Mungo was halfway out the door. “A raincoat,” he said. “Dark. Long.”
“Under that.”
Ginger whistled. “Boots. I remember them now. Ten inches of jackboot.”
“Shit, he’s on a motorcycle,” said Preston. He spoke into the radio. “Everyone out on the streets. On foot only. No car engines. Every street in the district except Compton. We’re looking for a motorcycle with a warm engine block.”
The problem is, he thought, I don’t know how long he’s going to be in there. Five minutes? Ten? Sixty? He radioed Len Stewart.
“Len, John here. If we get that motorcycle, I want a bleeper in it somewhere. Meanwhile, call up Superintendent King. He’ll have to mount the operation. When Chummy leaves, we’ll be after him. Harry’s team and me. I want you and your boys to stay on the Greeks. When we are all one hour clear, the police can take the house and the Greeks.”
Len Stewart, inside the police station, assented and started to phone Superintendent King at home.
It was twenty minutes before one of the roving team found the motorcycle. He reported to Preston, still at the Royston house.
“There’s a big BMW, top end of Queen Street. Carrier box behind the pillion, locked. Two saddlebags either side of the rear wheel, unlocked. Engine and exhaust still warm.”
“Registration number?”
The number was given him. He passed it to Len Stewart at the police station. Stewart asked for an immediate make on it. It turned out to be a Suffolk number, registered to a Mr. James Duncan Ross of Dorchester.
“It’s either a stolen vehicle, a false plate, or a blind address,” muttered Preston. Hours later, the Dorchester police established it was the last of the three.
The man who had found the motorcycle was ordered to plant the direction-finder in one of the saddlebags, switch it on, and get well away from the vehicle. The man, Joe, was one of Burkinshaw’s two drivers. He went back to his car, effaced himself behind the steering wheel, and confirmed that the bleeper was functioning.
“Okay,” said Preston, “we’re doing a changeover. All drivers back to their cars. Three of Len Stewart’s men, move toward the West Street rear entrance to our observation post and relieve us. One by one, quietly, and now,” To the men around him in the room he said, “Harry, pack up. You go first. Take the lead car. I’ll ride with you. Barney, Ginger, take the backup car. If Mungo can make it back in time, he’ll be with me.”
One by one, Stewart’s men arrived to replace Burkinshaw’s team. Preston prayed that the agent across the road would not move out while the changeover was taking place. He was the last to leave, putting his head around the door of the Roystons’ bedroom to thank them for their help and assure them it would all be over by dawn. The whispers that came back were more than a little worried.
Preston slipped through the back garden and into West Street, and five minutes later joined Burkinshaw and Joe, the driver, in their lead car, parked on Foljambe Road. Ginger and Barney reported in from the second car, at the top end of Marsden Street, off the Saltergate.
“Of course,” said Burkinshaw gloomily, “if it’s not the motorcycle, we’re up shit creek without a paddle.”
Preston was in the back seat. Beside the driver, Burkinshaw watched the display panel of the console in front of him. Like a small radar screen, it showed a flashing pulse of light at rhythmic intervals, glowing on a quadrant that gave its direction from the end-to-end axis of the car in which they were sitting and its approximate distance from them—half a mile. The second car carried an identical device, enabling the two operators to get a crossbearing if they wished.
“It’s got to be the motorcycle,” said Preston desperately. “We’d never be able to tail him in these streets, anyway. They’re too empty and he’s too good.”
“He’s leaving.”
The sudden bark from the radio cut off further talk. Stewart’s men in the Roystons’ bedroom reported that the man in the raincoat had left the house across the street. They confirmed that he was walking up Compton Street toward Cross Street and in the direction of the BMW. Then he passed out of sight. Two minutes later one of Stewart’s drivers, on St. Margaret’s Drive, reported that the agent had crossed the top of that street, still heading toward Queen Street. Then nothing. Five minutes went by. Preston prayed.
“He’s moving.”
Burkinshaw was jumping up and down in the front seat in excitement, most unusual behavior in this phlegmatic watcher. The flashing blip was slowly cruising across the screen as the motorcycle changed the angle between itself and the car.
“Target on the move,” the second car confirmed.
“Give him a mile, then take off,” said Preston. “Start engines now.”
The blip moved south and east through the center of Chesterfield. When it was close to the Lordsmill roundabout the cars began to follow. When they reached the roundabout there was no doubt. The signal from the motorcycle was steady and strong, straight down the A617 to Mansfield and Newark. Range: just over a mile. Even their lights would be out of sight of the motorcyclist ahead. Joe grinned. “Try and shake us now, you bastard,” he remarked.
Preston would have been happier if the man ahead had been in a car. Motorcycles were brutes to follow. Fast and maneuverable, they could weave through dense traffic that blocked a tailing car and dive down narrow alleys or between bollards that no car could enter. Even out in the country they could leave the road and ride over grassland where a car would be hard put to follow. The essence was to keep the man ahead unaware that they were following.
The motorcyclist up ahead was good. He stayed within the speed limit, but seldom went below it, taking the curves without slackening speed. He kept to the A617 beneath the sweep of the M1 motorway, through Mansfield, asleep in the small hours of the morning, and on toward Newark. Derbyshire gave way to the fat, rich farmland of Nottinghamshire and he never slackened pace.
Just before Newark he stopped.
“Range closing fast,” said Joe suddenly.