Bad Sons (Booker & Cash Book 1) (29 page)

I felt very stupid indeed. Of course, he made perfect sense. There had been no need of secrecy because the Allies were in control and it was all to be temporary. The Allies were pumping fuel one way and all that was needed at the French end was a big stopcock and some tankers to pump it into. They didn’t need buildings. They didn’t require secrecy. It would also explain why I had not been able to find anything on the Internet detailing ‘pumping stations’ disguised as seaside bungalows in the area. They weren’t pumping anything, they were only receiving. I really could not remember the last time I felt such an idiot.

He recovered something of his composure in the light of my obvious embarrassment. ‘Also, the Dungeness to Ambleteuse pipelines were not called PLUTO.’

‘Weren’t they?

‘No. PLUTO referred to the overall operation. Whoever decided on the code names must have had a fondness for the characters of Walt Disney. The lines which ran from The Isle of Wight to Cherbourg were code-named BAMBI. The Dungeness to Ambleteuse system was code-named DUMBO.’

Jo piped up: ‘Where did they actually come up the beach here?’

He gave her a sorry look and complemented it with what I imagined was a typically French shrug. ‘I really couldn’t say. There were many lines, perhaps as many as twenty, I believe. There would have been many points along the coast that they lay across the sand and probably they would have been well spaced to prevent the tangles, no?’

Yes. I remembered reading that a two-mile channel had been swept on the seabed prior to the pipelines being laid.

We thanked him and left without exchanging another word. The defeat hung on me like a leaden cloak. I didn’t look back. I didn’t see any of the exhibits and I didn’t look in Jo’s direction again until we were standing on opposite sides of the car.

‘Well, that was a total waste of time, effort and money. I owe you an apology. I have been incredibly stupid. If I can make it up to you in some way, please say.’

‘Don’t be so hard on yourself. It didn’t occur to me either.’ I thought that rather generous of her. ‘Besides, I’ve had a nice trip to somewhere I’ve never been before.’

I smiled at her for her kindness and over her shoulder saw the man that had spoken with us appear to stand with another very big man at the open back doors of a white Transit van parked at the side of an adjacent building. The very big man was completely covered in some sort of bee-keeping suit and they were looking in our direction.

***

43

My heartbeat gathered pace and intensity like something big, irregular and out of control plunging downhill. My mouth dried up and I had to swallow hard before I said to Jo across the metal roof between us, ‘Don’t say anything. Don’t turn around. Let’s just get in the car and leave.’

Naturally, she made to speak but something in the look I gave her zipped her mouth. She released the central locking, we got in.

‘I’m serious. Don’t let your gaze wander. Just get us out of here and on the road back to where we came from. I’ll explain.’

The museum quickly became a distant shape.

Her impatience got the better of her. ‘What is it?’

I had turned in my seat to study the road behind us. ‘The guy who spoke to us was talking to a giant of a man at the open back doors of a white Transit van. They were looking in our direction.’

I felt the car begin to slow. Jo turned off the road down a narrow tree-lined lane and came to a stop around a bend that would hide us from view if anyone went past on the main road. She killed the engine and got out. I followed suit.

‘What are you doing?’

‘We can talk here. You’re saying the van and the man are the same as you saw in Dymcurch?’

‘You know I can’t, not for certain. I’m saying it’s a coincidence that makes me feel very uncomfortable. And they were looking in our direction. They were interested in us.’

‘Why shouldn’t they be? The business they’re in would make it natural for them to take an interest in people who shared it. Did you actually see the man in Dymchurch?’

‘No, but I told you, I could tell he was huge.’

‘You were wearing a hood. You had received a blow to the head. You were disorientated and scared. Did you just get a look at the registration plate of the van back there?’

‘No.’

‘Could you at least tell whether the plates were French or British?’

‘No.’

‘When you saw the vehicle in Dymchurch, which side was the driver’s?’

‘I can’t say. I hid my face when they passed me. What’s with all the questions?’

‘Calm down, David. Just doing my job. There are a lot of big men who drive white vans, you know. White-van-man ring any bells?’

‘I know.’ I could hear the testiness in my voice.

‘Did you see the way that guy’s face altered when you mentioned PLUTO?’

‘You noticed that? He didn’t like it, did he?’

‘No, he didn’t like it.’

Nothing had passed on the road in either direction. Above us in the branches a pigeon called for a mate or as a warning. The smell of the country was pungent and affecting in a good way. It seemed a very remote spot and I wondered where the lane led.

Jo broke into my thoughts: ‘What do you want to do?’

But I was thinking differently. ‘There was no pumping station this side of the Channel. Just pipelines lying on the beach for the fuel to flow through. All this time, I’ve been assuming that whatever is at the root of this business must be something they were intending to pump from France to the UK. But with no hidden base, no pumping station, that’s a non-starter.’

Jo was looking at me. ‘So you’re saying that if pumping something under the English Channel from one place to another is what they were proposing it wasn’t France to UK but UK to France?’

‘Yes. I’ve been so stupid with this. Pumps pump, they don’t suck.’

We temporarily forgot our conversation to focus on the highway as a tappety diesel engine increased in pitch and volume, signalling its approach. Through the trees we saw a white Transit van speed past the top of the road in the direction of Calais. There was no chance of a look at the driver. We looked at each other and I don’t know what she saw on my face but on hers I saw anxiety.

‘What are we going to do?’

‘Avoid that vehicle for a start.’

‘Agreed. And then?’

I didn’t know what to suggest, so I started guessing. ‘Assuming there is something to be pumped from Dungeness across the Channel it has to come out somewhere, right?’

Her voice said ‘right,’ but her face showed her interest in the idea was waning rapidly in the light of the new information. I didn’t blame her. I was clutching at ideas like a drowning man grabs at water.

‘We could take a look along the coast here just to see if anything sticks out.’ That felt a stupid thing to say.

She made a face that reflected her lack of enthusiasm for my brainwave. ‘It would be a needle in a haystack. We have no idea even where to start looking and from what I’ve seen so far there is a lot of coastline round here. And there isn’t much daylight left. Look, I think we did the right thing coming to look here, exploring the idea, but developments suggest to me that we should re-focus our attentions on that building at Dungeness. We have learned something. It’s not been a waste of time. If there is something of an illegal nature being plotted using that old pumping station then they’ll have to return to it, won’t they?’

‘And what about the deaths of my uncle and aunt?’

‘Be reasonable. Be logical. There is nothing more to be gained here.’

‘The guy back there knew something, I’m sure of that. And what about the van and the giant?’

‘Think about our position here. I have no jurisdiction. We have no support. What do you want to do? Go back there and accuse him of involvement in murder? That could be counter-productive, don’t you think? Or maybe you want to try to beat a confession out of him? That only works in fiction. And when it doesn’t, when it backfires, it gets very messy. Modern policing is all about investigation, research, information and evidence gathering; making a case and then acting. It might be slow but it’s best in the long run and it’s the way the law works.’

‘Nice speech.’ I didn’t mean anything nasty by it.

She had to have understood the defeat in me. ‘Listen, we do have something we didn’t this morning. We have intelligence and knowledge. We also have a possible lead to follow up.’

‘What lead?’

‘The van and the big man. They are something. I can take what we’ve learned to my DI and we can open lines of communication with the French police. We can get them to impound the van and we can have it forensically examined. If we find traces of you or anyone else in there, we’ll have grounds for arrest.’

I had to be satisfied with this but my lack of fervour must have shown. Jo walked around to my side of the car. I met her stare. Her eyes were green and clear and the way the sun bounced off the glass of the windscreen and up into them gave them a sharp and striking clarity.

‘I know you’re suffering with your double loss. I can’t imagine how that must feel for you, knowing how they died and not why and with their killers walking around free. But you have to trust me on this. I am the police. I know what I’m talking about and I know the way things have to work.’

She reached for my hand then and as she took it I felt a pulse of something extraordinary and powerful surge to my extremities and linger. It would not be an exaggeration to say that with that simple physical act she took my breath away.

Alone together in a corner of a foreign land with Nature’s spring egging me on and an attractive woman making the first move I was preparing myself for something more intimate, the next step in my mind, when the rapid metallic staccato of an approaching engine machine-gunned the moment to ribbons.

***

44

She dropped my hand as we nailed our collective attention to what was about to pass the end of the lane. The country peace and birdsong was briefly polluted and stilled by the high-pitched whine of a straining low gear. I’d have known the engine with my eyes closed. A grubby white Transit van flashed by, heading back in the direction of the museum.

Jo made a decision: ‘Let’s go. He’s making me nervous and I don’t want to get caught in this rat trap of a lane.’

We listened a few moments longer, until the Doppler effect had died away, got back in the car and reversed back to the main highway. Like the rest of the afternoon, there was little else on the road. Jo engaged first gear and with the car pointed towards Calais put her foot down.

The emotions of my day flowed and mixed: anticipation, excitement, apprehension, trepidation and some awakened passion. The resulting brew was not pleasant. Too much in the blend and little of it complementary, like the UN.

One advantage of the open, flat, bare landscape was that we would have plenty of early warning if anyone was pursuing us. One disadvantage of the open, flat, bare landscape was that we could be seen from a long way off by anyone pursuing us.

‘We have to assume that van was looking for us, right?’

‘I don’t like paranoia and I’m sure you know what they say about assuming, but in this instance it might be prudent to do so. I’ll be a lot happier when we’re back on the train. How long before the one you’ve booked us on?’

‘I got a late one, but it’s not a busy time for them. I’ve turned up with late tickets before and got on earlier shuttles. If they can’t fit us in we can wait it out at Cité Europe, the big shopping centre there.’

She seemed mollified by this and concentrated on her driving. Her quiet pensiveness contributed to my state of unease.

I could find little to enjoy in the sprawling countryside on our return. The breathtaking vistas that had fuelled my interest earlier in the afternoon now gave me a sense of exposed vulnerability. The sun had lost its warmth as it abandoned the land for the horizon of the sea, and the shadows were gathering like the storm clouds out in the Channel.

The day’s weather was going to be turned on its head. But it was April after all; these things happened. There were two things that gave me comfort: we knew our way and it wasn’t far.

Jo broke the silence with a question that churned my stomach. ‘If that van was your van and the man driving it was your man, what were his intentions, do you think?’

‘I don’t want to think about it.’ But, of course, I couldn’t help it. ‘
If
, then it probably wasn’t to pull us over and ask us to fill out a feedback form for the museum. We’re in the middle of nowhere. He could run us off the road if he wanted to.’

‘Dramatic, but possible, especially if he has something to hide.’

‘Like being a party to murder?’ Then, ‘Can we stop talking about him now?’

‘I really think it’s time we started involving the professionals, don’t you?’

I said I did and I got the impression that satisfied her.

I changed the subject. ‘What could they have been intending to pump out of the UK into France?’