Brute Force

40

We reached Holt and parked up outside Lloyds on the main street.

'Wait here, engine on.'

It was a nice, well-to-do town: lots of candle shops, cafés and estate agencies. That meant people around here probably liked to be nice too.

I got £400 out on both my cards and was back in the car asap, now in the front passenger seat. I snapped my cards in half.

'Where's the charity shops?'

We went down the High Street and into a small square. Lynn drove slowly while I ran backwards and forwards between the car and the shop doorways and threw the nice people's bags of cast-offs into the back of the car like it was a rubbish cart. I didn't care if any CCTV saw us. We'd be shedding another layer of skin soon.

'OK, out of town now, towards Norwich – and slowly. How far is that?'

'About twenty miles.'

As we headed back into the darkness I hit the interior lights and ripped open the bin-liners.

'What about your family? You'd better phone them and get them out of the way.'

He shook his head and a muscle twitched briefly in his jaw. 'No need.'

'OK. So now we get dressed and cleaned up. Then we dump the car and train it to London.'

'I don't know what we can—'

'Need to know, Colonel, remember?' I grinned. 'And you don't need to know anything until you need to know it. Don't want you giving away the game plan.'

I gave him the once-over. The blood on his head had dried a little and the swelling had begun. It wouldn't have been that noticeable if he'd had any hair to cover it. 'Right now we need a nice quiet stretch of river so we can clean ourselves up, then we're going to need to find you a hat.'

He seemed to relax again and pointed at the rear-view. 'You're no oil painting yourself, Stone. If I need a hat, you need the full shemagh . . .'

His foot went back on the pedal.

'And slow down,' I yelled. 'We don't want to get stopped.'

We had to dump the car once we got into the city – somewhere it wouldn't stick out and get pinged too quickly. Main streets and multi-storey car parks were out, because of the CCTV, but we couldn't leave it anywhere too isolated either – it would stick out like a sore thumb.

'When's the first train?'

Lynn finally lifted his foot off the gas.

'Not sure; it used to be some time before six – to get into London for the start of the working day.'

The clock on the dash read 02.38.