Lifting the Lid(87)

‘Going somewhere, Mr Hawkins?’ she said.





CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE



Having decided to take Jarvis and Coleman’s car because it was nearer, Patterson now sat hunched forward in the passenger seat of the stationary blue Mondeo, his arms straight down by his sides and his forehead resting on the top of the dashboard.

‘Why me? Oh God, why me?’ he muttered every so often and at the same time raised and lowered his brow against the warm stickiness of the vinyl.

‘You all right?’ said Statham without diverting his gaze from the small notebook computer propped against the steering wheel in front of him.

Patterson rolled his head sideways and stared at him. ‘If your definition of all right is that I am quite content to be in charge of an operation which has turned into the most monumental cockup in the entire history of the Secret Service, then my answer would have to be no, Colin, I am anything but bloody all right. In fact, if you want the honest truth, I am seriously considering the advantages of taking my gun out and ending it all right here and right now.’

‘Could be worse,’ said Statham, pointing at the flashing red dot in the centre of the computer screen. ‘I mean, at least the tracking device is working.’

‘Oh well, everything’s all just tickety-boo then, isn’t it?’ said Patterson, his forehead reacquainting itself with the dashboard. ‘There is, however, one teensy tiny problem which may have escaped your attention though. And that is that the teensy tiny device you so expertly attached to their car appears to be in the same frigging place opposite the block of flats.’

There was a pause, and he could hear Statham tapping some buttons on the computer keyboard. ‘Hmm,’ he said at last. ‘Bit of a conundrum that.’

‘Conundrum, he says. Conundrum.’ Patterson’s snort of laughter was more like a demonic cackle, and his head-banging intensified before he suddenly threw himself backwards in his seat and addressed himself to the roof of the car. ‘It’s not a conundrum. It’s a typical Colin Statham bollock-dropping balls-up. That’s what it is. Plain and simple.’

‘Oh come on. I don’t see why I should take all the blame.’

Patterson rounded on him. ‘Well forgive me if I’m wrong here, but I seem to remember you were the one who was supposed to fix the tracker under the car. Now, assuming that your box of tricks there isn’t telling a great big porky, I can only guess that you didn’t do it properly and the little bugger is currently lying at the side of the road and bleeping merrily away to itself.’

‘It was the dog.’

‘The what?’

‘The dog. All that barking and stuff distracted me. If you’d warned me that there—’

‘Oh I see. So it was all my fault, was it?’ Patterson folded his arms across his chest and turned away to look out of the side window, barely registering the taxi which pulled up in front of the block of flats or the three men who got out of it.

‘I’m not saying that. It’s just—’

Statham was interrupted for a second time when the onboard radio hissed and crackled into life: ‘Hello? Jarvis here. Come in, guv. Are you there?’

Patterson took no notice and continued to stare out of the window.

‘You want me to get that?’ said Statham.

‘Laurel and Hardy reporting the latest bloody disaster? Help yourself.’

Statham took the microphone from its mounting on the dashboard. Then he closed his eyes and listened while Jarvis recounted how he had followed the blind man to Flat 12 on the second floor. One of the apartments next to it was unoccupied, and he and Coleman had broken in and set up the surveillance gear. They’d only got audio, but they hadn’t heard any voices yet, so it was more than likely the guy was on his own in there.

‘Where are you anyway? You caught up with the Peugeot yet?’

Statham leaned forward and spoke into the microphone in little more than a whisper. ‘Er… not as such, no.’

‘Don’t tell me the tracker didn’t work. Jeez, the guv’nor must have— Hang on a minute. There’s something…’

Jarvis’s voice tailed off into a barrage of radio static but returned a few seconds later. ‘Seems like he’s got company. Two or three of ‘em by the sound of it.’

This was surely too much of a coincidence, thought Patterson. It must be the three men who’d got out of the taxi just now. Come to think of it, there’d been something shifty about the way they’d looked up and down the street before they’d disappeared into the flats. And the fattish bloke in the black overcoat. He knew him from somewhere, he was almost certain of it.