Adrian Magson - Red Station

Thirty minutes later, there was still no sign of her.

Rik said, ‘She’s been gone a long time.’

‘Too long,’ Harry agreed. He added, ‘That bag that arrived for me from London.’

Rik nodded. ‘What about it?’

‘Did Clare ever get one?’

Rik thought about it. ‘I never saw one.’ He paused. ‘But she had some ammo. One dropped out of her bag once.’ He shrugged. ‘I put it back. Figured it was above my pay grade, stuff like that.’

Harry stood up. ‘You take the sharp end, I’ll do the rest. Check everywhere, including the washrooms.’

‘I’ll get arrested.’

‘So improvise.’

They split up. Harry found the nearest washrooms and asked a female member of staff to check on his lady colleague. He gave her a description. Black cargo pants, dark T-shirt, athletic build, no make-up.

The woman came back out shaking her head.

‘There’s only a few kids in there,’ she told him. ‘Are you sure she came to this one?’

‘No, not really. Maybe I got it wrong.’

‘You could try the ones on D deck. They’re not so busy.’

Harry was about to leave when he glanced down at the woman’s hand. She was holding a flat plastic case in one hand. It looked new. ‘What’s that?’

She glanced down. ‘Oh, I found this by the sinks. Someone’s going to be kicking themselves; they’re new on sale in the shop today. It’s a travel make-up kit… hardly used.’

Harry took it off her and opened it. She was right — it was barely touched and the mirror was clean. Every woman’s compact he’d ever seen had been a mess.

Make-up. Appearance. Disguise.

Harry thanked the woman and handed back the compact, then toured the rear half of the boat on all decks. He scoured the bars, the cafeteria, the cinema and the restaurant, and went out on the open deck, checking the club-style chairs and the plastic deck seats. He was looking for a new face.

Still Clare Jardine’s face, but no longer plain.

He eventually returned to where they had been sitting. Rik was back, looking worried. ‘I checked everywhere. Can’t find her.’

Harry nodded. ‘Me too.’ There was no doubt about it.

Clare Jardine had done a runner.

Bill Maloney was waiting at Dover in a mud-spattered Volvo. The former Royal Marine was wrapped in a waterproof jacket, with heavy rain clouds milling overhead like horses in a corral. The ground around the vehicle was awash with puddles, but he seemed immune to the conditions.

Where the hell, thought Harry, trudging to meet him, are the blue clouds everyone raves about?

Maloney gave a sketchy wave, then looked around quizzically. ‘I thought there were three of you.’

‘There were. One pulled out,’ said Harry. He told him about Clare’s disappearing act.

‘Why would she do that?’

‘I don’t know. Could be she knows she’ll never get back in. She even tried to get a set of false papers. I think she’s been planning this for a while. Either way, she’s cooked.’

If Clare was still on board, she had found somewhere secure to hide. With a change of clothes and make-up, it wouldn’t be difficult for someone with her training to latch on to a friendly face and hitch a ride.

Unless she had jumped. But he didn’t believe that.

‘Gone native, you think?’ Maloney meant had she gone over to the opposition.

‘No. I think she decided to get lost for good.’

Maloney shrugged and got in. He drove them towards London, one eye on the speed limit and waiting for them to talk.

‘You got somewhere to stay?’ he asked Harry, as they took the M20 towards Swanley and Lewisham.

‘I know a hotel. It’s good for now.’

Maloney looked at Rik. ‘How about you?’

Rik shook his head. ‘I’ll stay with my mum. She’s moved twice since I got tabbed, so she should be OK.’

‘Fair enough.’ He glanced at Harry. ‘Listen, there’s stuff I have to tell you about the Essex thing.’

‘Go on.’

‘I did some digging. There’s been a lot of chaff thrown out about the shooting, how it all went shit-shaped. It bugged me how those two kids managed to penetrate the cordon.’

‘Me too. There was a hole.’ It was the only explanation. But what sort of hole?

‘That’s the thing. I know a guy whose brother is in the local armed response unit. He was on the team supposed to be covering that track. He says they were told to stand down about two hours before the ETA.’

Harry breathed a lengthy sigh. There was the answer. ‘Why?’

‘Same old thing: budgets. Someone decided it didn’t need that number of bodies to intercept one small boat.’ He shrugged. ‘There was also a PM’s visit at Stansted Airport the following morning. They needed a show of strength because of protests against expansion plans. It left Red Three short of men. No way could he keep it secure.’

Fuck. Harry felt sick with anger. Budgets and political face.

‘There’s something else.’ Maloney sounded sombre. ‘Colin Parrish — the dead copper? He was new. That gig was his first ever. They sicked us with a newbie. Can you believe it?’

Harry shook his head. After what he’d been through, he was ready to believe anything. Another screw-up to be swept clean and sanitized. And for what?

‘Have they found out how the dead kids got there?’

‘Not so far. But with the team cut back it left holes all over. I reckon the pick-up team got out the same way.’

Harry thought about the two dead civilians. Killed because they had stumbled into the wrong place at the wrong time. Someone had to pay for that. And Parrish; a young copper who had more vim than sense. He re-ran the scene though his mind. Parrish had run out probably counting on using the arrival of the Land Rover as a distraction, or to draw fire from the boat. They would never know which. All he’d done was make the men on the boat think the kids in the Land Rover were part of the intercept.

And therefore a target.

Unless…

‘Who was Red Three?’

‘Bloke called Doyle? Why?’

‘I tried to raise him when the Land Rover turned up. There was no reply.’

‘Could have been a comms breakdown. He was covering a lot of ground that night.’

‘Is he any good?’

‘Yeah, I’d say so. What do you want him to do?’

‘The Met were taking regular aerial shots of the area the day before the bust, right up to the closure of the cordon. I saw a couple during the briefing, when we were going over the approaches. Can you get a look at other copies through Doyle?’

‘I suppose so. Not sure what I’d tell him, though. Like you, I’m out of it.’

‘Not quite. You can still walk in the building without being arrested. This is important. Tell him something’s been bugging you about the Land Rover and you can’t let go of it. Professional pride and all that. You don’t have to mention me, though.’

‘What about it? He’s bound to ask.’

Harry shrugged. ‘Like how did it get there? A noisy great Land Rover out of nowhere?’ He shook his head.

Maloney thought about, then did a double take, nearly slamming into the rear of a truck pulling out with a signal. ‘Shit! You’re right. Even with the holes in the cordon, someone would have seen it. But if they didn’t drive through the cordon right then…’

‘… they must have been inside already,’ Harry finished. ‘Get the aerials of the track and anywhere that could have housed a Land Rover. And look at the background on the two kids.’

‘I can tell you that now. The girl was Estelle McGuiness, the daughter of a local chief superintendent.’

‘You’re kidding!’

‘I know. It gets worse. He admitted he’d talked about the operation at home. His daughter was into birdwatching and the Wetland Trust activities in a big way, and worried a drugs bust would upset the birds.’