It was not particularly late, but Bill Gordon, who had been drinking heavily, was now rat-arsed. As he staggered out of the pub door and lurched to his car on the pub car park, the cool night air hit him slap-bang in the face and almost floored him. Nevertheless he regained his composure, pulled himself upright as only a drunk can, and slewed to his car.
If anyone had asked him, Bill Gordon would have said that he was pretty much okay. Yesh, okay. Maybe he’d been drinking steadily since noon, but that was the key — steady. And that is how after more than ten pints of bitter and several wee chasers, and four packets of crisps to soak it all up, he knew he was more than capable of driving safely home.
The door key slid in, no problem. So did the ignition key. He even fitted his seat belt. And home was less than a mile away. If he had been over the limit, he would have walked. He belched loudly and edged the car lumpily towards the car-park exit.
O’Brien sped along the A673 to Horwich. It was a narrow road through a built-up area, but he took no notice of the speed limits because he knew he would soon be doing an about-turn to Bolton. As he reached a set of traffic lights, they changed to red and he slowed reluctantly.
He cursed.
‘I think that’s him,’ cried Jo.
Beyond the junction, several cars were heading towards the centre of Horwich.
‘How can you be sure?’
‘I can’t, but it looks like it.’ She pointed excitedly.
The lights changed to green.
Bill Gordon — drunk, middle aged, no convictions, in full employment all his adult life, a man who had successfully negotiated his way home in his car whilst drunk literally hundreds of times — waited patiently at the car-park exit for traffic to clear. His judgement was sound as a pound.
He hummed a happy tune as he revved the engine of his Vauxhall Vectra, whilst holding the car stationary on the clutch.
At court later, he strenuously denied he was to blame for the accident.
The fact he was holding the steering wheel, was sitting in the driver’s seat, in control of the car, did not in any way make him feel inclined to plead guilty to the charges laid before him.
This stance did not prevent him being convicted. He lost his licence for five years, was fined over a thousand pounds and was sent to prison for three months.
No, he felt he was not to blame for his foot slipping off the clutch and the car hurtling into the stream of traffic passing from left to right in front of him.
He did not hit Verner’s four-wheel-drive monster, but slammed into the car behind it, smashing into the passenger side and forcing the vehicle into the path of a Transit van coming the opposite way.
Verner saw the accident in his rear-view mirror. Obviously he did not stop as a witness, kept going.
At first it was all confusion, chaos and cars in front. O’Brien came to a sudden halt and stopped only inches away from the car in front.
‘Been a bump ahead,’ Jo said, craning her neck.
‘Shit.’ O’Brien punched the wheel.
Jo jumped out and sprinted towards the scene of the accident. It looked a bad one. Three vehicles, two head-on by the looks. No one in any of them appeared to be moving. She was torn momentarily between her duty to save life and to find out what Andy Turner was up to.
‘Job for the traffic department,’ she decided and jogged past the carnage.
About 200 metres down the road, she saw the 4x4 in the outside lane of the road, signalling to turn right towards Rivington. Then it turned.
She doubled back, passing the scene of the accident again, feeling bad about it, but not bad enough to stop and offer assistance.
‘He’s gone towards Rivington,’ she gasped to O’Brien. ‘Do you know a way round?’
‘No,’ he admitted.
‘In that case go on the pavement.’
He eyed her in amazement. She shrugged. ‘It’s your decision, but we’ll lose him if we don’t do something.’
‘OK,’ he said meekly. He reversed away from the car in front, stopping just a hair’s thickness short of the one behind, yanked the wheel down and mounted the kerb.
‘Not good,’ he decided as they bounced along.
Jo hung on to the hand rail above the door. ‘You’re the guy at the wheel. No one’s held a gun to your head. If you kill a pedestrian, it’ll be down to you, not me.’
‘Thanks a bunch,’ he responded, misery in his voice. ‘Shit.’ Ahead, a group of people had already gathered to gawk at the accident. O’Brien flashed his lights and pipped his horn. A look of startled disbelief filled the faces of several people. They stepped or jumped out of the way and O’Brien drove through the gap. He kept his eyes fixed firmly on the route ahead, not daring to look at anyone. He emerged on the far side without having added to the mayhem too much.
‘I don’t believe what I just did,’ he said.
‘You better had — now put your foot down.’
‘He’s done a disappearing trick,’ O’Brien said with disappointment. He sniffed. ‘Eeh, smell that engine.’
They were almost back in Chorley town centre after hurtling through the country roads around Rivington, then combing and re-combing them without success. He had floored the accelerator and spent most of the chase in first or second gear, screwing the car to its limits to catch the 4x4, which seemed to have vanished off the face of the earth. Hence the reek of the engine.
‘He must’ve gone like shit off a shovel,’ O’Brien moaned and the bitter engine fumes wafted into the cab. ‘We shoulda caught him. I drove like a maniac.’
White-faced, dithery and clinging to the door handle, Jo had to agree. She swallowed, feeling slightly poorly. O’Brien had flung the car around the roads like a rally driver, but unlike her, seemed to be in total control of the machine. Even so, she had hoped they did not meet up with another — or the same — suicidal deer.
Now, it seemed, they had lost Turner for good. Their last chance gone. Or maybe not, she thought. ‘Let’s head back the way we came,’ she suggested. ‘Nice ’n’ slow and have a look up some of those foresty-type tracks. Maybe he turned off for some reason.’
‘Why? Why would he have done that?’
‘How do I know? It’s just a thought. Take it or leave it.’
It was close to midnight as O’Brien turned off the road and on to one of the tracks that cut through the forest.
‘Last one, this,’ he said, ‘then we go home.’
‘I’ll have that,’ Jo conceded. She was tired and coming to the conclusion that Turner was definitely gone now. ‘Drive up this one, turn round and we’ll call it quits.’
O’Brien nodded. The thrill of the chase had worn off. He wanted to get home, via a late-night hostelry, and get some shut-eye.
Jo peered through the headlights as the car crunched slowly up the track. She, too, had had enough. Just intended to concentrate for a few more minutes.
O’Brien yawned, wide and loud and shook his head.
‘I thought I saw something,’ Jo said quickly, leaning forward, almost pushing her nose up to the windscreen.
‘If only.’
‘No, I did. A glint of something in the trees. Stop. Kill the lights.’
‘Now what?’
‘Let’s have a look.’ Jo reached for the torch under her seat, a powerful dragon-lite. She got out, switching the torch on, then off. O’Brien climbed out too, a less powerful torch in his hand.
‘Let’s wander this way,’ he said.
‘OK.’ They started to walk along the track, torches on. Jo halted suddenly. ‘Look — there,’ her voice rasped hoarsely. She directed the torch beam on to the edge of the track, where, clearly, there were indents made in the verge where a vehicle had been driven off into the trees. She flashed her torch into the trees, picking out the shape of the 4x4 in there.
Quickly she shut off the torch. As did O’Brien. He sidled up beside her.
‘What’re we going to do?’ O’Brien asked.
‘Well, put it this way, there’s a good chance we’ve been spotted now, so I think we might as well go and investigate, don’t you? I’m bloody curious to know what’s going on, aren’t you? The surveillance is cocked up, so we might as well show our hand and see what’s happening.’