“They can cover as much as a mile in a single night, using hops.”
“A mile a night?” Lew pictured a colony of travelling rabbits. What was that film he’d once seen about rabbits on the move? Watership Down. “And you hope to see them through your binoculars?”
“Unless I can get really close and observe them with the naked eye. It depends on the terrain.”
“If they’re always moving, how do you know where to look?”
“I would have thought that was obvious.”
“Not to me, sir.”
“You can hear them some way off.”
“Hear them doing what?”
“Digging their holes.”
This was the moment Lew decided to quit. “On this occasion I’m going to leave you to it. For your own safety, I advise you to get a cycle helmet. And keep off the A roads.”
“I’m obliged to you, but I always do.”
“Go carefully. Other traffic may not see you coming.”
The old man looked skywards. “A full moon helps.”
You bet it does, you old loony, Lew thought, as he returned to the patrol car. He opened the door, got in and watched in silence as the tricyclist moved off.
Watership Down was a real place somewhere in Hampshire, seventy miles down the M4. The rabbits couldn’t have travelled that distance, even at a mile a night. Must have been a different colony. Oh Christ, Lew thought, he’s got me thinking it’s real.
“You didn’t book him, then,” Aaron said from the world of modern policing.
“No.”
“Let him off with a caution?”
“No need. He’s legal.”
“How can that be?”
“It’s an EAPC.”
“Ah.”
Like Lew, Aaron wasn’t betraying his ignorance. He turned the car and headed back towards the lights of Bath. No more was said for some time.
Eventually Aaron asked, “Did the old bloke say what he was up to?”
“Stalking rabbits.”
“To shoot?”
“To watch.”
“Like a safari?”
Lew didn’t smile. He was smarting from the experience. He realised he hadn’t even asked the old boy his name. “It takes all sorts.”
A shout from the control room saved them both from more of the same. Some people with a ladder had been seen acting suspiciously near a church north of the city in Julian Road. In the last six months the lead had been stripped from several roofs in Bath. The thieves could make as much as twenty grand from one night’s work.
Two patrols were ordered to the scene.
The burst of activity using blues and twos brought much-needed distraction. Aaron jammed his foot down and they arrived first, just as two chancers from Swindon were loading their loot into the back of a pick-up truck.
Gotcha.
The arrest filled an hour profitably and made a success of what had promised to be a long, barren night. The other patrol didn’t show up, but Lew and Aaron didn’t mind. By the time they had delivered their prisoners to the custody centre in Keynsham and gone through the formalities with the sergeant their shift was almost over.
It wasn’t worth going out on the roads again. Their relief would be coming in at 7 a.m.
Cue for a coffee.
Every officer working a shift knows the final hour is the worst possible time to get involved in a fresh incident because it has to be followed through regardless of when you’re supposed to go off duty. So Lew and Aaron weren’t overjoyed when ordered at 6:19 to investigate a report of a naked man in Beckford Gardens.
“That’s all I want, another nutcase,” Lew said.
They returned to the car.
“What are we dealing with here-a drunk?” he asked the control room as the early morning traffic moved aside for their flashing lights. “Is he dancing in the street and singing ‘I want to break free’?”
The operator giggled. “You tell me when you get there.”
To Aaron, he said, “Bet you it’s a domestic. His wife kicked him out of bed.”
“He could be a sleepwalker.”
“Don’t talk to me about sleep. I could have been home and horizontal if it wasn’t for this.”
They crossed North Parade Bridge and turned left on Pulteney Road. Getting to Beckford Gardens wouldn’t take long. Questioning a naked man, possibly drunk or asleep, might be a slower process.
“We’d better decide how to deal with him.”
“Cover him up?” Aaron said.
“What with?”
“Dunno. We’ve got high-vis jackets in the back.”
“That’s what he wants, high visibility.”
At the end of Darlington Street the road joins Sydney Place and curls around Sydney Gardens. The traffic was lighter here.
“It’s a long one,” Aaron said.
“How do you know? We haven’t seen it yet.”
“The road. Beckford Gardens, I’m talking about Beckford Gardens.”
Lew yawned. “Okay. Get us there soon as you can.” He closed his eyes.
The next thing he knew was Aaron yelling, “Jeeeez!” followed by the screech of brakes and a lurch as the car tipped sideways.
Lew was thrust forward like one of those dummies you see in films of accident testing. This wasn’t in slow motion but to Lew it might have been, because in the milliseconds before his face impacted, his brain flashed images like a slideshow. The sudden braking swung the car out of control. They veered right, mounted the steep bank, bounced off and teetered on two wheels, hurtling left. The crunch was imminent. His head would be crushed unless the airbag inflated. When the car turned over-as it was sure to-he might be crushed anyway.
He expected to die.
How long it was before he regained consciousness he didn’t know or care. All he cared about was the excruciating pain in his hip and leg. He opened his eyes to a blur.
Impaired vision.
Fumes of burnt metal told him his sense of smell was unaffected.
Couldn’t move his head. Couldn’t move anything much. Possible paralysis, then. But how could he be paralysed and feel this pain?
Gradually he became aware that he was in the wrecked patrol car and the reason he couldn’t move was the inflated airbag acting like a vice. The blurred vision was an illusion. The windscreen inches from his eyes had cracked into myriad fragments still held together.
Glass chips started raining on his face. Someone was hammering at the thing.
Lew needed to let them know he was there. Urgently. He made a sound that was meant to be a shout and came out as a yelp.
A bigger chunk came down and a hole appeared.
A voice said, “This one’s alive.”
Next a hatchet was poked through and used to enlarge the hole.
The voice said, “Hang on, mate.”
Even in this painful situation Lew thought the remark was stupid. He wasn’t going anywhere.
“Can you hear me? We’ll get you out of this.”
Another yelp was the best he could manage.
A hand came through the hole, groped in the space, found his face and felt for his mouth. He knew what was going on: the basic first-aid drill of making sure his airways weren’t blocked.
“Can you speak?”
Not a syllable anyone would recognise.
“Never mind. I can hear you. I’m going to ask you some questions. One squeak for yes, two for no, okay?”
Wasn’t that the system ghost-hunters used? He wanted it known he was still living. He managed a grunt.
“Are you in pain?”
One for yes.
“We’ll give you something in a second. Are you bleeding?”
Am I bleeding? Bleeding terrified.
He didn’t know, so he didn’t answer.
“Can you feel your legs?”
And how! He confirmed it.
“That’s good. Tell me where the pain is. Upper body?”
Two grunts.
“Okay, you’re making sense. You have pain below the waist, right? Can you move your leg at all?”
Two more.
“But you can feel it, and that’s good. We’ll get you out of here as soon as we can. In the meantime I’ll give you something for the pain.”