Angel shook his head.

‘How did the fire start?’

‘Eddie Glazer. He intended murdering us.’

‘Damn well near managed it. Still, now that you’ve found their hideout and unseated them, they’ll be easier to catch.’

‘They’ll be more desperate, Waldo.’ Angel said grimly.

‘Aye, but they’ll be floundering round trying to find another safe place to hide. Eddie Glazer is wanted for murder. He knows that every copper in the country has seen his picture and is on the look-out for him. Your super should be chuffed with the news.’

Angel wrinkled his nose. Nothing much pleased Superintendent Harker. ‘That gang’s got to be caught!’ he said. ‘They’re armed to the teeth, desperate and very, very gung-ho. They could do a lot of damage.’

The nurse appeared with a beaker of tea. She placed it on the locker top, looked up at White and said, ‘You’ll have to go now. He’s got to get some rest.’

Angel caught White’s eye, then he looked at the young woman and said, ‘I need my shoes, nurse. Where are they?’

‘You don’t need those yet. Lie back and drink your tea.’

‘I want to go to the lavatory,’ he said tetchily.

‘Stay there. I’ll bring you a commode,’ she said and rushed off.

Angel’s jaw dropped.

However, by the time the nurse had arrived back wheeling an uncomfortable looking tubular metal chair, Angel and Gawber had found their shoes in their respective lockers, and were going down in the hospital lift with DI White.

‘Will you take us back to the rhubarb sheds?’ Angel said. ‘My car is there, and I want to see if the tracking device on Glazer’s car is still sending out a signal.’

‘Sure. I have to go there, anyway. I need to check on my men. I left them there securing the property.’

‘And can I borrow your mobile?’

White handed it to him. He phoned Ahmed and asked him to inform Don Taylor of SOCO that he wanted him to go over the farmhouse where Glazer had been hiding out. He told Ahmed that Taylor was to check in particular for any clothing or effects there that were bloodstained; essentially, he was looking for blood samples that belonged to the late Harry Harrison. Also to see what fingerprints he could collect that would identify Ox and Kenny, if they were on record.

He returned the mobile to White gratefully.

A few minutes later, White dropped Angel and Gawber off at the gate to the rhubarb sheds where he cordially took his leave of them. They gave him hearty thanks and waved him off as he turned round and drove away.

Angel was anxious to return to the scanner to find out the whereabouts of Glazer’s Mercedes. He dashed over to his car and unlocked it; Gawber sat beside him, picked up the scanner and switched it on. It showed that the battery of the miniature transmitter was very much alive and sending out a strong signal.

‘Looks all right,’ Gawber said.

Angel nodded approvingly.

Gawber checked the co-ordinates and then frowned. He said: ‘The car hasn’t moved, sir. I don’t think it has moved since we tracked it here.’

Angel pursed his lips. ‘They can’t still be here?’ he said. ‘The Merc must be in one of these sheds then?’ His face changed as he considered the possibilities. ‘That means they’re in another car?’

Gawber blinked.

‘We’ve got to find that Merc,’ Angel said. ‘Come on!’

He dashed out of the car, slammed the door and began to climb over the fence onto the earth trodden track around the sheds. Gawber joined him.

‘Doesn’t look as if many cars or trucks come in and out of here. We’ve only got to find recent tyre tracks. That’ll not be too difficult. How many sheds are there? Maybe twenty. We’ve just got to find recent tracks of a car leading out of a pair of doors, that’s all.’

True enough. It didn’t take them five minutes. The double doors of one of the sheds were locked with a sturdy padlock. The hasps were bolted through thin, old timber. A few kicks and some pulling away of splintering wood permitted them easy access. They dragged open the doors and saw that the shed was empty, but there were tyre tracks in trodden down earth.

‘There must be another shed they used as a garage,’ Gawber said.

Angel rubbed his chin.

Then he saw something shine on the ground near the door. He bent down and picked it up; it was the tracking device. It must have dropped off the Mercedes. Sometimes this happened if the original fitting to the bodywork had not been made between two clean pieces of metal. This had clearly occurred here.

Angel sighed. All that work, time and endurance counted for nothing. The muscles of his jaw tightened. There would be no further signal from the Mercedes. The Glazer gang were free and could now be committing murder and mayhem totally unrestrained. They had to be found and imprisoned quickly. He raced back to the car, unlocked the door, grabbed the mike of the RT and spoke directly to the operations room at Bromersley station. He gave the duty officer a description of Glazer’s Mercedes and index number and told him to circulate all 43 forces with an urgent request for any sighting of it to be made direct back to him on his mobile phone. He added the important warning that Glazer’s gang was in possession of the vehicle, that they were armed and extremely dangerous.

‘What?’ he roared. ‘So you have no idea where they are?’

‘I am afraid not, sir,’ Angel said.

He knew he was going to have to take some stick from Harker.

The superintendent wrinkled his nose and sniffed. ‘You know, I much prefer the one about The Three Bears,’ he growled.

Angel continued unbowed: ‘I’ve had a notice circulated round all 43 forces, sir. Full description and details. Now that Glazer’s gang haven’t a safe haven to flee to, as they spend their funds, they may have to show their hand.’

‘Aye. Probably open an account with the Northern Bank,’ he said. ‘At two o’clock in the morning,’ he added sarcastically. ‘What about Spencer? What sort of shape is he in? Where is he now?’

‘Pretty bad, sir. But he’s in the burns unit at Bromersley General.’

Harker pulled a face that made his big ginger eyebrows bounce up and then down. ‘Are you going to be able to make the case of murder against him stick?’

‘I don’t know, sir. The motive’s strong enough.’

‘What was he doing in Glazer’s gang?’

‘He wasn’t in the gang, sir. He was their prisoner. They must have wanted something from him.’

‘Oh? Information about the bank?’

‘More likely about the two million.’

‘But Spencer didn’t know where Harrison had hidden it.’

‘No, sir, but Glazer didn’t know that.’

Harker rubbed his chin. ‘But how did he know about its existence in the first place?’

‘Could only have been told about it by Harrison or Spencer.’

‘They would have been fools to have told Eddie Glazer.’

‘Harrison would have been too smart to have breathed a word about it. But Spencer was comparatively green. Maybe he was scared. Maybe they scared it out of him. As a matter of fact, Glazer told me that Spencer had confessed to him that he had killed Harrison. Said he’d told him he’d stabbed him five times. Five times. He made a point of saying that.’

Harker blinked. ‘Have you seen Mac’s PM on Harrison? My copy arrived this morning.’

‘Not yet, sir.’

‘Mac does say that there were five separate stabbing wounds to the heart and aorta, delivered in quick succession.’

Angel frowned. ‘That would result in a mighty great surge of blood. That suggests that Glazer did it. I can’t imagine that if Spencer put a knife into a man intending to murder him, that he could take it out in the midst of blood pumping out and insert it again and again and then twice more. It takes a certain callous, hardened character to do that. And then having succeeded with the murder, be able to recall accurately how many stabs he had made.’