by Alison James
‘We need to know if you’ve completed a booking in the name of Hutchins.’
Rachel showed her a photo of Michelle Harper. ‘For this woman.’
Magda shrugged, her expression dour. ‘Yes, I have,’ she said matter-of-factly.
Rajavi, pressing her hands against her back, sighed. ‘We need the details, obviously.’
In no hurry to cooperate, Magda settled herself at her desk with exaggerated care and booted up her ancient-looking terminal.
‘Is slow,’ she commented unnecessarily.
Eventually her connection fired up, and after much tutting and frowning over the printer, which jammed repeatedly, she handed them the reservation details.
There were not two, but three tickets to Sydney via Dubai: one for Lauren Hutchins, one for Jasmine Hutchins and one for Lisa Urquhart.
‘Of course,’ Rachel observed. ‘She can’t risk travelling with Lola Jade herself: far too risky. And Lola can’t travel as Harry, because her official identity in Australia needs to be that of a girl. Harry Brown’s over and done with now.’
‘Did she pay cash for these seats?’ Rajavi asked.
Magda nodded. ‘Cash, yes.’ She said this as though it was not unusual to bring nearly seven thousand pounds’ worth of notes into the shop.
Rachel was reading the dates on the ticket, which had been printed in a tiny font. ‘Michelle’s flight’s tonight. And Lisa and Lola Jade tomorrow… Okay, we need to get a car over to Jubilee Terrace right now!’
Rajavi picked up the airwave set and called for a patrol car to go straight to Jubilee Terrace and arrest Lisa Urquhart for assisting an offender. While she was speaking, Rachel was re-reading the details.
She shot to her feet. ‘Shit!’ She clapped her hand to her forehead, waving the printout. ‘It’s the connection from Dubai that leaves tonight. The flight to Dubai leaves in…’ she squinted at her watch, ‘eighty minutes.’
They raced outside to the car, but Rajavi doubled up, wincing again and handing the keys to Rachel. ‘You drive. This heartburn is killing me.’
The airwave set crackled into life. ‘Attempt to locate negative at 17 Jubilee,’ said the muffled disembodied voice.’
‘Go for a warrant and set up an ANPR,’ Rajavi gasped, pressing her palm down hard on her upper thigh.
Rachel filtered onto the M25, switching on the light bar on the car’s roof and activating the siren. She glanced over at Rajavi, who was sitting in a strange position. ‘You okay, Leila?’
She responded with a strangled grunt.
‘Listen, even with the blues and twos on, it’s going to take at least forty-five minutes to get to Heathrow… I think we should call ahead and get Michelle held at the gate, in case we’re not there in time.’
Rajavi inhaled sharply and held her breath for a few seconds, letting it out in a rush as the pain passed. ‘I don’t think I can get one of our patrols to arrive there any quicker than we will.’
‘Try the Met’s Heathrow station. They’ll have someone on the ground at Terminal 3.’
Rachel glanced in the rear-view mirror and floored the accelerator up to ninety-five miles an hour, trying to remember when she had last used her pursuit-driving skills. She usually let Brickall do the macho car-chase stuff: it made him happy.
Rajavi threw her mobile down in disgust, still clutching at her abdomen. ‘I’ve got no signal.’
‘You’ll have to radio control and get them to phone it in.’
As they approached Heathrow, the M25 grew thick with people travelling for the Christmas holidays, and Rachel was having to use the lights to clear a path through the traffic, weaving from lane to lane and struggling to keep up her speed.
‘Oh… oh God!’
Rajavi had pulled her airwave set from the shoulder of her vest, but clutched it aloft as she stared down at her lap. A huge wet pool spread across the crotch of her trousers and over the seat upholstery, trickling down into the seat well.
Rachel glanced sharply across at her. ‘Please don’t tell me…’
Rajavi nodded. ‘My waters have gone.’
‘When are you due?’
‘Not for three weeks. I’ve been feeling crampy on and off for the past twenty-four hours but I assumed it was just Braxton Hicks.’ She looked at Rachel. ‘Those are practice contractions.’
‘I know what they are,’ said Rachel tersely. She had to keep her eyes on the road, but was aware of Rajavi tensing up and catching her breath. ‘This is no practice… Is that a contraction now?’
‘I think so.’
Rachel stretched across her and took the airwave set, pressing the button and holding it against her left ear as she steered with her right. ‘Control, this is 1819 Prince. I need a location ID for nearest maternity hospital…’ she consulted the GPS, ‘in the Byfleet area. And a unit to Heathrow Terminal 3 to intercept Michelle Harper, checking in for flight EK209.’
‘It’s okay,’ panted Rajavi. ‘We don’t need to stop now; we’ll be at Heathrow in half an hour or so, and they have medical facilities. Anyway, nothing’s going to happen for hours yet.’
‘Are you sure?’
Rajavi spoke through gritted teeth. ‘Sure. I’ll be fine. Just keep going.’
‘Sorry, cancel that.’ Rachel switched off the radio set and returned her hand to the steering wheel, but she still glanced at Rajavi every few seconds. Her fists were pressed against her upper thighs, and sweat was breaking out on her forehead.
‘Leila? You sure you’re okay to keep going?’
The DS managed to nod her head, but she was holding her breath so forcibly she couldn’t speak.
‘Leila? Talk to me!’
As they approached Junction 14, Rajavi finally let out a long, low moan and began to pant.
‘I think it’s coming,’ she said, her dark brown eyes wild with panic. ‘The head’s really low; I can feel it between my legs.’
‘Oh fuck.’
Rachel screeched onto the hard shoulder, hit the hazard lights and snatched up the airwave set again, barking at them to dispatch an ambulance. Then she half pulled, half lifted Rajavi out of the front seat and laid her along the rear passenger seat, removing her boots, underwear and trousers and arranging her own coat across Rajavi’s lower abdomen in a makeshift attempt at modesty. She had undertaken five days of intense medical training in order to become an authorised firearms officer, but – unsurprisingly – it did not cover delivering babies. That scenario had been touched on during her training at Hendon, but she remembered precious little about it.
‘It’s fine,’ she said to Rajavi, even though it very much wasn’t. ‘I’ve got this.’
She retrieved the medical kit from the boot of the vehicle and pulled out a sterile pad, which she placed under Rajavi’s hips, and a foil heat blanket to wrap the baby.
‘Don’t try and fight it; just go with it. If your body’s telling you to push, then you have to push.
Rajavi bellowed in fear and pain, and a few seconds later Rachel was astonished to see a glistening purple-black dome appearing between her legs, topped with dark wet hair. She took surgical gloves from the medical box and pulled them on, reaching in quickly to guide the head’s crowning. Rajavi lowed like a wounded farm animal.
‘Don’t push too hard,’ Rachel said, hoping this was right. ‘Nice and gently does it.’
There was a pop and a gush, and the baby slid out into her hands, little fists clenched, curled body seeming strangely small compared to the head. As she cleaned it off with another of the pads, rubbing briskly at the chest, the baby gave a gargling cry, quickly drowned out by the howl of an ambulance siren. A green-suited paramedic rushed over and took the foil-wrapped baby from Rachel’s hands; it looked for all the world like a plump oven-ready chicken.
It was only when she relinquished her hold that Rachel realised quite how hard her hands had been shaking. She took some deep breaths to dissipate the build-up of adrenaline.
‘Is it all right?’ whispered Rajavi, tryin
g to sit up.
‘He is perfect.’ Rachel squeezed her hand. ‘Congratulations: you have a son.’
Thirty-Five
‘I’m sorry, the flight had already gone by the time the request came through.’
‘And “Lauren Hutchins” was definitely on it?’
Rachel was met at the entrance to Terminal 3 by the on-site liaison for the Metropolitan Police, and an Emirates flight dispatcher.
‘She was.’ The dispatcher nodded. ‘And two items of luggage.’
Rachel had been expecting this to happen, given that she had waved off the ambulance bearing Leila Rajavi and her new son at more or less the same time the gate was due to close.
‘The positive is we currently know exactly where she is,’ added the police officer, who introduced himself as PC Ryan Mead. He pointed out of the viewing window at the sky above the runway to make his point. ‘And when that flight lands, she’s not going anywhere. Will you have her picked up in Dubai?’
Rachel shook her head. ‘Dubai isn’t a member of Interpol, so we have no jurisdiction. It’s going to have to be Australia. So this development is completely embargoed for now, okay? Whatever you do, don’t let the press get hold of this. It’s because of a recent press leak that she’s decided to do a bunk now.’
They both nodded solemnly.
‘The last thing we want is Harper getting wind of us having a blue card out for her, and not reboarding in Dubai. If it’s Australia, that gives me a bit more time to organise the warrant. I’ll speak to my contact at the National Central Bureau in Sydney in a minute. But first…’ Rachel turned to the airline representative, ‘can I see your security cam footage from the check-in desk?’
She was taken to the airline’s control centre and shown the images that were captured as standard procedure when passengers checked their baggage. Michelle was wearing over-the-knee boots and skin-tight jeans, and had her face partially concealed by the ant sunglasses. She kept the interaction to a minimum, taking frequent furtive glances around at security staff and her fellow passengers. Rachel stopped the recording on the frame when the cases were handed over to be weighed. They were two large Louis Vuitton knock-offs. No big purple polycarbonate case. The one in Osborne Terrace, now in the Surrey Police forensic lab, was proven to have contained the person of Lola Jade at some point. So where was the second purple case?
PC Mead was looking at the arrest paperwork that had been sent through. ‘Michelle Harper… Hold on, isn’t she the one whose little girl went missing. Lola Jade?’
‘Yup.’ Rachel nodded as she searched through her phone for the number of her contact in Sydney. ‘The very same.’
‘So if the mother’s on her way to Australia, where’s the kid?’
‘Due to follow on with her aunt,’ said Rachel. ‘Who must know where Lola is right now.’
* * *
With nothing more she could usefully do at the airport, Rachel drove back to Eastwell. She felt she ought to return their squad car, and break the news that their colleague had successfully – if unexpectedly – become a mother.
As she approached Eastwell from the north-west, the car radio set crackled into life. ‘Suspect Lisa Urquhart mobile, heading north-west on the A420, over.’ Her trained ear picked up the faint sound of a police siren, probably a few hundred yards away. A car sped past her on the opposite carriageway, exceeding the speed limit. She caught a flash of cyclamen hair through the front window, and recognised the beaten-up blue VW Passat belonging to Kevin Urquhart. Kevin was at the wheel, with pink-haired Lisa beside him. A police squad car followed, lights flashing.
‘Christ on a sodding bike!’
Rachel executed a brisk U-turn and followed at a safe distance, switching on her own lights and siren. The blue Passat picked up speed as the police squad car closed the gap, causing it to veer erratically across the lane to the right. The steering was corrected – over-corrected – and the back wheels hit a patch of melting slush at speed, sending the car spinning, sliding and eventually flipping over into the ditch, plumes of steam punctuating the December air. The squad car swerved and braked, narrowly avoiding hitting the same slippery patch.
‘Jesus!’ Rachel pumped her brakes and skidded to a halt as safely as she could, hitting her hazard lights and jumping out of the car. She pulled fluorescent bollards from the boot and dropped them across the road behind her, forcing all the traffic in her wake to slow down and form a queue. The officers in the pursuit vehicle were already out of the car, one shouting into a handset and the other scrambling down the bank towards the crashed Passat.
Rachel ran in the same direction, her boots sliding on the frosty tarmac. Kevin Urquhart was moving slightly, blood trickling down the side of his neck. Lisa Urquhart was motionless, thrown forward so far that her head made a pink patch on the windscreen.
‘Is she alive?’ Rachel asked, reaching her warrant card from her back pocket and holding it up.
The officer shook his head slowly. ‘Hard to tell. Touch and go, I reckon.’
‘No one in the back of the car?’
The officer scrambled further down the bank and cupped his hands against the glass. When he stood up again, he shook his head. ‘No. Small mercy, eh?’
‘Check the boot!’ Rachel urged.
There was a short struggle, followed by swearing, and eventually the boot lid was prised open. The officer staggered backwards under the weight of a suitcase. Rachel reached over and took it from him, pulling it up the side of the bank and laying it down on the gravelly edge of the lay-by. She unzipped it to reveal a tangled mess of patterned neon beachwear, flip-flops, large grey bras and sun cream.
‘Looks like they were off on holiday. Why, what were you expecting?’
‘I thought there might be… Never mind. Was that it?’
‘Empty apart from the case.’
Rachel gave him a weak smile. ‘Thanks for checking.’
More sirens wailed in the distance, and for the second time that day, Rachel watched as an ambulance pulled up, followed this time by a fire engine. The fire crew set about cutting the Passat apart and removing the passengers. Kevin was lifted out first wearing a neck brace, badly injured but conscious. It took longer to remove Lisa. She lay on the back board, her hair fanned out like the petals of a chrysanthemum, lurid against the greyish white of her face.
While the paramedics worked at stabilising her, the police finished photographing the wreck of the blue Passat and the fire crew set about winching the car from the ditch and loading it onto the recovery truck that had just arrived.
Rachel hovered near Lisa as the crew established cardiac output then lost it, employing the defibrillator to get it back again.
Eventually one of the paramedics shouted, ‘Okay, she’s back. I’ve got a pulse.’
With an oxygen mask over her face and a fluid drip attached, Lisa was loaded into the back of the ambulance and it sped away.
Rachel watched it go, a heavy sinking sensation in the pit of her stomach.
* * *
‘I could put a nip of something stronger in there. You look like you need it.’
DS Rajavi’s colleague, DC Matt Coles, brought Rachel a mug of scalding tea with two sugars in it, and waggled a silver hip flask in her direction. ‘Scotland’s finest.’
Rachel shook her head. ‘Not while I’m on duty, thanks. But you’re right, I could do with it. It’s been one hell of a day.’ She swigged her tea. ‘So far. It’s not over yet.’
She had broken the news of Rajavi’s baby – met with whoops of jubilation – and the Urquharts’ crash – met with anger and consternation – when she eventually got back to Eastwell police station. She had no idea what time it was, only that it was almost dark.
DC Coles sat down opposite her. ‘I hate to drop even more on you, but there are a couple of new developments.’
‘It’s fine.’ Rachel sipped her tea, fantasising that it had whisky in it. ‘Go on.’
‘Our enquiries from the area wher
e we found Michelle’s car have thrown up a lead. The manager of a small hotel about half a mile away phoned and reported booking out a room to someone matching Michelle Harper’s description. I went to speak to him this morning, and I’ve got his MG11 if you want to take a look.’
He handed Rachel a copy of a witness statement form.
I work at the Crossgates Manor Hotel, Feltham, as assistant manager. On 19 December 2016, I was at the reception desk when a woman came in with a little boy. She had three cases with her: she was pulling two and the little boy had the other. I’d say the child was about seven or eight years old, quite stocky, with short brown hair. The child didn’t speak, and I thought he seemed unhappy. The woman reserved a room in the name of Lauren Hutchins. She showed me a UK passport in that name. She said she wasn’t sure when she was leaving and asked if it was okay to pay for the first two nights up front. I agreed and she paid for the room in cash. At 6.30 a.m. this morning, 20 December, as I was unlocking the reception desk, she came downstairs with a large purple suitcase. I asked if she wanted a taxi, but she said that she had already ordered one and would wait for it outside on the street. She said she was coming back shortly and would settle the bill then. The child wasn’t with her, but I didn’t give it too much thought as she was coming back.
At 8 a.m. she returned, and around an hour later came downstairs to settle the bill, with two more cases. I asked where her son was and she said he was playing outside. There is a small garden at the rear of the property. She paid the outstanding amount on the bill, in cash, and didn’t want a receipt, but asked me to call her a taxi for the airport. The taxi arrived ten minutes later and she went outside with the luggage. When the chambermaid went to clean the room at 11.30 a.m, it was empty.
This statement is true to the best of my knowledge and belief and I make it knowing that, if it is tendered in evidence, I shall be liable to prosecution if I have wilfully stated anything in it which I know to be false or do not believe to be true.
