“You’ve been reading the papers, I can tell,” said Joanna, leaning back in her chair and sipping her Coke. “OK, yes, that’s a part of what we do.” ANPR stood for automatic number plate recognition, a system of software able to collect number plate data from converted CCTV units on all motorways, major roads and in town and city centers.

“So you must have some names for me.”

“What do you mean?”

“Some of your regulars. And don’t tell me Operation Hawk has yielded no results so far. There’s organization involved here, Joanna. Palms to be greased, papers to be forged, that sort of thing. They might use locals for the jobs and for the scouting, but the whole operation’s got to be run by an organized gang. There has to be a brain behind it somewhere. And money.”

“Fair enough. There’s a few ­people we’re keeping an eye on, though they’re hardly the ones who drive lorries up and down the motorways. We do liaise with the NCA, too, on a regular basis, as well as with other county forces.” The NCA was the National Crime Agency, what the media referred to as the British FBI, which had replaced the Serious Organised Crime Agency. They weren’t primarily concerned with rural crime, as was Operation Hawk, but they were interested in almost everything else except counterterrorism, which remained within the Met’s remit. Slowly but surely, the technology was catching up with the criminals. “The problem is,” Joanna went on, “that we’d need specific locations to know if a certain car or lorry has been regularly spotted on that route. And, as you can imagine, on somewhere like the M1 or the A1 there’s a hell of a lot of normal traffic flow to rule out.”

“I see what you mean,” said Banks. “But if I give you the location of the hangar, and the closest access points to and from the A1, can you find out whether anyone’s been visiting the place regularly over the past year or so?”

“We keep the ANPR data for two years, so yes, we can do that. I don’t know about the actual location itself, but certainly the general area. Have you thought, though, Alan, that if some organization is using that corridor, as you suggest, then they’ll be smart enough to know about ANPR, and maybe even about Operation Hawk—­it’s hardly a classified operation, after all. They could avoid detection by using different vehicles. Or different number plates. Or varying their route.”

“Surely even you lot can spot a false number plate?”

Joanna laughed. “Sometimes. But there’s a lot of traffic. Not to mention all the foreign vehicles. We can liaise with Interpol and Europol if we need, as well as with forces in specific countries, but that takes time and a finely honed sense of what you want. What you’re talking about just sounds too vague to me. I’m not saying we can’t help. Don’t get me wrong. Just telling you not to expect miracles.”

“I never have,” said Banks. “Not unless I’ve laid the groundwork for them.” He finished his pie and sipped some beer, then swirled the pale gold liquid in his glass. “If I’m thinking along the right lines,” he went on, “someone might have driven up on Sunday morning. At least that’s when one of our suspects received a text and left his flat in a hurry.”

“Or down,” said Joanna. “How do you know they didn’t come from Newcastle, or Edinburgh, Glasgow?”

“Point taken. Or down. But one way or another we’re looking at placing a vehicle, or vehicles, at the abandoned airfield between, say, half past nine and ten o’clock, which means they would have come off the A1 about a mile from the village of Hallerby five minutes earlier. Or from the junction at Thirsk or Northallerton.”

“You’d be surprised how much data that involves, but I’d say we could probably do it, yes. Remember, though, we’re only interested in specific vehicles. We’ve got a definite location and a specific time frame. What exactly are you looking for?”

“In the first place, anyone on your list, any of your specific vehicles, anyone suspected of having even the remotest involvement in rural crime on a large scale being spotted at that place and time. Second, anyone you’ve been tracking for some time, anyone who seems to have made an inordinate number of trips up there for no apparent reason. Also, anyone with a criminal record of any kind, especially for violent offenses.”

“That latter request might be difficult,” Joanna said. “It’s not really within our parameters to check all number plates for convicted criminals. Needless to say, we can’t actually tell you who was driving the car or lorry at the time, just that it passed such and such a location. And it’s not as if we’re out there writing down the numbers of all the cars that pass by. It’s a very specific operation, precise, targeted.”

Banks slipped out his notebook and gave her Michael Lane’s number plate. “It would help if we could know whether he’d been in the area or not, too,” he said. “And we’re tracking down another number, a large van used for removals. We think it may have been involved in the theft of the tractor.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” said Joanna. “But, remember, some of these ­people are clever.”

“Everyone slips up sometime. And it’s just possible that someone might have been in a hurry. It looks as if there was a shooting at the hangar, Joanna. It’s not just a stolen tractor or a few missing sheep now. It could be murder.”

TERRY GILCHRIST had just put his feet up for an hour’s reading before dinner when the doorbell rang. His leg hurt and he cursed mildly as he got to his feet and went to answer it. He could see only a blurred figure through the frosted glass, but when he opened the door he saw the beautiful black detective standing there. At least he thought she was beautiful. He hoped his mouth hadn’t dropped as far as he felt it had. Since he’d been to war, then invalided back home, he seemed to have lost whatever facility he had ever possessed with the opposite sex. He had certainly had no interest in the brothels of Helmand Province, and opportunities to meet other kinds of women outside the armed forces themselves had been few and far between. Now here stood a woman who probably suspected him of murder. He had been friendly with one of the military investigators out in Helmand, who had worked on the Met as a detective, and he knew they always suspected the person who reported the crime. Still, she was smiling, and that was a good sign. She was casually dressed in jeans and black polo-­neck jumper. Perhaps that was a good sign, too.

“Come in,” he said, standing aside and gesturing toward the living room.

“Hope I didn’t disturb anything,” she said. “I have a few more follow-­up questions for you.”

“Not at all. Just having a sit-­down.” She has an intriguing voice, he thought. At first he had hardly noticed it, as she appeared to speak unaccented English, but if he listened closely he could hear intermingled undertones of Jamaica and Yorkshire. It was a unique blend, and he’d challenge any actor, however skilled, to reproduce it.

She sat down gracefully, crossing her long legs. He noticed her glancing at his leg as he walked by and used his arms to lower himself back into the armchair.

“I suppose it could be worse,” she said. “I mean the leg. Worse things than ending up with a slight limp.” He got the impression from her awkward tone that he had embarrassed her by catching her looking at his disability.

“Much worse. The alternatives hardly bear thinking about. Believe it or not, I’m on the mend. The doctors assure me the stick will go completely soon, but they fear the limp will persist. I don’t mean to complain, but the devil of it is that I’m used to outdoors pursuits. I used to love long-­distance running, golf, tennis, even a little fishing and potholing now and then.”

“Potholing?” Winsome said. “I used to do that.”

“Used to? What happened?”

“I got lost once, and the water was rising. I’m afraid I panicked a bit. It sort of put me off.”