And see it here, a blue Renault Megane . . .
With me sitting and watching, just asking to be caught.
I turn on the lights, start to drive, everything nice and normal, just as it should be. William sits in the passenger seat next to me. I turn and say, “Sing?”, nodding and smiling. He looks back at me but does not respond. I answer for him. Daddy – he now thinks of me as Daddy, you know – just needs to drive out of town and then we’ll have a sing-song. William watches me as I look back – a final check – towards the crowd.
In the distance, I hear what sounds like an ambulance, coming in from out of town. Would they call an ambulance for someone who’s dead? If she’s alive, I need to be quick, have to get out of here before the ambulance arrives and the coppers turn towards it. Maybe, just maybe, they will notice this car almost right in front of them. Even if they don’t, every fucking copper for miles around will soon know what I’m driving and they’ll all be watching out for me.
I tug at the handbrake.
Off we go slowly.
Into the night.
I drive steadily, just like it’s any other car journey. Beyond the houses that peter out as the road turns eventually into an untreated track, wide enough for one car, tight for two, with the beach to the left and the harbour, speckled with lights, a way ahead. There are turnings, some lanes, a few dirt tracks, I think, to the right.
I need to make the correct choice, picking a bigger lane that will lead out and join up with other lanes into a bigger road and on, eventually, to the A12 and away. It’s quiet here, as the street lights fade, with just a few cars and boats parked up higgledy-piggledy by the beach. I slow further, looking for the turning to my right.
Nothing yet. I nudge the car on, telling William to think of some songs he’d like us to sing.
“In a minute,” I then hush, “Daddy’s looking for a turning.” He repeats the word. “Turr’ing,” it sounds like. “Road,” I say. “We are looking for a road . . . a road to take us to Disneyland.”
“Dis’land?” he replies slowly.
“Yes, we have to drive down this road and get a coach and then a boat and we will, if we’re very good and very, very lucky, get to meet Micky and Donald and . . . the dog (or whatever the fuck it is). Are you going to be good, William?” I turn and look solemnly at him.
He looks back. No triumphant hands in the air this time. He knows he has to be on his best behaviour and that’s what we need if we are going to get away.
“William has to be good. A good boy for his daddy. Can you do that for me, William, be a good little boy?”
He looks away, out of the window, as if something has caught his eye.
I turn, just in time to see a car’s lights turn on, and watch in my rear-view mirror as the car rolls forward and onto the track behind me. I accelerate smoothly forward. It seems to do the same, sitting close to my tail. So close its lights almost disappear out of view.
Coincidence? Just a regular guy, a fisherman going down to the harbour? Or a plain-clothes CID copper in a car, covering this end of town? I slow my car, watching all the time in my rear-view mirror. The car does exactly the same.
“Be a good boy now, William, just sit nicely for Daddy.” My heart is in my mouth. What do I do if it’s a copper? Drive on to the harbour? What then? A boat? Can I get that far ahead? Even if I could, what would I do with a boat – I’ve no fucking idea.
I check the mirror again; the car is close behind and all I can see are its lights bouncing up and down on the uneven track keeping pace with me. I can’t tell who’s in it or how many there are. One? Two? I have a chance if it’s one and I can get him alone before the other cars follow him down here.
Should I stop, pull over, get out of the car, ready to take him on?
Or keep going to the harbour and confront him there?
Whatever happens, I have to do it with no one about, that’s for sure.
Suddenly I see, some way ahead, close to the harbour, the lights of another car being switched on. The car swings out, 100, 150 yards or so away. It’s coming towards me. The track now seems so narrow and I don’t know if there is enough room for us to pass without one of us pulling over to the side. Is that the plan, though? To force me off? Do I now have a copper behind and a copper racing towards me?
We’ll know in a minute or so; I have no choice but to keep going.
The car behind stays close – too close for my liking if I have to brake suddenly.
The car ahead is still coming at me and one of us needs to give way, I think. I’m sure it’s too tight for us to both to pass by at the same time.
Is that how coppers work? One in front, the other behind? The one in front forcing me off the road, the coppers in the car behind racing to drag me out? Would they dare do that, though, risk injuring or even killing an innocent little boy in a head-on collision.
I don’t think so.
But I’m not 100 per cent sure.
What the hell do I do?
Thank God, the turning I want is just ahead of me. I think I can get there, before the car in front of me does.
If I accelerate now.
Hard and fast.
I press my foot down.
5.40pm SUNDAY 1 NOVEMBER
“Rick-k-k,” screamed the young woman, “too near.”
The young man eased his foot fractionally off the accelerator.
“I have to ram him. Off the road. Do your belt u . . .”
They both saw – at the same time – the car on the far side coming towards them.
“Will,” she shouted, “you’ll kill him.”
He hesitated.
Eased back.
Saw the car in front swing at speed, almost swerving off the road, into the lane to the right.
The car on the far side now almost upon them.
It swerved towards the lane to avoid them.
“Brake Rick, brake,” she cried, drawing in her breath.
Too late.
The cars collided.
A long silence.
The door by the young man wrenched open.
“You stupid . . .”
The young man, dazed, struggled up, reaching for his seat belt, unhooking it.
“I’m sorry, so sorry . . . He’s got our son, Will. Was getting away.”
“What the hell were you thinking, driving so fast, have you seen what you’ve done to my new . . .”
The young man pushed by, moving around the other car, skewed and blocking the lane, the front crushed inwards, lights broken.
“He’s getting away, I have to stop him. He has our son.”
The other driver, younger and more physical, glared at him in anger. Bemused. Not understanding.
The young man turned back, glanced at his wife.
“Nat, Christ, Nat . . .”
She lay there, head against the dashboard. Blood trickling down her forehead. Unconscious.
“Please,” he said to the angry man. “You have a phone? Please call the ambulance. I have to . . .”
The young man turned away and moved off on foot.
Hoping somehow that the car he was chasing, which had swung and swerved at speed into the lane, might have lost control and crashed just a very little way away.
That the driver too may be stunned and dazed.
The little boy unharmed somehow.
The young man reunited with the little boy and returned to the young woman waking up back at the car.
Together again.
As a family.
5.42pm SUNDAY 1 NOVEMBER
It’s dark.
In the lane.
I accelerate away.
Looking back, I see the two cars, the one behind me and the one ahead, crashed into each other at the entrance to the turning. I see what looks like a man – hard to tell from the distance – running down the lane. As if he might catch me. I watch as he slows, stops and raises his hands towards me.
Dear God.
It’s Veitch, I
swear it is.
How can that be?
I drive on, as fast as possible. The lane, unlit, twists to the left and then to the right before resuming its straight, long path.
I cannot see the cars any more. I assume Veitch will be running back, getting the other car to reverse, allowing him to get into the lane, to chase me down.
How could this happen?
Why is he there?
How could he know?
I accelerate up to 20, 30 miles per hour, as fast as I dare. There are hedgerows to either side, high, far too high for me to see the fields beyond. If anyone or anything comes out of a side gate, they’ve no chance. I daren’t slow down, though, not now. Veitch will never give up, I know that.
I look back, expecting, at any moment, the lights of the car behind me to come bobbing and weaving into my rear-view mirror. And when I do? The track is straight and far too narrow for him to overtake. I will accelerate, that’s all. Faster and faster. On and on.
Until I outpace him and break free or he catches up and it’s all over. One way or the other, he will never take me. I swear that to you, on my little boy’s life.
Any second now, I will see the lights of the car. I’m waiting. He’s coming at any moment. I am not even breathing.
Nothing yet. But by God, it’s any second.
On I go. The track runs into and through scrubland to either side, then dips down and back up into woodland. Should I pull over, hide the car in the trees, snatching William up and making a run for it? How far would I get? I’d only have a minute or two’s head start and could never outrun Veitch, not with William in my arms.
Is he behind me? I can’t tell, not with the trees in the way.
Is that a beam of light from a car, shining between the trees? A trick of the light? My car headlights reflecting off some long-abandoned, broken-down wreck in the woods?
I have to keep going, just keep on.
The lane opens up into a wider road, enough for two cars to go side by side, and I can see ahead for a short stretch. I jiggle the rear-view mirror, lining it up with the spread of trees I’ve just driven through. I’m waiting for the tell-tale pin-pricks of light that reveal the car closing in on us, signalling that we’re coming to the end of it all.
Nothing, no car in sight.
I keep watch, shushing William to soothe him, adjusting the mirror as the lane eases first to the left and then to the right.
Still nothing there.
Should have been by now.
Where is he?
And then I get to a crossroads. Perfect, just fucking perfect. I can turn left, right or go straight on. I’ve lost my sense of direction, not sure which way to go. Straight on is too obvious. Right might double-back. I go left, into a long sweeping arc of a lane.
I dim the lights.
Go on.
A two-to-one chance of getting away; and better, with every minute that passes.
One minute.
Two minutes.
Three, four and eventually five.
I’m breathing again; it’s as if I have held my breath since that turning. I’m sweating too, can feel it in the small of my back. I hadn’t realised how hard I had been gripping the steering wheel, a real white-knuckle ride.
I sink back into my seat, breathing a sigh of relief. I feel my confidence surging. Fact is, we’re going to do this, we are going to get away. No ifs or buts or maybes about it any more. We’ve got out of that shithole of a town and are now putting miles and miles between us as the minutes pass and nobody and nothing is on our tail.
Done and dusted?
Not quite – but we’re going to go free.
I can tell you that with cast-iron certainty.
5.58pm SUNDAY 1 NOVEMBER
“Go?” asked the old man, his voice shaking with anger. “I don’t believe this. How can we just go? Now, of all times? They’ve only just taken that poor police girl away.”
“We always planned to leave this afternoon – and we are leaving much later than we planned.” The old woman stood at the foot of the stairs, looking into the lounge where the old man sat, breathing heavily. “I’m going to pack. Start tidying up.”
He struggled to his feet, exhausted suddenly from recent events. “How can you possibly leave with all of this going on? William goodness knows where. Richard and Natalie chasing him. We can’t just go . . . go? Anything could happen.”
“That’s as maybe,” she shouted back down the stairs, “but it won’t happen here. Everyone has now gone . . . the police. Ambulance. We’re left on our own. The police will attend to matters.”
She moved out of earshot but he could hear her above, walking about, pulling clothes out of drawers and cupboards, packing them into suitcases.
He sat back down, cursing under his breath. “We can’t just go,” he said loudly, shouting back. “Richard and Natalie will come here if they cannot find him. They will want to tell the police where they looked. They’ll expect us to . . .”
He stopped talking, looking about the room at all the things he’d need to pick up and tidy away if they were to go. He swore, suddenly sick of it all, of everything, as he got to his feet, moving to the kitchen to get carrier bags to collect the bits and pieces and throw away the rubbish.
She came back down the stairs as he started to stuff leftover food and old newspapers into a carrier bag. He looked at her and she stared back at him, waiting for him to glance away as he always did eventually.
He didn’t this time.
“I’ve had enough,” he said flatly.
“I’ve had enough of it all.” He repeated himself, almost absent-mindedly.
“It’s over.”
She ignored him and carried on talking.
“You’ll need to go upstairs and get the suitcases for me. They’re too heavy to carry down, with my wrists. You do that while I tidy up properly here.”
She passed him a pile of board games. “Take these up as you go.”
He stopped, thinking for a minute before speaking as calmly as he could. “We cannot possibly leave here while Richard and Natalie have gone. Anything could have happened. We have to sit here and wait. They might need us . . . to help.”
She placed a half-empty cup of tea on top of the board games. “Tip this down the sink and wash it up,” she said.
“And put the boy’s bicycle outside the back door, save us tripping over it every two minutes.”
“We cannot go now just so we can get home at a decent time. It is not fair on Richard or Natalie. And think about the kiddie, little William, about what might possibly be happening to him.”
“And that dirty old thing,” she added, pointing to the axe by the fire. “Needs to go back into the shed.”
He looked at the axe.
And at the old woman.
And came to a decision.
6.02pm SUNDAY 1 NOVEMBER
I need to think through a new plan.
Give me a minute, why don’t you?
I have to get my thoughts straight.
I daren’t risk taking this car back on to the A12 to Thurrock and the coaches. That policewoman on the seafront could have been radioing the car details through to CID when I swung the car around. And the other policewoman in the car park – alive or dead now, I don’t know – may have done the same. And there’s Veitch; he knows what I’m driving.
All of the coppers for miles around will have the car, the colour and the number plate. Could I tear off the plates? That’s an automatic police chase in my book. No, I need to be cleverer than that. I’ve got to out-think them.
I lean across and give little William a playful shove with my elbow. He pulls away, looking up at me. He has a white-faced look about him that I hadn’t noticed until now, like he’s dead tired. I wink at him to be cheerful, so he knows we’re going to have some fun. It’s me and him now. All the way to the south of France.
“The wheels on the bus,” I sing, encouraging him to join in with me. I repeat it and then carry
on the tune. “The wheels on the bus go round and round, round and round, round and round, the wheels on the bus go round and round, all day long.”
The little chap seems to be trying to focus on me.
He’s smiling now, a bit anyway I think. He loves his daddy.
Know what? I’ll do some special effects.
“Here we go again, William, come on, join in . . . the wheels on the bus go round and round (circular motion with my left arm), round and round (do it again), round and round (fuck me, it’s tiring), the wheels on the bus go round and round (I do it again), all day long.”
William tries to move an arm back and forth.
Not sure what that’s meant to be.
Will try something else.
“The dog on the bus goes woof woof woof, woof woof woof, woof woof woof, the dog on the bus goes woof woof woof, all day long . . . again, William, come on, join in.” We try it again . . . “The dog on the bus goes woof woof woof, woof woof woof, woof woof woof, the dog on the bus goes woof woof woof, all day long.”
“Woo . . .” goes William, eventually. A bit half-heartedly to be honest.
“Woof woof,” I go, leaning towards him and pretending to bite.
He’s got it, even if he is a little sleepy. We’re off and singing.
As I sing different songs, my mind runs through the various options. I can try and drive the car all the way to Thurrock via the back lanes. We can drive to the nearest town, tuck the car out of the way somewhere and try to get hold of another. We can go to a big town, hide the car in a back street and maybe see if we can get a coach first thing to London where we’ll disappear into the crowds.
“Itsy-bitsy spider climbed up the water spout.”
God almighty, what’s next? (no idea).
“Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall, Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.”
Can I take the back lanes all the way to the coaches at Thurrock? It has to be 60 or 70 miles, surely? An hour or so on the main roads, three to four hours at least, going round in circles, on these back ways. I doubt I could do it. I certainly couldn’t do it without getting lost. It’s south, I know that, but that’s about it. I don’t even know if it’s this side of the Thames or the other. Either way, I would have to go on a main road somewhere in this car and I’d be picked up by the CCTV cameras straightaway. The coppers will be keeping watch, no doubt about that.
Sweet William Page 23