Hope to Die

They’re sitting on the bed at the B&B, eating McDonald’s. It was the only place open this early; it’ll be at least an hour before it gets light. Rowan has a breakfast flatbread, Rock has a double sausage and egg McMuffin. Twice. Rock has a big appetite. In fact, most things about Rock are big. The hands, the gut, the shoulders under the Iron Maiden T-shirt.

‘What time do we need to leave?’ Rowan asks, checking her watch. Again.

‘Sevenish, I reckon. We’ve a way to go yet.’

‘Doesn’t bother me. Sooner the better.’

Rock laughs. ‘That figures too.’

‘You don’t think there’ll be a problem?’ She tries to make it sound matter-of-fact but if this goes wrong –

Rock watches her face. ‘It’ll be my fat butt hung out to dry as well as yours if there is.’

Her heart rate is still painfully fast. ‘But what if they want to search the cab?’

Rock gives a snort, sending a spray of crumbs over the bedspread. ‘They won’t. Trust me, they can’t be arsed to do that, not without good reason. Coming back, now, that’ll be a different matter. Specially with a full load. But that’s my problem, not yours.’

‘I’ll take your word for it.’ She pauses. ‘And thanks again. I couldn’t do this without you.’

Rock shrugs. ‘Don’t thank me, thank Sullivan. The boss owed her one.’

Rowan finishes her food and starts clearing up. Rock eyes her, then reaches for a napkin. ‘Though I guess you’re the one who owes her now, right?’

* * *

By the time the rest of the team get in, Gis has already been there an hour. He managed not to wake Janet last night by the simple expedient of sleeping in the spare room, but he still got a bollocking this morning. ‘You’ll get an ulcer at this rate, haven’t you got DCs to do the late ones?’ But being up first and doing breakfast (egg and bacon for the two of them and pancakes for Billy, which he loves but Janet hardly ever does because of the time and the mess) means he got off pretty lightly, all things considered.

It’s an interesting exercise, watching the team arrive. Bradley Carter at 8.15, always on the alert for brownie points; Ev and Sargent soon after, coffees in hand from the same shop, which leaves Gis wondering if Ev gave her a lift; then Baxter, moaning about traffic, then Hansen, and finally Quinn, in that Luther-style greatcoat of his, with a silk scarf and an almond croissant from the posh place in Jericho.

‘What time did you get away?’ he says, coming up to the front, where Gis is pinning the latest on to the board.

‘Must have been two-ish in the end. Boss left just after.’

‘Fuck.’

Gis makes a face. ‘That’s one word for it.’ He looks back over Quinn’s shoulder. ‘Looks like we’re all here. Eyes down for a full house.’

Quinn starts to unwind his scarf. ‘You’re not waiting for Fawley?’

Gis shakes his head. ‘He said to carry on if he wasn’t here by eight. He’s up to speed on most of this, anyway.’

He turns to the rest of the team and raises his voice slightly. ‘OK, so here’s where we got to overnight. Essex Police have found the Vauxhall Nova – and yes, I did say Essex. Looks like Rowan left it on a side street somewhere and hoped it would go unnoticed, at least for as long as it took for her to get away. Luckily for us,’ he continues drily, ‘the local joyriding fraternity had other ideas.’

He points to the map. ‘This is where it was found – place by the name of Bromness. Obviously we don’t know exactly when or where Rowan dumped it, but it’s a fair bet it wasn’t that far away and, that being the case, we made an educated guess that she could be on a ferry either out of Felixstowe, here –’ he points again – ‘or Harwich, here. As you can see from the list I just circulated, there were four sailings last night, one from Harwich to the Hook of Holland, one from Harwich to Rotterdam, and two from Felixstowe to Rotterdam.’

‘Hang on,’ says Ev. ‘Those were all passenger ferries?’

‘No, only the Hook of Holland one. The rest are just freight.’

Ev stares at him. ‘You think she’s on a lorry?’

Gis shrugs. ‘We couldn’t rule it out. And one thing we know about this woman is better safe than sorry.’

Baxter’s looking openly sceptical. ‘What, she breaks into a truck to leave the country – like the Channel Tunnel in reverse? I guess it’s possible, but can you really see the Duchess slumming it in the back of a forty-tonner –?’

‘Yup,’ says Quinn. ‘I sure can. You haven’t met her. She’d be up for almost anything, frankly, as long as there was enough in it for her. And blagging in is way more likely than breaking in, if you ask me – I’m sure she’d be prepared to “make it worth their while”. I mean, look at how she’s been using that poor cow Sullivan.’

‘But it’d be a huge risk, wouldn’t it?’ says Ev, turning to him. ‘Just turning up on the off-chance, and risking getting either spotted or reported? The way they’ve planned all this – her and Sullivan – it’s way more organized than that.’

Hansen nods. ‘I agree. I think she went there because she was meeting someone. Someone who’d agreed to give her a lift, no questions asked.’