by Ellis, Tim
Randall butted in. ‘Look, if you don’t want to help us, we’ll just find our own way out there . . .’
Lt Carter laughed. ‘Yeah, of course you will. Before that happens we’ll lock you up for your own safety. Wait here.’ She disappeared behind the counter and made a phone call. When she reappeared she said, ‘Okay. I can’t give you permission to go onto the training area. Not least, because we’d have to suspend live firing and . . .’
Randall said, ‘Shouldn’t you be doing that anyway if there are people . . .’
She held up her hand. ‘Major Weedall – the second-in-command – is on his way here. He’ll know what to do with you.’
They had to wait another fifteen minutes for the Major to appear.
He shook hands with the three of them. ‘Major Ryan Weedall – 2nd Battalion Yorkshire Light Infantry, and second-in-command of SENTA. What seems to be the problem?’
Sue repeated her story for the benefit of the Major, who was a tall, angular-faced man with bushy eyebrows and hairy ears.
‘Hmmm,’ he said, smoothing down his handlebar moustache with the thumb and forefinger of his left hand.
Randall stepped up to the plate again. ‘I thought military officers were renowned for their decision-making abilities.’
‘Cole Randall . . . Hmmm . . . that name rings a bell for some reason . . . It’ll come to me, I’m sure. Anyway, you’d be right about our decision-making abilities, Mr Randall. Right, Lt Carter get the duty vehicle and bring it out front . . .’
‘Who will be driving it, Sir?’
‘You will be, Carter.’
‘Me, Sir?’
‘Is there a problem?’
‘No, Sir.’
‘Good.’ He turned to the female Duty Sergeant behind the counter. ‘Sergeant Fleming, take our guests to the Clothing Store. Kit them out with parkas, boots, gloves and face mufflers – they certainly can’t go out on the training area dressed as they are.’
‘Yes, Sir.’ She took a key from a glass cabinet on the wall.
‘While all that’s happening,’ he said to DS Vella. ‘I’ll contact the Range Safety Officer and find out when the live firing is due to cease. If necessary I’ll organise a window of opportunity for you to get in and get out. Is that the type of decision-making you’re referring to, Mr Randall?’
The corner of his mouth went up. ‘The very same.’
‘Good. I was sorry to hear about your wife and children, dastardly business.’
‘Thank you, Major.’
‘After this is all over we’ll have a few snifters in the mess, and you can tell me the story.’
They followed Sergeant Clair Fleming outside. Crabbe hid his bag round the side of the Guard Room, and then caught them up as they crunched through the snow to the Clothing Store.
Once all three of them looked like undisciplined soldiers, they tramped back to the guard room.
Lieutenant Carter had the Land Rover idling outside.
‘I’ll get in the back,’ Crabbe said, disappearing round the side of the Guard House.
Randall and Vella followed Sergeant Fleming back into the building.
A private soldier was marching on the spot at the rear of the room.
‘Left, right, left, right . . .’ a Corporal bawled at him. ‘Halt.’ He put his face right up to the private’s face. ‘Stand still, Holt. If I see one fucking hair move on your scrawny body, you’ll be shovelling snow until hell freezes over. Do I make myself crystal clear?’
‘Yes, Corporal.’
‘Get down. Give me fifty.’
‘Fif . . . ?’
‘A hundred, you fucking moron.’
The Major smiled at them. ‘Good old-style discipline – can’t beat it. Bring back conscription is what I say, that’d sort the country out. Right, it’s 0045 hours. At great personal expense I’ve arranged a two-hour window of opportunity between 0100 and 0300 hours. There will be no live firing between those times. Lieutenant Carter, you’re responsible for getting them in and out during that window. Do you think you can do that?’
She came to attention and shouted, ‘Yes, Sir.’
‘Good. This is your one chance to redeem yourself and save your army career – understood?’
She nodded. ‘I understand, Sir.’
Randall wondered what she’d done that she now needed to seek redemption.
‘Okay, you’d better get going.’
Lieutenant Carter led them out to the Land Rover. DS Vella jumped into the front passenger seat. Randall scrambled over the tailboard into the back with Crabbe.
‘Ready?’ Carter threw over her shoulder.
‘Ready,’ Randall said.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Thursday, December 6
It was twenty to two when she heard scraping sounds at the front door.
Tony had his head in the fridge – she could see a ghostly light emanating from the kitchen like a fog drifting in from the Thames.
The light disappeared. ‘Gov?’ he hissed.
She sat up. ‘I heard,’ she hissed back. ‘Stay by the wall.’
They waited.
After a couple of minutes the lock clicked and the front door slowly opened.
They waited.
The shadow of a man appeared.
In the quiet of the night they heard a train rumble over the railway bridge crossing the Thames.
The man closed the front door and switched a torch on. The light bounced off the hallway walls and ceiling and then shone into the living room.
He crept past the wall where Tony was standing and played the light around the living room until it rested on Molly’s face.
‘Hello,’ she said.
Behind the man, Tony took a pace away from the wall towards him. ‘The game’s up, mate,’ he said.
As she was wondering if he’d learned to say that during police training, the man swivelled round and smashed the torch into Tony’s glass jaw.
Tony crumpled to the floor like a useless marionette – and he was. Now, she was on her own again.
She jumped up, physically and psychologically preparing for battle, but the man threw the torch at her and started running down the hallway, through the door and out into the night.
The torch bounced off the side of her head and went clattering across the wooden floor. For a moment she felt dizzy, but then started to follow the man.
‘TONY?’ she shouted,
There was no movement from him. He was well past the ten-count and wasn’t getting up anytime soon.
She bolted out of the door, looked right then left, and just managed to spot the man turn left at the Sainsbury’s shop on the corner. She followed. What she needed was some back-up. Nobody knew they’d gone to the house. Tony wouldn’t have a clue where she was when he came round, and she didn’t have time to stop and ring the station.
There was nobody about – no cars, no lights, no help. She rounded the corner and saw him run between two buildings at the end of the road – one of which had lights on inside. God, she was tired. Last night’s adventure hadn’t helped. Although she’d managed to get a couple of hours sleep on Professor Louis’ sofa, it just wasn’t the same as sleeping in her own bed . . .
There was a sign: British Transport Police – Police Station. The trouble was, if she stopped to ask for help she’d lose him. In fact, she’d already lost sight of him.
Where was he now?
Why could she hear the trains?
She ran between the two buildings. There were trees to her left and more unlit buildings to her right, and then she was tumbling down a grassy bank.
She grunted and then yelled as pain shot up her left leg. ‘Fuck!’
Sprawled at the bottom like a rag doll, she could see the suspect running along the railway tracks heading towards the bridge crossing the river.
Bloody hell!
She rummaged for her phone, but it wasn’t in her pocket where it should have been.
Fuck! It must have fallen out wh
en she’d fallen arse over tit. She tried to get up, but her ankle was the size of a basketball. Tears jumped into her eyes. The night was not really going how she’d imagined it would. Now she’d never find the killer. He’d disappear into the night and they’d never see or hear from him again.
‘Hello?’
It was a man’s voice at the top of the incline.
‘Yes, down here,’ she called.
Cautiously, he jinked down the slope to reach her. ‘Are you all right?’
‘Not really. I’m a Detective Inspector from Hammersmith Police Station. See that man heading towards the bridge?’ She pointed at the ghostly shape leaping from railway sleeper to railway sleeper like an Olympic hurdler.
‘Yeah.’
‘He’s probably the man who crucified the priest. I was chasing him, but it . . .’
‘Hey! I was round the back of the station having a . . . Well anyway, I saw you run past. I’m a Sergeant with the Transport Police. Don’t you worry Ma’am, we’ll catch the bast . . .’ He took out his mobile phone and thrust it at her. ‘Here. Find “Work” in my phonebook. Call the number and tell them what’s happening down here. Say that Joe Fosse is legging it after the bast . . .’ He started off along the tracks. As he went he threw over his shoulder, ‘They also need to get someone from the other side of the river coming this way as well . . .’
She found the number in his phonebook, rang it and recounted what was happening. Then she rang Tony’s number.
‘Where are you, Gov?’
She told him.
‘I’m on my way.’
‘Are you sure . . . ?’ she was about to taunt him, but he’d already ended the call.
Three men ran down the bank towards her. Two of them had torches. The one that didn’t followed Joe Fosse along the railway tracks.
‘Don’t worry, Ma’am,’ one of the other two men said. ‘We’ll catch the bast . . .’
‘Come on, Fred,’ they called after the man who was following Joe. ‘You’re never going to get into the relay team for Brazil running like that.’
When she looked at where she was, it seemed to be a meeting place for railway tracks – like a junction she guessed. There were a few trains standing idle beyond the tracks in front of her, which must have been a siding, a train cemetery or something like that.
A train rumbled slowly past from right to left in front of her. The carriage lights were on, and she saw a few people’s disconnected heads framed in the windows. Where had they come from? Where were they going at this time of the morning? The thought made her look at her watch – five past four! Where had the time gone?
What she did know was that Victoria station was not far along the tracks to her left, and that it was one of the main London stations from where trains went to other parts of the country. She thought that maybe the trains had to switch tracks – depending on where they were bound for. Maybe one track went east, one west . . .’
A group of people had congregated at the top of the bank. She could hear them talking, and the echoes from a walkie-talkie.
‘They’ve got him penned in,’ someone shouted. ‘Hang on . . . Jesus!’
‘What?’ one of the men standing beside her called up.
‘He fucking jumped.’
‘Jumped? Jumped where?’
‘Into the fucking river.’
‘Jesus!’
Everyone went quiet at the terrifying thought of jumping thirty feet into the freezing Thames and getting sucked under by the lethal currents.
Tony arrived and slid down the bank.
‘Are you okay, Gov?’
‘More or less.’
‘Sorry about . . .’
‘You were just unlucky.’
‘Yeah. What about the killer?’
‘He jumped off the railway bridge into the river.’
‘Jesus!’
‘So people keep saying.’
Eventually, Joe Fosse and the other man came back.
‘Sorry, Ma’am,’ Joe said. ‘I tried to talk him out of it, but the crazy bast . . . just jumped.’
‘Thanks for trying anyway, Joe,’ she said. ‘I don’t know what I’d have done without you.’
She used Joe’s phone to ring the Marine Policing Unit (MPU), told them what had happened and asked if they could carry out a search – they weren’t hopeful of finding a body and neither was she.
Next, she rang her own number. The phone lit up and began vibrating half way down the slope. ‘Get that for me will you, Tony?’
He scrambled up the bank and brought the phone down for her. ‘Now what, Gov?’
‘I suppose we’d better call it a night. I’ll have to brief the Chief in a couple of hours, and then there’s the press briefing . . .’ She tried to get up, but cried out in pain as she put pressure on her left foot.
Joe took charge. ‘Here you go, Fred. We’ll carry her up in a chair lift.’ He called up the bank. ‘There’s a damsel in distress down here, men – we need ropes to pull her up.’
Within minutes, one end of a nylon climbing rope was thrown down to them. They looped the rope around the two of them and sent the end back to the top, picked up Molly in a chair lift between them and then Joe shouted, ‘Pull, lads.’
Slowly, they were hauled up the incline.
At the top Joe said, ‘Let’s take her inside, Fred.’ He looked at Molly. ‘We’ll get someone to take a quick look at that ankle, and give you a hot drink before you go off to the hospital, Ma’am.’
‘No, I don’t need to go to the hospital.’
‘You didn’t say you were a doctor as well, Ma’am. You’re on British Transport Police property now, and I’m in charge here. If I say you go to the hospital, you go to the hospital.’
Fred nodded. ‘Best go to the hospital, Ma’am.’
She wasn’t going to argue with them. Maybe she did need to get it checked out. It was certainly red and swollen. It might even be broken. And with hospital waiting times the way they were, she might get the chance to catch up with her sleep.
They carried her inside and fashioned a lounger from three easy chairs. A pillow was found to put under her ankle, and a mug of sweet tea appeared shortly afterwards.
‘Tony?’
‘Yes, Gov.’
‘Get back to the flat . . .’
‘But . . .’
‘I’ll be all right. What we don’t want is for Estes and his gormless partner to turn up and lock us out again. Drive your car up there, put the contents of that secret room into your boot, and put everything else back the way we found it. Estes will be none the wiser. We’ll give all the stuff to Perkins and see if he can’t find out what it was all about. Our killer is probably dead. If we’re lucky the MPU might find a body and we’ll be able to identify him, but I’m not holding my breath. We might never know who he was.’
‘You’re sure you’ll be all right?’
‘I’ll be fine.’ She looked around at the faces of the men surrounding her and smiled. ‘For a change, I have some men who want to take care of me.’
Chapter Forty
Lieutenant Carter rammed the Land Rover into four-wheel drive. They made it down to the Railway Inn, along the road and into the first ditch on the training area. Randall imagined that four-wheel drive was certainly a good invention if all four wheels were on the ground, but it didn’t appear to be of much use when only two wheels could access the traction needed to move forwards or backwards.
‘This is not really the way to redeem yourself Lieutenant Carter,’ he said, peeling himself off Crabbe.
‘I think I’ve broken my arm,’ she said.
He could hear her snivelling.
‘I’ll never be a proper soldier.’
‘Sue – are you okay?’ he called.
‘I’m okay.’ She scrambled through the gap into the back of the vehicle.
When all three of them were standing outside in the swirling snow Crabbe said, ‘What about the officer?’
Randall crawled
back into the vehicle. ‘We have to go. There’s no way you can lead us there now with a broken arm. Will you be all right here?’
‘I’ll be fine. I’ll leave the engine running so that I can keep the heater on, and then as soon as the weather improves I’ll climb out and make my way back to the village. You go and save those people, Mr Randall.’
‘Look after yourself, Carter. I’m sure you’ll make a fine soldier.’
She grimaced and passed something through to him.
It was a map in a plastic case with a compass.
‘How much use it’ll be in this weather I don’t know, but it’ll give you an idea of where you’re going. Keep heading south west. You should reach the barn at Llyn y Fan Fawr in about an hour. If you haven’t reached it, you’ll know you’ve gone wrong. Try moving to your left – it’s been found that people veer to the right when they’re going in a straight line.’
‘Thanks, Lieutenant.’ He backed out.
After passing them both a torch and a Glock 17, Crabbe buried his bag under a bush.
They set off in a south westerly direction, which meant they were fighting the wind every step of the way. Nobody was going to make tonight easy for them.
He didn’t believe in God, because he knew that if there had been such an omnipotent being, then he would have done something to save his wife and two children. So he didn’t bother saying a prayer under his breath – he simply gritted his teeth, took the lead and put one foot in front of the other.
There was no point in talking – words were simply torn from their mouths by the wind.
The snow in places reached to his knees and he tried to navigate an easy path, but the ground was hard and dangerous. He was grateful for the clothing and boots Major Weedall had loaned them, and knew that they would have died out here from exposure if all they’d been wearing were their normal clothes. This was an inhospitable place, which of course, was why the Army used it for training purposes.
Things were going fine until he walked into the wrong end of an SA80. He raised his hands.
Crabbe walked into the back of him.
He quickly turned to stop Crabbe pulling his gun out and shooting the soldier.