[Eddie Collins 01.0] The Third Rule

by Andrew Barrett

  The stinging rip in his ear still seeped blood down his neck, and sounded like ringing bells, but it was nothing compared to his nose and his face in general. That was the one that kept his chest inflated as some kind of psychological barrier against screaming out in agony. He sipped air through his split lip, past his loose teeth and thanked God he could even do that.

  At first, he thought they had nicked him for Alice’s murder, but as the journey from the rain-sodden centre of Leeds progressed out here, to wherever here was, where the sun was strong and the day warm, it became obvious they didn’t even know about Alice. And they weren’t police, either.

  It only became apparent what was going on when they dragged him out of the car, and through bouts of semi-consciousness he realised they intended using him for government business. And there was something to do with a diesel car, though most of that conversation slipped by him. Yes, they were serious and no, Christian wouldn’t see the sunlight tomorrow if they had their way.

  “But don’t you need help getting him in the Jag?”

  There was a pause, and Christian heard the one called Sirius sigh loudly. “I’ll manage. Now piss off and do what I say.”

  There were footsteps retreating, the sound of angry, stomping footsteps that kicked at the dust.

  “Wanker,” Sirius said.

  Christian dared open his eye a little. Sirius stood with his back to him, peering in through the window of some dark car a few yards away. Steam floated from his back as though demons were crawling over him. It was satisfying to see blood encrusted across the back of his right hand.

  While Sirius opened the driver’s door, Christian checked his arsenal: it was still tucked neatly in his jeans pocket, the little shard of razor-sharp plastic he had used to start the old Ford, and had used to disable his attacker’s right hand.

  And then Sirius was back, mumbling about Henry. He grabbed a foot and Christian scraped along the gravel, arms trailing behind the rest of his limp body. His shirt rode up his back, and the grit tore into his bare skin and through his hair where it gnawed at his scalp. The tiniest flicker of hope crept into Christian’s mind. They’re going to sit me inside a car, aren’t they? They’re going to make me touch everything, bleed on everything; what if that car has keys in the ignition? What if it’ll start, what if I can drive–

  Sirius stopped dragging Christian, and shouted, “What?”

  Henry shouted something from down the road, sounded like “Nepalese are humming”.

  “Fuck! Fuck!” Sirius growled, and then he shouted back, “Get off the road.”

  And now he was being pulled around, dragged back to the car they had just removed him from. Sirius grunted and cursed, hissing, probably at the pain in his hand. And then his feet were in the shade of the car again and Sirius let go. Christian snapped his eye open and wondered if now was the right time to run, while they were panicking over something. But then Sirius grabbed his foot again – from inside the car this time – and heaved him back up inside and slammed the doors.

  And that was the end of that escape plan. He vowed the next time, if there was a next time, he wouldn’t think about it, he’d just do it. And then it hit him. Nepalese are humming. No, Henry had shouted the police are coming! He was in the company of others who were running from the law.

  The car dipped and the driver’s door slammed. Sirius was careful not to spin the wheels as he set off; careful, even with the police approaching, not to leave a clue that they were there.

  Clever, Christian thought.

  “Anywhere here,” she said, already undoing her seat belt and turning the radio off.

  They travelled slowly another fifty or sixty yards up the lane to where it bent around to the right. Falling stones caught Mark’s eye. They tumbled down the steep banking to his right, and he watched them roll, wondering what caused them to fall in the first place. “Bet there are foxes and all sorts of wildlife round here.”

  “You wouldn’t know wildlife if it dropped its knickers for you.”

  “Hey, what’s that up there?” He pointed through the screen, and Launa’s eyes followed to what appeared to be a small hut. “Maybe we should go take a look.”

  “Do we have to? It’s the old site office that’s all, nothing special. Nothing that we need interrupt our–”

  “Just a quick peek to satisfy my curiosity.”

  “What about satisfying me?”

  “Won’t take long.”

  “You men are all the same,” she yelled, “always playing cops and pissing robbers.”

  “Might as well go all the way, Launa.”

  She folded her arms. “Chance’d be a fine thing!”

  Henry walked dejectedly from the Jag, kicking dust up with his feet. He heard Sirius call him a wanker, but couldn’t be bothered to reply. Being lookout was hardly SAS action was it? He wanted the excitement of punching the kid in the face until he was a sloppy mess – and then he thought better of it; getting blood all over his clothes wasn’t a top idea. Let Sirius do it.

  Up ahead, the lane bent around to the left. Steep banks on both sides had sprouted clumps of ugly grass and weeds and bushes. And the remnants of old wooden fencing that had bleached white over the years, grown old and rotten, leaned and collapsed intermittently.

  And how was I supposed to know that diesel doesn’t burn? They never tell you that when you’re in the showroom buying the damned thing, do they. “Oh yes, it’s a fine model, but if you ever intend setting it on fire, then may I recommend the petrol version…”

  As he walked, he glanced back over his shoulder and saw Sirius peering into the Jag, the driver’s door open, the kid lying out on the road as though he was dead. Henry chose his spot another hundred yards farther down, sat on the incline and took out his gun. He thought about his father, and how he’d surprisingly stuck to his side of the bargain, and what it would cost him in the long run. When all this was over, George Deacon wouldn’t leave himself open to further blackmail, that was for sure.

  Henry returned to thinking through his plans of protecting himself should Daddy turn nasty in future; how he could store the secret and make the old man think twice before killing him.

  Wait, was that a car engine he could hear? He stood, strode further down the lane and listened again, shielding his eyes from the sun as he peered towards the entrance, maybe 200 yards away.

  It was! It was a car, and it was coming up here! And when he caught a glimpse of the bank of blue lights across the roof, Henry was concreted to the ground. “Never in a million fucking years,” he whispered. He didn’t know what to do, didn’t know whether to run towards them and stop their advance, or run away and get to Sirius before they rounded the corner. Shit, shit! He turned, thrust the gun back inside his jacket, ran like hell back around the bend and up the hill, shouting, waving his arms. “The police are coming!”

  Sirius looked up from the kid he was dragging. “What?”

  “The police are coming!”

  “Get off the road. Get up the embankment!”

  “Shit, shit, wank!” Henry looked around at the embankments, at how steep they were, how loose their top coverings appeared. He heard the engine behind him, saw Sirius struggling with the youth, and darted to his right, making no particular appraisal, just getting the hell off the road. He scrambled up the bank, pulling at weeds, digging his feet in, yanking breath in by the boatload. Eventually he made it to the summit, through the broken fence, threw himself down flat on his belly, SAS style, and peered back down into the valley of death, panting furiously.

  The little bare old lane that nothing ever travelled up stared back at him, and then a police car, doing four or five miles an hour, crawled past, window down, eyes inside peering at the earth that tumbled down the bank from Henry’s hurried climb. It didn’t stop though, just carried on crawling up the lane.

  46

  Tuesday 23rd June

  – One –

  Henry saw Sirius drive the rental car past the hut and out of
sight. And he drove slowly too, probably to keep the dust down; something Henry’s own escape hadn’t succeeded in doing. The stones and the dust cloud still rolled and still plumed.

  Sweat ran into Henry’s eyes and then he noticed how badly his hands shook and how dry his mouth was.

  On his belly, he slithered away from the edge, part way down the far side of the embankment and away from the lane. When he could no longer see the embankment opposite, he stood and trotted at a slight crouch up the man-made valley of a slag heap towards his Jaguar and the old site office.

  When he got there, he settled and took a minute to slow his breathing, to catch his thoughts, and that was about the time that the enormity of his bad luck struck him. “All the time this lane has been abandoned,” he said, “all the time no one ever came up here, even back in the old days, and now this! Fucking plod!” It seemed too coincidental, though. Had they been set up? Had someone grassed on them to the police?

  He leaned back into the banking, hand on his thumping chest. An hour, that’s all it would have taken for them to plant the kid’s evidence and get the hell out of here. Why now?

  Henry crawled carefully to the crest of the bank, peered between two head-sized rocks and gazed down into the lane below. And what he saw made him gasp.

  – Two –

  Sirius drove smoothly past the hut and didn’t stop looking in the rear-view mirror until the hut and the old lane next to it had vanished around a corner and over the brow of a hill. He visibly relaxed and then pressed the accelerator a little harder.

  Three bad things had happened. One: they hadn’t planted the evidence yet. Two: Henry was out there alone; and three: the police were here.

  Problem three nullified problem one; the police were here, forget planting the evidence; but problem two remained outstanding, aching like his knuckles. He had to get to Henry before Henry did something stupid and got them all caught.

  Through the dusty screen, he could see the massive opencast coal mine, probably many hundreds of feet deep and with an incline steeper than Everest’s North Face. Nothing that went down there would come back up again, that was for sure. Over the far side of the hole, he could see a road of some kind, a ledge maybe, a pale grey ribbon that corkscrewed its way from top to bottom – but it was half a mile away, maybe a mile.

  He turned the car around, facing it back uphill, and parked behind a massive grey outcrop, bald of any vegetation and still bearing the scars of the machine that originally cut it. And then he turned off the engine, listened to the breeze blowing up from the abandoned mine, spinning eddies out of loose dust and throwing them at the car. He turned in his seat, looked down at the kid who lay motionless and blood-caked on the back seat. He breathed still, but only just. Was he unconscious, or faking it? Sirius leaned over and nudged the kid’s arm. Nothing. He stretched further and delivered a weak punch, into the kid’s chest. Nothing at all.

  Good. Now he could take care of problem two in the hope that if the police left again after requesting recovery of the Jaguar, he could still use the kid as he first intended. If the police stayed around until the Jaguar was recovered, the kid would take a dive over the precipice.

  He climbed from the car, slammed the door and began walking away. Then he stopped, returned to the car and took the keys out of the ignition. He locked the door and went looking for Henry.

  – Three –

  Christian felt them drive uphill. The car stopped again and the engine died. He lay motionless and wondered what Sirius would do next. He would go and look for the fat one, Henry. Of course, you would want to know if your captive was faking his unconsciousness, and how would you do that?

  Christian tensed his whole body and waited, expecting some kind of slap. And then he heard Sirius turn in his seat, heard the fabric brush against fabric, and then felt the cold eyes of a killer scrutinising him. And now nothing short of his life depended on him being a good actor.

  The nudge came as expected, and Christian let his mind float out of harm’s way, releasing the tether it had to his body; he would catch up with whatever happened now a little later. And then he heard the seat creak and felt the punch in the chest. It almost succeeded in bringing him back into his body, but he fought it, kept away and satisfied Sirius. The car door slammed and Christian breathed out. He was about to open his eye when the door opened again!

  The keys jangled and the door slammed and locked again. This time he opened his eye quickly, and saw Sirius’s bulk heading uphill towards the Jaguar and Henry. He counted to thirty, plenty of time for Sirius to be out of earshot, before he began moving about.

  He expected the pain, but he never expected it in quite such a pure quality. Dazzling white lights seared his brain and something like an electric shock jolted his damaged shoulder. Together they made him breathless – but he fought it, wouldn’t be set free by Sirius only to be tortured by his own body.

  Everything spun around his mind like a whirlwind of litter on a street. He had to get out of the car, or he had to be able to drive out in the car. Both meant he had to get the ignition on, since nothing electrical worked without it, including the windows and the central locking.

  But there was something he could try first. He looked at the front and rear side windows, determined the fronts were larger and so should break easier. He lay across the front seats, took aim with his feet and kicked. And kicked. And kicked. It rippled – the light shimmered as the glass contorted – but it remained defiantly intact; the only change was the new pain in his feet and the bruised ribs from the handbrake lever. He forced the car into first gear and gently took the handbrake off. The car rocked but stayed steady. He tried again, and put more force into his kicks than he had before, but the glass still didn’t break. Sweat flicked from his hair with each kick, and it didn’t take long for him to gasp like an old man.

  The rental car was a base model Ford D-Max, and there was no boot release lever by the driver’s seat, so no chance of climbing through the folding rear seats and to freedom that way. His only remaining option was to smash the cowling away and try to get the ignition on – at least then, the windows would work, even if he couldn’t open the doors because of the deadlock. He kicked at the cowling, and immediately a split appeared in the flimsy black plastic. One more kick and the cowling cracked wide open, and Christian pulled at the thing until it broke away in his hand. There, up underneath, was the black plastic ignition barrel.

  – Four –

  Mark looked around the hut, amazed by the smell in there, of old turds and rotting animals, food perhaps for the fox he had almost seen. But the weeds that grew through the disintegrating floor were astounding; huge, rampant. What a good word. He turned around and looked back at the patrol car. Rampant: that’s what Launa was. The old building was derelict, but the Jaguar, well that was only a year or so old; smart green, like British racing green but slightly lighter, metallic. Scratched to buggery now, though. All its windows were darkened, adding to the mystery.

  He sighed, dreamed of being able to afford such a car, dreamed of being able to afford the insurance! Christ, what a beast, “V8, five-litre turbo injection.”

  Launa spoke the location into her mic; she flicked a switch, putting the radio on to loudspeaker mode. “Okay, Charlie Alfa Six, recovery authorised. Should be 10-6 in thirty minutes, over.”

  “10-20.”

  “Charlie Alfa Six?”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Charlie Alfa Six, be aware there’s a ‘preserve for prints’ marker against that vehicle, believe involved in fatal 10-11, over.”

  “Yeah, 10-20.” Launa looked at Mark, who wandered slowly towards her, a wicked grin on his face. “XW, can you pass keeper details again please?”

  “Charlie Alfa Six; registered keeper is a company: Smyth, Price and Deacon. Insurance affirmed, belonging to that company, over.”

  “10-20. Can you confirm primary user status, over?”

  “Charlie Alfa Six, primary user is Deacon, Henry, born 16.1
.1978.”

  Launa’s eyes stared off into the distance. Henry Deacon. The Henry Deacon, MP’s son and would-be SAS operative. Christ how the memories came back; she rubbed her cheek. “10-20, thanks.”

  Mark leaned in. “What’s up?”

  “Memories. It belongs to Henry Deacon,” she nodded at the car, “son of the great Sir George Deacon.”

  “Lucky bastard. He’ll be pleased to have it back.”

  She nodded, “I’m sure he will be, but it has to be CSIed first.” She looked at him. “It was involved in a fatal knockdown about three weeks ago.”

  “They won’t get anything off it after three weeks.”

  In the back of her mind was Henry Deacon’s face, how it turned from handsome and placid one minute to snarl and bastard the next, about the time she declined sex that night. He’d punched her and knocked her out. She looked down; it happened right about here, strangely enough. She hoped she would be the one to tell Mr Deacon that the police had found his car, but she knew it would fall to CID with it being a big job.

  But then something else struck her: how the hell would they explain being this far out of division?

  Henry stared over the edge and even as Sirius approached in a crouching run that would have been comical had they not been so far up Shit Creek, he couldn’t take his eyes off her. He was sure it was her: Launa Wrigglesworth. My, had she changed. In all the right places.