One Last Lesson (34 page)

‘
Thank God for that.’

Ten minutes later
, the junction with the autostrada loomed. More nervous than he cared to admit, he watched the back of Cope’s car intently, waiting for the direction indicator to flash. They were close to the junction now and seconds later, on the point of passing it but there was no last-minute slew across the carriageway, no frantic flailing of arms, no heavy braking, nothing to indicate a mistake had been made. Cope continued to head north.

‘
Bloody Norah,’ Hobbs said as they passed under the motorway, the one Cope should have been driving on with them following closely behind him. ‘Where the hell is he going? What do we do now?’

‘I’m not sure.’
             

‘Where does this go?’

‘Up towards a town called Monchique and the Monchique Mountains.’

‘Mountains?
If I’d known, I’d have brought my crampons. What am I saying? I hate mountains, I don’t like heights, period.’

‘Relax Gerry. I read something about it back at the hotel, they’re not mountains at all, more like green hills. Think of it as the Lake District with sunshine.’

‘Even still, doesn’t that mean an abundance of wildlife?’

‘This is Portugal,
Europe how bad can it be?’

‘As bad as wolves and wild boar,
they can be vicious.’

‘I don’t think there are any wolves around here and anyway wildlife would be more frightened of you than the other way round.’

‘Famous last words mate as they take another bite.’

They were following Cope’s Opel at a safe distance but worryingly, traffic had thinned out since the autostrada and now there were only two cars between them. The trappings of the city were gone; few houses, no pavements or streets, just arid ground with clumps of bushes and grasses and the occasional tree, rising up towards small green and brown hills to the right and left.

Suddenly, an idea came
to him. He pulled out his wallet and located the Portuguese Inspector’s business card and immediately called his number.

‘Detective Inspector Henderson,
’ Inspector Giraldes said, ‘it’s good to speak to you. Are you well, is Detective Sergeant Hobbs well also?’

‘We are both fine, thanks for asking. We…’

‘Aren’t you glad to be in Portugal at this moment? The weather we are having now is quite fantastic, is it not? I am also hearing it is pouring with rain in the UK.’

‘The weather
here is great, yes it is. Inspector, we are in the car following our suspect Martin Cope. He left the resort unexpectedly and drove north through Portimão and we assumed he was going to the airport, but he drove past the N125 and then the autostrada and right now we’re heading into the Monchique Mountains.’

‘Monchique? I see.’ There was
a brief pause. ‘From your description of the man, I don’t get the impression he is a nature lover nor a hill walker. Also, if he intended to flee, why would he go there? He should have taken the autostrada and could have gone to Spain or anywhere else in Europe if he wanted.’

‘That’s what we
thought but maybe he’s moving to a place where he can hide out for a while.’

‘To do that, he would have to know the country well as their aren’t many places to buy food or water out there. Do you think he has seen you and maybe he is trying to shake you off?’

‘No, I don’t think so as he’s driving at a steady pace and we’re still a couple of cars back. If he was trying to lose us, he would have been better off heading into Portimão as there are plenty places to hide and more obstacles to hinder a follower.’

‘That is true. Maybe Mr Cope’s strange movements and our missing teenager, Cristina Pinto are connected.’

‘The one who’s all over the front page of the newspapers?’

‘Yes. She
has been missing since last night.’

‘I hadn’t thought of that. He’s a dangerous individual and it’s just the sort of thing he would do.’

The phone went quiet for several seconds. ‘What I will do is send a car to assist you as my men know that area better than you do and they can help you and I think I might be able to get a helicopter as well. Believe me, it is easier to follow someone in that terrain from the air than it is from the ground.’

‘That would be great. Thank you.’

‘Well, that’s a shocker,’ he said to Hobbs after he put the phone back into his pocket. ‘We marked Inspector Giraldes down as a small town cop that wouldn’t know a major crime if it shot him in the shoulder, now he’s not only sending us assistance, he might be able to scramble a helicopter.’

‘Fantastic but we’ll look like
the royal prats if Cope’s meeting a couple of guys to go boar hunting or having a picnic with someone he just met in a bar.’

‘I don’t think he’s doing that.’

‘Me neither and I think I know what it is.’

‘What?’

‘He’s got a tent in the boot with a torch, matches, food and water and he’s intending to live out here for a few weeks, months even. I mean, this place is completely covered in vegetation so its bound to be full of berries and animals and even water, if you know what you’re looking for. After that, maybe he hopes we’ve forgotten all about him and he’ll move back to the UK under a new name and start all over again.’

‘Could be
, but the Inspector thinks there might be a connection between his little wildlife jaunt and the girl who’s been on the front page of all the newspapers this morning.’

‘What
, the pretty one? The girl we thought was probably a famous actress or something.’

‘She went missing last night, apparently.’

‘That changes things. Maybe she’s in the boot and he’s bringing her up here to kill or to bury her?’

‘That
’s what the Inspector thinks and if it gets us some reinforcements, I’m not going to be the one to tell him otherwise.’

‘You
wily old fox but let’s hope he’s not right.’

He
told Giraldes that Cope didn’t realise he was being followed but five minutes after the call, there was only one car between them and his car and unless Cope was blind or stupid, surely he must have twigged? He knew from driving around Brighton housing estates like Whitehawk and Moulsecoomb, two men in a car stuck out like the proverbial priests in a brothel and even the most unworldly kid knew when cops were about, whereas in Portugal, two men in a car was equally unusual as it was more common to see a man and a woman, and occasionally with a couple of kids in the back.

He was looking at the map so frequently
it was almost memorised and he knew there were few towns up ahead and not many good roads leading anywhere as sensibly, the Portuguese decided not to build a major route through mountains and the autostrada skirted the range further south. Cope wasn’t a bright man and possessed with the instincts of a feral criminal and just like any fugitive, he probably believed that by sticking to B-roads, he would escape detection as there were few cops, no speed traps and a complete absence of road monitoring technology such as CCTV and ANPR cameras.

They were a few miles from the town of Monchique when Hobbs spotted the police jeep coming up fast behind them. Henderson turned to look and watched as
the jeep moved closer and from only a few yards away, the driver gave him a thumbs-up, to indicate he was there to provide support and not to clock them for speeding. He was never more grateful to see a patrol car as even though Cope was their responsibility, they were in someone else’s backyard and the Portuguese police were equipped with the relevant experience, knowledge and legal authority to deal with him better than they could.

Before the arrival of the patrol car, they were
keeping their distance from the target and cruising at between fifty and sixty miles per hour, and Cope appeared content to sit behind slow moving vehicles until a straight section of road allowed him to overtake, indicating to them he wasn’t concerned by their presence and in no particular hurry to get to where he was going. However, the appearance of a police car seemed to spook him and almost immediately, he speeded up.

Soon
, they reached the town of Monchique and rather than by-pass the centre, the road went straight through, where narrow streets, parked cars and the occasional traffic light impeded a high-speed chase and once or twice, they almost lost him. On another day, he would have enjoyed coming here with its tree-lined roads, little shops, houses tucked away on the hill and a slow, country feel, but not today.

Back on the open road, Cope immediately
drove faster and there was no doubt in Henderson’s mind, he was trying to lose his followers. The Opel was flat-out on the straight sections and easily outgunning their Ibiza and the Toyota Rav4 of the Portuguese cops who were manfully bringing up the rear. On the twisting sections Hobbs, with the Police Advanced Driving Course under his belt, was able to take up better road positions than Cope could and any advantage offered by the Opel in superior horsepower, was kept to a minimum by his skilful handling of the Ibiza.

It was a twisting road with bends
every two hundred yards or so and soon they lost sight of the Opel and after five minutes, they didn’t have a clue how far behind they were and the Portuguese cops must have felt the same as there was no sign of them at all. They rounded what must have been the hundredth bend when up ahead, they were surprised to see Cope’s car parked at the side of the road.

‘Approach it carefully Gerry, it might be
a trap.’

‘I was thinking the same thing.’

They stopped ten yards behind the Opel and waited for half a minute before getting out. Henderson was looking all around, trying to spot Cope lurking in the bushes or behind a tree and bent down to look under the car, just in case he was standing behind it, when something colourful in the trees to his right, caught his eye.

‘There he is!’
he said, pointing.

Hobbs turned and followed his extended
arm. Thick trees bordered both sides of the road but through a gap they could see, about half a mile ahead, the unmistakable bulk of Martin Cope heading into the hills, still carrying his sports bag.

‘He’ll be easy to spot in that yellow t-shirt but where’s he going?’

‘I don’t know, but we’re following.’

‘Bloody
Norah! I’m only wearing trainers.’

‘Me too but before we go, let’s take a look
in his car.’

The doors were unlocked but i
nside, there was nothing much to look at, as it was clean and tidy with no knick-knacks, few discarded food wrappers and looking like a hire car that hadn’t been used much.

‘Pop the boot Gerry.’

He took a moment or two to find the switch and as he did so, the Rav4 pulled up and three Portuguese cops slowly got out and began stretching tired muscles. Hobbs released the lock and Henderson pushed the lid fully open. He looked inside but said nothing as he waved the cops over. They all stared into the boot in stunned silence, gazing at the trussed-up and unconscious figure of the girl that dominated the front pages of most of the local newspapers that morning.

The Sussex detectives set off over rough scrubland. Ahead of them, only two of the Portuguese policemen from the Rav4 were walking, as one was left behind to attend to the girl and direct the other cops when they arrived. In slow, broken English the Portuguese lads told the Sussex detectives it was their responsibility to apprehend Cope as they were armed and they knew the terrain and if Henderson could speak Portuguese and was able to discuss the issue further, he would say he fully agreed with them.

‘So
, she wasn’t dead?’ Hobbs asked.

‘No, I could feel a pulse. She was drugged or something but completely out cold.’

‘I thought by the faces on those Portuguese cops that she was dead.’

‘Maybe they thought she was.’

‘He was taking her out here to do what, rape and murder her?’

‘What else? Just to keep his hand in while he’s away on holiday, the evil bastard. Also think on, he probably picked her up sometime last night so she must have been in that car boot all
night, maybe twelve hours.’

‘Even if she was awake she couldn’t have shouted or made a noise as she was trussed up like a chicken. Probably
tied up better than that boat of yours.’

‘
Yeah but he was taking a helluva big risk with all those people milling around the resort this morning, don’t you think? All it would take was a muffled sound and those kids we saw would go running to their folks, demanding they crowbar the boot as there was a cat stuck inside.’

‘Maybe he’s getting cocky.’

‘They all do after a while and that’s usually how we catch them, but I think we found him before he reached that stage.’

Cope was in the distance, his t-shirt standing out like a beacon amidst the verdant vegetation,
and making good progress for a big man with a lot of bulk to shift. Henderson was sure this trek into the hills was not an integral part of his plan and it was the arrival of the police car that spooked him, but it wasn’t such a bad move for him to make, as his car was becoming a sitting duck on the road, especially once the helicopter made an appearance.