Dead Man's Grip

appeared to have stopped somewhere in Shoreham or Southwick. He was about to call Gold to ask him to get the helicopter over there and block off the area when his phone rang.
    It was Duncan Crocker. ‘Roy, we’ve found a car, a Toyota Yaris, driving on those switched plates taken from the service station at Newport Pagnell – the plates from the woman’s car – that twenty-seven-year-old who was stopped on the M11 near Brentwood. It’s just pinged an ANPR camera, heading north from Brighton on the A23.’

97
    Tyler tried kicking again. He could hear the hollow metallic boom-boom-boom echo around him.
    What if the man did not come back?
    There was a story he had read – he was trying to remember the book – in which someone was locked in the boot of a car and nearly suffocated. How long could you stay in one? How long had he already been here? Was there any sharp edge he could rub against? He tried rolling over, exploring the space as best he could, but it was tiny and seemed to be completely carpeted.
    His watch was luminous but he couldn’t see the face. He had lost all track of time. He didn’t know how long the man had been gone, whether it was still day out there or if night had fallen. If the man did not come back, how long would it be, he wondered, before someone wondered about a strange car?
    Then he had a sudden panic about Friend Mapper. Had his mother remembered to log on? She made him keep it on all the time, but she often forgot herself. And she was crap with technology.
    Maybe he should keep kicking, in case someone passed by and heard him. But he was scared. If the man came back and heard him he might get really angry. He had just made the decision to wait a little longer when he heard footsteps approaching – quick, sharp crunches. Then he felt the car tilt slightly.
    Someone had got in.

98
    In the CCTV room, Grace stared at the frontal photograph of a dark grey Toyota Yaris on a familiar stretch of the A23, just north of Brighton. But to his dismay the windscreen was even more opaque than the car by Shoreham Harbour in the previous photograph. He could see nothing at all inside, no shadows or silhouettes, no clue as to how many people might be in it.
    Branson immediately informed Gold, then listened intently to his radio.
    Grace ordered Jon Pumfrey to put out a high-act nationwide marker on the car. He did not intend to take any risks. Then he sat for a moment, clenching his fists. Maybe, finally, this was it.
    ‘What CCTV units do you have on the A23?’ he asked the controller.
    ‘The only fixed ones are ANPRs on the motorway. The next one, if he keeps heading north, is Gatwick.’
    Grace was feeling excitement but, at the same time, frustration. He would have liked to be out there, on the road, present when they stopped the car. Pumfrey pulled up a road map on to one of the monitors, showing the position of the two ANPR cameras. There were plenty of opportunities for the suspect to turn off the motorway. But with luck the helicopter would have him in sight imminently.
    He turned back to the bank of monitors and looked at the car that had been photographed heading east along the seafront, owned, according to its registration document, by Barry Simons. Just as a precaution, he phoned the Incident Room. Nick Nicholl answered. Grace tasked him with finding Barry Simons and establishing for certain that he had been driving his car along Brighton seafront this morning.
    From the suspect’s current position on the A23, it would take him about twenty-five minutes, Grace estimated, to ping that next
ANPR camera at Gatwick. On the radio he could follow the developments. This was a true fast-time operation. The helicopter, which was also fitted with ANPR, would be over the M23 in ninety seconds. One unmarked car was already on the motorway, approximately two miles behind the target, and two more were only minutes away. It was policy in kidnap pursuits to use unmarked cars wherever possible. That way, the perpetrator would not panic as he might at the sight of a marked car passing him, with the risk of involving his victim in a high-speed chase. If they could get unmarked cars in front of and behind the suspect, a minimum of three vehicles, and preferably four, they could box him in – TPAC him – before he realized what was happening.
    ‘I need to get back to Sussex House,’ Glenn said.
    ‘Me too.’
    ‘I can patch any images you want through to you in the Incident Room,’ Pumfrey