Now You See Me

by Sharon Bolton

  Cooper shot out into the car park and a few seconds later so did I. He was throwing himself over a railing, heading for Nine Elms Lane. I took a second to look round then I was running too, across the car park. He ran through the traffic, across the Wandsworth Road and on to the intersection.

  ‘He’s heading for the bridge,’ I shouted into the radio.

  As fast as I dared, I made my way across the traffic. A bus rattled past and early commuters stared out at me. For a second I couldn’t see Cooper. Then I spotted the lime squiggles on his jacket.

  ‘Suspect on the Vauxhall Bridge,’ I gasped into the radio, feeling a surge of hope. On the bridge I’d have a clear run. There was a chance I could catch him. There was even the possibility someone could cut him off at the other side. Vauxhall Bridge led almost directly into Westminster, an area never without heavy police presence.

  ‘Suspect a third of the way along Vauxhall Bridge, heading north-west. ’ I was fast running out of breath. ‘Suspect wearing loose black jacket, jeans and black hat. Believed to be Samuel Cooper.’

  The suspect believed to be Samuel Cooper suddenly stopped dead in the middle of the pedestrian walkway. I stopped too. The traffic on our side of the bridge was flowing normally. The other lane was empty and over Cooper’s shoulder I could see why. Two patrol cars had stopped at the junction of the bridge and the road that skirts the north bank of the Thames. Cooper had seen that he couldn’t escape that way. He’d turned and was coming back.

  Ignoring the instinct that told me to step into the traffic and get out of his way, I made myself stand firm. He might make it past me but I’d slow him down. There would be back-up behind me. I didn’t dare risk looking round but I knew they’d be in position by now. More officers would be arriving any second.

  ‘Flint!’ screamed a voice I knew only too well. ‘Get out of the fucking way!’

  Footsteps were coming in both directions and it felt like I was the one being hunted down. I had an almost irresistible urge to flee.

  Cooper was yards away now, had slowed to a trot. Then he pulled a short, black handgun out of his pocket.

  The footsteps slowed.

  Cooper was feet away. I could see men behind him, some of them in uniform, one of them wearing a grey jacket that had been draped across my sofa not so many nights ago. Joesbury lived just over the river from me, hardly five minutes’ drive away.

  Cooper was spinning on the spot, pointing his weapon alternately at me, then at Joesbury and his team. The bridge was empty of traffic now. Joesbury was mouthing something at me. I realized what it was a split second after it was too late. Get back, he’d been trying to tell me.

  Cooper had grabbed me. We fell against the red steel of the bridge’s safety rail and I wondered if any of my ribs were still intact.

  ‘I’ll do it!’ he screamed. ‘I’ll blow her fucking head off!’

  The gun was actually pressed into my left shoulder but I was far from arguing. Managing to get my breath, I raised my eyes from the gun. Cooper’s strange eyes weren’t focused. His breathing, even allowing for the distance he’d run, was too fast, and drool was collecting in the corner of his mouth. He was seriously under the influence of something.

  Getting his balance, he straightened up, pulling me in front of him. He was a good six inches taller than me and a whole lot stronger. His left arm went around my waist as he raised the gun to my right temple. On balance, I wouldn’t have called the situation improved. Except, while the gun had been pressed against my shoulder, I’d had a pretty good look at it and had seen the make and model number on the barrel.

  ‘Let her go, Sam,’ called Joesbury. ‘Just let her go and we can sort this out.’

  ‘Get off the fucking bridge!’ Cooper’s voice in my left ear was close to deafening. ‘Get off the bridge or you scrape her brains off it.’

  Joesbury had both hands in the air. He took a step backwards. ‘Take it easy,’ he said. ‘We’re going.’

  He and the officers with him were moving back. If I was going to act, it had to be now. I wrapped my hands around the fabric of Cooper’s jacket. When I had a firm hold and knew he couldn’t go anywhere, I took a deep breath.

  ‘The gun isn’t real,’ I called out, praying I was right. ‘It’s an air pistol. Come and get the bastard.’

  Joesbury and the officer at his side exchanged glances. The gun that might or might not be real – I honestly wasn’t that certain – was pushed harder against my temple and I felt something in my neck about to snap. Then I was being pulled backwards at the waist and my feet left the ground.

  Panic shot through me like red-hot needles.

  The heat of Cooper’s body was gone but he still had me in a tight grip. I was being pulled backwards against the thick steel girder of the barrier. Shit, Cooper was on the other side of it, leaning out over the river, with nothing other than a tight grip on me to prevent himself falling.

  ‘Not a good idea, Sam.’ Joesbury was getting close again. ‘It’s low tide. The water can’t be more than a metre deep. The fall will kill you.’

  On the far bank of the river, there was no sign of the grimy, rubbish-strewn beaches that appear at low tide. The water would be deeper than Joesbury was telling us. Small comfort, because the only contact I had with the ground by this time was the tips of my trainers and any second now my spine was going to snap.

  ‘It’s twenty metres down, Sam,’ called Joesbury. ‘That’s higher than an Olympic diving board. You won’t survive.’

  The arches of Vauxhall Bridge are twelve metres to water level at the lowest tide. Add on another couple of metres to reach road level and the fall would be fourteen metres at most. Still not one I relished. People don’t often fall from bridges into the Thames and survive.

  ‘You’re right above one of the concrete piers,’ said Joesbury, who was almost close enough to touch us. ‘You won’t even reach the water.’ I couldn’t look down but I was praying Joesbury was bullshitting about that, too. If we hit the water, we’d have a chance. Land on concrete – forget it.

  ‘I’ve done nothing. This is a fucking fix.’

  Joesbury’s eyes didn’t even flicker. ‘Come on, buddy, back on to this side. We’ll sort this out.’

  ‘Screw you.’

  Joesbury leaped for us just as Cooper pulled me up and over the railing. For a split second I felt a hand around my foot. I met Joesbury’s eyes and saw them creased up with pain. His dislocated shoulder. The pressure of his hand held a second longer, then I felt a sliding sensation as my foot slipped from my trainer and I was falling.

  I could see horrified blue eyes, the river gleaming like black ink and coloured lights from the north bank reaching across it like ribbons. I had a moment of surprise. I’d imagined my own death often, but it had never been like this. This strange sensation of feeling perfectly fine and completely fucked at the same time. Then instinct kicked in and I threw my arms above my head. Just in time. The water hit me so hard I thought I had landed on concrete and then the world turned into a plunging, dark hole.

  46

  I’M SINKING, SO FAST IT FEELS LIKE I’M STILL FALLING, INTO A blackness that is dense enough to be solid, and I know that, against every instinct, I cannot panic. I have minutes. Fall into the Thames around Westminster in the middle of winter and it takes roughly 120 seconds before the cold paralyses your limbs and you sink to the bottom. In late September I might have a few minutes longer.

  Still moving fast. Make those minutes count. Limbs outstretched now to slow me down. Looking around. Eyes stinging. Nothing to see but shifting dark shapes. Lights. The lights from the bank above me. I’m not sinking any more but moving fast all the same. The tide has got me.

  Swim. Get up to those lights. Don’t breathe. Don’t think about the river, about the darkness below, about weed tangling in my face. Make those minutes count. Savage pain as something hits me hard. I’m being dragged against a hard surface I can’t see. For a second I stop moving and know I’m caught on something.
The river rips past me like a waterfall and I know this is the end. Then I’m free again, spinning off into darkness. Lights still above me. Don’t breathe. Minutes have gone by. Clock ticking. I need air.

  I’m breathing. I’ve broken the surface. Then I’m down again, but air in my lungs has given me hope. I kick. Keep moving. Don’t give in to the cold. A body is recovered from the Thames every week of the year. Most of them are found in London. Don’t be one of them.

  I surface again. The huge wheel of the London Eye is already small in the distance. I’ve travelled so far already. The tide is hurrying away with me. Then I’m dragged under again. I am in the river in the dark in a heavy tide. I’ll be found, days from now, probably in the U-bend around the Isle of Dogs because that’s where most bodies get trapped. I’ll be bloated and mutilated and the seagulls will have got to me. I’ll be laid in a shallow, large bath at Wapping while the Marine Unit take fingerprints – if I have fingers left – and try to establish my identity.

  But I’m still alive, still breathing and moving. Get the jacket off, the fabric is heavy and it’s dragging me down. I risk reaching for the button and remember just in time.

  The jacket might be my only hope. That and Joesbury’s mobile phone in my pocket. He and the others will know where I am. They’ll be following me downriver. Just stay alive. I catch a glimpse of something huge on the bank. Cleopatra’s Needle. I’m heading for Waterloo Bridge. There’s the Queen Mary. The river bends sharply here. This is where I run the greatest risk of being crushed to death against a bridge pier, or a tethered barge. It might also be my best chance.

  I turn to face the direction I’m travelling in. I’m almost in the centre of the river and I have absolutely no chance in this tide of swimming to the side. But the north bank is busy here, it’s almost a parking lot for pleasure boats and historic ships. Shit, that hurts. Something hits me in the face and for a few seconds I can’t even breathe, but the boats of the Embankment are getting closer. There is a small one, some sort of water taxi, it has lines running to the shore. Several of them just above water level.

  I hit them full on. The river howls and increases its grip. It’s pulling me round, trying to get me free, it’s not giving up on me just yet. I catch hold of a line and find myself almost horizontal in the water, so hard is the river dragging me downstream. I make the last effort I’m capable of and manage to hook my elbow around the line. I lock my hands together. It’s all I can do.

  Now I really do have minutes. Minutes before my strength gives up. Minutes before the cold, even in September, gets to me. Joesbury and the others will be looking for me. The control room in Scotland Yard will know where I am, will be sending back information. Someone will come for me.

  I just have to hope Joesbury’s swanky tracking devices don’t mind the wet.

  47

  I WOKE UP IN A HOSPITAL ROOM. THE WINDOW BLINDS WERE drawn but there seemed to be soft light behind them. I’d lived to see another day. I lay still for long minutes. I was very hot. Then I risked moving my arms and legs. Everything hurt. Everything did what it was supposed to. I sat up and had a whole new experience of pain. My head, face, torso, everything screaming.

  I sat still on the bed, just concentrating on breathing in and out, waiting for the pain to fade. After a while, when it had drifted back to a dull ache, I thought about lying down again. Only sensible thing really. Except I desperately needed to pee.

  I lowered myself to the floor and experimented with standing upright. A toddler would have sneered, but at least I hadn’t fallen. At the far end of the room, about eight feet away, was a door that I was praying led into a private bathroom. No way was I negotiating a corridor.

  I set off. Oh shit, it hurt. Couldn’t I have peed in the river? My head was spinning by the time I got to the door. Thank God, a loo, with disabled bars. There was a chance I could sit down without falling.

  Sitting down was achievable. Getting up again was a whole different story, so for a while I just didn’t bother. Where was I? One of the south London hospitals, probably. I remembered bright lights shining on me. A man’s hand reaching down. I hadn’t been able to take my hand off the rope to grasp his, so he’d lassoed me like a runaway steer and dragged me to the back of the RIB. A pretty redhaired girl, part of the Met’s Marine Policing Unit, had fastened me on a stretcher and wrapped silver heat-retentive blankets around me. Then the RIB’s engines had fired up and we’d flown across the river to where an ambulance was waiting.

  Realizing I couldn’t spend the night on the loo, I pulled myself up. The pain might have been easier but it was marginal. And for some reason it was feeling horribly difficult to breathe. Like I had a heavy cold. After flushing the loo, I left the bathroom. The door to my room had a window that looked out into a corridor and, directly opposite my door, a man was sitting in a plastic chair. His eyes were closed, his left arm in a sling. The door to my room and his eyes opened at the same time. Joesbury stared at me for a second, then got to his feet.

  ‘How are you feeling?’ he asked, when we were both inside my room and the door had closed gently behind us.

  ‘Like I fell in the Thames.’

  Joesbury looked exhausted and I wondered how long he’d been sitting outside my door.

  ‘You really shouldn’t be up,’ he said. ‘They pumped you full of painkillers and sedatives two hours ago.’

  Sedatives might explain why my head felt like a swarm of bees was trapped inside it. ‘What happened to me?’ I asked.

  ‘Mainly cracked ribs. A few strains. And a lot of bruising.’

  That didn’t seem too bad. I nodded at his sling. ‘Was that my doing?’ I asked.

  He shrugged with the uninjured shoulder. ‘Well, they don’t have to amputate just yet.’ Then he half smiled. ‘I’ve got your trainer in my car,’ he added.

  I looked down at my foot. ‘I think I lost the other one,’ I said.

  The smile became a little wider. ‘Maybe I’ll keep it as a souvenir.’

  ‘What about Cooper?’ I asked. All the time I’d been in the river, I hadn’t given the man who’d pulled me in a second thought. Survival had been all that mattered. Now though …

  Joesbury shook his head. ‘Nothing yet,’ he said. ‘But we wouldn’t expect it. We wouldn’t have found you if …’

  ‘I know,’ I said, and when that didn’t seem enough, ‘Thank you.’

  ‘He’s dead, Flint. The chances of both of you getting out were zero.’

  ‘I know,’ I said again. It was better, probably, that Cooper didn’t survive. And yet … ‘That thing he said just before we went in. About it being a fix.’

  ‘They all say that.’ Joesbury indicated the bed. ‘Now, you really need to get some sleep,’ he went on. ‘Tully’ll be here first thing in the morning, clucking like a mother hen and wanting chapter and verse on everything.’

  ‘I’ll just wash my hands,’ I said. In the corner of the room was a washbasin.

  He stepped after me. ‘Lacey, that’s not—’

  I was at the basin. Automatically, I raised my head to the mirror. Staring back at me was a face I’d never seen before. I stepped quickly back, as though not looking at it might make it go away. It hadn’t though, I could see in Joesbury’s face it hadn’t. I put my hands up to cover the hideous thing I’d turned into. Then one arm was wrapped around me and I was weeping against a black and grey sweatshirt.

  ‘It’s 90 per cent superficial,’ he was saying into my ear. ‘I spoke to one of the doctors. Most of it is swelling and bruising. In a couple of weeks it’ll be gone.’

  I couldn’t stop crying.

  ‘I think something must have hit you in the face,’ Joesbury went on. ‘Thank God you still had your bike helmet on.’

  ‘What’s the bandage for?’ I managed. I hadn’t seen my nose; where it should have been was a large square, surgical strip.

  ‘There’s a fracture in your nose just above the bridge …’

  I wasn’t crying any more. I was howli
ng.

  ‘Stop it, shush now. It’s going to be fine. The Met will pay for it to be made as good as new.’

  I was trying to stop. I really was. For one thing, it was getting hard to breathe.

  ‘What else?’ I muttered.

  Joesbury sighed. ‘There’s a small cut on your right temple. If it leaves a scar it’ll be a tiny one. The inside of your lip needed stitches, but any scarring will be inside your mouth.’

  Deep breath. Joesbury’s sweatshirt had blood on it. Mine.

  ‘That’s all. I promise you. You’ll be as gorgeous as ever in a few weeks.’

  I ran my hands over my face – God, it was sore – then looked up. I raised my finger to touch a scar – his. For several long seconds we just looked at each other. Then he said, ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘For grabbing my shoe instead of my ankle?’ I mumbled, knowing this wasn’t about what had happened on Vauxhall Bridge.

  ‘For giving you such a hard time the last couple of weeks,’ he said.

  I couldn’t look at him any more. ‘You’ve been a complete bastard,’ I said.

  ‘You’ve been a complete bastard, sir,’ he corrected, pulling me closer still. ‘And I know.’

  ‘Why?’ I asked, not quite daring to lift my eyes from the tear-stains on his sweatshirt.

  His left arm twitched inside the sling, as though he wanted to wrap that one round me too, and he gave a little sigh. ‘Dana thinks I fancy you rotten and I’m taking the time-honoured male path of venting sexual frustration through unreasonable aggression,’ he said.

  So he and Dana weren’t …? Oh, grinning hurt like hell.

  ‘Is she right?’ I muttered to the tear-stain.

  ‘Probably,’ he said, as I was wondering how much kissing would hurt. ‘Although I told myself I was just taking the time-honoured path of reasonable suspicion when faced with a still-warm corpse and a witness covered in blood.’