Twenty
The sun was beginning to sink down as I watched Pete, my hands held up in the air. The more I watched him, the more convinced I became that he was hopped up on something illegal, his movements twitchy and his eyes darting around in his skull. That made things harder. He’d be harder to rationalise with if he even listened to a word I said, and he’d be erratic, far more difficult to predict. Equally, he wasn’t far gone enough to really impair his reaction time, nor to make him drowsy or ill, just enough to make him dangerous. I swore silently.
“Tell me what you want, Pete,” I said, keeping my voice low and even. Calm. Unbothered. The complete opposite of what I was feeling.
“Don’t tell me what to do,” he snapped.
He tightened his grip on poor Eva, who was tense in his grip and whimpered softly. There was a red mark on the side of her forehead where he’d been pressing the gun’s muzzle against the skin, and seeing it made a flash of urgent panic seize my heart. I pushed it down.
“I’m sorry,” I said immediately, holding my hands up.
I wanted badly to negotiate, but I forced myself to wait for him to speak instead. He was jittery, looking from Nigel to Max to the window, and shifting on his booted feet. There were sweat stains under the armpits of his t-shirt, and I could smell his acrid panic from here. We’d scared him, and he was lashing out in response. We should have put better protections on Eva and Max, but it was too late for remonstrations.
I only hoped it wouldn’t be a deadly mistake.
“Get your phone,” he ordered finally, his voice cracking in the middle.
His fingers clenched and unclenched on the handle of his gun, and I watched his movements nervously. I pulled my phone out, making sure to move slowly, and held it up.
“Call your boss,” he said. The gun drifted away from Eva’s forehead for a fraction of a second as Pete leaned towards the window, clearly paranoid that more police were going to turn up. He wasn’t too far off.
The moment I saw the gun move, I tensed to make a jump towards him, but he moved the gun back to her head before I could move. I made myself not react, waiting for another chance. An opportunity would come again. I had to believe it.
“Okay, I’ll call her. I’ll do what you want. What am I saying to her?”
“Her?” Pete sneered. “No, no, I don’t need a woman. I want a man, a man in charge, someone powerful.” He stared at me intently, his gaze wilder than ever.
“Alright, I’ll call the top dog. He’s in charge,” I lied. “What do I say?”
“Call him,” Pete ordered, ignoring my question. “Put it on speakerphone.”
I dialled Stephen’s number, hoping against hope that he’d both pick up and that he’d understand what was happening and play his part.
“Darren? What’s going on-?” Stephen started, worry in his voice.
“Superintendent Huxley?” I interrupted loudly. “We have a situation. I have a… man here who wants to speak to you.”
There was a telling pause, and I could imagine Stephen’s face perfectly as he processed what I needed from him.
“Hand me over to him, Mitchell,” he said, his voice turning firm.
I tried to give Pete my phone, hoping that it’d distract him and that he might even put the gun down, but he refused to take it.
“The case is off, do you hear me?” he said instead, raising his voice loud enough to make Nigel flinch.
Max watched on from the window, his eyes dark and angry. Eva was silent as a mouse, little sniffs the only reminder that she wasn’t just a life-sized doll.
“Who am I speaking to?” Stephen said. He’d put authority into his tone, but I could hear the caution there too. No doubt he was nervous as hell under the pressure, but I trusted him to hold it together long enough to see this through.
“You know who I am,” Pete sneered. “You and your thugs have been getting in where you don’t belong. I want it all deleted, every last bit. And I want proof that it’s gone.” Pete seemed to remember only at the last minute that he was holding his only leverage in his arms, at gunpoint. “If you don’t, I’ll shoot the kid!”
“Don’t harm the child. We’ll do what you want,” Stephen said instantly.
If I didn’t know him as well as I did, I would’ve thought he sounded completely unaffected by the seriousness of the situation. As it was, I could hear the undercurrent of fear in his tone.
“Do it, then. You have twenty minutes. Chop chop,” he sneered.
I hated him with a pure loathing at that moment especially, and it was a struggle to keep my expression blank, but I managed it. Pissing him off wasn’t a move I wanted to make right now, not with little Eva pressed right up against Pete’s gun.
“Hang up,” Pete ordered me, and I did as he told me, putting my phone away afterwards.
The tension was painfully thick in the minutes afterwards, as Pete mumbled to himself and twitched and the rest of us stayed completely still, watching him. He was the threat, and none of us wanted to take our eyes off him.
“What’re you looking at?” Pete shouted when he caught me looking at him, and I looked away, down at the floor. “This is useless. This- this won’t work. You’re all liars, liars!”
He swore viciously, and I went rigid, tensed to do something, anything. He was like a live wire, spraying sparks and threatening to catch alight and destroy everything at any moment. He needed careful handling with gloves, but there was just me, two frightened kids and a father paralysed by worry.
“We’ll do what you want,” I tried to reassure Pete.
“No! No, you won’t- You lie,” he snapped, spraying spittle. He jerked Eva in his grip, the gun still against her head, and she clenched her eyes shut and started crying again. “Shut up,” he hissed. “Shut your mouth.”
But Eva was terrified, and she clearly couldn’t have stopped if she tried. She was six years old and trapped in a situation that’d scare any adult.
“Tell us what you want us to do, then,” I hurriedly said, desperate to take the attention away from Eva. “We just want the children safe. We-”
“You shut up too!” he shouted.
He lifted his gun, and my heart froze to a stop in my chest as it turned in my direction. Was this it? Sam flashed up in my head, and I thought of the wedding we’d never get to have, all her future smiles I’d never see.
The gun went off, and for a long second, I was sure I’d been shot. I couldn’t breathe, and yet, when I looked down at myself, I saw no blood. I twisted around to check Nigel, panicked that he’d been caught instead, but no, he was still standing and in one piece. Whether by design or not, I couldn’t tell, but Pete had shot the gun between the two of us, hitting only the wall. I released a ragged breath of relief and turned back to Pete, lifting my hands back up in the air.
Max’s breathing had turned choppy, the last of his anger replaced by the fear that had been lurking underneath the whole time. Eva was sobbing in Pete’s arms, and I could smell that she’d wet herself.
“Please don’t shoot,” I begged him. “We’ll do what you want. You harm the children or us, and I won’t be able to protect you.”
“I don’t need your help,” Pete said, his lip curled in derision. “I don’t need any of you! I should shoot you all!”
“Pete, Pete, you want to walk away from this, don’t you? Maybe you can leave the UK and head to Europe for a long holiday. Somewhere where you can start again?” I was improvising on the fly, my heart hammering as I tried to talk him into sparing all of us. My hands hadn’t been shaking before, but they were now.
To my great relief, Pete went briefly still. “What, like, Spain or somewhere?”
“Aye, yes, yes. Somewhere nice, good weather, a new start, right? Somewhere away from UK police, yeah?”
He narrowed his eyes at me. “You pigs will never let me on a plane.”
True, I thought silently and held back a wince.
“We can make an exception. We just want everybod
y alive, Pete. You kill one of us, and it’s over, do you hear me? The police will never give up on you, even if I tell them to. They’ll hunt you down. But if-”
“Shut up, shut up, let me think!” He smacked the side of his head with the gun, but there was no more than a couple of seconds’ gap before the gun was back at Eva’s head. I held my breath.
“I need a hostage, that’s all. One,” I heard him saying to himself and crossed my fingers by my side.
Sure, it was superstitious, but we could do with every bit of luck right now. I felt rubbed raw by the tension, and I knew I’d pass out from exhaustion when this was over, one way or another. Already, I was feeling worn and frayed at the edges, but I still had work to do.
Pete’s back was to the window as he debated with himself, and so he didn’t see the figure, dressed in black, dart across the front garden. So back-up had arrived. I silently willed them to hang back, fearing that if they charged in here, Eva wouldn’t make it out alive and maybe neither would the rest of us.
“Okay, okay, I’ve got it. Tie him up. Tie him!” he told me.
It took me a second too long to realise that he meant Nigel, but when I understood, I grabbed the man’s arm and apologetically guided him over to the bedpost.
“Use your cuffs!” Pete ordered.
“Sorry,” I told Nigel in a murmur and attached him to the bed frame.
“Now you,” Pete muttered as I stood back up, looking around the room for something to restrain me with.
“I won’t move,” I tried.
“Shut it!”
Pete was becoming even more agitated, and I felt like holding my breath, fearing that the tiniest pressure would make him snap. His frantic searching caused him to glance out of the window, and he snarled when he saw something outside. From the angle I was at, I couldn’t see what it was, but I could guess, and my stomach twisted. Pete swore loudly, and Eva flinched in his hold. Her sobbing had tailed off again out of clear exhaustion, and she stared glassily ahead, looking ready to crumple to the floor.
“Kneel!” Pete barked at me.
I didn’t want to obey. I wasn’t tied up, so what was he going to do? Shoot me to stop me following him?
“Down!” he snapped again, and I couldn’t risk him hurting Eva. I kneeled down, hands on my head and waited, my heart racing. “Stay there! You move, I shoot!”
“Okay, okay, I won’t move,” I said.
“On your stomach!”
I did as he said. My cheek against the floor, I felt the vibrations in the floorboards as Pete bolted out of the room. Eva screamed as she was hoisted up in Pete’s arms, and I scrambled to my feet. I heard his heavy boots begin clunking down the stairs, and I raced forwards, desperate not to let Pete take that little girl out of my sight.
A deafening bang resounded as I appeared on the landing, and I jerked backwards reflexively, a chunk of plaster exploding out of the wall. I swore and hung back, hearing Pete’s hurried footsteps reach the bottom of the stairs and set off through the downstairs.
I blundered down the stairs after him, fumbling for my radio at my belt.
“Armed suspect on the move, he’s- he’s going out the back!” I yelled as soon as I realised where he was heading and ran after him, knocking a kitchen chair over as I rushed past.
My radio crackled in my hand as my information was acknowledged, and the backup officers got on the move. I shoved open the back door hard enough that it hit the house wall with a bang and scanned the back garden for Pete and Eva, but neither was in sight. Then there was a clatter off to the side, and a man cursed loudly.
I made a beeline towards the noise, skidding around the side of the house and into the narrow alley. In the dusky light, I had to pause for my eyes to adjust, and I was too late to grab Pete, but I was in time to see the bloke hefting Eva over the shoulder-high, wooden gate before clambering over himself.
“Stop!” I yelled, knowing it would do no good.
Pete didn’t even look back before he was up and off, cutting through a neighbour’s front garden. I scrambled over the locked gate after him and pushed off, my foot skidding in the gravel before I got a grip. Back-up officers should have been able to pounce on him and seize him from the front of the house, but Pete had taken off to the side, and he was still armed. Keira and Stephen wouldn’t have had time to scramble an armed unit together, especially not if they were the Leeds lot, so we were left on the back foot. Even if we had armed police, though, we couldn’t have shot at Pete in a residential area like this while he was running through people’s front gardens. The possibility of a stray bullet going through someone’s window was too high.
I was a faster runner than Pete was since he was clearly unfit and carrying a six-year-old, and I ran along the pavement, saving myself valuable time. Pete had to traverse the many obstacles in people’s gardens to keep going, and it was slowing him down. As soon as he was a way from the police parked at the front of Max’s house, he cut out the front gardens and made for the pavement like I had.
“No!” I yelled out when he darted into the road, right in front of a car.
My gut dropped sickly as I ran, already imagining Pete and Eva both getting slammed by the car as Pete took his final revenge on us. The car’s brakes squealed as the car skidded, swerving to the side and somehow managing to stop in time.
Thank God, I thought, my heart starting up again.
I didn’t have long to be relieved, though, because Pete has his gun up and pointing at the driver. He went round to the driver’s side, dragging Eva with him. I slowed to a jog as I got close, badly wanting to grab him now that I’d caught up, but I couldn’t risk it.
“Move! Get out! Get out, or I’ll shoot you!” Pete was shouting at the driver, and I watched in helpless horror as the man stumbled out of the car, his hands on his head and clearly frightened out of his wits.
Pete all but shoved Eva inside and climbed in after her.
“You follow me, and I shoot her!” he yelled at me and the other approaching police before he slammed the car door shut and spun the car around.
I swore under my breath, my chest heaving more from my panic than the running. Stephen came up alongside me, puffing, and we watched together as Pete got the car turned around and drove away. Even in my frustration, I reminded myself to memorise the car’s license plate so that we could track it.
I shook myself out of my despair after a second and got myself back into action. The driver was still in the middle of the road, frozen with shock, and I guided him over towards the pavement. The guy looked about seventy, and I worried that the shock would be too much for him. A DC took over from me in keeping an eye on him, assuring me that an ambulance was on the way for him and the other hostages, and I gave her a grateful nod.
Officers had already gone into Max’s house to free Max and Nigel, leaving me free to focus on getting Eva back. I strode quickly back towards our car as I dished out orders, and Stephen kept pace at my side. The light was fading, and I didn’t like the thought of a chase through York during rush hour, but I liked the idea of Eva spending a night in Pete’s hands even less.
“I want Adams on this, tracking the car through cameras. We need helicopter support if we can get it, though we can’t spook him. Alert the area to the situation and have every road unit on standby to move in. We can’t lose him.”
Stephen and I climbed into the car, Stephen in the driver’s seat, and we took off after Pete. Stephen turned his lights on but not the sirens, not wanting to let Pete know that we were on his tail. What we really needed was the specialised pursuit team, someone in an unmarked car, but for the moment, Stephen and I were all we had, and we couldn’t afford to let Pete slip away with Eva. The odds of getting her back dropped significantly once he’d taken her from the house, and they’d only get worse the longer she was with him and away from us.
I got onto the radio while Stephen focused on driving, weaving through the thick commuter traffic and cursing a blue streak. We hadn’t spot
ted Pete’s car again apart from a brief glimpse at the start, but Stephen had taken an educated guess that Pete was heading north out of York. We both agreed that Pete probably wanted to get as much distance from us as possible, and the A19 and A64 were the nearest routes out of here. Which motorway he’d take, I didn’t know, and what we badly needed was Keira to weigh in. Footage from the traffic cameras could pick up Pete’s vehicle and let us know where exactly he was heading. I’d already forwarded the license plate number over to her, and she’d be hunting for it. Busy as she was, I knew she’d put this as a top priority with little Eva’s life was at stake.
“Lucy’s gonna have a fit when she finds out about this,” I muttered, hanging onto the handle above the car as we swung around a corner.
“I’d have a meltdown, too, if that was my kid or my sister,” Stephen said before concentrating back on his driving.
As much as I complained about how he liked to race about like a rally driver, he was good behind the wheel, steady and controlled but not shy of putting his foot down and committing to an overtake when it was needed. He’d taken an advanced course in it once, I thought before the radio coughed to life and jerked me out of my thoughts.
“We’ve got eyes on him,” Keira’s voice came through the little speaker. “He’s northbound on the A19, just passed Skelton.”
“Could you see Eva on the camera?”
“No.” Pause. “She’s probably in the back.”
“I hope so. Keep us updated.”
“Of course.”
The radio went quiet, and Stephen got us onto the motorway. I could tell from his hands, clenched rigid around the wheel, that he wanted to put his foot to the metal and push the car to its limit, but we couldn’t do that. Pete had threatened to kill or maim Eva if we followed, and I wouldn’t put it past him to follow through on his threat. He was high and desperate, and we needed to play it safe or as safe as we could. We needed to be close by in case the situation changed suddenly, but we couldn’t let Pete know that we were trailing him, which meant that lights, sirens and pushing the speed limit were out. However much we both wanted to.
Country Lines (A DI Mitchell Yorkshire Crime Thriller Book 8) Page 20
