Ipulled up on the forecourt of the shops in Street Lane at five to seven in Bill's Saab Turbo convertible. One of the first rules of surveillance is to vary the vehicle you're sit­ting round in. Luckily, when Bill had gone off to Australia, he'd left me with a set of keys for his house and the car. I'd left Shelley's Rover in Bill's garage, with a message on the office answering machine telling her to hang on to the coupe for the time being. I felt sure this was a hardship she'd be able to bear, always supposing she didn't leap to the conclusion that the reason I wasn't back with her Rover was that her beloved heap was in some garage being restored to its former glory.

It had been a toss-up whose house I was going to sit outside this morning. On the one hand, if I didn't keep close tabs on Nicholas Turner, having the buckle bugged would have been a complete waste of time. On the other hand, Simon Morley's lit­tle adventures in cleaning had already cost a man his life. I'd lain awake, tossing and turning to the point where Richard, who normally sleeps like a man in persistent vegetative state, had sat up in bed and demanded to know what was going on. He'd eventually persuaded me to talk the dilemma over with him, something I always used to do but had been avoiding since his involvement in the car fraud case caused us both so much grief.

"You've got to go after the fence," he finally said.

"Why?"

"Because if you lose him this time, you'll never get a second bite of the cherry. Sooner or later, someone's going to spot that your buckle isn't just a fake but a bugged fake, and then you're going to be on someone's most-wanted list. And if this Simon Morley really has killed some bloke accidentally, he's going to be a damn sight more careful what he puts in his chemical soup in future. I'd be surprised if he's still at it. Maybe I should give him a bell; if he's such a shit-hot chemist, I know some people who'd be delighted to have him on the payroll."

I smacked his shoulder. "I've told you before about the peo­ple you hang out with."

He grinned. "Only joking. You know I'm allergic to any­thing stronger than draw. Anyway, Brannigan, you should go for the fence."

"You sure?" I asked, still doubtful.

"I'm sure."

"And what about the ten grand?"

Richard shrugged. "Hang on to it for now. We all need walk­ing-round money."

"It's a lot to be walking round with. Shouldn't I be paying it back to the insurance company, or somebody?"

"They don't know you've got it, they're not going to miss it. Maybe you should just look on it as an early Christmas bonus for Mortensen and Brannigan."

"I don't know.

"Trust me. I'm not a doctor," he said, wrapping his arms round me and nuzzling the back of my neck. Instant goose-flesh. You can't fight your gonads. I hadn't even wanted to try. Michael who?

The Turner household came to life round half past seven. The curtains in the master bedroom opened, and I caught a glimpse of Nicholas in his dressing gown. This time I'd come fully equipped for surveillance. I had a video camera in the well of the passenger seat, cunningly hidden in a bag made of one­way fabric which allowed the camera to see out but prevented anyone seeing in. I had a pair of high-powered binoculars in my bag, and my Nikon with a long lens attached sitting on the passenger seat. And five hundred quid of walking-round money in the inside pocket of my jacket. I'd left the other nine and a half grand with Richard, who had strict instructions to pay it into a building society account which I hold in a false name for those odd bits and pieces of money that it's some­times advisable to lose for a while.

At quarter past eight, Mrs. Turner and her two daughters emerged, the girls in the same smart school uniform. The Audi drove off. Two hours later, the Audi came back. Mrs. Turner staggered indoors with enough Tesco carrier bags to feed Bosnia. Then nothing for two more hours. At a quarter to one, Mrs. T came out, got into the Audi and drove off. She came back at ten past two, when I was halfway through my Flying Pizza special. If something didn't happen soon, I was either going to die of boredom or go home. Apart from anything else, Radio Four loses its marbles between three and four in the af­ternoon, and I didn't think I could bear to listen to an hour of the opinions of those who are proof positive that care in the community isn't working.

Half an hour later, the front door opened, and Nicholas Turner came out. He was carrying a briefcase and a suit car­rier. He opened the garage, dumped the suit carrier in the boot and reversed out into the road. "Geronimo," I muttered, start­ing my engine. Within seconds, the screen told me that he had the buckle with him. I eased out into the traffic and followed him back through the park.

The traffic was pretty much nose to tail as we came down the hill toward the city center, so it wasn't hard to stay in touch with the Mercedes. I kept a couple of cars between us, which meant I got snagged up a couple of times at red lights, but there wasn't enough free road for him to make much headway. I realized pretty soon he was heading for the motorways, which took some of the pressure off. I caught up with him just before he hit the junction where he had to choose between the M621 toward Manchester and the Ml for the south and east. He ignored the first slip road and roared off down the Ml. In the Saab, it was easy to keep pace with him, which was another good reason for having swapped the Rover. I kept about half a mile behind him to begin with, since I didn't want to lose him at the M62 junction. Sure enough, he turned off, heading east toward Hull.

We hammered down the motorway, the speedo never vary­ing much either side of eighty-five. He'd obviously heard the same rumor I had about that being the speed cameras' trigger point. When we hit Hull, he followed the signs for the ferry port. I followed, with sinking heart. At the port, he parked and went into the booking office. I got into the queue in time to hear him book the car and himself on to that night's ferry. I didn't have any choice. I had to do the same thing.

By the time I emerged, he'd disappeared. I ran to the car, and saw that the buckle was moving away from the ferry port. He was either going to dispose of it now, or it was going on the ferry with him. Either way, I needed to try to follow him. I drove off in the direction the receiver indicated, grabbing my phone as I went and punching in Richard's number. The dash­board clock told me it was five past four. I prayed. He an­swered on the third ring. "Yo, Richard Barclay," he said.

"I need a mega favor," I said.

"Lovely to hear your voice too, Brannigan," he said.

"It's an emergency. I'm in Hull."

"That sounds like an emergency to me."

"I've got to be on the half-past-six ferry to Holland. My passport's in the top drawer of my desk. Can you get it, and get here by then?"

"In my car? You've got to be kidding."

I could have wept. He was right, of course. Even though it's pretty souped up, his Volkswagen just couldn't do the distance in the time. Then I remembered the coupe. "Shelley's got the Gemini," I told him. "I'll get her to meet you outside the office in five minutes with it. Can you do it?"

"I'll be there," he promised.

I rang the office, one eye on the monitor, one eye on the road. I was probably the most dangerous thing on the streets of Hull. We seemed to be heading east, farther down the Hum-ber estuary. Shelley answered brightly.

"Don't ask questions, it's an emergency," I said.

"You've been arrested," she replied resignedly.

"I have not been arrested. I'm hot on the trail of a team of international art thieves. Some people would be proud to work with me."

"Okay, it's an emergency. What's it got to do with me?"

"Hang on, I think I'm losing someone..." We'd cleared the suburbs of Hull, and the receiver was registering a sharp change in direction. Sure enough, about a kilometer up the road, there was a right turn. Cautiously, I drove into the nar­row road, then pulled up. The distance between us remained constant. He'd stopped.

And the phone was squawking in my ear. "Sorry, Shelley. Okay, what I need is for you to meet Richard downstairs in five minutes with the Gemini. He'll leave you his car so you won't be without wheels," I added weakly.

"You expect me to drive that?"

"It'll do wonders for your street cred," I said, ending the call. I was in no mood for banter or argument. I put the car in gear and moved slowly down the lane, keeping an eye open for Turner's car. The Tarmac ended a few hundred yards later in the car park of a pub overlooking the wide estuary. There were only two cars apart from Turner's Merc. There was no way I was going in there, even if he was offering the buckle to the highest bidder. With so few customers, I'd be painfully obvious. All I could do was head back to the main road and pray that Turner would still have the buckle with him.

I fretted for an hour, then the screen revealed signs of ac­tivity. The buckle was moving back toward me. Moments later, Turner's car emerged from the side road and headed back into Hull. "There is a God," I said, pulling out behind him. We got back to the ferry port at half past five. Turner joined the queue of cars waiting to board, but I stayed over by the booking of­fice. The last thing I wanted was for him to clock me and the Saab at this stage in the game.

Richard skidded to a halt beside me at five to six. He gave me a thumbs-up sign as he got out. He picked up my emer­gency overnight bag from the passenger seat and came over to the Saab. He tossed the bag into the back and settled into my passenger seat. "Well done," I said, leaning across to give him a smacking kiss on the cheek.

"You'll have to stand on for any speeders I picked up," he said. "It really is a flying machine, that coupe."

"You brought the passport?"

Richard pulled out two passports from his inside pocket. Mine and his. "I thought I'd come along for the ride," he said. "I've got nothing pressing for the next couple of days, and it's about time we had a jaunt."

I shook my head. "No way. This isn't a jaunt. It's work. I've got enough to worry about without having to think about whether you're having a nice time. I really appreciate you do­ing this, but you're not coming with me."

Richard scowled. "I don't suppose you know where this guy's going?"

"I've no idea. But where he goes, I follow."

"You might need some protective coloring," he pointed out. "I've heard you say that sometimes there are situations where a woman on her own stands out where a couple don't.

I think I should come along. I could share the driving."

"No. And no. And no again. You don't expect me to inter­view spotty adolescent wannabe rock stars, and I don't expect you to play detectives. Go home, Richard. Please?"

He sighed, looking mutinous. "All right," he said, sounding exactly like his nine-year-old son Davy when I drag him off the computer and tell him ten is not an unreasonable bedtime. He flung open the car door and got out, turning back to say, "Just don't expect me to feed the cat."

"I haven't got a cat," I said, grinning at his olive branch.

"You could have by the time you get back. Take care, Brannigan."

I waved as I drove off, keeping an eye on him in my rearview mirror. As I took my place in the slowly moving queue, I saw him get in the car and drive off. Half an hour later, I was standing in the stern of the ship, watching the quay recede inch by inch as we slowly moved away from the dock and out toward the choppy steel gray waters of the North Sea.

I spent almost all of the trip closeted in my cabin with a spy thriller I'd found stuffed into the door pocket of Bill's car. The only time I went out was for dinner, which comes in­cluded in the fare. I left it to the last possible moment, hop­ing Turner would have eaten and gone by then. I'd made the right decision; there was no sign of him in the restaurant, so I was able to enjoy my meal without having to worry about him clocking me. I was certain he wouldn't recognize me as the tart with the buckle, but if this surveillance lasted any length of time, the chances were that he'd see me somewhere along the line. I didn't want him connecting me back to the ferry crossing.

On the way back to the cabin, I changed some money: £50 each of guilders, Belgian francs, deutsche marks, French francs, Swiss francs and lire. Nothing like hedging your bets. The sea was calm enough for me to get a decent night's sleep, and when we docked at Rotterdam, I felt refreshed enough to drive all day if I had to. From where I was placed on the ear deck, I couldn't actually see Turner, and the steel hull of the ship didn't do a lot of favors for the reception on the tracking monitor.

Once I was clear of the ship, however, the signal came back strong and clear. For once, Bill's mongrel European ancestry worked to my advantage. He makes so many trips to the con­tinent to visit family that he has serious road maps and city street plans for most of northern Europe neatly arranged in a box in his boot. I'd shifted the box to the backseat and in­folded a map of Holland and Belgium on the passenger seat. Comparing the map to the monitor, I reckoned Turner vas heading for Eindhoven. As soon as I got on the motorway I stepped on the gas, pushing my speed up toward a ton, trying to close the distance between us.

Within half an hour, I had Turner in my sights again. He was cruising along just under ninety, and there was enough traffic on the road for me to stay in reasonably close touch without actually sitting on his bumper. He stayed on the motorway past Eindhoven. The next possible stop was Antwerp. From my point of view, there couldn't be a better destination. Bill's mother grew up in the city and he still has a tribe of re­lations there. I've been over with him on weekend trips a cou­ple of times, and I fell in love with the city at first sight. Now I feel like I know it with the intimacy of a lover.

It was my lucky day. He swung off the E34 at the Antwerp turnoff and headed straight for the city center. He seemed to know where he was going, which made following him a lot tastier than if he'd kept pulling over to consult a map or ask a passerby for his destination. Me, I was just enjoying bang back in Antwerp. I don't know how it manages it, but it still manages to be a charming city even though it's the economic heartbeat of Belgium. You don't normally associate culture with huge docks, a bustling financial center and the major petrochemical industries. Not forgetting Pelikaanstraat, second only to Wall Street in the roll of the richest streets in the world. Come to think of it, what better reason could a fence have for coming to Antwerp than to do a deal in Pelikaan­straat, since its diamonds are the most portable form of hard currency in the world?

It began to look as if that was Turner's destination. We ac­tually drove along the street itself, diamond merchants lining one side, the railway line the other. But he carried on up to the corner by Centraal Station and turned left into the Keyserlei. He slipped into a parking space just past De Keyser, the city center's most expensive hotel, took his briefcase and suit car­rier out of the car and walked inside. Cursing, I made a quick circuit of the block till I found a parking garage a couple of hundred meters away. I chose one of the several bars and restaurants opposite the hotel and settled down with a coffee and a Belgian waffle. I was just in time to see a liveried flunky drive off in Turner's car, presumably taking it to the hotel garage.

I was on my third coffee when Turner reemerged. I left the cup, threw some money on the table and went after him. He crossed over to the square by the station and walked toward the row of tram stops on Carnotstraat. He joined the bunch of people waiting for a tram. I dodged into a nearby tobacconist and bought a book of tram tickets, praying he'd still be there when I came out.

He was, but only just. He was stepping forward to board a tram that was pulling up at the stop. I ran across the street and leapt onto the second of the two carriages just before the doors hissed shut. Turner was sitting near the front, his back to me. He got off near the Melkmarkt, and I had no trouble fol­lowing him past the cathedral and into the twisting medieval streets of the old town. He was strolling rather than striding, and he didn't look like he had the slightest notion that he might be followed. That was more than I could say for myself. I kept getting a prickling sensation in the back of my neck, as if I were aware at some subconscious level of being watched. I kept glancing over my shoulder, but I saw nothing to alarm me.

Eventually, we ended up in the Vrijdag Markt. Since it was too late for the twice-weekly secondhand auction, I could only assume Turner was heading for the Plantin-Moretus Mu­seum. I'd tracked him all the way round Antwerp just so we could go round a printing museum? I hung back while he bought a ticket, then I followed him in. While it was no hard­ship to me to revisit one of my favorite museums, I couldn't see how it was taking me any nearer my art-racket master­mind.

The Plantin-Moretus house and its furnishings are just as they were when Christopher Plantin was Europe's boss printer back in the sixteenth century. But Nicholas Turner didn't seem too interested in soaking up the paintings, tapestries, manu­scripts and antique furniture. He was moving swiftly through the rooms. Then I realized he was heading straight for the en­closed garden at the heart of the rectangular house. Rather than follow him out into the open air, I stayed put on the first floor, where I could see what was going on.

Turner sat down on a bench, appearing to be simply enjoy­ing the air. After about five minutes, another man joined him. They said nothing, but when the stranger moved on a few min­utes later, he left his newspaper beside Turner's briefcase. An­other few minutes went by, then Turner picked up the paper, placed it in his briefcase and started for the exit. The man had definitely been watching too many James Bond films.

I hurried back through the rooms I'd already visited and made it into the street in time to see Turner hail a cab. I ran up the square after him, but there wasn't another cab in sight. I ran all the way up to the Grote Market before I could get a cab to stop for me.

Luck was still running my way. As we turned into the Key-serlei, Turner was walking into the hotel. I paid off the cab and chose another bar to watch from. I'd eaten a bucket of mussels and drunk three more coffees before I saw any action. This time, he walked round the corner into the Pelikaanstraat. A couple of hundred yards down the street, he turned into a dia­mond merchant's. I wasn't too happy about staking the place out; it's an area where people are understandably suspicious of idle loitering. I'd noticed a slightly seedy-looking hotel on the way down the street, so I doubled back and walked into the foyer. It seemed as handy a place as any to spend the night, so I booked a room while I was waiting. I settled down on a sofa near the door and waited.

I was beginning to think Turner had gone off in the other direction when he finally walked past just before six. This time, I followed him into the hotel, where he headed for recep­tion to pick up his key. I picked up a brochure about daily ex­cursions to Bruges, managing to get close enough to hear him book a table for one in the restaurant at seven and an early-morning call at six. It sounded like he wasn't planning on any­thing more exciting than an early night. It sounded like a good idea to me.

I had one or two things to see to before I could crash out, but by half past seven, I was sorted. I'd used the hotel phone to check in with Shelley, since my mobile isn't configured to work with the continental system. She was singularly unim­pressed with where I was, what I was doing and Richard's car. She was even less impressed when I confessed that her own car was less than a couple of miles from her house, locked safely inside Bill's garage, since the keys for the garage were lurking somewhere at the bottom of my bag.

Thanks to the wonders of car hire, I was better off than she was. I had my very own Mercedes stashed in the parking garage round the corner. The Saab was safely parked behind a high fence at the Hertz office, and I'd dined on a giant slab of steak with a pile of crisp chips and thick mayo. I hadn't eaten so well on a job for years.

By nine, I was watching CNN in my hotel room, a large vodka and grapefruit juice sweating on the bedside table next to me. I was just about to get up and run a bath when I heard the unmistakable sound of a key fumbling into the lock of my bedroom door.