Time seemed to stand still, the two women staring at each other, then more screams intruded, breaking the moment. Lilah Hill seemed to come alive, suddenly aware of the danger she was in. She rammed the car back into gear, spun the vehicle around, speeding away in the direction she’d just come from. This took her back towards her prone victim, but mercifully escape was uppermost in her mind now, Hill veering around the fallen teacher and away down the street.
Helen had a split second to make a decision. Stay with Raeburn or pursue Hill? Already a gaggle of shoppers were hurrying towards the prone woman, phones clamped to their ears, and this decided Helen. Snapping her visor back down, she tore away from the scene, intent on pursuing her attacker. The Fiat was already a way off in the distance, but Helen felt sure she could catch her – if she was quick.
Her tyres dug into the tarmac, her speed steadily climbing. As she sped along the street, her eyes darted constantly this way and that, searching for pedestrians. This was a busy shopping area, full of teenagers, families, pensioners, and it was possible that one might emerge at any time, stepping out in front of her, so she kept her senses alert, scoping the way ahead for danger.
Hill seemed to have no such compunction, however, intent now on escape. She ripped down Castle Way, then straight onto French Street. This was much narrower, a relic of the city’s Tudor architecture and popular with tourists and locals alike. The chances of a collision here were even greater; Helen’s heart was in her mouth as she pursued the fleeing suspect over the bouncing cobbles. Mercifully, luck was on their side, and Hill reached the end of the street unscathed, Helen breathing a silent sigh of relief.
Now Hill would be likely to encounter trouble. She would emerge almost directly opposite the Red Funnel ferry terminal. Here there were traffic lights, but also a steady stream of traffic, as holidaymakers made their way to the port. Even from this distance, Helen could see the lights were red, but to her surprise, Hill didn’t hesitate, roaring through the stop signal and skidding wildly out onto the ring road.
A truck missed her by inches, its horn blaring as it swept past. Hill seemed unabashed, clipping another vehicle in the adjacent lane but nevertheless managing to straighten up before speeding away. Helen, by contrast, had to break sharply, wasting valuable seconds waiting for a break in the opposing flow of traffic.
Cursing, she tapped her Bluetooth, dialling into the incident room. A gap now opened up in front of her and she sped forward once more, even as the call connected.
‘Incident room?’
She recognized DC Osbourne’s distinctive tones over the noise of her engine.
‘This is DI Grace. I’m currently in pursuit of a red Fiat, registration number K R one nine R F F, heading anticlockwise on the A33. The suspect is currently heading away from the Red Funnel port – request full tracking and intercept.’
‘Straight away. Who is it?’
‘Lilah Hill. Quick as you can please.’
Ending the call, she fixed her eyes once more on the speeding car. The Fiat was sixty yards ahead, even now weaving in and out of the lanes in a desperate attempt to maintain a lead. Raising her speed, Helen zeroed in on her, intent on making up the distance between them. But the pursuit had just become a lot more hazardous. The ring road, which circumvented Southampton before colliding with the M27, was one of the city’s main arteries. As such, it was always busy. This might play in Helen’s favour, slowing or even stopping Hill, but it might also mean casualties, something Helen was acutely aware of.
The sensible thing to do would be to hang back and monitor the situation, staying in touch with the fleeing suspect, whilst waiting patiently until Hill could be apprehended safely. But it would be difficult to execute a hard stop on such a busy thoroughfare and Helen’s strong instinct was to divert Hill off the ring road before she reached Mountbatten Way. Looking down at her speedometer, she saw she was already doing sixty mph, but now she yanked this up by another twenty, determined to narrow the gap between them.
Hill seemed to sense this, upping her speed, but even so, Helen gradually began to reel her in. The Fiat was nippy, but not built for high-speed pursuits and was no match for Helen’s Kawasaki. And even as she approached the fleeing car, Helen spotted her opportunity. Wrenching back the throttle even further, she sped past, before pulling back into lane directly in front of her. The Mayflower roundabout was just ahead of them, a crash there was a distinct possibility, but Helen sought to cut Hill off by dramatically dropping her speed, forcing the pursuing car to brake suddenly. There was a loud skid, Hill’s tyres protesting wildly, as the car slewed towards her. For a moment, Helen thought they might connect, and braced herself for the impact, but at the last minute, Hill wrenched the wheel round, shooting off the main road and onto a slip road that ran along the water’s edge.
Helen had achieved her principal goal, but even so Hill was now speeding away from her so, spinning around, Helen followed suit, slipping off the main road. Roaring after the fleeing Fiat, she glimpsed the turning heads in Mayflower Park, young parents and their toddlers intrigued by the high-speed pursuit playing out in front of them. But Helen kept her gaze firmly fixed on the vehicle in front. This was a less populated area of the city, mainly comprising storage depots and business parks, but still danger lurked, the Fiat swerving even now to avoid a courier’s van. Helen followed hot on her heels, giving the van a wide berth, before upping her speed once more.
They shot past the old Odeon, then a row of trade outlets, the two vehicles neck and neck now. At any minute, Helen expected the Fiat to swerve towards her, but Hill remained grimly focused on the way ahead and now Helen saw why. Twenty feet away there was a roundabout. If Hill hung a right there she could be back on the ring road, speeding away from town. The suspect seemed to sense this, angling a look to the flyover above. Ramming her foot on the accelerator, Hill raced towards the junction, barely braking as she careered over the roundabout, heading for the third exit and the slip road back to the A33.
Helen had been expecting this move and was quicker, leaning into the turn and bypassing the roundabout altogether, risking life and limb by going against the flow of traffic to get to the exit first. She made it – just – the Fiat’s bumper almost clipping her tyre, as Hill sped away from the roundabout. Now the slip road lay before them – a hundred feet of open tarmac up to the ring road. Yanking back on the throttle, Helen eased away from her pursuer, opening up a ten-foot lead. Hill raised her game, determined to escape, which is what Helen had been counting on. And now, as she neared the junction, she tugged hard on her brakes, simultaneously wrenching the handlebars around. As she’d hoped, the bike skidded to an elegant halt, spinning slightly in the process, so that she now formed a human roadblock across the entry slip. It was a foolish, reckless thing to do – Helen could see Hill’s shock, knew that she only had a split second to make a decision. Would she try and avoid a collision or would she drive straight through her, adding another casualty to her hit list? It was a crazy strategy, Helen risking her own life to bring the fleeing suspect in, but her instincts proved right. Hill was not a seasoned killer, and the young woman wrenched the steering wheel sharply to the right, the car veering wildly away, just missing Helen as it did so.
Her speed was still high, her desperation to escape as keen as ever, so Helen was not surprised as Hill now yanked the steering wheel back the other way, desperate to skid out and away onto the ring road. But Hill had left it too late. The solid concrete wall of the flyover was fast approaching – too fast – the vehicle’s momentum carrying it inexorably towards it. Seconds later, there was a huge crunch, metal and fibre glass cracking horribly, as the car slammed into the wall, stopping dead in its tracks.
Chapter 109
‘You’re absolutely sure about that?’
‘Yes, sir. DI Grace called it in not five minutes ago.’
Chief Superintendent Alan Peters gripped the phone, speechless. He could scarcely credit what DC Malik was saying – Lilah Hill had just
killed another suspect, Belinda Raeburn, in a hit-and-run incident in the centre of town. Stranger still, DI Grace had been on hand to pursue the culprit along the A33, until Hill had totalled her vehicle, ramming it into a concrete wall. It seemed improbable, not to say impossible – he’d been locked in a heated meeting with the detective inspector barely an hour ago.
‘What’s the condition of the suspect?’ he eventually replied, regaining his composure somewhat.
‘Reasonable, I think. She’s being checked out by paramedics, but it sounds like the airbag did its job. As soon as she’s passed fit, DI Grace is going to bring her back to base.’
‘OK, keep me posted,’ Peters concluded, with more equanimity than he felt.
Hanging up, he slumped into his seat, staring blankly at the phone, as if wondering what bizarre, unexpected development it might yet throw at him. The past few weeks had seemed like a bad dream, each shocking development swiftly followed by something even worse. They’d had a string of unsolved murders, then a motley group of unconnected suspects, now a chain of killers who seemed to be turning on each other. Was Robert Downing even now sitting in his cell, plotting some weird and wonderful way to target Amanda Davis in Australia? Or vice versa? It seemed crazy, ridiculous even, yet Peters couldn’t deny that it appeared that Helen Grace had been right after all, that her apparently far-fetched theories had some basis in fact.
It was bewildering, but throw into the mix the bizarre goings on within the team as well, and you had an investigation the like of which Peters had never experienced before. Was there any part of this situation that was predictable or straightforward? Apparently not and, as if to underline the complexity of the situation, his secretary now buzzed through on the intercom.
‘DS Hudson for you, sir.’
‘Thank you, Jackie.’
Moments later, Joseph Hudson strolled in. He did not have the air of a man under pressure. In fact, he seemed in good spirits.
‘I presume you’ve heard the news, sir.’
Peters nodded absently.
‘We’ve taken a hit,’ Hudson continued soberly, ‘one dead, one injured, a stolen car written off. But on the plus side, we do now have Hill in custody. It’s just a pity we couldn’t have got to her slightly earlier.’
His face was rueful, laced with regret, yet his criticism of Grace was too clumsy to miss. Peters was tempted to agree with him – Grace’s pursuit had been characteristically reckless – but he hadn’t summoned Hudson to pour fuel on that fire, so he kept his counsel.
‘I’m going to suggest that I lead the questioning on this one, once Lilah Hill is in custody,’ Hudson continued. ‘DI Grace has done more than enough for one day …’
‘Well, that’s very generous of you,’ Peters responded swiftly, ‘but that might not be possible.’
‘Sir?’
‘I didn’t ask you here today to discuss the case. DC Malik’s already brought me up to speed on today’s developments.’
Hudson nodded tightly, reinforcing Peters’ suspicions that the DS and his young Asian colleague did not get on.
‘No, I wanted to talk you about the allegations you made against DI Grace. I should stress from the start that what we are about to discuss may end in disciplinary proceedings, so if you want to have a Union representative present—’
‘That won’t be necessary. I’ve nothing to hide.’
‘Good, then let’s press on. I’ve heard your version of events, and now I have DI Grace’s. And I must say that what she revealed to me was very illuminating.’
‘I’ve no doubt she tried to defend herself.’
‘Indeed she did. Rather successfully, I might add.’
DS Hudson said nothing, regarding Alan Peters with unease.
‘We discussed your shared history, the breakdown in relations and specifically the conversation in the bike park. Unbeknownst to me, and I assume you, DI Grace recorded your little chat in order to prove that you were leaking confidential information to Emilia Garanita. I’m happy to play you the whole thing, if you like, but for now I’m going to start near the end …’
Peters opened up the voice memo app on his phone and moments later Hudson’s voice rang out loud and clear in the hushed office.
‘You’d love me to come running back to Mummy, wouldn’t you? To be a good little boy because you’re feeling the heat. Well, you can forget it, Helen. I wouldn’t piss on you if you were on fire …’
‘What the hell?’
‘I mean it. We had something, could have been great together, but you dismantled all that with your clumsy accusations, your paranoia, your lies. Which is why I’m going to bring you down.’
Peters stopped the recording and turned to look at Hudson once more. He was expecting anger, denials, accusations, but for once Helen Grace’s accuser looked speechless. In fact, he looked like he’d just seen a ghost.
Chapter 110
‘You’ve got some bloody front, barging in here, barking questions at me.’
The officer from the Professional Standards Department eyed Emilia Garanita coolly across the conference-room table, as he slowly slid his warrant card back into his jacket pocket.
‘I wasn’t aware of any barging, or barking, for that matter,’ he replied coolly. ‘We simply want to ask you a few questions.’
‘Even so, this is the private offices of the Southampton Evening News, my place of work—’
‘Which is why we want to wrap this up as quickly as possible,’ the police officer responded, ‘so we can have a nice little chat now, sort this out, or we can come back tomorrow, but I should warn you that if we are made to return, it will be with a warrant to access all your computers, phones, devices, as well as any written files, private notebooks or Post It notes that we deem relevant to our enquiries. After all, acquiring confidential police information for personal or professional gain is a very serious offence.’
He was still grinning, but it was the smile of a killer. Emilia felt sure Detective Sergeant Cooper had done this dozens of times before and had probably heard every lie, evasion and obfuscation. Unusually, she felt intimidated by this guy and his smooth, dead-eyed patter.
‘What did you want to ask?’ she replied firmly, disguising her discomfort.
‘I should say that this is off the record for now,’ he replied quickly. ‘I won’t be recording our conversation, though obviously we may need to do a follow-up under caution at Southampton Central, should that become necessary.’
‘Well, I guess that’s kind of hard to know, isn’t it? As you haven’t actually asked me anything yet …’
That smile again, insincere but well practised.
‘We’re investigating an allegation of police corruption. Specifically that a serving officer in the Major Incident Team at Southampton Central has been passing confidential information about ongoing police investigations to this newspaper, using you as the conduit. Do you have anything to say in relation to this?’
‘I’m afraid not,’ Emilia shot back. ‘It’s news to me, if you’ll pardon the pun.’
‘To the best of your knowledge, then, you haven’t had any direct communication with DS Joseph Hudson, either by phone or in person, during which he has passed confidential information to you?’
There was no lead-up, no preamble, just a sudden and direct accusation. It felt very much to Emilia like entrapment, as if they were willing her to say ‘no’, so they could then pounce on her lies. She had committed this offence many times before, of course, with a dozen or more police officers, and so part of her was tempted to laugh it off. And yet … it was a serious criminal offence, one which might threaten her career, not to mention her liberty.
‘I’ll ask you again,’ Cooper repeated, snapping her out of her internal debate. ‘Has DS Joseph Hudson ever contacted you directly, with the intention of leaking privileged police information to you or this paper?’
Once more, Emilia shifted in her seat. She was a seasoned journalist, adept at dodging the slings and
arrows that came her way, but there seemed little room for manoeuvre today. She’d had great hopes for her working relationship with Hudson, but their alliance was now at end – to save her own skin she would have to throw him to the wolves. Once again, she cursed both her bad luck and Helen Grace’s apparent invulnerability. She had tried her best to unseat her nemesis, had thought she’d finally got her on the ropes, but once again she had failed. Turning to face Detective Cooper with a resigned air, she asked:
‘What do you want to know?’
Chapter 111
Lilah Hill stared back at her, sullen, hostile.
Looking at the suspect, now hunched on a seat in the interview suite, Helen once more questioned the wisdom of quizzing her so soon after the crash. Hill was ashen, obviously still badly shaken, and her breath smelt strongly of alcohol. Set against that was the fact that Hill had sustained no serious injuries, seemed sobered by the traumatic experiences of the day and was staring down the barrel of a murder charge. Despite her misgivings, therefore, Helen knew she had no choice but to confront her. Lilah Hill had killed someone not three hours ago, right in front of her. Moreover, she might yet prove the vital link in this case, if she was prepared to talk.
Despite her desire for answers, Helen nevertheless knew she had to approach the interview carefully. This was a woman who appeared to be on the edge of a nervous breakdown, endlessly fidgeting in her seat, picking at her nails, her clothes, her hair. A woman on the brink of total collapse.
Truth or Dare: Pre-order the nail-biting new Helen Grace thriller now Page 29