“What, then?”
She sat mum and gazed towards the gallery. There’s a nice fountain and some landscaped water gardens. Restful to look at, particularly when you want to avoid answering somebody’s question.
“Teri, I need to know if they’ve got inside information. Is someone leaking to them from your side?”
“No, it wasn’t that. To tell the truth, someone took our car.”
“What?”
“Our lot had followed them to a motorway services. For some reason, both officers went into the building and left their vehicle in the car park. It had gone when they got back.”
“Really?”
“The chief hit the roof. It wasn’t the usual type of car either. It was something no one would expect.”
“Oh? What?”
“A Citroen BX. You know, the one with hydraulic suspension? It’s a good car. And nobody ever suspects it’s one of ours.”
“Is that right, Teri?”
Now it was my turn to look away, so I stared at the displays of flowers in the garden centre. The carnations were a lovely blushing pink. Just over the wall were the tunnels built by an eccentric duke to avoid having to see anybody. He must really have had something to be embarrassed about, mustn’t he? But I think I knew how he felt.
“And I suppose the two blokes are in deep trouble for losing it?”
“Very deep.” She sighed at the badness of the world, bless her. “I don’t know, Stones. Some folk will nick anything, won’t they?”
“Too true.”
A bloke came past the car carrying an enormous rose bush that hid his face. Just the trick an undercover cop might use. But he wasn’t looking at us, and anyway his feet were too small. I came back to a comment that Teri had made a few minutes earlier.
“This talk on the streets, Teri?”
“There’s a new operation. Well, not new maybe, but expanding fast.”
“Getting serious?”
“Yes. A few small-scale thefts might go by without attracting too much interest. But once things move up a notch, it’s a different matter. That gets attention.”
“And somebody’s been saying that I’m involved in this operation, is that what you mean?”
“So Gleeson says. His lot have informants all over the place. They listen to everything that’s being said.”
“Somebody’s spreading this deliberately. I’m on somebody’s shit list.”
“You mean hit list.”
“Not really.”
“Well, the talk is catching. You’d better watch yourself.”
I thought about the German car that had chased us over the heath at Medensworth.
“Teri — have your lot been tailing me?”
“Not that I know of. Why?”
“Just thinking.”
“Don’t get paranoid. You’re not that important.”
Teri got out of the car, taking her tobacco smoke with her, as well as a certain sense of security.
“Can’t I even buy you a pot plant?” I said.
“I can’t grow pot in the office — not with the drugs squad about.”
“Thanks then, Teri.”
“I can’t do any more to help you, Stones. I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay, love.”
She drove out of the car park at a sedate pace. Nobody followed her. Yet it was only a matter of seconds before the passenger door of the Subaru opened and somebody slipped into the seat next to me. The smell of tobacco was replaced by motor oil and chips.
“Copper, ain’t she? Nice looking piece, though.”
“Where were you hiding, Trevor?”
“That’d be telling. I bought this, look, while I was waiting.”
He was clutching a cactus in his grimy hand. It was one of those plants with obscene-looking fleshy fingers. You know the ones — they stand at attention, rigid and spiky, and don’t change for what seems like for ever. They burst into flower about once every ten years, then go all limp and drooping. I remember they made quite an impression on my fertile imagination when I was pubescent teenager.
Trevor’s clothes were just as filthy as they’d been at Rufford the day before. I winced at the threat to my seat covers and opened the windows a bit further.
“It’s very nice, Trevor. I suppose you’ll put it on expenses?”
“It’s necessary camouflage. Justifiable expenditure.”
“Right.” Funny how he slipped into accountant-speak whenever you mentioned money. It was the one weakness in his performance. “Did you get me some stuff on those names?”
“The names? Of course.” He pulled my crumpled bit of paper from his pocket. “One in particular. This name.” He pointed at the list. “He’s got a bit of a background all right, this bloke. Been away for a bit, but he’s back in action. And the word is that he’s got his eye on bigger things now.”
“Operating in this area?”
“Likely.”
“Only likely, Trevor?”
He shrugged. “You add two and two together, and you’ve got a likelihood, not a certainty.”
“Really? When I was at school they told me it actually was a certainty. Four, in fact. Every time.”
“You obviously didn’t do Differential Calculus, mate.”
“You’re bloody right, I didn’t.”
“Well, then.”
Trevor was fingering his cactus, rubbing his thumbs over the spines as if he was counting them. Presumably he got a different number each time.
“So. This is the bloke I’m really looking for, is it?”
“No, I wouldn’t say so.”
“What? Is there someone else on the list you know about?”
“Well, the rest are low level. I mean there’s one who isn’t on your list at all. These others are working for him now. They’re aiming to be on the up, and he’s the one with the right contacts, see.”
“Tell me about him, then.”
“A bloke called Perella. That’s all I know.”
“All? All? Not even a first name?”
He shrugged.
“Is he Italian or something, with a name like that?”
He shrugged again.
“What’s up, Trevor? Aren’t I paying you enough?”
“You haven’t paid me anything yet.”
“So what’s wrong? What’s happened to your famous methods?”
“Well, this Perella — he might be a bloke with contacts, but he also seems to have no past. Not one that I can dig out anyway, so far. Give me time, then maybe. But he hasn’t got a record, and he’s not been involved in any previous jobs I know of. Basically, no one knows nothing about him. He works through second division blokes like these on your list, and he only contacts them by phone. He’s careful. A bit like you, Stones.”
“Yeah, thanks. That was the sort of conclusion Eddie Craig was coming to as well.”
“So you’re not Perella, then?”
“Bloody hell, Trevor.”
“I only asked. Your name has been mentioned, see. In passing.”
“It’s about time people stopped mentioning it. All this talk makes me nervous. It could do me damage.”
“I reckon it has already, hasn’t it? That’s what they’re saying. Someone’s trying to close you down, Stones. Is it Craig?”
I could see Trevor working out whether his invoice was going to get paid, or if he’d have to go through the hassle of claiming off my estate after my premature death.
“Funnily enough, I think Craig’s on my side.”
“Lucky you. Because he’s not a happy man at the minute.”
“Tell me about it.”
“That’s what I’m doing.”
“You could have fooled me. Not unless you’re talking in code. So far you’ve told me sod all. I could have found out more reading the growing instructions on that cactus.”
“There aren’t any instructions on it,” he said, turning the pot round and nearly skewering my eye with the spikes.