by Tom Graham
‘Well it can’t be too far away,’ said Gene, taking the Cortina along a narrow, bendy road hemmed in on both sides with stone walls. ‘We’ll find a pub and ask the carrot-crunchers. Somebody’s bound to know, even if no one out here can read or write.’
‘I don’t see any pubs.’
‘No. Shocking.’
‘Maybe the people in that car will know.’
Up ahead, tucked into a lay-by, was a large, chromium-fronted Humber Sceptre, jet black, with white rings on its tyres that recalled the cars of Chicago gangsters in old movies. In the gathering gloom of evening it was impossible to make out the people inside, but there was certainly movement.
Gene pulled up hard against one of the roadside walls.
‘They won’t know, Tyler,’ he said, eyeing the car suspiciously. ‘They can’t be local. Nobody from round here can afford a motor as dishy as that.’
‘They might, said Sam. ‘And if they’re tourists then the chances are they’ll have a map.’
‘Tourists? Trundling about this crap-hole in a diesel Sceptre?’
‘No harm in speaking to them.’
Gene shrugged.
Sam climbed out and stepped into the road – and at once, he regretted it. He felt strangely vulnerable, as if he should not be out in the open. The jet black Sceptre was sitting ten yards away from him, silent and motionless and yet as unnerving as a snarling dog. Inside, figures were vaguely visible, in both the front seats and the back. But none of them moved.
Overhead, the sky darkened. The sun was dipping below the horizon, casting everything into gloom – and yet somehow, that black car seemed to be swathed in more shadow than anything else, as if it carried about it a pool of darkness.
Stop spooking yourself, Sam. Just go over and tap on the window.
He walked towards the car, but every step felt wrong, like he was walking out onto a sheet of ice he knew would not support his weight. He glanced back at the Cortina. It was sitting there, its headlights blazing, the red glow of Gene’s freshly lit cigarette flaring regularly within like the beacon of a tiny lighthouse. At the sight of it, Sam felt a burning desire to run back, like a five-year-old child looking back at his mother from the school gates on his first day.
‘For God’s sake, Sam – just grow up.’
Lifting his head, and pulling his leather jacket straight, Sam picked up his pace and strode towards the Sceptre. And as he did, he saw the doors open, and three men in black step silently out. Like the car itself, they seemed to be smothered in a darkness deeper than that of the surrounding evening gloom, making them indistinct and somewhat ghostly. But Sam could see well enough that each one wore a stocking over his head, like old-fashioned bank blaggers did, and that they each carried a sawn-off shot gun in their gloved hands.
In unison, like three robots operating on the same circuit, they cocked their guns. Ka-chunk! But Sam was already tearing back towards the Cortina.
‘Move, Gene, move move move!’
As he reached the Cortina, there came a thunderous roar, and a sudden flash of light illuminated the road. The Cortina’s windscreen shattered, hurling fragments of glass all over Gene.
Sam flung open the door and threw himself in head first, and even as he did he felt the motor lurch away, its tyres howling, as Gene hit the gas. He sprawled against the seat, his legs dangling out of the open doorway, fighting to clamber inside. There was another blast of gunfire, and this time the Cortina jolted sideways, striking the dry stone wall and ploughing along it. Metal screamed as the off-side front wing was ripped clear from the body of the car in a shower of sparks. Gene flung the wheel and the Cortina lurched to the left, its back windscreen exploding as more bullets tore into it.
And then Sam felt a powerful hand grasp his belt and haul him all the way in. The passenger door swung shut beside him. Shoving aside chunks and shards of windscreen, Sam managed to get upright. Next to him, Gene was gunning the engine and gripping the wheel, hands speckled with blood, the evening air roaring in through the gaping windscreen. His face was set in a hard grimace, his teeth bared, eyes narrowed.
‘What the HELL did you go and say to ’em, Tyler?!’ he bellowed.
Sam shot a glance out through the jagged hole that moments before had been the rear windscreen. He saw blazing headlights ripping up behind them.
‘They’re gaining, Guv!’
‘Is it Gould? Is that who it is?’
In his heart, Sam knew that it was. Who else could it be? Had Gould wrung from McClintock the location of Annie’s hiding place before he killed him? And were he and his three lackeys having as much trouble locating the place as Sam and Gene? Or had they been lying in wait deliberately?
‘Make ’em go away!’ Gene barked, and Sam felt something heavy and metallic thrust into his hand. It was the Magnum.
Under different circumstances, Sam would have argued. He would have piped up about due process and avoiding bloodshed, castigating Gene for his readiness to pull guns out and start blazing away. But not today.
Sam heaved back the Magum’s powerful hammer. It felt like loading a Howitzer. He took aim, resting his arms on the headrest of his seat, and trained the massive barrel on the dazzling headlights racing up behind them. His finger settled on the trigger.
‘Bastard,’ he hissed under his breath, and fired.
The recoil damn near hurled him out through the shattered windscreen and across the bonnet. His ears rang from the blast, like he’d just crawled out of a Who gig. The headlights behind them ducked left, as if dodging the bullet, then raced up at terrible speed, crashing straight into the Cortina’s rear bumper. The impact was ferocious. Gene cursed, bouncing heavily in his seat.
‘Right!’ he spat. ‘My turn!’
What happened next was too confusing and too fast for Sam to follow. All he knew was that he was being flung crazily about in his seat, as if suddenly on a mad fairground ride. Tyres screamed, the engine howled – and then the Cortina was belting along the dark road, the dry stone walls rushing by in the headlights, the Sceptre’s taillights rapidly receding behind them.
‘Now that, Tyler, was a U-ey.’
‘The Cortina’s had it, Guv,’ said Sam, glass crunching under him every time he moved. ‘It’s never going to out-run ’em.’
‘Heart of a lioness, this girl. She’ll get us clear.’
The Cortina was shuddering, as it were suffering terrible cramps and pains deep within its engine. The whole driver’s side wing and wheel arch were gone, the tyres were smoking, and the tracking was so shattered that Gene was constantly fighting with the wheel just to keep her straight.
Out of the deep darkness behind them came the sudden glare of headlights.
‘They ram us again, Guv, and we’ve had it,’ said Sam, hauling back the hammer of the Magnum with his thumb.
‘How many in that motor, Sam? Did you count ’em?’
‘Three with sawn-offs, one at the wheel. I’m guessing Gould’s driving, but I couldn’t see for sure.’
The inside of the Cortina was filling up with the harsh light of the headlights. They were like football floodlights, blinding to look into.
‘Four blokes then,’ growled Gene. ‘Odds of two-to-one. We’ve faced far worse than that in the past, Sammy boy, far worse.’
‘Something tells me the odds are stacked against us far more than two-to-one, Guv.’
‘Damn it, I need my lads!’ Gene cursed, pushing the Cortina to breaking point. ‘Ray, and Chris, half a bloody world away, when we need right ’em alongside us! Four against four, that we could handle, Tyler. That we could handle, easy as pissing on your shoes in the dark.’
‘Brace yourself!’ Sam suddenly cried out as the headlights roared up, heading straight for them. He aimed the Magnum, dazzled by the glare but ready to shoot blind, but the sudden impact of the Sceptre threw him against the passenger door. The Magnum tumbled from his hands and disappeared somewhere amid the broken glass on the back seat.
The Cortina t
ook the blow like it was a coup de grace. Its tyres howling in their death throes, the car veered wildly off to the right and hit the raised grass verge, Gene fighting the wheel in vain. It struck the rise at ferocious speed, rode up, and flipped, crashing down on its roof in a great eruption of jetting steam and exhaust fumes. Sam found himself upside down, crunched in a ball, the ceiling beneath him, his feet tangled in the remains of the dashboard, broken glass everywhere. His dazed, spinning brain was dimly aware of the Sceptre tearing past and screaming to a halt somewhere ahead in the darkness.
‘Guv? Are you okay?’
Sam craned his head round and saw Gene upside down right next to him, his eyes wide and furious, his mouth drawn into a thin line.
‘Guv?’
‘They killed my motor …’
‘We’ve got to get out of here. Can you move? Can you get your door open?’
‘They killed my bloody motor …’
Sam punched at the door on his side. It gave an inch, gave a little more, and then, with effort, swung open. As he forced himself out through the compacted door frame, his nose and mouth were filled with pungent stink of petrol. Crawling out onto the road, he felt the tarmac wet beneath his hands.
‘Guv, get out, quick, quick, don’t fanny about, just get out of the car!’
He clambered to his feet and glanced ahead. All he could see of Gould was a demonic set of red taillights burning in the darkness twenty yards away.
There was a noise from the other side of the wrecked Cortina and the driver’s door clattered open. Glass tinkled against the road. Gene Hunt emerged, battered, bleeding, bruised, but undefeated, his eyes filled with ungovernable rage. He stood tall, his shoulders back, his head aloft, and aimed a finger in the direction of Gould and his lackeys.
‘Nobody kills my motor!’ he bellowed, and reached under his camel hair coat for his Magnum. But all he found was an empty holster. ‘Damn it, Tyler, give daddy his baby!’
‘I dropped it!’ Sam said. ‘Forget it, Gene. There’s petrol all over the place. Let’s get out of here before it all goes sky high!’
‘You dropped it ...!’ Gene sneered, his appalled disbelief almost as powerful as his rage. ‘You dropped it ...?!’
Flames jumped up from beneath the crumpled, upturned bonnet of the Cortina.
‘Gene, for God’s sake, get clear!’
Sam ran back, away from the crashed car, away from the taillights. Glancing back, he saw no sign of Gene. Where the hell had he gotten to? God Almighty, he surely hadn’t crawled back inside for his gun?
‘Guv!’ Sam bellowed, the flames now spreading across the Cortina. ‘Guv, get out of there! Guv!’
The flames reached the petrol tank, and the Cortina went up like a bomb. A great ball of fire rolled upwards into the night sky. Glass blew out in every direction. A burning tyre shot away like a comet and soared across the night sky.
And just for a moment, Sam witnessed an extraordinary sight. There was Gene, standing silhouetted against the inferno, larger than life, his feet firmly planted on the tarmac, his hands held at his side like a gunslinger ready to draw. And beyond him on the far side of the raging flames, a monstrous black shape was looming up, inhuman, unfathomable, darker than the night sky behind it, darker than the smoke pouring from the burning Cortina. For a moment – perhaps no longer than a single heartbeat – these two implacable protagonists stood facing each other, the Guv’nor on one side, the Devil in the Dark on the other, a wall of fire blazing and burning between them. It was like a glimpse of the End of Days, as if the terrible trumpets of the Apocalypse had been sounded, and all the forces of Good and Evil were unmasked, unveiled, unrestrained.
And then the flames fell back. All Sam could see was the burning body of the Cortina lying upturned like a dead beetle, Gene racing towards him, and somewhere beyond the flashes of shotguns being discharged.
Without a word, Gene powered up to Sam at full speed, grabbed him by the collar, and carried him clear over the dry stone wall.
CHAPTER TWENTY: GENE HUNTED
The shotguns blazed, and chunks of stone flew from the wall. But Sam and Gene were already halfway across the open field, running. In the corner of his eye, Sam could see the Guv’s coat-tails flapping like huge, fag-stained wings, his off-white loafers catching the moonlight as they pounded the grass.
Up ahead, visible as a spiky black shape against the night sky, stood a knot of trees. They made straight for it, as behind them shotguns roared and flashed. Panting, gasping, and drenched in sweat, they threw themselves down amid the trees, and at once the guns fell silent.
‘They – can’t see – here,’ Sam panted.
Gene hawked up half a lungful of congealed tar dislodged by the sprint, and managed to say, ‘They’ll – be – after – us.’
Through the branches of a low shrub, Sam peered out. He could see the open field, lit by the rising moon, and the dry stone wall beyond which the flames of the overturned Cortina flashed and flickered. A great column of smoke was rising from the wreckage. The motionless headlights of the Sceptre could be seen, glaring angrily.
‘Well?’ Gene asked, his voice husky and bubbling with phlegm.
‘I can see their car, but there’s no sign of … wait.’
There they were, three shadowy figures, almost invisible in the darkness, moving in a wide line towards them across the field.
‘They’ve fanned out, Guv. Ten yards between them. Sweeping the field.’
‘Then we gotta keep moving. Damn you, Tyler, that’s the last time I trust you with my beautiful baby boy.’
‘Let’s argue about that later,’ Sam whispered back at him. ‘The Magnum’s gone, so forget about it. What matters is we find Trencher’s Farm and Annie.’
‘What matters, Tyler, is we don’t get a dozen shotgun bullets shoved up our arses.’
They crept from the cover of the trees, scrambled over a wall, and hurried down a grassy slope that lead towards rough, uncultivated land. They were soon swallowed up by trees that grew along the banks of a small stream that sparkled in the moonlight. Gene crouched down on all fours and stuck his face into the water, sucking it up like a horse. Smacking his lips, he raised his face and dashed water from his chin, then washed down his drink with real drink – a hefty slug from a hip flask that he pulled suddenly from the deep and secret recesses of his camel hair coat. He offered the flask to Sam, and for once Sam took it. God, he needed it. He didn’t even bother to wipe the Guv’s spittle from the spout.
‘We need to keep moving,’ Gene said. ‘We’ll head for them lights. We’re safer in town than mucking about in the woods like a couple of shite-arsed sheep.’
Civilization was visible as an array of lights in the darkness, glittering welcomingly but two or three miles away. To reach them, they would have to clamber over God knew how many walls, scramble through God knew how many woods, dash across God knew how many open fields.
‘It’s going to be a hard slog,’ said Sam. ‘And a dangerous one. Every time we break cover we’re taking a risk.’
Gene hooked his thumbs into his belt and adopted a manly stance, one loafered foot planted on a rock that jutted from the stream, his eyes glittering dangerously in the darkness.
‘This Gould joker, he must be right off his bleedin’ rocker,’ he growled. ‘How many coppers does he think he needs to whack to stay safe? All of ’em? The whole of CID? He’s barmy, Tyler – killing officers left right and centre to cover up for one murder ten bloody years ago! If he’s so shit scared why don’t he just bugger off to sun, sand and sangria like that slag Ronnie Biggs?’
‘He won’t find what he wants in Spain,’ Sam said, almost to himself. ‘What he wants is here … in Trencher’s Farm …’
Gene shook his head: ‘It don’t make no sense. Gould’s officially dead. All he needs is a dodgy passport and the world’s his oyster. And dodgy passports are ten a penny, Tyler – God knows, I know enough blokes who could rustle one up for him for a few quid.’
&n
bsp; ‘He doesn’t need a passport, not for where he’s going. He just wants Annie.’
Gene looked at him, waiting for him to elaborate, but instead Sam crept over to a tree and, using it as cover, looked back up the slope.
‘I can’t see them … but they’re there. I can sense them. We’d better get going, Guv. We’ll get across the stream and head through them woods, keeping out of sight.’
‘Them lads comin’ after us,’ Gene said. ‘They had stockings over their heads.’
‘Yes, Guv, they did.’
‘Why?’
‘Let’s worry about that later, shall we?’
‘But why, Tyler? They weren’t on their way to a bank job. And if they’re out to kill us, what difference does it make if we see their boats or not?’
But Sam was ignoring him. He clambered across the stream, using rocks as stepping stones.
‘Come on, Guv, don’t hang about.’
Without elegance or grace, Gene stomped and teetered and swore his way across the rocks and jumped heavily to the far bank, nearly losing his footing altogether and tumbling back into the water.
‘I ain’t built for this!’ he grunted. ‘I’m a city boy, Tyler, not Farmer ruddy Giles.’
‘Weren’t you in the Scouts as a kid?’
‘For about ten minutes. A bloke in shorts tried to stick his hand up me dib-dib-dib so I bust his wrist. And his nose. They don’t give you a badge for that, Tyler.’
‘So you joined the police. It all makes sense to me now.’
They picked their way awkwardly through a confusing thicket of spiny branches and brambles, every step of the way making more noise than a herd of elephants. Sam cursed every snapping twig, every rustling branch. At one point, a startled bird burst from the darkness and went squawking and cawing up into the night sky.
‘That flamin’ budgie’s going to give us away like a ruddy distress flare!’ Gene hissed. ‘Sod this, Tyler, I’m getting right cheesed off.’
‘Tough. We’ve got no choice but to keep moving. Look – the ground slopes up ahead of us, and it looks like there’s a road or a path at the top. Once we reach that, we can –’
