* * *
After a bleak, windy walk from the bed and breakfast where she had stayed, Laura arrived at the Rotherham’s central police station, relieved that the forecasters had got it wrong again and, for a change, it wasn’t raining. She pushed the front doors of the faceless, red brick police station open and walked to the front desk and, flashing her identity card, asked “Can you point me to Inspector Meadows’ office, please.”
The duty officer glanced at the identity card. “I’ll just check he’s there.”
Laura smiled pleasantly and waited. Five minutes later, Meadows arrived and took her to his team’s office where Laura settled down to work at a spare desk. They were all ready to respond should the driver call in, but for now, it was wait and work on other matters.
* * *
Rob, on the other hand had arrived at the Logistics Arranged operations centre outside Budapest and started his interviews with supposedly randomly chosen employees. He was joined by another MI5 agent, Alexandra, who was more junior than Laura, but still highly regarded. Alexandra was thrilled to be involved, having heard of Rob’s exploits and his high-flying life style; so she knew she would be well looked after. She also knew not to make a move on him, however tempted she was, although having now met him, her mind kept wandering. The Rob-Laura relationship that everyone could see but themselves was a frequent matter of lunchtime gossip.
By the time they took an afternoon break, Rob was already convinced that they had identified at least a couple of people who were not telling the truth about discrepancies between the log books of customer orders, planned pick-ups and drop-offs and actual journeys recorded electronically on vehicles’ equivalent of an airplane’s black box.
“So what do you think?” Rob asked Alexandra, once the door to their meeting room was closed. Rob, wanting a break from continually sitting, was standing, looking out of the window. The meeting room was on the first floor of yet another modern box of an office building in the middle of a business park. We could be absolutely anywhere, Rob thought idly as he looked sceptically across the estate.
“Well, at least one, probably two of the operators we spoke to were holding back – I think they knew more than they were letting on.” She joined Rob by the window, tingling at being so close to the man she had only glimpsed before and had heard so much about. “The engineer has to be hiding something. Most puzzling is why all of the drivers we wanted to speak to have mysteriously taken holiday at the same time. I just don’t get that at all.”
“I agree about the drivers. The thing is, they took their holiday before we were announced as coming, so it’s nothing to do with that. Somehow, we need to lean on the engineer; what he is doing adjusting the mileage on the vehicles is illegal, whether he was ordered to do so or not. If he was ordered to do so, we need to find out who told him to. It’s a good thing that the company uses additional monitoring.”
“We could follow him this evening,” Alexandra suggested enthusiastically, adding “I overheard him speaking English to someone on his mobile phone agreeing to meet at up at the castle.”
Rob looked at her for a long few seconds. “We are supposed to be auditors.”
Alexandra smiled, “Yes, I know. But we can also be tourists. I’ve never been to Budapest before and the guidebooks say that the views up there are great. There are restaurants up there as well, so plenty of good reasons for us to be there.”
Rob shook his head slightly and smiled. The logic was faultless. From past business trips, he knew the castle district was a wonderful place to go, but he did not want to jeopardise their cover. “Okay, but we need to agree how we do it.”
* * *
The call came late afternoon and Inspector Meadows was immediately notified. Unlike the previous time, this call was from a mobile phone so they could now contact the driver.
“Help me! I only went for some beers and now they’re following me!”
“Do you think you are in immediate danger?” the operator asked calmly.
“Yes!” came the panicked response. “Why else would I call you?”
“Where are you now?”
“The off-licence near de park, dunno the road name.”
“Do you mean Clifton Park?”
“Yeah. Course.”
“Okay, we will find you. Please stay in a public space, that is safest for you. Assistance is on the way. Stay on line and we can keep talking until help arrives.” As the operator was speaking, she had started the process to get mobile units to the area and inform Meadows.
“Okay, be quick. They won’t care about public or not. They jus’ wanna get me!”
“Who is ‘they’, sir?”
“How should I know who they are?!” The man was distressed and, from his heavy breathing, had broken into a run.
Sitting in the back of Meadows’ car, Laura pictured the brash, arrogant man she had interviewed running, panting down the road, frantic, watched by other pedestrians. Probably turning round all the time to look at his pursuers, which will slow him down all the more.
That was exactly what the man was doing and as he turned to look round, he kept losing balance, stumbling as a result of his drunkenness.
“So why do you think they want to get you?”
“Cause I know stuff, don’t I?” The man’s stumbling run kept him moving down the street, away from the small parade of shops and the potential for safety. His three pursuers maintained their distance.
“Oh. My name is Beatrice,” the operator said, desperate to keep the man talking, but using an alias. “What’s your name?”
“Alan.”
“Well, Alan. I will look forward to meeting you after all this. I don’t normally get to chat for long with this job.”
“Sure.”
In the background Beatrice heard what sounded like a woman’s scream before Alan said “Oh shit!” Beatrice then heard the phone drop, a loud thud, the screeching of tyres and the ugly screech of an over-revved engine.
At the woman’s scream Alan had turned to see a large van bearing down on him, scattering other pedestrians as it drove along the pavement. His reactions weren’t quite fast enough, but he did evade a head-on hit. The side of the van struck Alan, sending him flying into the wall of the nearest building. He bounced off and collapsed to the ground.
Beatrice immediately added an ambulance and paramedic to the coordinates for where Alan was sprawled on the pavement, blood trickling from multiple wounds.
* * *
Rob and Alexandra took the short funicular railway up to the castle with another half dozen tourists thirty minutes before the engineer was expected to arrive – they wanted to find a prime spot at the top from which to observe the man.
