by Nick Oldham
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 look 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 tr
affic.
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 of 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.
He did not have that option.
The cargo in the back made it impossible. So he was stuck with what he’d got and had to make the effort to get it back to safety.
He was pleased by the way things had gone at first. He’d got out of Blackpool easily. The problem he next faced was that he needed to refuel the vehicle. The big engine was guzzling petrol faster than a tramp guzzled cider, and he didn’t have enough left to get back to Manchester. Not at the speeds he’d be travelling at.
The refuelling had been going well.
McCrory, still stunned, was responding with blind obedience to everything. He made an excellent petrol pump attendant.
Then the detectives spotted them.
Dunny had hoped to ram the cop car into oblivion, but the manoeuvre had been nowhere near as effective as intended. This was confirmed by McCrory, who was keeping tabs out the back window.
‘ They’re there, they’re behind us,’ he shrieked.
‘ I should’ve wasted ‘em,’ growled Dundaven with regret.
‘ There’s another cop car with ‘em now,’ McCrory said.
Dundaven checked the mirror and glimpsed the blue light. He overtook a slow-moving bus, causing oncoming traffic to avoid him, then cut back in and shot through the next set of traffic lights which were on red. In the middle of the junction he had to slam on, twist and turn, accelerate away, keeping going all the time.
McCrory leaned forwards and peered up through the windscreen.
‘ Now the fuckin’ helicopter’s there,’ he howled in anguish. ‘We haven’t got a hope in hell, Dunny. We are fucking doomed. On my daughter’s life, we are doomed.’
‘ Shut yer pathetic hole,’ Dundaven warned him. ‘We are not doomed.’ Well, I’m not, he added silently.
He mounted the pavement with the two-nearside wheels and overtook a series of cars on the inside, pulling back onto the road inches before he hit a lamp post.
He was thinking quickly, weighing up the odds which were shortening against them. McCrory was a liability. If they did get caught, he would definitely talk till the cows came home. Though he didn’t know much, he knew a little and the cops could follow up on it. Dundaven made a decision.
The shotgun McCrory had used on the police car was at McCrory’s feet where he’d dropped it in disgust. Dundaven pointed at it. ‘Put two more shells in that and hand it to me.’
Without enthusiasm, the other man picked the weapon up. His fingers were shaking as he did what he was told.
‘ What you gonna do with it?’ he asked and placed it into Dundaven’s beckoning left hand.
‘ Open yer door just a crack an’ I’ll show ya.’
‘ Eh?’
‘ Just fekin do it!’
McCrory pulled back the handle. The door was unlocked and slightly open.
‘ This is what I’m gonna do.’
He put the weapon to McCrory’s head and pulled both triggers. This time when the gun recoiled he made sure he kept tight hold of it.
McCrory was catapulted out the side door.
By the time the chase hit the outskirts of Preston, Henry had been joined by a traffic car and the force helicopter. Other police vehicles in the area were converging.
The Control Room at force headquarters had taken over all communications. Their first instructions to Henry were that he should withdraw from the pursuit immediately and let the traffic car take up the following position.
It was one of those radio transmissions that, for some reason, Henry did not quite receive. This was one he was not going to give up. He’d face the consequences later.
He managed to stay in sight of the Range Rover as it bobbed and weaved through traffic. His own driving was more restrained and careful… but not by much.
They were about fifty metres behind, with nothing between them, when the passenger door opened and the body of a man seemed to leap out of the vehicle.
It corkscrewed out, appeared to stick gruesomely to the
side of the Range Rover for an instant before suddenly losing grip, flopping onto the ground and bouncing into the road in front of Henry.
‘ Jesus, look out!’ bellowed Seymour, losing his composure for the first time.
Henry’s reactions had now become fine-tuned. He had a micro-second to react and steered brilliantly around the body, his car lurching madly on two wheels, close to overturning. The body continued to roll and bounce along behind them. The driver of the traffic car didn’t have a chance in hell of missing it. He did well, but ran over it with all four wheels.
Henry saw it happen in his rearview mirror. He cringed as he experienced the impact by proxy and watched as the front wheels of the traffic car, then the rear, went over the legs and lower abdomen of the poor unfortunate man.
The traffic car braked and stopped.
‘ One down, one to go,’ muttered Seymour. He shifted in his seat and made himself comfortable whilst holding a blood-sodden handkerchief to the cut on his head.
It looked like being a long one.
Dundaven’s dilemma was now which route to take. He needed to get back to Manchester if at all possible. If he could get onto the estates in Salford he knew he could shake the cops, helicopter included.
But Salford was thirty miles away.
The most direct route was to head to the M6 at Junction 31, then onto the M61. Once on the motorway his options became limited. The police, if they could get enough vehicles together, could box him in, slow him down, make things very difficult. Not that he intended to stop. Ever. Whatever the situation he would keep on going… but on the motorway, the cops would have the upper hand.
The other choice was to head into East Lancashire, which he also knew well, being the area where he operated. Blackburn, maybe. It was a big enough town where he could probably abandon the Range Rover and go to ground. Then he’d have to face the consequences from Conroy. Definitely not appealing. He’d rather be arrested.