by Alan Judd
‘Sorry to wake you.’
‘I wasn’t asleep.’
‘You were, you were nodding.’ She looked pleased with herself and took the armchair next to his, unpinning her hair and shaking her head. ‘This place looks all right. We’ve got rooms? Gin and tonic, please. Reckon I deserve it.’
She had reason to be pleased with herself. ‘It was awful at first, couldn’t hear a thing from the Turnips or Mikolas because there was a noisy lot at another table and you know how quietly he speaks. The Turnips and James weren’t exactly shouting, either. Anyway, the other party left as the waiter came for our orders, which meant long pauses because Mikolas took so long to decide, bless him. I heard Mr Turnip say, “When do you pick it up?” And James said, “Five o’clock tomorrow afternoon.” Then Mr Turnip said something like, “You sure it will lift it? Remember the container will be heavy.” I didn’t hear the next bit because I had to order, but then Mrs Turnip asked why it had to be there exactly at five and James said, “Because everyone’s rushing to get home and there’s the handover to the night shift. The day shift are more likely to let us in because we’re not going to be their problem and the night shift will assume it was fixed with the day shift and should be happy enough if we just do the job and clear off. So long as we don’t make too much of a meal of it.” ’
She laughed. ‘I only got all that because our first course arrived and you know what Mikolas is like, doesn’t talk much when he eats. God knows how he ever chats anyone up. Maybe that’s his problem. Part of it.’
‘James Micklethwaite’s like that. Says nothing at all until he’s emptied his plate. So that was it? Nothing else?’
She stopped with her gin at her lips. ‘What do mean? I’d like to see you—’
He held up his hands. ‘All right, all right, I was just checking before we try to make sense of it.’
‘There was a bit more, actually. Just before they left. I missed everything in between because Mikolas was going on about his bloody novel. But before they left – James left first, I think, he must have been standing up because I heard his chair and his voice was a bit clearer even though he was almost whispering – Mr Turnip said something like, “We’ll be in the lay-by near the landfill site, so you’ll have plenty of time. We’ll be waiting for you.” And James said, “It’ll still be dark when we get to – to where we’re going – in the morning. Why can’t we just do it in the dark instead of hanging around until daylight? Much safer.” And Mrs Turnip says, “These are orders, James. It has to be the right place for the right effect and it’s more difficult to handle it and place it safely in the dark. We know how to handle it, we’ve got the gear and will do it as soon as it’s light. Ten minutes later you’ll be on your way home.” There was something more but I didn’t catch it.’
Charles sipped his whisky.
‘It’s clear they’re nicking something,’ she continued. ‘But what, why and where are they taking it? And why do they need a crane? Any ideas, Mr Bond?’
Chapter Eighteen
The 1980s
Bob had rung Charles in the hotel first thing in the morning. ‘I’m at home doing a ring-round of commercial vehicle-hire firms. Got a couple of calls to make as well. Meet me in my office soon as you can get back up here?’
Charles rang Sue’s room. ‘About to call Director K,’she said. ‘Join you at breakfast. Start without me.’
They arrived at Northumbria Police HQ before Bob and had to wait at the entrance until his Sierra appeared. He signed them in and took them up to the Special Branch room, switching on the kettle as he entered without looking for the switch. ‘No talk without caffeine. Should be some of yesterday’s milk on the windowsill.’ Once they were settled behind their mugs, he grinned. ‘We’ve got him. At least, we’ve got what he’s doing. It was the hire firm you mentioned, Charles, the one you saw the leaflet of in his flat. An Iveco truck with a tail-lift and forklift truck. Looks as if your theory might be right.’
‘What theory?’ asked Sue. ‘You never said you had theories.’
‘I don’t very often. This one came on yesterday but it was a bit far-fetched and you’d have poured scorn all over me if we found he’d hired a normal car. The theory is Deep Blue. I think they’re planning to grab it.’
‘And do what?’
‘Don’t know.’ He went to the large-scale map of the North East that covered most of one wall. ‘Where’s this Harlepool hire firm?’
Bob stood. ‘The other way, towards the old quays. About there.’ He put his finger on the map. Tell me again what Deep Blue is, exactly.’
Charles explained. Bob said, ‘So, we’ve confirmed with the hire company that they’re picking it up at five this afternoon and they’re then RV-ing in a lay-by near the landfill site. Now, if my memory serves me well, that’s on the way from the town to the power station.’ He traced the route with his finger.
‘Can we confirm whether the shift changes at five, as Sue heard?’ asked Charles.
‘Sure. But if what you say about this Deep Blue thing is right, I ought to brief the Assistant Chief Constable. And what could they do with it? Wouldn’t be much use for blowing up King’s Cross, would it? Assuming the IRA don’t get there first. Unless they want to leave it on the concourse and irradiate a few hundred commuters.’
‘We only know what Sue heard, which is that they want to take it somewhere where they’ll arrive during the night and wait for dawn. The implication was that it’s quite a distance, way off this map, I guess.’
There was a three-year-old AA atlas in the tea cupboard. Bob went off to the ACC’s office, Sue took his place at his desk and rang her director. She broke off at one point, covering the receiver. ‘He wants to know if you’ve kept Hookey informed and what is your theory about what they want it for.’
‘Don’t have one and haven’t told Hookey yet. Trying to work out where they might be taking it.’
After she put the phone down, she said, ‘He’s going to get back to me with what he wants us to do. We’ve got to stay on this number until he does or let him know another. How’s my Greek lover boy this morning?’
‘On his way back to London, I hope.’
‘Like he should’ve been last time.’
A few minutes later the phone rang. She answered it and held it out to Charles, eyebrows raised in warning.
‘What the bloody hell are you doing up there, trying to start World War Three?’
Charles explained: ‘I haven’t been in touch because there was really nothing to report until now,’ he concluded lamely.
‘Stay where you are,’ said Hookey, ‘both of you, until I’ve spoken to Director K again.’
Bob returned, chastened. ‘We’ve done it now. Soon as I got there, the ACC had a call from your director, then he bollocked me for not telling him about it, then they got on to each other again on the Pickwick – you know, that secure phone that squawks – then I had to wait outside because there was something too hush-hush for me to know about, then I was summoned back in and told we’ve got to keep them all under twenty-four-hour surveillance and we can call on whatever resources we need – except that there aren’t any because all our people are down in Manchester, helping out with a big IRA op – and then that they might send some of your people up from London but it’ll be Christmas before they get here.’ He grinned. ‘Situation normal.’
Sue looked from one to the other. ‘But just the three of us – how can they expect us – I mean, it takes dozens to do a proper surveillance job on just one—’
Charles held up the AA book. ‘Mind if I hang on to this?’
That afternoon, Sue went with Bob in his car to the Melburys’ hotel, where she waited in the car park while he went into the foyer to watch them out. Charles found the hire company in a corner of derelict land by the old quays and parked out of sight in a road of mostly boarded-up houses. He walked down to the water’s edge, keeping the hire company in sight. The grey expanse of water was the only relief from general d
ilapidation.
Eventually, a brown Allegro turned into the hire company compound. Charles returned to his car and moved to within sight of the gates. It was some time before the blue Iveco truck hesitantly emerged and headed south towards the power station.
Driving a small lorry was obviously a novelty for James, whom Charles recalled as inept in practical things. Progress was slow and jerky, which made him difficult to follow without being spotted. Charles had to keep dropping back to let others pass and twice lost sight of the truck behind dustcarts. When James pulled into a filling station he continued some way past and pulled into a side road in case James had noticed the car. It was unlikely – handling the lorry probably took all his attention – but Charles also needed to find a call-box. The nearest one on the main road was out of order but he remembered seeing another just past the filling station and ran back, anxious to make the call and return to his car before James pulled past him again. The call-box was on the edge of what he had taken to be waste ground but which turned out to be the lay-by near the entrance to the landfill site, now seemingly an unofficial car park. As he picked up the receiver the Iveco pulled out of the filling station and immediately signalled left to turn in towards him. He turned his back to it as it pulled into the parking area and, after a five- or six-point turn, ended up facing him. He kept his back to it but could see it in the call-box mirror. Two figures emerged from among the parked cars, one carrying a holdall, and climbed into the truck’s passenger door.
It pulled away as he dialled. There was no answer from Bob’s office and Sue was not in her room at the hotel. He was running out of change but had just enough to ring the Office switchboard and ask them to pass his message for Sue to the MI5 switchboard. By the time he got back to his car the truck was out of sight.
This time James’s slow progress was an advantage. The lorry was still on the A178 when he caught up with it and, by slip-streaming behind a recklessly driven Ford Transit, he was able to pass it and put some distance between it and him before the power station loomed like a sinister oversized blockhouse away to the left. By the time he took the turning towards it the day-shift early leavers were already coming out. Traffic both ways was delayed by an emerging low-loader bearing a large container. He was about to turn in when he spotted Bob’s Sierra parked beyond the entrance.
‘Jump in,’ said Sue. ‘We were just debating how long we were going to wait for you before going in ourselves.’
‘Thought your people always had radios for jobs like this,’ said Bob.
‘They do but it wasn’t meant to be a job like this with just us and you.’ She turned to Charles. ‘Where is he? Have you seen him?’
‘Him and them. They’ll be here in minutes, we’d better get in there.’
Bob started the car. He didn’t seem in any great hurry. ‘We’ve got uniformed backup five minutes away in case there’s any funny business.’ He tapped his pocket. ‘And I have got a radio. We’re more sophisticated up North.’
He waved his police pass at the gatekeeper, who nodded him through. ‘Couldn’t even read it at that distance,’ said Bob. ‘Harder to get into Woolworths than here. Where now?’
‘Up there, building on the left.’ Charles pointed to the visitor centre, a portacabin at the foot of an array of high metal pipes belching steam.
Jackie, the guide, was wearing the grey trouser suit she’d had on before and was buttoning her coat. ‘Hello, Mr Thoroughgood.’ Her smile was as instant as before but she looked suddenly worried. ‘Haven’t forgotten an appointment, have I?’
‘No, but we have a little business.’ He motioned to Bob to show his pass. ‘Deep Blue. We believe someone might be trying to steal it and we’d like you to get us in there so that we can speak to the staff.’
Jackie’s eyes widened. ‘Steal Deep Blue? Why would anyone want to? It would kill them. Anyway, it’s not here any more.’
‘Not here?’
‘It’s gone back to wherever they come from. It’s at the end of its . . . you know . . . its half-life. There’s a new one coming next week. They get replaced every so often.’
Bob smiled at her reassuringly. ‘Like breeding bulls, eh?’
She laughed. ‘That sort of thing, yes. They get used up.’
‘When did it go?’
‘I’m not sure, very recently, maybe today. Let me just ring down and see if there’s anyone there.’
‘If there is tell them we want to come down and see them.’
Eric, the man who had shown them Deep Blue, was waiting at the door of the concrete building. Charles noticed that the hoist pulley had moved. ‘Too late, I’m afraid,’ Eric said cheerfully. ‘Just missed it. Went this afternoon. Not ten minutes ago. Tuesday next week, the new one comes. What’s the rush, anyway?’
‘Low-loader with a container?’ asked Charles.
‘White container, radiation markings on the sides. Did you see them? Not that that was it, not really. Deep Blue’s in a small container inside that one, along with others, its little brothers and sisters. They pick them up from all over the place sometimes. Tons and tons of steel and concrete on that lorry, that’s why it’s a low-loader. What’s your interest, anyway, gentlemen, if you don’t mind my asking? Sorry, lady and gentlemen.’
‘Here it is, they’re coming,’ said Sue.
The Iveco was just passing the raised barrier and turning down towards them. ‘We’d better get inside out of sight,’ Charles said to Eric. ‘They know us.’ Bob took out his radio.
‘Who’s coming, what’s going on?’ Charles heard him ask as he pulled the door to on himself and Sue.
Present Day
That was where Charles’s file account ended. The rest of the file was a summary of what happened, added some time later by Sue. Neither she nor Charles witnessed anything from inside the bunker, nor could they influence what happened. Had it been his decision, Charles would not have allowed Bob to summon the two patrol cars and arrest James and the Melburys on grounds of conspiracy to commit robbery. He would have let them discover that Deep Blue was not there, follow them and see what they did next. Would they have tried to follow the low-loader and hijack it or would they have given up and tried again the following week with the new Deep Blue? Above all, he would have stayed his hand for as long as it took to get an idea of what they were intending to do with it. As it was, they never reached the bunker containing Deep Blue because James, turning too sharply, scraped the lorry along the side of one of the power-station vans. The damage was not serious and no one was hurt but the vocal disagreement that ensued provoked Bob to intervene and arrest them all.
The arrests came to nothing. Despite being held and questioned overnight none of them admitted to what they were trying to do and all three claimed that they had turned into the power station by mistake. The Melburys steadfastly offered no explanation for the protective clothing, with masks and gloves, in their holdall. They had clearly prepared for questioning and all three had agreed coordinated responses, based on knowledge of what the police were permitted to do by law. They refused to answer, as was their right, any questions about what they were doing together, how they knew each other, why they had hired the lorry, where they were going with it. James folded his arms, sat back and stared at the ceiling, while the Melburys said no more than that no one had committed any offence, which was true, and that they wished to go home, please.
James was released the following day but the Melburys were held for several more days while their immigration status was checked. Confronted with Canadian research into their passports and previous identities, they refused to respond, confident that there was no law against spying in Britain and that nothing could be done unless there was solid evidence that they had betrayed or sought to obtain classified information. They were confident, too, that the worst that could befall them was deportation. They had been well trained in taking advantage of liberal legal traditions.
They were duly deported after release without charge, their real iden
tities still unknown. They returned by circuitous route to the Soviet Union and, it was later learned, were awarded medals there and employed in training future Illegals.
Release, although it came sooner than for the Melburys, was not the end of the story for James. A search of his house yielded a small amount of cannabis and he was convicted of possession. That still annoyed him and, Charles assumed, probably accounted for the allegations in the Sunday Times that the authorities had sought to stifle Cold War protest by bringing unrelated minor criminal charges. He knew, too, that James suspected he was somehow responsible for his arrest, despite not having seen him and there being no evidence of a connection. He had overheard one of the policemen searching his house remark to a colleague that the cannabis find would make ‘the Foreign Office bloke’ happy. That, along with the coincidence of Charles’s visit to retrieve his book, had confirmed his suspicion that he was under constant surveillance. ‘He thinks that you personally are opening all his letters, listening to all his telephone calls, bugging his flat and making it difficult for him to get other teaching jobs,’ Janet had guilelessly told Charles when they had run into each other again a year or so later. ‘He blames you for everything that goes wrong with his life. As quite a lot does.’
Janet had laughed at that and Charles had smiled, acknowledging to himself that, for all its exaggeration and absurdity, James’s paranoia had a grain of truth. And now, Charles mused as he closed the file, what he planned next would add a sack of grains.
