by Nick Oldham
He was beginning to grate on Dundaven’s nerves.
‘Just shut the feck up. It’s only a cop car. They’re not goin’ ter stop us.’
‘He looks suspicious to me.’ McCrory panicked as he caught the eye of the policeman and twisted away.
‘Dinna fekin look at him then, you knobhead. Act natural. If he sees you jumpin’ about like a prick he will stop us, wonnee? Otherwise there’s no reason tae.’
The lights changed. Dundaven shot away.
And there was no earthly reason why they should have been stopped. The car was clean, decent, and he was driving fine.
When stopped at the lights near to Tussaud’s, the police car was behind them. Dundaven had paid no heed to it until McCrory, looking through the back window of the Range Rover, had panicked, ‘He’s still there. I don’t like this, Dunny. It’s doin’ me head in. I need a fix.’
That was the point where Dundaven looked into the door mirror and ranted to McCrory, ‘Will you fekin calm doon, you twat! You’s gettin’ tae me now. It’s nothin’. He’s drivin’ doon the Prom, lookin’ at the totty,just like you’d do if you were a cop in Blackpool. . .’ And all the while he could not stop himself from looking in the mirror, in which he could see Rik’s face, looking back at him.
At the next set of lights Dundaven was undecided which way to go, even though he was signalling left. He wanted to get to the motorway but wasn’t sure of the quickest route. The last moment saw him cancelling the signal, going straight ahead down the Promenade. He swore at McCrory for getting him riled up, the useless cunt.
McCrory peered backwards over his shoulder almost constantly.
‘He’s still with us,’ he observed unnecessarily for Dundaven, who could quite clearly see through his mirrors. ‘Still with us ... oh fuck, oh fuck, Dunny, he’s flashing us to stop, he’s flashing us to stop! Oh my fuckin’ God!’
McCrory flipped round in his seat to face the front. He shrunk low as if he hoped a hole would appear in the floor pan into which he could be sucked. In a grand gesture of despair he dropped his shaking head into his hands. ‘We are fucked. They are gonna find all that lot in the back. We ... are ... completely goosed, Dunny. On my daughter’s life, we are going to prison.’
‘No, we’re not,’ Dundaven’s harsh voice grated.
He pulled into the side of the road, stopping like a good motorist should, and keeping the engine ticking over. He quickly reached between the seats and rummaged underneath a car blanket. He extracted two weapons - sawn-off shotguns with the stocks removed.
McCrory’s eyes widened. ‘Oh God, I need to OD on heroin like now. A fuckin’ shooter!’ he whined. Now he knew he was out of his depth.
Dundaven forced one of the guns into McCrory’s unwilling hands. Then he wound his window down and waited patiently for the arrival of a rather pretty policewoman.
Nina adjusted her cap again. She walked past the front of the police car, aware that her male colleague was eyeing her up appreciatively; aware, also, she was responding to the admiration by swaying her behind ever so slightly provocatively. Nothing anyone else would have noticed, but enough for Rik, whose intestines did a little skip of pleasure.
She went to the driver’s window of the Range Rover, standing in the roadway, but feeling safe as Rik had put the blue lights and hazard warning lights on, she held her clip-board in two hands, resting the bottom edge of it on her tunic, against her belly.
‘Hello, is this your car?’ she asked Dundaven. She smiled genuinely. He returned a wide smile, which was also genuine.
Glancing down she caught sight of the shotgun in his lap.
And the one in the hands of the passenger.
‘Yes - and this is mine too,’ Dundaven said.
The gun swung up.
Nina did the thing which probably saved her life.
Automatically she brought up the clipboard and shielded her face. Dundavan pulled the triggers, firing both barrels at her. The poorly balanced gun kicked back in his grip and he almost dropped it.
The lead shot from the two cartridges ripped the plastic coated clipboard to shreds in Nina’s hands. This obstruction, though slight, managed to dissipate some of the force of the blast.
Even so, she took it full in the face. The knuckles of both her hands where she had been holding the board were pulped by the shot.
She staggered back into the road, her hat flying off.
A passing car swerved, but caught her almost full on. She cartwheeled onto the bonnet and crashed into the windscreen. The motorist braked sharply and her limp body was thrown back onto the road.
‘Get the other one, the driver,’ Dundaven screamed at McCrory.
‘What the fuck..?’ quibbled the hired hand.
‘Get the other one - shoot him.’
McCrory knew better than to argue. In a trance of acquiescence he got out of the Range Rover, ran down the side in a low crouch and when he got to the rear nearside corner he pointed the weapon at the police car. Not really aiming, hoping he hit nothing, McCrory pulled the triggers. Without waiting to see what, if any, damage or injury he’d caused, he scurried back to his seat. Tears were streaming down his face. ‘Oh man, oh man,’ he kept saying to himself.
Rik could not believe his eyes for a moment.
The figure of Nina stepping backwards like a boxer who’d been k.o.’d had made him angry for a second. One of the rules was you always spoke to drivers on the pavement, but if you speak to them in the road, don’t forget where you are. Be careful.
Then the car struck her and a man appeared at the back of the Range Rover brandishing a shotgun.
Rik was half out of the car at that moment.
He saw McCrory, whom he recognised instantly as the passenger, saw the gun, and launched himself back into the police car across the two front seats. The hand brake slammed into his chest. He realised he’d made a bad choice. If the man wanted to kill him he was trapped. The windscreen shattered, peppered with shot, spidering out like cracked ice. It did not give.
Rik winced and fumbled for his radio. He blabbered his first, virtually incoherent message into the mouthpiece, expecting the man to appear at the side of the car and blast him to Kingdom Come.
Nothing happened.
Rik took a chance. He raised his head. Through the cracked screen he saw the Range Rover accelerating away.
He pushed himself out of the car and ran towards Nina’s prostrate form in the road. Her face was a gory mess. Rik recognised the wound as consistent with a shotgun blast and now everything made sense. She had walked backwards into the car because she’d been fucking shot.
A bone in her left thigh was sticking raggedly out through the skin. Her left arm was twisted and looked to be badly broken. She wasn’t moving. Rik thought she was dead.
‘Repeat your message, caller,’ he heard his radio say.
He looked at the Range Rover getting further and further away, then to Nina. He knew where his priorities lay.
The first police car to respond squealed around the corner of the nearest side road. Henry Christie was at the wheel.
Chapter Seven
Normally Henry was a poor listener where the personal radio was concerned. Most of the time he had it turned right down or off. Generally he used it solely for his own convenience, but that afternoon he was glad he’d just checked Rider’s car and the volume was up.
He and Seymour were probably less than two hundred metres away from the incident. They were on the scene within seconds.
Henry’s experienced eyes took it all in. The policewoman lying on the road. The shattered windscreen of the police car. The shocked, ashen face of Rik Dean, a bobby Henry would have been very happy to have on the department. The public beginning to gather and gawp.
He pulled up alongside. Rik ran to him.
‘Down there, down there,’ he pointed wildly. ‘Green Range Rover. Two on board, white males. Shotgun. Shot her. Shot at me! Christ!’
‘OK pal, you stay here and loo
k after her. Assistance’ll be along in a few seconds,’ Henry told him.
He rammed the gear lever into first and put his foot hard down on the accelerator.
Henry’s CID Rover was not equipped with blue lights or sirens. Nor was it ‘souped-up’ as so many misinformed members of the public would like to believe of police cars. It was a bog-standard saloon with no extras, bought at a massive discount with another forty-nine of the same model, all in a puke-green colour which tended to sell poorly to private customers. Hence the discount. Although quite new in terms of date of manufacture, it had been mistreated, badly driven and sneered at over the last eighty thousand miles of its police service. A typical cop car, in fact.
Despite all that, the engine was still pretty live1y.
Henry had to rely on the rather pathetic-souding horn, flashing his headlights and massively exaggerated hand signals - some rude - to make progress down the Promenade. He drove dangerously, taking-risks which would make him sweat on reflection. In and out of the traffic. Fitting the car into gaps that, by rights, were not wide enough for a motorcyclist, but which miraculously opened up as he hit them. He prayed his luck would hold out.
Next to him, Seymour held loosely onto his seat belt, swaying and rocking with the momentum, coolly relaying their position to comms in a flat unemotional voice. He might as well have been sitting in a pram.
‘Tell them to get the helicopter up,’ Henry said. He braked sharply, making the car stand on its nose, veered acutely to the left and narrowly missed an on-coming Bentley.
He shook his head at his driving skills. It was just like being on his mobile surveillance course again.
But there was nothing to say that the Range Rover was even on the coast road now. Could easily have turned off, doubled back, anything. Henry carried on. Wherever he went it was a gamble.
It was surprising how far a vehicle can travel in a short time.
Although Henry had been on the scene very quickly, he was probably about ninety seconds behind the Range Rover even then. By the time he’d spoken to Rik, he was probably about two minutes behind.
And, of course, the Range Rover wanted to get away.
The occupants weren’t going to dawdle along and take in the sights any more. They wanted freedom.
And though Henry was driving like a maniac down the Promenade towards St Annes, he was constantly having to brake, slow down, swerve. If the Range Rover was having just a fraction of an easier time of it, the distance between them would be constantly increasing.
The comms operator, having got the full story from Rik and other officers now at the scene of the shooting, circulated the registered number of the Range Rover to all patrols. Within a minute or so the whole of Lancashire Constabulary were on the lookout for it. She also confirmed that Oscar November 21 - the force helicopter - would be in the air within minutes.
Four minutes after leaving the scene, Henry was driving through St Annes, a less brash, slightly posh resort to the south of Blackpool.
If he’s anything like smart, Henry thought to himself, he’ll dump the Range Rover pretty fucking soon, if he hasn’t already done so. It was an observation voiced a moment later by Seymour. Great detectives think alike!
‘He could be anywhere now,’ Henry said with frustration. He eased his foot off the gas. ‘Shall we continue to gamble?’
‘I don’t think we have a choice, boss.’
Henry visualised the pathetic bloodied figure of the policewoman lying on the road and agreed. They had to give it a shot for her.
His right foot pressed down again. They sped out of St Annes, through the next town, Lytham, emerging onto theA584, heading towards Preston. His hopes of coming up behind the Range Rover diminished with each passing second. He decided to drive to where the A584 joined the A583, at Three Nooks Junction. If he’d had no luck by then, he’d call it a draw and drive back to Blackpool.
He knew that another major enquiry would need kick-starting. And if the policewoman died - was she dead already? he asked himself – it would take precedent over the murdered girl on the beach.
The idea of two police officers being killed in two consecutive days in the same town appalled him. Some coincidence.
Beyond the built-up area, the A584 becomes a good, fast dual carriageway for about three miles before it links up with the 583. Henry gunned the Rover as fast as it would go. In the circumstances, that meant the needle hovered around 105 m.p.h. Rather generous, Henry felt, but it didn’t stop the steering wheel rattling like mad in his hands.
They reached the traffic lights at the 583 within minutes.
No sign of the Range Rover. The trail was growing cooler by the second. For no reason other than they didn’t want to give in so easily, Henry slowed down, turned right at the lights and drove towards Preston. Neither was expecting anything now.
‘I’ll go as far as the Lea Gate,’ Henry said, naming a pub some way up the road, ‘and spin it round in the car park.’
Seymour nodded.
The radio had gone quiet. No other patrols had spotted the vehicle. Very depressing, particularly for Henry. It would be a hundred times more difficult to make arrests from enquiries. Much easier to catch the bastards red-handed.
Seymour saw the vehicle first.
On the forecourt of a petrol filling station on the opposite side of the road. By the time he’d blurted it out, Henry had cruised past. He craned his neck round. Yeah. Could be the one. Too far away to see the registered number. Two men with it. One by a pump, filling it up. The other in the driver’s seat.
‘It must be,’ said Seymour.
‘Let’s check it out.’
The road at that point was not a true dual carriageway. Two lanes did run in either direction, but they were separated by white lines, not a central reservation.
Henry was travelling slowly in the inside lane. With a rush of adrenalin, and little thought for a tactical approach or safety, he wrenched the wheel down and performed a U-turn across four lanes of traffic.
Cars skidded and braked everywhere. Horns blared angrily. V-signs and dick-head gestures were flashed. People swore.
Henry ignored them.
He’d seen his target and was homing in.
And likewise, Dundaven had seen the approaching danger. He knew it could not be anything other than the law.
‘Leave that. Get back in,’ he screamed through the open window at McCrory who was in the process of filling the thirsty machine with endless gallons of juice. He flung the nozzle to one side, spraying excess petrol across the forecourt, and ran to his seat, slamming his door behind him.
Henry veered onto the forecourt off the road.
Dundaven put all his weight on the accelerator and aimed the huge Range Rover purposely towards the oncoming police car. Intention: to ram and disable.
‘Hold on,’ Henry cried out and wondered fleetingly whether his right, left, or both legs would be broken.
The two vehicles met virtually head-on. The bull-bars wrapped around the front of the Range Rover crunched into the front lights and radiator grill of Henry’s motor, bringing both to a skeleton-rattling halt.
Dundaven kept his foot rammed to the floor and pushed Henry’s car across the forecourt, causing it more and more damage. Then he slammed his brakes on, went into reverse and put his foot down again. With a screech of tearing metal the Range Rover extricated itself, tyres squealing and smoking on the concrete surface.
When he had enough space to manoeuvre, Dundaven was back into forward gear and was pulling away.
Dundaven’s right hand appeared out of his window, waving the shotgun in the general direction of the police car. He loosed off both barrels at the two officers who cowered down like frightened rabbits. It was a badly aimed shot, taken as the Range Rover was speeding past, and the discharge missed them completely. Once again the recoil was very great and he was unable to keep hold of the gun which jerked out of his hand onto the forecourt Then he was gone, slewing across all four lanes o
f the dual carriageway and accelerating away towards Preston. The massive engine responded superbly to the throttle.
In contrast, the rather smaller engine of Henry’s car had conked out. He twisted the key in the ignition and prayed there was not too much damage. The starter motor coughed pathetically. Henry almost threw up his hands in despair, got out and kicked the car in anger.
But before he did, he tried it once again.
Roughly it fired up. He dabbed the gas pedal a couple of times and the unwilling engine came back to life like it had been in shock.
The process of restarting seemed to take for ever. Time which was allowing those two bastards to escape. In actual fact he was only a matter of seconds behind his target when he re-crossed the road, which by now was becoming accustomed to dangerous driving.
The view down the front of Henry’s car was no longer smooth and sleek. Instead it looked as though a heap of tangled metal had been clamped to the radiator, the bonnet having creased up like a blanket after a bad night.
He pushed the car to the limits of its performance in each gear and all the while he expected it to die on him. Surely, he thought, the collision must have damaged some of the workings.
‘Keep going, y’bastard,’ he intoned under his breath.
Because now he was mad. The driver of the Range Rover - apart from shooting a police officer - had rammed him and tried to kill him. He did not take kindly to that.
Seymour, cool as ever, was talking slowly into his radio.
Henry threw a quick glance at him. Blood was pouring out of a cut just below the left side of his scalp where he’d cracked it on the door. When he’d finished passing his message, Henry asked him if he was all right to continue.
Seymour scowled at Henry as though he was a complete prick.
‘Let’s catch these cunts,’ he said grimly.
If Dundaven had been given the chance, he would have dumped the Range Rover at the first opportunity and stolen another car. That would have been the sensible thing to do.