Dead if You Don’t

102

Sunday 13 August

17.00–18.00

For PCs Richard Trundle and Pip Edwards, in the unmarked BMW, Hotel Tango Two-Eight-One, it had been a Q Sunday up until now. Q stood for Quiet, the word no police officer dared to say because it was a jinx. They all knew the moment you mentioned it was a quiet day, everything would kick off.

Traffic officers had various games they played on such days, or nights, to relieve the monotony. One, on dual carriageways or motorways, in a marked car, was to gradually decrease their speed below the legal limit and watch vehicles behind them slowing down, not daring to pass. There was a method in this, because anyone driving a legal vehicle would have no hesitation passing them. But someone in an untaxed or uninsured vehicle would always hang back, nervous of being pinged by the in-car ANPR system, which would instantly alert the officers.

Two colleagues of Trundle and Edwards currently held the record for the Polegate Roads Policing Unit, of 35 mph in a 70 mph limit. When they’d finally pulled over the car behind them, it turned out to be a major bust. Untaxed, uninsured and twenty thousand pounds’ worth of cocaine, at street value, in the boot.

Other games that traffic officers played regularly, often in the small hours of a Q night, were either to invent a fatal collision that turned out to be, on investigation, an almost perfect murder, or to create the perfect bank heist.

Until they had spotted the red Ducati motorbike going twice round the Beddingham roundabout, it had been a boring shift for Trundle and Edwards. They were glad to have something to do other than driving around aimlessly, looking for cars passing too close to cyclists, speeding motorists and waiting for the all-too-inevitable Sunday shout to attend a fatal RTC. More often than not, the latter involved a ‘born-again’ biker — the moniker the RPU gave to middle-aged guys who had owned a motorcycle in their late teens, and had now, from their bonuses, bought a much more powerful machine than had been around in their youth, on which too many, tragically, would run out of road — or talent — at a vital point.

‘Been to that new industrial estate before?’ Trundle asked his colleague.

Edwards shook his head. ‘No, it’s only been finished very recently — you?’

Trundle shook his head. ‘Me neither.’

On Oscar-1’s instructions they drove past a small development of holiday-let chalets and in through the entrance of the Ranscombe Farm Industrial Estate, which was heralded by a small sign. Cruising slowly, they looked at the company names displayed and the empty parking bays: Yelland Flooring; Caburn Office Furnishings; Tuckwell Auto Spares.

At the end of the road they turned left, then left again, and drove along the second row of almost identical units. And saw, parked on a forecourt, ahead to their right, a blue van bearing the name of a plumbing firm, a small Hyundai dwarfed by a large, black Mercedes, and a motorbike, a red Ducati.

Index K5 DGG.

Bingo!

They cruised on, as instructed, noting the name on the premises, Caburn Heating & Plumbing Services.

‘Spin her round at the end and we’ll park up,’ Edwards suggested.

A couple of minutes later they pulled up beside a blue Jaguar estate car on the forecourt of a company called Cornelia James Ltd, which displayed a Royal Warrant crest beside its name. From this vantage point they were concealed behind the Jaguar but had a clear view through its windows of the vehicles outside the plumbing firm.

Pip Edwards radioed Oscar-1. ‘This is Hotel Tango Two-Eight-One, we have visual on the target bike.’

Keith Ellis replied, ‘Acknowledged, Hotel Tango Two-Eight-One. Stay out of sight but maintain obs on the bike. If the rider leaves, inform me, follow at a discreet distance but do not enter into pursuit. Stand by for further instructions.’

‘Yes, yes.’

They settled down to watch.

‘How’s Beckie?’ Pip Edwards asked. ‘Still working at Tesco?’

‘Seventeen years she’s just clocked up, and still loves every day there. So how’s the caravan?’

Edwards had just splashed out £20,000 on a caravan.

‘Love it, the kids love it! Going to the New Forest next weekend.’

Trundle shook his head. ‘Caravans, yech. My idea of luxury is a nice hotel, a spa, a pool.’

‘And an RTC that’s a murder?’ Pip Edwards asked him.

‘Yep. One that involves some poor sod of a motorist stuck behind a bastard in a caravan, on a hill,’ Trundle retorted.