by Peter Repton
The second goal was a thirty yard shot by one of Liverpool’s strikers, right on the stroke of half-time. The ball hit the crossbar, deflecting down past the unfortunate keeper into the back of the net again. The Liverpool players finished celebrating the goal then the referee blew the whistle. Robert’s partisan outburst was the result. Wilson now wanted him back out on surveillance again as his coffee cup was long since empty.
9
Unknown to the police officers observing house, someone was hiding in the shadows behind the building they parked alongside. He was watching them with interest crouching down behind some dripping hawthorn bushes.
This silent figure inched through undergrowth towards the police in the parked car. The tall, slender man was watching the police officer at the rear of the house for the last two hours. Twilight drew in from the East as he watched from a vantage point in the dense woods. The woods ran right along the steep hill six hundred yards away from this group of houses.
These individual properties lay at the foot of an escarpment in the valley of the River Trent, now swollen to dangerous levels and almost breaching its banks. The cliff ran north for several miles to Trent’s confluence with the mighty River Humber. It's known as Trent Falls. To the south, in the opposite direction, the Lincoln Edge continued to the historic city of Lincoln situated in a gap in this ridge. Over to the West of this mighty river valley lie The Pennines, an impressive, beautiful range of larger hills that form the spine of England. They run all the way up from the Midlands through the far North of the country.
This careful observer was waiting for a chance like this. He watched the smaller of the two police officers; call his partner on his police radio a few minutes earlier. He watched with interest as the copper then left his viewpoint and began walking around the back of the group of houses towards the police car. It was a short journey of perhaps five or six hundred yards.
During this time the prowler scampered down from his vantage point in the woods, to get a closer look at the two police officers. He arrived at a point opposite the Jaguar, near the passenger side door. He dropped to the ground turning his face to look at them.
The interior light in the police car switched itself on when the small, wet cop opened the car door. It faded out again a few seconds after closing it. The watching man could only just make out the silhouette of the other police officer inside the car. Looking through the steamed up side windows, he appeared to be much taller, possibly larger.
The heat inside, coupled with the cold rain outside, was causing condensation to form on the interior of the glass. Only the front windshield remained clear. The officer inside wiped it clear with a cloth from the inside. The unseen observer assumed he might have at least a few minutes before the officer left the car again. He edged his way to the back of the house under surveillance, climbing over a seven-foot fence.
Inside her smart home, Sarah Kempston sat on an expensive leather sofa watching a game show alone. She decided to watch this old repeat showing on Sky, an alternative to the Monday Night Football match screened live tonight. It was on instead of her favourite soap. Sarah wondered why everyone was so obsessed with football these days. It was far beyond her comprehension.
It was the new prominent national religion. Millions of people sitting glued to their television sets, many attending huge stadiums every week, in all kinds of weather.These buildings are becoming the modern replacements for the cathedrals of old. Welcome to this new, violent twenty-first century.
One of the new super stadiums up in the north-east was even named the Stadium of Light. Some of these massive structures provided capacity for more than eighty thousand worshipers. Football, it seemed to her, was now a lot bigger, possibly more important than God. She believed that if she asked any sixteen-year-old football fan the question.
‘What do you think about Jesus?’ the reply would be.
‘He is a Spanish player who has just signed for Manchester City.’ Sarah decided to make a cup of tea when she heard the strange tapping noise. She had started moving through to the back of the house to investigate the noise. Sarah terrified now with the vision that confronted her outside in the storm. The man’s face pressed hard against the window, his breath misting the glass. Sarah recognised him immediately gasping.
‘Oh my God.’
He was aware that she identified him. She knew who he was. He held a dirty finger on his left hand up to his lips, indicating with his right hand for her to open the door. Almost as if mesmerised by fear, in a trance she obeyed him. Reaching out for the key that hung on the wall just to one side of the glass patio door, Sarah unlocked it in an instant, sliding it aside with a rumble.
The wind rushed in; Sarah could smell the electrified rain in the air. The sudden change in the air pressure in the room caused the door to slam shut with a noise like a gunshot. The intruder stepped inside with his finger still pressed against his upper lips. He made a soft “Shush” kind of a sound. He was soaking wet; the water ran in streams down his face from his drenched mop of hair. Even his bushy eyebrows drooped with the weight of the water. His wet clothing created small pools of rainwater on the green and white tiled floor.
10
Despite the unexpected visitor’s gesture for her to be silent, Sarah could not contain herself at all. She screeched at him.
‘Where the hell have you been David? You said you were only going out to fill up the car with petrol, which was bloody days ago!’ Sarah continued to rant.
‘I have been crazy with worry. The police have been here twice asking lots of questions about you and a poor girl they found dead in the park yesterday. I think you may have been going nuts for a while now David. Everything about you has changed. Ever since you starting with those awful head aches and wild dreams, please, please tell me just what the hell is going on?’
The man identified as David clamped his hand over her mouth growling.
‘Sarah will you be quiet. Please, please be quiet. I haven’t done anything wrong. I can explain everything!’ It was of little use. She was not listening to a single word he said, writhing in his grasp, trying to scream abuse at him. He could only make out a few of the words amongst the torrent of obscenities. Then she turned vicious, kicking his shins. He gave up trying to silence Sarah and released her.
David, with his slender, wiry build, stood just over five feet ten inches tall. Even though he took regular exercise to keep fit, he lacked the physical strength to hold her for long. He only weighed one hundred and sixty pounds on a good day. His thick, wavy brown hair continued to drip onto his forehead. David blinked the water out of his hooded pale green eyes. He pushed Sarah aside running across the room, wrenching open the door that slammed shut. He sped through into the lounge and looked out of the window to where the police positioned themselves in their Jaguar car.
To David’s horror, both of the cops had already emerged from the vehicle. They were sprinting towards the house. The taller, more powerful looking of the two, the one with the dark hair, was in the lead. The shorter, plumper police officer was close on his heels. David could hear the sound of metal shoe plates clicking on the wet, slippery road outside.
‘Oh, Shit! They must have bugged the bloody place. How else could they have heard that bang?’ David yelled out loud to no one in particular.
‘They must not catch me. I still don’t understand what is happening, but I sense it is important.’ David pushed past his wife, who was now behind him in the lounge but still ranting away. The last words David heard Sarah shout as he made his exit through the games room. Leaping out through the still open patio doors were.
‘David where are you going now, you can’t just go off and leave me again you bastard, don’t you care about me at all? What about all your patients don’t you care about them?’
The security floodlight David avoided triggering on his stealthy approach blazed brightly immediately. He passed under it, illuminating the entire rear garden with its bright halogen lamp, creating a
stark contrast to the gloomy shadows of a few moments earlier. With just a few steps, David reached the perimeter of a large fishpond in the landscaped garden.
This pond measured twenty feet square, with a cascading waterfall at one side gurgling down into the pool. The ponds surface covered with bright flowered water lilies. Raised walls bordered the pond, it was made out of block sandstone. These were topped off with shiny black marble slabs. These glistened in the rain, as they reflected the harsh light from the activated flood lamp.
David jumped up onto the pond wall, running along it towards the fence he was skulking behind earlier. The tall, dark-haired police officer rounded the back of the house. David placed a hand on the deep red stained larch-lap boundary fence. He was preparing to swing out over it to miss some dense thorny bramble bushes that he knew lay beyond. Sergeant Wilson spotted him immediately illuminated by the bright flood light and bellowed.
‘Stop police!’ Then Sarah Kempston wailed,
‘David please come back,’ as she ran out onto the waterlogged lawn in her bare feet. David glanced sideways at her, noticing how frightened she looked, he shouted,
‘Sarah I love you. Whatever happens, whatever they say I have done never forget that I still love you!’
11
David dropped to the ground on the other side. He could hear the slower, smaller cop’s heels clicking on the block paved driveway, running behind the taller, athletic looking one who had just hailed him.
An odd thought occurred to David now. How strange it was that some short men had a tendency to wear metal plates in the heels of their shoes. It was as if creating much more noise when they walked or ran; somehow the inserts made them feel bigger, hence less inferior in the height department.
Andrew Wilson followed the route David had taken along the pond wall. Scaling the fence, he called out again.
‘Kempston stop man. We just need to talk to you.’ Wilson then dropped right into the bramble bushes on the other side. These tangled brambles pushed his trouser legs up as he fell. The sharp thorns ripped into his calves and shins; the intense pain angered him.
Kempston, who was already forty yards away, running hard for the woods, knew this area well. He usually jogged round the estate and through the woods when the weather was good to keep fit. When the weather was poor, he had a treadmill in one of the bedrooms, used as a gymnasium with a flat bench and free weights. He had also been a keen karate student in his younger years, progressing as far as his green belt. He quit when he got married, but he still liked to keep himself in fair shape.
By the time Wilson had extricated himself from the painful grip of the brambles. Kempston had increased his lead to over eighty yards. Wilson was in great shape too, having served in and boxed for the British Army. He still worked out. He gritted his teeth focusing on pumping his legs, racing after him.
Constable Paul Roberts was puffing after the first fifty-yard dash from the squad car. Lagging a few yards behind, he saw Wilson leap the fence giving chase. So he also jumped onto the pond wall to assist his colleague in the pursuit. Paul soon discovered that polished wet marble and metal shoe plates do not mix. He took only two steps, his feet slipping away underneath him as he lost his balance. Then he plunged into the fish pond.
Kempston looked over his shoulder noting the police officer chasing him was gaining ground. After running almost six hundred yards at a near sprint, his breathing was now ragged. Sprinting he found, was a lot tougher than his usual jogging speed. He had trained for and ran a half-marathon the previous month.
He saw the dense dark woods were now just ahead of him. Hoping local knowledge may prove to be an advantage over his faster, determined pursuer. David decided to veer to the left as he entered the woods. Going to the right would be a straight and easy route leading to a major road a mile away. He felt the quicker man might catch him up if he chose that direction. But going to the left, the woods would be much thicker. The track ran through an area of tall dense trees and Gorse shrubs, across a small, fast running stream that wound its way down the escarpment. This route would also lead to the main road only about half a mile distant, carving a passage up the steep hill.
Crashing through the undergrowth, dodging outstretched tree roots; Wilson chased his man. The pain in his sore legs, caused by the bramble scratches, increased. He suffered further injuries while tearing through the scrub in the woods. Wilson felt stimulated by the pain, and it motivated him to push on harder and faster. He could hear Kempston up ahead. The sounds that travelled back now were fainter, muted by the vegetation barriers that separated them. He knew he could not match his nimble quarry for speed in the encroaching twilight gloom. Negotiating a large oak tree, in what was now almost total darkness.
Wilson did not see the large fallen branch that crossed his path and now lay in front of him. Tripping over it, he fell onto his face into the gravel and tiny rocks that bordered a small bubbling stream. Wilson received a deep cut on his forehead when his head struck a sharp flint. Together with grazes on both hands. He staggered as he picked himself up, and regained some of his wind. Reaching for his radio still clipped to his belt he gasped.
‘Paul this is Andy. Can you hear me?’ Roberts out of the pond, helped by the distressed Sarah, replied almost immediately.
‘Yeah Andy, it is Paul here. Have you caught the bastard?’ Paul cringed forgetting that Kempston’s wife was standing next to him.
‘No, he’s got away from me, Paul. I owe him a good thumping when I do get him my legs are in a hell of a state. Will you alert control to scramble the chopper? I think he will hide out in the woods, and the helicopter is our best chance,’ He took three deep breaths and said.
‘Get some back up to cover both the roads bordering the area. I am coming back to the house, so you try and find out what Kempston said to his wife.’ Wilson then turned and headed back the way he had come. He had been relishing catching Kempston, especially if no one saw the manner in which he arrested him. Even if Kempston had surrendered back in the woods, he would have still given the guy a damn good kicking. It was what a police officer should do, punish all criminals.
Paul told the police control centre that the suspect had appeared then made a run for it when challenged. He had also told them that his Sergeant was in pursuit, and he could not assist him because he had fallen into a pond. In truth, Paul Roberts was not that upset about his sudden dip into the murky depths. He felt he could not have gotten any wetter in the pond than out of it still on surveillance. He was quite despondent about the certainty of missing the second half of the Liverpool match.
David, exhausted as he approached the outer edge of the woods, stopped for a few seconds to check the road ahead was clear. His heart hammered in his chest, and he had a painful stitch cramping his left-hand side. Steaming perspiration had mixed with the incessant rain completely soaking his aching body. He had just run close to a mile, at full speed and realised that as he was now approaching thirty-seven years old. His body could not absorb and take the kind of punishment to which he had just subjected it.
He was a Doctor, a Consultant Nephrologist specialising in treating kidney ailments. He considered himself to be fit for his age. His slim, wiry frame had assisted him in threading a path through the woods. Noting that the glistening black tarmac road ahead of him was clear of any vehicles, he sprinted across it and through a narrow gap in the Hawthorn hedgerow that lined the other side. He then took four of five deep breaths and made his way up the steep escarpment. He was shielded from sight by the thick hedge, laden with the familiar white blossom, running parallel to the road all the way to the top of the ridge.
Electric pylons spaced one every one hundred metres, lined the roadside, looming above like monstrous sentinels silhouetted against the night sky. They hummed in the rain with high voltage current surging through the thick cables. Wilson arrived back at the house a few minutes after his call to Roberts. He was furious when he saw that Sarah had provided Roberts with a cup of tea. But h
is anger only grew when he saw Roberts sitting with his feet up on a footstool.
Paul was busy towel drying his wet red hair watching football on a TV in her kitchen. When the game had restarted again after the half-time interval, Roberts immediately lost any passing interest he had in Sarah Kempston. He saw her through the police car window at a distance. He noticed now just how attractive she was in the flesh, at close quarters.
Sarah had rescued him from the curious goldfish and Koi carp in the ornamental pond. He had tried to calm her down and suggested she make some tea for them both to as a means to distract her from her misery. Roberts had then asked if he could put the TV on just to check on the score. She could not refuse his cheeky grin. She liked the bright twinkle in his turquoise eyes that seem to dance with merriment. Manchester United had started the second half in an active and determined attacking mode. It had paid off as they had already got one goal back in the few minutes since the match commenced. Robert's dismay worsened further. He turned around seeing Wilson glaring at him in anger, as he entered the kitchen.
‘Bloody hell Andy, you are a right mess! I thought I suffered when I fell in the pond, but you look a lot worse than me,’ Roberts offered his sympathy to try and smooth over his Sergeant's obvious displeasure. Wilson responded.
‘The worst is yet to come for both of us when the boss finds out about this cock up. It will take some explaining.’