Dick Francis's Damage (30 page)

B
y two o'clock in the afternoon we had eaten all the chocolate bars, Lydia had drunk most of the water and we had exhausted almost every single letter of the alphabet in a marathon game of
I spy
.

Finally, at twenty past two, as I was trying desperately to spy something beginning with
X
, the wrought-iron gates opened and the target drove out in a black BMW, turning west.

I started the rental Fiesta and pulled out behind him.

“He's on his own,” I said. “That's good. He's not being dropped off at the station.”

I had feared he might take the train, which would have meant leaving Lydia alone with the rental car.

At the end of the road, the target turned away from the railway station towards the M25, the London orbital freeway, which he joined traveling clockwise towards Heathrow Airport. I settled in behind him with two cars between us.

He left the M25 at Exit 16, taking the entrance ramp to the M4 westbound. Was he going towards the previous drop spot near Pewsey? He had certainly turned in the right direction.

We tailed him past Windsor and the three Slough exits, on towards Reading, where he pulled off the freeway into the service area. I followed.

The BMW stopped close to the parking lot entrance, so I went past and into a space between two cars, from where I could see the target in the rearview mirror.

“Get out and stretch,” I said to Lydia.

“Why?”

“Because people who arrive at service areas and then just sit in their cars are suspicious. Like the man in the BMW.”

She did as I asked while I went on watching behind. However, the target clearly wasn't interested in us. He had his head down as if looking at something in his lap. I twisted around between the seats and took another photo through the rear window.

After about five minutes, he set off again, rejoining the freeway towards the west, driving conservatively within the speed limit, with Lydia and me three cars behind.

Crispin called my phone and Lydia answered, which surprised him somewhat.

“Put it on speaker,” I said.

“I've just had a text on the Nokia phone,” Crispin said. “It says to go to Trafalgar Square just like last time.”

“The text was sent from the Reading service area on the M4.”

“Are you sure?” Crispin said.

“Pretty much.”

“So do I need to go to Trafalgar Square?”

“No,” I said. “Don't bother.”

“You don't think anyone will be watching out for me there?”

“No,” I said. “I think Leonardo works alone, and he's driving the car three in front of me westwards down the M4 as we speak.”

“Right,” Crispin said. “I'll get moving as we planned.”

“If it's like last time, you should have plenty of time. The train we caught before left Paddington at three minutes after seven.”

“Do you think he'll use the same train?”

“I've no idea,” I said. “But everything else has been the same as before.”

It was over a week since the last drop and, consequently, sunset was about fifteen minutes later. But the next train from Paddington on that line, after the 7:03 p.m., didn't arrive at the drop site until well past half past eight, by which time it would be completely dark.

“I reckon he'll go for the same train,” I said, “unless he has a different drop point in mind. One nearer to London.”

—

THE TARGET
turned off the freeway again and into the next service area at Exit 13 near Newbury. Again we followed. And, as before, he stopped the black BMW near the parking lot entrance.

I drove around to a point where I could see him through the gap between two other parked cars.

Once more he was looking down. Texting, I presumed.

After a few minutes, he got out of his car and walked towards the service buildings while I snapped several more shots that clearly showed his face.

“Wait here,” I said to Lydia, giving her the camera.

Being careful to see that the target had gone through the
doors into the building, I ran over to his BMW. Sure enough, there was a dent in the fender above the right front tire, together with a couple of scratches in the paintwork.

I would bet my shirt that this was the car that had hit me last Friday.

I leaned down and attached the magnetic tracker, which I had recovered from the old rugby ball, to the inside of the wheel well. Just in case we lost sight of him.

I then hurried after the target and followed him past the newsstand and the burger bar into the gents. He went over to one bank of urinals while I went to another, keeping an eye on him via the mirror above the washbasins. As he turned to wash his hands, I moved away and waited for him on the general concourse.

He went straight back out to his car and I rejoined Lydia.

“Crispin called,” she said. “He received another text telling him to go to Victoria Station.”

“Victoria?” I repeated in some alarm. “There are no trains from Victoria that go down the right line. I hope we haven't got things wrong.”

The target didn't move. He just sat in his car and appeared to recline his seat and take a nap.

“Why did you go over to his car before following him?” Lydia asked.

“To see if there is a dent in the right front fender.”

“And is there?”

“Yes,” I said. “One consistent with hitting me in Spezia Road last Friday.”

Lydia was angry on my behalf. It was almost all I could do to stop her from going over to the BMW to demand why the target had tried to kill me.

“Can't we call the police?” she asked. “Get them to arrest him for attempted murder.”

“We know what the police think,” I said. “Much better to wait and catch him red-handed with the cash. I also took the opportunity to place a tracking device in his wheel well.”

I lifted the receiver from the backseat and it made a reassuring beeping noise in the earpiece when the aerial loop faced towards the BMW.

We went on watching and waiting. I swallowed another painkiller and I took a few more photos, but there was nothing new to see.

After about half an hour, the target sat up and appeared to send another text.

Crispin called almost immediately.

“It says take the Circle Line to Paddington Station and wait.”

I breathed a small sigh of relief. We hadn't got it wrong.

I looked at my watch—just coming up to five o'clock.

“OK,” I said. “Where are you now?”

“In traffic on Cromwell Road,” Crispin said.

“How about Nigel Green?”

“He's at Paddington waiting for my call. Anything to report your end?”

“The target is simply sitting in his car at Chieveley Services off Exit 13. I'll let you know if he moves.”

The target had appeared to go back to his nap and Lydia and I went on waiting and watching.

And we waited some more and still we watched.

Time dragged.

“Where do you want to get married?” I asked.

Lydia turned sharply to look at me.

“Is that a proposal?” she asked.

“Maybe,” I said.

“Oh.”

“You sound disappointed,” I said.

“I was rather hoping for the down-on-one-knee treatment.”

“Not my style,” I said.

“But you
do
mean it?”

“Yes,” I said, smiling at her, “I do.”

She squealed with delight and I leaned over to kiss her.

“Forget it, sunshine,” she said, pulling a face and turning her head away. “I'm not kissing you with all that stuff stuck on your face.”

It was not a particularly romantic start to our engagement.

—

WE REMAINED
in the Chieveley Service Area parking lot until after six o'clock, by which time the sunshine of earlier had been replaced by the gloom of low gray cloud and a persistent drizzle as a weather front moved in from the west.

I had been worried that the target might notice that our rented Ford Fiesta had been sitting in the parking lot without moving for rather a long time, so just before five I'd driven it around to the BP filling station and parked in front of the payment kiosk.

It meant that we couldn't actually see the man anymore sitting in his BMW, but we would still see if the car moved. And the one-way traffic in the service area would bring him past us anyway, whichever way he went after that.

Crispin called my phone again.

“‘Buy a first-class ticket to Plymouth,
'”
he said. “The text arrived a couple of minutes ago.”

“Have you told Nigel?”

“I told him to buy a standard-class ticket to Taunton and wait to be told which train to catch.”

Crispin had always been rather miserly with his departmental budget.

“Where are you?” I asked.

“Just turning in to the service area now. Where are you parked?”

“Near the filling station.”

“Where's the target?”

“In the main parking lot next to the main service building,” I said. “You go into the motel lot near the entrance and wait there.”

I didn't want Crispin driving right past the target and being recognized. That would be sure to put a premature end to our plan.

“Right you are,” he said. “Just turning in now.”

“Good. It's twenty-five miles from here to the drop point that he used last time. If he's using the same place again, then it will take a good forty to forty-five minutes to get there from here. If he also uses the same train. And if it's on time, then it should pass the spot at eight minutes after eight.”

There were far too many
if
s for my liking.

“So he should leave here soon,” said Crispin. “He'll surely want to be in position in good time.”

“If he's using exactly the same routine as before,” I said, “he will have to send the board-the-train text at seven o'clock. There's good cell signal here but can he be sure of it en route?”

“How about at the drop point?” Crispin said. “Is there a good signal there?”

“Full signal,” I said. “There's an aerial mast right there where the rails cross the bridge. He'd need to be sure of a good signal
in order for the Nokia phones to send and receive the text, and quickly. He couldn't afford a delay.”

Lydia and I had sent each other several texts to find out how long they took to arrive. Three to four seconds was average. If the train was moving at a speed of a hundred miles per hour, I had calculated that it traveled almost one hundred and fifty feet every second.

Services from Paddington to Plymouth used a standard Great Western InterCity train, eight cars long, with a diesel-electric engine on either end, a total length of seven hundred and fifty feet.

Hence, the train took about five seconds to pass any given point.

The first-class section was always at the back of the train on the journey away from London.

If Leonardo sent the text exactly when the front of the train passed over the bridge, and allowing for transmission and response times, he might expect the loot to be thrown out a little over five seconds later, into the perfect spot on the treeless grassy bank of the railway embankment.

“Does Nigel know he has to be at the back of the train when he throws out the bag?”

“Yes,” replied Crispin, “I've given him a full briefing.”

I looked at my watch. Six-thirty.

“I think the target may be staying here to send the board-the-train text,” I said. “Crispin, I'll drive round to the motel to pick you up. One car will be easier. You leave yours there. See you in a mo.”

I hung up and started the car's engine.

It was a bit of a risk. I would lose sight of the BMW for the
few minutes I would need to drive around to the motel and get back, but it was much less of a risk than Crispin walking through the main parking lot and being spotted by the target.

“You stay here,” I said to Lydia. “Go into the filling station shop and keep watch. Call me immediately if the target moves. I'll be back in a couple of minutes.”

“I'm sorry but I desperately need another pee,” she said. “I didn't want to tell you but now I must. I'm really bursting.”

Great, I thought, all that bloody water. I bit my tongue and said nothing. I didn't want to have our first row as an engaged couple so soon after my proposal.

I looked at my watch again. If the target was going to send the board-the-train text from here, we should have a good twenty minutes before he moved.

“OK,” I said. “You go to the ladies while I fetch Crispin.”

It was a risk, but we needed to be ready to move off as quickly as possible after the text.

Lydia climbed out of the car and went running off towards the main building, holding her knees together in a classic I'm-trying-not-to-pee-in-my-pants mode.

I smiled and drove off around to the motel parking lot to collect Crispin.

“Come on!” I shouted at a slowpoke driver in a flat cap who dawdled at the traffic circle and then crawled along at ten miles per hour. “Come on, I'm in a hurry!” Not that he could hear me. And, of course, it made no difference to his speed or the lack of it.

“Get in the back and lie flat,” I said to Crispin when I finally arrived.

He did.

“Where's Lydia?” he asked without batting an eyelid about my appearance. He had seen me in disguise before.

“She's gone to the ladies room,” I said. “Stay down.”

I drove quickly back towards the main parking lot.

The black BMW had vanished.

B
ugger!”

“What?” said Crispin from his prone position on the backseat.

“The target's gone.”

“He can't have,” Crispin said, sitting up.

“But he has,” I said. “He must have driven off as I was coming round for you. He can't have been gone for more than a couple of minutes at most.”

I screeched to a halt outside the main building and Lydia climbed back into the car.

“He's gone,” I said. “We missed him.”

“Oh my God,” she said. “I'm so sorry.”

“It's not your fault,” I said, giving her a smile.

No, it had been mine. Stupid, stupid.

I swung the car sharply to the right out of the parking lot, putting the accelerator pedal to the floor, which brought a few stern glances from other motorists.

I drove up to the traffic circle and braked sharply.

“Which way?” I said, mostly to myself.

There were two ways the target could have gone to get to the drop point, assuming it was the same as last time. Either west along the freeway to the next exit and then south or south first, down the A34, and then west. Both routes went via Hungerford and both were equidistant.

I grabbed the tracker receiver and pointed it south down the A34. There was no beeping in the earpiece. I pointed it west. Still nothing.

Panicking, I turned it through a full three hundred and sixty degrees, but there was no sound from it in any direction.

Damn it, I thought.

How I wished the tracker really did have a range of four miles, as my ex–army mate had claimed. The target was already out of range.

But which way had he gone?

I'd been careless—bloody careless.

A car came up behind me and hooted. I was blocking the road.

I took the freeway westwards, racing up the entrance ramp at breakneck speed and causing a large truck to take evasive action to avoid a collision.

“Steady, tiger,” said Lydia. “Better to get there late than not at all.”

“Sorry,” I said, but I still pulled sharply into the outside lane and put my foot down.

Flat out, the Ford Fiesta would have been no match for the target's high-powered BMW. But if he continued as before within the speed limit, I should be catching up to him soon. Provided, of course, that he was on this road.

Lydia held the tracker receiver so that the loop aerial scanned the road ahead.

“Anything?” I asked.

She shook her head and I pressed even harder with my right foot.

“Don't get stopped, dear boy,” Crispin said from behind me. “It would be highly ironic if it were the police that prevented us getting to the drop and solving the case.”

I glanced down at the speedometer. The little Fiesta was doing well over ninety, so I eased up a little and allowed the needle to slide back to eighty-five. Even that should be fifteen miles per hour faster than the black BMW and we should be catching him hand over fist.

I left the freeway at the next exit, but there was still no sign of the target either visually or on the receiver.

Damn it, I said to myself again.

He must have gone the other way.

“What time is it?” I asked.

“Quarter to seven,” Lydia said.

“He'll surely need to stop to compose the text,” said Crispin.

“Not if he's previously typed it into the phone,” I said. “All he'd have to do then is push the send button.”

I turned south and went as fast as I could on the winding road, heading for the town of Hungerford. Lydia went on holding the receiver up towards the windshield.

“I can hear something,” she said as I drove into the outskirts of the town. “It's faint, but there's a definite beep.”

She rotated the receiver.

“Getting stronger,” she said, moving the loop from side to side.

We were the second car in the line at the junction with the
A4 when we saw the black BMW pass by from left to right in front of us.

There was a collective sigh of relief from the three of us inside the Fiesta.

The target had indeed gone the other way, but we were now back with him. I pulled out behind and followed as the BMW turned left at the Bear Hotel into Hungerford High Street.

He pulled over halfway up the hill and I went past, stopping a little farther up, from where I could keep watch on him via the rearview mirror. However, as before, he was concentrating not on his surroundings but on something in his lap.

The Nokia phone in Crispin's hand went
beep-beep
as another text arrived.

“Catch the seven-oh-three to Plymouth,” Crispin read, but he was on his regular phone to Nigel Green at Paddington Station. “Nigel, get on the seven-oh-three to Plymouth.” There was a lengthy pause. “Good. Well done. Speak to you soon.” He hung up. “Nigel's safely on the train.”

The drop was definitely on and my adrenaline level had started to rise.

—

THE TARGET
remained exactly where he'd stopped in Hungerford for a good ten minutes, seemingly doing nothing but waiting.

“Stay down,” I said to Crispin. “We don't want him seeing you.”

“What are we going to do when we get to the drop?” Lydia asked. “He'll surely see you then.”

“Maybe not,” I said. “What I plan to do is to photograph him collecting the loot. That alone will be sufficient to nail him. We don't need a physical confrontation.”

“But will it still be light enough to get a picture?” Lydia asked.

“It should be,” I said. “Sunset tonight is at eight-oh-seven. That's just a minute before the train is due at the drop.”

“If we could see the sun,” Lydia said, staring out into the gloom that had seemingly settled in for the night.

“There should still be enough light,” I said.

Crispin's phone rang and he answered.

“It's Nigel,” he said. “The train's delayed leaving London. Some problem with the signaling.”

“How long?” I asked.

Crispin spoke to Nigel.

“They say about five minutes.”

I thought that probably meant ten at best.

I checked the
Train Times
app on my iPhone.
Delayed seven minutes,
it said. I was concerned that the light might have faded too much at the drop point.

It was not that I wouldn't be able to see him in the dark that worried me, I had the image-intensifying night vision monocular, but photographs might be a problem. And would the target chance not being able to find the bag of cash if it became too dark? Maybe he had night vision goggles as well, but it would still be a risk.

What would he do? Did he have a backup plan? Would he choose to carry on or abort for today and have another go at it tomorrow?

Did he even know that the train would be late? He must surely have the same information on a smartphone as I did.

Bloody trains, I thought. Never on time when you really needed them.

“So what do we do?” Crispin said.

“Wait for the target to move. He's running this show. Either
he goes on to the drop or else he goes back to London. It's his choice.”

The black BMW pulled out and came up the hill towards us.

“Keep down,” I said. “He's going on.”

The target swept past and I waited until he was out of sight around the bend before I followed.

“Don't lose him,” Crispin said, concerned that he was getting away.

“I'd rather let him go a bit than allow him to spot us. The roads are too empty now to follow closely. And we do know where he's going.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes,” I said with confidence. “The grassy embankment at New Mill is the perfect spot. Everything he's done has indicated that he's using the same drop point.”

“I hope you're right,” Crispin said.

So did I.

We took Salisbury Road out of Hungerford, through the village of East Grafton and on towards Pewsey.

“He's still there in front,” Lydia said, holding up the tracker receiver with the loop pointing forward through the Fiesta's windshield. “I can hear the beeping in my ear, but it's very faint.”

“OK,” I said and speeded up, chancing us getting a little closer.

Crispin's phone went again.

“The train is on the move,” he said. “Nine minutes late leaving Paddington.”

It was going to be a toss-up, I thought.

Even if the train lost no more time, it would be pretty dark by the time it arrived at New Mill. It was currently nearly an
hour before the expected drop time and, thanks to the low cloud, it was already beginning to get quite murky.

As if to emphasize the fact, I was flashed by an oncoming car for not having my headlights on.

I could see the brake lights of the car in front as he slowed to take the numerous bends. Close enough, I thought.

“Still there?” I asked Lydia.

She nodded. “Slightly stronger.”

We continued on towards the drop point, taking a right turn down the country road to the hamlet of New Mill. Here I slowed right down. I wanted to make absolutely sure that the target couldn't think he had been followed, so I was giving him plenty of time to park his car before we drove past.

“We'll go right through,” I said. “Crispin, you stay down. Lydia and I will try and see where the target has stopped his car.”

The road curved to the left through the hamlet, passing under the railway twice, once at either end, with the drop point next to the second bridge.

Now I switched the headlights on full. It would be more difficult for someone to look through the windshield into the car against the bright light.

I almost missed the black BMW, hidden as it was in a field just beyond the second bridge. I caught a fleeting glance of it at the last moment through an open gateway as I drove past and, only then, because the loud beeping of the tracker receiver told us that we were right next to it.

“Good,” I said. “He's on the south side of the railway as expected. I'll go round to the north and stop there.”

Rather than turning the Fiesta around and having to pass him again, I drove the three sides of a sizable triangle to return to the
hamlet of New Mill from the far end, pulling into another farm gateway about a hundred and fifty yards north of the bridge.

“Time?” I asked.

“Seven-fifty,” Crispin said. “The train should be at Newbury.”

I again checked the
Train Times
app on my phone.

“According to this, it's still nine minutes late. We will wait here until after the next text.”

“Then what?” Lydia asked.

“I'll creep forward to get some photos. You and Crispin remain here in the car.”

“You must be joking, dear boy,” Crispin said from behind me. “I haven't come all the way from London just to sit in the car and miss all the action.”

“Nor have I,” said Lydia. “We're coming with you.”

I didn't like it. One person, especially one trained in surveillance techniques, could move so much more stealthily than three.

Crispin was an intelligence analyst more used to sitting at a desk than operating in the field as a covert agent. And Lydia was hardly turned out for scrabbling around in the dark, dressed as she was in a skirt and heels.

“You may blow the whole thing,” I said, but I could tell I was fighting a losing battle. They desperately wanted to see the bag of cash thrown off the train.

“OK,” I said eventually. “But you'll both have to stay well back near the bridge. I will go on ahead alone.”

They reluctantly agreed.

The Nokia phone went
beep-beep
.

“‘Go to the rearmost door lobby and throw the bag out the window on the left-hand side of the train
as soon as you get the next text,'” Crispin read off the screen, and he was calling Nigel using the other phone. “You throw the bag out the window on
the left-hand side from the rearmost door. Do it immediately when I text you. Got that? Good.”

He hung up.

“Exactly the same pattern as last time,” I said.

“It worked before,” said Crispin, “and our friend clearly expects that it will do so again. But if he thinks he's going to get away with it a second time, he's in for quite a shock.”

“But I
do
intend to let him get away with it,” I said. “At least for now. We just watch from afar, take photographs and stay well hidden. We will have all we need to confront him later with the police.”

Departed Newbury seven minutes late.

“The train has caught up a couple of minutes,” I said. I removed my brown leather bomber jacket and replaced the wig and brown beanie with a black balaclava that showed my eyes peeping through two small holes, with another small hole for my mouth.

“That's really scary,” Lydia said as she watched me put it on. “It makes you look like a rapist.”

“Maybe,” I said, smiling at her in reassurance. “But a white face in the dark can so easily give you away. Come on, it's time to go.”