Force Of Habit v5

by Robert Bartlett

  There was a bit of a commotion behind him. They were close. The crowd ahead thinned out and then he was alone in that small piece of no mans land at the platforms end that offers no decent ground from which to position yourself for a lunge at a parting door and force your way into a stuffed carriage. It wasn't a door North would be lunging at. They were going beat the train in. North hit the wall and turned to face them.

  A low rumble came from the tunnel up the other end. The air stirred. A whisper ran through the rails. The first of the gang pushed his way out of the crowd as the squeal of metal and a soaring roar announced the arrival of the next train out of the city. It thundered in already breaking, filling up the void. The commuters only had eyes for the train, jostling for position as three figures broke away from the mass. Each had a scarf tightly pulled across their nose and mouth. They stopped. North pulled the knife. The lead raised the bottom of his hooded fleece to reveal the stock of a pistol. His hand went for the grip.

  Shit.

  North turned and went down the ramp they used to walk people out of the tunnels in emergencies. Pain flashed through his left arm and shoulder and he was thrown into the tunnel wall, the train catching him as it pulled to a stop. He rebounded off the wall and went sprawling onto the track. The train screeched to a dead stop, inches from him. He raised an arm to shield his eyes from the glare of its headlights and winced at the resulting pain. He checked for a live rail before trying to move but these trains were attached to overhead wires. He groaned to his feet. They hadn’t started in after him – yet. He took off down the tunnel.

  He'd been on the southbound platform so that meant the next stop was Gateshead. Gateshead was on the other side of the river. Choirboy central. They would already be making the call that would ensure him a warm reception. The tunnel bent to the left and he soon had to abandon his search for maintenance corridors, doors, ladders - anything that might lead him out of here. It was pitch black. A distant rumble caught his attention. He stood and listened. Peered back down the way he'd come. He couldn’t see shit. The rumble kept on coming, getting louder. The air began to move around him. Shapes began to form in the dark. The roar intensified and a pair of lights came into view. They got bigger, fast. North flattened himself against the wall and clung to a metal conduit fixed to the wall. His hair and clothes tried to leave his body as the carriages thundered past, inches from him. The noise was deafening.

  Then all was still.

  The roar faded. The lights shrank. North watched the train go. What the fuck was the driver thinking? North had connected with the windscreen, right in front of the drivers face, as he had jumped onto the track. He’d seen him run off up it. Did they get a tidy bunch of fully paid stress leave if they killed somebody fucking about on the rails? The fucker.

  Noises from behind got him moving again. Not a train this time. It sounded like people. The gang had opted to pursue him after all. North took off again. A minute later he cleared a bend and could see the train up ahead, not just the lights but the actual train. It was no longer in the tunnel. It was outside. It must have gone out of the north bank to cross the river Tyne before going back into the ground on the other side of the bridge.

  North came out of the tunnel like a train and had covered fifteen yards before he realised something was wrong. He pulled up. He could still see the train ahead of him. It hadn't disappeared into the south bank. It was no longer moving. It had stopped in the middle of the bridge. A figure appeared out of the side of it and dropped onto the track. Two more followed. North didn’t need three guesses as to who they were. He turned back. The other three came out of the tunnel behind him.

  He was trapped.

  He couldn’t see the one that had pulled the gun, tunnel side. He must have been in the train using it to coerce the driver. They couldn't all have guns, could they? No, only one had a gun. That’s why he got on the train.

  Shit.

  Too much thinking.

  He committed.

  He charged the tunnel. All three stood their ground. All reached into their clothing. North hoped he hadn’t made a bad call on the gun front. He kept going, letting out a battle cry to unnerve them. Each brought a blade up towards him. He steamed into the one on the right, parrying the lunge that came at him, pushing his attacker’s knife down and off to the side as he brought his own forehead hammering into the kid’s nose. The kid dropped like lead.

  North rolled to the ground to avoid a lunge from his left. The next Choirboy came at him kicking. North raised a boot a foot off the deck and kept his leg straight. The kickers shin connected with North’s sole. He howled and North took his other leg out from under him. He lifted him off the deck and chokeslammed him into the third kid. Broken nose was getting back to his feet. North could hear the fast footfalls of the three from the train. He wasn’t going to make it back into the tunnel. He was going to be overrun. He changed direction as the sound of gunfire rang out. He ran for the edge of the bridge.

  Approaching the rail he fought the urge to throw himself over without breaking stride. He didn't want to hit any ledge or scaffolding that might be on the other side, or worse, go over before the bridge had cleared land. Ray had broken a leg going for a dip, drunk, doing just that. Here the drop must be ten times the fifteen feet Street had fallen onto a muddy river bank.

  North clambered over the railing and looked down at the quayside below. Lamps revealed cobbles to his right and the black river stretching away to his left. It was a close call. He shuffled further to his left. The gun fired again and sparks flew off the rail a foot to his right. He shuffled further. A knife went into the rail where he'd stood a moment before. He felt a grip on his collar. The next shot or lunge would go into him for sure.

  ‘Jump!’ came a cry from below. How come there was always some cynical fuck around at times like these?

  He stepped out into nothing. He fell maybe a foot before he stopped, suddenly, and was dragged back against the railing. He hung there. He could feel the hand that had grabbed his collar.

  They had him.

  North kicked and wriggled but the grip held fast. The cynic down there wasn’t going to get their wish. He felt himself being hauled back up the side of the bridge.

  This was it for sure.

  Then he was falling.

  A cry went out, up above, his assailants grip releasing as the wrist tendons gave. North plummeted towards the freezing river. His arms instinctively shot out to his sides and he flapped and pushed at the wind, fighting to keep himself upright as he fell through the air. He pulled his legs tight together, pointed his toes downwards and at the last second tried to bring his arms in close to his sides, aiming to slide into the river.

  It was like hitting concrete.

  Pain flared in his feet, legs and hands as he disappeared into the Tyne. The shock of the sudden drop in temperature causing him to suck in a lungful of ice cold, dirty river. He coughed it back out and kicked and clawed in its blackness. Everything seemed to slow down. The water invaded his clothing. It weighed on him. Pulled him down. The freezing temperatures consumed him. Bit into him.

  He held his breath and pulled at the waters above, kicked at those beneath. After what seemed like an age the pressure around him eased and he felt the chill of the wind bite into his face. He retched, puking up river and the curry he’d had for his tea. He sucked in the air, again and again. He became conscious that he was shivering. Every bit of him.

  ‘Here!’

  A woman’s voice. The same voice that had shouted ‘jump’.

  He looked in the direction of the North bank. The cry was repeated and he saw a figure up on the quayside, arms waving back and forth. The cold was sapping his energy. Clouding his mind. Was it a trap? He couldn’t see how they could have someone down here already. As he watched the figure beckon him over he saw something move out of the corner of his eye. He heard a splash and he turned to see water being thrown into the air about a dozen feet away. Another blur from above and up went anothe
r load.

  They were coming down after him.

  He didn’t wait to see them surface. He raised his legs and pushed his feet back down into the water as he pulled at the surface with outstretched palms. It brought him up, a little more level in the river and he began to kick. He stuck his head back into the icy water and began a crawl across the surface towards the figure. He hoped the good Samaritan had put a little more into their plan than just chucking him a life belt to hang on to until the coast guard or death came calling. He hoped they were directing him to a ladder or some other means by which he could escape this watery grave. He put every effort into maintaining his momentum, kicking as hard as he could to go as fast as he could. It seemed an age before pain racked his icy fingers as they touched the stone wall of the quayside. He heard the voice again, this time somewhere above. He was sure he had heard his name.

  ‘North!’

  He had heard his name.

  ‘Here!’

  He moved along the wall and his hand found a metal pole. Grasping it sent agonising shards through his fingers. He moved to his right and found an identical pole.

  A ladder.

  Sounds from the water behind him and another shout from above gave him focus. He grasped hold of the first rung and hauled himself up. He found the next and hauled again. It was hard going. He felt exhausted.

  ‘Come on! Stop fucking about, North!’ shouted in the poshest accent heard outside the Queen’s Christmas broadcast.

  ‘James?’

  He advanced another rung and was finally free of the river when something clamped onto his feet. He pulled but it wouldn’t budge. He looked down onto the top of a bald, tattooed head rising from the river. The man had his hands around North’s ankles and was hauling himself up in an attempt to drag him back down. North’s fingers began to prise from the ladder. Out on the river the other man was closing.

  ‘Come on!’ from above.

  North let go.

  The man holding him went under the water. North grasped for the ladder and his hands closed around a rung as he dropped. It felt like each finger had been hit with a hammer and that his arms would be ripped from their sockets when they suddenly took his full sopping wet, weight. He screamed - but his fingers held. He put every effort into holding onto the rung. The weight had gone from his ankles and when he pulled himself up he moved. The man had lost his hold on him. North scrambled up the ladder, his shoes scraping against the wall until they found a rung and then he was moving upward, quickly. His feet kept slipping but his hands were true and he climbed. Arms reached for him and helped pull him up and over the edge and he collapsed onto the cobblestones. He looked over the edge. The first was already climbing up after him, the second reaching out of the water. North felt done in. He’d never felt cold like it.

  ‘Come on!’ James kept at him

  ‘Hey!’ Another voice. Male. Up here on the quayside. North turned his head towards it. A lad was legging it towards them. Four others weren’t far behind. They all wore the same clothes. The same colours.

  ‘How the ...’

  But they weren’t Choirboy colours. They were wearing uniforms. They looked like pizza delivery guys.

  ‘What the...’

  ‘Shut up,’ James helped North clamber to his feet. She climbed astride a moped. No helmet.

  ‘Did you commandeer that young man’s company vehicle without advising him of the fact Detective Constable James?’

  ‘Get on!’

  They were gaining ground fast but more worrying were the sounds coming from the rivers edge. A pair of hands grabbed the railings and pulled an angry face into view.

  North got on.

  James released the clutch. If North hadn’t been so knackered he’d have gotten off and run. They couldn’t have been doing more than ten miles an hour. North held tight to James’ waist and strained to look behind. A pizza guy went down as the first gang member dealt him a blow as he passed by. The second added a kick to his guts. The other pizza guys pulled up around their colleague.

  The gangbangers put everything they had into sprinting after the overburdened moped and started gaining ground to the point where North could see the hate in their eyes. He tried to ready himself but he was spent.

  And then they began to recede.

  They’d covered over a hundred yards and they couldn’t keep up the pace. The cold was eating into their bones too. They slowed to a stop and could barely gesticulate at him. They were too busy fighting for breath to shout.

  North managed a grin.

  ‘We’ve lost them,’ he said by James ear.

  James responded by raising a pointed finger. North looked up. A helicopter was coming towards them. It didn’t have to get any closer for North to know that it had ‘POLICE’ plastered on its side.

  Had she called this in? Was she was pulling him out of the frying pan to throw him into the fire. She was probably taking him to the nearest station and North couldn’t do anything about it. It was everything he could muster just trying to keep holding on. James steered off the quayside into a lane and started up the bank towards the city centre. It was a good job they’d left the ground pursuit behind them already. North thought that he could have walked up the hill quicker – if he had been capable of walking.

  He had to screw his eyes shut as the scooter was lit up like day by the helicopter’s nightsun searchlight. James steered into a narrow side alley and it went dark again. North was ice cold and his body was now juddering violently in a vain attempt to conserve heat. He felt alert but recognised that his movements were slowing. He took a little longer to raise his gaze up to the helicopter when the spotlight found them again. The noise of the rotors seemed more distant. Muffled. Hypothermia was setting in. He could hear a siren now. The eye in the sky directing them to the target. North clung tighter as James mounted a pavement. The bike bumped and rattled. North puked down his front and James’ back. Buildings blurred by.

  Then the light dimmed.

  The sound dampened.

  North fought the urge to give in and go under. He mustn’t black out.

  The light dimmed and the siren silenced. He looked up. Took in his surroundings. It wasn’t a trick of his impaired senses. They were under cover. He realised that they had stopped moving. Were they at the jail? Why were they being chased if James was taking him to jail? Were they an escort? But why didn’t she just stop and get him put in a car? He realised that James was trying to get him off the scooter. He didn’t bother to fight it. She sat him down and he watched her grow smaller. He was going up in the air. She was still down below. Was he dreaming? Dying? This was the worst trip he’d ever been on.

  He stopped moving.

  James reappeared and pulled him free of the escalator before going back down for the bike. She helped North back onto it.

  ‘Hey! You shouldn’t be in here. Hey!’ A security guard.

  James didn’t even bother trying to play the ‘I’m a police officer’ card. No one was going to believe her. Look at the state the pair of them were in, all beat to shit, North wearing a river and acting like a junkie at death’s door.

  ‘Where are we?’

  ‘Eldon Square. Some workmen had a door open.’

  She set off through the deserted shopping mall with the security guard in tow. James knew she had to exit sharpish. They had seen her come in. They would have all the exits covered in minutes. She went the length of the complex and had to ditch the bike at the far end. It would take too long to man handle it down the stairs. They would have to take their chances on foot outside. She supported North as best she could, down to a fire exit and out into the road. An alarm went off to alert their presence but it didn’t matter - they were immediately swallowed up in a crowd outside and swept along in a sea of people.

  North felt a hat being pulled onto his head. A scarf was wrapped around his neck. James was wearing them too. She'd been resourceful, commandeering clobber so that they blended in and disappeared, just two more black a
nd whites among fifty-five thousand. St James’ Park was spilling out after a match. A Monday night kick-off for the TV. James sat North on a bench and disappeared. Every cell in his body was doing the rumba. A couple appeared with tabs and pints and joined him.

  ‘What was the score?’ said North. He still had his priorities right.

  ‘Two-nil,’ the beaming face told it was a victory not a defeat. ‘We’re in the next round. We’re going to Wem-ber-ley!’ And everyone passing them burst into song, even though the semis were another three rounds away.

  ‘Happy days,’ said North.

  Then he passed out.

  THIRTY-SIX

  North came round. The ceiling was only a foot or two above him. He could reach out and touch it without extending his arm. His head hurt like bastard. The thoughts inside it were bogged down. Moving his eyes invited needles into them. His stomach lurched and he banged his head trying to get up. He retched and clasped a hand to his mouth as the contents rose. James appeared with a bucket and his guts spilled into it. He spat the remnants and lay back down.

  ‘Is it me or is the room moving?’

  ‘Probably a bit of both. We are on a boat and you are a tad worse for wear, even by your standards. I hate to think what bugs and parasites reside in that river.’