No sooner had the car stopped than Fairway set to work. He ran to Teddy’s aid. The TV star was slumped, motionless, against a tree, with his eyes closed. Fairway checked Teddy’s pulse; it was faint, but miraculously he was still alive. “For fuck’s sake, get the ambulance here,” he growled, as he attended to the victim. “Mr Carr; can you hear me? Answer me!” He tapped Teddy’s blood covered face lightly. No response.
The remaining Officers attended to Jackie, Earl and June. Jackie was still alive, but unresponsive; Earl and June were pronounced dead at the scene. “Right, I want the area sealed off and a sweep of the entire area. I want the chopper to start scanning, and you tell him, the slightest heat source – I want to know about it!” he railed furiously at his Officers. “She knows we’re tracking her. She might think she’s clever and even mud-up in the hope of lying undetected, but I want to catch this bastard!” The man was angry, his face was red, and sweat had now started to collect on his brow. “Grain picks the right weekend to enjoy a city break to Paris! It’s as if all Hell has been let loose here. And I’m left picking up the pieces,” he muttered under his breath.
Teddy and Jackie were rushed to the hospital with a full police escort. Motorists could quite easily think they were seeing VIPs in transit – the entire procession mimicked a Presidential convoy. Fairway had insisted that he remain in the ambulance with Teddy and Jackie. He knew that, even if the patients had only a slim chance of recovery, he wanted to be there with them the moment they awoke. The Detective wanted answers. Why did she do this? And what does she look like? Lucy, although she didn’t know it yet, was now a prime witness. Fairway and his Officers would soon be knocking on her door. He examined his mobile’s pictures stored in an album marked Crime Scenes. He quickly swiped through them until he came to a shot of a small bloodied footprint on a tiled bathroom floor taken at Ms Wilson’s crime scene. His treasured Parker pen lay next to the footprint. He had been given a couple of Mont Blancs during his career, but his Parker remained firmly in his jacket’s inside pocket. It didn’t contain an explosive charge, or fire a bullet for that matter, but it did carry a lot of sentimental value. It had been in his pocket when he leapt into the River Thames to save a child from drowning. It had been used in a tracheotomy surgical procedure to save the life of a choking woman on the Tube. It was also in his hand during his first crime scene. The pen was special.
A smile appeared on his face. He selected the image and compared it to the photograph he had taken earlier. His eyes widened. He knew he’d got the bug in his sights and he was ready to squash it. “I knew it!” He nodded, “I bloody knew it!” The two prints matched. “She’s back,” he said as he popped a stick of chewing gum into his mouth. “The whore is back. This confirms it.”
Special Thanks
To mum and dad for all their love and support, and finally, Pat – my editor.
I couldn’t have done it without you.
The Rattler (Rattler Trilogy Book 1) Page 23