Nightmare City (12 page)

He knew that another major enquiry would need kick-starting.
And if the policewoman died - was she dead already? he asked
himself – it would take precedent over the murdered girl on the
beach.

The idea of two police officers being killed in two
consecutive days in the same town appalled him. Some
coincidence.

Beyond the built-up area, the A584 becomes a good, fast dual
carriageway for about three miles before it links up with the 583.
Henry gunned the Rover as fast as it would go. In the
circumstances, that meant the needle hovered around 105 m.p.h.
Rather generous, Henry felt, but it didn’t stop the steering wheel
rattling like mad in his hands.

They reached the traffic lights at the 583 within
minutes.

No sign of the Range Rover. The trail was growing cooler by
the second. For no reason other than they didn’t want to give in so
easily, Henry slowed down, turned right at the lights and drove
towards Preston. Neither was expecting anything now.

‘
I’ll go as far as the Lea Gate,’ Henry said, naming a pub
some way up the road, ‘and spin it round in the car
park.’

Seymour nodded.

The radio had gone quiet. No other patrols had spotted the
vehicle. Very depressing, particularly for Henry. It would be a
hundred times more difficult to make arrests from enquiries. Much
easier to catch the bastards red-handed.

Seymour saw the vehicle first.

On the forecourt of a petrol filling station on the opposite
side of the road. By the time he’d blurted it out, Henry had
cruised past. He craned his neck round. Yeah. Could be the one. Too
far away to see the registered number. Two men with it. One by a
pump, filling it up. The other in the driver’s seat.

‘
It must be,’ said Seymour.

‘
Let’s check it out.’

The road at that point was not a true dual carriageway. Two
lanes did run in either direction, but they were separated by white
lines, not a central reservation.

Henry was travelling slowly in the inside lane. With a rush of
adrenalin, and little thought for a tactical approach or safety, he
wrenched the wheel down and performed a U-turn across four lanes of
traffic.

Cars skidded and braked everywhere. Horns blared angrily.
V-signs and dick-head gestures were flashed. People
swore.

Henry ignored them.

He’d seen his target and was homing in.

And likewise, Dundaven had seen the approaching danger. He
knew it could not be anything other than the law.

‘
Leave that. Get back in,’ he screamed through the open window
at McCrory who was in the process of filling the thirsty machine
with endless gallons of juice. He flung the nozzle to one side,
spraying excess petrol across the forecourt, and ran to his seat,
slamming his door behind him.

Henry veered onto the forecourt off the road.

Dundaven put all his weight on the accelerator and aimed the
huge Range Rover purposely towards the oncoming police car.
Intention: to ram and disable.

‘
Hold on,’ Henry cried out and wondered fleetingly whether his
right, left, or both legs would be broken.

The two vehicles met virtually head-on. The bull-bars wrapped
around the front of the Range Rover crunched into the front lights
and radiator grill of Henry’s motor, bringing both to a
skeleton-rattling halt.

Dundaven kept his foot rammed to the floor and pushed Henry’s
car across the forecourt, causing it more and more damage. Then he
slammed his brakes on, went into reverse and put his foot down
again. With a screech of tearing metal the Range Rover extricated
itself, tyres squealing and smoking on the concrete
surface.

When he had enough space to manoeuvre, Dundaven was back into
forward gear and was pulling away.

Dundaven’s right hand appeared out of his window, waving the
shotgun in the general direction of the police car. He loosed off
both barrels at the two officers who cowered down like frightened
rabbits. It was a badly aimed shot, taken as the Range Rover was
speeding past, and the discharge missed them completely. Once again
the recoil was very great and he was unable to keep hold of the gun
which jerked out of his hand onto the forecourt Then he was gone,
slewing across all four lanes of the dual carriageway and
accelerating away towards Preston. The massive engine responded
superbly to the throttle.

In contrast, the rather smaller engine of Henry’s car had
conked out. He twisted the key in the ignition and prayed there was
not too much damage. The starter motor coughed pathetically. Henry
almost threw up his hands in despair, got out and kicked the car in
anger.

But before he did, he tried it once again.

Roughly it fired up. He dabbed the gas pedal a couple of times
and the unwilling engine came back to life like it had been in
shock.

The process of restarting seemed to take for ever. Time which
was allowing those two bastards to escape. In actual fact he was
only a matter of seconds behind his target when he re-crossed the
road, which by now was becoming accustomed to dangerous
driving.

The view down the front of Henry’s car was no longer smooth
and sleek. Instead it looked as though a heap of tangled metal had
been clamped to the radiator, the bonnet having creased up like a
blanket after a bad night.

He pushed the car to the limits of its performance in each
gear and all the while he expected it to die on him. Surely, he
thought, the collision must have damaged some of the
workings.

‘
Keep going, y’bastard,’ he intoned under his
breath.

Because now he was mad. The driver of the Range Rover - apart
from shooting a police officer - had rammed him and tried to kill
him. He did not take kindly to that.

Seymour, cool as ever, was talking slowly into his
radio.

Henry threw a quick glance at him. Blood was pouring out of a
cut just below the left side of his scalp where he’d cracked it on
the door. When he’d finished passing his message, Henry asked him
if he was all right to continue.

Seymour scowled at Henry as though he was a complete
prick.

‘
Let’s catch these cunts,’ he said grimly.

If Dundaven had been given the chance, he would have dumped
the Range Rover at the first opportunity and stolen another car.
That would have been the sensible thing to do.

He did not have that option.

The cargo in the back made it impossible. So he was stuck with
what he’d got and had to make the effort to get it back to
safety.

He was pleased by the way things had gone at first. He’d got
out of Blackpool easily. The problem he next faced was that he
needed to refuel the vehicle. The big engine was guzzling petrol
faster than a tramp guzzled cider, and he didn’t have enough left
to get back to Manchester. Not at the speeds he’d be travelling
at.

The refuelling had been going well.

McCrory, still stunned, was responding with blind obedience to
everything. He made an excellent petrol pump attendant.

Then the detectives spotted them.

Dunny had hoped to ram the cop car into oblivion, but the
manoeuvre had been nowhere near as effective as intended. This was
confirmed by McCrory, who was keeping tabs out the back
window.

‘
They’re there, they’re behind us,’ he shrieked.

‘
I should’ve wasted ‘em,’ growled Dundaven with
regret.

‘
There’s another cop car with ‘em now,’ McCrory
said.

Dundaven checked the mirror and glimpsed the blue light. He
overtook a slow-moving bus, causing oncoming traffic to avoid him,
then cut back in and shot through the next set of traffic lights
which were on red. In the middle of the junction he had to slam on,
twist and turn, accelerate away, keeping going all the
time.

McCrory leaned forwards and peered up through the
windscreen.

‘
Now the fuckin’ helicopter’s there,’ he howled in anguish.
‘We haven’t got a hope in hell, Dunny. We are fucking doomed. On my
daughter’s life, we are doomed.’

‘
Shut yer pathetic hole,’ Dundaven warned him. ‘We are not
doomed.’ Well, I’m not, he added silently.

He mounted the pavement with the two-nearside wheels and
overtook a series of cars on the inside, pulling back onto the road
inches before he hit a lamp post.

He was thinking quickly, weighing up the odds which were
shortening against them. McCrory was a liability. If they did get
caught, he would definitely talk till the cows came home. Though he
didn’t know much, he knew a little and the cops could follow up on
it. Dundaven made a decision.

The shotgun McCrory had used on the police car was at
McCrory’s feet where he’d dropped it in disgust. Dundaven pointed
at it. ‘Put two more shells in that and hand it to me.’

Without enthusiasm, the other man picked the weapon up. His
fingers were shaking as he did what he was told.

‘
What you gonna do with it?’ he asked and placed it into
Dundaven’s beckoning left hand.

‘
Open yer door just a crack an’ I’ll show ya.’

‘
Eh?’

‘
Just fekin do it!’

McCrory pulled back the handle. The door was unlocked and
slightly open.

‘
This is what I’m gonna do.’

He put the weapon to McCrory’s head and pulled both triggers.
This time when the gun recoiled he made sure he kept tight hold of
it.

McCrory was catapulted out the side door.

By the time the chase hit the outskirts of Preston, Henry had
been joined by a traffic car and the force helicopter. Other police
vehicles in the area were converging.

The Control Room at force headquarters had taken over all
communications. Their first instructions to Henry were that he
should withdraw from the pursuit immediately and let the traffic
car take up the following position.

It was one of those radio transmissions that, for some reason,
Henry did not quite receive. This was one he was not going to give
up. He’d face the consequences later.

He managed to stay in sight of the Range Rover as it bobbed
and weaved through traffic. His own driving was more restrained and
careful ... but not by much.

They were about fifty metres behind, with nothing between
them, when the passenger door opened and the body of a man seemed
to leap out of the vehicle.

It corkscrewed out, appeared to stick gruesomely to the side
of the Range Rover for an instant before suddenly losing grip,
flopping onto the ground and bouncing into the road in front of
Henry.

‘
Jesus, look out!’ bellowed Seymour, losing his composure for
the first time.

Henry’s reactions had now become fine-tuned. He had a
micro-second to react and steered brilliantly around the body, his
car lurching madly on two wheels, close to overturning. The body
continued to roll and bounce along behind them. The driver of the
traffic car didn’t have a chance in hell of missing it. He did
well, but ran over it with all four wheels.

Henry saw it happen in his rearview mirror. He cringed as he
experienced the impact by proxy and watched as the front wheels of
the traffic car, then the rear, went over the legs and lower
abdomen of the poor unfortunate man.

The traffic car braked and stopped.

‘
One down, one to go,’ muttered Seymour. He shifted in his
seat and made himself comfortable whilst holding a blood-sodden
handkerchief to the cut on his head.

It looked like being a long one.

Dundaven’s dilemma was now which route to take. He needed to
get back to Manchester if at all possible. If he could get onto the
estates in Salford he knew he could shake the cops, helicopter
included.

But Salford was thirty miles away.

The most direct route was to head to the M6 at Junction 31,
then onto the M61. Once on the motorway his options became limited.
The police, if they could get enough vehicles together, could box
him in, slow him down, make things very difficult. Not that he
intended to stop. Ever. Whatever the situation he would keep on
going ... but on the motorway, the cops would have the upper
hand.

The other choice was to head into East Lancashire, which he
also knew well, being the area where he operated. Blackburn, maybe.
It was a big enough town where he could probably abandon the Range
Rover and go to ground. Then he’d have to face the consequences
from Conroy. Definitely not appealing. He’d rather be
arrested.

He was quickly running out of options.

Whichever he chose, he knew that if he continued to drive like
an idiot, refuse to stop, maybe ram a few more cop cars, and wave
the shotgun about, all they would do was follow him at a safe
distance. That was their policy. They didn’t like getting people
hurt. It tarnished their image.

He needed to make a decision quickly.