by Peter James
He gripped the brake handle and waited. Waited. Then as the oncoming vehicle streaked past, he pulled the handbrake on as hard as he could. Instantly the car began snaking, its rear wheels locked up. There was a howl of sirens and the slither of tyres on wet tarmac as the Audi shot past, fishtailing crazily.
Then, only just visible in the headlights, its entrance shrouded with shrubbery, was the lane. Somehow he held on to the car, stopping it from swapping ends, and made the turn. Yes! He jammed the accelerator pedal to the floor, anxiously watching his rear-view mirror.
Then the fuel gauge.
The mirror again.
Two shiny pinpricks appeared ahead of him. Growing bigger. A deer standing in the road, mesmerized by his lights. Shit! He stamped on the brake, slewed round the frozen animal, missing it by inches, and then accelerated hard again.
Where do I go?
Petrol station.
No way.
Got to lose the police. Not going to do that by running out of petrol out here.
Where the hell do I go? Which direction?
He felt as empty as the fuel tank. All his juice gone. Everything gone. It would happen to everyone, eventually. Always had done and always will. All of us run out of life juice. Needle on empty. Dull little amber light showing. Then oblivion.
Or meet our maker.
Trees and shrubs were flashing by: 90 mph – 100 mph – 110 mph. He could swing the wheel to the right or to the left now and plough into them.
But what if it didn’t kill him? If he didn’t hit a big tree but instead a bunch of saplings? What if he was just injured? Blinded or paralysed?
Then he saw the blue lights again, in his mirror, tiny strobing pinpricks. Doubling in size every second.
Hurtling towards him.
104
Saturday 30 April
Richard Trundle in the passenger seat of Hotel Tango Two Eight One was maintaining his running commentary to Ops-1, whilst simultaneously carrying out his duties as pursuit commander. In recent months, due to a change of policy, although Ops-1 had the overall responsibility for any chase, and would end it at any time if they felt there was too much danger to the public, it was now up to the officers actually carrying out the pursuit role to decide on the most effective and safest tactics to effect a stop.
A deer darted across the road in front of them, causing Edwards to brake sharply, but Trundle kept a watchful eye on the tail lights ahead. They were gaining on them rapidly.
‘Maintaining visual on subject vehicle,’ he said. ‘Speed one-one-five in six-zero limit.’ As he spoke he was thinking hard, glancing intermittently at the area map he had brought up on the screen showing their current position and the road options around them.
He knew roughly the positions of the three division cars close by and he was trying to work out his chances of containing the Mondeo and forcing it to a halt at a roadblock if viable. A stop-stick would be another option, but he didn’t have enough details on the locations of any of the other cars as yet. If he could coordinate them, and the subject vehicle was on a wide-enough road, they could try to use the safest method of all, TPAC – containing the vehicle by boxing it in with one or more other vehicles.
‘Subject vehicle turning left, left left,’ he announced, as Edwards braked hard and continued following. ‘South on the A281, passing Ginger Fox pub.’
There was a roundabout a mile ahead. A left turn would take the Mondeo down towards the A23 with then a choice of routes north towards London or south towards Brighton. If another car was close enough, perhaps they could take control of that road, he contemplated, but he only had seconds to make that decision. If the Mondeo continued straight over the roundabout it would enter a narrow, winding three-mile-long road over the Devil’s Dyke leading towards the outskirts of Brighton, with only two turn-off options. They should be able to get a Brighton car to position itself at the far end and, with luck, another one at the other end near Small Dole.
He gave Ops-1 the two requests. The Mondeo was approaching the roundabout, and they were now again less than a hundred yards behind it.
‘What about the paraffin parrot?’ Edwards said.
‘I think we can get him without the helicopter,’ Trundle replied, watching the car entering the small roundabout. Into his radio he said, ‘Subject vehicle going off at not one – not two – not three – Oh shit! Off at four! Back the way we’ve just come from!’
The one exit he had not anticipated, effectively a U-turn.
Trundle gripped the grab handle as Edwards kept the Audi in a controlled power slide round the roundabout, and accelerated out of it.
‘You could be on Top Gear with that one, Pip,’ Trundle said.
Edwards grinned.
‘Nooooooo!’ Trundle yelled. ‘Stop, get back, you idiot!’
An articulated lorry was pulling out of the entrance to a garden centre, a short distance ahead. The car they were chasing shot past it but, seemingly blind to their blue lights and deaf to their siren, the lorry continued pulling out, turning right, completely blocking their path.
All Trundle and Edwards could do was sit tight.
‘Comms, we have momentarily lost visual contact – due to a lorry turning across us.’
Finally, as the lorry completed its turn, there was enough of a gap to get by it. Edwards started to pull out then immediately braked and pulled in again, as a Range Rover came past from the opposite direction. Then Edwards pulled out again and the road was clear.
Too clear.
Just a long black ribbon with dark woodland on either side.
The subject vehicle was no longer in sight.
105
Saturday 30 April
Need to get to the city.
I’ve just got to get there. Got to, got to, GOT TO.
Out here in the countryside, if he ran out of fuel they’d find the car quickly, he knew. Then they’d put up the helicopter with its heat-source night vision and they’d pick him out. He’d be better off in the city, invisible there, plenty of hiding places, and it would make it harder for a dog handler to find him.
He just had to get there.
Ten miles.
There has to be ten miles more in the tank.
He looked in his mirror.
Just darkness.
He was hurtling up towards a three-way junction that he knew well. The Ginger Fox restaurant, where he’d sometimes come with Lena for Sunday lunch, was on the right. A sharp right in front of it would be the fastest way to the city from here. It would take him to the A23. But that’s where they’d be expecting him.
Turning off the main road – more or less straight on into another lane – would take him back out into the countryside. Where he did not want to be.
Had to carry on along the main road. That was his best option. Nothing showed in his mirror, to his relief. They still weren’t in sight.
He drove too fast round the sharp left-hand bend, feeling the car twitching and sliding on the wet, greasy road, then a right-hander was coming up. He braked hard and turned sharp left just on the apex, down a narrow road he’d cycled along many times in the past, Clappers Lane. It would take him on a back route into Brighton that hopefully they wouldn’t be expecting him to go for. Via Shoreham, to the west of the city.
If his fuel lasted.
If they didn’t find him again.
He looked at the fuel gauge. There was always a couple of gallons in the tank when it showed empty. There had to be. He gripped the wheel, looked in the mirror, the road ahead, the mirror, the road ahead.
I don’t know what I’m doing.
Just got to keep going. Keep going. All the time I’m going I’m alive.
When I stop, I’m dead.
106
Saturday 30 April
‘Shit!’ PC Trundle said. ‘Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit!’
They had stopped, momentarily, outside the Ginger Fox, staring at the road signs – although they knew this area like the back of the
ir hands.
Trundle was trying to guess which way the car had gone. Which road would he have taken, he wondered? And every second that they wasted here meant the Mondeo was getting further and further away.
‘A23?’ Pip Edwards suggested. ‘That’s where I’d head.’
‘If that’s where he wanted to get to, he’d have hit it sooner.’ Trundle shook his head. ‘He’s been keeping to the back roads and obviously has local knowledge.’
‘Right, so let’s think for a moment,’ Edwards said. ‘Where’s he actually going?’
‘I’ve no idea.’
‘You’ve nicked a car, the police are on to you. You need to ditch it – but preferably somewhere else you can nick another car to shake them off.’
‘A pub car park?’
Edwards shrugged. ‘If he had the presence of mind, maybe. Not sure I’d think that if I was in a red-mist panic, I’d just keep driving, in the hope of getting away – as he has done. Perhaps losing us in a town. Crawley? Haywards Heath? Burgess Hill? Brighton? Could be any of those. So, straight on or one of the rights?’
The two officers stared ahead.
‘I don’t think he’s turned off – I think he’s carried on towards Henfield,’ said Trundle.
‘Do we toss a coin?’
Trundle pressed his radio button. ‘Ops-1, we have lost Golf Yankee One Four Golf Romeo X-ray. He could have gone one of three ways. We are terminating the pursuit.’ He gave the road numbers.
‘OK, Hotel Tango Two Eight One, stand down and stay where you are. We’ll see if he’s spotted on any of those routes. You’re in a good position if he doubles back, so stay put.’
‘Stay put,’ he repeated, flatly, sensing from the tone of Kim Sherwood’s voice that she felt they’d fucked up. ‘Yes, yes.’
Moments later Inspector Sherwood’s voice came through the radio again, sounding much more animated. ‘Subject vehicle has just been sighted! Single male occupant.’
107
Saturday 30 April
Roy Grace had returned to his office and, patched into Ops-1 on his radio, was following the pursuit. Ray Packham, at the spare desk in front of him, was going through the contents from Lorna Belling’s laptop.
Grace had spoken to both the duty Gold and Silver Commanders about the POLACC – police accident – with the possibility of a case of potential murder committed by a member of his team, and he had also alerted Professional Standards.
Batchelor’s Ford Mondeo had been put on the ANPR hot list, and police vehicles heading towards the area to attempt to contain and stop the car had been ordered to minimalize their use of blue lights and sirens, where safe, in order to avoid alerting him.
‘Some very angry emails to Lorna Belling from Seymour Darling, Roy,’ Packham said, suddenly.
‘Yes?’
‘Get this one, from Darling: Oh right, Mrs Belling. If you call screwing someone behind your husband’s back “honest”, then I’m a banana. SD.’
Grace smiled distantly, his focus entirely on his thoughts about Batchelor. He was distracted by a voice on the Ops-1 patch. ‘Charlie Romeo Zero Five. We have visual on subject vehicle entering the Shoreham flyover roundabout. Off at three. Now heading towards Shoreham.’
Then he heard Sherwood direct local division cars down to the coast road.
A male voice, presumably in the pursuit car, was calling out the speed. ‘Seven-zero in three-zero limit. Eight-zero in three-zero limit.’
Grace knew that stretch of road well. It was two-lane, residential, cars parked on both sides, only just room for two vehicles to pass each other in opposite directions. A 30 mph limit, and Batchelor was hurtling down it at eighty.
The officer’s voice suddenly shouted out, ‘Jesus, near miss, he’s driving like a lunatic, he’s passed an oncoming vehicle on the wrong side, driving along the pavement!’
‘Charlie Romeo Zero Five,’ Ops-1 said. ‘It’s too dangerous. Discontinue the pursuit. Maintain your course, but discontinue the pursuit.’
‘Yes, yes. We have pulled over and switched off our lights.’
‘Ops-1,’ Grace said, ‘is the helicopter available?’
‘I’ve already checked, Roy, it’s attending a serious injury RTC in Kent at the moment. Won’t be available for an hour, on their best estimate.’
‘What about the drone?’
Brighton Police used a drone to supplement their network of CCTV cameras around the city.
‘I’ve just alerted the duty Gold Commander and requested it. But we have CAA flight restriction issues – it can only overfly the coastline, not the city itself.’
‘Can you get it directed towards Shoreham?’
‘Yes, it’s being dispatched now.’
‘Bloody hell!’ Packham exclaimed.
‘What, Ray?’
‘He’s making a pretty explicit threat to her in this one.’
Then Kim Sherwood spoke again. ‘Subject vehicle has just pinged an ANPR camera on Albion Street, heading east.’
Into Brighton, Grace thought.
‘I have another divisional car that’s sighted him. He’s gone the wrong side of an island and run a red light.’
Just what was going on with Batchelor, Grace wondered? This was so utterly out of character – complete madness – if indeed it was him driving, and they still did not have confirmation of that. It was still possible someone had stolen the car, or kidnapped the DI. He just could not believe this was Batchelor. No way. This was not the gentle giant, Guy Batchelor, that he knew.
And it sounded like it was going to end badly.
He stood up, pulled on his jacket and grabbed his car keys. ‘Ops-1, I’m on my way into Brighton, will keep my radio live.’
‘He’s now passing Hove Lagoon, travelling on the wrong side of the Kingsway dual carriageway. Two oncoming vehicles have been forced off the road and crashed.’
Shit.
Leaving Packham in mid-sentence trying to tell him something, Grace raced out of his office.
108
Saturday 30 April
He just wanted to get home. To explain to Lena. But that wasn’t an option, he knew. He had to hide, lie low, lie doggo. Let it all calm down.
Lights were coming at him. Headlights straight at him. Street lights above him. He heard a siren wailing.
This is not me.
This is not happening.
In a minute I will wake up. All will be fine. I’ll be in bed, at home.
My nice luxurious bed.
A glass of wine and a cigarette. We’ll be laughing.
Oh yes!
We’ll just be laughing.
Why did I ever get involved with Lorna in the first place? I was having a good life with Lena. Why? Why? Why?
He leaned forward and switched on the Mondeo’s blue lights and siren, wondering why he hadn’t thought to utilize them sooner.
He swerved past a taxi, then undertook a car in front of it. A speed camera flashed at him.
Great, send me a ticket, do. I’m on a shout!
His speedometer read 70.
He was passing the King Alfred. Memories – Vallance Mansions directly across the road, to his left, where this nightmare had begun.
Moments later Hove Lawns were on his right. The darkness of the English Channel beyond. Brighton. His city. The place he worked to keep safe. Now he was a fugitive. It was all a mistake.
They’ll realize.
Oh, you are so smart, Roy Grace. I thought you were my friend. You’ve got to understand we can all make a mistake. Any of our lives can turn on a sixpence. Or whatever the damned smallest coin is now.
Headlights in his mirror.
Red traffic lights ahead.
Suddenly the engine spluttered.
No, no, no!
It picked up. A car was crossing the road ahead of him. He swerved right, around the front of it, ignored its angry horn.
Then spluttered again.
Don’t do this. Not yet. Please, not yet. I need a plan.
Plan B. Plan C. Plan D.
Keep moving.
Plan E.
Find a hiding place.
Plan F.
His radio crackled. All the radio chatter had been white noise up until now, but suddenly he heard a familiar voice. Except he didn’t sound the warm, friendly way he usually did. He was all cold, formal. Like the stranger he really was, and always had been.
‘Guy? This is Roy. Are you OK?’
The engine picked up. The car spurted forward, then slowed again. Then spurted.
He looked at the fuel gauge.
Flashing blue lights. Two police officers at the roadside signalling him, frantically.
He felt a rumble beneath him as if he had gone over a cattle grid. Heard four explosions, like gun shots, and the car veered, crazily left, then right.
He gripped the wheel, kept the accelerator floored. The car was snaking along the road, bumping along, the back end trying to come round and overtake the front. He fought the wheel, spinning it right, left, right. There was a loud flapping, slapping noise.
Bastards.
He’d driven over a stinger. All four tyres gone. Now he was driving on the rims.
The engine spluttered again and then picked up once more. 50 mph. He hurtled over another red light. The Metropole Hotel was coming up on his left. Followed by The Grand.
To his right, the latest addition to the Brighton landscape. The i360. The 162-metre-high observation tower. The world’s tallest moving observation tower, or something like that. It had a huge glass doughnut-like thing, an observation room, that rose up towards the top. A lot of people hated it. He thought it was cool.
It looked really cool right now.
Jump off the top of it? That would teach Roy Grace a lesson about—
About something.
You have to realize, Roy, that people make mistakes. OK? Didn’t you ever make a mistake?
Traffic was backed up in front of him.
There was a street coming up, to the left, just past The Grand.
Shit. A police car was parked across the entrance.
His engine died.
He pressed the accelerator, several times.