The Boudicca Parchments

Chapter 46

“Your sister? Why the hell did you do that?”

“I had to find out if she was all right… and to tell her that I was.”

Sarit and Daniel were arguing. The police had not in fact come to their door, but appeared to be checking other houses further down the street.

“And it didn’t occur to you that they could do a trace?”

“I thought that if I kept it short, and they weren’t tracing already, then they couldn’t.”

“You think they can only do live traces? You didn’t know they could pull the records from the phone company and get a retroactive trace.”

“But how can they do that when the phone doesn’t even have GPS on it.”

“By the ground stations! They can check which ground stations it was routed through and work it out that way!”

“But then they can’t get an exact fix, just a general area.”

“My God Daniel are you completely techno-illiterate? The ground stations in rural areas are spaced far apart, but the ones in urban areas are packed close together.”

“Then why aren’t they here now?”

Sarit had to take a deep breath to keep her temper.”

“They’ve got about ten cars out there! They’re searching house to house and from what I can see they’ve blocked one end of the street. They’ve probably blocked the other too!”

Although he was trying to sound calm, Daniel was anything but. He knew as well as Sarit what sort of trouble they were in, even if he was trying to play it down in his mind.

“What are we going to do?”

“There’s only one thing we can do. Use the motorbike.”

“Can’t we just go upstairs and keep quiet?”

“It won’t work. If they’re this determined, they’re probably asking neighbours if they’ve seen anything suspicious. All it’ll take is one of them to say a couple of people on a motorbike and the games up.”

“But if they’ve blocked off the road…”

“Then we’ll use the pavement. It won’t be blocked completely.”

“And if it is?”

“Then I’ll just have to do a Steve McQueen.”

“That’s what I was afraid of.”

Two minutes later they were in the garage, dressed in bikers leathers and helmets. Sarit was gunning the engine and Daniel was unlocking the door. He signalled her that the door was unlocked as she revved the engine and kicked away the support. Then, in response to a nodded signal from Sarit, Daniel swung the door open and Sarit rolled forward. She didn’t pause as she reached him, but right on plan, he swung his leg and leapt awkwardly onto the pillion seat — like an old-fashioned high-jumper doing the western roll — as the bike roared across the driveway into the street and swung a sharp right, nearly taking out a copper in the process.

As expected the street was blocked by a police van and a car, but the pavement was clear, except for a few policemen milling around and telling pedestrians who wanted to use the street that it was closed for the next two hours, even if they lived there.

The police on the pavement turned round in response to the roar of the bike and one of them even tried to play the hero and block their path. But when it came to a game of chicken in a make-or-break situation like this, Sarit took no prisoners. The brave yet foolish copper, was the first to blink, leaping aside at the last half-second. Sarit leaned the bike and took a sharp turn at the end of the street, but within a few minutes they could hear the sound of a helicopter.

Daniel was surprised that they had been able to scramble it so quickly. The question was what was Sarit going to do about it. One thing he knew was that most of these police helicopters had a limited range. But the helicopter could call in ground forces to intercept. She might try to go near an airport, where flying restrictions might prevent the helicopter from entering.

But in the end she headed straight for a built up area. The closer they got to the centre of London, the higher the helicopter had to fly, under health and safety rules about flying low over densely populated areas. And because there was low cloud cover, this made it harder for them to see the motorbike.

She made it into the Brent Cross Shopping Centre outdoor car park, from where they raced into the centre, still in their biking leathers.

“What now?” asked Daniel.

“We go to the toilets, strip off the leathers, then meet outside.”

“Do we take the leathers with us?”

“No leave them. We have to split up from here. This place’ll be swarming with cops in seconds. And remember it’s you they’re looking for.”

“What should I do?”

“I’ll stay on the upper level and make out like I’m looking for you on. You come down to M amp;S and buy some other clothes. Buy them and change into them there and then leave on foot. Make your way to the Pond at Hampstead where Jack Straws Castle used to be. I’ll meet you there.”

In one minute, Daniel was in ordinary street clothes outside the toilets, having left his leathers in a cubicle. He looked around, but Sarit was nowhere to be seen. He knew that there were CCTV cameras in the building. But he didn’t know if Scotland Yard could patch into them in the way they could with the platform and ticket office level cameras of the London Underground. All he did know is that he had to act quickly.

As Sarit had said, he made his way to Marks and Spencer and quickly selected the most size-tolerant clothes. He paid for them in haste and then went back into the changing rooms to change into them — the security tags having already been removed. He was still self-conscious and nervous when he left, but he kept his head down and walked out to where the buses were. He knew that with his head down, the cameras — which were usually placed high — couldn’t catch his face. And if they were looking out for his clothes when he left the toilet, then he was now wearing different clothes.

But he realized also that they would probably be watching the exits for people leaving. So he knew what he had to do — and it took nerves of steel. He had to hang around. Not look around as if he were looking for some one else, because that too would attract attention. But look like any other shopper.

So he casually strolled into WH Smith and started looking at books.

He knew what Sarit would be doing. Wondering around up in the upper floors like she was looking for some one. Although she had told him that she was going to meet him at the Pond, he suspected that she was using herself as bait, or offering herself up as a human sacrifice, to help him get away.

The trouble was, if they caught her, would they think he was really still around and that she was looking for him or would they assume that she was doing it to help him getaway? If the former, then they would think that he was still there and would look for him in the shopping centre. But if he left now, he would also attract scrutiny. He had to hold out as long as he could. It occurred to him that she might have gone to another shop for a change of clothes. If so, they might not be able to identify her either.

It was difficult keeping his nerve over the course of the next half hour. But he held out, even managing to get absorbed in some of the books that he was pretending to be interested in. Only when a check of his watch confirmed that forty minutes had elapsed, did he leave the shopping centre by the exit that led to the area away from the buses and by the road. He was going to make his way across a dangerous crossing to the pedestrian walkway of the overpass. It was underneath one of the roads and not visible from a helicopter. But then h realized that there were probably CCTV cameras there and they would be closely monitored.

Instead he made his way to a bus stop away from the main group of buses and took the first bus out of there. He rode it for three or four stops and then got off. He wandered around almost aimlessly and then hailed a black cab.

“The Pond, near the Heath.”

“‘op in mate,” said the friendly London cabbie.

And with that, he was on his way.