Peter Lovesey - The Headhunters

Hen’s car was across the street from the Mill Pond, parked in Bridge Road. She and Gary sat waiting in the dark, passing the time listening to a local radio phone-in about policing and how it had changed, mostly for the worse.

Once Hen muttered, ‘Give me strength.’

Another time: ‘Who are these people?’

Finally, after a sharp, impatient breath. ‘Any minute now one of them is going to say when he was a boy he was caught nicking apples and the local bobby clipped him round the head and it did him no harm and he’s been a model citizen ever since.’

The caller wasn’t the next, but the one after. The clip round the head was for letting off a firework in a bus, but the effect was just as long-lasting, about seventy years of blameless living.

Gary stared at Hen wide-eyed, as if she’d picked the Grand National winner. ‘How did you know that was coming, guv?’

‘It’s a gift, Gary.’

‘Really?’

‘You could pick it up. Listen to enough old coots like that and you’ll be as good as I am.’ She switched to another station.

Tedious as the wait was, they remained on watch. Their position was ideal. There was only one route away from Fiona’s house. Every vehicle had to come towards them and make a turn. They were perfectly placed to follow.

‘You tell them good, guv,’ Gary said.

‘What are you on about now?’

‘Porkies. The bug in the car. I believed every word.’

‘Good. Let’s hope Francisco did.’

‘“S for Security” was a brilliant touch.’

‘If I’m right,’ Hen said, ‘he’s been into the house and seen inside that filing cabinet. He’ll have nicked the registration document from there, so, yes, it ought to worry him.’

‘D’you think he killed her, guv?’

‘One step at a time, Gary.’

‘Step one: he leads us to the car.’

‘He could lead us to some nightclub where he’s on the door.’

‘Christ, I hope not.’

Forty minutes had gone by since they’d driven away from the house and parked here. No way could Francisco have eluded them. Hen thought it possible that up to an hour would pass before he made his move. Even if he was not wholly convinced by her story about the homing device in Fiona’s car, it would prey on his mind.

‘Do we know what he drives?’ Gary asked.

‘You saw the cars along there.’

‘There were only two anywhere near the house, both of them old heaps really, a yellow 2CV Dolly and a beaten-up green Land Rover.’

‘Somehow the Dolly doesn’t sound right for a nightclub bouncer.’

A few spots of rain appeared on Hen’s windscreen and when she used the wipers the whole thing smeared. She found a cloth and asked Gary to clean up. He was outside and wiping when some headlights approached from the Mill Pond.

‘Get back in.’

He wouldn’t be recognised in the dark, but they needed to move off sharply if necessary. He was quickly into his seat.

‘Can you see what it is?’

‘Looks like the Dolly.’

When it turned left they saw the driver. Unless Francisco had disguised himself in false boobs and a blonde wig, he still hadn’t made his move.

‘If he wanted to be sure of avoiding us,’ Gary said twenty minutes later, ‘he wouldn’t use the car at all. He could walk right round the promenade and come out the other side. He’d reach the High Street that way and we’d never know.’

‘And where would he go then?’

‘Don’t know, and we wouldn’t find out.’

‘Aren’t you a tonic to be with?’ She leaned forward. ‘We’re starting to mist up. Where’s that cloth?’ She cleaned the inside of the windscreen in time to see another set of headlights approaching. This looked more like the shape of a Land Rover. She started up and watched.

The vehicle waited for a gap in the traffic and swung right, in the Chichester direction. In the short time it was side on, two things became clear. This was a Land Rover and the driver had Francisco’s cropped head.

Gary said, ‘Go for it!’

Before Hen went for it she had to give way to two others, the second a rented van that blocked any view of the traffic ahead. Hers was a Honda Civic and she was quite attached it. She was also quite attached to her life. She edged to the middle to see if she might overtake. The lights of a steady stream of oncoming traffic showed ahead.

‘Don’t worry, boss,’ Gary said. ‘This way, he won’t know we’re following.’

‘All I’m following is this bloody great van.’

‘The road opens up later.’

They passed Southbourne and Nutbourne and still there was no break in the traffic. The road was dead straight, allowing no views of the cars ahead, no way of telling if Francisco was similarly hampered or had zoomed a long way ahead.

‘I went to a funeral last year and something like this happened,’ Gary said. ‘The thing was, the service was at the church and after that we were all supposed to follow the hearse to the crematorium. We came to some traffic lights and got left behind and had no idea where to go after that. About thirty of us ended up at some pub. Whoa!’

The van had braked unexpectedly. Hen managed to stop in time, not without leaving some rubber on the road. ‘What the hell is this about?’

‘You know the Beefeater along here on the left?’ Gary said. ‘I reckon someone is stopping there.’

‘You’re wrong,’ Hen said. ‘Someone is going right and I think it’s Francisco. What’s down there?’

‘Lanes mostly. Chidham, isn’t it?’

The van moved off.

‘That was a Land Rover for sure,’ Hen said. ‘I’m following.’ She flicked the direction light lever. More cars were approaching. All she could do was wait to make the turn.

‘No problem, boss,’ Gary said to keep up Hen’s spirits. ‘We don’t want to get too close to him.’

Men and cars, she thought. They get inside one and feel compelled to assert themselves. Even a rookie DC.

When the gap came and they got across, the lane seemed ominously quiet and looked deserted. ‘He definitely turned down here,’ Hen said. ‘Chidham, you said? I don’t know it.’

‘You wouldn’t unless you had a reason,’ Gary said. ‘We’re on a peninsula really, with the sea to right and left. It could be a clever place to keep a stolen car. There’s a church somewhere, and a pub called the Old House at Home.’

‘No prize for guessing why you came down here.’

‘It was lighter than this when I came. Not much to look at, though. A few houses and farm buildings.’

‘Like barns, you mean?’

‘I know what you’re thinking, guv. Not easy finding them in the dark.’

Hen avoided using full beam. Progress had to be cautious and the lanes got more narrow the further south they went. Some sharp bends slowed them even more. At each bend, she half expected to see the Land Rover’s tail-lights.

She didn’t.

After yet another bend she said, ‘I think we’re going north again.’

‘Probably are.’

They came to a fork. Hen was starting to lose heart. ‘Now what?’

‘My feeling is left,’ Gary said.

More bends, sharp, right-angled. ‘I can see lights,’ Hen said, her foot on the brake. The road had widened and a car was at the side, on the left.

It was a black Mercedes.

‘This is the pub I was telling you about,’ Gary said. ‘Do you want to check the cars?’

‘We’d better.’

They stopped behind the Mercedes and got out. The check didn’t take long. Nothing resembling a Land Rover was parked outside. Gary offered to speak to the landlord, but Hen wanted to get back in pursuit.

In a short time they saw the lights of cars crossing the way ahead. They were back to the A259, the main road they’d left.