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  ‘Liz?’ he queried.

  ‘Two men in a white Mercedes said they were selling building supplies cheap according to Alamat they asked for you by name, but Danny spied them through the window and said one of them was his father’s eldest brother, Uncle Sean. He says he only comes when it’s serious and the godfather sends for him.’

  ‘Are they still there?’ he snapped.

  ‘No, Alamat didn’t believe they were selling anything, and stood out in the road to make sure they both drove off in the van. They did at some speed, but the message for you was that they’d be back. Sounded like a threat, he said, and he’s staying on watch.’

  ‘I’m on my way home now,’ he said, then turned to Russell. ‘I have to go,’ he said. ‘Problem at the pub.’ He made a theatrical grimace of a minor problem being exaggerated. ‘I’ll be in touch.’ He nodded reassurance to the newsagent, who thanked him.

  As he left the shop, a white Mercedes van came at reckless speed around the far side of the village green and headed towards Snyder Crescent. The same men reporting back to the boss, Cannon wondered, or going to pick him up? Perhaps there was a last load, but to be taken where?

  Had they been sure of Jones or if CI Helen Jefferson was not on maternity leave there would have been trust, a phone call would have brought help. The danger, though, was that if Jones was a bent copper, and this was the last time the gang were going to visit Snyder Crescent, all knowledge of where they had gone would be lost to the law.

  If it was the same van, with the same men as had been to The Trap, then if he tailed it, they could not go back there without him knowing, and if it was taking a last load of stolen goods – and he followed it – then he would have the evidence the police needed to swoop, and time to find the man above Jones to give the information to. There had been changes but Maddern would know about those.

  He trusted that these Jakeses did not know his Willy jeep as he drove around and into Snyder Crescent. The van was parked outside number 24, but as far as he could see there was no one in it and no sign of life at number 26. He drove to the far end, turned the jeep and parked on the right hand side just in sight of the back of the van, then he rang Liz back.

  She answered immediately. He told her what he thought might be happening ending with a tense, ‘We can’t afford to lose them.’

  ‘We?’ she queried.

  ‘Maddern, the police, me, you, Danny, Carol, the honest hardworking public.’

  ‘So you are going to follow the van.’ It was a statement made in a voice that conveyed no emotion whatsoever. There was neither anger, nor approval – nothing. It was as if she was saying on your head be it, John Cannon, on your head.

  He heard himself say aloud, ‘I know.’ Then he broke off. ‘The van’s on the move.’

  ‘John,’ she said and this word contained all her anxiety.

  ‘I love you,’ he said. ‘See you later.’

  He heard the ‘I hope so’ but she did not say it.

  Cannon kept the van in sight, just, until he reached a point where several articulated lorries came out of a side road in a kind of convoy and several cars in front of him ‘obligingly’ let them take preference, presumably so they could keep together. Cannon huffed and puffed in frustration as the artics, all loaded with early daffodils, would be making their way to the ports – most of them going to Scandinavia to lighten and brighten the hearts of those emerging from the almost constant dark nights and days of their winters.

  When they had gone, so had the van, but he presumed that at the speed it was travelling the driver did not intend to turn off any time soon. He put his foot down and it pleased his heart that his old, lovingly renovated jeep seemed to revel in it.

  He came to a long, straight stretch of road leading inland towards Boston and there was nothing ahead of him. He felt he should not be that far behind, slowed a little, took more care to look left and right at junctions – which mercifully were few on this stretch. He had gone by a smallish left turn when he registered he had seen something on the corner some way along the side turning. He drew in, waited until a following lorry had passed him then backed up and turned.

  The van was parked to the left of one of those extended double gateways leading into a vast expanse of daffodils in green bud, just half a dozen flowers over the whole area showing pale yellow petals. Cannon parked just beyond the gateway and walked back. Next to it were fresh, crisp tyre-marks of a second vehicle. A vehicle switch?

  The van did not appear to be damaged. He peered in the front windows, pulling gloves from his pocket. He felt the bonnet; it was still red hot and the doors he found were not locked. There was nothing in the front of the vehicle, under the seats, in the compartments, or behind the sun-visors. He calculated that there would not have been time to unload a great deal of stuff into another vehicle. He went to the rear and opened the doors; this too was empty, but there was a dark-red patch to one side. He did not have to climb in to know it was blood.

  Somebody – or some body – had been in there until, he guessed, minutes earlier, and had been transferred to another vehicle. Why? He was reluctant to turn back, but there was no use trying to chase a vehicle he could not identify. His duty now was to get back to Liz as soon as possible.

  Chapter 10

  Liz found Alamat some distance along the road, carrying a broom-handle and looking extremely anxious.

  ‘You’re still worried about that man?’ she asked.

  The little Croatian nodded urgently. ‘He was evil man. I think he saw young boy, he went away too easy.’ The shake of his head became a general shudder. ‘He had found what he want. Is Mr Cannon coming back?’

  ‘He should not be too long,’ she answered guardedly.

  ‘I think we should hide people other place, better place,’ he said with certainty, ‘and pretty damn quick.’

  They found Danny and his mother even more disturbed by the visit. ‘If it was my husband’s eldest brother, he’ll be back,’ Carol Smithson said, her lips twisting with bitterness. ‘He never lets go.’

  ‘I don’t want him to get us again.’ Danny’s voice was thick with tears and fear. ‘It was ’im what found me and Mam and brought us here.’

  Carol put an arm around her son.

  ‘It won’t happen if we can help it,’ Liz said, her mind ranging from outbuildings to attics. She and John had meticulously cleared the attics when they first bought The Trap. The only things up there were boxes of Christmas decorations. ‘There’s the cellar,’ she began, ‘but it’s—’

  ‘Please, anywhere until we can get away,’ Carol pleaded. ‘He’ll be back, he won’t waste time.’ She made the shape of a gun with her fingers but out of sight behind her son’s head.

  ‘Come on,’ Liz said. She led the way from the stable-block to the back door of the pub, through to the passage leading to the bar. She told them to wait while she fetched the key Cannon kept on a hook next to the optics. The cellar door was always kept locked so no one could possibly open it by mistake and find themselves teetering on the edge of the steep brick steps.

  Switching on the light just inside the door, she led the way down between the white-washed brick walls. There was no handrail and the steps and walls – part of the original 17th century coaching inn – were always slightly clammy but the installations were completely up-to-date. The metal barrels of beers with gauges and pressurized pumps lay on one side, on the other was a baffling array of pipes leading from several different lagers into a refrigeration unit, for while the beers must be at room temperature the lagers had to be colder – all pipes went up through the cellar ceiling to the pumps in the bar above.

  ‘What’s that?’ Danny asked, having taken in the main part of the cellar. He pointed to where ribbons of broad plastic sheeting covered one end.

  ‘I’ll show you,’ she said, holding back the plastic strips. ‘Regulations to stop insects entering when the beer is delivered. The brewery lorry stops on the roadway, we make sure the double-hinged doors a
bove your head are unbolted, the men pull them open from above, and use this kind of double chute with the steps in the middle to steady the barrels and slide our order down.’

  ‘It’s spooky though,’ Danny said, peering up at the trapdoors, then all around. ‘All dark in the corners.’

  ‘Not as spooky as your Uncle Sean,’ his mother reminded him, ‘and I’m not chained up!’

  ‘No,’ he decided, ‘we’ll stay down here until Mr Cannon comes back.’

  Liz sent Alamat for the torch kept behind the bar, and then left them sitting side by side on a piece of sacking at the far end of the stone thrall beyond the beer barrels.

  ‘We’re all right,’ Carol reassured her, putting her arm round Danny and pulling him close. Leaving them, Liz still felt like a jailer locking a dungeon, but she had no doubt whatsoever that John was right to try to help these two. No one could deny the mother and son bond was strong, strong enough to make them defy the savagery of the gang and try to leave ‘the life’ – that took real courage, extraordinary courage. Carol’s gesture behind her son’s head had made it very clear she knew she was playing with their lives, but was willing to take that chance to be free.

  When it was less than half an hour before evening opening time, and even less, probably, before Hoskins arrived on his bike, she locked the back part of the premises and went upstairs to change – ready for the Saturday evening trade. Alamat would be along to help her later, but had gone back to the stable-block to finish tidying away any remaining evidence that anyone had been in the far corner apartment. She paused on the landing as she heard the sound of a vehicle approaching. It was certainly not the cross between car and tractor of Cannon’s jeep.

  Where was he? How long would he be? She applied her eye-liner and mascara, daydreaming that perhaps if they retired to a desert island he might keep out of trouble. ‘No!’ she exclaimed aloud. ‘He’d be diving off some cliff-face to save something or other.’

  She remembered she had not replaced all the brassware she had removed and cleaned on her last marathon of keeping-busy-while-John’s-away. She took a couple of hunting horns through to the bar – there would just be time to hang these before she opened.

  She had put them back on their hooks above the fireplace, closed the bar curtains, put a match to the log fire and stood back to admire the effect when the clock struck six and she went to open the front doors. Alamat immediately burst through them; he was white-faced and clearly terrified. The propulsion had been supplied by one of the three men behind him. ‘This is the man that called before,’ he blurted out and received a violent push which sent him sprawling between the bar stools.

  ‘You were told to keep your mouth shut!’

  Liz presumed this was Uncle Sean. The older man of the same build – but even larger and wider of shoulder – must, she thought, be the godfather, the boss, Luke Jakes, recently released from Leicester prison. The other, a mean-faced individual, was obviously an underling but he carried a gun, a .32 automatic. Liz noticed that the old man also held a gun, a small new .22 revolver, which would have been expensive. It went with his clothes, she thought, suit and fur-collared overcoat.

  ‘We haven’t time to fuck about,’ Sean said. ‘I saw the boy, Danny, here when I called the first time. We just want him and his mother then we’ll be away, and if you’re wise you’ll forget we’ve ever been. Where are they?’

  Alamat had struggled to his feet. The godfather grunted and the underling strode over to him and pistol-whipped the butt of his revolver across the little Croatian’s face. ‘You tell us, or we take the place apart.’

  ‘You search,’ Alamat shouted back, hand to the side of his face and blood seeping through his fingers. ‘I tell you no one here.’

  ‘We don’t believe foreign scum,’ the underling sneered.

  ‘You, darling,’ Sean addressed Liz, ‘you tell us, or perhaps Mr John Cannon is around now? We’d really like to meet him.’

  ‘We’re the only ones—’ she began then broke off as she thought she heard the scuff of a foot in the porch, and it was the time their first-in-and-last-out customer, Hoskins, usually arrived. ‘I don’t know who you’re looking for,’ Liz added, raising her voice, ‘but get out! Go away!’

  Sean laughed aloud. ‘We’ve done the stables, darling, now we’ll do the pub – and you if you don’t behave.’

  ‘Stop wasting time,’ the godfather ordered. ‘Go and lock the front doors again then get on with it. I want this woman and kid dealt with quick and I want away. Been hanging about in this dammed country too long now.’

  Liz felt her heart give a great leap of alarm. Men like this did not make careless remarks in front of possible witnesses.

  Jakes chose a wooden armchair near the fire and with his revolver gestured Liz and Alamat to the bench opposite.

  The search was thorough, ruthless and fast, but still tested the patience of the old man. He sat gently bouncing the gun on his knee, barrel weaving between Liz and Alamat as they listened to the noise of the search accompanied by an almost unbroken drone of complaint from the underling and Sean’s increasingly impatient orders as they ranged from room to room, attics, bedrooms, then the ground floor.

  ‘Nothing, boss,’ the underling reported as they came back, but behind him Sean called, ‘There’s a locked door in this passage.’

  ‘A locked door,’ the old man said. ‘Dear, dear – so where’s the bloody key?’

  ‘It’s the cellar,’ Liz answered, ‘and always kept locked; no one could get down there.’

  ‘Not unless you put them down there, darling, and locked the door afterwards,’ Sean said, his acid pseudo-politeness more menacing than his father.

  ‘Key!’ the old man demanded again.

  ‘The landlord keeps it always in his pocket,’ Alamat shouted but shrank to the far end of the bench as the gun-butt was raised again.

  ‘I’ve no time for bloody games. Force it open!’ the old man ordered.

  The two left at his bidding, and Liz’s lips parted as she thought of anyone hurling themselves at that door and finding themselves teetering at the top of those steps. Looking up she saw satisfaction on the old man’s face.

  ‘Down there, are they?’

  There was the sound of a door being shouldered, once, twice. ‘You really shouldn’t have delayed us like this, it’ll be the worse for both of you.’ But as he raised the gun in her direction there was the sound of another shoulder charge, a great splintering of wood followed by a man’s scream. A few seconds of silence then what sound like hysterical pleading, and Liz was no surer now whether the high-pitched voice was man, woman, or boy. It all went on long enough for Luke Jakes to rise from his seat, but the shot that rang out was not from his gun. Then there was silence.

  Liz hung on to her nerves, waiting for more screams, more shots as Sean dealt with whoever was left, his sister-in-law or nephew who so resembled him – but there was no challenge, no sound, nothing. She couldn’t endure this longer.

  ‘Somebody should go to see,’ she said.

  ‘Sit down.’ The old man aimed the neat little revolver at her heart, and Liz knew he could shoot both of them before either she or Alamat could reach him. Old he might be but he looked fit – prison life had probably done that for him.

  Then they heard one man coming back.

  ‘They were down there,’ Sean reported, ‘but the trapdoors up to the outside are open, they must have heard us and gone. I’ve been up and out that way, but it’s pitch-black, we’d need an army, they could be anywhere.’

  ‘And?’ The old man gave a casual nod back toward the cellar.

  He broke his leg,’ Sean reported, ‘I shot him, he always was a bloody animal.’

  ‘Too much mouth,’ the old man agreed and finally rose.

  ‘Right, ready?’ Sean, who now had the other revolver, asked, and raised it in Liz’s direction.

  She had known this moment would come and prepared to do the only thing she could when Sean Jakes fired. Sh
e watched his hand, his trigger finger, and balanced herself.

  The revolver was raised to the level with her heart, but again the gun that went off was not in that room. It was outside, at the rear of the pub somewhere, then a whole series of shots, a fusillade, moving in like an advancing army.

  ‘Chri—’ Sean began.

  Liz forced herself to take a deep, containing breath, moved a step to one side of Alamat as another burst of approaching shots sounded from the back of the pub – and their time ran out.

  As Sean fired, his father was on his way to the front doors shouting something about not being taken, and Liz threw herself full force at Alamat, taking him to the floor. It was some seconds before she was able to drag air into her lungs again; the pain increased, reached a peak, then finally the spasm passed and she realized she was just winded – and the men had gone.

  She pushed herself up off Alamat, unsure whether he was cursing or praying in his native language, but she shushed him urgently so they could listen and try to understand what was going on outside. She prayed it did not involve Danny or his mother. They heard the sound of a vehicle leaving at speed.

  ‘The cellar …’ Liz began moving from hands and knees to her feet as she made for the passage, but stopped as she realized there was someone coming back into the pub. Had only one Jakes left? Was Sean coming back?

  Alamat too had heard. She indicated he should get down behind the bench, and intended to get behind the counter-end, split the target, when a voice called, ‘Liz, it’s me, Hoskins, you all right?’

  ‘Alan.’ It was only in moments of extreme emotion that she felt allowed to use the old poacher’s Christian name, and this was one of them.

  ‘Those shots?’ she questioned as he came in carrying one of his shotguns.

  He nodded. ‘I got your message, get out and keep away, and,’ he said with far more significance in his voice, ‘I recognised Luke Jakes’s voice, the old bugger, what was he up to? Then I saw ’im and one of the sons take off like Old Nick himself was after ’em.’