Strangers

by Paul Finch

  Of course, you never knew.

  Lucy looked at the serving-counter, from where the two ladies currently on duty watched with expressions of deep concern.

  She leaned towards Tammy. ‘We’ve got to get out of here now.’ She spoke quietly but intently. ‘Don’t give me a hard time, or I’ll be forced to arrest you. Do you understand?’

  ‘You’ll arrest me?’ Briefly, Tammy’s eyes glazed over. She almost toppled from her chair. ‘You’ll arrest … after everything I’ve done for you? Some mate you fucking are!’

  ‘At the moment, love, I’m the only mate you’ve got in the world. Now get up and let’s skidaddle out of here … quietly.’

  Lucy stood first, turning to scan behind her again.

  And went rigid.

  Two figures had appeared on the other side of the café’s smeary front window. It was Gregor and Vlad from SugaBabes. They peered through the glass at her, their faces blank. Both wore black gloves and heavy black coats, and that didn’t bode well. Heavy coats in late autumn were perfectly normal, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t also conceal a wealth of high-calibre sins.

  For half a second Lucy turned numb.

  As Priya Nehwal had said, the McIvars had ordered at least three assassinations in the past, all by shooting – and one of those had apparently occurred in a kebab shop queue, so the public nature of this place would be no protection.

  In fact, a public execution served an extra purpose: it sent out a message.

  Tammy meanwhile had not noticed the two men. At present, she couldn’t see much past the end of her nose, but she stood up anyway and circled round the table into the aisle, where she tottered against Lucy.

  Lucy grabbed her elbow with an eagle-like talon. ‘Okay, listen,’ she whispered harshly. ‘We’re still leaving, but we’re not going through the front. We’ll go the back way.’

  ‘The back way …?’

  Lucy glanced at the window again. Gregor was on the move, walking to the café door. Vlad remained where he was, quite close to where she’d left her Ducati. Whether or not he’d recognised it as belonging to her she didn’t know, but exiting through the rear of the café would still draw him away from there, and that gave them a chance. He was one guy, and if she could get him to run around the café’s exterior to try and cut them off, they might be able to nip back the other way. Tammy would have to ride pillion of course, drunk as she was, but that was a small risk compared to staying here.

  ‘We go now,’ Lucy said, ambling towards the counter, steering Tammy alongside her.

  The two women behind it watched apprehensively. The older one cracked half a smile, perhaps assuming that Lucy was coming to apologise for her friend’s behaviour. But that smile faded when Lucy suddenly veered towards the hatch at the counter’s end.

  Behind them, the café bell rang as its front door banged open.

  ‘When I say run, you run like the bloody clappers!’ Lucy hissed.

  Tammy mumbled something inaudible.

  ‘Sorry about this, ladies,’ Lucy said brightly, addressing the counter women.

  The older one half-smiled again, but then shouted as Lucy lunged for the hatch, lifting it and pushing Tammy through into the Staff Only area. There was a furious kicking of tables and chairs behind them, and shouts of outrage as customers were unseated. Lucy shoved Tammy through an open doorway on the right, which led into the café kitchen, and then turned back. Gregor was only halfway across the room. The other diners, for the most part blue-collar men, were hampering him more than he’d expected, refusing to be pushed out of his way easily.

  The next thing to hamper him was Lucy’s motorbike helmet, which she bowled overarm as hard as she could. It flew across the café interior, hitting him clean in the face.

  The impact was deafening, and even Gregor, no doubt used to all kinds of obscene violence, toppled sideways, clutching at the tattered, bloodied mass that had once been his nose. Lucy charged into the kitchen in pursuit of Tammy, only to find that she hadn’t got very far. In fact she was leaning on a worktop, vomiting onto the bread and butter.

  ‘Jesus wept!’ Lucy grabbed her by the collar of her fleece, and yanked her down the length of the galley-like room. An exit door loomed in front of them. Lucy slammed the bar down and rammed the door open with her shoulder, pulling Tammy outside after her.

  The dank night air embraced them, but they were now on the opposite side of the café from her bike. By sheer instinct, Lucy dragged Tammy left towards the building’s rear corner. The alley running along the back connected first with the semi-derelict toilets and the heap of broken auto parts. But it would also take them back to the main lorry park, where there might be other rides available if the Ducati remained out of reach. Unfortunately, halfway along the alley, with Lucy struggling to keep her companion upright, a silhouetted form cavorted into view at the far end, arms spread like a wrestler’s. It was shorter and leaner than Gregor, but it was also lithe and athletic. Without doubt, it was Vlad the bloody Impaler.

  Lucy made an about-turn, still lugging the stumbling Tammy.

  As they rounded the previous corner again, the kitchen door came back in sight, now in the process of opening. There was much shouting and swearing on the other side. Gregor, no doubt. Lucy spun left. A plastic bin stood nearby – it would suffice. She grabbed it under its slimy rim and hurled it. It spilled detritus along the path, but still rolled in front of the door and as Gregor came kicking his way outside, wedged itself under his shins.

  He fell forward full-length, slamming his already wounded face on the concrete, which elicited a massive grunt from him. Though he tried to get up again as the girls approached, he now looked stupefied by pain. Just to be on the safe side, Lucy kicked him a good one in the jawbone as they staggered past – and he crumpled back down, this time apparently lifeless.

  Hand in hand, they scrambled around the building’s front corner, hoping for a clear run to the Ducati. But no sooner had they spotted it than Vlad, having raced back around the other side of the building, loomed into view again. He was thirty yards away on the far side of the bike. He might not get to it before they did, but he’d make it well before they were able to mount up and hit the ignition.

  Lucy backed away, turning. Only one other option was open to them.

  If they headed northward from the café, they could cut across its overspill car park and into the copse of roadside woods which ran parallel with the East Lancs for who knew how long, but mainly comprised thick evergreens and so might provide some kind of cover.

  Barely aware what was happening, Tammy swore as Lucy lugged her in that direction. The girl was wearing ridiculous platform soles, which made running fast all but impossible even on flat tarmac. As such, she lagged behind, a dead weight on Lucy’s arm. Halfway across the overspill, Lucy considered telling her to kick the wretched shoes off, but they were fastened by buckled ankle-straps, which would take vital seconds to loosen.

  Instead, Lucy glanced back, and saw Gregor lying prone beside the café’s rear door, now with Vlad kneeling alongside him. As she watched, the younger enforcer glanced up after them, and then jumped to his feet.

  ‘Shit!’ Lucy lurched on, still dragging her moaning passenger.

  At the end of the overspill, a waist-high net fence separated it from the evergreens. Lucy didn’t hesitate, but quickly pushed Tammy over the top of it.

  ‘For Christ’s sake!’ the girl complained.

  Lucy clambered over herself, and they stumbled on side-by-side through a much deeper darkness as the nighttime firs engulfed them.

  The next few moments were almost surreal. They travelled side-on to the East Lancs, so they could see it through the trunks on their right: the yellow-lit strip of tarmac, the pairs of headlights flickering past in either direction. Their own progress was more difficult, their feet tangling with thorns and fallen branches. They skidded, tripped, barked their shins. Lucy looked constantly over her shoulder. There was no visible sign of pursuit, but
it was impossible to know for sure – the firs had closed behind them, blotting out any lights from the café. But that only meant it was so dark that Vlad could be within reaching distance and they wouldn’t realise it.

  ‘You dizzy mare!’ she hissed more loudly than she’d intended when Tammy suddenly dropped to her knees.

  She tried to haul her back up. Tammy half-resisted, muttering belligerently, creating a pointless, fumbling struggle in the darkness. It only ended when Lucy dragged the girl violently upright and drove her on by clamping one hand on the nape of her neck. As she did, she filched the mobile from her combat jacket – she might just have time to make a call. But then she heard a crackle of undergrowth immediately to their rear. She tucked the phone away again – she’d have had to speak loudly enough for whoever she rang to hear her message, which would surely alert Vlad if that was him behind, and to get a coherent text out could take vital seconds.

  She pressed on determinedly, still propelling Tammy alongside her, and now at last the trees opened in front of them like curtains, and just beyond those stood another fence. They blundered up to it. On the other side of that lay what looked like a siding filled with roadworks. It was still open to the A580 on their right, occasional cars roaring past, but otherwise was little more than a vast apron of dirt and gravel, which extended over a fairly large area, finally terminating on its left-hand side, about one hundred yards from the road, at a huddle of buildings which were just about distinguishable in the dull glow from the streetlamps.

  Lucy made a quick calculation, briefly ignoring Tammy who’d slumped thankfully down again and whimpered as she tended to the cuts and bruises on her shins.

  It seemed unlikely that Vlad, or even Gregor if he was back on his feet by now, would keep following them indefinitely. They’d both be under strict orders to rub Tammy out, but they’d have to trade that off against the possibility of getting pinched, and it seemed a near-certainty the staff back at the café would have called the police by now. Help had to be on its way.

  Lucy decided to go for it. Finding a hiding place and lying low for just a little longer was their best option. She reached down, grabbing Tammy by a knot of hair.

  ‘Ow … Ouch!’

  ‘Up! Quickly!’

  ‘You’re tearing my bloody hair out, you bitch!’

  Mercilessly, Lucy yanked her up and over the next fence onto the dirt ground beyond.

  ‘What the fuck’re you doing?’ the prostitute snapped, this time struggling back to her feet under her own steam. ‘You’ve torn half my scalp off …’

  If nothing else, at least the pain of that appeared to have sobered her slightly.

  But just in case it hadn’t, Lucy slapped her face. Very hard.

  ‘What part of this have you missed, Tammy!’ she spat. ‘One of the McIvars’ assassins is back in those bloody woods! He may not yet be aware which way we’ve gone, but if you keep screaming and shouting, he won’t need to see us, will he! You fucking little idiot!’

  Tammy’s shock was such that she merely stared at Lucy, putting fingers to her stinging cheek. Now she looked to have sobered up significantly. Even so, Lucy knocked her hand down, grabbed her by the collar again and pulled her at a stumbling-run across the open ground, veering towards the distant buildings.

  No sooner had they done this than a dark-coloured Vauxhall Corsa pulled into view. Unlike the other passing traffic, it wasn’t flying along the East Lancs. In fact, it wasn’t on the East Lancs at all, but prowling northward on the hard shoulder. It hadn’t gone a dozen yards, before its engine began revving and it swerved left into the siding.

  ‘Shit!’ Lucy shouted. ‘Run, Tammy, damn it … RUN!’

  The Corsa didn’t make it too far, ploughing a muddy trail through the grit, and having to smash its way past cone-and-ribbon fencing before it got near them. Even then it bounced into and out of a ditch, only just managing to land on its shocks, at which point it slid to a halt. Lucy glanced back and saw its driver’s door burst open and Vlad emerge.

  As he did, he drew a pistol from under his coat.

  Now she didn’t hesitate to put the phone to her lips, placing a direct call to Foxtrot Comms and delivering her message as loudly and urgently as she could.

  ‘This is PC 1485 Lucy Clayburn, November Division … off duty at present, but with a vital witness under my protection. Armed felon in pursuit! I’m currently trying to find cover in a roadworks siding, which I don’t have an exact location for … but it’s somewhere off the East Lancashire Road just north of the Boothstown lorry park. Repeat, I have an armed felon in pursuit! Request immediate support, including firearms.’

  There was an echoing boom and something invisible whipped past them from behind.

  ‘Shots fired!’ Lucy shouted. ‘Repeat … shots fired!’

  Chapter 30

  As Lucy and Tammy ran, a line of tall steel-mesh fencing loomed in front of them, beyond which lay a temporary slip road made from stones and clay. Lucy broke free of her charge and threw herself at it shoulder-first.

  The fence was freestanding, so it collapsed immediately, falling flat. Lucy fell too, and rolled across it. Tammy tripped but kept her feet, and then Lucy was back up, dragging her on across the slip road. On the far side of that, increasingly evident as their eyes adjusted to the poor light, stood various pieces of heavy equipment: wheelbarrows; cement mixers; stacks of cones; several sections of concrete sewer pipe yet to be laid. They wove through this clutter and veered across more open ground towards the buildings, which up close were no more than a row of workmen’s cabins standing in darkness.

  Another shot was fired.

  It roared, the slug again whipping by with inches to spare, smashing a fist-sized hole in the nearest of the cabin doors. Whether this disabled the lock in some way, Lucy wasn’t sure, but she flung herself forward and the door banged open on impact. She toppled through into a black interior. Tammy whined with terror as she tumbled in behind. Lucy jumped back up and slammed the door closed, but even as she did, a second bullet-hole exploded in the middle of it, a shaft of yellow light spearing through.

  Lucy gasped and ducked away, hitting the light on her phone and spinning round to find anything that might assist. It was the usual thing – plywood walls, a tarpaper floor, the combined smells of mud, oil, asphalt. But aside from a side-desk spread with paperwork and a row of hooks on which safety helmets and hi-viz jackets hung, the room was empty.

  Meanwhile, a pair of heavy feet came pounding up to the door on the other side.

  ‘Hayley!’ Tammy scrabbled with the handle of an internal door.

  Lucy dashed over. They barged through it and hared down a short passage from which various other offices opened, all tiny and bare, finally entering a more spacious room at the end. Extra hi-viz jackets and hardhats hung in here. There was a table in one corner, a filing cabinet, and a row of tools propped against the far wall.

  Lucy lurched first to the tools, and snatched up a spade. It could be used as a weapon, she supposed, but it would be heavy and cumbersome. Besides, it might serve another purpose. She whirled back to the open internal door and glanced down the corridor. Yellow street lighting glimmered from the room at the far end, but then a male silhouette stepped into view, gun still in hand.

  Lucy slammed the door and braced the spade against the inside of it, ramming its hilt under the door-handle and, tearing up a wedge of tarpaper flooring, jamming the blade against that. It wasn’t much of a barricade, but it might buy them a little time.

  ‘What’re we going to do?’ Tammy wailed. ‘We can’t stay here!’

  Lucy glanced over her shoulder. There was a window behind her with mesh across it, and another external door. That was their way out. But there was no guarantee that safety really lay outside. From here they probably had a choice of running across open farmland or back to the East Lancs and along the hard shoulder. None of those options would offer much protection from gunfire.

  A massive impact crashed through
the room. The internal door shook in its frame, but the spade held it fast. Lucy backed away and jumped aside. It was pure instinct but it saved her life, as two more shots punched massive holes in the woodwork.

  ‘Jesus Christ help us!’ Tammy wept.

  ‘Just get out of here!’ Lucy yelled. ‘Get outside!’

  Tammy attempted to comply, but could only shriek in dismay. Astonishingly, given that the others were all open, the outer door appeared to be locked.

  Another massive shoulder-impact struck the internal door. Its frame shook; the jamb split. Only by a miracle was the spade still in place, but it wouldn’t last much longer – it was already sliding underneath the tarpaper.

  Lucy again surveyed the tools: shovel, spade, a big rubber sledgehammer, spirit level, pickaxe …

  Pickaxe.

  She grabbed and hefted it.

  It was heavy, not to mention awkward: an arc of thick but tapered steel on the end of a solid hickory handle.

  Again it would be heavy and clumsy, but it would do in a crisis like this.

  She spun back to the internal door. Vlad launched himself against it repeatedly, battering it slowly inward. The spade slid deeper under the tarpaper.

  Lucy rushed forward, threw the pickaxe back over her shoulder and, giving it everything she had, swung it down, punching it through the wood at just about neck-height – a blow that coincided perfectly and deliberately with Vlad’s next shoulder-charge.

  There was a muffled squawk on the other side, and then a bizarre silence, which lingered for several seconds. Briefly, and with some considerable effort – because its blade was lodged in place – Lucy had to strain all her gym-toned muscles to wrench the pickaxe head free. When she did, she blinked in shock; its bottom six inches of steel were dark with blood.

  She certainly hadn’t killed the bastard – she could now hear him again on the other side of the door; what sounded like a low, pathetic keening, followed by a drunken stumbling of feet as he moved away. Was this total victory, she wondered, or just a breathing space?