It was eleven thirty when the phone rang. The duty man at Sci-Med said, ‘It’s about your enquiry this afternoon.’
‘ You’re working late,’ said Steven, recognising the same voice he had spoken to earlier.
‘ I like to see things through,’ said the man. ‘I didn’t come up with any place called, The Abbey, in Yorkshire that wasn’t a pub or a tea room.’
‘ It was a tall order,’ said Steven. ‘But thanks for trying.’
‘ I did however, come up with a place called, Friars Gate Abbey,’ said the duty man. It’s in the middle of the moors and it’s registered to a Belgian company called Cine Bruges. They make PR films.’
‘ Well done,’ murmured Steven approvingly. ‘You are a star.’
The man gave Steven details of the location of Friars Gate Abbey and asked if there was anything else he needed.
‘ Not right now, I’ll go up there in the morning and take a look at the place.’
‘ Do you want us to inform the Yorkshire Police that you’ll be on their patch?’
‘ No need for that,’ said Steven. ‘I’ll contact them directly if the place looks interesting.’
‘ Thought you might say that,’ said the man. ‘I’ve got the number for them in case you need to use it.’
Steven punched the number into his mobile phone memory as the man read it out. ‘You think of everything,’ he said. ‘Who needs a wife when I’ve got Sci-Med?’
‘ You don’t even have to take me out,’ said the duty officer.
Steven was on the road by six in the morning. After some thought he had decided not to go straight to The Abbey. The story of Little’s innocence was due to break in the morning papers and if Friars Gate was really Merton’s place then a fair amount of activity or even panic might be predicted. His plan now was to reach the general area by lunchtime and approach it on foot.
He had dressed for the task, wearing camouflage gear and lightweight combat boots suitable for fell walking. He had packed a small rucksack containing what he thought he might be likely to need. This included Carl Zeiss binoculars and a Canon camera equipped with a telephoto lens. He was also carrying a hand-held GPS navigation unit that would enable him to establish his exact position on the moors to within a few yards thanks to signals from several satellites. He would use this to navigate and record his approach the abbey, for which he had the grid reference thanks to a late night session with the on-line ordnance survey map of the area. He had also packed bottled water and a few energy bars in case he was there for some time. He made sure that his mobile phone was fully charged before setting out.
From the map he knew that there was only one access road to Friars Gate Abbey. It was a single track road stretching for some four miles across open moor land. Leaving his vehicle anywhere along the route would be bound to attract attention so he decided to abandon it well before the turn off from the B road and tab the remainder on foot. He didn’t have a heavy pack to carry so he was counting on being able to cover the distance in under an hour.
There were times on the way north when it seemed that rain was likely — not a cheering prospect for a trip across open country on foot — but a west wind kept the clouds on the move and the sky was still relatively bright when Steven eventually found a secluded place to leave the car. He hid it behind a clump of fir trees about thirty metres back from the road.
There hadn’t been much traffic on the road up to the turn-off but he had passed a couple of large four-wheel drive vehicles travelling in the other direction. They had caught his attention because they weren’t the usual workaday Land Rovers used by farmers. They were Toyota Land Cruisers, fairly new and heavy on polished chrome — the type of vehicle used by the well-heeled to pull themselves out of the suburbs in the morning, or more relevantly, by film and TV crews to move their equipment around. It made him fear that Merton had already been spooked into a move.
Steven checked his location on the GPS and punched in the co-ordinates for The Abbey. He didn’t actually need such sophisticated help at the moment because weather conditions were good but he wanted the machine to remember the route he was taking so that he could retrace it should a mist come down later or if he had to return in darkness.
The terrain wasn’t flat — more a wild, undulating plain with low hillocks and rocky gullies and ditches to negotiate. Steven found it hard going but enjoyed the challenge to his fitness. It had been a while since he had been put to the test. With a mile still to go to the abbey, he finally took a break and a drink of water while he got his breath back.
There was a hillock to his left which he reckoned was about a hundred feet high so he decided to climb it and see if he could see The Abbey. He’d also be able to see the lie of the land ahead and plan his final approach. He crawled up the last ten yards to the crest of the hill on his belly so that he wouldn’t suddenly appear on the skyline. It seemed unlikely that anyone at the abbey would be keeping a lookout but old habits died hard and being over-cautious was always better than taking anything for granted.
Steven found that he had a view of the abbey. Using the Zeiss glasses he could see that the tower and main building of the abbey were now ruins but that various out-buildings to the right of the main structure had been restored using similar stone and were obviously in use. He determined that he should make his approach from the left where the ground was hillier and would offer him more cover than the right, which was almost flat for four hundred metres.
Twenty minutes later Steven was in position. He was about a hundred metres from the ruins of the abbey, lying in a small gully between gorse bushes where he had a clear view of the East side of the buildings that were in use. He had a good view of the single-track approach road so that he was in an ideal position to monitor comings and goings should there be any. There were lights on inside one of the buildings so he kept his glasses trained on the windows.
The room he was looking at appeared to be an office but the two male figures he could see inside seemed to be moving around rather a lot. After a few minutes it became obvious that they were packing things into boxes on the floor as if preparing to move out. Steven was excited at this prospect and what he thought might be the reason behind it although, once again, he had to concede that he might already be too late.
The two men disappeared from sight and after a few minutes Steven heard car doors being slammed and an engine starting up. He didn’t see the vehicle until it had come round from behind the building and emerged through an arch to join the track across the moors. It was a white, unlettered, Ford van. At this point the driver, a young man in his twenties paused to wave to someone at the window. Steven’s view was obscured by the van until it moved off and then he was able to get a good look at who was standing there. He focused the glasses and had no doubt at all that he was looking at John Merton.
‘ Well, well, well,’ muttered Steven as he reached into his rucksack to bring out his mobile phone. ‘Got you!’
He was about to hit the send button on his phone for the Yorkshire police number he’d been given when he noticed with dismay that there was no signal. Hoping that this was because he was down in a gully, he moved back a few metres and crawled up to higher ground. There was still no signal at all.
Steven cursed but had to admit that this was probably not that surprising. The phone companies didn’t spend money erecting masts in the middle of nowhere where there were no customers to use them: he was probably two or three miles from picking up a signal. As he stuffed the phone back in his bag he remembered suggesting once to Sci-Med that they equip their people with satellite phones, which would not be dependent on ground antennae, but budget considerations had won the day. He now had to decide whether to retreat and call in the police or make an arrest himself.
There was no reason to believe that Merton was armed but on the other hand, he could not be sure that he wasn’t. He could not even be sure that Merton was the only person in the building, although there had been no sign of anyone else in the last hour. It seemed increasingly likely that the two Land Cruisers that he’d seen earlier had in fact come from The Abbey and had been staff moving out with their gear.