by Peter James
Oh Jesus.
There are blue flashing lights in my mirror.
100
Saturday 30 April
Eight forty-five on a Saturday night; the car park was thinning out. Grace watched a rotund woman, stuffing her face with a doughnut as she pushed a laden trolley towards her car, parked opposite him. Packham had been almost forty minutes, and had texted to apologize, saying he was in stationary traffic on the A27 because of an accident.
Surprised that Weatherley had still not called him back, Grace was about to dial his number again when he saw a dark-coloured Audi turn left towards him and flash its lights. It was Packham.
Grace slipped out of his car, glancing around carefully, then walked across to the Audi and climbed in the passenger door; the interior had a strong new-car smell.
‘Sorry it took so long, Roy,’ he said. ‘Something on its roof on the other side of the carriageway, and my side was all jammed up with rubberneckers.’
‘That’s the problem with that stretch of road,’ Grace replied. ‘Accidents on it constantly. So, what do you have?’
Packham reached behind him, and pulled a laptop off the rear seat. Then he looked around, cautiously, before raising the lid.
‘I’ve copied Lorna Belling’s data onto my laptop.’
‘Amazing you’ve been able to recover it, Ray, and so quickly.’
‘The rice cure can work magic, Roy. If you ever drop your phone down the toilet, rice will dry it out.’
Grace grimaced. ‘Thanks, I’ll remember that.’
Packham tapped the keyboard and the screen came to life. On it was a photograph of a bar on a sandy beach, shaded by the overhang of tropical-looking trees. In the background was calm, turquoise ocean. A couple were seated at the bar, with their arms round each other, staring into each other’s eyes. The man was wearing dark glasses and a panama hat at a rakish angle, and the woman a white baseball cap with sunglasses perched on the peak.
Grace gave Packham a quizzical look. ‘Why are you showing me this?’
‘Take a closer look, Roy – it’s Guy Batchelor and his wife, Lena.’
‘I can see that. What’s their photograph doing on Lorna Belling’s computer? I mean – if they knew each other, he’d have told me.’
‘I think from what I’ve found on here, Roy, they did know each other, and he didn’t tell you.’
‘Meaning?’
But he didn’t need the question answering. The uncomfortable truth was dawning on him almost faster than he could process it.
‘Shit,’ he said, suddenly feeling very shaky. ‘I – I don’t – I don’t believe it. Shit.’
Confirmation came moments later in a phone call from Ops-1.
101
Saturday 30 April
‘Sir, I thought you should know immediately, a vehicle allocated to your Major Crime team has just been involved in a hit and run accident,’ Inspector Kim Sherwood said.
‘One of our vehicles?’ Grace replied, taking a moment to absorb it. ‘Hit and run? What vehicle – what exactly’s happened, Kim?’
‘One of our fleet cars – a Ford Mondeo estate, sir. About forty-five minutes ago on the westbound carriageway of the A27, outside Lewes,’ the Ops-1 inspector said.
‘What details do you have?’
‘An eyewitness in the vehicle behind – a Brighton Streamline taxi driver – told officers at the scene that a silver Ford Mondeo had apparently undertaken him recklessly at high speed, then pulled over into the outside lane in front of him, causing him to brake hard. It then started to overtake a Volvo saloon on the inside lane, when it suddenly swerved – apparently deliberately – into the rear offside. Sounds like a classic tap – the one Traffic often use in a pursuit to stop a vehicle. The Ford knocked it sideways, sending it into a massive slide, then drove off, fast. The Volvo driver lost control, his vehicle struck the central barrier, veered away, then barrel-rolled, finishing upside down. The driver is injured but alive.’
‘Jesus,’ Grace said. Could it be road rage, he was wondering?
‘Fortunately the taxi has a dashboard camera and the driver has the whole incident recorded, with the Ford’s registration. He stopped at the scene.’
‘What do we know about the Ford – who’s logged it out?’
‘The car has been assigned to DI Batchelor for the past ten days, for his SIO role on Op Bantam.’
‘Guy Batchelor?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Guy Batchelor?’ he repeated. ‘DI Batchelor?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Are you absolutely certain?’
‘He has exclusive use of the vehicle at the moment, sir.’
Grace felt physically sick.
The tumblers of a huge lock, opening a door to an unwelcome place, were falling, relentlessly, one after another.
‘We don’t have any sighting of the driver, it’s possible the vehicle might be stolen, sir.’
For a moment, Grace clung to that thought. Or another possibility – he had seen how stressed Batchelor seemed today. Had he lost his rag over an incident on the road?
But he knew he was clutching at straws, trying to delay the horrific truth.
‘Has anyone checked the vehicle log, Kim?’
‘It needs someone your end to do that on the paper sign-out. We don’t have anything electronic.’
‘Yes, yes, of course. I – I’ll—’
His mind flashed again to the attempts he had made in the past half-hour to contact Weatherley, and his surprise that he hadn’t yet returned his call or text.
‘What information do you have on the condition of the driver of the Volvo?’
‘He’s being attended to by paramedics in an ambulance at the scene. He’s conscious and the report I have is that his injuries don’t appear to be life-threatening. Coincidentally – he’s identified himself as a police officer.’
‘A police officer? One of ours?’
‘No, he’s a DS with Scotland Yard. His name is—’
Grace didn’t need to be told the name. He knew it.
‘Weatherley, Kim?’ he said. ‘Detective Sergeant Tim Weatherley?’
He shot Packham a horrified look.
102
Saturday 30 April
Despite the high speed at which they were travelling along the winding country lane, the two Road Policing Unit officers, cocooned inside the comfortable cabin of the black Audi A6, were calm.
Saturday night. Road deaths in the county of Sussex were at their highest level in years and the Chief Constable had instructed all officers to be extra vigilant, which was why PCs Pip Edwards and Richard Trundle of the Road Policing Unit had taken this unmarked car for their night shift. They were on the prowl for drink-drivers, speeders, people on their mobile phones, those not wearing their seat belts and dangerous drivers in general. Both officers were tired, they were working extra-long hours recently to make up for the reduction in crews. In addition, they had lost more members of their already depleted team to the Firearms Unit, which was recruiting hard – a reflection on escalating concerns about terrorism.
Edwards, a taciturn man, drove, whilst his more gung-ho long-time work colleague in the passenger seat stared through the windscreen into the darkness ahead. Trundle was hoping for a sighting of the car which had shot across their bows, nearly wiping them out, just a few minutes earlier. It had to be somewhere ahead of them along this road – which was little more than a lane – as there was no junction for several miles. It wouldn’t have had the time to turn off somewhere and hide.
The Audi’s strobing lights cast an eerie, flickering blue glow along the hedgerows on either side of them. Trundle glanced across at the speedometer, feeling a little out of his comfort zone, despite his faith in his colleague’s abilities at the wheel. 80 mph. It was dark now and slightly misty, not the best conditions for a pursuit along country roads, but the idiot in front of them was a massive danger to any road user and needed to be stopped.
The moment of the near collision had been so fleeting – and so sudden – that neither officer had been able to identify for certain the make of the car or get any of its index numbers. It was an estate car, probably a Ford Mondeo, they’d decided. Edwards said he’d put money on it being a kiddy joyrider, high on drugs, either from Crawley or Brighton.
The radio came to life and they heard the bland, emotionless voice of a male Comms operator. ‘All vehicles in the A27 and A23 areas, your attention is drawn to the following vehicle which has been involved in a hit and run major RTC on the A27. Last seen travelling on the westbound carriageway towards Worthing. Vehicle described as a Ford Mondeo estate, colour silver, index Golf Yankee One Four Golf Romeo X-ray. If seen, do not approach the vehicle, but immediately report any sightings back to this office. AD timed at 20.45 hours, Sierra Oscar standing by.’
Trundle pressed his radio’s talk button. ‘Comms, we’ve just had a vehicle similar to that driven past us at high speed and we are making after it in an attempt to identify and speak to the driver. We’ll come back to you shortly.’ He tried, with short stabs of his pen in the lurching car, to write the number down on the back of his hand. Then he called up the registration number to find out where it came from and where it might be headed, and the insurance details to see if had recently changed keeper. To his surprise the information came back that the vehicle was registered to Sussex Police.
‘Hotel Tango Two Eight One, can you give me your current position?’ the Comms operator replied.
Both officers frowned; there was GPS in all the force’s cars as well as on every officer’s personal radio, and ordinarily the Comms department always knew exactly where they were, from their positions constantly plotted on the banks of monitors in the Control Room.
‘Where are we?’ Trundle queried. ‘Are we not registering?’
‘Our screens are down,’ the operator replied. ‘Again.’
‘OK, we are approximately one mile west of the A23, close to Bolney.’
And suddenly a Mondeo estate was dead ahead, less than a couple of hundred yards in front of them, waiting at the junction with the busy Bolney to Cowfold main road. As they raced towards it, braking hard, Trundle was able to read the licence plate. GY14 GRX.
Yes!
It was moments like this that gave him the biggest bang in the job. Pressing his radio button again, he said, ‘Comms, we have visual on Golf Yankee One Four Golf Romeo X-ray.’
Comms replied, ‘Go ahead and ascertain who’s driving the vehicle, unless it’s unsafe to do so.’
Edwards flashed the headlights several times and gave a loud whup-whup-whup to let the driver know they were there and that they required him to stay exactly where he was. Trundle unclipped his seat belt and was about to jump out and run forward, when the Ford shot off out into the crossroad, missing being T-boned by an articulated lorry by a fraction of a second. Edwards edged the Audi out into the main road, mindful that in a plain car the front and rear blue flashing lights weren’t as visible to vehicles approaching from the side as the roof lights on a marked police car.
‘Which way did he go?’ he asked.
Traffic was crossing in both directions in front of them and they were in danger of losing him.
‘He went right,’ Trundle said decisively, pointing right. He held his breath for a moment as Edwards accelerated hard out into the road, right behind two vehicles travelling at speed, and pressed his talk button.
‘Comms, this is Hotel Tango Two Eight One, PC Trundle,’ he said.
‘Hotel Tango Two Eight One, go ahead,’ the reply came back.
‘The subject vehicle is now failing to stop. The driver of our vehicle is a green permit holder in a suitable vehicle, may we have permission to pursue?’
Trundle’s eyes were glued to the tail lights of the three cars ahead of them. And in particular the one in front that was steadily moving ahead. He knew there weren’t many passing opportunities on this road.
‘Can you give us an idea of road conditions, Hotel Tango Two Eight One?’
‘Misty rain falling, road slippery but visibility still fair at present, traffic level light. At this time my perceived risk is low,’ Trundle responded.
‘Roger that. Maintain commentary, ongoing dynamic risk assessment and direction of travel, we are making Ops-1 aware.’
‘Yes, yes.’
Moments later the voice of Inspector Kim Sherwood came over the radio. ‘Hotel Tango Two Eight One, this is Ops-1, permission is granted to continue pursuit.’
‘Thank you, ma’am,’ Trundle said.
‘Our screens are back up and running. We have two divisional cars in your area, and another on its way, and an unmarked heading down from near Gatwick. We are also trying to redirect some more green permit holders to your location.’
Trundle held his breath again as Edwards overtook a car on the approach to a blind brow, waited until they crested it, then raced past the next car. Now they were right behind the Mondeo, 150 yards and closing. Coming up ahead was a long left-hander. The Ford was gaining on a van. Trundle was taking in as much information from all their surroundings as he could, switching his eyes from the road ahead to the speedometer and back. They were currently doing 88 mph.
‘Hotel Tango Two Eight One, our speed is eight-eight miles per hour in six-zero limit.’ Then as Edwards accelerated harder he said, ‘Nine-zero. Now one-zero-zero.’
Then suddenly Trundle froze. The subject vehicle was overtaking on a blind corner – and there was something coming the other way.
103
Saturday 30 April
There’s something big coming the other way, straight towards me. I can see the lights, massive lights, high up. Be good if it’s a lorry. Something solid. Please let it be a huge truck or lorry. One of those eighteen-wheelers. The driver high up, so I won’t hurt him.
Please.
Please.
Blinding lights. Blaring horn. This is it. This is how the end is. Whiteout. Noise. White lights. Noise. This is how it looks. This is how it feels. One split second. Just one second and then—
There was a small clunk that barely shook the car. That was all. It sounded like a rock thrown against his door. Then the lorry hurtled past and was gone in a blur of tail lights, and turbulence that shook the car.
His wing mirror had gone. Knocked off.
He’d been that close to the lorry. Should have been closer, right across it. Head-on.
Sweat was running down his face, stinging his eyes. The wipers smeared the screen. The road snaked into the distance.
I can’t even kill myself. JESUS!
He pounded the steering wheel in frustration and anger.
I’m running out of fuel and I can’t even kill myself.
I don’t have the guts.
He looked at the needle on the empty mark. At the orange warning light. It had been on empty for a while. He didn’t know how much was left in the tank when it showed empty. Not much. There couldn’t be much.
He saw the blue lights behind him, in the interior mirror. The police car was moving out, overtaking the line of traffic, gaining on him.
I’m not going to be arrested. Not going to have that humiliation. No way. No. Then he yelled out loud, ‘YOU WON’T BLOODY GET ME!’
He was crying. Thinking about his wife. His daughter. What was going to happen when they found out?
Trying to think; to figure something out. But it felt like there was a tornado raging inside his head, ripping all his thoughts off the shelves, off his desk top, out of cupboards, filing cabinets. Flinging them everywhere.
What do I do? Where do I go? Hide? Drive into a tree?
They had plans for him in that car behind him. The car with the blue lights. ‘Well, I’ve got news for you!’ he shouted out loud, to himself. ‘Whatever you have planned, it isn’t going to happen!’
No, no, no. He wasn’t going to give them that satisfaction. Wasn’t going to let Roy Grace put him behind bars. No way. No one was goi
ng to lock him up in the custody suite in Hollingbury and bang that door on him.
He wouldn’t give them that satisfaction.
And you didn’t get bail for murder. They kept you inside.
He wouldn’t let them put him on a remand wing in Lewes, or some other prison.
Cops in prison. He knew the stories about what happened to cops in prison. About what other prisoners did to them. Boiling sugared water on their genitals. Urinating in their porridge and soup. Razor blades in apples.
That wasn’t going to happen.
The lights of the police car were closing on him.
He drove with one eye locked on the rear-view mirror, thinking, desperately thinking. Their traffic car was faster than his. Any moment now they’d make their move and pull out to overtake him. They’d probably try the same trick he had done. Tap him behind the rear wheel and knock him sideways.
Had to think fast. Fast. Fast.
There was a manoeuvre he remembered from the police driving course he’d done years back, when he was qualifying for his blue lights permit. The instructor was called Roger Pitts. Like the pits at a motor-racing circuit, he’d joked weakly.
Pitts had showed him how to do handbrake turns at Dunsfold aerodrome. He didn’t trust himself to do one now. But there was something else about the handbrake that Pitts had told him: the handbrake didn’t put the rear brake lights on. The car behind wouldn’t know you were braking.
There was a narrow lane that he knew was coming up shortly on his right. Coming up in a quarter of a mile or so. He cycled all around this area regularly at weekends.
The police car was right behind him, filling his mirror, blue and white lights flashing, siren wailing, signalling him to stop. Headlights of a vehicle were coming fast in the opposite direction. The police car would wait until it had passed and then make its move.