Wasted Years (33 page)

“Why Friday?”

“Cause more people take money out Fridays, bird brain. Lot more cash there waiting.”

“We going to do another building society?” Keith asked.

“Yes,” Darren said. “And this time we’re going to do it fucking right!”

“On the M1, boss. Heading north.” Divine was monitoring Millington and Naylor’s progress as they followed Churchill’s Ford Granada. “Reckon he’s heading for a meet with Rains?”

“Any luck,” Resnick said, “he’s doing exactly that. Keep me in the picture.”

“Right.”

Resnick went into his office and dialed a number, asked to speak to Pam Van Allen.

Frank Churchill was sticking to the outside lane, keeping the speedometer between seventy-five and eighty, moving over only when some salesman, flogging his company car, came fast up behind him, flashing his lights.

Naylor kept several vehicles between himself and their quarry, alternately moving up and falling back, doing everything he could to make sure his wouldn’t be the vehicle Churchill habitually saw in his rearview mirror.

“He’s slowing down,” Millington said. “Pulling over.”

Naylor had noticed already, dropped behind a lorry carrying pharmaceutical goods north from the Continent.

“Service station,” Millington said. “Just up ahead.”

Naylor checked in his own mirror and signaled to leave the motorway.

“I don’t want you to think,” Resnick said into the phone, “that I’m pestering you about this …”

There was a silence, out of which Pam Van Allen said, “I’m trying hard not to.”

“I was interested to know how you think he’s taking to being out, settling into the hostel, whatever.”

“Pretty much the way you’d expect somebody to do when they’ve been excluded from society for ten years. He’s tense, apprehensive …”

“Angry?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“I know. But I’m concerned …”

“For his wife’s safety.”

“Yes.”

There was another pause, longer, and Resnick could almost hear the probation officer thinking. Through the glass at the top of his door he could see Divine’s head, bobbing a little as he spoke into the telephone.”

“After what you said,” Pam Van Allen said cautiously, “I talked to him about his wife, his feelings towards her. Everything he said suggested he sees that relationship as being very much in the past. He showed no inclination to open it up again, get back in touch. Certainly he expressed nothing like anger towards her.”

“And you believed him?”

“Yes. Yes, I did.”

“Good.”

“Goodbye, inspector.” Resnick had a sudden image of her as she set down the receiver, one hand pushing up through her cap of silver-gray hair, the other pinching the bridge of her nose as she closed her eyes.

“Boss!”

Alerted by Divine’s shout, Resnick hurried into the main office.

“Graham,” Divine explained, holding out the phone. “Wants to talk to you.”

Resnick identified himself down what was clearly a wavery connection.

“Good news is, it’s Rains right enough. No mistaking him anywhere. Standing in line in the cafeteria waiting for Churchill to join him over chicken, chips, and peas.”

“What’s the bad?” Resnick said.

“Where they’ve sat themselves, bang in the middle of the place, can’t get near ’em without getting spotted. Tried getting Kevin on to table behind, but what with all the chatter and the background bloody muzak and the cutlery, you’d need to be leaning over them with a hearing trumpet to know what they were talking about.”

“Lynn’s on her way in a car. Rendezvous outside. When they leave, you take Rains, let her tag along with Churchill.”

“What if she don’t get here?”

“Stick to the plan, follow Rains.”

“Right,” Millington said and then quickly, “They’re moving, got to go.”

Naylor walked down the steps from the cafeteria and ahead of him Rains and Churchill separated, neither one of them in any obvious hurry to go back to their vehicles. Churchill browsed the magazines in the shop; Rains spent a pound or so on the games machines near the exit. Churchill went into the gents and locked himself into a cubicle. Millington didn’t think they’d been spotted, though there was no way of knowing for sure. What they were observing could simply be careful practice, nothing more. At least, it gave Lynn Kellogg more time to arrive. He had no way of knowing the northbound carriageway had been temporarily blocked by an accident involving a lorry and a fifteen-year-old youth joyriding in a stolen Fiesta.

Suddenly Churchill was hurrying across the parking area towards his Granada and that diversion was enough to give Rains a vital start back up the steps towards the bridge linking the two sides of the motorway.

The three blue saloons left the service area heading south in a virtual convoy and between them Millington and Naylor got the registration of one and a half. And they couldn’t be sure which of the three Rains had been driving.

Frank Churchill, meanwhile, had continued his journey northwards and they could only hope that a sense of filial duty would take him back to Mansfield so that they could pick up his trail again.

“A balls-up, Charlie. A regular balls-up, I don’t know what else to call it,” Skelton said after Resnick had made his report.

Alone in the CID room, smarting still, Graham Millington thought after that day’s work he’d be fortunate to retain his sergeant’s stripes, never mind promotion.

Fifty

Lorna didn’t know why it was, but ever since Kevin Naylor had stopped returning calls something appalling had happened to her appetite. Instead of settling down to watch
Neighbours
with a Linda McCartney low-calorie broccoli and cheese bake, she found herself reaching for the telephone and waiting, tummy impatiently rumbling, until the Perfect Pizza delivery man appeared on her doorstep. Her lunch had progressed from two crisp-breads and a piece of celery to lasagna and chips at the local pub. Breakfast was no longer a single shredded wheat, it was porridge with maple-type syrup and cream, several slices of toast and marmalade, and instant coffee with two spoonsful of sugar.

She had overheard Becca yesterday whispering to Marjorie in a voice that could have been heard up and down the street. “You don’t suppose, do you, that our Lorna’s got herself pregnant?”

Fat chance!

“I’m sorry,” Kevin Naylor had said when she’d finally raised him on the phone, “but there’s another officer handling that now. I’ve been shifted on to something else.”

Shifted back to his wife, Lorna thought. She still hadn’t forgotten that in the midst of their one and only night of passion, Kevin had etched a particular moment forever on her mind by digging his fingers sharply into her shoulders and shouting, “Yes, Debbie! Yes, Debbie! Yes, Debbie, yes!”

Lorna ran her finger round the inside of her breakfast bowl, scooping up the last of the syrup and cream, before rinsing it under the tap. Oh God, she thought, next thing I’ll be running out of things I can wear, having to go out and buy myself a whole new wardrobe. The one saving grace was the example of Marjorie, huffing and puffing and perspiring her way through every working day. The minute Lorna found herself rivaling Marjorie, she was enrolling in Weight Watchers, withdrawing her savings, and booking two weeks on a health farm.

In the bathroom she cleaned her teeth with care, applied the finishing touches to her makeup. At least it was Friday, another week nearly over. Maybe tonight she’d go down the Black Orchid, let her hair down; dance enough she might even lose a few pounds.

The senior officers involved in Kingfisher had been in closed session ever since Jack Skelton came back from his early morning run. The consensus was this: Rains was back in circulation and his meeting with Churchill was enough to suggest Millington’s information had at least a patina of truth. Rains, moreover, was aware of the possibility he and Churchill might be being watched. There was no certain way of knowing whether their tail had actually been spotted or if they were merely taking precautions. But then, as Reg Cossall suggested, you don’t waste time fiddling around with a condom if all you’re interested in’s a quick wank. Even as he said it, Cossall thought he might get an earful from Helen Siddons, but all she did was compliment him on his awareness of the need for safe sex. All you need do, darling, Cossall thought, is carry on looking like that. What he did was smile and keep his mouth shut.

Finally it was agreed that they would maintain a careful watch on Churchill for another day, Frank having obligingly returned to his Mansfield home in time for tea. Meantime, extra officers would be assigned to the search for Rains. If nothing had developed within twenty-four hours, Frank Churchill could be brought in for questioning. If they moved quick enough, rattled him enough, they might squeeze some answers out of him before he was able to shelter behind his brief.

“Fetch us another tea, Keith. Make sure it isn’t stewed, eh? More like gravy, this last cup.”

Keith could tell from the tone of Darren’s voice that he was seriously on an up. Sitting by the back wall of the Arcade café, finishing his cooked breakfast, and looking so sodding full of himself. At least his cropped hair had started to grow out a little, he didn’t look so weird any more. Like one of them skinheads you saw sometimes round the city center, lace-up Doc Martens and Levis and swastika tattoos.

“Better treat yourself to something more than that,” Darren said, watching Keith with his two of toast.

“How come?”

Darren winked. “Big day today, can’t afford for you to be feeling queasy.”

“What’s on, then?”

“What’s on? Day trip to Skeggy, what d’you think? You and me, we’ve got some unfinished business to do, right?”

Keith looked at him sharply, the unnatural gleam in his too blue eyes. “You’re not serious? I mean, not after what happened last time, it’s not …?”

“Jesus Christ!” Darren had one of Keith’s hands tight inside his own and was squeezing hard. “You know what, I reckon I’d’ve done us both a favor if instead of cutting you down inside that cell, I’d let you swing. You’re about as much good as a foreskin in a Force Ten gale.”

Tears were forming in the corners of Keith’s eyes as his face grimaced with pain.

“All you got to do, be out front with the car, ready to get us out of there. I’ll go in on my own.” He snorted with derision. “Worked a bloody sight better without you last time, why not this?” And he gave Keith’s hand a final squeeze before letting it go. “Now don’t take too long,” Darren said, “it’s time we were out of here.”

Keith pushed half a slice of half-cold toast into his mouth and almost choked.

“No word from young Rylands?” Resnick said, pausing by Lynn Kellogg’s desk.

Lynn shook her head. “Not as yet.”

“See if you can raise Mark or Kevin for me, will you? Maybe something’s happening on the Churchill front.”

It was Divine whom Resnick eventually spoke to. The most exciting thing that had taken place was Churchill mouthing off at an old man with an orange delivery bag over his shoulder cluttering up the place with useless leaflets not worth the paper they were printed on. Chop down half a sodding forest just to keep you walking the streets.

Better kind of villain, Resnick thought, setting down the phone, not only is he nice to his mum he’s worried about the ozone layer and the state of the planet.

Shivering in the call box and not from the cold, Keith was having difficulty getting his coins into the slot, pressing the correct buttons for the number.

“Oh, Miss Solomon,” Becca piped in her shrill little voice, “could you come and help here, please?”

Lorna pushed aside the computer printouts she’d been checking, query from an account holder about the regularity with which her salary had been paid in, and got to her feet, automatically smoothing down her skirt as she stood.

What all the fuss was about, she didn’t know. There were no more than three people waiting, pretty average for this time of the day, she didn’t see why Becca couldn’t cope on her own till Marjorie got back from her coffee break.

“Thank you, Miss Solomon,” Becca smiled as Lorna took a seat alongside her, “mustn’t keep the customers waiting.”

Ever since she had started putting on a little weight herself, Lorna couldn’t help but notice how skinny Becca really was. Like a couple of twigs in American tan tights.

“Yes, sir,” Lorna said, looking up through the glass. “How may I help you?” And then thinking, oh, no; oh, Christ!

“Hello, Lorna,” Darren grinned. “Remember me?”

“Becca,” Lorna started, “I think …”

“Never mind about no one else,” said Darren, “this is between you and me. Now here …” and he pushed a green bin liner through beneath the glass “ … get that filled and don’t piss me about.”

Lorna froze.

Becca spotted the bin liner from the corner of her eye and screamed.

Darren reached towards the waistband of his jeans and pulled out the gun.

A middle-aged man wearing decorator’s overalls began to move towards the exit and Darren yelled for him to stop and leveled the pistol at his head. The man stopped.

“Lie down!” Darren ordered. “All of you. Flat down with your hands over your heads.” He’d seen them made to do that the other night in some film and it had looked pretty good.

“Okay,” he said, swinging the PPK round until once again it was pointing towards Lorna. “Lorna, what you have to do, all that cash, in the bag. And Lorna, nothing clever like you tried before, none of that business with alarms.” He tapped on the glass with the barrel end of the gun. “Reinforced or not,” he smiled, “once I press this trigger, this isn’t going to be worth shit.”

Becca had doubled forward, head towards her knees, praying for it all to go away. Lorna, scarcely taking her eyes off Darren and the pistol, was dropping handfuls of money down into the bag.

Stretched across the floor like sardines, none of the customers moved.

“Come on, come on!” Darren urged. “Be quick!”

Lorna held up the green bin liner for him to see. “That’s all there is.”

“You wouldn’t be holding out on me?”

There wasn’t a patch of color anywhere in Lorna’s face.