At a little after ten thirty, two smartly-dressed men, one carrying the kind of black bag often used by doctors making house calls, appeared at the door of a narrow terraced house on the northern outskirts of Swindon. As the other man pulled the door shut behind him, they both glanced up and down the largely empty street before walking away.
They’d parked their car in a vacant bay on a street about a quarter of a mile away, just as a precaution, though they both doubted if it was really necessary. The chances of anyone remembering a vehicle’s registration number in a district like that were remote at best, but neither of them was prepared to take the risk. That was also why the plates were false, the registration number copied from a similar vehicle and prepared in a backstreet garage. They’d remove them once they’d finished what they were doing that day.
‘I don’t like this,’ the man who’d been carrying the bag said as he dropped into the passenger seat of the Vauxhall.
‘You don’t have to like it,’ the other man said. ‘You just have to do it. You should have done it years ago, and you know it. Where to next?’
His companion pulled a small cheap notebook from his pocket and flicked through the pages until he found what he was looking for.
‘A place called Hook,’ he replied. ‘It’s near Basingstoke, so just follow the signs for the M4 motorway and I’ll program the satnav to take us to the address.’
The driver indicated and pulled out. With any luck they’d make at least three visits that day, maybe four, depending on traffic, and always assuming that the people they were visiting were at home. If they were out somewhere, that would just delay everything.
But it had to be done. There was no doubt about that, in the mind of either man.