One Last Prayer for the Rays

by Wes Markin

  Yorke looked at Jake, who stared back, wide-eyed. ‘So, does Sean have him?’ he said into his hands-free.

  ‘Almost ... shit ... this wiry bastard is quick ... he’s in the van ... Sean has hold of the door ...’

  Gardner joined in the dialogue from the Park and Ride. ‘We’re coming to assist.’

  Yorke listened to Gardner wheezing as she ran.

  ‘Tell me Sean’s got the door open,’ Topham said.

  No answer.

  ‘Iain, what’s happening?’ Yorke said.

  ‘Sorry, the doors locked, Sean can’t get in. Shit, he’s fallen. Christ, Mark, he’s driving right for you―’

  ‘Fuck me,’ Topham said.

  There was an explosion of green, and Yorke watched open mouthed as the white transit burst from the bushes lining the car park. Amplified through his ear-piece, the ambush sounded like it came from a large primordial creature. The van turned sharply left, before it could demolish Topham’s unmarked car on the narrow road directly opposite the bush.

  ‘You okay?’ Yorke said.

  ‘Yes, he’s coming your way,’ Topham said.

  Yorke considered moving out and blocking, but the van was accelerating quickly, and it could be a suicide mission. Instead, he paused for the van to pass and then shot out onto Bourne Way in pursuit.

  ‘We’ll block him off at the main roundabout,’ Topham said.

  Yorke jammed his foot down, tearing over the roundabout the van had already cleared. Irate drivers bashed horns, but remained composed enough not to get in the way.

  ‘Not sure I’m going to enjoy this,’ Jake said.

  With no snow falling, visibility was good, but there was only one lane at this part of the A36, and it had been narrowed significantly by the build-up of snow at the sides of it. It was imperative that Yorke kept the Lexus as straight as an arrow; one false swerve and they would be spinning to a possible death.

  Ahead, the van clattered into the bumper of the car in front of it leaving the terrorised driver little choice but to swerve off the road into a car park on the left. Three stores received a sudden influx of customers at terrifying velocities. One Mini took out a trolley of alcohol beside an off-licence; split cans sprayed beer in the air like tiny geysers.

  ‘Not long until the roundabout at the end of the A36, Mark. Update?’

  ‘We have a couple of cars and a bike. ETA, 35 seconds,’ Topham said. ‘Do you think there is more than one kidnapper?’

  ‘Either that, or he could have sent this man to divert us.’

  ‘Divert us from what?’

  The words “In the Blood” suddenly shot through Yorke’s head. ‘Get someone to Joe and Sarah Ray immediately.’

  ‘Okay, you don’t think―’

  ‘I’m not sure what to think right now, Mark, just do it!’

  He tensed both hands on the wheel as he dinked the van’s bumper.

  ‘Brace yourself,’ he said to Jake, and thrust even harder this time, jolting both of them forward.

  ‘Easy tiger,’ Jake said. ’That’s not going to make him stop.’

  The A36 divided, and the van driver flipped lanes, weaving around the other vehicles like a race car in a computer game.

  Brooke’s voice came through his ear-piece. ‘Good news on the skaters, we retrieved the money.’

  ‘What about the sack?’ Yorke said.

  ‘Emma and I are going to take a look now.’

  Yorke fired up the flashing blue lights on the front grille. The accompanying two-toned siren always charged him with adrenaline: he streaked around a Toyota, an Audi and then rammed into the back of the van again, bringing another mutter of disapproval from Jake. Then, the van’s brake lights glowed; a car in front of it must have slowed. The van zipped to the other lane, leaving Yorke to pound his own brakes to avoid hitting a braking Ford. He screeched into the other lane without checking his mirrors, praying that the traffic behind them had slowed to a crawl to avoid the battle.

  Realising he was seconds from the roundabout that led onto the major ring road, he said, ‘Mark have you got both directions completely covered if we fail to stop him at the roundabout?”

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Topham said. ‘We have vehicles at New Bridge Road roundabout, and then others at the Churchill Way one.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘Which way do you think he’ll go?’ Jake said.

  ‘Left, I hope,’ Yorke said. ‘Because then there’s nowhere for him to turn off before we get him at the next roundabout. Right, he could swerve off into town. We’ll still get him, but there’s bound to be damage that way and the last thing I want to deal with right now is a dead pedestrian.’

  At the roundabout, the van driver opted for the right turn and was half-way round, when Yorke saw the police-bike burst onto the roundabout. The biker tried to align himself alongside the van.

  ‘He’s confident,’ Jake said.

  The biker thumped the van driver’s door several times. Inevitably, the driver swerved and there was a shower of sparks as both the bike and the man danced along the concrete. Then, the van exited.

  Yorke careered over the roundabout. ‘Stay on the ring road, you dickhead.’

  Despite the two tone, Yorke could hear the throbbing of a helicopter descending from the clouds.

  On the ring road, the van continued to weave amongst traffic, sideswiping cars, clipping wing mirrors, and Yorke’s Lexus crunched through the debris left in its wake. A hefty bill would be finding its way to the Wiltshire police force. Houses loomed over the ring road, everyone was crammed in together like an upmarket version of a Brazilian slum.

  Yorke’s speedometer danced around eighty. He showed the back of the van his bumper again; unfortunately, the van also showed its brake lights again and swerved, leaving Yorke hurtling toward a Saxo. He stabbed the pedal. A cry came from Jake as the front wheels locked, and they skidded almost ninety degrees toward a snowy covered barrier. Yorke gagged on the impact of sudden fear.

  From the corner of his eye, Yorke saw the van taking a hard left as, unbelievably, the barrier ended, sparing their lives and, with a stroke of good fortune, leaving them facing the right direction to continue chasing the van. Back in control, he accelerated, caught the transit up and breathed in his quarry’s diesel fumes.

  He could hear sirens raging all around. The idiot was heading into a multi-story car park. What the hell was he doing?

  ‘We’re following the suspect into the multi-story car park, first left off the ring road.’

  ‘Okay, back-up will follow you in,’ Topham said. ‘I’m with Iain now; he’s throwing up. We’ve opened the sack. It’s disgusting―’

  The white van hit the barricade dead on like a homing missile and wood rained down on Yorke’s windscreen.

  ****

  It’d been a long time since anyone had asked Lacey Ray what her brother Joe was like, but when she was younger, she’d always described him in the same way:

  Weak.

  She probably should have used more than one word, but there’d never seemed much point, not when the man was only worth one.

  Yesterday, she’d detected an aggressive tone in his voice; so, today, she considered it essential that she cast an eye over Joe’s treatment of Sarah.

  Despite it still being quite early, it was very cloudy overhead, and the porch bathed in an artificial orange light. She walked up the drive towards it and saw that the door was ajar. When she reached it, she pushed the door open slightly and said, ‘Hello? Joe? Sarah?’

  She waited. No answer. She caught a familiar citrusy tang in the air.

  Blood?

  She pushed the door open fully. One of the show-jumping pictures was smashed on the floor.

  A struggle?

  She knelt down at the doorstep and stared at some droplets of blood. She then stood up and moved down the corridor, stepping over the smashed picture along the way. The smell intensified.

  Are you in trouble Joe?

  He always was such a nee
dy little mummy’s boy. A weakling who’d still been suckling on her at six.

  ‘Joe? Sarah?’

  She entered the sitting room and noticed the crystal glass smashed on the parquet floor.

  Have you collapsed somewhere drunk, perhaps? Split your head open?

  The drink had always been a weakness of Joe’s – as had the shagging.

  She’d learned all about men’s flaws from Joe; she’d watched them chew him up.

  The smell was less pungent here, so she backtracked to the kitchen door. She held her breath when she pushed it open.

  On the floor was a pool of blood; ruby red, peaceful and still. The joins between the tiles glowed dark, like thick veins, and made the pool look like an organism.

  Bled dry?

  She read what was scrawled on the window above the sink: In the Blood.

  She looked back down. Something in this blood?

  She couldn’t see anything floating in the pool.

  Unless, was it metaphoric? A reference to our blood, our family?

  She reached into her pocket for her phone and phoned Jake.

  As soon as the phone was answered, she said, ‘Jake?’

  ‘Who is this?’ Sheila said.

  ‘Hello Sheila, it’s Lacey, I need to speak to Jake urgently.’

  A moment of silence. ‘What do you want? How do you have Jake’s personal number?’

  ‘Someone’s dead.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘My brother has been murdered.’

  ‘Well, you need to phone the police, Jake is not here.’

  ‘You’re still feisty then?’

  ‘What? I’m hanging up now―’

  ‘Does he still mention me?’

  ‘No, of course not? Why would he?’

  ‘We have history you see. There’s lots to tell.’

  She hung up, phoned the police station, gave her name to the woman who answered and asked to be put through to Jake’s work mobile. ‘It’s an emergency, I have important information regarding the case―’

  ‘What information?’ the woman said.

  ‘I’ll only talk to Jake.’

  It was over a minute before she heard Jake’s voice. ‘Hello,’ Jake said; he sounded breathless. ‘It’s a bad time, this better be important.’

  ‘It is. I’m at my brother’s house; there’s blood everywhere.’

  She listened to him tell his partner.

  ‘Okay, Lacey, wait outside for response to get there.’

  Lacey could hear the sounds of screeching tyres. ‘I also have a confession to make.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I just phoned your personal mobile and Sheila answered.’

  ‘Shit, Lacey! What did she say?’

  ‘Not much, but it does concern me that she has such anger issues.’

  ****

  ‘Apparently, there is blood everywhere, Lacey Ray just called it in from the cottage,’ Yorke said into his hands-free.

  ‘Response is seconds away,’ Topham said.

  With sweat running into his eyes, Yorke tore up the multi-story levels, while Jake shouted into his mobile phone. ‘You need to stay away from me and stay away from my wife.’

  As Yorke curved the Lexus up to the third level, the smell of burning rubber filled the air.

  ‘I’m not threatening you,’ Jake said.

  The parked cars alongside him melded into a psychedelic blur. He went into the next turn, stabbing the brake pedal. The car squealed.

  ‘I can’t meet with you; I don’t want to meet with you!’

  On the fourth floor, Yorke saw people pressed against the sides of their cars, wide eyed. He could only imagine their fear; roaring diesel engines, echoing in a confined space, must have sounded like a tsunami rushing in. Yorke struck out left to get a deeper turn to reach the fifth level.

  ‘Lacey? You there? ... stupid woman!’ He slipped his phone back into his pocket.

  Setting himself a new personal best, Yorke took the corner at over twenty miles per hour. Concrete gnawed into the side of the car and sparks spiralled like fireflies.

  ‘Christ!’ Jake said.

  ‘Iain,’ Yorke said. ‘You still haven’t updated me on the sack, tell me the kid wasn’t in it.’

  ‘He wasn’t. It was a pig’s carcass,’ Brookes said.

  ‘Nice,’ Jake said.

  ‘There’s too many games going on here,’ Yorke said.

  Snow piles covered the top level like mole hills and some idiot had built a snowman right at the top of the ramp. Unable to avoid hitting and dismembering it, Yorke slowed as the windscreen wipers dealt with the snowy body parts. After restoring visibility, he realised, with a sudden tightening in his stomach, that the van was no longer ahead of him. Only four snow covered parked cars, and beyond that, an aging barricade.

  ‘What the ... ?’ He said, slowing down to a halt, ten metres from the edge, parallel with the parked cars. From behind them came the deep rumble of a diesel engine. ‘The bastard tricked us.’ His mouth fell open at the sight of the oncoming van in the rear-view mirror.

  The impact was massive. The coffee cup flew from its holder, bounced off the dashboard and fell at Jake’s feet. Yorke stared at the beanie-wearing junkie through the rear-view mirror as the Lexus was thrust toward the edge.

  ‘Sir, do something!’

  Yorke did all he could – he yanked the handbrake, and stamped on the foot brake. It slowed them, but the van was too strong and the Lexus clunked as it was shunted forward. If he turned, the van would just drill into the side of them.

  Topham’s voice crackled in the ear-piece. ‘Joe Ray’s gone, same MO as last time ...’

  ‘We need to get out of here now,’ Jake said, fumbling for his seatbelt clasp. Yorke did the same.

  ‘Blood on the floor, the same words on the wall ...’

  There was less than two metres to go, Yorke reached for the handle. ‘Get out!’

  With the metal barricade so close he could see the smatterings of dead flies, Yorke jerked the handle on the door and hurtled himself sideways. He hit the concrete. The air was bashed out of him. Pain took root in his shoulder, and flowered down his arm.

  As he rolled clear, he could still hear Topham. ‘The sister, Lacey Ray, was waiting outside.’

  The bumper of the Lexus chewed through the old metal barricade like liquorice and disappeared over the edge. The sound of it being crushed by a six-story drop vibrated through the air.

  Yorke sat up and stared left, desperate to see Jake, but instead saw only the side of the transit van, which had failed to stop in time, and had left its front wheels dangling over the edge.

  Yorke rose to his feet as the transit van door clunked open. The gangly driver peered over the edge at the drop that was about to end his life and then glanced up at Yorke. The back end of the van started to lift.

  Yorke held out the palm of his hand. ‘Don’t move.’

  ‘Help me,’ the driver said, showing yellowed teeth and miserable eyes.

  Yorke sprinted to the back of the van with his arm stretched out. His fingertips brushed the rising back door handle ...

  But then the rear of the van was high in the air and, for a brief moment, time seemed to freeze, leaving the van vertical, waiting to fall, while Yorke listened to his rasping breaths and thumping heart...

  ... Then it was gone. The man screamed the entire six levels until the smashing and crunching silenced him.

  Yorke saw Jake lying on the floor. He ran for the edge and peered over. He could hear Jake behind him shuffling towards him on all fours.

  Both vehicles lay side by side, upside down, showing underbellies like overturned woodlice. Steam streamed out of a smashed radiator. Wailing sirens grew louder.

  ‘It’s going to take me a long time to get that out of my head,’ Jake said.

  The thrumming of helicopter’s blades seemed to synchronise with the beating of Yorke’s heart. The first police car arrived on the multi-story roof, burn
ing the white wilderness with flashing blue lights.

  ‘We need to have a talk about Lacey Ray, right now,’ Jake said.

  ‘You want to talk about being stalked by your ex seconds after I’ve just seen my life flash before my eyes?’

  ‘Yes, there’s more to this than just stalking me; I think she could be involved with everything going on.’

  ‘And how have you reached that conclusion?’ Yorke stared at Jake, suddenly interested.

  ‘The reason that she’s my ex. She’s just like some of her infamous ancestors. Cold, calculating ...’

  ‘And mad?’

  Jake rose to his feet and dusted off the snow. ‘Yeah, although I’m afraid this one could be the maddest yet.’

  Yorke stared out at Salisbury. It was early afternoon, the sun, having acknowledged it was somewhat out of practice and lacking its usual bite, was retiring, and Salisbury was returning to its white, ghostly self. ‘I’ll interview her.’

  9

  AFTER VISITING THE crime scene, submitting a preliminary report on the chase, and grabbing a large Cornish pasty from the bakers, Yorke drove to the local station to interview Lacey Ray.

  He took a call from DI Gardner as he parked up. ‘Hello Emma.’

  ‘Hi sir, just ringing to let you know we are checking DNA on the driver of the van now.’

  He recalled Brookes’ gruesome discovery. ‘How’s Iain?’

  ‘Still throwing up. He actually grabbed hold of the carcasses’ bloodied trotter, it left him a little worse for wear.’

  ‘Strange really, you’d have thought the relief that Paul Ray wasn’t inside the potato sack would have neutralised disgust. Do SOCO have anything from the crime scene yet?’

  ‘A bloodied fingerprint on the outside of the patio door.’

  ‘Good, keep me updated. Have you spoken to Bryan?’

  ‘Yes, he took Sarah to her mother’s during the drop which is why Joe was alone.’

  ‘What a cock-up. Is he with Sarah now?’

  ‘Yes, at the safe house.’

  ‘Well, he better not move an inch from her side. Did the skaters have any connection?’