Bootlegged Angel (17 page)

But they had all approached the pub from the other way, the village end, so I thought I was safe enough and settled down to wait.

This was the bit of the private eye’s examination which I would fail. In fact, unlike the Hanging Around In Pubs paper, I wouldn’t even bother to turn up for the practical. I had the
radio for company but I couldn’t read, there was nothing to look at except the hedgerow and the night, and I couldn’t even tempt myself with a cigarette as my emergency packet and
trusty Zippo were in the glove compartment of Armstrong back in Hampstead. There was nothing to do but sit there and focus on the single weak light which illuminated the sign of the Rising Sun. I
looked at my watch to see it was 9.50 p.m. and thought how slowly time passed in the countryside. Amy was probably on the Armagnac and
petit café
by now, or in a club boogying along
to French rap music. There didn’t seem much justice in the world.

At 9.57 p.m., I turned off the radio and lowered the window to discover that sound travelled further in the country. In London you’d be hard pushed to hear a scream from the next street
but out in the sticks I could hear traffic humming along the M20 at least four miles away. Then, suddenly, much closer, I heard a cow baying at the moon (or whatever it is they do) and it looked as
if that might be the highlight of my evening.

Until 9.59 p.m., that was, when I was grateful for the fact that sound carried out here.

I heard the door of the pub slam shut, an unintelligible bit of shouting and then one, then two engines start up.

I could see two sets of headlights circling towards the car-park entrance as I started up the BMW, ready to gun it if they turned towards me. They turned right out of the car-park, back to the
village, as I had guessed they would.

Feeling very smug with myself I pulled out to follow them. This private eye business was really just too easy for words.

As I passed the Rising Sun, I checked the car-park and the only vehicle left there was the Jeep, which I guessed was Scooter’s. So I was following the Renault estate car and the Mazda
pick-up.

Was
being the operative word. Within 200 yards of the pub, I had lost them both.

It was not possible, but the two cars had vanished without trace in the middle of a one-pig village with one road in and one road out. I know, because I followed the road out for half a mile
beyond the end of the village until I hit a straight stretch which I knew came out eventually on to the A2 near a village called Womenswold. Sure, the road dipped and rose over the edge of the
North Downs, but there was no way I could have missed their headlights or tail lights.

I put the Beamer through a three-point turn and headed back down into Whitcomb, without meeting or seeing another vehicle. Once in the village I slowed to kerb-crawling speed and checked both
sides of the main – the only – street. I could see houses, some with lights on trying to persuade me they were inhabited, and some had garages which might account for the fact that
there was not a single car parked on the road. But I just couldn’t see anywhere where the pick-up and the Renault could have gone.

I couldn’t see, but perhaps I could hear.

Once again, I pulled over, killed the lights, lowered my window and turned off the ignition.

To my amazement, I got a result: engines, at least two. I looked in the mirror and saw nothing behind me so I strained my ears and tried to concentrate, putting the sound somewhere over to my
right and getting closer.

Then I saw the first beam of headlights coming out on to the road from behind a small thatched cottage 150 yards down the street on the right. For a minute the lights just stayed there, shining
into the street, then I saw the Mazda pick-up emerge and, thankfully, turn right away from me and head off back towards the Rising Sun at the other end of the village.

The Mazda was followed by the Renault and then another pick-up truck, which might have been a Ford S-100 but was moving too fast for me to tell.

I reached for the ignition key but didn’t turn it as there were still beams of light coming out on to the road. They remained stationary for maybe half a minute and then yet another
pick-up emerged, turning right and heading off into the night.

I started my engine and moved off on sidelights only, looking to my right to try and spot where the cars had come from. I thought I caught a glimpse of a five-bar gate but it was there and gone
in an instant and the red rear lights of the last pick-up were almost out of sight, so I didn’t have time to hang about. Just before the Rising Sun came in sight, I flipped on the headlights
and put my foot down.

In the textbook I was going to write one day on how to be a private eye, there would be a chapter on how much easier it is to follow someone at night without being spotted yourself. Unless, that
is, the person you are following knows the road better than you do; the road in question is a narrow unlit country lane which goes up and down when it is not zigzagging around corners; and the road
you are on is heading for a junction of a major road, a motorway and a tunnel leading to an entirely different country. Apart from that, it’s dead easy.

I saw the lights of the last pick-up turn left at a crossroads and climb up a small incline. Then we were in a small village which a sign told me was called Etchinghill and we both slowed to
(roughly) 30 miles per hour until we were through it and the wooded countryside closed in around us again.

There was no sign of the first three vehicles which had popped out of nowhere back in Whitcomb, but there was light up ahead, a dull orange glow flickering through the trees, and I knew it must
be the Folkestone end of the motorway.

The road curved around a large pond and up to a roundabout where the Renault and the other two pick-ups were waiting. I slowed instinctively and reached to turn my lights off but there was no
need. The pick-up I had been following flashed its lights to tell them he had caught up and all four pulled off, indicating right at the roundabout on to the A20.

I let them get well ahead of me, certain now that I knew where they were heading. Sure enough, the convoy looped around the A20 and almost immediately picked up the slip road on to the M20,
hugging the left-hand lane marked Channel Tunnel Rail Terminal. I pulled out into the motorway proper, but hung back just in case they were looking behind them, waiting for a lorry to pass to give
me cover.

If they spotted me, it didn’t deter them. All four vehicles sailed on into the Cheriton Terminal as I shadowed them in parallel from the M20 until the approach road swung them out of
sight, down towards the toll booths and the border controls. Their next stop would be France, perhaps on the Shuttle train which had just pulled in with its load of lorries in their protective
cages. That, the fences and the security lights on high poles gave the impression that I was driving by a prison camp.

At Junction 12 I turned off the motorway and headed back along the A20, getting a closer view of the Shuttle and the Terminal which glowed like a volcano in the distance. There was no sign of my
little convoy doubling back on me. Why should they? All the tobacco and beer bargains they could handle were twenty-odd miles away under the Channel.

It was tempting just to keep heading towards London, but I didn’t exactly have enough information to fill out one of Veronica’s do-it-yourself private eye report forms. (I was sure
she had some.)

I had a bunch of darts-playing students with funny names, two of whom were environmentally conscious enough to put their empties in a Bottleback bin. They all seemed to be able to drive and they
knew the way to France. I had three of their vehicles’ numbers on my dictaphone. And that was just about it. The least I could do was try and find where they were based and I reckoned I could
do that and still get back to London before some of the more interesting clubs closed. Thinking about it, as I turned off the A20 back towards Whitcomb, I realised that all the interesting clubs I
knew didn’t actually open until after 1 a.m., so that was all right then.

There were lights still on in the Rising Sun, but no cars at all in the car-park. There were no cars on the road either, but now I knew to keep an eye open for overtaking wheelchairs.

The lack of traffic was a bit of a worry. I had driven through the village more times that evening than was sensible for a nonlocal car trying to retain a low profile. The Major had probably
already picked me up on his home radar screen and was ringing round the rest of the Neighbourhood Watch. So I picked a spot between the pub and the southern end of the village and squeezed
Amy’s BMW into the hedgerow again until the paintwork squealed. What the hell, she could afford it.

Unless a juggernaut came round the corner too fast, or a drunken Melanie wheelied up and rear-ended it, I reckoned it was safe enough while I took a swift moonlight stroll in the
countryside.

Two problems emerged straight away. Firstly, the lack of street lights, the cloudy sky hiding the moon and the fact that I had left the only torch I possess in the boot of Armstrong, meant my
progress was anything but swift. Secondly, the countryside was no place to go for a stroll in the dark without protective clothing and a mine-detector. A space suit and thick rubber boots could
have kept me cleaner, the mine-detector might have spotted the strands of barbed wire which seemed to grow out of the bottom of the hedge as if planted there. After about thirty yards I gave up and
walked into the village down the middle of the main road where there were only hit-and-run drunk-drivers to worry about.

Even so I almost missed it, spotting the thatched cottage only when I was right outside it and then having to backtrack half a dozen steps.

It was a five-bar gate, a heavy, rusted iron job held, between iron posts, by two hinges at one end and a leather loop which could have come from a horse’s bridle at the other. Hardly
hi-tech security; just lift the loop over the post and push.

Not that there seemed to be anywhere to push
to
. The gate opened into a field or a paddock which I guessed dog-legged round the back of the thatched cottage. Perhaps the students had just
found some off-road parking. Without some light I couldn’t see any other reason for them coming and going through that gate.

As if on cue, I was to get my light as I heard a car approaching from the north end of the village.

Rather than be caught in its headlights like a bemused rabbit, I grasped the top of the gate with both hands and vaulted over it, going into a crouch behind the gatepost. The car’s main
beams swept over the road, the gate and me and were suddenly gone and the light from them had not given me any time or opportunity to get my bearings before plunging me back into darkness.

But jumping over the gate had presented me with a clue. It was not exactly staring me in the face; in fact I was kneeling on it. What most people driving by and what most people living here
would call grass, wasn’t.

I was from Hackney. I could recognise Astroturf when I landed on it.

It didn’t take me long to work out why someone wanted to lay a piece of artificial grass measuring, as near as I could estimate, three metres wide by ten metres long at
the edge of a field in the middle of Kent. Under my feet I could feel the deep wheel ruts made by incoming and outgoing vehicles under the carpet of plastic turf and they were deep enough to have
been made by regular trips over a period of some time, not just tonight. Somebody had put it down to cover up tyre tracks which showed the gateway was in use. Therefore there must be something
through the gateway worth hiding.

I put my back to the middle of the gateway and walked in a straight line out into the paddock or field or whatever it was. Once the Astroturf ended, the ground was firm enough and I could make
out tyre tracks and, to my right, a hedge about ten feet high.

My eyes were getting used to the dark and I followed the tyre marks around the corner of the hedge and suddenly there was light ahead.

About a hundred yards away was a single-storey building showing lights in two windows. From its outline, it was flat-roofed and could have been a barn, a large garage or the sort of
pre-fabricated service building which still dotted hundreds of disused airfields and RAF stations in this part of the world. I could guess even from where I was standing that it would have
metal-framed windows. There was a Jeep parked outside and I didn’t need to get any closer to read the number plate. I had it on tape already.

But I did get closer, in a shambling, crouching run. Close enough to confirm my guess about the metal window frames. Close enough to peep in through one.

They had venetian blinds on the windows but hadn’t bothered to close them so I got a good view. So good it hurt my eyes.

Whatever the building had been, the walls and floor were now painted white, white enough to dazzle and I was on the outside. But students were tough, they could take it. They could take the
harsh strip lighting and the cold stone floors as long as they had a camp bed (eight to be precise), a sleeping bag and an individual case of St Omer beer, and there were more than enough for one
each piled casually around the room.

They did run to a few home comforts, though: a four-burner stove powered by a canister of Calor Gas, three giant space heaters, a CD-player and tape-deck with hundred-watt speakers, a
large-screen television and video, and, naturally, a computer or two.

Four computers, actually, though only one was in use.

The student Mel had called Axeman was hogging the screen watched by two of the others as he began to interact with one of the porno sites on the Internet. From the reactions of the other two,
Axeman’s tastes clearly drifted on to the wrong side of sexuality street but they didn’t stop looking over his shoulder.

Scooter on the other hand was more interested in plugging a video into the VCR under the giant screen television.

I moved along to the second window to get a better look, not worrying about any noise I made as I could hear the throb of the space heaters from outside, so they wouldn’t hear me clumping
about.