Spotlight

by Robert Innes

  Blake let out a groan of frustration as the Pennines rapidly reversed and swung the car around in the middle of the forecourt. He ran across the road and jumped in the passenger seat. He stared expectantly at Woolf out of the windscreen as he leant across the bonnet of the car and grinned excitedly at Blake. “Now you’re gonna see how we do these chases in the States.”

  Blake widened his eyes in disbelief. “Will you just get in? They’re getting away!”

  Woolf tapped the bonnet again with both hands and then climbed into the driver’s seat, starting the car. As he did, Blake heard a loud rumble. He thought it was the engine of the car, but then heavy rain immediately hammered down around them. Woolf slammed his foot down and spun the steering wheel aggressively. The car immediately swung around, rocketing off in the direction of the Pennines.

  At first, they seemed quite far ahead, but it did not take long for Woolf to catch up. As the rain battered the windscreen, Woolf let out a harsh laugh. “Oh, this is what I’m talking about!”

  Blake merely shook his head incredulously.

  As the chase continued, the rain only seemed to get heavier. The evening light seemed to have quickly vanished, and soon it was so dark that the only time Blake could fully see out of the windscreen was when the wipers cleared the rain from the glass, though it quickly was replaced. The Pennines’ car was less flashy than the sports car, but that did not seem to stop them from tearing along the road. Before too long, Blake just could make out the silhouette of St Abra’s church in the middle of Harmschapel, which meant that they were now speeding through the village.

  “They’re going to kill someone at this rate,” Blake said, as the vague shapes of buildings whizzed past them in the dark. “Or we are. You’re going to have to slow down.”

  “No can do, Harte,” Woolf replied, grabbing the gearstick and ramming it forwards. “Lesson one of a car chase, if the suspect is driving crazy, you have to as well. Don’t worry, I’ve done this hundreds of times. They’re not getting away this time.”

  By more luck than judgement, in Blake’s opinion, the lights around them vanished, meaning they had managed to clear the village without serious incident, but Blake was now all too aware of the winding country roads coming up ahead of them, and the rain seemed to somehow be getting heavier.

  “The roads are curved ‘round here, be careful!” Blake cried. Woolf said nothing. His eyes were fixed on the road ahead of them. The rear lights of the Pennines’ car were still visible ahead of them, but the corners were now coming faster than Blake was comfortable with.

  The car ahead skidded around the first one and Woolf did the same, causing Blake to grab the side of his seat. Blake had to admit that Woolf was driving with incredible skill, certainly more than the Pennines as soon the rear of their car was getting closer. By the time they had slewed around the third sharp bend, the Pennines were inches in front of them. In the distance, from the headlights from Woolf’s car, Blake could make out the passing point in the road telling them that Clifton Moore tunnel was just ahead. Blake had just begun inwardly praying that the road through the tunnel was clear, when Woolf cursed loudly. The Pennines car was slowing down, but aggressively, not out of caution.

  “What the hell is he doing? He’s trying to ram us!” Woolf bellowed, attempting to brake, but it was too late. The car slammed into the back of the Pennines with a loud crunch. Though neither car stopped moving, they were immediately plunged into complete darkness. Blake felt the car slow down further.

  “They’ve smashed my headlights,” Woolf cried. “Oh, they are going to pay for that.”

  “What are you doing?” Blake shouted urgently. “We can’t go on at this speed with no headlights in this weather!”

  “They’ve got no lights either,” Woolf said, seemingly ignoring Blake. He was right. For a few moments, the collision looked like it had also smashed the rear lights of the Pennines’ car. But then, as they entered the tunnel, they saw the red lights of the back of the car appear in front of them again.

  “We’ve got them now!” Woolf announced triumphantly. The tight curve in the tunnel brought the bricks around them closer than Blake could handle, and he gritted his teeth in preparation for the crash. Then, the red lights in front of them disappeared again, the bulbs apparently giving up completely. A second later, Woolf’s headlights came on again, illuminating the road in front of them.

  “We’ve got them – what the…?”

  Blake frowned and stared through the windscreen with his mouth open wide. They came out of the tunnel and Woolf hit the brakes, bringing them at last to a stop. But they were alone.

  As soon as the car had stopped, Blake got out and stared around them in disbelief. The Pennines’ vehicle was nowhere to be seen. As the rain continued hammering around them, soaking Blake almost immediately, he turned around to face the tunnel again, the incomprehension of the situation rendering him speechless. Somehow, the Pennines’ car had completely vanished while they had been speeding through the narrow, dark tunnel.

  6

  It did not take long for the other officers from Harmschapel police station to make their way to the scene. The rain had finally died down, and Woolf had moved his car to a passing spot close to the exit of the tunnel. Blake was sat by the side of the road, silently, desperately trying to work out how what he had just witnessed had happened. The Pennines had been just in front of them, he had seen the rear lights of their car clearly. Then, in a second, in the time it had taken for those lights to go off again and Woolf’s to come back on, they had completely disappeared. It was impossible.

  Mattison walked towards Blake and broke into his thoughts. “We’ve closed the road, Sir. Nothing can come from either direction.”

  Blake nodded. “Did you get the torch?”

  Mattison handed it over, giving Blake a tentative look. “Are you sure about this, Sir? I mean, a car can’t just vanish. Nothing can.”

  Blake did not reply. Instead, he grasped hold of the torch and strolled into the tunnel, shining the light around the walls as he followed the road. Around him, the tunnel was cramped, bricked up, and murky, but, as he had expected, absolutely solid. There was nothing to suggest that any tampering of any kind had gone on to make what he had seen happen. He slowly walked along the tunnel until he arrived at the entrance, where Woolf had driven them in. When he arrived at the opening, he found Angel waiting for him, his arms crossed and a stern expression on his face.

  “Rather farfetched, DS Harte,” he said levelly. Blake just nodded. It was certainly one way to describe it. “I understand from Detective Woolf that you were in pursuit of both suspects? Keith Pennine and his son?”

  “That’s right,” murmured Blake.

  “I’m telling you, boss,” Woolf added, appearing behind Blake. “They were both in that car. We saw them before we started chasing them. And before we even went in that tunnel, we rammed into the back of them! I don’t get it.”

  Blake looked down at the road. Just visible on the wet tarmac were the tyre tracks where Woolf had skidded his car around the bend in the tunnel, the same bend where the Pennines’ car seemed to have just disintegrated into thin air. Despite everything, he was finding it difficult to not be slightly pleased that Woolf seemed as dumbfounded by it all as he was.

  “I think it’s quite obvious that you have both been the victim of an elaborate hoax,” Angel said as he closed the notebook he had been writing in. “Needless to say, I shall be wanting to speak to you both tomorrow morning. I trust I will be able to leave you to finish off here?”

  Blake nodded as he watched Angel walk back to his car, calmly climb in, and drive off in the direction of Harmschapel.

  “Don’t feel down, Sir,” Mattison murmured as they watched Angel’s car disappear. “If everything happened the way you said it did, I’d like to see him manage to work it out.”

  Despite his foul mood, Blake smiled. “Thanks, Matti. So, do we have anything? Anything at all that can point towards how they did thi
s?”

  “We’ve checked the masonry, Sir,” Patil called, her voice echoing around the tunnel. “It’s like you said. It’s all solid brick. Nothing’s been moved, there’s no way they could have got out of here without going through the other end. The tunnel’s too narrow for you to have even overtaken them without realising.” She walked outside and shook her head, baffled. “I know we’ve had some weird cases before, Sir, but this one tops it.

  Blake sighed and scratched the back of his head. He did not have the slightest clue on where to begin trying to piece it together.

  “Still though,” Woolf said gruffly as he lit another cigarette, his fourth since the rest of the team had arrived. “This changes nothing. They can’t have gone that far.”

  “What do you think they’re doing? Hiding in the ceiling?” Blake snapped. “They’ve completely taken us for a ride, and you know it.”

  “Harte, chill out, man,” Woolf replied calmly. “I know, it’s weird. But there isn’t a criminal walking that can keep me fooled for long. They’ve won this round, I’ll give ‘em that. But we will find them. Trust me.”

  By the time Blake finally arrived home, it was close to midnight. The evening had been spent fruitlessly trying to find a single scrap of evidence that could point them in the right direction, but they had found nothing. In the end, Blake had told the team to reopen the road, and sent everyone home, in the vein hope that things would become clearer after a good night’s sleep. He felt exhausted, but he knew that it would take hours for him to fall asleep. His head was buzzing too loudly with the incomprehensibility of the day’s events. When he walked into the house, he found Harrison sitting alone in the living room.

  “Hi,” he said wearily. “I cannot begin to tell you the day I have had.”

  Harrison barely looked up from the television. “Yeah. I could say the same to you.”

  For a moment, Blake was confused by Harrison’s cold tone, but then he remembered their earlier phone conversation. He sighed and walked towards Harrison, wrapping his arms around his shoulders. “Look, I am so sorry about biting your head off. I was the one in the wrong, I had no right snapping at you like that. It won’t happen again, I promise.”

  Harrison stood up, shook Blake’s hands off him, and strolled into the kitchen. “I’ve heard that before, Blake.”

  It took Blake a couple of seconds to land on what Harrison was getting at, but when he realised, his mouth fell open in outrage. “Are you serious?”

  Harrison leant against the kitchen counter, his hands on his head. Blake could tell he immediately regretted his words, but they stung nevertheless. He folded his arms and looked at him seriously. “Harrison, you can’t compare me snarling at you ‘cause of the day I’ve had, compared to…” His voice trailed off, he was sure he did not need to explicitly mention Harrison’s abusive ex-boyfriend. Harrison looked down at the floor and said nothing. “What’s brought this on?”

  “Your mum,” Harrison replied quietly.

  Blake groaned and looked up at the ceiling. “Oh, what has she said?”

  Harrison looked up at him, more annoyed than Blake had ever seen him. “It’s not so much what she said, Blake, it’s more what you didn’t say.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “We ran into Jacqueline at The Dog’s Tail,” Harrison replied sharply. “While I was on the phone to you, Stephanie managed to get out of her everything that had happened with Mum and Dad, as well as my history with Daniel. It took her about two minutes to find out that the guy her son is now with let all those things happen to him. As far as she’s concerned, I’m just about the worst thing that could possibly have happened to you.”

  Blake stared at him in disbelief. “How can she think that?”

  “Because you didn’t tell her about me, Blake! She sees me as some mucky little secret you wanted to keep hidden. And do you know what the worst bit is? I couldn’t argue with her. Because I don’t know why you didn’t tell them! Unless you are that ashamed of me?”

  Blake put his head in his hands. “Of course I’m not, Harrison.”

  “Do you know what she said to me? ‘Both parents in prison for murder? How do we know that the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree?’ She actually thinks that I could be capable of something like that, Blake. And all because you didn’t tell her that you were in a new relationship. Why didn’t you say anything?”

  Blake sighed and held his hands out. “This is why, Harrison. Because she can’t help poking her nose in. She doesn’t mean to come across as such a battle axe, it’s just her way.”

  Harrison shook his head. “That doesn’t answer my question, Blake, and you know it. She was going to find out at some point. If it wasn’t for your dad, I dunno how I would have even handled today. She treated me like I was some sort of intruder! Then when she found out about my parents, she basically told me that I was bad news for you. I even heard her say to your dad – ‘Nathan would never have caused us this sort of worry.’”

  Blake could see that Harrison was starting to get quite worked up, so he walked towards him and placed his arms around him. “Look, stop. Okay? Just stop.”

  “I can’t, Blake!” Harrison cried, again, shaking himself free. “She made me feel about that big.”

  “Who cares what my mum thinks though? This is just what she gets like!” Blake argued back. “I told you, she treated Nathan exactly the same when she first met him!”

  Harrison sighed and walked towards the stairs. “It’s all well and good you saying ’who cares,’ Blake. But you seem to be forgetting that you are the reason that I’m even here in the first place. You came into my life, and suddenly everything changes. I hadn’t even known you a week before both my parents ended up in prison, leaving me alone with only a goat for a friend. I’m trying to rebuild my life, and I’m sorry, but you’re pretty much the main part of that, because I haven’t got anything or anyone else. And when I’ve got your family wanting me gone because you didn’t think to mention me, I’m sorry, but I do care.” He turned and walked up the stairs.

  Blake did not know what to say. Throughout their relationship up to this point, he had tried his hardest to try and relieve Harrison of some of the anxiety he had had to live with, and as proud as he was that he felt that he could say things like that to him, it still was not easy to hear. “Where are you going?”

  “I’m going to bed.”

  “Where are my parents?”

  “Oh,” Harrison said bitterly, turning on the stairs. “They went to the B&B. I don’t think your mum wanted to share a house with me. You know, with me being such a terrible person.”

  And with that, he climbed the stairs, leaving Blake alone in the dark kitchen, his only company being his own thoughts after what had been a pretty awful day.

  7

  Another night of broken sleep resulted in Blake feeling exhausted when the alarm went off the next morning. As soon as he opened his eyes, the previous night’s argument landed loudly in his head. Blake glanced across at Harrison, who was lying on his side, his back to him. His usual soft snores were missing, leading Blake to the conclusion that Harrison was pretending to be asleep. He briefly toyed with the idea of checking, but decided against it. He was tired and his brain wasn’t clear enough at this moment to try and reason with a clearly still upset Harrison.

  Instead, he picked up his uniform from the chair and took them into the bathroom with him, changing straight into them after his shower. He then went downstairs and made himself a pot of tea while he tried to put together the broken jigsaw puzzle that resembled his brain that morning. It was bad enough that he had argued with Harrison, but the bizarre events with the Pennines’ car only added to his problems. He had hoped that a night’s sleep would trigger something in his brain to give him a clue as to how the impossible feat had been accomplished, but if anything, he was more confused now than he had been when he had been standing at the mouth of the tunnel.

  He sighed and took a long pull on his ecig, glan
cing out of the kitchen window. Just visible through the trees on the other side of the road was the B&B his parents were currently staying. He blew the vapour out of his nose like a dragon, a surge of annoyance pulsing through him as he imagined how his mother had spoken to Harrison that had resulted in him feeling so upset. He drank his tea as quickly as the temperature of it allowed, and made a mental note that he was going to speak to his father alone before the day was out. He was just searching for his house keys when he felt his mobile ringing in his pocket. He scowled at the screen, not recognising the number. It was too early even for a cold caller, so he put the phone to his ear while he hunted around for the keys. A familiar voice made him roll his eyes.

  “Harte, it’s Detective Woolf. Hope I didn’t wake you.”

  Blake glanced at the clock on the wall. “So do I, considering I’m supposed to be in in twenty minutes. How did you get my number?”

  “Inspector Angel,” replied Woolf shortly. “There’s been a development, Harte.”

  Blake frowned as he finally laid his hands on his keys, which had fallen down the back of the fruit bowl. “What sort of development?”

  Woolf paused, presumably for dramatic effect. “We’ve found the car.”

  Though the fire had been put out, the smell of burning fuel still hung in the air. It was acrid and made it difficult to breath.

  Blake, Mattison, Woolf and Patil were close to a field in a remote part of the countryside, a few miles away from the exit to the tunnel. The car that had somehow disappeared the night before was now a shadow of its former self, an abandoned burnt out shell, with only the bent and charred metal framework still resembling its previous shape.

  “It’s the car, alright,” Woolf said, “But what the hell is it doing out here?”

  “Who found it?” Blake asked, staring at the husk of the vehicle.

  “A couple were driving towards Harmschapel this morning, Sir,” Mattison replied, passing him a document. “They saw it in the distance, just as the petrol tank blew. They said it threw a massive fireball up in to the air. Here’s the report from the fire services. Not that they needed to tell us, but they say it was deliberate. They found a discarded petrol tank in the bushes.”