by Paul Watson
‘Not A and E; I’m fine.’ Max was breathing fast.
‘We’re going, get your shoes on and get in the car or I’ll block your phone internet.’
Max put on an expensive pair of trainers. Andy grabbed the bottle and went through to his office and took his car key from his desk drawer.
‘I’ll call you from the hospital, you stay here and look after Sam.’
‘If anything happens to him; it’s your fault.’
Andy and Max walked out of the front door and over to the car parked in the drive. It was a black Passat estate; no heated seats or fancy trim but all the useful tech. ‘Are your all right, big man?’ Andy pushed the start button, and the steering wheel jinked as the lock released. He drove away; Jess and Sam watched from the front door.
‘If he dies can I have his gaming chair?’ Sam said to Jess.
Max rocked backwards and forward in his seat as the Passat turned left at the roundabout. Andy pushed his right foot down until the needle hit 80 mph. It was a single-track road but wide. On most days, Andy would stick to the sixty limit, but not today.
‘You always asked how fast this could go, Max.’ Max was breathing quicker and quicker.
‘Let’s see Dad. I don’t feel great now. My brain seems like it will explode.’ He gripped the sides of his chair, and his face was pale.
Andy put the pedal full to the floor and put on his hazard lights. Usually, he would be on cruise control, seventy miles an hour. The needle flickered between a hundred and a hundred and ten.
Andy came up behind an Audi A8 in lane three and undercut him in lane two. The man in the Audi put his index finger and thumb together and shook his wrist. Andy wasn’t looking in his mirror and didn’t see. Lane three was clear for another five minutes, and they got to the slip road exit for the hospital.
‘Dad, I’ll pass out soon. You’d better get us close.’
Andy pulled off at the exit. The lights were red. He looked left and right, nothing coming; he floored the pedal, and the car lurched around the roundabout. A red BMW joining from the next lane beeped as the Passat blocked his progress. Andy’s heart pounded at a hundred beats a minute. He hadn’t felt like this since he lost Sam on a beach five years ago; he’d turned his head for one minute, and Sam had been off on an adventure.
Andy breathed and opened both windows as the car slowed down to forty miles per hour in a thirty limit.
He saw the red and white sign for the hospital and pulled into the car park. Andy wouldn’t be paying the parking charge today. He followed the signs for A and E, drove around a mini roundabout, and then reversed his car tight up to the hospital doors. There were a few ambulances and drivers lined up along the road. Andy parked and left the hazard lights on.
‘You ok Max?’ Andy said.
‘Hanging in there?’ Max pulled the door lever. ‘Dad, I can’t get out, I’ll fall.’
Andy got out of the car and saw an ambulance man walking to his vehicle. ‘Can you help please mate, my son’s taken something and can’t get out the car.’
‘Sorry mate, can’t help; we’re just about to go out, go into reception, you’ll find someone in there.’
Andy ran into the reception. There was a queue with two police officers, a drunk and a mother with a child in front. A nurse approached.
‘My son’s in the car and can’t get out; he’s taken something.’
‘Get him booked in at the front desk.’
Andy queued behind the police officers and the woman with the child. He waited for about five minutes. He thought of running back to Max, but then he might lose his place in the queue.
‘Next please,’ said the woman from behind the glass screen. Andy approached.
Andy relayed the situation.
‘Do you think it could be drugs or alcohol?’
‘I don’t know, could be a chemical, he’s not looking good, can we get him in as soon as possible please?’
‘I’ll just need a few details: name, date of birth, family doctor.’
Andy gave details.
‘Right, we’ll get him straight into RESUS. She emerged from behind the screen; Jackie, can you give this man a hand please,’ she said as she grabbed a wheelchair and handed it to a nurse.
‘Thanks,’ said Andy, and he pushed the wheelchair. Jackie followed. They arrived at the Passat; Max slumped in his chair.
‘Can you hear me Max?’ Max didn’t respond. Andy hauled him out of the car seat and into the wheelchair; he put Max’s feet into stirrups at the base of the chair, handed the purple bottle to Jackie and said, ‘Take this please, which way to RESUS?’
TWELVE
‘Blanks?’ Steve said.
‘I guess so,’ Jamie said.
‘We’re not trying to kill you?’ The bear said. ‘We’re builders, not gangsters.’
‘But you do a sideline in kidnapping?’ Jamie walked around the planter, so he was a few metres from the men. ‘There’s three of you, four counting your mate on the floor down there. I smashed your wrist, and your guns are full of blanks; you should cooperate. I’ll make this clear to you: put your toys down, keep your hands where I can see them and stand by that wall.’ The bear moved first, and the rest of the crew complied. ‘Steve, watch these men like a hawk, if one of them moves, smash his head into the wall.’ Jamie searched the three men and took his own phone from the bear’s pocket. Jamie stepped back a few paces. ‘Tell me what’s going on and where Rob is.’
‘Your mate is over in block B of the old asylum.’
‘What are we doing here?’
‘The boss said we had guests and not to let them leave.’
‘Do you have replica guns just lying about?’
‘Everyone knows Bill is into dodgy stuff. Read about it in the papers; no-one’s ever got him for anything though.’
‘Who’s Bill?’
‘Bill Rand, our boss.’
‘You’re looking at a charge of kidnapping. What you tell me in the next five minutes and how I write this up could be life-changing for you. I recommend you tell me every little detail I might be interested in, even what beard cream you used this morning.’
‘I’m not one for beard cream. Bill was here this morning at about 7.30 a.m. He closed the site and sent the few subcontractors home. Rand was with his crew of tough nuts, and they showed us the rooms where they were keeping you. He told us to keep an eye on you until lunchtime and said if we found trouble to threaten you with the guns.’
‘Did you not feel that was crossing a line?’
‘I’ve crossed a few lines, and I’ve been lucky to keep this job for a few years. When you check me out, you’ll find out why. Ranto was the only employer interested in me, the last time I was looking. Anyway, I was checking on you, and you weren’t there, I opened the door to your room and the rest you know.’
‘I can’t remember anything since eight o’clock last night when a self-driving car imprisoned me in Covent Garden. Tell me what you know, or I’ll write bad things about you for fun.’
‘Bill’s in with all kinds of characters. A guy who was doing work for us got the car as part of a contract; the man was weird; he made a load of modifications to the car; I think he’d upgraded the car’s air con system to an anti-theft device; it put you to sleep with chloroform gas.’
The fight had drained Jamie; he’d eaten nothing since the night before and he’d used all the adrenaline. ‘I want Rob and us out of here now. If you do that, I’ll do what I can to keep you out of prison,’ he said.
Jamie was lucky; the skull fragment whistled past his ear; just the blood and brain tissue splattered on his face and neck. Steve’s body dropped to the floor. Jamie spun around and saw the gunman in the first-floor window. He ran forward to the wall and stood next to the bear. ‘Chase me; I’ll kill you,’ Jamie said. A bullet ricochet off the wall.
Jamie sprinted and saw the blue door on his right. The door had a Yale lock, and there was only one Yale key on the bunch. He turned the key, the door opened,
and he entered another corridor. Jamie ran to the end and out of the glass doors at the exit before turning left and crossing another courtyard.
In front of him, he saw a single storey building; it had brick walls at waist height and then glass windows to the ceiling. Someone had smashed the windows and someone else had boarded them. He tried the locked door; he needed to get out of sight.
Jamie peered through the window; there was a rug on the other side. He took a run-up, jumped, and did a forward roll in the air. Jamie put his left fist to his forehead and landed by rolling onto his shoulder. His heel had clipped part of the jagged glass on his way through, and the resulting gash and blood dripped through his sock. Jamie shuffled so that his back was against the wall and his head below the window line.
Masks hung on the wall; there were skeletons, demons and clowns. Tubes of paint and brushes littered the desks. Stacks of Sellotape and paper sat on a table, near a door. Jamie crawled over to the table, keeping below the window line. He grabbed a few towels and a roll of tape; he stepped through the door into a glazed stairwell. On the wall were a fire extinguisher and an AED defibrillator machine. Jamie thought high ground would be the best choice. He climbed the stairs and left blood stains on the treads, taking the stairs two at a time and running around the half landing. He bolted up the final flight, turned left along the upper corridor and entered the first door.
There were science books on the bookcases and measuring cylinders on benches. On top of every desk, small gas taps awaited Bunsen burner hoses. Jamie saw other buildings, through the windows; glass bridges connected the separate blocks.
He approached a table at the front of the room, it was longer and broader than the other benches and had a microscope in a case on it; it was the teacher’s desk. Jamie ducked down behind it, concealed from the entrance to the science room.
Jamie took the paper towels and Sellotape and dressed the wound in his foot. He hoped his claret breadcrumbs left on the stairs and the corridor would not be too noticeable. Perhaps the blood would look like spilt paint from the art room.
He pulled out his phone, dialled 999 and spoke to the operator.
‘Urgent assistance, officers in danger, a man shot, P.C. Jamie Wilmot Metropolitan Police.’
‘What’s your location?’ the operator said.
‘Don’t know, trace this call the best you can?’
‘Please hold,’ the operator said.
Jamie placed the call on hold and called Amy.
Amy answered. ‘Jamie?’
Jamie made out footsteps on the stairs. ‘Amy, listen, I might not have much time. I’ll keep the signal on as long as I can, but I need you to get help here; we need Tactical Support Group and Firearms. I don’t know where I am, but a green perimeter fence surrounds the fields and the red-bricked buildings. You should be able to trace this. Did you get that?’
‘Yes, what happened?’
Jamie heard footsteps on the half landing. ‘Gotta go,’ he ended the call. Underneath the desk was a set of drawers. In them were orange rubber hoses to connect the Bunsen burners to the gas taps on the desk. Jamie pulled one out of the drawer.
The footsteps were closer now, in the same room.
They’ve followed the breadcrumbs.
Jamie poked his head around the table and saw a lean man dressed in black trousers and a black t-shirt. He was around thirty years old and stick thin. He was the gunman that shot Steve, and he had his pistol out ready.
Jamie was a sitting duck; as soon as the gunman came around the corner of the desk Jamie would be visible. No exits, so running was not a choice; to attack was the only option, but it would be difficult against a man armed with a handgun.
The blood trail led all the way to the teacher’s desk, which gave Jamie an advantage; he knew his target’s course: following the blood trail. Jamie listened to the footsteps and judged the gunman to be halfway across the room.
The attacker fired three shots; the bullets went through the desk and ripped through the containers of bungees. They all missed Jamie and lodged in the plasterboard wall behind the table. The gunman would need to get close to make sure; riskier for the gunman, but Jamie had no sympathy.
The footsteps approached the edge of the desk, Jamie crawled around the other side, held one end of the rubber hose in his left hand and stretched it around the back of his neck. He pulled it tight, aimed low, and let go. The rubber hose flew past the desk, past the gunman’s knee and hit the wall with a thud. The quick spin of the gunman’s head was all the time Jamie needed; Jamie burst from cover and grabbed the gun in his right hand.
The man butted Jamie square in the nose with his forehead, but Jamie held on tight to the gun arm. The adrenalin rushed in him again and dulled the pain of the broken nose. Jamie brought his left hand over and caught the gunman’s wrist, placed the palm of his right hand under, and pushed upwards.
The human wrist can rotate through one hundred and eighty degrees sideways but only twenty degrees upwards. Jamie turned the gun hand upwards thirty degrees, and his opponent felt the pain. The killer swung his right arm and hooked Jamie in the temple. One more of those and it would be over for Jamie.
Jamie jerked his right hand and pulled downwards. Snap. The gun fell free on the floor. The odds had shifted. Jamie back heeled and hit the man in the gut. The attacker stumbled, tripped over a chair and fell on the floor. If Jamie had been wearing his Magnum boots, he would have kicked the guy in the head as hard as he could; instead, he jumped and stamped his heel into the man’s nuts.
As the killer writhed on the floor, Jamie picked up the gun. Jamie’s head throbbed; he thought he was about to throw up and pass out. He aimed the pistol at the prone figure’s chest and fired three times.
THIRTEEN
‘Where is he?’ Amy said.
‘You can ask him yourself,’ the car park attendant said, and pointed to Amy’s phone that flashed on the tabletop. ‘You’d better take that call.’
Amy picked up her phone and answered. ‘Jamie?’
‘Amy, listen, I might not have much time. I’ll keep the signal on as long as I can, but I need you to get help here; we need Tactical Support Group and Firearms. I don’t know where I am, but a green perimeter fence surrounds the fields and the red-bricked buildings. You should be able to trace this. Did you get that?’
‘Yes, what happened?’
‘Gotta go.’ The line dropped.
Amy looked at the tracking app and realised that the blue dot had moved about 30 miles North of her current location.
Amy dialled 999 and called it in using a junction of road names; she also booked on duty. ‘Is there anywhere I can hire a car around here?’
‘There are places around here, but you need not bother with them, I’ll drive you.’ The woman picked up a bag from the table, took out a key and clicked it. The lights on a new white Fiat 500 flashed. ‘Let’s go then.’
The attendant walked out of the small room and towards the Fiat, threw her bag in the bag and got in the driving seat; Amy got in the passenger door.
‘Can I have a look at that map on your phone, please?’ said the woman. Amy showed her the phone. ‘That place is Quercus college where my son studied twenty years ago; it’s moved to a new location now, and they’re converting the old buildings to housing.’
‘Thanks, I appreciate it.’
‘I’d like to pretend that I’m doing you a favour, but I’d much rather spend a few hours chatting to you than moping around this place.’
‘What’s your name?’
‘Janet.’
Janet pulled up the ramp and out into the morning sunshine. Amy tried to call Jamie a few times, but it connected straight to voicemail and she updated control via 999. Janet navigated through the traffic and impressed Amy with her skill; every gear change was perfect; Janet seemed to get through the lights just before they turned amber, without breaking the speed limit.
The traffic sped up as they drove up the A41, through Hendon. They passe
d Aerodrome Road, and Amy looked left; the police training college was out of sight.
‘Did you enjoy your time at Hendon?’ Janet said.
‘Every minute, I met great friends, and loved being with so many people.’
‘Is that where you met Jamie?’
‘No I met him when I started on the borough, he had a few more years experience than me.’
Janet joined the A1, just a few more miles to go until they were through Borehamwood and onto the motorway.
‘I might have seen Jamie and his colleague last night,’ Janet said. ‘When I checked the ticket machine on the lower level, I glimpsed a blue Tesla going up the ramp. I only glanced the driver and passenger for a second, at most, but I remember seeing black-and-white clothing. Normally a different man drives that car.’
‘What time?’
‘About eight o’clock?’
‘Can you remember the registration plate?’
‘Yes, the driver has been parking with us for a few months.’
Amy called in with the information and asked for a vehicle check.
‘Registered to a company Amy: Ranto Construction, headquarters in Colchester,’ said the voice from control.
Amy looked up Ranto, using the internet browser on her phone. The company had been going for around thirty years, and the founders were Bill Rand and Mick Tomlinson. Ranto turned over around £500 million a year and built industrial buildings: warehouses, distribution and logistics warehouses, but also had residential projects and offices on their website.
‘About another ten minutes Amy.’ Janet’s voice seemed clearer and deeper now, and the cough had gone.
They pulled off the dual carriageway and onto suburban roads, driving in silence until they reached the destination.
‘Here it is Amy, Quercus.’ Janet parked in a side street, opposite the college.
They exited the car and crossed to the junction of the side street and the main road. Amy studied the front of the college building but could not make out how far back it extended.