The DS nodded. But before he could reply, a string of low-level beeps came from his phone, alerting him to a radio comms. He put the phone to his ear and pressed the ‘listen’ button. It was Gummy, his voice urgent.

‘Boss, subject’s on the move. He’s out of the house, getting in the Fiesta.’

Taylor immediately switched the video from playback to live feed. They all watched.

Niall Paternoster, looking spruced up now, in a pale-blue shirt and white chinos, walked round the rear of the Fiesta and zapped the door lock.

‘Too bad we don’t have the tracker already in place,’ Taylor said.

‘If he leaves the car out all night,’ Smithy said, ‘it’ll be a doddle.’

‘Unless he’s going to dismantle it and lug it in through the front door, he probably will leave it out all night, Smithy – since the house doesn’t have a garage,’ retorted Long Tom.

Smithy looked at Thompson. His voice sounding even more pedantic than ever, he said, ‘How does it go, Tommy? “When you assume, you make an ass out of you and me”? He could have a lock-up round the corner somewhere, couldn’t he?’

Thompson nodded. ‘Fair point.’

But all the team’s focus was now on the Fiesta trying to reverse into the stream of traffic. An old red van eventually stopped to let it out. Then the Fiesta accelerated away, heading north.

It was 5.10 p.m.

76

Five days earlier: Sunday 1 September

As Niall drove Eden’s BMW into the car park of the Tesco superstore, three miles to the west of their home in Brighton, he was immediately annoyed by the queue of cars in front of them. ‘Look at this – shit, baby – this is going to take ages,’ he said.

‘Just stop the car and I’ll jump out and run in while you park. Then I’ll come and find you,’ she replied.

‘That stuff’s heavy – are you sure?’

She gave him a sideways look. ‘When did you last actually get any?’

‘Um – I don’t remember.’

‘So how do you think it appears in the house? By magic? Does the Tooth Fairy bring it?’

‘OK, OK, muscle woman – look, I’ll pull in over there.’ He swung into an empty bay, some distance from the store.

Grabbing her handbag, Eden jumped out, blew him a kiss, slammed the door and hurried off through the maze of vehicles.

When she was confident she was out of sight of his rear-view mirror, she stopped. Thank God the store was so busy and she’d had an excuse to jump out far from the entrance. From her previous reconnaissance of this place, she knew they were well beyond the range of the store’s external CCTV cameras. She’d deliberately picked a Sunday because she’d hoped it would be rammed with people doing their shop for the week – and she’d been right. Checking that the parked cars around her were all empty, with no one to see her, she knelt, removed a loose-fitting long-sleeved top and lightweight, equally loose trousers from her handbag, and donned them. Next, she pulled a grey hijab from her bag, wound it around her head and low over her brow, then put her large sunglasses back on.