Code Runner (Amy Lane Mysteries Book 2)

by Rosie Claverton

  Amy said nothing. She didn’t have the first clue about whether what she was doing was going to help Jason, if she could even do anything to prove him innocent. But she had to keep working, keep hoping.

  The alternative was despair. And Jason and she had fought too hard to let the darkness win now.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine: Shiver

  Jason stayed in his tree until night had fallen, the darkness absolute.

  With all the grace of a tonne of bricks, he tumbled to the forest floor, jarring his ribs yet again. He took a few minutes to catch his breath, the cool air of the evening stinging his throat and causing him to cough up more thick green crap.

  It would be tempting to limp back to the Royal Glam, use a false name and get tended to by some pretty nurse. Unfortunately, his face was undoubtedly everywhere by now and false identities didn’t tend to hold up in hospitals. He’d tried it once when he got plastered on a school night and didn’t want the staff to call his mother, but the nurse saw straight through him. It hadn’t helped that the nursing sister lived across the road from them.

  Finding his way back to the river, Jason pondered which way to turn. Hospitals never closed and there was a good chance that he would be recognised. On the other hand, it was probably the kids from the residential area that had called the cops and their parents would be on high alert for strangers.

  A few yards away, there was a bridge across the river. He’d been near it for most of the day and he hadn’t heard anything, so it couldn’t be often used. Across the river, Jason could see open space behind the trees. Maybe there were more fields that way. Even crossing a small park would get him into a slightly less suspicious neighbourhood and give him a better chance of passing unnoticed.

  Jason scrambled up the slope to the bridge and stopped. It was a railway line. However, it was overgrown with brambles on the near side—disused. But the tracks might still be live and there were no guarantees about the integrity of the bridge once he got to the middle. The full moon was obscured by the clouds, an eerie glow that gave him no clue as to what was ahead.

  But then again he couldn’t stay here all night. Pressing himself as close to the old railway as he dared, Jason walked the bridge like a tightrope walker, one foot carefully placed in front of the other. He kept his breathing steady, the quiet breaths of concentration he used when hot-wiring a car or moving Amy from the sofa without her stirring.

  He stepped on a vine, a springy beast which refused to yield to his foot. He slid it forward but just encountered more vines—and thistles. Jason took another breath and carefully tested the vine with his foot. It threatened to spring up and topple him, but he had it under control. Just.

  Another few steps and he was past the worst of it, and then finally, thankfully, he ran out of bridge. Jason gasped, and coughed. His body was tight with adrenaline, pumped, and he smiled at the sky. He could do this. He could get home.

  He slid down the bridge, back to the river, and headed for the thin line of trees. It started to spit, the stars shrouded in thick clouds, and he knew he was in for a rough night.

  As the trees thinned, Jason almost tripped over a little sign. It was too dark to read, so he carried on, finding himself in the middle of a well-manicured stretch of grass with more trees ahead. Squeezing between them, he found a wider lawn, neatly mowed into stripes. A few small spotlights were dotted around a large sandpit directly in front of him.

  He had wandered onto a golf course.

  His path illuminated by the spotlights, Jason picked his way across the fairways, deliberately ignoring the signs that tried to guide him back to the clubhouse. It sounded like there was a party in full swing, which hopefully meant that the course security system was safely off.

  He stumbled onto the drive without realising and, checking for cars, headed cautiously towards the gates. He found himself opposite a group of houses. Jason gritted his teeth and ploughed forward. He was heading towards a major city—he’d have to get close to people at some point.

  Sticking to the residential streets, he came to a main road opposite what a sign declared to be Talbot Green Shopping Park. It was safely shut up for the night and Jason crossed the deserted car park with the hood of his mac firmly up, the rain increasing in intensity.

  He hit a dual carriageway and skirted alongside it, waiting for a gap in the traffic to dart across. The grounds of a primary school was his next refuge, keeping to the edges of the playing field before forcing himself through a hedge round the back of a row of houses.

  He crossed the field in front of him and sheltered beneath a tree to catch his breath and take respite from the constant hammering of the rain. Forcing his way through the trees, he hit another major road beside a large roundabout.

  Taking a chance, he walked back towards the roundabout and checked the signpost. The road opposite said Cardiff 20. Jason resigned himself to a very long night’s walk, though at least he now knew he was going in the right direction.

  Across the main road, he could see more trees and fields. If he lurked in the shadows, he could follow the road without being seen. Jason tramped along his course, passing through a cemetery among the rows and rows of headstones, clumps of different pieces of the past. He wasn’t one to believe in ghosts but even he felt spooked walking among the graves on a cold, dark night.

  As he walked, Jason lost track of time, his journey measured only by the ache in his feet and all-pervading dampness spreading beneath his suit jacket. After a while, the road split off, the branch ahead pointing towards the M4.

  Knowing he had to avoid the main artery of South Wales, he took the country road instead. He was condemning himself to a longer walk but there were hardly any cars passing here and the going was easy. He passed through a small collection of houses that couldn’t really be called a village and kept his course, looking longingly at the pub, with its warmth and ale and salted peanuts.

  His stomach rumbled. He hadn’t eaten since breakfast that morning, the soggy Weetabix he’d forced down with a cup of tea. It seemed a lifetime ago, and the cell almost attractive compared to this endless hike.

  The houses gave way to fields, which Jason was getting quite sick of, which became farmland and more fucking trees. He was never going on a ramble again. Gwen and Cerys could keep the stinking caravan. He was beginning to see Amy’s perspective on the outside world—staying in the flat for the next ten years was looking pretty good right now.

  Of course, if they couldn’t clear his name, that would be exactly his fate, forever hiding and not able to see his family and friends again. But no, he had faith in Amy to figure this out—he just had to get to her.

  He walked for an hour before he heard the unmistakeable roar of traffic. He crept closer and there it was—the bloody M4. He’d avoided it for nothing.

  Jason wanted to sink to his knees and cry. How was he ever to get home? He was going to be seen and picked up by the cops, guaranteed. If they didn’t shoot his head off.

  Hiding in the trees, Jason hugged himself and wiped the amalgam of rain and frustrated tears from his cheeks. Pull yourself together. There has to be a way.

  The thing was that he had to cross the M4 eventually. Cardiff was south of the road, so there was really no avoiding it. He ventured a little closer to inspect the problem. It wasn’t a junction but a simple road bridge. There was even a path for pedestrians. However, he would be completely exposed beneath the lights and if the police mistook him for a jumper—or correctly identified him as a fugitive—the game would be up.

  Jason had to take a chance.

  He decided and moved before he could change his mind, walking quickly and calmly over the bridge like a man just trying to get out of the rain. He kept his head down and his eyes forward and then it was over.

  He didn’t pause, just kept moving, sinking back into the trees beside the A road and following its course.
But he was now closer to Amy, and the path ahead no longer seemed insurmountable.

  He kept walking, feeling closer to freedom with every step. His only enemy was the dawn and he had plenty of hours before the daylight caught up with him. He let a little whistle escape his lips, relief soaking into his bones. He crossed the road—

  A shot ripped past his head and hit the tree behind him.

  Jason threw himself into the bushes, terrified. Someone was shooting at him in the dark.

  Another shot whipped over his head. Jason realised the shooter could see him, that he was a big, fat target in the bushes.

  Jason ran.

  Chapter Thirty: Run Rabbit Run

  Another bullet slammed into the tree beside him and Jason tried not to scream.

  The uneven ground threatened to trip him at any moment, and a hanging branch swiped his cheek. His lungs were burning, but he couldn’t stop, couldn’t slow. Cops with high-powered rifles were on his trail.

  If he stopped, he could surrender—but they’d already taken their shots, so they were the ask-questions-later types. He had to find somewhere to hide, somewhere their night vision couldn’t penetrate. He’d give anything for that old railway bridge now.

  Crack! A branch exploded at his heels, throwing up splinters to pepper his legs as he dodged. He swerved to the left and ran for the darkest, thickest area he could see, hoping to lose his pursuit in the trees if not in the darkness.

  His shoulder collided with a tree trunk, the fog between the trees threatening to swallow him. He ran on, body battered by branches and tree roots and clinging thorns. In the morning, his blood trail would be running like a river, but for now the darkness was both his closest friend and most bitter enemy.

  The trees were too thick to run now, but he kept up a skidding, sliding jog. His legs were tiring, his wounds throbbing, but he could hear voices now, calling to each other through the woods.

  “Too dense for a shot.”

  “We’ll head him off.”

  The voices were hoarse, rough—and Irish. Shit, they aren’t cops at all.

  If gang boys were shooting at him, he was in a lot deeper shit than he thought. He could hear a number of people around him, behind him and on both sides. They could herd him wherever they wanted—into their waiting arms or over a precipice.

  He debated climbing a tree, like before, but if they had night vision—and no one was stupid enough to shoot blindly in the darkness—he would just be cutting off his own escape. He had to keep moving and hope he could somehow slip between them.

  Jason stumbled on—straight into the beam of a high-powered flashlight.

  “What was that?”

  He plastered himself flat to the tree, not daring to move an inch, holding his breath even though his lungs were fit to burst.

  “Police! Show yourselves!”

  Behind him, someone moved.

  “Oi! Police!”

  The light swung away and bounded through the trees, radios buzzing and three or four uniformed bodies tearing off through the woods towards the gang runners with guns. The woods were filled with harsh breaths, shouts and curses, but they retreated away behind him, dying away without another shot fired. At least there wouldn’t be a gunfight in the woods tonight. The media would probably find a way to make that his fault too.

  Jason stayed absolutely still until the wood was silent and slowly, gradually, the chirping of insects and the hoot of an owl told him that calm had returned to the copse.

  He staggered on, his eyes sharp, his whole body thrumming. There were more than just police after him. Whoever this Zook was, he meant for him to die out in the woods—and Jason didn’t intend to oblige him.

  * * *

  Bryn had been officially sent home.

  Roger Ebbings had politely taken him to one side and asked him to sit this one out. Bryn was sure he meant to spare him having to watch his colleagues hunt down an acquaintance, a friend, but Bryn saw it as a slight on his loyalty.

  He knew his duty. No matter whether Jason was innocent or guilty, he had to face due process just like anyone else. No exceptions.

  Amy and Jason thought they were above the law, and Bryn had let a few of their indiscretions slide. But men were dead, and regardless of their intentions, he couldn’t help but lay it at their door. Maybe Jason had just hit one guy a little too hard, and the other... Well, Bryn didn’t have an explanation for that, because he couldn’t believe Jason capable of that kind of savagery.

  Unless he really was shooting up and none of them knew him at all.

  Bryn snuck back into the detectives’ office around 5:00 a.m. to check on progress. It was now a Command and Control Centre for the manhunt but only a couple of staff were still hard at work, coordinating the helicopter search over the Valleys. Roger didn’t want men in the field falling into ditches or the River Ely when the helicopters could cover greater ground—or so he said. Bryn suspected he was actually waiting on the promised Armed Response Vehicles from Bristol and Exeter to back them up, with the Met to follow soon after.

  Bryn didn’t like it, not at all. There was no evidence Jason had any kind of weapon and had little chance of obtaining one. But he had kept his mouth shut, because Roger was already questioning his objectivity. Thankfully, Sebastian Rawlings couldn’t stomach it either and had argued passionately against the deployment of armed coppers in front of God and everybody. Unfortunately, that had just made Roger more determined and he had sent what ARVs he had down all the lanes of Glamorgan.

  One of the comm units spluttered to life. “Patrol one-five-niner reporting—false alarm at Capel Llanilltern. Couple of travellers coming back from the pub, over.”

  Bryn, forgetting that he was meant to be keeping his nose out, crossed to the desk.

  The young uniform sergeant looked up at him uneasily, as he responded, “Possible sighting at Llantrisant and Pontyclun Golf Club. Check it out, one-five-niner, over.”

  “Roger that.”

  The comm fizzled out to nothing. The sergeant squirmed in the silence.

  “Didn’t think we had boys out there,” Bryn said

  “Only responding to sightings, sir,” the sergeant said. Was he another Jones? They were common as rabbits round here. “DSI Ebbings’s orders, sir.”

  Clearly, Roger didn’t give a damn whether their boys ended up in the river, then. But Bryn said nothing, unwilling to undermine the man in public. He left the boy to his wild-goose chase and sought a better distraction.

  A corner of the room was still dedicated to old-fashioned detective work, and someone had thrown up a whiteboard, which had Jason’s mugshot and a few scant details about him. Bryn picked up the pen and took off the lid, preparing to embellish it, but then he hesitated. If Roger was sending cops with guns out to hunt Jason, did Bryn really want him found by them? For all his determination on Jason facing justice, the last thing he wanted was to get the boy killed.

  It was hard thinking of him like this—as a suspect. But if Bryn had any chance of finding him before the boys with guns, he had to hunt him down like prey gone to ground.

  Fetching himself a mug of tea, Bryn contemplated the board. No connections to the immediate locality—all his family, friends were in Cardiff. And his employer, of course.

  Bryn and Sebastian had agreed to a good cop/bad cop routine with Amy. He’d expected her to fall into a quivering state of panic, but the anger and absolute faith in Jason trumped her fear.

  If she had his location—and Bryn suspected she did—she would never give him up. She was risking everything by shielding him—her work with the police, even her freedom. But as he stared at the sparse details of the criminal before him, Bryn knew that Amy saw something in Jason beyond what they could ever hope to write down.

  Chapter Thirty-One: Shelter from the Storm

  He
was on the home straight.

  The rain was his best friend and his mortal enemy. He was barely visible on the murky streets, and those who were out and about were only thinking of getting home to their central heating and a hot cup of tea.

  It had taken another two hours of rural walking—checking over his shoulder every ten seconds to make sure neither cop nor gangster was on his trail—before he’d hit the well-manicured streets of Llandaff, the northwestern edge of the city of Cardiff. He had never been gladder to see his city, even if the posh houses and towering cathedral were a million miles away from the scruffy terraces of Butetown.

  He ducked into the park and followed the River Taff, his bloodied and blistered feet missing the green, green grass that he’d been walking through all day and night. The woodland track beside Bute Park was all shadows and wild things, but Jason wasn’t afraid of being jumped. He had nothing to rob and he didn’t fear another beating, could no longer feel his wounds, numbed by the cold and the wet.

  He was more water than man when he finally left the river, sneaking through the back entrance of the main hub of Cardiff’s student accommodation. He probably only had an hour or so before dawn and he made the most of the storm-wrought night sky to pass through the complex unnoticed, emerging onto North Road. So close.

  With home only a few yards away, Jason felt ready to collapse in relief, but he knew this was the most dangerous part of his journey. He was known around here, by shopkeepers, neighbours, every takeaway within two miles. If he was going to be recognised, it would be here.

  But he knew these streets and alleyways, and he snuck down rows of garages, through dank alleys between houses. He was on his home turf now.

  As he approached their street, he hesitated. If he were Bryn, he would put a car on Amy’s door, just in case Jason showed up. The street was open and well lit, an easy spot for surveillance.

  But could he really sneak in the back? Amy’s security system was near-impenetrable. She’d talked about setting up an automatic 999 call if the perimeter was breached, and Jason had no idea if she’d implemented it.