‘There was an illegal licence plate deal going on, down on the Marsh Barton industrial estate. We closed that down a few weeks back. They were making them and selling them for cash, without documentation, to all and sundry. Mainly crooks wanting falsies for getaway cars. Major coup, that was. The blokes doing it kept records of who they sold to, stupid sods. We got loads of leads out of that, for all over the place. Here, Dorset, Avon and Somerset, West Mids, Thames Valley, even the Met. I don’t know how many cases got solved out of that one bust. Anyway, they’re the highlights, I suppose.
‘Currently, DS Phillips has got a job on out at the airport, in conjunction with the Transport Police and Customs and Excise. A smuggling ring. They’re hoping to make some arrests on Wednesday, I think. And DS Hancock has got something else going on, on the industrial estate. A series of break-ins. Tools and equipment nicked and safes and cash boxes raided. I don’t know all the details, but I don’t think they’ve got much yet. What about you? How are you doing?’
Pete pursed his lips. He’d known Jane since they were in uniform together, eight or nine years ago. She’d been the first recruit to his team when he’d got his sergeant’s stripes, closely followed by Dave, and he knew full well when she was prevaricating. ‘Never mind me. What’s been happening about Tommy?’
Jane sighed. ‘Boss, you know how it works. You’ve got to stay out of that. If you don’t, anything we find can be compromised.’
‘I don’t need lectures, Jane. I need facts. I’m his dad. I need to know what’s happening and Simon’s told me sweet FA over the last month or more.’
Jane grimaced. ‘As far as I know, there’s been nothing to tell. He hasn’t got anywhere.’
‘Well, why the hell not?’ Pete set his coffee down before he spilt it. ‘Surely, a missing kid – and a copper’s kid at that – takes priority over a smuggling ring that the Transport guys should be handling on their own, anyway?’
‘Of course. But they’ve got nothing new to work on. They’ve run down all the leads they had. It’s like he’s just disappeared off the face of the earth, from what I can gather. And I have been keeping up with things on the quiet.’
Pete sighed, reaching out to put a hand on her shoulder. ‘Sorry, Jane. I’m just—’
‘Frustrated to hell and back, I expect,’ she cut in. ‘We’ve been helping where we can, but it’s Simon’s case, so . . .’ She shrugged. ‘How’s Louise coping?’
Pete pursed his lips. ‘Not so good. If anything, she’s been getting worse, not better, the past few weeks. And I can’t seem to help. If I try, all she does is snap my head off, so . . . I just leave her to it as much as I can. I don’t like to, but . . .’ He shrugged.
‘Must be tough on you, too, though, eh?’
‘Yeah, well. It’s supposed to be, isn’t it? It was me that wasn’t there to pick him up.’
‘Oh, come on. It wasn’t your fault.’
He felt a swell of bitter guilt. ‘If I’d been there when I was supposed to be, it wouldn’t have happened, would it?’
‘Yes, but it wasn’t like you forgot or didn’t bother, was it? You were busy. Saving my arse, as it happened.’
Pete smiled, knowing what Dave Miles would have said to that, as persistently politically incorrect as he was. It was true; he had been working – caught up in an arrest with Jane and a couple of PCs. An arrest that had gone horribly wrong until he managed, somehow, to rescue the situation.
They had been going to bring in a shopkeeper who had been using the cover of furniture imports to bring in cannabis from Thailand. A job that had, ultimately, been a contributing factor leading towards today’s Operation Natterjack. But when they got there, the guy had not been where they expected him to be. Instead, he had been in the back room, unpacking a delivery. When Jane went in through the back door, a PC in tow, while Pete went in the front with the other uniform, the bloke had seen her badge and panicked. The Stanley knife in his hand had become a weapon. He’d grabbed her, threatening to cut her throat. It had taken Pete twenty minutes to talk him down.
Twenty minutes that made him late getting away at the end of his shift.
‘What, so now it’s your fault, is it?’ he asked with a smile.
Jane’s green eyes flashed. ‘No. If anyone’s to blame its Ranjit bloody Seekun, the bastard who held a knife to my throat. Or whoever actually took Tommy.’
‘Mmm.’ Pete picked up his coffee and took a sip. ‘Ugh. This is bloody cold already.’
*
The doors at the back of the barn had straw bales stacked along in front of them, a double row then a single, like a line of seats in one of those old Roman places. Lauren imagined a row of men sitting there, watching her as she lay in the straw, and a shiver ran through her. Suddenly, it seemed to get darker and the temperature dropped. Then the noise started. An intense rattling on the roof above her. She wondered what the hell it was, then she heard a rustling from outside as well. Hail, she realised. But hail or not, she had to get out of here. She jumped up onto the bales, heaving at the doors behind, throwing all her weight into it.
The doors barely moved, but, as she pushed, she saw light down behind the bales.
A gap.
She jumped down, heaved on the bale in front of her and shrieked as she fell back, the bale coming away far more easily than she had expected. She got up, pulled another one away, then another. Behind them, the ancient wood had rotted away and a sheet of corrugated iron had been fixed over it, on the outside.
And metal could bend.
‘Yes!’ Lauren was breathing hard, but the excitement of possible escape kept her going. The rattle of hailstones on the roof continued as she sat down, put her feet against the metal and pushed.
*
By five o’clock, the squad room was back to full capacity and as noisy as Pete remembered it with the incoming officers chatting and joking about the arrests they had made that morning. They had begun to drift in from mid-afternoon. Teams brought in the men and women they had arrested during the morning raids, processed them into custody and interviewed them, then came upstairs to type up their notes and reports. Even with an extra man on the custody desk it was a slow process. Officers were frustrated and short-tempered by the time they got to the squad room, but when they came in and saw Pete at his desk, they each came over and welcomed him back, asked how he was doing, expressed their sympathy or asked after his wife and daughter.
Leaning back in his chair, his day almost over, Pete heard a phone ring among the hubbub and looked up to see whose it was. DS Mark Bridgman picked up his phone and held a hand up to the two men who were chatting next to his desk. Pete watched as he spoke briefly into the phone, then put it down and stood up, heading for the door to the DI’s office at the far end of the squad room.
He knocked and went in. Emerged a minute later and returned to his desk.
‘So, what do you reckon, boss?’ Dave Miles asked.
Pete spun his chair back around.
Dave was looking at him with a half-smile. ‘Looks like gardening season’s over, so are you back for good, or what? Do you reckon you’ll be able to stand the pace?’
‘Well, if today’s anything to go by, I reckon I’ll cope.’ We’ll see how Louise dealt with it when I get home, he thought.
The door at the far end of the room opened and both DI Colin Underhill and DCI Adam Silverstone entered the room.
Hello. Something’s up.
He hoped they were