Valentine turned over the pair of dice attached to his lighter and keys. Ivory and green, with gold dots. ‘What’s that smell?’ he asked before Shaw had gone ten yards.
Shaw stopped, sniffed the sea breeze. ‘Could be mint, George. You crunch any more of those things you’ll start scaring the sheep.’ But Valentine was right, there was something else on the breeze, something laced with the ozone and seaweed. ‘Petrol. An outboard?’ asked Shaw.
Valentine produced a handkerchief and dabbed his streaming eyes.
‘Hold the fort,’ said Shaw, padding through the dunes and beginning to climb, picking a narrow ridge where the snow was just clinging to the sand and grass. At the top he pushed himself up onto an old gun emplacement, a tangle of concrete and rusted iron. The physical effort made him feel better, dissipating the stress. This high there was still a breeze, the snowflakes jostling, streamers of light like sparklers. Down on the beach he could just see the Land Rover and the spread tarpaulin.
Swinging round he looked south, to the lights of a farmhouse: a glimpse of the corrugated iron of a barn and a white spotlight illuminating a dovecote on the roof of an old stable block. They’d driven through the yard an hour earlier to get down to the beach and Shaw had noticed the name: Gallow Marsh Farm.
And then, turning inland, he saw car lights – a line of vehicles backed up behind a pine tree which was in their
Out at sea the storm clouds had unpacked themselves, revealing a wedge of clear night sky, a planetarium of lights, the moon clear of the sea. He watched the white lunar disc moving sideways along the horizon, like a prop in a child’s theatre. The silhouette of a yacht, gliding east, turned in towards the coast, an engine humming efficiently, its white sail marked with a blue clamshell.
The line of eight vehicles stood as if fashioned in icing sugar, an exquisite model on an untouched wedding cake. The moon had appeared above the scene; the snow clouds had moved on after one last heavy flurry, the stars left to stretch north over the sea towards the distant pole. The marsh birds were silent, the sluices choked with ice, and the sea, past high water, tiptoed back over the sands. Closer to the marooned cars there were sounds of life: a bass note, strands of music, the rumble of vehicle engines running heating systems. From the pick‐up truck in pole position the local radio now played – a jagged tinny melody which came and went with the signal.
Three vehicles from the tail of the little convoy was an off‐white Astravan. Radio 2 played, a voice inside singing along loudly, a ballad about a young girl in pursuit of an older man. Fred Parlour held the final note surprisingly well, then laughed at himself. He was handsome, mid‐fifties, with a compact symmetrical face, the jaw showing no signs of slackening despite the first strands of grey at his temples. His fingernails were neatly cleaned, the overalls laundered, the hair smartly trimmed.
Beside him sat Sean Harper, the firm’s apprentice. His hair was sticky with product, cut short and spiky, his nose – pierced with a stud – was pressed up close to a pornographic magazine. ‘You’ll go blind,’ said Parlour.
A small dog – a Jack Russell – thrust its snout between the seats and nuzzled his fingers, the tongue making a liquid smack.
‘How much you reckon they got on board?’ asked Parlour, his voice friendlier. The van in front had a branded motif on the rear doors:
NORTH NORFOLK SECURITY
01553 121212
There’s safety in those numbers
Sean Harper had got out when they’d first pulled up. His mobile couldn’t find a signal so he’d run along the seaward side in the still falling snow to see if they had a radio. It was a refurbished Securicor van, but an old model, rust round the rivets. One guard in an ill‐fitting uniform sat in the front, about as intimidating as a cinema usherette. Just a thumbs up: no window down. And no radio.
‘I don’t like uniforms,’ Sean had said when he got back. ‘Or the fuckers in them.’
Parlour shrugged. ‘It’s not Brinks Mat, is it?’
He got his mobile out of his breast pocket and checked the signal – one bar, but then it flickered and died. The dog sniffed at his neck so he reached back and lifted the animal onto his lap, rubbing its tummy where the fur was thinnest against the pink skin. He got a dog biscuit out of the glove compartment and fed it to her.
‘All right, Milly?’ Parlour thrust his head below the dog’s
He checked his watch: 7.40 p.m. They’d been stuck for more than two hours. Pushing open the door against the small drift on the driver’s side he let the dog slip out. The sound of the door slamming faded, absorbed by the snow, but a pair of geese rose quickly from the marsh, creaking overhead.
The air was unnaturally still, expectant, like an empty theatre.
Parlour stood and coughed in the cold, reviewing the line of vehicles. There was no echo, the snow smothering the sound, wrapping it in silence. Sean had said he’d seen a tree ahead, blocking the road, and a car skewed across the track at the rear, behind the Morris Minor which was behind them. When he’d gone forward, beyond the se curity van, he’d met another driver from further up the line, a ‘Chink’, he said, but well spoken. Sean had asked him what he thought they should do. ‘Sit tight,’ he’d said, turning away. So they’d all sat tight.
Parlour stretched in the cold and stood trying to hear the sea sigh. He edged down the side of the Morris and tapped on the window. There was no light within, and no sign of life at all. Then he saw frail fingers fumbling with the window handle, one encumbered by a large amber ring. The driver wound the window down. ‘Are we going to be here long?’ she asked, as if he were an AA man. Make‐up, a savage attempt to defy the years, made her face look artificial, her eyebrows two black pencil lines, a smudge of crimson where the lips should have been. Parlour said he didn’t know how long it would be, that
‘I know that,’ she said. ‘I’ve always said that.’
Milly snuffled around his shoes.
‘You’ve cut the heating?’ he asked her.
She’d looked at him as if he were an idiot. ‘I’m fine,’ she said, and then, with what seemed like an effort, ‘Please. Don’t worry about me.’
He checked her fuel gauge; she had a quarter of a tank, perhaps less. ‘OK. But like I say – if you get cold we’re just in front.’
‘I’m going to sleep now…’ she said, winding up the window.
The next car was the last in the line, a Mondeo, stuck sideways across the track. Fred was leaning down to knock on the glass when the door opened with a jerk and clipped him on the forehead. He just had time to grab the frame, saving himself from a fall into the dark water and the reeds.
In the moonlight he looked at the smudge of blood on his fingers, touching the wound.
A teenager with a baseball cap got out of the car, the crotch of his jeans half‐way down to his knees. He looked hot, his face flushed, a patch of sweat discolouring a T‐shirt with the logo Pi is God. The rest of the fabric was covered in blue numbers. Adolescent‐thin, the arms held at awkward angles, his skin clear, the narrow face dom inated by thick, dark eyebrows. Parlour didn’t notice the rapid shallow breathing and the trembling which made his hands vibrate in his pockets. Or the running shoes: Nike, £180 new.