Hot Blood (Bloodwords Book 1) (36 page)

The car store was exactly as he had imagined.
It’s main doorway partly open, he knew without further investigation what was
inside and how many external doors there were. He also knew how many cars were
inside – and now thanks again to Charlton, how many of them had been
removed in the last hour. What he did not know was how many people remained
inside the building, although having what amounted to two complete rings
surrounding the site, one covering all exits from the estate and the other around
the detached car store, he was confident that however many there were and
whoever they turned out to be, by the end of the operation they would all be in
custody.

No more than fifty metres away he could see his
men pressed against the wall on either side of the big doors. He knew that
other officers were ready at each of the three other doors – one single
door midway down each side wall of the long building and another garage style
double-door entrance at the opposite end that exactly matched the one he was
now watching. Officers awaiting his command flanked all entrances.

‘This is it Frank,’ Radcliffe whispered to
Davies. ‘Is everyone ready?’

‘Yep,’ he replied. ‘Sean is now at the gates on
lookout so that’s the lot. We are ready when you are.’

With the operation swinging into action,
Radcliffe and Davies ran towards the building as the men either side of its
main doors sprang out of their cover and burst through the big double doors.
Once inside, one group remained at the entrance to block any means of escape
while the other moved forward, the two inspectors following. All other doors
remained closed, officers waiting should anyone attempt an exit.

The group inside the building fanned out
checking every area of what Radcliffe could see was basically one huge open
space. Several vehicles were lined up, each of them a perfectly maintained
example of a classic car marque. Nearest to Radcliffe was a Daimler SP250
sports car more normally referred to as a Daimler Dart. Resplendent in a deep
blue, its tyres glowed with a deep black eggshell sheen. Next to it was an
Austin Healey 500, itself finished in the classic cream over red two-tone
colour scheme and sporting perfectly restored matching red leather seats and
upholstery. All together, eight vehicles were lined up along one long wall, all
of them classics and all of the pristine. With one exception. In the middle of
the row between an MG and a Jensen was a deep red Ferrari. Or to be more
correct, Steven Wilson’s DNA replica.

During their initial entry, the noise made by
the team had rivalled that of a football crowd as they had rushed in shouting,
the noise of their boots on the gravel outside, the bursting open of the huge
doors and then their running from place to place inside all adding to the
cacophony. Now, silence prevailed. It was clear that the big building held only
a collection of classic cars, though clearly it had held several more until
recently. Very recently.

As Radcliffe strolled around the vast building,
he quickly formed a view of how the building had been used. Wilson’s cars were
along one side taking up about half of the length, Arranged with their rear
bumpers backed close to the wall and just enough room between each to open a
door they looked for all the world like exhibits in a motor museum. Along the
opposite wall were a number of wheeled metal cabinets, with racks of tools on
the wall and a four-post garage lift at the far end.

Silence pervaded everywhere – and the
floor shone. Where most garages and workshops he had been in were oily and
grimy, this was immaculate. Painted with light grey concrete paint, there was
not even one spec of oil or grease anywhere. Drip trays ran in a line on the
floor along the centre of each bay and every clip on the wall racks held its
designated spanner or tool. The whole appearance was of an immaculate facility
where attention to detail was paramount. It reminded him of the pits garage at
Silverstone when two years ago he had been a guest of McLaren.

‘Looks like we’ve drawn a blank boss,’ said one
of the entry team. ‘There’s nobody here and the cars have gone too. All that’s
left are those old sports cars over there. There’s nothing of any value here.
My hot hatch is worth more than this lot. Shall I call everyone off then?’

‘No, not yet,’ replied Radcliffe.

‘You are way off anyway,’ added Davies. ‘The
blue Dart is worth more than my Jag and the Bentley more than four years of
your salary my lad,’ adding, ‘and that’s before the extra year to cover its
special upholstery.’

Several large clear plastic tents took
Radcliffe’s attention. Taking up the remaining space along the wall between the
entrance and Wilson’s vehicles, each was slightly larger than a car but smaller
than a single car garage and much lower. From the rear of each tent ran a
corrugated tube similar to the vent tubes on old-fashioned tumble dryers. Each
tube connected to a small electrical appliance, some of which were making a
whirring noise. Strange items, he could see no apparent purpose. Why would
somebody want a transparent room inside a building with no windows? It did not
make sense. Walking over to the nearest, he lifted the full width end flap.
Made of the same material as the rest of the tent, it felt like a thicker
version of the transparent material used for cheap instant greenhouses. But who
would want a greenhouse inside this dark space?

As he dropped the flap back down, a sewn-on
logo patch caught his eye. Squatting he looked at the patch.
Carcoon
he read. The name conjured up images of cars
cocooned in protective shrouds but that was hardly a requirement in the real
world. This was a heated building with pristine cleanliness so further
protection was superfluous. On the drives of houses without garages he had seen
some cheap constructions made from plastic tarpaulins but they never lasted
long in a British weather, particularly with Southport’s salty sea air, but
these were something quite different.

‘
Carcoon
Don,’ said
Fraser, crouching down beside him.

‘Yes, I can see that for myself Kyle,’ he
replied. ‘But what the hell is a
Carcoon
when it is
at home?’

‘It’s like bringing a bit of the Mojave Desert
inside,’ replied the sergeant.

‘The Mo what?’

With a chuckle, Fraser explained. ‘That’s where
they take redundant aircraft and park them up. The atmosphere is perfect so
they don’t deteriorate. This is similar. It’s like putting your car inside a
sealed box and then linking it to an air conditioner. The air inside is free of
damp and the car is kept in perfect nick. Car collectors with more money than
sense use them to keep the cars they don’t drive from one year’s end to another
in perfect nick.’

‘Looks as though they left in a hurry,’
observed Radcliffe. ‘You can see tyre marks from each of these, what you call
them . . . .’

‘
Carcoons
Don.’

‘Yes,
Carcoons
. And
though the machines are still running, all the flaps are open.’

‘It must have been a hell of a rush out Don,’
replied Fraser. ‘They left the Bentley before it was properly off the ground.’

Swivelling around to look at where the sergeant
was pointing, he took a longer look at the opposite side of the building. At
the far end, Davies was just walking past the four-post lift, its ramps flat on
the ground and its corner posts looking like something out of a giant
Meccano
set. At this end of the building was another car
lift of a different type. It had no ramps and only two vertical posts, each
sprouting upwards from a
vee
shaped structure bolted
to the floor. Between the posts, the Bentley referred to earlier was supported
on similar
vee
shaped arms, their points fixed to the
posts and the outstretched arms under the vehicle.

Looking closely, Radcliffe saw that although
the Bentley’s tyres were still touching the floor, the lift had actually risen
enough to take the weight of the vehicle so that its suspension was no longer
holding the bodywork at its usual level and the car had the appearance of an
off-road 4x4, riding high and with lots of space between the top of its tyres
and its wheel arches.

‘I see what you mean,’ replied Radcliffe. ‘And
from this angle I can see that they’ve left a holdall of some sort in their
hurry to get away.’

Walking over to the lift, Fraser dropped down
onto his knees and peered under the car. ‘Christ Don,’ he shouted, ‘there’s
somebody under here.’

Dashing across to his side, Radcliffe crouched
to see for himself. ‘How do you operate these things,’ he asked, ‘do you know?’
Then, turning, ‘Quick, does anybody know how to work this bloody thing? We’ve
got somebody underneath.’

As everyone rushed over to see what the
commotion was all about, Fraser straightened up and punched a button on the
control panel. With the barely audible whine of a well-maintained machine,
slowly the Bentley rose.

‘Looks like they were in a real hurry Boss,’
said a voice from the group of onlookers. ‘Instead of stopping when the car was
only just being lifted, it looks like it was actually coming down and this poor
sod didn’t have time to get out.’

Inch by inch the Bentley moved higher as the
little group around it looked on, the car’s wheels remaining on the floor until
the suspension had reached its full extent. After what seemed like an eternity,
the car had risen sufficiently and Fraser crawled underneath.

‘He’s only just alive,’ he said over his
shoulder, ‘at least I think so. There seems to be a pulse but it is very
shallow and I’m not sure. He could be a goner.’

Radcliffe swung into action, putting out an
urgent call for paramedics and detailing two of the liveried cars to go out and
escort the ambulance back.

Davies joined the group. Looking down at the
man he observed, ‘doesn’t look much life left there I am afraid Don. By the
time the paramedics get here he’ll be cold.’

Looking around the building as he walked
towards the entrance with Radcliffe he continued, ‘There’s nobody here except
this chap. It looks to me as though you’ve got the right guy in the nick.
Except for the Bentley these are all Wilson’s cars so I bet that when this guy
heard you’d got his boss locked up, he got all of the suspect cars out of
sight. Probably he was going to move the Bentley himself but some bright spark
dropped the lift on him in a hurry to get out.’

You could be right,’ ventured Radcliffe. ‘But
that doesn’t gel with . . .’

Davies held his hand up to silence his
colleague, reaching into his jacket pocket and pulling out his Blackberry.
After listening for a short while he said ‘I’ll be right there sir, there’s
nothing more I can do here. They are all long gone apart from one dead body.
Give me about twenty minutes.’

Putting the mobile back in his pocket, Davies
added for Radcliffe’s benefit, ‘the master calls I am afraid. I’ll see you back
at the ranch then.’

……….

In the distance he could hear sirens. His
trained ear identified the distinctive sirens of an ambulance mingling with
those of police vehicles and, as they grew nearer, he hoped that they were
those of the ambulance he had requested and the patrol cars he had sent to
escort it rather than some other emergency.

‘They’ve got a bloke at the front Don.’

‘The front of where?’ asked Radcliffe.

‘The main building,’ responded Fraser.
‘Apparently there’s a caretaker lives on-site and when we all drove past his
window it scared him to death. His quarters are near the front entrance and he
stayed there until he thought that we had gone. Then when he came out to check,
the lads watching the front nabbed him. They’ve got him in the big entrance
foyer of the building, you know, where the big stone columns and the oak
panelled doors are, but he’s a bundle of nerves from what they say.’

‘And why’s that?’ asked Radcliffe. ‘If he is
just the caretaker then he shouldn’t have anything to be nervous about. Perhaps
he knows something.’

‘I doubt it Don. It was probably just several
vehicles trundling past his window giving him a bit of a fright. Don’t forget
that this is a private estate and nothing normally comes in so even one car
would be unusual. Then if blokes in stab vest jump out and take up position it
must be scary.’

‘Maybe at that,’ responded Radcliffe. ‘But if I
was caretaker of a place like this and there were some comings and goings going
on at the back then sure as hell I would want to find out what they were. Let’s
go and have a word with him shall we?’

Reaching the open doors of the car storage
building, an uncanny stillness after the feverish activity of the previous
quarter hour hit him. The sirens had stopped and the eerie quiet that had
pervaded before the operation had returned. Walking across the gravel towards
the chapel, the two officers mulled over what they had seen in the storage
building. Given that all the vehicles except the Bentley had been owned by
Wilson and that the Bentley seemed to have been being worked on at the time
– perhaps its legal identity changed – then as Frank Davies had
said, Wilson did seem to be implemented.

‘Go back and check something for me will you?’
asked Radcliffe. Get the Bentley engine and chassis numbers. If the VIN plate
is still there, take the details. Then run it past DVLA. See what checks out.
It’s not got any registration plates on but there are other ways to find out
where it came from.’