The Judgement Book (16 page)

‘Press pack,’ Adam hissed.

‘Yes,’ Dan replied.

‘Waiting for …’ He didn’t have to finish the sentence.

The two men turned down a side street before the pack could spot them.

‘Yep,’ said Dan. ‘They’re all waiting for you. That plane and its less than subtle banner means they want to ask you about Osmond, the investigation, the works.’

Adam swore under his breath. ‘I haven’t got time for all this. I’ve got the High Honchos on my back demanding progress, Osmond making a complaint against me, and now the bloody press hunting me too. Have you got any ideas what to do?’

Dan sensed his opportunity. ‘You need a diversion. To give them a new quarry to hunt. Someone to distract them.’

‘Like who?’

Dan didn’t reply, just gave his friend a look. ‘Regarding what we were discussing a few minutes ago,’ he said eventually.

Adam ran a hand over the stubble on his chin. ‘Come over here a minute, there’s something I want to show you.’ He led Dan around the corner of the street. They crossed the road and stood looking into the window of a camping shop. A range of half-price tents was on offer, all guaranteed waterproof.

He pointed at one. ‘I can’t under any circumstances tell you where Osmond lives so you can go and stake him out,’ he continued. ‘It would be entirely unethical. No matter how it might help you get a story and distract the rest of the pack.’

Dan looked at the tents, then back at Adam. Again he felt something else was coming, but didn’t know what. He turned back to the shop window and stayed quiet.

Adam indicated a four-man tent and said, ‘You and Claire are looking for a place together, aren’t you?’ he said.

‘Yes,’ replied Dan, puzzled by the change of subject. ‘But I wasn’t thinking of a tent …’

‘Found anywhere yet?’

‘No, not yet. We haven’t really started looking.’

‘Well, let me give you a tip. I know some lovely places. Ermington for example. Particularly those big houses up by the church. They’re well worth a look. You never know what you might find.’

They decided to go together in Nigel’s car to attract less attention. Dan wondered how successful that would be. He was well known from his TV appearances, and El and Nigel both had their conspicuous kit to carry. If they had to start asking around, in a small village they would look exactly what they were.

Predators.

El clambered untidily into the back, carefully cradling the long lens of his camera. He was grinning and mumbling about how much he loved naughty Superintendent Leon Osmond. The muttering became more distinct and another of the photographer’s dreadful limericks was launched on to an unsuspecting world.

“A cop who’s too fond of his drink,

Can cause a quite terrible stink,

With El on his tail,

Then how can we fail?

To see him immortalised in ink!”

Dan groaned. He had thought he was almost inured to El’s awful standards of rhyme, but that had to be one of the worst. Even the diplomatic Nigel looked pained.

En route, Dan put one hand over his ear to dampen El’s background burbling and called Claire to check how she was. She was absolutely fine she said, but sounded a little abrupt. He got the message. No matter how pregnant she was, don’t fuss. That wasn’t going to be easy. It seemed the most natural thing in the world to try to take care of her. The worries about looking after a child were still picking at his mind, but he didn’t mention them. Wrong time, wrong place. They could talk about it soon enough.

He found a couple of bits of Nigel’s emergency clothing on the back seat and donned a spare baseball cap in an attempt to disguise himself. Combined with his sunglasses, he might just get away with looking less obvious and vulnerable to the dreaded shout, “It’s that man on the telly”.

It was another fine spring day, the sunshine dappled by a high gauze of tissue cloud. Nigel drove them east, out of Plymouth, along the dual carriageway of the main A38 and then turned south, following the path of the pebble-bed River Erme to Ermington.

Dan unwrapped a sandwich he’d bought from a petrol station and began eating. He heard El whine plaintively in the back, sighed, tore off a piece and handed it to him. It was like being a parent. Well, he’d better get used to it. The photographer munched gratefully. He reminded Dan of Rutherford.

A line of trees bowed over the Erme, as though bending to sample its crystal waters. They were heavy with paper-white blossom, some escaping and dancing in the breeze. Dan wound down the car’s window and breathed in the warm air. A sweating thatcher sewed golden straw into a cottage roof while an old lady stood at the bottom of a silver ladder waving a tea cup at him. It was pure Devon.

The famous crooked spire of the church appeared through the trees. Nigel slowed and the car crawled past it, just as so many tourists did. El’s head leaned hungrily out of the window, scanning each house for any sign of Leon Osmond or his Jaguar. Dan relaxed. If there was a hint of Osmond anywhere, El would spot it.

They passed a pub and the junior school, a babble of joy and excitement in life with the children running and shouting in the playground. A row of cottages shepherded the narrow road, all perfectly kept and adorned with hanging baskets of bursting colour. Cars manoeuvred carefully to park outside a small line of shops.

Ermington had fought hard to retain the sense of community that so many villages had seen fade over the years. It made such a difference. Too many now had residents, people who passed silently in the street, not neighbours and friends. But not here. It was a living village.

The continued on, through to the outskirts. The houses changed, grew larger, all in their own grounds, detached with drives, some modern, some conversions of farmhouses and barns. Nigel kept driving slowly, their faces sweeping from left to right.

‘Bingo!’ yelped El suddenly. ‘Target in my sights.’

He pointed ahead to a modern, detached and whitewashed house standing at the end of an asphalt drive. Parked by its front doors was a gleaming maroon Jaguar.

‘Gotcha,’ chattered El happily. ‘One half of mission Naughty Drinky Cop accomplished. Now the tricky bit. The man himself.’

They got out of the car and discussed their plan. There were sturdy black iron gates at the end of Osmond’s drive, firmly closed, and it was more than a hundred yards to the house. The drive curved away from them in a sweeping arc so a hedge obscured the front door.

‘Too far for me to get a decent shot of him,’ said Nigel, hands on hips, studying the scene. ‘Even if he decided to come out.’

‘Me too,’ grumbled El. He hopped from foot to foot and stroked the lens of his camera. ‘Even with this beautiful all-seeing eye. Got to get closer. Got to lure him out of the house too. That won’t be easy. Bet the bugger’s gone to ground.’

They both looked at Dan. He rolled his eyes and muttered, ‘Down to me then, is it? Thanks, lads.’

He gazed at the house and its surrounds, thought for a moment, then pointed to a shallow ditch that ran alongside the edge of Osmond’s land. It was thick with bushes and overgrowth.

‘There,’ he said. ‘That’s our way closer. Let’s do a recce.’

They waited for a hiatus in the passing cars, then tried to walk nonchalantly along the road until they found a gap in the hedge. It was dense and leafy, but after a while they came upon a break and pushed quickly through into a field full of stubble. They crouched, waited for the challenge, the angry shouts wanting to know what the hell they were doing, but none came. A car passed, then another. They squatted down, waited, then slowly slid back towards the ditch.

It was mostly dry, but Dan did get a couple of shoefuls of cold and stagnant water. They crept along, bent double, Nigel and El carrying their cameras, Dan with the ungainly weight of the tripod. Lively young branches snapped at them as they pushed their way through, landing a couple of whipping blows and the odd thorn tore at their clothes. A blackbird sang out its alarm and fluttered away across the open fields.

Dan paused and looked back over his shoulder. They were all sweating heavily, Nigel panting and El sporting a chain of leaves in his shock of hair. He held up a hand, let them have a moment’s breather, moved on.

About twenty yards from the front of the house the ditch widened into a dry hollow. There was a clear view of the door and the car. Perfect. Nigel and El trained their cameras on the house and they waited. It was a quarter past one. Plenty of time for their prey to emerge.

They only needed a few seconds of pictures to get their exclusive. Just enough of Osmond by his car to start Dan’s report for tonight. No one else would have that. It would be fresh and entertaining and should suffice to keep Lizzie happy. El could snap all the shots he needed in the time it took the Superintendent to venture out of his door. For whatever reason; to check the weather, stretch his legs, get some air, it didn’t matter. All that was important was that he appeared.

Dan had lost count of the number of stake-outs he’d endured. He’d never cared for them. It was always waiting which was the worst. Action he could handle, reacting to a breaking story, busking his way through a live report. But waiting made you feel impotent, knowing you could get a fine scoop or simply nothing, depending on the vagaries of your luck.

Two hours ticked slowly by. Dan leaned back against some grass at the rear of the hollow, Nigel and El bent over their cameras at the front. It was like some military scene, he thought. Not a bad way of earning a living, sitting in the Devon countryside in the sunshine, but he was getting increasingly twitchy about the time.

If he was going to get a story, Osmond would have to come out soon. Wessex Tonight was on air at half past six. Dan reckoned he’d need an hour to edit the report, and they’d take half an hour or so to get back to the studios. So five o’clock was their deadline.

It was getting on for half past three.

‘Come on, come on, come on,’ El mumbled over and over again, stroking his camera lens for luck. ‘If I don’t get the snap of him to London soon, it’ll be worthless. That’s thousands of quid down the drain. Thousands!’

‘He’s not daft though, is he?’ whispered Nigel. ‘He’ll know the media will be after him for a picture. I reckon he’s staying put safely inside.’

They waited on. Another half hour edged by. Dan tried to occupy himself thinking about Claire and his baby boy. What name might they choose? He went through a mental list and found he didn’t really like any apart from his own. What would Claire think of Dan junior? He could imagine her face if he even dared raise the question.

El let out a low moan of frustration. Dan checked Nigel’s digital watch, cheap, but always accurate. It was getting on for a quarter past four. Time was running out.

A pigeon landed in a tree above them and let loose a dropping. It hit El’s foot.

‘Blimey,’ he groaned, looking up. ‘Even the bloody birds are against me. Thousands of quid just slipping away in front of my eyes.’ He took a sly look at Dan. ‘Any ideas?’

Dan stared over at Osmond’s house. He was sure he’d sensed life in there. Perhaps just the twitch of a curtain and the faint sound of hammering. Nigel was right. The Superintendent was safely inside, probably doing some DIY. He’d gone to ground to stop the media getting a fresh picture of him.

‘I could just be straightforward and try ringing the bell,’ he said. ‘You two could get a shot of him when he came to the door.’

‘No chance,’ replied Nigel. ‘He’s not stupid. He’d either send his wife or just not answer.’

Dan nodded. It was a vain hope. Osmond had seen enough of journalists in his career to expect such a trick. He had to come up with something better.

He scanned the house and the car shining outside. So, what would tempt Osmond out? Everyone had a weakness. What did he know about the man that he could use?

His thoughts again started to drift to Claire and playing football in the park with his son. Days like this would be perfect for a kick-about. It would be just the way his father had once played with him. Dan wondered how Claire’s interview with the pilot of the plane had gone. Were they getting any closer to catching the blackmailer? He blinked the thoughts away and forced himself to concentrate.

He stared at Osmond’s Jaguar and an idea started to tug at his mind. The blackmail note said Osmond loved his car. And it certainly looked impeccably cared for, standing here, shining brightly in his drive.

Dan checked Nigel’s watch again. Almost half past four. They were nearly out of time. If he was going to do it, it had to be now.

Dan stood up and clambered out of the front of the hollow. Time to move before he changed his mind.

‘Cameras at the ready, boys,’ he whispered. ‘This is our one chance, so let’s give it our best.’

Dan crouched low and followed the line of the hedge to the side of the house. Not for the first time he was glad he always bought soft-soled shoes. They were indispensable for a TV reporter, smart enough to be worn on camera, but still practical for running after reluctant interviewees or away from irate victims of their filming.

He felt his heart thumping and had to concentrate to control his breathing. He crept across the drive and knelt down beside the Jaguar. No sound or movement from the house. They hadn’t seen him. He waited for a moment to compose himself, then slid around to the back of the car. He took his handkerchief and stuffed it into the exhaust pipe.

Dan looked over to the bushes. He could just make out the shine of the camera lenses protruding through the leaves. The snipers of the media. They were well camouflaged, but Nigel and El were ready. Good. Now it was just down to him. He’d have to move fast.

Dan stood up, rested his backside on the Jaguar’s bonnet and bounced it up and down.

The screaming siren of the car’s alarm split the air. Dan was instantly away, sprinting, back towards the bushes. He felt his legs ache with the effort. He crashed through the greenery, landed heavily in the ditch and ducked down, caught his breath and turned to look back at the house.

The front door flew open and out strode Osmond. He was wearing a pair of long blue shorts and a white T-shirt with the logo of a local brewery on it.