He thought for a moment, then said: "Not much to tell, really. It started out pretty routine; we thought there was a touch of overkill, but I suppose you can't be too careful with money like that involved.
We waited in the big lay-by on the Lancashire side of the border and took over from the West Pennine boys. Then, coming down this side, the armoured van broke down. We were suspicious, but not worried enough to sign out the gun we were carrying. The chopper had been standing by, so we whistled it up for extra cover. We hung around for two hours until a breakdown truck arrived, then towed the lot straight to the Leeds Art Gallery. It was a bit ball-aching: we were only doing twenty miles per hour, and trying to watch every which way at once. The pictures weren't transferred to another vehicle or anything like that.
They stayed in the armoured van throughout."
"This was an ABC Security armoured van?" "That's right," he replied.
"Up to breaking down they'd been very impressive. Well drilled everybody seemed to know what they were doing. The breakdown cocked it up, though. We were about three hours late when we finally arrived."
"Did anybody try to find what the trouble was?" "Yeah, I'd forgotten that. The driver had a look under the bonnet. The oil filter had fallen off and wrecked the engine. He was well watched. I can guarantee that he didn't squirm down the prop shaft, up through a hole in the van floor and swipe a couple of paintings. He just pronounced the vehicle un repairable and radioed for help." He shrugged his shoulders as if he had nothing further to offer. "What's the problem, Mr. Priest? Has a picture gone missing?"
"I'm not sure," I replied. "I think there may have been a switch, but so far I'm crying in the wilderness. I take it someone rode in the back of the armoured van."
"That's right. Two ABC guards. I saw them when they unloaded."
"Can you remember what they looked like?"
"No. They were wearing helmets and visors. One was fairly small, though, and the other was about my size. We were keeping our eyes on the cargo."
"Mmm. Well, thanks for what you've told me. Sorry to keep you away from swarming up and down the motorway. If you think of anything else I'd be glad if you'd let me know."
He thought for a few seconds. "Just one small point," he said. "The two in the back liked country and western music. Played loud. All the time we were waiting it was coming out through the ventilators. Nearly sent me barmy."
I drove down to the courthouse and parked in the reserved parking. I was early, but I'd wanted to escape the distractions of the office. I sat in the car and took stock of what I knew so far. It didn't amount to a shoe box full of polystyrene beads. Truscott was linked to the paintings, and ABC had moved them.
I'd always imagined Truscott to be a non-smoker, he was so fastidious in other ways, but he'd had a small cigar when I saw him at Beamish, so he could have set fire to his own armchair. True, he was small, like the security guard, but lots of men were small. Small people weren't usually attracted into the security industry, though. He definitely wasn't a country and western lover: he probably thought the term referred to Cornish folk dances. String quartets were more his style.
I thought about our meeting at Beamish and went through it, step by step, word by word. Something didn't gel, and eventually I thought I knew what it was.
I'd left the rest of the day free for the trial, but I'd been given an inkling that it wouldn't take long. At the last minute the accused changed his plea to guilty, so there was no need for me to tell the court how I'd arrested him with the left halves of ninety-six pairs of expensive training shoes in his car boot. I came out and gunned my car over the hill into Lancashire. It was time to have a look at Mr.
Breadcake on his own territory.
Forty minutes later I was sitting outside ABC House, nerve centre of the Cakebread empire. The building was an old warehouse, the side of which gave directly on to the pavement of a narrow cobbled alley. There was a big sliding door, with a small door let into it, otherwise it was just a huge, blank brick wall. The small door had a Yale lock and a deadlock. Round the front it was much more open. The building was set well back from the main road, with a tall mesh fence enclosing the area to the front and other side. At the side were parked several security vans with the ABC logo on them. In front were presumably the staff's cars. The entrance to the compound was protected by a lowered barrier controlled by a gatehouse. Prominently situated, as close to the door as it was possible to park, was the familiar Rolls Royce with the personal registration number.
I'd no plan. I just wanted to get the feel of the place, so that if I ever came back it wouldn't be a surprise to me. I'd hang around a while, then maybe look for his home, The Ponderosa. What other names could he have chosen for his mansion, I wondered? A combination of their respective mo nickers would be about right. Eunaub had a certain style to it. Or maybe they'd prefer something a little more up-market, like… The Summer Palace.
Suddenly he was there, getting into the Roller. He was even fatter than I remembered him. The gate man came out of his little office and raised the barrier and the Rolls swept imperiously through, the way that Rollses do.
He could have forgotten his cigar clipper and come back for it, so I waited ten minutes before driving up to the little gatehouse that stood between me and the secrets of the Cakebread empire.
"I've come to see Mr. Cakebread; he is expecting me," I told the gate man "I'm afraid you've just missed him, sir, he left a few minutes ago."
"Oh dear. I've a rather important message for him." I tried to look suitably downcast and waved my ID card in his direction. "Do you think I could have a word with his secretary?"
"Certainly, sir. Do you know where to find her?"
"Yes, I think so, thanks."
He raised the barrier and I was through. I tried to watch him in the rear-view mirror but didn't see anything. He hadn't had the opportunity to read the name on my ID, but it was a fair bet that he wrote my registration number in his log book.
What the hell, I thought, no point in letting it grow cold, and parked in the spot marked ABC, so recently vacated by the man himself. Just inside the front entrance was a receptionist's desk, combined with a switchboard. I gazed at the blonde sitting behind it with awe.
Geological forces were at work underneath her blouse. The thin material was struggling to conceal a demonstration of plate tectonics.
Continents were in collision.
"Can I help you?" she asked with a brassy smile, as she looked up from her True Romances.
"Er, yes," I stumbled out, endeavouring to hold her gaze. Oh, to have the eyes of a chameleon, one to look here, the other to look there. "I, er, was hoping to see Mr. Cakebread."
"Oh! you've just missed him. He left about five minutes ago, for the airport. He's flying to Spain. He has his own plane, you know, flies himself all over the place. I think it's ever so exciting." She went glassy-eyed with the romance of travel, then the receptionist training resurfaced: "Would you like to speak to anybody else, Mr…?"
"No, it had to be Aubrey. I'm a policeman, and I needed a word with him. Any idea when he'll be back?"
A look of shock spread across her face, and she exclaimed: "Oh my God!
The policeman, where did I put it?" and started rummaging frantically in her desk. "Here it is!" she cried triumphantly, holding aloft a manila envelope. She looked at the front of it and read: "Mr.
Hilditch, is that you?"
"Yes, that's me," I lied, taking the envelope and putting it in my pocket. "Now you know my name, you have to tell me yours."
She gave me the warm, confident smile of someone who has narrowly missed making a cock-up and doesn't yet know they have made an even bigger one. "Gloria," she told me, coyly.