Close Call

Chapter 44

It was half past eleven, dark, windy and pouring with rain, when a small convoy set off from Greater Manchester police headquarters. There were six black Range Rovers with tinted windows. In one was Technical Ted and two colleagues, in a second, three more from Thames House. Both of their vehicles had an assortment of oddly shaped bags and holdalls in the back. In the other four were eight police officers, two in each vehicle, but only one of each pair was recognisable from the word ‘POLICE’ on the front and back of his black pullover. All the other men wore anonymous dark clothes.

The cars stayed in convoy as they joined the southbound M60, Manchester’s ring road. Some miles on, at a junction marked Denton, one of the Thames House cars and two of the police cars peeled off, while the other three kept on the M60, circling the south of Manchester until they reached the turning for Eccles, where they too left the motorway and at a small roundabout headed into an industrial estate, led by one of the police cars. Ted, who was in the passenger seat of the Thames House vehicle, was talking to one of his colleagues in the other convoy.

‘All’s going fine here,’ he was hearing. ‘No problem with the alarm. It’s just the usual Chubb as we’d been told. The whole place is quiet as the grave. There’s nothing in here but empty wine crates and cardboard cartons, doesn’t look as though it’s been used for ages. We’ve put in three mikes and we’re doing two cameras; Frankie’s just working on the first one now. Then we’ll be testing it back to the Ops Room and we should be off to the next place in less than an hour.’

‘Sounds good,’ said Ted. ‘We’ve just arrived at our first stop, so let’s hope it’s as easy.’

The three cars pulled up on a square of tarmac outside a large metal warehouse which stood on its own, separated by at least fifty metres of grass and weeds from the next building on the narrow road. The wind was rattling the structure, making it reverberate like a drum. Dim lights on tall concrete lamp posts weakly illuminated the road and the front of the warehouse. One of the police officers came across to Ted’s car.

‘There’s resident security on this estate. They’ll be holed up in their hut on the other side. We’ve warned them we’re doing a search here and told them to keep away. If they come out, leave them to us.’

Ted nodded. ‘Suits us. We’ll be inside and we’ll stay there unless you alert us to get out.’

The policeman nodded, and as he did they both saw the lights of a car across the estate.

‘Looks as though they’re out of their box,’ said Ted. ‘Over to you.’ And as he turned away, one of the police cars drove off in the direction of the headlights.

By this time the small door to the side of the roller door was open and Ted’s two colleagues were inside. They had rigged up a couple of lights which showed that the interior of the warehouse was partitioned along one side, forming what seemed, judging by the doors, to be three separate rooms and leaving a large open space in which a lorry or several cars could be parked. It was not what Ted had been expecting. He opened one of the doors and found a room with four bunk beds in a row, very close to each other. The next room was a very small shower room with a lavatory and wash basin, and in the final room, which was a primitive kitchen, there was a pile of boxes, some open, some taped up, all of which seemed to be full of bedding – duvets, pillows and towels.

‘Looks like he’s expecting visitors,’ said Ted.

‘Or maybe he’s had visitors,’ replied Ted’s colleague Alfie, who had come in behind him, clutching a drill. ‘Some of this stuff has been used.’

‘We’re going to need six cameras to cover this lot,’ said Alfie, ‘so we’d better get going. We need to fit four mikes as well.’

‘OK. While you do that I’ll get onto the others and see how they’re getting on. This is going to take longer than we thought.’

The other team had just arrived at their second target, the warehouse on the industrial estate near Stockport, and reported back over a mobile phone. ‘Looks as though he uses this one as a store for his club. It feels quite used, as though people have been in recently. There’s restaurant-type tables and chairs, boxes of glasses and china and crates of wine and beer.’

‘Yeah. Well, that makes sense. It’s the one nearest his club. Stick in a couple of mikes and cameras and make sure you leave it as found. Then get out asap, just in case anyone turns up. We’ve got him under control but he must have staff who go there to get stuff, though probably not in the middle of the night – let’s hope not anyway. Then let me know when you’re finished, as it may be best for you to do the last one. This one’s a bit complicated and we’re going to be here some time.’

As he finished speaking, one of the policemen came in.

‘We’ve just had the alert that Jackson’s leaving the club. It’s about the time he usually leaves so I don’t think there’s anything to be worried about. We’ve got a static surveillance near his house and they’ll report in when he gets there. And we’ve got a team trailing him just in case he comes this way.’

‘Thanks. We’ll be at least another couple of hours, so let’s hope he goes comfortably to bed. Do the others know? They’re nearer him than we are.’

‘Yes. Everyone’s been warned.’

It was four thirty by the time Ted and his colleagues were ready to leave the warehouse near Eccles, having fixed and tested enough mikes and cameras to provide comprehensive coverage of all the rooms, including the bathroom and the open garage space. There had been no more interest from the security guards, who had been told firmly by the police officers that they would never work in the security business again if they spoke a word in the wrong place. Jackson had gone straight home and apparently gone to bed; his lights were out.

It was still pitch-dark and raining as the little convoy left the industrial estate. The other team had taken on the fourth target, the warehouse near Sale, but were finding it less straightforward than their other two and they were still there.

‘There’s something not right with this lock,’ they had reported when they’d arrived. ‘It’s wired up to something. Could be some sort of a remote alarm.’

‘Well, for God’s sake go carefully,’ Ted had replied. ‘Liz Carlyle and that little Peggy’ll kill us if we cock it up. Send us a photograph.’

And with advice from Ted, sitting on the edge of one of the bunk beds and working from a greatly enlarged photograph on his laptop screen, they had managed to disable what was indeed a remote alarm that would have triggered an alert somewhere, possibly in Jackson’s bedroom, if they hadn’t noticed it. Once safely inside they had found that this building too had been partitioned down one side, to make what was in fact a set of offices. The three rooms contained desks and chairs and carpets and heaters and a number of large locked filing cabinets.

‘Do you want us to open them?’

‘No.’ Ted made the decision without consulting anyone. ‘Leave them alone. We can look at them another time when we’ve got someone with us who can make sense of what’s in them. Just do the mikes and cameras and then get the hell out. It’s getting late.’