Identity Crisis (7 page)

‘Any other visitors to the house?’

‘One more, and it might be significant.’ Pearce related his chat with the supermarket delivery driver.

At the end of it, Clara said, ‘That confirms our worst fears, I reckon. If Vanda Dawson ordered all those groceries, she obviously wasn’t planning to be absent from home.’

Pratt summed up the results of their efforts. ‘Before I set about tracing Dawson, I checked him on the computer as you asked. There’s nothing apart from a speeding fine he collected a few months back. As far as the golfing holiday’s concerned, that’s a real mystery. The secretary at Helmsdale Golf Club confirmed that Dawson is a member, but knows of no trips to Spain. Certainly not one organized by the club, and he hasn’t heard of any group of members sorting their own trip out. After that, I started trying to contact airlines that fly to Spain. Unfortunately, most of the departments that could give me any information are closed, so there’s very little I can do until Monday. I even tried the airports, but it’s the same with them. However, those which could search their computers couldn’t find any trace of Dawson on their recent flights. That’s not to say he isn’t in Spain, but I can’t be sure one-way or the other, until Monday at the earliest.’

‘Oh great! That’s absolutely brilliant! That means Vanda Dawson’s gone missing and we can’t even locate her husband to tell him. Tom, can you think of anything else that could possibly go wrong today?’

Pratt shook his head. He couldn’t think of any way the day could get worse.

As Tom Pratt was leaving the station to drive back to Netherdale, he passed a group of motor cyclists heading through the market place towards the Bishopton road. Bikers were a common enough
sight during the summer when Helmsdale was a favourite destination for groups from the West Riding and the north east, but at this time of the year they were much less in evidence. He gave no more thought to them than to wonder where they hailed from and where they were heading so late in the day, then dismissed them from his mind. It was not until much later that he remembered the group.

After crossing the market place, the bikers pulled into the car park to the rear of the high street at the northern end of the town. When they’d switched their engines off, leaned their bikes on their stands and removed their helmets, the leader spoke to them. ‘Right, let’s be sure everything is ready. Have you got the kit in place?’

‘All sorted. The vans are parked out of sight,’ one of the men replied. ‘The signs and barricades are ready to be pulled into place as soon as I get the word. I’ve concealed them behind hedges, but it’s no more than a couple of minutes’ work to get them into position.’

‘I’ll supervise the first part, the rest of you get on your way.’ The leader looked at one of the men, ‘Got your equipment ready?’

‘Dead easy, I got it last week. I’ve tested it a couple of times. It’ll work fine.’

‘Right, you’d better get yourselves off. The signal will be when I pass you.’

When Clara told David about her day, she described it as like trying to swim upstream in the river Helm after the flood. ‘I’m afraid I have to go into work again tomorrow. I spoke to the Chief Constable and she agreed there wasn’t much more I could do today, so she’s called a meeting for nine o’clock in the morning; unless something else crops up in the meantime,’ she added darkly. ‘For now, I’m looking forward to nothing more taxing than a long hot soak in the bath, preferably accompanied by a glass of wine, then tasting this dinner that smells so delicious, and finally collapsing into bed.’

The driver of the security van yawned. It was partly from
boredom, mostly from weariness. Saturday evening always got him this way, recently, even more so. That was down to his boss trying to run the company on a shoestring. The recession, credit crunch, call it what you like had hit all industry hard; theirs was no exception. The result was everyone competing for the same business, and cutting margins to the bone simply in order to secure the work. Slimmer margins led inevitably to demands for the overheads to be reduced. In the security business, that was a dangerous practice.

Guardwell Transport had operated a fleet of twenty vans similar to his until eighteen months ago. They had provided secure transport facilities for banks and retailers throughout the north of England with a staff of over eighty men on the road, plus over half a dozen in the control room and several more at their central depot in Netherdale.

The rapid decline of the company was marked by the loss of their three largest contracts. This had been followed by a dramatic reduction in the number of vehicles and the workforce. Now, they had only six vans bearing the company logo with a mere fifteen crew members and one man in the control room. The reduction in crew size from three, to two per van had been a source of great concern to the employees, several of whom had expressed their reservations at the perceived danger of this practice. Not surprisingly, the more vociferous objectors had been the first to lose their jobs.

Whereas at the height of the company’s success they had worked twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, the reduced demand resulted in them being on the road only five days a week, and only for twelve hours at the most.

Saturday was their busiest day, and as another economy measure, their boss had redesigned each van’s route to include extra pick up points. That was all very well, under normal circumstances, but it didn’t allow any margin for such things as exceptional weather. This week had been a case in point. The severe gales and floods had led to the postponement of several of their collections over the past two days, most of which had been pushed on to the Saturday round. Today had been a gruelling
twelve-hour stint already, and they still had these last two calls to make. Two more, then back to the depot to offload. Then home.

The driver had pulled into the delivery yard at the back of the Helmsdale branch of the Good Buys supermarket chain, reversed to the delivery door and checked all round to make sure there was no danger before releasing the lock to let his colleague out of the vehicle. As soon as the man was clear, he relocked the van and watched in his rear-view mirror until his colleague was safely inside the store. Only then did he relax and lean back in his seat. Further down, the yard was wider to enable maximum car parking space. In line with this, the dividing walls behind four of the units had been removed to provide parking for staff and disabled customers, not only of the supermarket, but also of the local branch of a national chemist’s chain, a building society and one of the town’s few residential hotels.

At this time of day, the yard had hardly any cars, which in turn had given three enterprising local lads the opportunity for a kick-about game of football. Watched by an indulgent parent, the trio even had the use of floodlights, provided by the motion-sensitive PIR lights attached to the buildings. The driver smiled, it was almost as if they’d brought Old Trafford to Helmsdale.

Turning to the more mundane task he was paid for, the driver got on the radio and reported their safe arrival at Helmsdale. He ended the call, wondering if the radio operator in their control room had woken up specially to take their call. He certainly sounded as weary as the driver felt.

Returning to the excitement of the live soccer, the driver saw the largest of the players break away and swerve neatly round a despairing lunge of a tackle. He approached the van, drew back his foot and shot for goal. The driver heard a slight thump as the ball struck the underside of the van; then the burgeoning Beckham gave him a cheeky grin, before peeling away to celebrate his triumph, arms aloft to welcome the plaudits of an imaginary crowd of devoted fans.

The lad’s celebrations ceased abruptly when he reached the adult − surely the boy’s father. The driver saw the upraised hand and the wagging finger; he didn’t need to hear what was being
said to realize the young player was being berated for his thoughtlessness. The adult turned away from the crestfallen youth and approached the van. He signalled to the driver that the ball had got stuck under the van; then made a diving motion with both hands. Obviously, he wanted to scramble under the vehicle to retrieve the ball. The driver nodded agreement.

He heard a couple of small thumps before the man emerged. He was carrying the football in one hand, rubbing his elbow with the other. Apparently, the retrieval had been at the cost of a bruise or two. No doubt that would be mentioned to the goal scorer in addition to the previous telling-off. The parent made a thumbs up sign of thanks to the driver and walked off to shepherd his brood of footballers away. No doubt going home for their tea, the driver sighed wistfully.

As they reached the far wall the parent was talking to the eldest again, presumably reinforcing the earlier dressing-down. A few seconds later, the driver saw his partner emerge from the store with the strong box securely attached to his wrist. He let him into the back of the van and waited for his signal before opening the connecting hatch. The guard climbed through to the cab and attached the paperwork to his clipboard. The driver set off for their last call which was at the supermarket’s Bishopton branch.

After leaving the car parking area, the boys hurried down the street with the adult strolling at a more leisurely pace behind them. Around the corner, he met their mother. ‘The lads did very well, Mrs Michaels.’ He knew she wasn’t actually Eddie’s wife, but that scarcely mattered. ‘Very well indeed.’ He took an envelope from his coat pocket. ‘I’ll be sure to report back favourably to my boss. And here’s the money, as promised.’ He smiled. ‘I suppose that makes them professional footballers.’

The security van was almost halfway to Bishopton on a straight stretch of road when the driver spotted a sign warning of a closure ahead. He pointed it out. ‘I hope that’s left over from the storm and they’ve forgotten to take it in,’ he commented.

His colleague picked up the clipboard and thumbed through the papers until he found their daily instruction sheet. ‘There’s no mention of road closures on here,’ he said. ‘Do you want me to raise the office, see if they know about it?’

‘No, we’ll wait and see. Probably the council hasn’t bothered to send someone out to pick them up. Idle set of buggers!’

Two miles further on they saw a second sign, and this time the guard did attempt to radio into their control room. All he got was background crackle and the hiss of static. ‘Bloody thing’s on the blink again.’ He replaced the microphone in disgust. ‘Five weeks ago I told them it wasn’t working properly, and the mechanic swore he’d repaired the fault. Obviously, nothing’s been done.’

‘What do you expect? The bloody firm hasn’t got tuppence to scratch its arse with. Certainly none to spare for such luxuries as maintenance.’

Despite his anger, he smiled at the driver’s cynicism. As the man was speaking, they could just pick out an orange glow in the far reaches of their headlight beam. As they got closer, they saw it came from the luridly coloured set of temporary barriers placed across the Bishopton arm of the road junction. The diversion arrows pointed them to the north, towards Wintersett village. ‘Damn and blast!’ the driver exclaimed. ‘That’s going to add half an hour to the journey. Better try that radio again.’

He tried several times, but with no more success. They were a
fair way along the Wintersett road when the driver noticed a set of headlights in his rear-view mirror. They appeared to be well back, at a guess probably as much as a mile. Switching his attention to the road ahead, he caught a brief glimpse of a single light, which was instantly hidden by the contours of the land. As they reached the top of the next incline, he saw it again. Was it a car with one headlight out? Whatever it was, it was coming towards them at a fairly rapid rate.

Their first intimation of trouble came when the headlight faltered, swinging wildly, first to the right, then to the left as the motorbike rider attempted to correct a skid. It plunged; then settled low to the ground as it slithered remorselessly towards them. The driver slammed the van’s brakes on and the vehicle came to a shuddering halt. They could see the bike now, riderless, sliding on its side, the tank striking sparks from the road surface as it made spasmodic contact with the tarmac.

The bike came to rest no more than a cricket pitch length in front of them, its front wheel resting on the grass verge. The forks looked bent; the machine was obviously close to being beyond repair. But what of the rider? Further along the lane they could just pick out a motionless figure in the furthest reaches of their headlights: ominously motionless.

The van driver steered cautiously round the bike and inched nearer the fallen rider. He pulled up as close as he dared and they peered in horror at the torn, gashed leathers, the dented helmet, but most of their attention concentrated on the blood that was forming a pool on the road surface. Its source was the biggest gash in the leather tunic towards the rider’s heart, close to the ground. The blood was still pumping, more spurt than seepage.

They stared in horror, the guard again tried desperately to contact his control room, to summon an ambulance, he told the driver. A hearse would be more appropriate, the driver thought. Failing yet again, the guard said, ‘Keep trying them, will you. Let me out. I‘m going to see what I can do for the poor sod.’

‘We shouldn’t. We’re not supposed to leave the cab. You know the rules.’

‘Sod the rules. Do you think that poor bugger gives a toss for
the rules?’

‘There’s another vehicle coming up behind. Perhaps we ought to let the driver sort this out?’

‘You think he’ll be trained in first aid, like I am? You think it’s likely to be a doctor on his rounds?’

The driver gave in, reluctantly. He pressed the release button for the passenger door and watched his colleague stride forward towards the downed rider, the green first aid kit gleaming in the headlights. His attention was distracted momentarily by the approach of the vehicle he’d seen earlier. As the headlights loomed larger in his rear-view mirror, he was thankful he’d already switched his hazard flashers on. The squealing hiss of air brakes as the driver anchored up emphasized the wisdom of this decision. He saw the vehicle stop, too close for total comfort. Any chance of the joke about a country doctor being true vanished as the driver saw that it was what looked, in the darkness, like a removals van. Either that or—

He didn’t have time to ponder the unlikely event of someone moving house at this time on a Saturday night because as he switched his gaze from the rear, he saw that the scene in front of him had changed dramatically in the brief instant he’d been distracted.

The bike rider was no longer lying in the road. He was no longer lifeless. He was on his feet. Any pleasure this gave the driver was more than outweighed by his dismay at the sight of the pistol the man was holding to his colleague’s temple. The driver hit the alarm button. The wailing siren didn’t seem to panic the biker, nor do much to excite the driver of the vehicle behind him.

The sound of that vehicle’s engine made the driver look in his wing mirror. He saw the van swing out, obviously to overtake him. Meanwhile in the other mirror, he saw a lone figure collecting the battered motorbike and wheeling it along the road.

The scene was one of suspended animation apart from the moving vehicle. As it passed, the driver of the Guardwell van realized his guess had been wrong. It wasn’t a furniture van. It looked more like a big cattle wagon. It passed the two men in the road before reversing towards the security van. The biker
gestured him forward, reinforcing his message with the pistol. As he went to obey, he saw more men emerge from the cab of the wagon. Two of them lowered the tailboard, whilst another hurried past towards the man pushing the bike. All were dressed like the biker, even down to the helmets. Which made them totally unidentifiable.

Enough was enough; the driver, by now resigned to the hijacking, drove the security van forward as far as the ramp into the compartment usually reserved for the animals. He obeyed the signal to stop and applied the handbrake. One of the raiders appeared by his window, gesturing for him to get out. The futility of disobedience was emphasized by his colleague’s keys, which the man dangled in one hand. More urgently, by the gun in his other.

As he climbed out of the cab, another man grabbed him and spun him round. His wrists were secured with duct tape, another piece was slapped none too gently over his mouth, before he was frog-marched towards a Transit van that had appeared seemingly from nowhere. As he went towards it, the driver saw more raiders pushing motorbikes towards the cattle truck. Then he was pushed inside the back of the Transit along with his colleague and a collection of diversion signs and temporary barriers. Nothing, it seemed had been left to chance. Although he was unable to see his watch, the driver guessed the whole operation had taken little more than five minutes. The only slight consolation the driver had in his misery was that the raiders had taken such trouble to remain anonymous. Surely, they wouldn’t have done this had they intended to kill their hostages. Or was that wishful thinking?

The leader of the hijackers issued instructions to one of his men. ‘As far as we know the jamming device worked, but we can’t take that for granted. Drive the van inside the truck. You’ll have to stay in the cab. Disable the GPS tracker. Look sharp about it.’

Inside the control room of Guardwell Transport in Netherdale the radio operator was on his phone involved in losing a singularly pointless argument about his personal habits. The other protagonist, his long-term girlfriend, was protesting his habit of going out
on Friday night and spending money they could ill afford on drink. Or as she put it, ‘I’m sick and fed up of working all week to find the rent for this place, only to have you go out and piss the food money against the wall.’

As the debate, which was more of a monologue, grew ever more heated his gaze, which had been concentrating on the bank of monitors and CCTV screens that surrounded him, flicked less frequently to the one to his right, a map-overlay that showed the position of their vans as tracked by the global positioning satellite beacon they all carried.

As it was, with only one van remaining out on the road involving a small rural pick up, it was scarcely priority to check the minute-by-minute progress of the vehicle.

Eventually, as she ran out of things to say, or more probably the breath to say them with, he seized the opportunity to begin the case for the defence. ‘Look, I know I was late back last night, and I know I’d had too much to drink, but it’s hardly fair to say I do that every week. Last night was a special occasion. It was Roy’s birthday. You knew that before I went out. It’s hardly like I was hiding it from you. We all had a bit too much, I admit, but I left ages before the others. I could hardly call in, have one drink, say Happy Birthday and walk out again, now could I?’

It appears he could, or so she thought. Her attempt to tell him so, cut short in full flow. ‘Christ!’ he yelled. ‘Got to go! Emergency!’

He ended the call and flung his mobile on to the console. The Helmsdale/Bishopton van had disappeared off the screen. At first, he thought it might be the monitor playing up. He rebooted it, but with no success. He tried the radio. He called the van three times; his own voice, distorted by static hiss was his sole reward.

Abandoning the attempt, he dialled his boss’s home number. He got the voicemail. Trying the man’s mobile gave him a similar result. He tried both numbers again, this time leaving messages. He was unsure what to do next. Their systems had been playing up recently, and he remembered there had been a few complaints recently about that particular van. Should he call the police? Thought of what would come down on his head if it were a false alarm unnerved him. Twice he picked up the phone; twice he
replaced it. He glanced at the clock. He’d give it fifteen minutes. If he hadn’t been able to raise his boss by then or hadn’t been able to contact the van, then he’d ring the police.

In the meantime, he could call Good Buys in Bishopton. The van should have arrived, he guessed, if the manager could confirm it had then the panic would be over. He picked up his list of phone numbers. He had a frustratingly long wait before his call was answered. When it was, instead of the manager, he was only able to speak to a harassed sounding assistant, who promised she would get the manager to ring back if possible. Unwilling to settle for that, he asked if she could confirm seeing the van or any of their staff. She hadn’t, but qualified the remark by saying she wouldn’t be able to spot them from her position.

He watched the minutes tick by in a torment of doubt. He was about to ring the police when he was forestalled. The caller was the manager of Good Buys, who hadn’t seen their van, and wanted to be off home, where were they? He was waiting to lock the store and wasn’t at all happy at the delay.

Having fobbed him off, the radio controller was still unable to place his call as the phone rang again. This time it was his boss, who had at last picked up one of his messages. He came straight to the point, brutally so, demanding to know why the police hadn’t already been called. Much put upon, the controller pointed out that if he’d had immediate guidance he would have done so. It probably wasn’t going to make his career prospects any brighter, but he was past caring.

Ending the call, he immediately dialled 999. By the time they took the call and acted on it, half an hour had passed since the security van had been hijacked. Two patrol cars were despatched with lights flashing and sirens wailing. They spent a further hour travelling at a variety of speeds up and down the full length of the Helmsdale to Bishopton road, the route the van would have taken. Their search was fruitless, because they were unaware of the temporary diversion, the signs for which were in the back of the Transit van together with the two kidnapped guards.

DC Lisa Andrews was more than a little annoyed. Her plans for
a romantic evening with her long-term boyfriend, Alan Marshall, were wrecked by the phone call. She listened to the reports from the traffic officers who had searched Bishopton Road as soon as she reached Netherdale station. The other officer who had been to Guardwell’s depot was unable to give any more meaningful news about the disappearance of the van. He had been able to interview the company’s managing director, who had informed him that the van would have been carrying something well over £½ million. Lisa whistled in surprise, so he explained what the director had told him. ‘They’re doing more collections per van on each trip. Cost cutting! They’d already been to a dozen sites. Bishopton was their final call. That’s why there was so much money onboard.’

At that point, Lisa wisely decided more seniority on the case was called for. She dialled Mike Nash’s number, and it wasn’t until it went to voicemail that she remembered he was on leave. She muttered something decidedly unladylike and tried DS Mironova’s mobile instead.

Clara had enjoyed her bath and had demolished the greater part of the dinner David had cooked. She was on the next to last forkful when her mobile rang. She checked the caller ID on her screen before she answered. ‘Hello, Lisa. What’s the problem, or are you just bored?’

Sutton watched his fiancée’s expression change from relaxed, to tense, from astonishment to incredulity, before settling into a strange mixture of acceptance and disbelief. As she listened to the DC’s explanation, apart from a series of grunts that might have signified yes or no, her only contribution was, ‘I can’t believe this. I don’t remember breaking a mirror.’ Eventually, Clara said, ‘I’ll join you as soon as I can get there. Give Pearce a bell, will you. I’ll phone God. We need all hands on deck for this.’