‘Where are we going?’
‘Not far.’
‘How far? I haven’t got much petrol in my car. I’ll need to fill up.’
Jackson gave him a thoughtful look. ‘You won’t need it. I’ll drive you.’
‘When do you want to leave?’
‘Now is not too soon.’
McManus nodded and stood up. ‘OK, let me have a slash first and then we can go.’
‘Do it later.’
‘What do you mean?’
Jackson stared at him expressionlessly. ‘I said, do it later.’
‘Can’t a man go to the bog?’
‘Sure you can,’ said Jackson, relenting. ‘But leave your phone behind.’
‘Why?’
‘Why do you think?’
‘What’s the matter? Don’t you trust me?’ McManus demanded, trying to put outrage in his voice.
Jackson looked amused. ‘I trust you, Jimmy, as much as I trust anyone.’ He paused. ‘Which means I don’t trust you at all.’
McManus shrugged. ‘OK then. I can wait. Let’s go.’
Outside it was suddenly cold; frost was settling on the bonnets of the vehicles in the car park. McManus said, ‘If it’s not far I’ll follow you. Then I can go straight home after.’ He started to head for his car, but Jackson put a hand on his arm.
‘Whoa. You’re coming with me.’ He pointed to the sleek silver Audi coupé he kept in a special slot reserved for him.
‘How do I get home then?’
‘I give you a lift or drive you back here for your car. But I need you with me.’
By now McManus was scared. It was clear from the way Jackson was behaving that he didn’t trust him, so why did he want McManus to go with him? It didn’t make any sense unless he wanted to use him as cover for whatever he was up to. They’d told him at headquarters, when they’d accused him of corruption, that the only way of avoiding a very long stretch was to help them get Jackson behind bars. They’d said that if he didn’t cooperate he’d find himself charged with abetting terrorism, because Jackson had got himself involved with a bunch of jihadis. They’d said they were expecting something to go down tonight and he was supposed to warn them if Jackson moved out of the club, but with Jackson being so suspicious, he wasn’t going to be able to do that. His only hope was that when they got wherever they were going he might get a chance to send a text to say where he was.
‘Here,’ said Jackson curtly, handing him the car keys, ‘You drive.’ He took out his phone. ‘I’m turning this off for safety’s sake. Give me yours and I’ll turn that off too.’
Chapter 55
Andy, the bald man, yawned loudly. It was almost one o’clock. On the table was a litter of paper plates covered with crumbs, curling sandwiches, sausage rolls and other delicacies provided by the canteen, together with several Thermos jugs of coffee. They had monitored the lorry’s progress for more than four hours as it had worked its way across country from the east coast, come up the M1, then, as if drawn by a magnet, moved west towards Manchester. It had been tailed the whole way by A4 teams.
‘Any news of McManus?’ The Chief Constable had been looking in from time to time during the evening, but now he’d sat down at the table, looking as if he had come to stay. He had been told earlier in the evening about McManus’s text message.
Lazarus shook his head. ‘No, sir. And his phone’s switched off. As is Jackson’s. They may still be at the club, but we don’t know for sure.’
‘Something coming through now,’ Emily, the Detective Sergeant, announced. ‘It’s the Eccles estate.’
On one of the monitors a misty picture came up, showing a stretch of road, some bushes and the outline of a car in the distance, coming towards the camera. Officers Fielding and Pierce from Manchester Police’s CT unit were lying hidden in a shallow ditch that ran along the edge of the estate on the east side. A couple of their colleagues were in similar positions at the west entrance. While Pierce kept a lookout, Fielding lay on his belly and watched through the special nightscope of a videocam recorder he had perched on a low tripod. The feed from Fielding’s camera, displayed on the screen in the Ops Room, showed an Audi coupé slowing as it turned off the approach road into the estate, then driving away from the camera on one of the estate’s narrow roads.
In the Ops Room, Emily said, ‘That’s Jackson’s car.’
‘But where’s McManus?’ asked Peggy.
There was no sign of any other vehicle. Andy was talking into his microphone, and he suddenly held up a hand. He flicked a switch and his conversation was audible on the speaker.
‘Picture’s clear enough,’ said Andy. ‘How many in the car?’
Pierce spoke from the ditch at the estate. ‘Two guys. A black guy – I think it was Jackson. And a white driver. Mid-fifties maybe. Clean-cut.’
‘Thanks.’
The Chief Constable asked, ‘You reckon that’s McManus?’
‘Has to be,’ said Lazarus. ‘Otherwise he would have called us.’
‘Jackson’s no fool,’ said Emily. ‘He’ll be keeping a close eye on everyone around him, and being extra-careful. I’m sure that’s why his phone’s off and probably why McManus’s is off as well.’
They watched the monitor anxiously. From the perimeter where Fielding and Pierce were hidden, you couldn’t see the Jackson warehouse, and the cameras in the warehouse – one on its exterior, the others inside – had so far shown no movement.
Suddenly the camera outside the warehouse came to life as a light went on, and the vast front door of the warehouse began to lift up slowly. Two figures were visible, standing just outside the building.
‘Is that McManus?’ Peggy asked.
‘Yes,’ said a new voice in the room. ‘That’s him all right.’
All heads turned to the door. It was Liz Carlyle, standing just inside the room, wearing her overcoat. Peggy leapt up, knocking her chair over. ‘Liz.’ The relief in her voice was clear. ‘I didn’t expect you back tonight. How are you?’
It had been a hard day by any measure, and it wasn’t going to be over any time soon. But at least she would be concentrating now on something that didn’t drain her emotions, something that called on her professional skills rather than her feelings.
She’d had plenty of time on the journey back to mull over her day’s hurried trip to Paris: Isabelle meeting her at the Gare du Nord; the conversation and the tears on the drive out to Martin’s flat; the realisation, when she stood in the sitting room and looked out of the window at the Square opposite, the trees bare of leaves now on this raw day, of just how much of her life, her emotions and, as she had thought, her future lay there.
Foolishly Liz had imagined she could collect all her belongings in a suitcase and take them back with her, but it took less than five minutes in the flat to recognise just how many clothes, books and odds and ends she had accumulated over the few years of her relationship with Martin. After the flat there had been a brief meeting with Claudette, Martin’s ex-wife, who had been civil, if not exactly cordial. And finally a tearful hour with Mimi, Martin’s adored daughter.
There had been no reason to stay longer, since she would be coming back again soon – for the funeral, for the gathering of her possessions, and (this she had promised the girl) to spend some more time with Mimi. So she had headed back to the station and caught a late afternoon Eurostar back to London. She’d gone to her flat, planning to leave the operation in Manchester to the police, but after an hour at home she’d felt so desolate and restless that when eventually she’d checked her mobile and seen the text from Peggy announcing that she was leaving for Manchester, she had decided that she would go to join her.