‘This is…’ Holm’s voice trailed off. He’d thought Felixstowe was big, but Rotterdam was another order of magnitude larger.

‘Twelve million containers a year,’ Javed said. ‘Three times the throughput of Felixstowe.’

As with Felixstowe, security appeared lax, a chain-link fence was all that protected the port area. They pulled up at a set of sliding gates and Javed spoke into a grille. Once he’d established they were expected, the gates slid open and Holm drove through and parked the car outside a large office complex.

‘We’re early,’ Holm said. According to the manifest the Excelsior was due to arrive from Felixstowe at ten p.m. ‘Let’s hope there’s a canteen or something here. Mind you, we’d better be careful not to miss the boat.’

‘No chance of that.’ Javed pulled out his phone and showed Holm an image. Holm squinted at the screen. There was a map of the coast of the Netherlands.

‘What’s this?’

‘A marine traffic website. There’s the Excelsior.’ Javed jabbed at the phone. ‘She’s about twenty-five miles away. Allowing for unloading, the container should be coming down this road in about three or four hours. We can monitor everything from here.’

Holm groaned. At a stroke, Javed had taken all the fun out of the night. They’d arranged to visit the port control room where they could watch the ship dock and unload. Now the visit was unnecessary. Holm pushed the phone away. He knew he was being left behind by technology, but he didn’t care. He’d see out his time with his notepad and a pencil.

‘Shoe leather,’ Holm said. ‘In my day you had to earn your stripes by wearing your soles out. Now there seems to be an app for everything. Won’t be long before I’m replaced by a kid sitting in a room with a touchscreen.’

‘Talking of which…’ Javed smiled and reached into the back of the car where he’d parked his bag. He rummaged in a side pocket and handed something to Holm. ‘Here.’

Another phone. This time in a clear plastic pouch and bound with gaffer tape to some sort of battery pack. The whole package was encircled with a length of bungee cord.

‘What the hell is this?’ Holm tried to work out what the contraption was but was distracted by Javed grinning. ‘OK. Tell me.’

‘It’s a tracker. I found one of my old phones and cobbled it together with this charging pack. One of us can attach it to the truck the container is loaded onto. Then we can follow the progress of the vehicle through Europe. You see the old phone updates its location via a server every few minutes and my current phone displays the result on a map.’

‘How…?’

‘An app.’ Javed grinned again as Holm shook his head. ‘Thought you’d like that.’