In a word, it just wasn’t the sort of motor that folk round here are used to seeing Stones McClure in. My style is more poke than parcel shelf, if you know what I mean. More turbo charge than towbar. Not to mention a spot of F and F across the fake fur seat covers.
For the last few minutes, I’d been dozing a bit, clutching my plastic bottle of Buxton Spring Water in one hand and a half-eaten Snickers bar in the other. Don’t believe that means I had no idea what was going on. I’ve got this trick of keeping one eye half open at all times, like an old tom cat. It’s saved me a lot of grief on jobs like this.
One-fifteen. I sat up to take a quick look round. Along the road a bit there was a roundabout where the traffic was grinding its way on to the A614 towards Nottingham or heading west on the A57 into Lincolnshire. Apart from a roadside café, there was nothing around me in the layby — just empty fields on one side, and a bit of Sherwood Forest on the other. I mean there was nothing apart from four lanes of traffic thundering by on the A1, obviously. But the drivers weren’t taking notice of much. They were busy fiddling with their Blackberries and Bluetooth, or counting the miles ticking off as they hurtled towards their next meeting or their latest delivery of widgets. This is what vehicle thieves rely on. Nobody sees anything going on around them when they’re on the road.
Well, people never learn, do they? That’s my second rule. And thank God for it, because this is what keeps blokes like me in beer and Meatloaf CDs for life.
I glanced at my watch. Shouldn’t be long now. Earlier on, I’d watched the driver who brought the lorry disappear into the café, shrugging his shoulders at the smell of hot fat drifting from the window of Sally’s Snap Box. He was a short, thickset bloke wearing blue overalls and a five o’clock shadow. You could practically hear him singing the Marseillaise. This bloke’s load might be headed for Leeds or Glasgow. But it wouldn’t make it to its destination. Not today.
It was the load that was important, you see. Thieves don’t target brand-new trucks for their own sake. If you’re planning to cut a vehicle up for spares, you go for an old Bedford or something. There’s a big export market for old lorry spares. But if you’re nicking the load, it’s a different matter. That’s where the really big business is — at least £1.6 billion worth a year, they say. And people will do anything to tap into dosh like that.
For the sake of authenticity, I was tuned in to a local radio station on the Escort’s battered old Motorola. But the presenter had just stumbled off into one of those endless phone-in segments they seem to like so much. Grannies from all over the county were passing on tips for getting cocoa stains out of acrylic armchair covers, or swapping back copies of People’s Friend for a second-hand budgie cage. It was dire enough to kill off my remaining brain cells — I mean, the few that last night’s booze had left intact.
And then — bingo! An unmarked white Transit van slowed in the inside lane of the A1 and pulled slowly into the layby in front of the French truck. Action at last.
I have a really good memory for registration numbers, but the plate on the Transit was a new one to me. That was no surprise, though. It would have been nicked from a car park in Worksop or Mansfield some time during the past hour, and that was someone else’s worry.
From my position, I could just see a bloke jump down from the passenger side of the van. He had the collar of a red ski-jacket turned right up and a woollen hat pulled low over his face, making it impossible to get an ID on him. As soon as he’d slammed the door shut, the Transit pulled out into the traffic again and disappeared south.
I stayed low in my seat. I ate a bit of my Snickers bar. The chocolate was starting to melt on to my hand and my fingers were getting sticky. I wiped them with a windscreen wipe out of a little packet that I found in the door well. I would have stuffed the used wipe into the fold-out ashtray, but it was already jammed full with more crumpled bits of tissue, all yellow and crusty. Anonymity is fine, but I draw the line at catching some disgusting disease for the sake of camouflage.
The bloke in the cap was fiddling with something I couldn’t see, right up close to the near side of the Iveco’s cab. No one took any notice of him, except me. Then he looked round once, took a step upwards, and was gone from sight.
I speed-dialled a number on my mobile, then waited a minute or two more until I heard the rumble of a diesel engine and the release of air brakes. As I started the Escort’s motor, I glanced in my rearview mirror and saw a large figure emerge from the café. It was a bloke so big that he had to duck and walk out of the door sideways to avoid bringing the side of the caravan with him. He lumbered up to the side of the car, hefting something like a lump of breeze block in his left hand. And suddenly it was as if the sun had gone in. Oh yeah, meet my sidekick, Doncaster Dave. He’s my personal back-up, my one-man riot squad. A good bloke to have watching your arse.
Dave had been stuffing himself with sandwiches and cakes in Sally’s at my expense. Well, it’s better than having him sit in the car with me. He gets twitchy when there’s food nearby, and he’d probably enjoy the phone-in programme and laugh at the DJ’s jokes. And then I’d have to kill him.
“Come on, come on.”
Dave was starting to go into the monkey squat necessary for him to manoeuvre his way into the passenger seat, when the door of the café flew open again and a second figure came out. This one was dressed in blue overalls, and it was gesticulating and shouting. The sight of the lorry pulling on to the A1 seemed to infuriate him and he ran a few yards down the layby, yelling. Then he turned and ran back again, still yelling. This was far too much noise for my liking. And definitely too much arm waving. Even on the A1, he might get attention.
I could see Dave speaking to him, and nodding towards the Escort. The bloke came eagerly towards me, and I sighed as I wound down the window.
“Mon camion,” he said. “My truck. It is being stolen.”
“Let him in, Donc, why not?” I said. So Dave opened the back door of the Escort without a word. The Frenchman climbed in, and Dave squeezed into the front. The breeze block in his hand turned out to be the biggest sausage and egg butty you’ve ever seen, dripping with tomato sauce. The car filled with a greasy aroma that would linger for days. It didn’t go too well with the stale beer either.
The Iveco was already a couple of hundred yards away by now, and the Frenchman began bouncing angrily.
“What’s up, monsieur?” I said, as I indicated carefully before pulling out. I was waiting until I spotted some slow-moving caravans to sneak in front of. Getting on to the A1 from a layby is a bit dicey sometimes — you can easily end up with a snap-on tools salesman right up your backside, doing ninety miles an hour in his company Mondeo.
“We must follow the thieves. They steal my truck.”
“Dear, oh dear. It happens all the time, you know. You can’t leave anything unattended round here.”
“Hurry, hurry! You are too slow.”
I shook my head sadly. Well, there you go. You give somebody a lift, do them a favour, and the first thing out of their mouths is criticism of your driving. The world is so unfair.
“It’s always been like this, you know,” I said helpfully. “This bit of the A1 was the Great North Road. You know, where Dick Turpin used to hang out? You’ve heard of Dick Turpin, have you, monsieur?”
“Comment? What?”
“Highwayman, you know. Thief.”