‘Look where you’re going,’ said Stanton. ‘The road starts winding soon.’
‘I can see.’
They were gaining rapidly on the Zephyr but Brooks didn’t dare let up; once the Zephyr reached town it would be a much simpler matter to double back through the busy streets and lose them. The two cars raced along the gradually winding road, tyres screaming and back wheels slithering into the verge.
‘Thank God for the winding road,’ Brooks called. ‘They won’t be able to use their guns on us now.’
‘God help us,’ muttered Stanton.
There was a farm on their right, and several seconds before the crash Brooks saw what was going to happen. A tractor was coming out of the fields; almost immediately he lost sight of it behind the farmhouse, and then as they sped past the farmhouse and round the corner Brooks saw the tractor lurch into the road. The Ford Zephyr skidded nearly twenty yards before hitting the tractor with a bang that sounded like an atomic explosion. The tractor disintegrated and came to rest in a muddle of twisted metal in the opposite ditch. The Ford Zephyr spun on until it hit a tree.
‘God help us.’
Brooks had slowed down. He manoeuvred the car perilously past the moving wreckage and managed to stop a hundred yards further on. Stanton threw open his passenger door and stumbled into the road.
‘Fat lot we can do to help them,’ Brooks said grimly. He picked up the radio telephone to report in. Then he noticed that Stanton was being sick on the grass verge. At that moment the tractor’s petrol tank burst into flames.
PC Horace Brooks walked slowly back to the remains of the Zephyr. He had no real desire to examine the crumpled, broken bodies trapped inside the wreckage. One man was screaming hysterically, screaming that his legs were gone, screaming for quick death. The others seemed to be dead already.
Brooks spent several minutes hunting for the driver of the tractor, and eventually he found the man’s body in the field beyond the ditch. He was still alive, miraculously. To judge from the blood he had crawled about two yards and then lost consciousness.
‘You’ll never believe it,’ Horace Brooks said to a sickly looking PC Stanton, ‘but this is why I hate driving too fast. There are too many people about who should never be allowed behind a wheel.’
Stanton was making soothing noises to the man who had lost his legs, trying to calm him until the ambulance arrived. Horace Brooks shrugged gloomily, lit a cigarette, and sat on the grass to wait.
Half an hour later the scene was crowded. Two ambulances, a breakdown lorry and another police car had arrived to clear the debris. A police photographer and a young reporter from the local press had asked questions of everybody in sight, and a dozen people had materialised on the deserted road to provide an audience. PC Brooks was reporting to his inspector.
‘The tall man’s name is Thorne,’ he explained, ‘Oscar Thorne. They call him Skibby for some reason.’ He led the thick set, morose inspector from the ambulance back to the wrecked car. A man was using an oxyacetylene cutter to free one of the corpses. ‘But all these men are just thugs,’ he said, ‘they’re hoodlums. They wouldn’t know how to plan a bank raid.’
Detective Inspector Manley nodded. He was too busy trying to light his pipe to answer the constable. At last he waved away a cloud of smoke and coughed. ‘They may not have planned it, but they’re ruthlessly efficient. This is the third bank robbery in this part of the county in two weeks.’
‘Well, they didn’t get away with the money this time.’
PC Stanton had retrieved the large black leather bag from the Zephyr. ‘Do you want to take charge of this, sir?’ he asked the inspector.
‘Yes, I’ll take it back to the station.’ Inspector Manley took the bag and returned to his own car. He put the bag on the passenger seat and climbed in behind the wheel. ‘Report back to me as soon as this mess has been cleared up,’ he called to PC Brooks.
‘Aye aye, sir.’
Inspector Manley switched on the ignition and put the car into gear. Then he changed his mind and switched off. Curiosity had got the better of him. He took the black leather bag and applied a small penknife to the lock. It sprang open.
Manley stared in bewilderment at a copy of the Concise Oxford Dictionary. That was all the bag contained. The money was gone.
‘Another of the men whom the police wished to question in relation to the bank robbery yesterday afternoon at Harkdale has died, it was reported early this morning. The man was forty-three-year-old Oscar Thorne, described as a garage proprietor from south London. This brings the total number of deaths arising out of the robbery to four, and police sources say that the fifty thousand pound haul has still not been recovered –’
Desmond Blane switched off the radio as he climbed down the steps of the caravan into the field. He could still hear the newsreader’s voice droning in the next caravan. ‘The young widow of PC Harry Felton said last night –’ The heart strings in twenty-four caravans all the way to the edge of the ‘farm’ were probably being pulled by the young girl’s tragic bereavement. Desmond Blane sat on the bottom step and stared aggressively at the frost coloured grass.
Bloody farm indeed, he thought, it’s just a stretch of marsh land where nothing would grow and cows would sink into the ground if they stayed still. The Red Trees Caravan Site! He wondered whether to get dressed. It was cold to be hanging around in pyjamas and a silk dressing gown, and the matching silk scarf wasn’t keeping death from laryngitis at bay.
He looked up as he heard somebody whistling. It was Arnold Cookson, threading his way cheerfully through the neighbouring caravans with two pints of milk in his hands.
‘Where the hell have you been?’ Desmond Blane asked roughly.
‘Up to the farmhouse.’
‘I’ve just heard the radio. Skibby’s dead.’
‘Oh.’ Arnold Cookson pursed his lips in a silent whistle. He was a much older man, in his early sixties perhaps, and he seemed upset by the news. ‘What about Larry and Ray?’ he asked.
‘They weren’t mentioned.’
Arnold Cookson pushed past him into the caravan. He poured some milk into a saucepan and lit the Calor gas ring. He was preparing breakfast.
‘Why does a farm sell milk in milk bottles?’
‘I don’t know.’ Arnold examined the milk bottle. ‘Perhaps it’s a good thing,’ he said, almost to himself. ‘Skibby would have talked.’
‘So what makes you think Ray will keep his big mouth shut?’ Blane spoke loudly, blustering with nerves. ‘Once they start asking him awkward questions –’ His voice faded into silence. ‘Who’s this?’
There was a lorry bumping its way noisily down the lane to the caravan site. ‘Joseph Carter & Co.’ it proclaimed on the side. Blane walked suspiciously across to the gate.
‘We weren’t expecting you until this afternoon,’ he called.
Gavin Renson jumped cheerfully from the driving cabin. ‘I know, but we thought we’d come for breakfast.’ He took a large black leather bag from the tool compartment under his seat and strolled past Blane towards the caravan.
‘Come on, Jackson,’ he called to the dog. ‘Come and have your porridge.’
Paul Temple tried to relax in the tip-up chair; he closed his eyes while the girl clattered her implements about on the