Lexie made for her bedroom door, certain that she was in the process of being ripped off. Perhaps this had been Jordan’s plan all along, and it was entirely possible he had conspired with Taylor to have him wait somewhere else with the rest of the money. Maybe that’s where Taylor’s recent cockiness had come from; allying himself with the true leader of the group.
Lexie skidded to a halt. If she was right, what was she hoping to achieve? Would going down there and confronting Jordan do any good? If this had been his intention all along, he wasn’t about to let her get in the way. It would be better for her to go back inside her room and attempt to barricade her door. At least that way he might not be able to tie up any loose ends and silence her.
Stood on the landing, wracked with indecision, Lexie strained her ears to try and hear what was going on but, aside from the rustling of Cole in his bedroom, there was nothing.
And then it came; the unmistakeable sound of the front door being unlatched, and with it all her hopes of a better future. She might not have personally harmed any of those people they’d robbed, she was every bit as culpable as Jordan, and now she was going to be left with nothing to show for any of it. Whilst he had enough money to go anywhere around the world he wanted, she would be forced to remain here; always looking over her shoulder for when her eventual arrest would come.
Silent tears began to fall down her cheeks.
‘You lot still here?’ came a shout from downstairs and, in her misery, it took a few moments to register whom the voice belonged.
‘Taylor!’ Lexie cried, bounding down the stairs and unable to prevent herself sweeping the young man up in a warm embrace. Eventually freeing herself, she could see the look of confusion on his face.
‘Sorry, it took a little longer than I expected,’ he said, his cheeks flushing with embarrassment.
‘How did you get on?’ Jordan asked, strolling down the hallway from the kitchen.
‘Like I told you, it was hard but I come bearing gifts,’ he responded, regaining his composure and pulling out a substantial wad of notes from his pocket.
‘How much is that?’ Cole cooed, joining them from upstairs.
‘Four grand, give or take,’ Taylor replied with a grin. ‘I tell you, trying to move so many pieces was hard, and I ended up having to work my way around some of the…’
‘How about you tell us on the way to the airport?’ Lexie interjected, but with a smile that softened the impact of her words. ‘Cole has been packing for you and we’re just about ready to go.’
‘Have you booked the flights?’ Taylor asked, taking the bag Cole was holding out for him.
‘I’ve checked the times and everything but didn’t want to book until I was sure we’d make it to the airport in time,’ she replied without too much of a pause to think. ‘I’ll confirm them on the way there,’ she added, whilst contemplating whether she should speak to Jordan about calling their plan off. She wasn’t sure whether it was the fact Taylor had come through for them, or that she experienced the gut-wrenching despair of believing she had been ripped off that was making her reconsider.
‘Hold on!’ she declared, turning towards Jordan. ‘You haven’t packed yet?’
‘I did it last night,’ he said, producing a small holdall from behind his back. ‘I wanted to make sure someone left enough room to store all the cash,’ he added with a knowing wink that Lexie took as all the confirmation she needed as to the likelihood of him agreeing to abandon the plan.
However, it seemed the other two boys didn’t find his thoughts so transparent because, with Cole nodding amiably, Taylor reached forward to deposit the proceeds from the watches into the unzipped top.
‘Okay then, let’s go,’ Lexie said, looking at Jordan imploringly for any sign that he remained committed to sharing the bounty with her but receiving nothing but an enigmatic smirk in return.
Chapter Forty
‘It should be just up here on the right,’ Ruby said, having scanned the sequence of door numbers as soon as they pulled into Lavender Crescent.
‘Is that…?’ Cooper began to ask before stopping abruptly.
‘What?’
‘I thought I saw someone going in but… well, I can’t be sure,’ he replied.
‘You’re not getting jittery on me now?’ Ruby teased as Cooper gradually pulled the car to a halt a couple of houses back from the property in question and on the opposite side of the road.
She unbuckled her seat belt and reached for the door handle.
‘What are you doing?’ Cooper asked.
‘What does it look like? I’m going in!’ Ruby responded impatiently.
‘Wait!’ Cooper declared, placing a hand on her shoulder. ‘Let me call in some back up first. We might not need them, but if this person is part of the gang we’re hunting…’ He left the rest of the sentence hanging in the air.
‘Fine,’ Ruby huffed, whilst secretly grateful for her partner’s note of caution.
With Cooper seeming to take an age to radio it in, she kept her eyes trained firmly on the front door. ‘Oh Jesus!’ she exclaimed as Cooper was finishing up.
‘What is it?’ he responded, turning towards her, but Ruby barely heard the question, much less considered answering it.
The front door had opened, causing adrenaline to dump into her system. Ruby was moving to exit the car when something caused her to pause; her hand still grasping the handle. The man she had expected to emerge wasn’t a man at all. It was a woman; young and attractive in a chavvy sort of way. Ruby saw her lips moving before a second figure stepped out; a man this time but, even from across the street, she could tell it wasn’t the same guy who had bumped into her.
Ruby was turning her head to Cooper to ask him to double check the address he’d been given when she noticed out of the corner of her eye that the couple weren’t alone. Immediately behind the mystery man followed someone she did recognise. ‘It’s him!’ she hissed, swivelling back. ‘And do you see that?!’ she added when a final person strode out, flinging the door closed behind him.
‘He’s fucking massive!’ Cooper responded, letting out a short whistle.
‘Big enough to snap a woman’s neck?’ Ruby commented, feeling an element of fear mix in with the excitement.
‘Good thing I radioed for back up!’
‘No,’ Ruby replied, speaking of her plan whilst her mind was still in the process of formulating it. ‘Even if they’re not gone by the time it gets here, sight of a police car will just see them scarper.’
‘You’re not thinking of…?’ Cooper said, but this time Ruby shook off the hand placed on her shoulder.
‘We need the element of surprise here and, just because he’s a big bastard, it doesn’t mean he’s going to attack us,’ she replied hopefully, finally stepping out of the car. In spite of her apprehension she managed a smile as she heard Cooper getting out the other side. She may have accused him of being a coward earlier, but there had been little doubt in her mind he would back her up on this.
She slowed her pace so he could catch up as she crossed the road. ‘They’re turning right,’ he said, stating the obvious.
‘Good,’ Ruby replied; glad that, with the group heading in the opposite direction, she could reduce the gap before being noticed. ‘You take the big guy,’ she added, withdrawing her baton from inside her jacket, and waiting for Cooper to do the same before extending it with a confident flick of her wrist.
Satisfied they were now close enough, she opened her mouth to issue the command to stop.
‘Starburst!’ The shout from the female in the group was as sudden as the group’s reaction to it immediate and, despite it only being a two-way street, the four of them broke into different directions.
Perhaps it was because the big guy was at the rear, and therefore closest to Ruby and Cooper, but his direction of travel was directly towards them.
Slowing down slightly and pulling back her baton, Ruby was taken by surprise at the agility of the lad. One moment he
was coming directly for her and, in a flash, he had veered off and into Cooper.
‘Let the others deal with him,’ she barked, resisting the temptation to assist her sprawled partner. Now fixing on the man most directly in front of her, who had been given a sizeable head start, she would just have to hope that back up arrived sufficiently quickly for them to intercept the largest lad. Burst of speed or not, there was no way someone of his size could keep up such a punishing pace for long.
‘Police, stop!’ She heard Cooper cry as he got to his feet and made after the final boy; the guy from the jewellers, who had crossed to the other side of the road. For a moment she could see the hesitation in Cooper’s quarry’s stride but there was nothing about the person she was chasing that suggested he had any intention of slowing. Although Ruby felt confident she had the stamina to run this guy down; the question was whether she was prepared to take the risks he undoubtedly would in his desperation to escape.
It was a question that was soon answered. Rather than a crescent, far too grandiose a name for the collection of run-down houses, the road she found herself on was more of a looping rectangle and, having steadily closed the gap whilst following him around the first two bends, she realised the third would take them back to where she and Cooper had first entered from the main road. With no sign of the big guy, the first panda car arrived.
With the siren now added to the flashing blue lights, it began speeding in their direction and, to Ruby’s horror, the guy she was chasing headed into the middle of the road. The reason for this seemingly suicidal move came with the screeching of tyres as the marked Vauxhall Astra skidded to a halt. Gambling that the police would be more concerned about injuring him than stopping him, the guy was past the visibly shocked officers before they could unstrap themselves, and Ruby had made it to the car itself by the time they had flung open the doors.
‘You go get him,’ she panted, hoping their fresh legs may prove the difference. With the sound of another siren suggesting it wouldn’t be long until the guy found himself cornered, she turned round to try and establish what had happened to Cooper and the rest of the suspects.
Caught in two minds whether to retrace her steps or go and question the one person they did have, her decision was made when she heard the pounding of feet coming around the corner. With Cooper in hot pursuit, there was the guy who had bumped into her at the jewellers – Taylor; his eyes were wide with shock at what lay in front of him. Again there were those hesitant steps that had come when Cooper had shouted at him to stop, and for a moment Ruby believed he was about to give up.
‘Oh no, you don’t!’ she roared, understanding that he’d made a different decision as he dashed into the front garden of the nearest house. Crashing through the side gate, Cooper’s intersecting path meant he was next to Ruby as she entered the back garden; just in time to see the lad make a desperate leap for the rear fence. The houses might have looked like shitholes to Ruby but it was clear the occupants took their privacy seriously. Now grasping the top of it, Taylor’s feet scrabbled at the panel, before slipping and dropping him back into the unkempt flower bed. Ruby increased her pace in the hope she might get to him before he would finally make it over, but with a glance in their direction, he took sufficient care with his second attempt to ensure there were no mistakes that time.
‘Boost me,’ she shouted at Cooper, praying he would understand the instruction. Slackening her pace to allow him to take the lead, and to prepare for her run up, she thought he had tripped when she saw him dive among the weeds. Having meant that he cup his hands and give her a leg up, it took her a moment to understand why Cooper was crouched on all fours. But a moment was all she needed before she began sprinting again and launched her right leg onto the middle of his back and, with a cry of discomfort from below, Ruby managed to vault the fence, propping both arms on the top of it so she could swing herself over.
With the foresight to enter a forward roll as soon as her feet touched the ground the other side, much of the force of the impact was dissipated and Ruby was back on her feet in time to see Taylor half running, half limping down the side of this new property.
‘Okay, okay,’ she heard him shout as she pushed through the gate and into the front yard. He was leaning against a car with one hand, the other raised submissively, but Ruby wasn’t going to allow him a chance to change his mind, and continued charging towards him.
She rugby tackled him to the floor, and reached into her pocket to find the cuffs needed to secure him.
By the time she had hauled Taylor to his feet and begun reading him his rights, Cooper came jogging out. ‘You got him then?’ he said, placing his hands on his knees in an effort to catch his breath.
‘What took you so long?’ Ruby grinned back, temporarily forgetting the tension between the two of them from earlier in the day.
‘You know exactly why, and if you need reminding, I can show you the dirty great footprint in the middle of my back,’ Cooper replied, wincing as his hands probed the area in question.
‘I guess if I hadn’t spooked him like that,’ she offered placatingly.
‘Nah, he’d already tried the same move once, that’s why it took so long for us to get around to where you were,’ he responded, straightening up. ‘Let’s go see if uniform have picked up the rest of them.’
Whilst Ruby enjoyed leading their suspect to the marked cars, the feeling was tainted by the knowledge they hadn’t managed to catch all of the gang. ‘We’ll get someone else to take them,’ she said to one of the officers, gesturing for her original guy to be brought back out from the rear seat they had deposited him in after catching him. ‘I need one of you to scout round here for the girl. I’m not sure where she went but I doubt she had chance to double back before you arrived. There’s another guy you might have passed on your way here. Big bastard. I need you to go look for him and have officers deployed to scope out the various routes out of town. Trains, buses, that sort of thing. He’s to be considered extremely dangerous.’
Chapter Forty-one
Lexie knew she needed to move soon. Fears that her gang had gone soft had proven unfounded by how quickly they had reacted to her clocking the two coppers as they had left the house. Years living on the margins of society had trained them what to do and the simple instruction of starburst was enough to see them break in different directions, and one advantage of running with three guys was that it came as little surprise that she wasn’t chased.
Sometimes traditional stereotypes worked in your favour and Lexie had been happy to see the boys perceived as the greater threat. One upside of living in Lavender Crescent, recently given the ignominious title of St. Albans’ roughest street, was that their usual activities went unnoticed, or at the very least unreported. The downside was its stupid layout.
It had been a snap decision to have the group turn right, away from the police but, at the same time, away from the easiest route out of there. As lead in the group Lexie hadn’t wanted to effectively walk into the officers’ arms.
But that left her with a tricky decision now. It had been a risk to crouch behind a parked car as soon as she had rounded the first corner but one that had paid off. Cole had continued running past without a glance in her direction and, after a few anxious moments, the female copper had done the same.
She assumed Taylor must have spotted her from the other side of the street because he then veered off towards a property in an attempt to lead his pursuer astray. It was fortunate Lexie had taken the opportunity to move herself because he was back on the street seconds later, with his lead reduced by half.
It may only have been a case of moving into the nearest front garden, but it had been enough to see Lexie remain undetected, and she had waited there until all sounds of the chase had gone. Creeping out and edging her way back around the corner in the road it was no surprise to see the two police cars stopped at the end. Her initial disappointment at seeing Taylor marched towards them, and Cole hefted out of the rear of one, was met
by the knowledge that, with two of the gang down, they would begin searching for her, and it was only a matter of time until they sought to apply the dog unit; perhaps even the police helicopter.
Lexie had no idea what had happened to Jordan and, having not seen him at any point, she could only assume he took the decision to follow the most direct route. Given that neither of the plain clothes coppers had any obvious injuries she guessed he must have been successful, although she accepted it might be wishful thinking on her part. In truth, she couldn’t give a shit what happened to him, but his bag had held the money and she knew that as soon as she was away from immediate danger her next concern would be how to reunite herself with it.
The sight of the uniformed police returning to their vehicles was enough to stir her into action. She quickly dismissed thoughts of trying to hide out back at the house, not just because it would see her heading towards the police rather than away from them, but also because they were bound to carry out a thorough search before the last of them left the vicinity; leaving her with two choices. She wouldn’t describe any of the other residents as friends but she did have some acquaintances along here, mostly through drug deals, and one of them might be willing to help her lay low for a while.
But with all the variables that might entail swirling around her head, Lexie went for the second option. She crossed the street to a house whose occupants she didn’t know. It was easily the most well-cared for property in view and, without a car on the drive, the people who owned it were either at work or were retired and, seeing as they weren’t rubber-necking through their windows following the commotion of a few minutes earlier, she trusted it would be the former.
Sure that one of the police cars would be rounding the corner at any moment, she didn’t have time to test her theory with a knock at the door and, instead, headed directly for the gate towards the back garden. In keeping with the general condition of the grounds, it was a fancy wrought iron thing, all ornate swirls of recently painted metal, rather than the typical flimsy wooden item that most others had.
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