Chapter 8

"Inspector," Jaroslav said with an air of rigidity to his voice. "Your men been everywhere, but they, they not find them yet. My house, it turned upside down but for nothing."

The Inspector nodded gracefully and moved a branch out of face as he walked down the path. "We thank you for your cooperation and patience," he replied automatically. "And that is true we have not arrested them but we know Oliver and Jamie Prutton were involved, they have disappeared, as you would have expected."

"And what about third person? Those statues, they worth many hundreds of t'ousands of pounds," the Ukrainian replied with an annoyed edge to his voice.

"We are looking at known associates. Did you have much to do with Oliver Prutton, sir?"

Jaroslav snorted and then shrugged. "We see him every day."

"He didn't mention Emma Wallis at all?"

The Inspector smiled to himself as Jaroslav tried to put on a thoughtful expression. "I no remember it," he told him. "She take my statues?"

The Inspector cleared his throat. "Oh no," he said quickly. "We don't know that. We just want to speak to her and we can't find her. She is a known associate of Jamie. We are combing through the CCTV taken from the main roads as we speak to trace movements."

Jaroslav scowled; he had spent twenty minutes with the Inspector and the Police had barely made any progress. "Like last time," he snarled. "You not find guilty man but go after wild goose."

Inspector licked his lips. "There is a dedicated team, Mr Doszak. We will get to the bottom of the break-in," he promised and was grateful to an interruption.

"Inspector," a stressed voice called from the end of the garden and Richard Williamson nodded respectfully to Jaroslav and bade the Ukrainian gangster goodbye. "Inspector," a breathless Sergeant cried, running up to his senior.

"What is it?" The Inspector turned to check Jarolsav Doszak was out of hearing range and pulled the young policeman to one side muttering quietly. "What?"

"You don't answer your Blackberry sir," he muttered in an annoyed tone.

"Of course not," the Inspector replied. "I'm at work. That thing stops me doing what I want to do."

The Sergeant groaned. "Those tyre marks," he told in him whispering. "They've come back and they reckon they are 185 in width but also quite deep so they reckon the vehicle was quite heavy. Worn a bit on the inside rim. And they think it's a Goodyear Cargo."

"Goodyear Cargo?"

"From the pattern yes, which means we are probably looking for a van."

The Inspector sighed. "A van on a robbery; don't shock me."

"No, but more than that. Emma Wallis. She has a 1991 Transit in her name. DVLA just confirmed it."

"Oh," the Inspector muttered with a grin. "Do they take 185s or whatever?"

The Sergeant sighed. "They do indeed."

"Put out an all forces alert, I want that van stopped."

"Done that sir. An hour ago. I sent an email to your Blackberry to tell you." The Inspector couldn't help but grin. "And we are coming through traffic cameras. It looks as though they headed for the motorway but I've got the Highways Agency looking further."

"Excellent. At least they weren't heading for the airport," the Inspector joked. "Well our airport. Might have been off to Manchester I s'pose." There was a hum from both of them. "Oh and anything on those cigarette butts?"

"Yeah, just got that back. The DNA on them is from a 'Aidy Hamilton, '" he told him.

"Don't tell me Aidy was involved. He's not into robbery."

A smile flickered across the Sergeant's face. "Ah well, we arrested him the day of the robbery for flashing some girls as he left a pub at nine and he was in court the day after. He was in the cells sleeping off too many beers when our gang did this place."

The Inspector smiled. "The crafty buggers."

"Quite," the Sergeant answered. "Got to admire the thinking though. And you guessed it was a trap."

The Inspector sighed. "Yeah. It was too convenient. But I reckon Emma is the mastermind. I know she's been involved in some other stuff but we've never been able to prove it, but she's professional. This is sneaky clever."

"And to leave matches from the Gold Lounge," the Sergeant added. "If Jaroslav had seen that, they'd be hell to pay."

The Inspector took a deep breath. "I think that was the point," he added. "They weren't for us, they were for Doszak."

Oliver looked around the small town where he had been dropped off and glanced over at the sign. He had the choice between a bus stop and a train station and nervously decided on the train station.

He briefly considered trying to steal a car, but he had no idea how to do it, and any attempt would probably give call for someone to summon the Police to come and arrest him. In short, he needed to get to South America without a passport, but had no idea how to do it. He didn't even have any friends who would be likely to help him.

The shadiest person he knew, and the person he might have turned to for help, was Jaroslav, but in the circumstances decided that it was probably a bit of a risky thing to try and do – asking the man who he robbed for help in getting away with it – and then try to work out who he could trust. He came with one name and one name only, Vicky Hambleton.

Vicky, the only girl he had ever liked was sure to be interested in seeing him and he knew she would help him. She had helped him with his Maths homework once and had flashed the intoxicating smile that had endeared herself to him when she had finished. She was kind and gentle, lusted after by everyone who went to the College and exceptionally good natured.

Vicky would tell him what to do, and what to do for the best, but she was in Aberdeen which was a long way from Whitchurch. This meant train travel or coach travel, and Oliver wanted a disguise. The small town was a little short on disguise shops, a serious omission as far as the desperate criminal was concerned, but he was able to purchase a hooded sweatshirt and a newspaper to hide behind and walked up to the little station to buy a ticket to Chester.

Oliver might not have been a criminal genius but he worked out that a ticket to Aberdeen from Whitchurch might get his remembered if the Police ever came to ask the ticket office about him and so he tried to blend in, buying a return ticket to the next town.

Oliver sweated buckets on the train, every single time someone moved and walked past him, Oliver twitched; he felt exposed and he felt like everyone knew who he was and was about to expose him. He tried to hide behind the broadsheet newspaper to make himself a little less obvious but he was nervous and almost leapt from the train the moment he arrived at Chester. He wanted to put some distance between himself and his fellow passengers.

Oliver was almost surprised when there was no Police officers waiting for him, and he got a ticket to go from Chester to Manchester. The old machine happily spewing out a ticket at him and he ran to go and catch the train.

This time Oliver tried to read the newspaper but there was obviously nothing about him; he knew he would be in the paper the following day but the raid had been discovered after the papers had been printed. He longed for his smart-phone that Emma had confiscated to check the news but he had nothing except the paper.

By the time Oliver reached Manchester he was worried again; the train had been packed and got progressively busier which meant he had someone next to him reading the news on their tablet. Due to his anxiety, he was almost hyperventilating and desperate to use the toilet when the female passenger read about the stolen statues and he gripped his bag tighter. He panicked that she knew that he was the thief and there would be Police officers waiting for him at Manchester.

Oliver could scarcely believe his luck when he reached the large station and it was busy with passengers not police officers and skipped down the platform. He wanted to get to Scotland and rationalised that a passenger making a long journey from the city of Manchester would not be considered out of place.

The machine refused to accept his money when he tried to put it in to purchase his single to Aberdeen, and so he queued up at the desk; he hated the automated machines anyway.

The coloured lady smiled at him when he got to the front of the queue. "Single to Scotland," Oliver said as his hands shook.

The lady smiled back and ran her fingers down her lips. "Which town, love?"

"Oh umm..." Oliver panicked. If she did remember him, he didn't want her to tell anyone about Aberdeen, so where should he go? He needed to stay overnight anyhow and blurted out the first place he could think of. "Bleddingborough."