Dead at First Sight

118 Friday 12 October

Tooth, a baseball cap pulled low over his face, was fighting off another attack of giddiness as he drove his rental van up the high street of Forest Row, observing everything. Ahead was a church with a steeple at which he needed to turn right. Immediately to his right was a delivery truck unloading supplies into a deli. To his left an old red van, then a wide forecourt in front of Java & Jazz café and the Chequers Inn. Several cars were parked tail-out, except for one, a dark Ford saloon, which had reversed in.

He clocked two people inside it. Cops for sure, he could always spot them — he could smell them, the way a wildebeest scents a lion or a jackal. The third lot of cops he’d seen in the past ten minutes — one marked, the others plain, in separate lay-bys on the approach to the village. Watching. Hunting. He was well aware from stuff on the news and in the papers how short of resources the British police were, currently. To have deployed three vehicles — six officers — to a small village meant one distinct and dangerous possibility to him. That they had intel on Copeland.

Waiting for him to arrive?

From what he could see from his maps they’d been cleverly located, as anyone coming from the Brighton area would have a very long detour if they didn’t take one of the three directions these cars were covering.

He’d survived in this game for as long as he had by never taking chances. British police cars were now fitted with number-plate recognition kit, which meant that almost certainly they’d be running the plates of every passing vehicle. Rental vehicles would be of particular interest to them. There was every likelihood the caretaker at Marina Heights had been found.

One phone call to the company where he’d rented this van from two hours ago, from one of these cop cars, and there was a high probability they’d be looking for him, too.

A high probability, also, that the entrance to Primrose Farm Cottage was being watched.

He tried for a moment to put himself in the mind of the police behind whatever was going on. They would know Copeland was extremely violent and dangerous. Would they let him get as far as the cottage itself? He was on a mission to pick up £300,000 — surely they’d want to catch him red-handed? Maybe they already had undercover officers inside the house? As well as a decoy for the woman?

He needed to find out, get himself inside that cottage. How?

He navigated a small roundabout, forking right in the direction he had memorized. Parked on the pavement a short distance along on his right, outside a house, was a white van, bearing the name SOUTHERN WATER and a small blue logo. Its rear doors were open and two men in high-viz jackets and hard hats were standing on the lawn of the house. One was wearing what looked like ear defenders, until he looked more closely as he passed them and saw they were headphones. The workmen had a metal rod inserted into the lawn, with a cable running to the headset. He realized what they were doing, they were listening to a buried water pipe. Looking for a leak, he guessed.

A short distance on, passing a lychgate set in a flint wall, with a cemetery beyond, he saw a small field adjoining two houses under construction, but with no sign of activity. To the left was a large warehouse and beyond the field was wooded countryside. But what drew his attention was a second Southern Water van, parked up a track between the field and the first house. Two more men in yellow jackets and hard hats stood in the middle of the field, occupied with inserting a listening rod into the ground.

Definitely a leak, he decided, slowing down. How many more vans like this were in the area? Was it a major leak they were trying to trace?

He hoped it was. Very major.

He hoped it would be as big as leaks get.