by steve higgs
Now I had even more reason to find Jennifer quickly; we had to end this before Sir Arthur passed out or bled to death.
Ten minutes later we were nearing the postcode Patience had given me. She said there should be a cottage nearby and a small parking place hidden behind the trees. The parking spot would be signposted though so should be easy to find.
We didn’t find it.
We drove through the point the satnav on his phone said was the destination, went another mile, then doubled back and went slow. I could see the river through the trees, but there was no parking spot and no Jennifer’s Volvo anywhere.
I was just about to call Patience again when something caught my eye. Light had glinted through the trees. ‘Stop the car.’ I shouted loud enough to startle my companion.
I patted his arm for comfort and stared through the trees. There was a car, I couldn’t tell for sure if it was hers, but it was on the other side of the river. ‘I think that’s her,’ I wailed. I felt crushed by the knowledge. We would never get to her in time. ‘Any idea where the nearest bridge is?
‘Miles away,’ replied Sir Arthur.
‘I’ll have to try to swim it. The water is flowing east so I need you to back up a bit so I when I get washed downstream I end up somewhere near here. ‘
Sir Arthur drove off forward again. ‘I think there was a junction just along here.’
‘Um, I’m confused. What good is a junction?’ I didn’t want to go for a swim, the water would not be warm, and I didn’t have a lot of body fat to protect me. I didn’t feel like losing either so if I had to swim the river to catch the raving psycho then so be it.
To answer my question, Sir Arthur had a question of his own. ‘Have you ever seen the James Bond Film, The Living Daylights?’
‘Yeah, I guess? Is that the one with Timothy Dalton?’
Sir Arthur found the junction, went past it and then reversed into it and continued to reverse back while looking out of the back window. When he judged he had gone far enough, he stopped and turned to face me. ‘Dalton made two movies as James Bond actually but the second was a big enough commercial failure for the studio to decide they needed to change everything including the actor. Anyway, they made a bunch of cars for the film and this is one of them.’ He touched a button on the center console and a panel slid back to reveal an array of buttons.
‘Holy crap,’ I said as I stared at them. One was labeled laser, another missiles, yet another was machine guns.
Seeing my expression, he said. ‘Oh, none of them work. Or, to be more accurate, none of them are armed. But there is one gadget that is functional. I had an engineer friend resinstall it and I have always wanted to try it out.
‘Oh, my lord! You’re going to jump the river. Will we make it?’
Sir Arthur nodded his head and squared his jaw. ‘No idea,’ he replied, them stamped hard on the gas before I could say anything else. The Aston Martin Vantage’s V8 engine propelled us toward the river at an insane speed. Ahead of us was a gap in the trees and a raised section of riverbank Sir Arthur would use as a natural ramp.
I was already too terrified for words, but I needed to shout that we were not going fast enough. There just wasn’t enough road for us to build up the speed we needed. Then, from the corner of my eye, I saw him reach down to the console again. I tracked his hand to a button marked rocket engine.
I got to say, ‘Oh, f…’ but the rocket kicked in and I thought my eyeballs were going to touch the back of my skull as the car took off like… well, like a rocket. It hit the riverbank and blasted through it as much as over it. But the raised piece of land kicked the car upward and I caught a glimpse from my window of water beneath us.
We were in the air for no more than a second but that was enough to carry us to the other bank where the car ploughed through reeds and bushes as its momentum carried it onwards. Sir Arthur tried to steer but there was no chance he could control the car as it slid over the wet scrubland that bordered the river.
‘I think the brakes are out,’ he yelled as he fought for control and yanked on the hand brake. The car slewed around but finally stopped just short of the road on the other side of the river.
‘Oh, my lord, we made it,’ I breathed a massive sigh of relief. I was stunned and elated, but there was still a murder to stop. ‘We have to get moving.’
Sir Arthur gave me a weary look. ‘I think I might be done, my dear. Can you carry on without me? I am feeling a little woozy, truth be told.’
Thinking the worst but trying to keep it from my face and voice, I leaned across to his side of the car and checked his pulse. It was a little weak, but it was still banging away. The police were coming, I trusted that much, and there really wasn’t anything I could do for him. So, I gripped his arm and said, ‘You did a marvelous job, Sir Arthur. Marvelous. I am going to try to complete our quest now. I’ll be back soon. You sit tight now, okay?’
‘I shall rest awhile, m’lady and join you shortly,’ he assured me. I doubted he would do anything other than pass out, but I intended to get this sewn up and get him to hospital before his condition worsened.
With a final pat on his arm, I slipped out of the door and closed it quietly. There was no way that Jennifer hadn’t heard the racket we made, but until I found her and could see that the chief inspector was dead, I would continue to assume that he wasn’t and could still be rescued.
Using Sir Arthur’s phone, I tried Tempest’s number again. I had it turned way down low and had my hand over the screen to shield the light coming from it. It rang and rang, but when it stopped ringing and a voice suddenly boomed in my ear, I almost dropped it.
‘Tempest, it’s Jane. I need you.’ It was a simple statement, but I knew it would result in the reaction I required.
I could almost hear his breathing slow at the other end of the phone as he focused his attention and his voice was calm when he asked, ‘What do you need me to do?’
‘I’m out past Biddenden Lake, there’s a killer here and she has Chief Inspector Quinn lined up as her next victim. I’m going to try to stop her,’ I heard Tempest suck in a breath, and I knew he was about to try to talk me out of it, so I talked right over him. ‘I’m doing it, okay. I don’t know what’s going to happen and I am terrified, but I have to try.’
‘Terrified is good,’ he said. ‘Use that adrenalin to your advantage, control it and use it to make yourself faster or stronger. It will raise your pulse so watch out for feeling faint though.’
‘There’s an Aston Martin on the B1257 road that runs by the Tike river. There’s an injured man in it and I owe him my life. Get him help, please. I have to go now.’
As I pulled the phone away from my ear, I heard Tempest say, ‘Go with speed. I’ll be there soon.’ Then I left the phone because I had nowhere to put it, slipped out of the oversize jacket because it was cumbersome and set off toward where I thought I would find Jennifer.
Battle. Monday, December 5th 2149hrs
Picking a fight is not really something I have ever done. I was one of the smaller kids in my class at school and, if I’m being honest, I was already a bit different back then. Some of the kids called me weird, but I just think they were afraid to see themselves reflected in me. They picked on me though and I rarely fought back.
Regardless of all that, I was on my way to find Jennifer and when I did, I was going to have to stop her from killing Quinn. I would have to fight her, and she was most likely armed still. I was not. Even if I was too late, and she had already drowned Quinn, I would still have to tackle her, the police were coming, and I could not let her get away.
Navigating by judgement and still not certain it was her car I saw on this side of the river, I stumbled across her almost immediately, coming around a tree by the lake’s edge to find her manhandling CI Quinn out of the Volvo’s boot.
She saw me just as I saw her and we both froze for a second. Then she giggled. ‘I take it that was you making all that noise. It sounded like you crashed a car. Is
Michelle dead?’ I stared at her as my heart thumped in my chest. I couldn’t see the knife but that didn’t mean it wasn’t there. ‘I hope she is; she was becoming such a drag with all her rules.’
‘She’s with the police. It’s over Jennifer.’ Could I talk her into surrendering?
‘She is the police, silly. If she’s not dead, then she will explain how she was tracking down the crazy private investigator chick or something. You’re the weirdo in this equation; no one is going to believe you. Anyway, I think I’ll kill you now and then come back for this useless sack of meat.’
That’s when the knife appeared in her right hand, glinting in the moonlight as she brandished it in front of her face. Then, coolly, she reached behind her back with her left hand and produced another knife to match the first.
‘You want to be a girl, don’t you? Maybe I can help with the operation.’ She gave a little excited shiver of impending pleasure. ‘Oooh, yeah. Maybe I’ll keep your little thingy as a trophy.’ She was done talking though, the smile dropping from her face as she held the knives to her sides and began to approach me.
I was petrified. Rooted to the spot and willing my feet to move. I felt like an animal at a slaughterhouse; waiting my turn to be butchered. Where the heck were the police? Involuntarily, I took a step back as she advanced, nearly losing my balance as my foot went into the lake.
She saw me stumble and ran at me, thrusting with the knife in her right hand and swinging at me with the left as I squealed and ducked away. Now we were both standing in the lake, ankle deep only but what if I could get her deeper? Could I stall her long enough for someone else to arrive if I just stayed out of her reach by wading out a bit? The woman can’t swim; it was half of her lawyer’s defense.
She came at me again with a growl, annoyed that I was managing to stay out of her reach. A wild swing I was easily able to dodge and another, forcing me back each time and I was knee deep now.
Then I ran out of luck as my legs fetched up against something. Momentum carried me further backwards and I pitched over, splashing down into the freezing cold water. All the air went out of my lungs as the frigid water hit my skin. I already believed I was cold; I hadn’t been, but I was now.
A giggle brought my focus back as survival became the priority. Mercifully, my head remained above the water, though the back of my wig was now drenched and threatening to come off. Jennifer came at me, sensing that this was her chance.
My arms caught hold of the branch I tripped over and as she loomed over me, I yanked upward, snapping a piece off with both hands to parry her double downward stab. I was on my back in the water, with her face inches from mine. ‘Why won’t you just die?’ she hissed in my face, then gave another little giggle.
She was on top of me and using her weight to push down the knives toward my face. She had the upper hand and all the advantage. In a movie, this would be the point when Sir Arthur, thought by the audience to be incapacitated, would appear for one last triumphant move to save the girl.
I waited a second with Jennifer’s breath in my face, then accepted my fate and saved myself. Her crazy eyes were right in front of mine, If I wanted to, I could kiss her, she was that close.
Instead, I smiled at her. ‘You forgot something, Jennifer.’ When her brow crinkled in doubt, I said, ‘I’m a guy and that makes me a lot stronger than you.’ Then I stuck a foot in her gut and launched her high over my head and into the deep of the river beyond. Her surprised face quickly disappearing beneath the water with a splash.
Wondering if it was okay to laugh about the irony of her drowning, I let a small smirk flick across my face. Then I remembered how cold I was and dragged myself out of the mud and out of the river. The damned police still hadn’t arrived. Then I heard the blissful sound of sirens in the distance and allowed myself a few seconds to rest on the riverbank, lying on my front and feeling spent.
The noise of the sirens grew louder and louder still. There was something wrong with it though. I lifted my head to check what I was hearing, but I didn’t need to look to know what my brain was telling me; they were on the wrong side of the river. Just like Sir Arthur and I had, the satnav had directed them to an obvious spot but it was the wrong one.
Feeling frustrated, I put my hands under my body so I could get up. Maybe I could honk the horn on the Volvo and flash the lights to get their attention. They would find us, plus I could turn the engine on and use the heaters to get some feeling back into my hands. Thinking that I really ought to check on the chief inspector as well, I levered myself unhappily back onto my elbows and turned my head so I could see where the police cars were.
Doing so saved my life.
‘I learned to swim, freak!’ Bedraggled and insane, Jennifer wasn’t dead, she still had one of the knives, and she was throwing herself at me with it held in both hands. I rolled over, the knife digging into the grass where my head had been half a second earlier.
I got my hands and knees beneath me but not before she pulled the knife free. A sharp pain in my upper left arm told me her latest wild swing had hit home and I shrieked at the pain and shock of it.
Scrambling to get away, I slipped on the mud I myself had churned up, lost my forward momentum and crashed to the ground again.
She had me. And she knew it.
‘You know what?’ she gloated. ‘I think I will cut it off and keep it. Just because you got me wet. Don’t worry though. I’ll do it after you’re dead.’
Desperately searching for a weapon, any weapon, I found nothing, and on her knees, she moved in. I knew these were my last moments, so I clawed and kicked but she had the knife pointing toward me and was going to stick it in anything that came within stabbing distance. I felt it bite into my leg as I tried to kick her away, the pain barely registering over the level of panic I felt.
Then, above my head the blade flashed in the moonlight and a chunk of rock smashed into the side of Jennifer’s head. The knife went flying, a small plop noise announcing its arrival in the river.
‘You’re under arrest,’ said Chief Inspector Quinn. ‘You do not have to say anything. But it may harm your defense if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence.’ Jennifer was unconscious and hadn’t heard one word of her rights, but that didn’t seem to matter. ‘You heard me read her rights, yes?’
I nodded weakly. ‘Sure.’
‘Good. That’s the second time I’ve read her those rights for the same crime. I don’t plan for there to be a third occurrence.’ He looked across at me. ‘Are you okay?’
I considered my answer to that question. I had a perfect opportunity to say something really cool, nothing came though, I was just too exhausted to think. I settled for, ‘I’ll live.’
The chief inspector looked out across the river and put his hands on his hips like Peter Pan. ‘Good thing I was here to save the day then.’ The back of my head was in the mud and it made a slight sucking noise as I lifted it to stare incredulously at the man. I felt a dire need to kick him, but I just didn’t have the energy. He huffed out a breath, the cold air making it look like a cloud of steam. ‘We need get you into the warm. Hypothermia is a real risk at this time of year.’ He grasped my right hand to pull me up, getting my arm around his shoulders so he could get me to the car.
There he found Jennifer’s phone and dialed a number that put him through to an incident control center somewhere. Once he had identified himself, he said, ‘I have apprehended the suspect. She is in my custody now and I have a casualty with me.’ I managed to hold up a hand with two fingers extended. My teeth were chattering too badly for speech. ‘Make that two casualties apparently. Yes, yes, I agree. A great day for Kent Police. What’s that? Yes, I’m sure the chief constable will be very pleased. It’s a team effort though. I cannot take all the credit.’ The man was unbelievable, he was planning to claim the police had solved the case. He hadn’t even thanked me for coming after him.
The
car’s engine was running, and warmth was beginning to bring life back to my arms and legs and face and everything else. When he finished the call, he helped me get my water-filled boots off and examined my cuts, declaring that none of them were life threatening, but most of them would leave scars. He continually ducked his head back out of the car to check on Jennifer but she hadn’t moved at any point.
I put my head back and waited for the belated cavalry to arrive.
Mopping Up. Monday, December 5th 2254hrs
The wail of approaching sirens finally cut off when they arrived ten minutes later, police by the truckload descending on the little riverbank as more and more cars appeared.
I was warm enough now to be able to speak so I swiveled around in my seat and pushed the door open, a move I regretted the instant the cold air outside hit my skin and wet clothes. I had rested long enough though, Sir Arthur needed medical attention and they might ignore his car if I didn’t point him out.
‘Wait, miss,’ insisted a short male police officer as I left the car and began to gingerly step barefoot across the gravel. ‘We need to get you some help, I think. An ambulance will be here any moment.’
‘I have to check on my friend. He’s parked just along the road.’
‘Is that the big chap in James Bond’s car?’ he asked. Seeing me nod, he smiled, ‘We found him already, dispatch got a call to look out for him. He’s going to be okay, I think, though he was delirious, spouting some fanciful tale about jumping the river in his car.’
Relief washed through me as the man was joined by several of his colleagues. ‘We need to get you out of those wet clothes, miss,’ said one. ‘I’ll fetch some blankets from the squad car.’ Then sensing he had just insisted the petite blonde woman take her clothes off for the male audience, he called over two female officers to assist me.