Motive

by Alan McDermott

  “Get home, live, get caught, die,” Ryan smiled. “I think I got it.”

  “You better,” Paul said flatly. He pulled open the door until it hit the wall of the garage and Ryan squeezed in behind the wheel.

  “It’s keyless entry,” Paul said. “Just press the button next to the gear stick.”

  Ryan did so, and the engine responded immediately. “Nice.”

  The tank was full, and the satnav showed his current location with a blue line snaking up toward Manchester.

  “Remember, no stopping.”

  Paul slapped the roof, and Ryan slowly pulled out of the tight space.

  It was a nice motor, far better than anything Ryan had ever owned. He followed the sat nav’s directions until he was on the A2, then merged onto the M2 towards London. Alone in the car, he turned on the radio and found a station that played his kind of music.

  As Meatloaf blasted out of the speakers, Ryan was tempted to open the throttle to see what the car was capable of, but Paul’s warning was still fresh in his mind. Instead, he set the cruise control to sixty-eight miles per hour and tapped the wheel to the beat.

  He cut across to the M20, then joined the M26 for the M25, which was back to business as usual. Two traffic jams between junctions five and sixteen held him up for over forty minutes, but eventually he got onto the M40 for the long run to Birmingham.

  Ryan had eaten all of his food on the journey south, and by the time he reached the M42 he was famished. He was almost two-thirds of the way home, but he hit the outskirts of Birmingham at rush hour. After half an hour of crawling along, he got onto the M6, which was just as congested, and it was another ten miles before traffic started to thin. He managed to get back up to seventy, and that was when his heart almost stopped.

  For the last two hundred miles he’d seen Paul’s BMW—with Terry in the passenger seat—in his rear-view mirror, always within two or three vehicles of him. Now the only thing he could see was the blue flashing lights of a marked police car. It was twenty yards behind him, making no effort to overtake.

  “Fuck!”

  His first thought was to play it cool, pull over and see what they wanted, but if they decided to search the car, it would ruin his day big time. He looked back again. The cop car was a BMW, and he had no idea what speed it was capable of. The driver would certainly have chase experience, which put Ryan at a distinct disadvantage. Could the cop match the one-eighty of the Audi? There was only one way to find out.

  Ryan indicated, pulled onto the hard shoulder and turned off the engine, leaving it in first gear. The cop stopped three yards behind him and the front passenger got out.

  Breathe!

  Ryan forced himself to relax. If he appeared nervous, it would make the cops nervous, and that was the last thing he wanted.

  The cop walked up to the side of the Audi and Ryan spun down the window. “I don’t think I was speeding, officer.”

  The cop stuck his head in the car and sniffed. “Step out of the veh—”

  Ryan had been watching the traffic in his side mirror, his hand hovering over the Start button. As soon as he saw a gap, he pressed it, let the clutch out and hit the gas. The Audi shot forward, and the cop tried to grab hold of the door. He was dragged along for a few yards, then fell to the ground and rolled twice. Ryan watched in his mirror as the cop got up, ran back to the BMW and got in.

  Ryan built up a lead of a few hundred yards, and he had to try to stretch that farther. He jinked into the outside lane and leant on the horn, but an obstinate Mondeo driver refused to get out of his way. Ryan undertook him and hit the accelerator, the needle quickly passing a hundred and twenty.

  In his mirror, Ryan could see the cop car in pursuit. It was half a mile behind him, but had the advantage of the flashing blue lights to clear the traffic ahead of it. Ryan got back into the fast lane and leaned on the horn, flashing his lights at the cars ahead of him. They all got out of the way, and he put his foot to the floor. The needle crept past a hundred and eighty miles an hour as he flashed past the vehicles in the slower lanes, and the marked police car was having trouble keeping up with him.

  His advantage wouldn’t last long, though. They would call in support, which meant more patrol cars and possibly a helicopter. At that stage, he would be as good as caught. Outrunning the eye in the sky would be near impossible.

  Get off the motorway.

  The thought hit him as he saw the sign for junction fourteen for Stafford. He stayed in the outside lane until the last second, then darted left and just made the turn-off. He didn’t slow until he saw the line of traffic held up by a set of red lights at the roundabout, but he couldn’t afford to wait patiently in line. He slowed to thirty and took to the grass verge, the car bouncing on the uneven ground. He slowed even further, not wanting to damage the suspension, and at the lights he bounced back onto the road. Horns blared as he cut off two cars and a lorry, but Ryan ignored them. Getting away was all that counted, and he was already doing sixty when he reached the turnoff for the A34. The dual carriageway was mercifully quiet, and after cutting across a couple of roundabouts he continued to follow the A34 until he got to Newcastle-under-Lyme.

  There had been no sign of the police since he’d left the motorway, but he was sure the car’s details would have been passed to all units in the area. He decided to lay low for a while and let Paul know what had happened.

  Ryan drove through the town centre, then turned off the dual carriageway and into a warren of residential streets. He eventually parked up and found his position on his phone’s map, then called Paul.

  “Where are you?” Ryan asked.

  “Are you free to talk?”

  Ryan guessed he was asking if the cops had pulled him over, and if they were listening in to the conversation. “Yeah. I’m just getting my bearings. How about you meet me.” He gave Paul the postcode for the street he was parked on.

  “I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

  “No rush. I’m not going anywhere.”

  Ryan noticed that his hands were still shaking slightly from the adrenaline that had flooded his body during the chase. He stayed where he was for a few minutes until his heart rate was back to normal, then started the car and drove to the next street. It wouldn’t do to hang around in one place for too long, especially in an area with Neighbourhood Watch stickers on every lamppost. Some nosy sod was bound to take an interest in him eventually.

  Eighteen minutes after calling Paul, he drove back to the first street and saw the black BMW cruising slowly down the road. Ryan pulled over and Paul stopped next to him, winding down his window.

  “Follow me.”

  Ryan made a U-turn and tucked in behind him, and five minutes later they were in a business park. Paul drove around for a few minutes, then stopped on a quiet road. Ryan pulled up behind him and all three men got out of their cars.

  “Nice bit of driving,” Terry smiled.

  Paul opened the BMW’s boot and took out two licence plates. “Take the old ones off and put ’em under your seat.” Ryan did as he was told, and two minutes later the Audi’s makeover was complete.

  “Is it safe to drive it with false plates?” Ryan asked. It was certainly risky to continue to Manchester with the originals, but this didn’t make him feel much better.

  “What do you think you’ve been doing for the last two hundred and thirty miles?” Paul asked. He tapped the front bumper with his foot. “These are the real plates.”

  “You bastard! You could have warned me!”

  “What?” Paul laughed. “And miss a moment like this? No chance.”

  Terry was also grinning like an idiot. “We bought a spare pair of undies if you need ’em.”

  Ryan wasn’t the least impressed. “This isn’t funny! I could have been banged up! They could have taken Marsh’s gear!”

  “Relax. The other plates match an identical car that belongs to the boss. I called him and he’ll pop into the local nick and report it stolen. That way, he’s go
t an alibi. He can’t be driving the car and be fifty miles away in Hale at the same time. The most that would have happened if you’d pulled over would be a breathalyser test that would prove negative.”

  “How do you know? What if they checked in the back?”

  Paul gestured for Ryan to follow him to the back of the Audi and opened the boot. Inside was a black gym bag, and Paul unzipped it. “Take a look,” he said, standing back.

  Ryan peered inside, and anger rose in him like a tsunami reaching the shore. He picked up one of two-dozen toilet rolls and shoved it in Paul’s face. “What the fuck is this?”

  “Bog roll, comfy-bum, call it what you like. Marsh found it when he was on holiday in France and he can’t get it over here, so he imports it. Softest, smoothest wipe he’s ever had, apparently. Absorbent, too.”

  Ryan was beyond furious. “You had me drive all the way from Dover in a dodgy fucking motor for bog roll? Is this some kind of sick joke?”

  “Not a joke, a test,” Paul said, suddenly serious again. He nodded to Terry, who got behind the wheel of the BMW and drove away. “Get in, I’ll explain.”

  Ryan climbed into the Audi’s front passenger seat while Paul started the engine.

  “A couple of years ago, the police tried to infiltrate Marsh’s organisation. We got lucky when a Turk we were dealing with recognised the cop, and we dealt with him, but the boss has been paranoid ever since. Usually, he only recruits people if one of us has known them for years, but he took a liking to you. We couldn’t be sure you weren’t the filth, though, so he devised a couple of tests. The first was how you handled Mickey, and you passed that with flying colours.”

  “You mean you expected Mickey to be a challenge?”

  Paul shook his head. “We wanted to see what you would do in that situation. A copper might have thought twice before laying into Mickey, but you didn’t hesitate. And when the cop pulled you over earlier, you didn’t try to call anyone to get them to back off.”

  Ryan frowned. “How do you know I didn’t call anyone? I could have used hands-free.”

  “This says you didn’t,” Paul said. He tapped the satnav’s plastic mount, and at the bottom there was a tiny hole. “That’s a camera, and there’s a microphone under your seat. We could hear you singing along to golden oldies all the way from Dover. Spandau Ballet? Seriously?”

  “Gold’s a classic,” Ryan said defensively, but he was still angry about the way Paul had set him up. It was a lot of effort to go through just to see how he would handle being pulled over by the police. If the cops hadn’t tried to stop him, it would have been a wasted journey. Unless…

  “You put the cops onto me, didn’t you.”

  Paul nodded, then looked over at Ryan and grinned. “Had to be done, mate. There’s never a copper around when you need one, so I called the nines and told them a car was driving erratically on the motorway. Gave them your make and licence plate and sat back to watch the fun.”

  “You’re a real prick,” Ryan fumed.

  “Calm down, you soppy bastard. You handled it well, and that means you get the job. As I said, Marsh liked you from the start. Me, not so much. But, you’ve proved yourself, so I’ll admit I was wrong.”

  Ryan stared ahead. It made sense for Marsh to check him out thoroughly, and the two tests had been cleverly put together.

  It didn’t mean he had to like it.

  “You said you dealt with the undercover cop. How?”

  “Asked him to leave and never come back,” Paul deadpanned. “No idea what happened to him.”

  Ryan knew a lie when he heard one, but he wasn’t going to get anything more out of Paul.

  “Is your passport up to date?”

  “Yeah,” Ryan said. “Got a couple of years left on it.”

  “Good. We’re heading abroad in a few days. Pack for a week.”

  “Where’re we going?”

  “It’ll be warm,” Paul said. “Not shorts-and-flip-flops warm, but you shouldn’t need an overcoat. A light jacket should be fine.”

  That could have applied to a hundred countries around the world, but Ryan suspected Paul wasn’t going to reveal the destination until closer to the time.

  They drove in silence for a couple of miles, then Paul ruined it by slotting a disc into the CD player. Techno music blasted out of the speakers, and Paul’s head bobbed to the beat.

  “You know, when we first met, I thought you were a wanker, too.”

  “And now?” Paul asked.

  Ryan smirked. “I think I was right first time.”

  Chapter 11

  It had been three weeks since Scott’s first encounter with Kelly outside the café, and he’d barely stopped thinking about her. As he stepped aboard the treadmill in his home gym, the second meeting was still fresh in his mind.

  Scott had waited three days before arranging to meet Kelly for a second time. He’d chosen a different venue, one that served lunch. He’d thought about just coffee, but this would allow the encounter to stretch beyond a brief conversation over lattes.

  He tapped his fingers on the table nervously as he waited for her to arrive, scanning the passing crowd. When he saw her, his heart skipped a couple of beats.

  She looked gorgeous. She was wearing a flowery knee-length skirt and white blouse with the top three buttons undone, and her hair was flowing over her shoulders as she walked towards him.

  How could I believe she was in any way connected to the monster who’d almost killed me?

  Such thoughts had threatened to overwhelm him in the lead up to the meeting. Could she be part of the man’s gang, out to exact revenge? Was she waiting for the right moment to kill him, or hand him over to those who would?

  She soon pushed such thoughts from his mind as she gave him one of her warm smiles and sat down.

  “I’m so glad you called,” she said. “I was going stir crazy in my hotel room.”

  “I know the feeling,” Scott said truthfully. He handed her a menu. “I can recommend the pigeon.”

  Kelly made a face that suggested otherwise. “Not sure I could eat something like that. We used to feed the pigeons in the local park.” She scanned the offerings, then settled for the seafood pasta.

  Scott got the attention of a waiter and gave him their order, including a bottle of white wine and two coffees.

  “So, this car crash of yours,” Kelly said. “What exactly happened?”

  “Like I said, I was driving down the road when some guy flew out of a junction and I hit him side on. Next thing I knew, I was in hospital.”

  “It must have been awful.”

  “It was,” Scott said. “So, tell me about yourself.”

  “Well, I grew up in London, and that’s about it. Mum and dad still live there, no brothers or sisters. I’ve had a couple of boyfriends over the years, but nothing serious. These days, I’m focusing on my career. One day I want my own design studio, but to do that I need to learn a lot more about the trade and cultivate my own contacts within the industry. I reckon another five years and I’ll have enough money and experience to branch out on my own. How about you? Any family?”

  “Well, my dad’s in banking, mum’s a sales executive, and my younger brother, Tom, lives in Canada.”

  The lies came easily, part of his training that now seemed so long ago. It pained him, though. Here he was, trying to get to know her better in the hope that something might blossom between them, and he was being deceitful with every breath. Not the most solid foundation for a long-term relationship. The alternative was to tell her the truth, but that was never going to happen. It would have made for an interesting conversation, but Scott didn’t want to dig up the past. As far as he was concerned, that life belonged to another person.

  “I tried looking you up on Facebook, but couldn’t find you,” he said.

  She shook her head. “I don’t do social media. Strange, I know, for someone in my profession. I’ll set up accounts once I have my own business, but for now I can do without it. Who
the hell wants to know what I had for dinner? Why would someone I haven’t spoken to for five years want to know that I’m going to the cinema tonight? And which sane person announces that they’re going on holiday for two weeks, leaving their house unattended?”

  Scott felt exactly the same way. He saw no value in Facebook or Twitter, recognising them for what they were: advertising platforms that had become a sanctuary for the insecure and narcissistic.

  The conversation turned to holidays—Scott hadn’t had many, Kelly had—and then onto music and film. He was so engrossed in her that he didn’t realise they’d finished their meal until the waiter brought the bill.

  Scott finished his thirty-minute stint on the treadmill. It was his second of the day, and his determination to stick to the regimen set by his doctors had paid off. He hadn’t used the cane in a week, and he believed he was ready to go from walking to a light jog within the next few days.

  He finished off his routine with fifty pull-ups and fifty sit-ups, then took a shower and dressed. Kelly was due to arrive at his apartment at four, which left him with two hours to kill. The wine was already chilling, the chicken marinating in thyme, lemon juice, butter and garlic, and the house was spotless. With nothing left to do, Scott booted his laptop.

  Since that first meeting, Scott had dug into Kelly’s background as much as he could. It hadn’t produced many results. If he’d had access to his old employers’ network he could have found everything with a few key strokes, but there was no way he was going to contact them. They were the ones responsible for him being in this situation, and while he was happy to remain on the payroll, he wanted nothing else to do with them.

  With little else to go on, he had to believe Kelly’s story. Short of hacking into her school or university records, not something he knew how to do, he could only take her at face value.

  What he saw, he liked.

  Kelly had a mature outlook, yet could be reduced to fits of childish giggles with the corniest of puns. She knew what she wanted in life, was clearly intelligent, and while not stunningly beautiful, she was definitely easy on the eye.