‘So you won’t be getting the contract then?’ my daughter asked.
‘Not a chance. Anyhow, let’s talk about something different.’
Wendy spent a few minutes telling me all about visiting the beach, shopping trips with her mother, a drive out to check on a new boat her step-father was considering buying. Every second word was “awesome”.
When we were done, I thought back to the meeting. Sure, the ice maiden told me she’d consider my proposal and would get back to me by the end of the week, but I knew I wasn’t getting the work. So emerging from the soul-sucking corporate building to find my car vandalised and sitting on a flat had pretty much put the seal on my foul mood for another day. And then the accident diversion, which meant I couldn’t pull over into the next rest stop for a meal, a hot drink, and some much-needed downtime.
Instead I was here. In Nowheresville.
I shook my head. All I seemed to do with my life lately was dash from one place to another, without ever seeming to get very far. Now, at last, I was still, going nowhere for the time being, and I felt the tension in my shoulders and neck start to ease. I began to feel comfortable and at peace for the first time in as long as I could remember.
Or at least would have, only now I needed to take a piss.
Right then, as if Mother Nature sensed my sudden discomfort, the rain started to beat down harder still. I swore, but knew right away that I had no option; my bladder would give out on me if I tried to hang on too long.
‘Fuck it!’ I cried again, then sat up with a jolt and hurled myself out of the car in a flurry of furious movement.
I had no overcoat with me, so I snatched my suit jacket off the back seat and pulled it on, yanking the collar up around my neck and fastening one button. My best Italian-styled suit bore the brunt of the downpour as I dashed up a rise of heaped soil, then down again the other side into a shallow ditch. I tucked myself behind a clutch of wild hedgerow and unzipped. It took several seconds for the first dribble of urine to appear, prolonging my exposure to the elements. Eventually, a steady stream followed like it would never end.
The downpour was so heavy now it hurt my unprotected head and stung my face. Needles of rain jabbed at my skin like wasp stings. I turned slightly so I wouldn’t end up pissing against the wind. Regretting the numerous glasses of water I had put away during the day, I mouthed a few more obscenities into the night air and willed my bladder to empty itself before old age simply took away my will to live.
It was as I stood there shaking myself dry that my attention was snagged by lights appearing behind me, rising up from beyond the mound. Moments later, more lights. Barely seconds afterwards I heard what I thought was a sharp snap of thunder way off in the distance. What I saw in the lay-by as I emerged from behind the bushes and climbed back up the dirty embankment, however, caused my flesh to tighten on its framework of bone and muscle.
A silver BMW stood with its exhaust pumping fumes into the moist warm air, the driver’s door hanging wide open, pillar lights illuminating the vehicle’s interior and adding to the confusion of light and shadow. Several feet away from the car, a man was on his knees by the edge of a pothole, both hands clutching the pit of his back. I could see the man’s face only from the side, but it looked blighted by pain as raindrops splashed against the creased folds of flesh.
As I stared at him, unable to truly comprehend what I was seeing, a loud crack shattered the dark night once more. The kneeling man was thrown forward onto his face.
That was when I noticed a second figure.
A man who stood just feet away from the other.
A man who held a gun in both hands.
TWO
The tall and wide figure stood towards the rear of a dark Ford Mondeo saloon. The gun bucked in his outstretched arms, the shot rang out, and the man on the ground twisted sideways and fell still.
I let out a strangled sound that was more yelp than cry, and the gunman snapped his head around in my direction. The man’s arms quickly followed, and lightning seemed to erupt from his hands. I felt something whistle past my head at the same time as another gunshot reverberated around the hillside.
There was little time for me to weigh up my options. My eyes captured the entire scene in an instant, and I immediately realised there was no chance that I could run for my own car. The gunman stood closer to it, and would drop me in a heartbeat before I even reached the door.
The thought of another bullet coming my way galvanised both my mind and body, and the next thing I knew my legs and arms were pumping. I sped down the mound of loose soil, raced across to the BMW, dived into the driver’s seat, released the handbrake, slipped the automatic gearbox into drive, and then stamped on the accelerator. As the car jerked away, spinning tyres spewing loose gravel in its wake, I glanced into the rear-view mirror and saw the gunman’s face bathed in a glow from the BMW’s rear lights.
It looked as if he had been dipped in blood.
Only when the car hit the tarmac surface of the road was I able to yank the flapping door shut. As I straightened, a shudder ripped through my entire body. Shock started to numb my system and close it down. At the same time, adrenaline pushed through it. I waited for equilibrium to kick back in. As it always had before.
It felt like only seconds had passed before headlights ensnared me from behind. I knew deep inside the place where dread lives that it was the gunman. I ran a quick calculation through my head. The big German car would probably outrun the Ford, and that could only be a positive thing right now.
As I drove, my eyes continued to flick between the road ahead and the road behind. I felt a prickle slowly crawl across my scalp every time I saw the following headlights.
What the hell had I stumbled into?
Had I actually just witnessed a murder?
It was impossible, yet it had happened.
Right in front of my eyes.
That poor man. Lying back there in the pouring rain, perhaps bleeding to death as I had fled the scene. I felt a rising surge of guilt, lying hot and heavy in my chest. I wasn’t sure what else I could have done. I was unarmed. And the shooter, the man now chasing me down, was clearly intent on leaving no witnesses.
I fumbled with the stalks emerging from the steering wheel, unfamiliar with the layout of the BMW’s controls. I located the one for the lights, and flicked them on to full beam. I was hammering along at more than eighty now, the car’s fat tyres sticking to the slippery road surface even as they hit bends that were too severe for the speed. I checked the door mirror this time. The Mondeo wasn’t gaining, but neither was it being left behind. Absurdly, the stark image of a warning sticker that door mirrors used to carry, filled my mind: Vehicles May Be Closer Than They Appear.
I put my foot down harder.
At first all I hoped for was to see the lights of other cars travelling on this same stretch of road. Then I gave that some more thought. I couldn’t possibly predict what the madman behind me would do even with other people around. The kind of man who could murder someone in cold blood the way he had back there in the lay-by was probably not the kind to leave further witnesses alive, no matter how many bodies ended up in the morgue. I decided that the first chance I got I was going to call the police.
Then it hit me.
I cursed, remembering that I had left my mobile in its docking device on the Saab’s dashboard.
I swore again.
Now I couldn’t even call for help. Not for myself. Not for anybody else who became involved.
One more glance in the mirror told me the chase wasn’t ending any time soon.
I was unfamiliar with the area, though I knew I had long since passed Uffculme. If I could negotiate the twisting road and terrain, I was pretty sure I would ultimately reach the A303, which was a road I at least knew would lead to a larger town. Once I managed to get myself on something other than a serpentine country route, I thought I could probably outrun the twisted killer in the Ford. For now, though, all I could do was hope to maintain or
even increase the distance between myself and my pursuer.
I felt myself starting to sweat, beads of perspiration trickling down from my hairline, echoing the runnels of rainwater being constantly batted away from the windscreen by squeaking wipers. I took my eyes off the road long enough to scan the vehicle’s interior.
No mobile phone.
Another check behind in the mirror. The Mondeo had dropped back slightly, but even though I felt increasingly uncomfortable driving on a slick road at this kind of speed, the thought of what the man chasing me would do if he managed to catch up and nudge the BMW off the road and down into a ditch, kept my right foot jammed on the accelerator.
‘You thought you were having a bad day before, Mike,’ I muttered to myself. ‘You never knew what bad luck was until this very moment.’
Passing narrow turnings and dirt tracks to my left and right, but having no clue where they led, I was initially reluctant to take any of them in case they petered out or took me in circles. Seeing another side road flash by in a blur gave me an idea, and for the next few minutes I took more notice of signs than I had before, squinting ahead as far as the twin beams would allow. I had gone about another mile when I saw my opportunity.
Rounding a sharp bend, I first killed the lights, then drove my foot down onto the brake, and hurled the car into a turning on the left. The rear end of the long vehicle swung out, and for a moment I thought I had overcooked it. My hands were a flurry of movement on the steering wheel as I imagined the big BMW flipping over. But the SUV righted itself, clipping a hedge as it straightened. Twenty yards or so further off the main road I yanked on the handbrake and sat there watching my mirrors.
Scarcely moments later I saw the Ford flash by.
Immediately, allowing no time to overthink the situation or my decision, I performed a rapid three-point turn, sneaked back to the road and turned right, heading back along the way I had come. The road behind me was now dark. It wouldn’t take long for the gunman to realise what had happened, but I was banking on the man turning around and then taking the road I had first driven into.
I throttled back on the engine as much as I dared. If I carried on in this direction, I would go past the scene of the shooting, eventually reaching the motorway again, but I didn’t want to get caught in any snarl-ups caused by the accident. The turn I had seen earlier came up on my left and I took it without any hesitation. I was doing less than forty now, finding it impossible to drive faster without lights to guide my way. The road ahead split into a fork, so I took the one on the left and then snapped on the side lights. As a plan to evade capture, it sucked. I simply had no other ideas.
If the man in the Ford had done as I hoped, our two vehicles would now be headed in opposite directions. Every few seconds, my eyes sought comfort in the car’s mirrors. Still there was no sign that I was being followed. I pushed the BMW up to fifty and nursed it through unfamiliar curves, figuring if there was anything coming the other way I would see its lights long before any potential collision.
A couple of buildings slipped by. A tiny hamlet of sorts. If they were homes then everyone was no doubt asleep and minding their own business. I guessed these were places that may have found a spot on the map, but their size hardly deserved a name, let alone a mention. Briefly I considered stopping at one of the dwellings and asking to use a phone to contact the police, but that would rely on finding someone not only prepared to open their door to a stranger in the dead of night, but also to allow that stranger to enter their home.
Unlikely, I decided.
Not a chance worth wasting precious time on.
On a fairly straight section of road, with a minor bend ahead in the distance, I glanced in my mirror yet again and saw only darkness. I felt a sharp pain in my chest, so breathed a huge sigh of relief. Attempting to vent everything that had happened in that single breath. But when I switched my eyes back to the road ahead, there were headlights coming straight towards me.
For a second, I was euphoric. I would stop and wave the vehicle down, ask if the driver had a mobile and if so whether they would allow me use of it in such a dire emergency, or at the very least make a call to the police on my behalf. It would all be over soon after that.
But what if it’s the gunman?
The last remaining sensible and practical part of me posed the question. And there was no running away from it after that. What if the man in the Ford Mondeo had not done as I had hoped? What if the killer had worked out my hurried and ill-conceived plan, and figured out a way to get ahead and confront me head on?
The car was much closer now. I couldn’t risk stopping, but I batted away any other fears. If it was the gunman, he would probably position his car to block the road. I considered what I would do if that occurred. I could ram the Beemer in reverse, but then the advantage would be with the other vehicle. The lights grew bigger and brighter in the windscreen. There was only one thing for it: I had to maintain the advantage at all costs. Rather than slow down in the narrow road, I stood on the accelerator, flicked the headlights on to full beam and gripped the wheel as tight as possible.
As I sped past the other vehicle, the driver leaned on his horn. As we drew alongside each other, I saw an irate face glaring out of the side window of a small truck. It wasn’t a Ford, wasn’t the gunman, and all I had succeeded in doing was to anger a local by blinding him with my lights. It was a chance lost, but I decided I could live with that. The very worst thing had not happened, and that’s all that mattered. For a few seconds I watched the other car disappearing into the night. I debated turning around and heading after it, try to get the driver to stop, tell him what had happened? It might be the right thing to do, but turning around meant heading back the way I had come.
Back towards the Ford.
Back towards the Ford driver.
I sucked in some oxygen and eased the pressure off the pedal. I felt my heart beating so rapidly I thought I might run out of blood to pump through it. This was crazy. Abso-fucking-lutely insane.
I drove for a further twenty minutes, turning this way and that, a random pattern no one could follow. At least I hoped not.
Finally I decided I’d had enough. I had no idea where I was or where I was going. I figured the BMW would have an on-board satnav, but had no idea how to bring it up and use it. By now the storm had lessened to a dull roar, rain more of an irritant than a force to be reckoned with. My hands felt slick on the steering wheel. My head ached. My mind was ringing with too many disparate thoughts. I was going into meltdown.
I could drive no further.
Up ahead I saw what appeared to be a more industrial group of buildings. By the time I reached them, I decided this was the place to stop. I slowed down and pulled across the road, bumping onto a forecourt. It was a garage, but one that hadn’t sold any petrol for a decade or so if the tattered price stickers were anything to go by. Beyond the immediate building was a narrow, rutted track that led to a hangar-like shed. I bounced the BMW down the track and around the back of the garage. Another, smaller shed stood leaning crookedly, hardly any roof to speak of and no door. I nodded to myself, swung the car around and reversed into the corrugated steel unit. If the murdering bastard found me now then he probably deserved to.
Having killed the engine and lights, I closed my eyes and put my hands down by my sides. I felt a tremor rattle through my body from neck to toes, and for a moment I thought I might vomit. Pain expanded behind my eyes, and a bright light went off inside my head like a distress flare. I heard myself whimpering; a low, childlike noise that sounded like an animal in pain or misery or both. I felt ashamed, and shocked by it.
Only then I realised that the sound was not coming from my own throat at all, but instead from the back of the car.
Inside the back of the car.
Hardly daring to think about what it might mean, I shifted sideways in the seat and looked back over my shoulder, down into the space behind the passenger seat.
A pair of eyes looked back
at me.
THREE
It was one of those rare moments in life when the shock is so unrefined, so intense, that I thought I might have literally evacuated my mortal body and was now observing myself from a safe distance. Hearing that terrible sound and turning to see those eyes staring back at me out of the dark had all but stilled my heart. I was caught in the depths of a mute panic that threatened to overwhelm me.
Which then ratcheted up a further notch when a second pair of eyes winked into existence from out of the gloom.
As my vision grew accustomed to the light – what there was of it – I began to assemble shapes out of the dark mass that lay like a nocturnal creature lurking in the stillness. A head swam into view, followed swiftly by another. I hadn’t blinked since our eyes first met. Neither had theirs. I couldn’t recall having taken a breath since, either. It all felt wedged inside my chest. An expanding balloon on the point of exploding.
‘Don’t scream,’ I said. ‘Please don’t scream.’
Eyes adjusting all the while, I could now make out a woman and a young girl, both lying sprawled in the footwell between the front and rear seats. The whimpering was coming from the child, the sound stifled by a hand clamped tight across her mouth.
‘Did you see what happened back there?’ I asked. A trickle of cold sweat leaked from my scalp.
The woman nodded.
‘Was that…’ my eyes dropped to the little girl, then flicked back up. ‘Is this your husband’s car?’
The woman pulled herself slightly more upright, bringing the child with her. Clutching the girl tight to her chest. This time she shook her head. Slowly. Her eyes still not leaving mine when she spoke.
‘No. My boss. Charlie’s father.’
‘Charlie?’
‘Charlotte.’ She pulled the small girl closer – if that were possible – giving her a squeeze. ‘She didn’t see… anything.’
I instantly understood. The kid had not witnessed her father being gunned down and I was being told not to talk about it in front of her. I saw it again inside my head, though. A stark re-run every bit as clear and defined as the original.
Scream Blue Murder Page 2
