Danny almost knocked over his beer reaching for the carrier bag. He tugged out the jammer and extended the antennas. Its first use for real. He couldn’t have been better placed, all but hidden by the chest-high terrace wall.
The car’s plates weren’t visible from this angle. He couldn’t tell from the design of the thing which year it had been manufactured, if it was too recent to respond to the jammer. If the trick didn’t work, so what? It was worth the try.
The door opened and the driver got out, no more than a youth, slim, in a dark blue hoodie and jeans. He pushed the door shut. He didn’t immediately use the key.
Danny’s right forefinger was poised over the switch. As Mr Singh had said, this was all about timing. You catch exact moment.
With a springy step and a bit of a swagger, the kid started walking in the direction of the footbridge. No one else was about. He hadn’t used the smart key yet. As if in an afterthought, about three paces from the car, he turned his head and glanced back.
Danny’s view was masked. All he could see was the youth’s back half-turned. It was impossible to tell for sure if the key was in his hand, but reasonable to assume it was. Drivers habitually took a few steps from their vehicle and then turned, pointed the key and pressed.
Now or never. Danny brought his finger down and instinctively ducked out of sight behind the terrace wall.
Nothing happened.
He had to remind himself that the whole point of the jammer was to get a negative result.
When Danny put his head above the wall again, the kid was halfway across the bridge, moving briskly. Danny stowed the jammer in the carrier and hurried out, leaving almost half a glass of real ale behind. On his way through the lounge he raised his free hand in a farewell to the barmaid and stepped out of the building and round the side to where the BMW was parked.
A thousand blessings on Mr Singh. The pins were up. The car was unlocked, begging to be liberated.
But not yet.
He needed to use the second gizmo, the programmer, to make his own key before he could drive his free gift away.
After checking to make certain no one was about, he stepped round to the driver’s side and let himself in. The interior was still warm and smelt faintly of body odour. He left the door open. He dumped the carrier bag on the passenger seat and lifted out the programmer. Now it was a matter of locating the onboard diagnostic system and plugging in the sixteen-pin connector.
Should be simple.
Danny had been given a demonstration by Mr Singh, who was as wiry as a strip of three-core flex. Danny was overweight. Grovelling under the dashboard of a car wasn’t easy. On his knees and breathing hard, he made more room by pushing the seat back to its fullest extent. Just above the pull switch for the bonnet he found the cover with the letters OBD on it. He opened up, plugged in, watched the programmer light up, used the controls to collect the key code and then remembered he would need something else. He reached for the carrier and scrabbled inside for one of the blank fobs, found one and pressed it against the programmer.
All done in under three minutes.
Relieved, he unplugged, extracted himself and stood up. His hands were shaking and his knees were wobbly. He looked towards the footbridge and saw no one.
The next job would be more familiar: driving the thing away to get the registration plates changed. A guy called Stew was the local specialist, always relocating to outwit the fuzz and currently on a trading estate in Chichester, not more than twelve miles away.
Danny got in, slotted in the key and yelped in triumph as the dashboard lit up. The fuel tank was three-quarters full.
Bridge Road, the main road to Chichester, went past the front of the Steam Packet. Danny drove off as sedately as if he was taking his mother shopping. He didn’t want to get pulled over for speeding. The good thing was that the young owner was still unaware his car had been driven away and with any luck he wouldn’t return for a couple of hours. You couldn’t have much sympathy. He was probably some rich kid whose father had bought the thing for him. Dad would shout the odds and then buy him another.
The Bimmer handled well and was a smooth ride. Danny didn’t object to driving an automatic. Not much over two years old, he reckoned. No need for a respray when there were so many silver saloon cars out there. Once this had the new plates, he’d dump the old Mercedes. Selling wasn’t an option in the stolen-car game. But it was all very satisfactory, and for not much outlay so far. Stew would be more expensive than Mr Singh, but that had to be faced. New plates were essential.
Now that he was clear of the crime scene, so to speak, Danny needed to check with Stew that he was willing to take delivery. The guy had never been known to turn down a job, but he liked to be contacted first. Only reasonable. Generally he was in his workshop until around midnight.
Out in open country, after the A259 had changed its identity from Bridge Lane to Crookthorn Lane to Grevatt’s Lane, he found a field entrance with enough room to pull off the road and make the call on a cheap mobile he’d bought specially for this job.
‘You working?’
Stew answered and he knew Danny’s voice right away. ‘Yep. Got something to show me?’
‘If you got time.’
‘When were you thinking of?’
‘Now if you want. Say twenty minutes.’
‘See you then.’
Having made the call, Danny wedged the phone under the back wheel of the car so that it would be crushed when he drove off. Technology is a two-edged sword to anyone in a high-risk occupation. He was tempted to do the same with the gizmos, but they’d been an expensive buy.
Before leaving, he thought he would also clear the glove compartment of the manual and any documents. It’s common sense to remove everything that can reveal the owner’s identity. The seats and door panels were free of obvious clutter, which was a help. For a young owner, it was all incredibly tidy. He leaned across and clicked the latch. The flap pushed against his hand.
An avalanche of banknotes tumbled out. Masses of them, mainly twenties.
The thump, thump wasn’t the money hitting the floor, it was Danny’s heart. Either the young guy who drove this car didn’t believe in using banks or he robbed them. There must have been more than a couple of grand here.
Alternately swearing and thanking God, Danny scooped up handfuls and stuffed as many as possible into his pockets. The rest went down his socks. How glad he was that Stew hadn’t found this lot.
What a turnaround in his luck. If it wasn’t so late in the day he would have bought a lottery ticket.
Fully ten minutes passed before he calmed down enough to drive again. Even then he was mentally spending the money. Good thing the route was obvious. He was through Felpham and Bognor and on to the Chichester Road without registering that he’d passed anywhere.
Concentrate, he told himself. The job isn’t done yet.
The last stretch of the A259 was a dual carriageway leading to the A27. Two roundabouts and he would be at Stew’s. He could safely go up to seventy here and test the acceleration. Watch the speedo, but feel the power.