Mallory turned pale. “Jaff did that? No. I can’t believe it. You can’t lay that on me. I never gave him any gun. I’ve never had a gun.”
“I don’t believe you,” said Banks, “but I don’t have the time right now to thrash it out of you. If I find out that you’re in any way connected with that gun, or that you’ve lied or withheld any information from us, I’ll be back, and I’ll prove it. In the meantime, don’t even think of going on your holidays.”
Banks gestured to Winsome, who put away her notebook and stood up. When they left, Mallory was sitting in ashen silence with his glass of Rémy in his slightly trembling hand. Outside, the watchers were still sitting in their Skoda, plumes of smoke drifting out through the open window. Banks walked over to them and leaned on the roof.
“We’ve finished for now,” he said, gesturing with his thumb back toward Vic’s house. “But if I were you, I’d get your guv to send in a search team and take his house apart brick by brick. You’re looking for handguns and possibly an illegal lab of some kind. If you don’t find anything there, then try to find out if he’s got another place, a business property, perhaps, or a secret lockup somewhere, maybe under another name. You never know, it might earn you a few Brownie points, and by the looks of you both, you could do with them. Bye.”
When Banks got back to the car Winsome was listening to her mobile, frowning. She said good-bye and folded it shut. “I’ve asked Geraldine to check the electoral rolls and telephone directories for a Justin Peverell,” she said. “And there’s good news.”
“Do tell.”
“We’ve got a report from the local police station at Baldersghyll. A white builder’s van has been stolen from the car park near Rawley Force, about three miles away. It’s a national park spot, and apparently people park there and do the circular walk. It takes about three and a half hours.”
“So what happened?”
“Couple came back a bit early, after only about two hours-seems they hadn’t a lot of time so they did the short version-and they found their van gone. Madame Gervaise has acted quickly, and all units have the number and description. It makes sense. Too much of a coincidence that someone else would have just come along and nicked it. It was in the vicinity and general direction Jaff and Tracy would have been heading.”
“Good,” said Banks.
“There’s more. Seems the van’s a bit of an old clunker. According to its owner, it doesn’t go more than about forty.”
Banks smiled. “Not having a lot of luck with his motors, our Jaff, is he?”
IF THE speedometer of the stolen van crept up toward fifty, the chassis and engine block started shaking so much that Tracy feared it would fall apart, or that the wheels would drop off. This only increased Jaff’s frustration, along with the Wetherby roadworks on the A1, and now an accident blocking the southbound lanes to the M1. It was starting to get dark by the time they finally crawled onto the M1 east of Leeds, and already it was close to two and a quarter hours since they had stolen the van. Time was definitely not on Jaff’s side.
Tracy noticed that he was getting edgier by the minute. It was partly the frustration and partly the coke he kept stuffing up his nose. The motorway was plagued by more CCTV cameras and police patrol cars than anywhere else, he complained, and an old white builder’s van hobbling along in the slow lane couldn’t help but attract unwanted attention. These days, too, he told her, many of the motorway cameras used the ANPR system-Automatic Number Plate Recognition-which meant that they automatically informed the police if a car was stolen. Pretty soon, he was certain, they wouldn’t stand a chance on the M1. And it would be at least a five- or six-hour drive at the speed they were going now. More likely, the van would clap out before Sheffield, and they’d be stuck on the open road.
“Fuck it,” Jaff finally said, thumping the steering wheel. “We’re not going to make it. At this rate we won’t even be south of Wakefield by the time the van’s reported stolen. We’ve got to get rid of this piece of shit before they find us. They’re bound to know we took it pretty soon, if they don’t know already. Maybe those people were fast walkers, or they didn’t do the whole route for some reason. The cops could be on to us at any moment.”
“But where can we go?” Tracy said. “They’ll have the railway and bus stations covered.”
“I need time to think and make some calls,” said Jaff. “But first we’ve got to dump this van.” He drove on in silence for a few more minutes, then indicated a turn at the next junction.
“What are you doing?” Tracy asked.
“I’ve got an idea. We’ll go to Leeds.”
“Leeds? Are you insane?”
Jaff shot her a hard glance. “Think about it. Leeds is one of the last places they’ll be looking for us. They’d never expect us to go back there in a million years.”
But Tracy knew they would. The police didn’t always think in quite so linear a fashion as Jaff seemed to imagine when he thought he was being clever. Especially her father. “Fine,” she said, a glimmer of hope now flickering inside her. Leeds. She knew Leeds. It was home turf. “Your place or mine?”
“Neither. I’m not so stupid as to think they won’t be guarding our places, or that the neighbors won’t be vigilant and report any sounds. Vic’s is out of the question, too. They’re bound to have traced the other car to him by now.”
“What if he talks?”
“Vic? He won’t talk. He’s an old mate. We’ve been through a lot together.”
“Like what? Cross-country running with your backs to the wall, or showers with games teacher after rugger?”
“You don’t know fuck all about it, so just shut the fuck up. Besides, Vic doesn’t know anything. He doesn’t know where we are.”
“I’ll bet he knows where we’re going, though, and who we’re going to see.”
Jaff just glared at her, which told her she was right and he was worried. The coke paranoia was kicking in. There was a short stretch of road through a desolate industrial estate in Stourton between the M1 and the M621 into Leeds, and Jaff concentrated on making the correct turns at the roundabouts, then he pulled into the entrance of a deserted warehouse yard.
“What are you doing?” Tracy asked. “Why are you stopping?”
“No need to piss yourself. We’re getting out of these filthy clothes and putting some clean ones on. You go first.”
Tracy crawled into the back of the van and opened her bag. It was a relief to change out of her old clothes and put on some of the clean, fresh ones Jaff had bought her at the Swainsdale Centre just the other day. Hard to believe only such a short while ago things had been so good between them. Now he was like another person: Jekyll and Hyde. She changed her underwear, too, and only wished she could have a bath first. The best she could do was get back in the front and use the mirror to put on a little makeup while Jaff changed quickly after her and then climbed into the driver’s seat.
“That’s better,” he said, laying out another two lines of coke on a mirror and snorting them through a rolled-up twenty-pound note. “Sure you don’t want any?”