Hunted (Detective Mark Heckenburg Book 5)

by Paul Finch

  Heck wasn’t really thinking straight when he jumped aboard; he simply went for it. And it wasn’t even difficult.

  He gripped a tarpaulin, planted a foot on the steel runner. And then he was moving along, being carried on the flank of the juddering goliath. Dragging the material back even further, he was able to clamber inside the trailer, finding himself amid teetering stacks of beer. He stumbled to his feet – only for the lorry to swing round a tight corner, presumably out into Brockley Road, and then pick up speed, jolting against kerbstones, swaying from side to side as it raced to overtake other road users. There was a cacophony of blaring horns. The gritty plank floor bucked as the artic bounced over a speed ramp. Heck was flung down between falling crates and smashing bottles.

  ‘Heck to DI Hunter!’ he shouted into his radio, cupping his face against flying glass. ‘Receiving, over?’

  There was a distortion of static before Hunter replied. ‘Receiving. Go ahead.’

  ‘Managed to get aboard the suspect vehicle, guv. It’s an Aveco HGV. I’ve got a partial index. It starts Juliet-Alpha-eight-three, over.’

  ‘Can you repeat that, DS Heckenburg?’ Even over the air, with a welter of ambient noise behind him, Hunter sounded astounded. ‘You are on board the suspect vehicle?’

  ‘That’s affirmative, guv. But I’m stuck in the trailer.’

  The artic collided with something. This was an especially heavy impact, and Heck was hurled sideways – all the way across the deck, his earpiece coming loose. More beer crates fell and broke open, bottles and cans spilling forth. Heck crawled on his elbows and knees towards the billowing tarpaulin and tried to peek past it. ‘I can’t say where we are for sure – oh, wait! Crofton Park! That’s affirmative. We’ve just passed Crofton Park on the left. So we’re heading south down Brockley Road. Fifty plus, over.’

  Chapter 22

  As a serving police officer of four years’ experience, Gail Honeyford had never known anything like the last few hours. After that prolonged, nerve-racking wait in the OP, the situation had suddenly exploded. The gory shoot-out at the Heart of Stone hadn’t been unexpected. But the actual sight of men dropping like ninepins, the agonised screams torn from irreparably shattered bodies, had made her flinch, and yet it had all happened too quickly for the true horror of it to register. The gunfire had sounded like a fireworks display, the stroboscopic muzzle-flashes had resembled a pyrotechnics show. Even now it didn’t seem real to her – at least superficially, though deep down she already suspected she was hurting. You didn’t watch people die at point-blank range, or at least you didn’t stand agog, eyes bugging, while blokes blasted each other with firearms, without it damaging you in some way.

  And now this.

  She was racing along Brockley Road in a rackety old Escort, which had probably been around the clock at least twice, in pursuit of a juggernaut with a maniac at the wheel. The target vehicle was about fifty yards ahead, careering through red lights, sending other vehicles spinning in every direction. There were thudding impacts on all sides; bumpers slamming into tenement walls, fragments of glass and buckled bodywork catapulting outwards as side panels collapsed, as street signs were flattened and shop windows imploded. This was against all the rules in modern police work, of course: pursuing a suspect at high speed through a built-up area, though as far as Julius Manko was aware, no one was pursuing. She was in an unmarked car; she had no beacon, no siren. He was driving like a crazy man to get away from the scene of a vicious crime he’d committed and, as Heck said, that couldn’t be allowed to happen.

  Gail veered left to right as more and more beer bottles were discarded from the rear of the lorry, exploding like cluster bombs on the road surface ahead of her. And yet she was distracted by the frantic cross-talk on her radio. It sounded as if a DC Breedon had suffered a severe laceration to his windpipe, but was still breathing and ‘where the fuck was that ambulance?’ Three of the robbers, meanwhile, were critical; one of them was almost certainly dead at the scene.

  She heard Heck’s voice too, as he struggled to give directions.

  ‘Approaching Brockley Rise, still heading south,’ he said, ‘I think … can’t be sure.’

  Gail clung to her wheel for grim death as, with a deafening scrunch of gears, the artic bore straight over a roundabout, mashing two ‘keep left’ signs and digging ‘battlefront’ trenches through the flowerbeds in the middle. It almost lost control as it swerved sharply left. Again her knuckles turned white as she copied the manoeuvre. Belatedly, it now struck her that she was in a better position than Heck was to provide directions.

  ‘DC Honeyford to DI Hunter, receiving, over?’ She tried to remember the call sign on the Escort’s keyring. ‘I’ve taken Foxtrot-Alpha and I’m in pursuit of the target vehicle, which has just turned into …’ She glanced sideways as a street sign flickered past. ‘Stanstead Road.’ Gail had a passable knowledge of south London’s geographical layout, but the rest she’d have to guess. ‘I think we’re heading east. We’ve just passed St Dunstan’s College, and are now on Catford Road … hang on, we’re heading south again along Bromley Hill. Full index on the target … Juliet-Alpha-eight-three-Delta-Papa-Kilo, over.’

  ‘Received,’ Hunter replied, sounding strangely less-than-impressed. ‘Just stay in contact with him. Do not – repeat, do not – attempt to impede the target or bring it to a halt. Air support en route, over.’

  ‘Wilco,’ she replied.

  Ahead of her the artic blistered along London Road, swerving sharply to avoid another HGV pulling out in front. The massive trailer swung hard into a metal crash barrier, almost tangling itself in the mangled scrap. There was a further blaring of horns, but the artic tore on, leaving a high-sided van to shunt the second lorry from behind, and a third vehicle, a Renault Clio, to screech sideways to avoid the pile-up, crossing the junction and hitting a telegraph pole which, with a torturous cracking of timbers, fell backwards into a garden, dragging down a mess of live cables writhing like fiery snakes. It was all Gail could do to skid through this labyrinth of destruction unscathed. The target was now far ahead, on Widmore Road. Even as she watched, it veered left again. She had to get her foot down just to keep sight of it, but she knew she couldn’t let it go. She was the only officer in contact; apart from Heck of course.

  As this occurred to her, there was a bleeping from her jeans pocket. She fished the phone out and glanced at its screen. It was not a number she recognised.

  She slammed the device to her ear as she drove. ‘Heck – is that you?’

  ‘Yeah, it’s me,’ he shouted. ‘Well done for staying on his arse.’

  ‘You all right?’

  ‘For the moment. But I’m getting a right pummelling in here. Ouch! This had better lead us to that bloody van, I’m telling you … not to mention those bloody pranksters!’

  ‘Heck, if you just hang in there, the cavalry aren’t far behind me!’

  ‘They’re gonna have to be bloody quick!’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Am I right in thinking this goon is circling back round towards central London?’

  ‘We’re currently on Chislehurst Road, heading east.’

  ‘Shit!’ Heck swore. ‘That settles it. He is circling back, which doesn’t make much sense unless he’s heading for the Blackwall Tunnel.’

  ‘Why would he be doing that?’

  ‘The choppers’ll be here in minutes. They’ll put heat seekers on him. That means there’s nowhere else for him to go. But the tunnel will screen him from that while he dumps this crate. All he has to do then is hijack another vehicle and he’s as good as gone. I’m thinking aloud, Gail, but this is the best shot we’ve got – to reach the Blackwall Tunnel, he’s got to hit the Southern Approach, going past the Old Dover Road. You’ve got to get ahead of him.’

  Even in the midst of the most hair-raising pursuit of her career, she didn’t like the sound of this. ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘You’ve got to prevent him getting there. Cut him
off somehow.’

  ‘Heck, I’m in a Ford Escort, not a tank – oh shit!’ She swore as the steering wheel was almost jerked from her hands. Part of the artic’s undercarriage – a huge piece of riveted piping – had come bouncing back towards her, crashing under her nearside wheel. It took everything she had to keep the curve as she swung sharply through a four-road intersection.

  ‘You okay?’ Heck shouted.

  ‘Yeah. Look, I think you’re right. He’s going up Prince Imperial Road. That’s back towards the Thames, isn’t it?’

  ‘Eventually, yeah. But you’ve still got to get ahead of him.’

  ‘I don’t see how …’

  ‘Listen, there’s a short cut you can take. Go left, hitting White Horse Hill and up Mottingham Road, through Mottingham and Blackheath. Keep going along Winn Road, Baring Road, then up Burnt Ash and Prince of Wales. Floor it, and you’ll get ahead of him at some point.’

  ‘And then what?’

  ‘I don’t bloody know. You’ll have to improvise. Owww … ’

  ‘What’s up?’

  ‘Getting thrown around like a shuttlecock in here. And it’s filled with beer and broken glass. Cutting me to buggery!’

  ‘Heck, how am I going to head him off?’

  ‘Use the sat nav. There ought to be one. It’s a Flying Squad car. I’m sure they’re not still living in the 1970s.’

  Gail glanced left. There was indeed a sat nav mounted on the dashboard. ‘What good’s that going to do?’

  ‘See if there are any hold-ups between where you are now and where Manko’s trying to get to. If you can shepherd him into some roadworks or a contraflow system, he’s had it. If he’s forced to slow down or stop, I can get out of here and try to get into the cab.’

  ‘You’ll do no such thing,’ she shouted. ‘He’s armed and you’re not.’

  ‘Well if you’re here, there’ll be two of us.’

  ‘Great. Two police funerals for the price of one!’

  ‘That’s the job, Gail. Get to it.’

  Even as she sped through Chislehurst, Gail was fraught with indecision. She’d had one order from DI Hunter, and one order only – to stay in contact with Manko but not to interfere with his flight. Heck, who was junior to Hunter, had now told her exactly the opposite. But Heck was here, embroiled in the actual fight, and Hunter was miles away. Through the window she could hear a whooping of distant sirens. She fancied (or perhaps hoped) she could also hear the chudda-chudda-chudda of a pursuing helicopter. But Heck was undoubtedly right. If Manko got to the Blackwall Tunnel, even at this time of night, there’d be any number of vehicles in there he could hijack. Then he could drive out again, probably with hostages, completely invisible to the eye in the sky.

  Coming up on her left, she now saw the turn to White Horse Hill – a signpost pointed towards Mottingham.

  With squeals of rubber, she veered in that direction. As the target vehicle vanished from sight she grappled one-handed with the sat nav. It came to life quickly. Still one-handed, with the south London streets flipping by outside in a near-blur, she tried to tap in the coordinates for the Blackwall Tunnel. A map sprang into view, the most direct route highlighted ahead of her – as Heck had said, through Mottingham and Blackheath. She was now flying along Mottingham Road, which became Mottingham Lane, then screeched into Baring Road, where she fiddled again with the sat nav, sending a request for notifications about hold-ups and detours. Her sweat-soaked hair prickled as she spied a flashing red cross to indicate a temporary road closure on the Southern Approach to the tunnel itself. A diversion was in place, shunting river-crossing traffic towards the Rotherhithe Tunnel, four miles west. If Manko got there first, he’d still be okay; the Rotherhithe would serve his purpose just as well. But this was a chance she couldn’t afford to miss.

  Thankfully the streets at this late hour remained relatively clear, though as Gail throttled along Burnt Ash Road even the handful of fellow road users had to swing out of her way. But she was almost there; the tunnel could only be minutes ahead of her. As she raced along Lee Road and Prince of Wales, she reasoned that she had to be in front of her prey by now; she was faster, she’d had less ground to cover. As she entered Westcombe Hill she glanced at the sat nav, and realised that she was running parallel to the southern end of the Southern Approach. She risked a glance right and, flickering between the buildings, saw an enormous wreck of an object, jolting and juddering but still travelling at frightful speed. Her heart missed a beat; partly with elation that she and Heck had been right, but also with fear because Manko was much further ahead than she’d expected. The diversion from the Southern Approach was now less than a mile ahead; it rerouted traffic onto Westcombe Hill at a point where the two roads nearly merged, through a virtual bottleneck, and yet still they were running almost side by side.

  Had Manko noticed her yet? Would it be a game of chicken, a case of who blinked first?

  ‘Shit!’ This was insane. This wasn’t responsible policing. But this guy had tried to kill a fellow officer, and God knows how many others. He wasn’t getting away with it.

  Gail rammed her foot to the floor, rocketing through the last few sets of lights. Her phone rang again.

  ‘Where are you?’ Heck stammered.

  ‘Can’t talk,’ she said. ‘Almost there, brace yourself.’

  The two carriageways were drawing together. The buildings in between them – scrapyards and ramshackle huddles of Portakabins – were diminishing. Manko must now have seen signs that the road ahead was closed. Gail flicked another glance at the sat nav. Manko would be swinging over imminently. She looked at her speedo, wondering how much faster she dared go, and was stunned to see that she was already touching ninety. Ahead of her, the Southern Approach rose upwards as it passed above the shopping centres servicing the Millennium Village. It was covered with yellow visi-flashers. Midway up it, she spied a series of barriers made from cones, sawhorses and fluttering red and white tape. The crossover lane was fast approaching. She looked right again. The artic was there, towering over her, a wounded hulk on wheels, its tarpaulins billowing, its sagging frame dragging a monstrous trail of smoke and sparks. Even as she gazed up at it, it slid across the carriageway towards her. Would Manko risk a collision at this speed? Every molecule in Gail’s body – every instinct, every thought she’d ever had for her family, her friends, her loved ones – was screaming at her to back off, to hit the brakes, hit the brakes, hit the brakes … she floored the pedal again.

  And veered right.

  Not just refusing to move for the swerving juggernaut, but challenging it.

  Causing it to shift right again.

  Directly ahead, the concrete divider hurtled right at them – a massive impregnable buttress, like a motorway stanchion. Even a diehard headcase like Julius Manko had no option. With shrieking tyres, he swerved back into his own lane, and then he was screaming away and above her.

  Astonished that she was still alive, Gail hit the brakes, even though the road ahead was completely empty, and the Escort turned through a full 380-degree skid, sliding across another intersection and slamming to a halt in a gravel-filled lay-by, buffeting a wastebin, scattering a sea of litter.

  Gasping for breath, she clambered out and looked up at the vast faceless underside of the flyover, listening to a deafening series of impacts as the broken-backed giant ploughed through the roadworks. Still panting, she ran back the way she’d come, jabbering incoherently into her radio.

  Chapter 23

  It seemed highly unlikely that Julius Manko had a licence to drive a heavy goods vehicle. Even if he did have, it seemed equally unlikely that he’d have the skill to navigate his way through the maze of roadworks on the Southern Approach to the Blackwall Tunnel at seventy miles an hour without finally losing control.

  Somehow or other the diesel-powered leviathan remained upright, even though its air brakes were fully applied, even though it fishtailed as its wheels locked and it crashed sideways through one barricade after ano
ther, mowing down noticeboards and temporary lights, tangling its axles in tape, scattering cones and visi-flashers, flattening Portakabins, caroming from one concrete abutment to the next. It groaned and squealed as it spun in lazy circles, shedding bottles and cans like a dog shaking off fleas.

  In its mangled guts, amid fountains of beer and avalanches of splintered glass and broken, lopsided crates, Heck was tossed around like a rag doll. At one point he was half ejected onto the blacktop, grasping wildly at shreds of tarpaulin, swinging from it like an ape before being flung back inside.

  The final tectonic jolt came when the artic slid over the central reservation and wrapped itself round a lighting tower built from heavy steel and fitted into an immense cement glove: axles buckled, couplings snapped and hoses split, spraying showers of coolant and hydraulic fluid.

  Heck came to rest face down in a nest of froth-soaked rubble, his clothing shredded by broken glass, his hands and knees bleeding from multiple cuts. Several moments after the mechanical monstrosity had ground to a standstill, he lifted a dazed head and glanced sideways. Through clouds of steam and hanging tatters of tarpaulin, he glimpsed a lone figure limping away. It was Manko. He’d stripped off his fatigues and his balaclava helmet; his impressive tattoo-covered physique was covered only by a vest, but he was also wearing a shoulder holster with his pistol in it, and a large leather scabbard on his left hip, in which his machete was fastened. A bottle rolled away across the deck and the hoodlum spun round, drawing both his gun and his knife, scanning the trailer’s devastated interior.

  Heck lay where he was, holding his breath. Manko stood his ground, but clearly saw nothing more than darkness and wreckage. One whole side of his face was masked with blood and he was visibly shaking. At last he turned away and lumbered on, clearly intending to circle the vehicle – and that could only be to get even with whoever had been following him.