Thirty-Six

After his fruitless visit to the De Vries packing plant, Andy Carstairs had pulled into the petrol station just along the road from there to fill up; he was just easing away from the pumps and looking back to find a gap in the traffic when he saw a familiar Audi turn out of the packing plant entrance and head off in the direction of King’s Lynn. Without a second’s thought and in response to instinct, Andy turned right after him. He knew that he must keep his distance: if Sentance suspected that he was being tailed, Andy had no doubt that he’d either speed off or head for somewhere other than his present intended destination, wherever it was. Sentance had now crossed the swing bridge that spanned the River Nene and was driving along the A17 where it became a high straight bank leading out of Sutton Bridge towards King’s Lynn. The bank was flanked on both sides by low-lying ploughed fields.

Andy briefly pulled into a lay-by to make himself less obvious to Sentance, letting his engine idle, before setting off again. He could see quite a long way ahead: he’d taken his eyes off the road for only seconds and now it was deserted. He was surprised that Sentance had managed to cover the ground so fast, but equally certain that he had vanished. Cursing, Andy stepped on the accelerator, gathering speed so rapidly that he almost missed an opening on the left hand side of the bank, some five hundred yards further down the road. Backing up cautiously, he saw that the agricultural track which passed through a gap in the crash barriers and turned steeply down the side of the embankment was angled in such a way that it wasn’t possible to see from his driver’s seat what lay at the bottom. Andy knew that it would be too risky to drive straight into it. He could see nowhere in the immediate area where he could hide the car, so he drove on further, until he reached a farm track on the other side of the road. There was a ruined barn standing at the bottom of the slope, roofless and overgrown with creeper. Andy manoeuvred his car in behind the barn, praying that it would not sink into the mud. Jumping out, he ran back up towards the road, crouching low, and giving one backward glance when he reached the top of the bank again. He noted with satisfaction that the car was completely concealed from view.

He was hastening back towards the spot where he had seen the opening, when he heard a car engine roaring somewhere ahead. He was still some yards from the opening and had just time to leap over the crash barrier to his left and crouch behind it when Sentance’s car suddenly emerged, paused momentarily and then raced away, back towards Sutton Bridge.

Andy couldn’t be certain, but he thought he’d caught a fleeting glimpse of someone seated next to Sentance in the passenger seat. If he was correct, it was someone slight: a very small woman, or a child, perhaps; someone who could barely see over the top of the dashboard. He eased himself to his full height, rubbing his back where it ached from the unnatural position that he had adopted, and debated what to do next. To continue his pursuit of Sentance would be impossible: it would take him at least ten minutes to run back to his car. By that time, Sentance would be back at the Sutton Bridge plant or well on his way to . . . Sutterton?

Andy didn’t feel like giving up. Sentance must have had a reason for taking that detour. If Andy was right about the passenger, Sentance must have picked her – or him – up while he was off the main road. To Andy’s knowledge, there were no buildings down there along the bank. Had the person, whoever it was, been waiting for him at the gap, concealed from the road? If so, how had he or she arrived there? And did the bank conceal some kind of shelter, or had they just stood around in the mud?

Andy knew that he’d have to investigate further. He also realised that there might be someone else – perhaps more than one other person – still lurking there. He debated whether he should spend time on fetching his car, which would offer him at least some protection if he encountered hostility. If he did so, he would not only lose precious minutes, but also scare off anyone who had no right to be there. He decided simply to cross the road and take a look down.

What he saw when he did so was an area at the very foot of the bank where four shipping containers, no doubt for use at crop harvest time, stood end to end on a bed of aggregate.

There were no lights on the containers and there was nothing to suggest that they were used for anything other than – he supposed, since the rest of the field had been ploughed – agricultural purposes. The presence of so many containers in such a remote spot was still strange. Andy knew that they’d have to be examined more closely, but he had no time to do it today. He had to get back to Spalding to see Tim. He’d ask the Boston police to investigate in the morning. It was unlikely that Sentance would return there tonight.