prospect of success was so slim he sensed a new freedom, a chance to accept failure and the lonely retirement that would follow, and then do something else with his life, even if it was just to walk away. He cracked his fingers at the joints and took a second swig at the Guinness. Not lonely perhaps; just alone. He could live with that.
Shaw was less sanguine. He had no intention of passively watching his career implode. But the first step to recovering the situation was to recognize that they’d made a mistake: losing Mosse was a critical error. They had to find him, and quickly.
‘We should have put a wire in the BMW, or tagged it,’ he said, setting his glass carefully down on a slate coaster. He took one of the oysters, slid it into his mouth, bit down twice and let it slip down his throat. The effect was always the same, a rush of well-being, because the taste was of the sea.
‘Bit late for that bright idea,’ said Valentine. He looked Shaw in the eye. ‘My fault. Surveillance was down to me. My op. I underestimated Mosse — I’ve spent a lifetime doing it.’ He drained the remaining Guinness in one draught. ‘I never learn.’ The waitress was sitting on a bar stool, reading a paper. He caught her eye, asking for a re-fill, keen to have more of what he didn’t like. When she brought the drink they asked to see Ian Murray — adding that they’d phoned ahead.
She retreated to the kitchen and they could hear a conversation in low tones. Then Murray appeared, wearing chef’s whites and carrying a glass of fizzy water, ice and lemon. The waitress joined him, standing.
‘Manager says I can have ten minutes,’ said Murray. He didn’t meet their eyes and his tone was hostile, hovering between exasperation and irritation, an almost exact mirror of his mother’s emotional temperament. Shaw couldn’t help but wonder why. They were there to try to find out who had killed his father. What was his problem with that?