Be My Girl

by Tony Hutchinson

  ‘Straight on to answer phone,’ shouted Ed, his voice straining above the sound of the revving engine.

  ‘See if we can get a traffic car to help. We need blues and twos in this weather. Bloody fog.’

  The fog had cleared a little, but not much. Sam slammed down on the accelerator, and as Ed watched the rev counter rocket, she shot past the first car. The oncoming driver hit the horn and flashed his lights but Sam was back on her side of the road, avoiding a collision by a swift throw of her wrists to the left. Inches from the rear bumper of the car in front, she waited for an opportunity and then gunned the Audi again, reaching 60mph in an instant, Ed willing himself to ignore the 40 mph signs that filled his vision.

  Dave was in the distance and with nothing to slow him down, the gap had grown.

  Sam swiftly moved up the gears, hit 70 mph, and started to gain ground.

  ‘Where are the bloody traffic jams when you want them?’ she screamed.

  She was already gauging the traffic on the fast-approaching roundabout.

  ‘Fucking hell, Dave. What the hell’s going on?’ she shouted, as she braked hard, flicked the gear stick out of fourth into second, took a sharp left at the roundabout and tore on to the dual carriageway.

  Ed held the mobile to his ear. ‘Hi Inspector, DS Whelan from the murder team. We need a traffic car to assist in a pursuit of a suspect vehicle. Driving east along Maidenhall Road. We’re in an unmarked car, driven by DCI Parker.’

  A short pause, a quick glance at Sam, the cars on the opposite carriageway no more than a blur as they passed through her forehead and out of the back of her skull.

  ‘No, no, we’re not in pursuit, that was a slip of the tongue,’ she heard Ed saying. ‘We’re following the vehicle.’

  They both knew a pursuit would never be authorised at any time in an unmarked car, and with visibility reduced by the fog, the control-room inspector might even baulk at authorising a pursuit in a marked patrol vehicle.

  ‘Where’s he going, Ed?’ Sam asked, not daring to take her eyes off the road.

  ‘Home maybe? He lives on the sea front. At least he does since he separated.’

  The cars sped along the dual carriageway towards the sea, the engine growling as Sam changed down on the approach to another roundabout, the fat tyres sticking to the Tarmac as she hugged the raised kerb before continuing her dash along the outside lane.

  They could see him in the same lane, one car in front.

  ‘Not a cat in hell’s chance of getting the helicopter to pursue him, not in this fog,’ Ed said, as he dialled Dave’s number again.

  ‘As you said, we’re not pursuing. We’re following,’ Sam told him as she overtook two cars and a lorry.

  Ed glanced at the speedometer. 75 mph.

  ‘Yeah, well let’s hope neither us or Dave comes a cropper and we might just get away with that version of events.’

  Again Dave’s mobile went straight to answer phone.

  Ed’s ringtone was barely audible above the roar of de-mister, which, despite the inclement conditions, was keeping the screen clear with Teutonic efficiency. ‘Cheers Inspector.’ He turned to Sam. ‘We need to keep following. Traffic’s coming from the town centre.’

  ‘Never nearby when you want them, eh?’

  ‘You just keep your eyes on the road, and let’s hope he stops soon. That was bordering on dangerous back there.’

  ‘Relax,’ she said, turning and winking at him, ‘or do women drivers bother you?’

  ‘Never liked overtaking on single-track roads.’

  They both knew the road would soon narrow into a stretch of single carriageway and, if the volume increased, a steady stream of oncoming traffic would make overtaking almost impossible.

  Dave was ahead, stuck behind a car which was slowly overtaking a transporter HGV.

  ‘He’s still heading for the sea,’ Sam said.

  ‘The fisherman’s cottage has been in his family for generations. He used to rent it out. Maybe he’s heading there, but for what I don’t know.’

  ‘We’ll find out soon enough. Check to see if that traffic car is anywhere near yet.’

  Ed pressed redial, spoke briefly, and ended the call with a ‘thanks’.

  ‘They’ve been diverted. Pile-up. Tanker and three cars. Tanker’s spilling inflammable stuff all over the road. It’s just us for the minute.’

  ‘It never rains,’ Sam said. ‘But maybe it’s a blessing. A traffic car might have spooked him even more.’

  ‘Maybe. Maybe not. We could just do with him stopping.’

  ‘He’s got to stop sometime.’

  Dave Johnson accelerated on to the next roundabout, narrowly missing a white van. Sam flew over the Give Way markings, forcing a small hatchback coming from her right to brake violently.

  ‘Fuckin’ hell, Sam,’ Ed shouted, grabbing the door handle.

  ‘I know, I know, but we can’t afford to lose him.’

  She emerged on to a single-lane road, and ahead, Dave swerved around the car in front and began to overtake, his vehicle sandwiched between the car he was overtaking and the others coming towards him, wing mirrors missing by inches. The air was filled with the noise of blaring horns.

  ‘What’s the crazy fucker doing?’ Ed shouted. ‘We need to back off, Sam. If he hits someone with us tanking after him like this, we’ll all be fucked.’

  The 30mph limit caused Sam to instinctively slow down. Ed was right. Nothing was worth the risk to innocent people’s lives.

  The volume of traffic increased on the approach to a series of lights. Dave Johnson, a few cars in front, was now crawling at about 20mph, with little hope of overtaking on the ever-narrowing road. They passed the Sea View Hotel and knew that they were approaching a stretch of road, cut into the cliff, which snaked down towards the sea with tight turns and a 25% gradient.

  Sam glanced at Ed.

  ‘Unless he’s planning on driving along the coast road, this leads to the car park next to the pier,’ she said.

  ‘Or his cottage,’ Ed told her.

  The descent down to the sea was too twisting to take at speed and Sam, still a couple of cars behind Dave, was, like all the vehicles in front, moving slowly in second gear.

  From their elevated position on the road, Ed looked out of his side window and could see Dave Johnson’s car.

  The urgency and tension rose in his voice as he tried to make sense of what was unfurling before his eyes.

  ‘He’s not stopping at the car park, Sam, he’s driving on to the pedestrian promenade. Where the fuck’s he going?’

  Ed watched Dave, as Sam negotiated the final hairpin bend.

  ‘He’s out of the car. Shit. He’s running on to the pier.’

  ‘Fuck!’ shouted Sam, accelerating out of the bend, and with no time to brake, her hands worked in unison, pushing and pulling the steering wheel to the right, the vibrating wheel bashing against her palms, all four tyres fighting for traction as the Audi drifted into the tight entrance for the car park. Sam sped on to the promenade, passing the Ocean View Restaurant and sea-front coffee shops, before screeching under fierce braking and sliding behind Dave’s abandoned Ford Focus, its driver’s door wide open and engine still running.

  Ed flung open his door and was out of the car before Sam brought it to a complete stop.

  ‘Dave! Dave!’ he shouted, as he sprinted, arms pumping, his tie flying vertical over his left shoulder.

  Dave Johnson dashed along the restored Victorian pier, stretching 150 metres into the fog-bound North Sea, like a pole-vaulter on the runway.

  With every stride Ed’s leaden legs were getting heavier, his thighs were burning, and the wooden timbers vibrated under his pounding feet.

  ‘For fuck's sake, Dave, slow down!’ he shouted, trying to make himself heard above the blasts of the lighthouse foghorn, his chest heaving, gasping for breath. As he glanced over his shoulder, he saw Sam, barefoot and running after him.

  An elderly couple, strolling back along the
pier, looked stunned as one suited man ran past them pursued by another, with a well-dressed woman, shoes in her hand, chasing them both.

  ‘Police!’ shouted Sam as she approached them. ‘Don’t let anyone else on the pier.’

  The elderly couple nodded, in shock, not in agreement.

  Dave Johnson reached the end of the pier and came to an abrupt halt, turned, and screamed: ‘Don’t come any closer!’

  ‘Dave, what the fuck’s going on?’ Ed shouted, skidding to a stop about 20 metres away.

  Back pressed against the waist-high, white painted metal railings, Dave took a quick look over his shoulder, and saw that the wooden running planks they were standing on continued about six inches beyond the railings.

  Sam was now next to Ed, bent over catching her breath. She raised her head, body still bent, hands on her knees, and looked directly at Dave.

  ‘Dave,’ she implored, ‘what’s going on?’

  ‘Keep away. Don’t move another step closer.’

  His voice was trembling. ‘If you move any nearer, I’ll jump. I mean it. I’m going to climb the railings and stand on the other side. If you move towards me, I’ll jump. Talk as much as you want when I get over.’

  ‘Why not just talk where you are Dave?’

  ‘I’m in fucking control of this Sam, not you!’ he shouted, his face bright red.

  He turned side-on to face Sam and Ed and put his right foot on the bottom rung of the railings. Ed moved forward slightly, but froze when Dave shouted. ‘I mean it, Ed. Move towards me and I’ll just jump straight into the sea!’

  Ed had no idea how far it was to the water below, but thought it would be the equivalent of jumping off the roof of a house.

  The fog had turned the sea flat calm but Sam knew it was high tide, and the tidal stream would flow south south-east at a speed of almost two knots. If Dave went in, he would be swept away, flat calm or not.

  ‘Dave, don’t climb over the railings. We can talk here.’

  Sam and Ed were edging closer, taking small steps, narrowing the distance between them.

  ‘Don’t fucking move!’ Dave screamed. ‘I’ve said I’m climbing them.’

  Their instincts told them to let him climb. They had narrowed the distance to 10 metres, nowhere near close enough to cover the ground and stop him placing two hands on the railings and vaulting into the sea.

  ‘Okay, okay, Dave. Climb the railings,’ Sam said, knowing her options were zero. She wasn’t trained in hostage negotiation but she knew keeping Dave calm and her voice soothing was her best tactic.

  Keep him talking, Sam. Keep him talking.

  Dave climbed the railings and stood on one of the protruding pieces of timber, no more than nine inches wide, one foot in front of the other.

  ‘Sit down!’ he shouted, pointing to a small wrought iron bench seat near to where they were standing.

  ‘Dave, I just need to make a call first, if that’s okay?’ Ed said.

  ‘Do what you want, but if you’re not back here within one minute, I’m jumping.’

  Ed walked backwards, his strides long, slow, and deliberate, never taking his eyes off Dave. He quickly brought the control-room inspector up to speed, fighting to hear and be heard over the foghorn, and asked for a hostage negotiator as well as uniforms, coastguard and the lifeboat to come to the pier.

  His steps were short as he walked back towards Sam and sat next to her.

  ‘Dave, what’s going on? What’s this about?’ Sam was saying.

  ‘You know what it’s about Sam. It’s Louise.’

  ‘What about her?’

  His voice was trembling, tears rolling down his cheeks. He took one hand off the railing and rubbed his face. ‘It was me. I killed her.’

  Sam knew she needed to sound sympathetic.

  ‘Why Dave?’ She fought to hide her emotions, to keep her mind from the image of Louise lying eyes-open and lifeless.

  Keep him talking. Sam. You know what Ed will have made sure is on the way but if he jumps now, he’ll be dead before they get here.

  ‘Climb back over Dave and let’s talk about it.’

  His response was loud and aggressive. ‘Any talking, we do it here, Sam. I already told you that.’

  Silently calculating the distance he would have to cover from the seat, Ed knew he still had no chance of making a grab for him.

  ‘Why Dave? Why?’ Sam was asking again, her voice controlled but her mind scrambling for understanding. Someone had once told her in murder investigations never try applying rational thought to what was often an irrational act.

  ‘I thought we were going to make a go of it,’ Dave said, his voice shaking. ‘Then she told me she didn’t see me in that way. I couldn’t believe it. We’d had sex recently, just once, but she told me it was a mistake.’

  He bent forward and placed his forehead on the railing, his breathing shallower, more rapid.

  Ed saw his chance and sprang forward.

  Dave jerked his head upwards, a wild smile suddenly on his face.

  ‘You’re too far away, Ed. You won’t make it.’

  Ed stopped. Dave was right. He would be dropping into the sea before Ed had even reached the railings.

  Sam tried again, desperate to keep him talking, to buy precious time.

  ‘Dave, just come back to this side. We can sort this out.’

  The laugh was high and ragged and ended with a cry that seemed to come from the soul of the man.

  ‘How, Sam? How?’ His eyes were wild, his face contorted. ‘She’s dead. I killed her. I’m not going to prison for the next 20 years. I can’t do that. A cop. In fucking prison.’

  ‘The emails? The ones from Smith?’ Sam tried to distract him, steady his emotions on a straight fact.

  ‘I wrote them,’ roared his broken voice, the fire to Sam’s ice.

  ‘You? How?’

  Keep him talking. Just keep him talking.

  Now Dave spoke quietly, exhausted resignation heavy in his voice.

  ‘I hacked into his account. Louise mentioned his passwords ages ago. He used the same one for everything. He hadn’t changed it for years. I just remotely accessed his emails and sent one from his account to Louise, once it was obvious you weren’t linking the murder to the rapist.’

  ‘What about the key?’

  ‘I just stole June’s and copied it.’

  ‘The knife, Dave? Where’s the knife?’

  ‘Down one of the drains miles away.’

  Sam saw Ed move two small, tentative steps closer.

  ‘What brought this all on, Dave?’

  Looking up to the heavens, his speech was cracked and shallow.

  ‘I thought we’d be happy but she broke my heart. She broke it years ago when she married that twat. Then she broke it again. We argued on the day I killed her. Then she wouldn’t answer my calls. I had the key.’

  Had he paused for the foghorn, or was he going to jump?

  ‘You know sometimes I would sit in her house when she was at work, imagining her coming home to me.’ He took a deep breath. ‘If I couldn’t have her, nobody was going to.’

  Looking upwards, he shouted: ‘Why did you do this to me?’

  Sam was happy to listen and buy more time, telling herself over and over to stay calm, to convince him she was the friendly shoulder to cry on, someone who wasn’t there to judge.

  ‘When I found out she was finally leaving Smith, I knew I had to leave Sally. Seeing the kids just every other weekend kills me, but I wanted Louise in my life and I thought she felt the same.’

  ‘Come down, Dave,’ Sam said, wishing she could remember the names of his children. ‘Think of your kids.’

  Dave smiled his haunted smile.

  ‘It’s too late. Too late for anything now. It’s over. I’m sorry.’

  A sudden push against the railings and he plummeted backwards towards the waters waiting below, arms and legs thrashing like a beetle on its back.

  ‘No!’ Sam screamed. She sprang from
her seat and ran to the railings, leaning out over the mist-covered sea.

  Ed tore off his jacket, hurled it to the ground, and leapt on to the bottom railing.

  ‘Don’t even think about it,’ Sam shouted, grabbing his arm.

  Ed shook her off and climbed on to the second railing: ‘I’ve got to do something.’

  She held his eyes. Control him, Sam. It’s what you do, what you’ve always done.

  ‘It’s too late, Ed. You know it’s too late. It was over when he walked past the door. Bad timing.’

  She saw hesitation slide across Ed’s face.

  And she knew the moment was gone.

  ‘Get on the phone to control. Update the RNLI. Tell them he’s in the sea,’ Sam said, her hand again on Ed’s right arm.

  ‘You jump and we’ll have another dead body and I for one am not telling Sue. There’ve been enough deaths this week.’

  In slow motion, Ed stepped down from the railings, taking his phone from his trouser pocket. Head bowed, chin pressed tight against his chest, he made the call.

  Sam placed both arms on the railings, bent her back, and stared into the sea below, letting the tears come.

  Ed was back beside her and together they looked down to the water, ears straining for the sound of the lifeboat above the noise of the foghorn, oblivious to the closing sirens wailing behind them. Slowly they shook their heads in tandem.

  ‘I’d never thought of looking within, Ed,’ Sam said. ‘We were so focussed on Banks shouting his mouth off we never considered one of our own.’

  ‘And why would we?’ Ed turned to face her. ‘I thought he was sound, but let’s not beat around the bush, he was happy for Spence to take the fall, and when that plan wasn’t working, he tried to put Smith in the frame. Unfortunately for Smith, he was in the pub when Banks was talking. Dave couldn’t have known that. At least I don’t think he could. June’s dead, and so is poor Louise.’

  Ed dropped his gaze back to the sea and the fog turning lazily above the water.

  ‘Maybe the lifeboat guys can save him,’ Ed said. ‘I hope so anyway. I don’t want him cheating justice, getting the easy way out.’

  Sam inhaled deeply and filled her lungs with the cold sea air. She sighed and thrust her hands into her pockets.