It would be light by half past five. He would keep moving until then, hope to reach a place where he could get to a phone. He had no money but he would find something, even persuade a newsagent to let him make a call to the nearest police station. If he hit a town where there was a station, even better. Morson would now know that he was not Johnno Miles but what could he do about that?
Ten minutes later, alert but judging that it was safe to leave the shelter of the hedge, he came out into a lane and started to jog. Running would have been faster but he wanted to conserve his energy.
He didn’t hear the car. The headlights were behind but then suddenly all over him, covering him in what seemed to be a single piercing, brilliant light. He had nowhere to go. The man was out of the 4 × 4, onto him and had brought him down before he could get out of the way. He felt a blow to the back of his head which did not knock him out completely, and then a punch in his solar plexus which sent him reeling, fighting to breathe.
He was choking as he felt himself kicked off his feet then lifted over the back of the vehicle so that he tumbled forward. His chest burned and his throat ached with the effort to get two consecutive breaths and, when he did so, he was kicked in the stomach, winded again, and hit with something that made the inside of his head flare briefly like a bonfire being set alight, then go black.
The last thing Frankie wanted was to drive too fast and hit a random cop car on night patrol looking for stolen vehicles. He kept to the speed limits. The van heading up to meet him would do the same. But it was quiet, even on the dual carriageway. No sound from behind him. He’d knocked the man out, that was all. It was up to the others to do the rest.
He turned on the radio low – traffic news, weather, phone-ins from the miserable and the desperate and the idiotic, uber-cheery presenter, seeing you through the small hours. Another twenty minutes and he was heading into a town. Another twenty, he’d start to look out. He knew the meeting point.
He wasn’t bothered about any of it. All in the night’s work. He’d done plenty of unusual jobs and Lynn never asked questions. Why else did they get paid so much, plus the coach house, the cars, the food and drink, the holidays, the account cards? They’d never cheated. He was proud of that. Everything they spent was accounted for and the statements transparent. Meanwhile, pincers straight from the furnace wouldn’t get a word from him of what he knew – and he knew everything.
They were already there, lights doused, as he turned into the slip road that led to an industrial estate.
It was done in less than five minutes. The man was out cold and stayed out when they hauled him from the boot and threw him hard into the back of the van. None of them spoke a word other than to identify themselves with the names Morson had given. They wore dark clothing and balaclavas over their faces.
Frankie waited until the van moved off, then sped over the bridge and back on the road home. He didn’t give the guy he had knocked out a second’s thought.