“No. That’s quite enough.”
“But that’s the procedure. Don’t try to teach your grandmother to suck eggs, Chambers.”
“You wouldn’t have gone around there by yourself?”
“Well, that would probably have been the best course of action to take, wouldn’t it? They would have been expecting me, so they wouldn’t have felt threatened. Mrs Doyle would have been accompanying me, and she would have let me in, so I wouldn’t have had to break down the door. And I wouldn’t have been carrying a Taser or a weapon of any kind. But that’s not following the rules, is it? What the bloody hell did you expect me to say?”
Chambers looked fit to burst. He made a noise somewhere between a huff and a snort, then lumbered to his feet again. “You’re not being helpful, you know. You’re impeding the investigation. I’ll be making a note of this.”
“I’m not impeding anything. This is pure fantasy. What happened, happened. I was five thousand miles away or more. But you do that,” said Banks calmly. “You go ahead and make your notes. But before you do, be aware of one thing.”
Chambers paused at the door. “And what may that be?”
“Things have changed since you started this particular witch-hunt-”
“I obj-”
“A policewoman has been shot. Annie Cabbot. My friend. My partner.” He felt himself choke up and struggled for control. Even as he spoke the word “partner,” it sounded odd to his ear. Blame Dashiell Hammett and three weeks in America. He would normally have referred to Annie as his colleague, or oppo, or even as his DI, but “partner” sounded good. She was. He would use it from now on. He remembered a line from The Maltese Falcon about when a man’s partner gets killed he’s supposed to do something. Annie hadn’t been killed, thank God, but he still knew that he had to do something, and he could start by putting Chambers in his place. Annie would approve.
“A policewoman has been shot,” Banks repeated. “The media and the politicians won’t be all over the AFOs and their Tasers from now on. They’ll be on our side. The hue and cry will be about how many illegal handguns are floating around out there, and you will have nothing to gain from crucifying anyone inside the department.”
“That’s not what I-”
“So why don’t you think about that? Circumstances change. If you want to be a poster boy for the media, get with the game. And make sure you’re on the right side. Close the door behind-”
Just then there was a tap at the door. Chambers stepped back and Detective Superintendent Gervaise popped her head around. “Didn’t interrupt anything, did I? Ah, Superintendent Chambers, I see you’re finding your way around without any difficulty. Alan, welcome back. Fancy a cup of tea and a chat? My office. Now.”
TRACY COULD tell that Jaff was fed up with walking. He had been quiet and sulky for the past hour, no doubt trying to come up with a new plan, like growing wings.
They had been walking under cover of as many wooded areas as they could find, which were few and far between up on the moors, and as far from even the most minor unfenced roads as they could get. At one point they had spent over an hour walking along the narrow bottom of a weed-and-nettle-choked gully, getting stung all over. Surely somebody must have found the abandoned car by now and reported it to the police, Tracy reckoned. She wondered how long it would take them to link it with her and Jaff and Annie. Would they have Vic’s name on their records? How was Annie doing? Was she still alive? There were too many questions she couldn’t answer.
They had managed about eight or nine miles in all since they’d left the cottage, having driven only the first two before the car broke down, and they were now deeper into the moors than she had ever walked with her father. Tracy had lost the advantage of knowing the lie of the land. She hadn’t heard the helicopter again, and they were too far away to hear cars on the road. Not that there were any roads. To anybody seeing them from a distance they would probably look like a pair of ramblers, though closer observation would have revealed they were hardly dressed for the part, and that Jaff’s walking skills certainly left a lot to be desired. Most of the time he seemed to walk as if he were striding down a city street, Tracy thought, without paying attention to the land beneath his feet. Which was why he tripped and fell so often.
Tracy had been alert the whole time, but there hadn’t been a single opportunity to steal away without the certainty of Jaff ‘s catching her. He wasn’t going to let her out of his sight for a moment; her failed escape attempt after the car broke down and the embarrassing experience that morning should have told her as much.
It was mid-afternoon when they came to the crest of a long grassy slope and saw the car park below. There was no village, no houses, only the half-full car park, with its public toilets, stone walls and Pay-and-Display machines, at the end of a rough track that wound away into the distance and disappeared over the next hill. On the far side a stile in the drystone wall led to a public footpath with a wooden signpost which stretched for several hundred feet then dipped into a wooded area and disappeared from sight. Tracy recognized where they were now. She had been here before.
“What the fuck’s that?” Jaff asked.
They lay on their stomachs looking over the brow of the hill. A blade of grass tickled Tracy’s nose, and she rubbed it. “It’s popular walking country around here,” she said. “I think that’s the car park for Rawley Force, a local beauty spot. A lot of people do a circular walk from there.”
“How long does it take?”
“About three and a half hours. Why, do you fancy trying it?”
“Don’t be fucking clever. But I do have an idea. We could practically be in London in three and a half hours.”
Tracy’s heart sank when she realized what he was saying. “You’re going to have to come up with something better than that,” she said. “Haven’t you realized that every copper in the country will be looking for you since you shot Annie Cabbot?”
“Stupid bitch asked for it.”
Tracy sighed. “I’m hungry,” she said, hoping he would admit to feeling the same way and delay what he obviously had in mind.
“Me, too,” he said. “But it’ll have to wait. Come on, let’s get closer.”
They kept behind the brow of the hill and made their way in a sweeping curve toward the car park. When they were directly above it, about two hundred yards away, Jaff commanded her to stop and lie low again. The deep cleft of a dried-up streambed ran beside them down the hillside. Jaff pointed to it. “If we go that way, no one will be able to see us from the road or the footpath. Can we get to the M1 from here? And don’t lie. I’ll soon find out, and you’ll regret it.” Tracy pointed to their left. “We have to take that track. It’s the only way out. I think it ends at a B road and we turn left to get to the A1. It joins the M1 further south, around Leeds.”
“Right. I know that part. That’s what we’ll do. And you’d better not be lying.”
Tracy started to get up, but Jaff pulled her down beside him again. “Don’t be too hasty. We wait till the next car turns up. That way we know we’ve probably got three and a half hours before they call the alarm.”
Resignedly Tracy lay on her stomach again. They didn’t have to wait long. It was a beautiful afternoon, just enough of a light breeze to take the edge off the heat you build up on a good long walk. An old white van pulled up, and a young man and woman got out. They wore walking boots and had tucked their trouser legs into their socks. They also carried sticks and rucksacks, and the man had some maps in a plastic bag hanging around his neck. “Perfect,” Jaff said. “Anoraks.”