Her nose wrinkling at the rank smell inside of faeces and tobacco and unwashed people, she called out, ‘Mum? Mum?’
There was no answer. With a stab of panic, she put her foot on the step and hauled herself up on to the front seat. For a terrible moment, staring into the gloomy rear, she thought her mother was not there. All she could see was some electrical equipment, bedding and a spare wheel. It felt as cold as a fridge. The van rocked in the wind and there was a drumming resonance inside.
Then, over it, she heard a faint, timid, ‘Abby? Is that you?’
They were, without doubt, the sweetest words she had ever heard in her life. ‘Mum!’ she cried out. ‘Where are you?’
There was a faint, ‘Here.’ Her mother sounded surprised, as if to say, Where else should I be?
Then Abby craned her neck over the rear of the seat and saw her mother, rolled up in the carpet, just her head poking out, lying on the floor right behind her.
She climbed over, the van resonating as her feet struck the bare metal floor, knelt and kissed her mother’s moist cheek.
‘Are you OK? Are you OK, Mum? I’ve got your medication. I’m going to get you to hospital.’
She felt her mother’s forehead. It was hot and clammy.
‘You’re safe now. He’s gone. You’re OK. There are police all around. I’ll get you to hospital.’
Her mother whispered, ‘I think your father was here a minute ago. He just went out.’
Abby realized she was delirious. Fever or the lack of medication or both. And she smiled through her tears.
‘I love you so much, Mum,’ she said. ‘So much.’
‘I’m OK,’ her mother said. ‘I’m as snug as a bug in a rug.’
Cassian Pewe lowered his phone for a moment and turned to Grace. ‘Target Two is in Target One’s car, alone. Coming back this way. Intercept if we can, safely, but there’s back-up arriving behind us.’
Grace started the engine. Both men had their seat belts unfastened, which was common practice on surveillance to enable them to get out of the car quickly if need be. Having heard the report of what had been happening, now Grace thought they should put them on. But just as he reached for his, Pewe said, ‘I see him.’
Grace could now see the black Honda too, a quarter of a mile away, driving fast down the twisting hill. He could hear the tyres squealing.
‘We have Target Two in sight,’ Pewe radioed.
The Silver commander said, ‘The priority is everyone’s safety. If you need to, Roy, you may have to use your vehicle in the operation.’
To Pewe’s consternation, Grace suddenly swung the Alfa sideways, blocking both lanes of the narrow road. And he was on the side facing the oncoming black off-roader, he realized. The side that would take the impact if the car didn’t stop.
Ricky clenched the wheel tight, tyres screeching again around a long, downhill left-hander bend, with nowhere to go on either side if he did come off, just steep banking. Then he lurched into a righthander.
As he came out of it he saw a maroon Alfa Romeo sideways across the road in front of him. A blond-haired man was staring bug-eyed at him out of the window.
He stamped on the brakes, bringing the car slewing to a halt only yards from the door, and slammed the car into reverse. As he did so, he heard the wail of sirens. In the distance he could see two police Range Rovers, lights blazing, racing down a hill.
He made a three-point turn and accelerated hard, back the way he had come. In his rear-view mirror, he saw the Alfa Romeo take off after him, with the two Range Rovers closing behind it. But he was more interested in what was in front of him. Or more specifically, what was in front of the copse. Because even if the ice-cream van was still in front of it, a sharp nudge from the side would do it.
Then he would take the abandoned coach road – now just a grassed-over cart track through fields, but still a public byway – which he had found and checked out. He was certain the police would not have thought about that.
He would be all right. The bitch should never, ever have messed with him.
Roy Grace quickly caught up with the lumbering Honda, then sat yards from its tail. Pewe radioed that they were approaching the Beachy Head Hotel.
Suddenly, the Honda veered sharply right, off the road and up on to the grassland that separated the road from the cliff edge. Grace did the same, wincing as his beloved Alfa’s suspension bottomed out. He heard and felt the grinding scrape of the exhaust striking the ground and something falling off, but he was so focused on the Honda he barely registered it.
A whole cluster of vehicles and people were ahead of them now. He saw a British Telecom truck blocking the road, with a swarm of police officers near it. Two motorcycles. Pewe turned up the volume on the radio.
A voice said, ‘Target Two may be coming back for the van. It’s in the copse behind the ice-cream vehicle. Cut him off. Target One is in the van with her mother.’
Pewe pointed through the windscreen. ‘Roy, it’s there. That’s where he’s heading.’
Grace could see the large, oval-shaped copse, with the brightly coloured ice-cream van parked a short distance in front of it.
Target Two was accelerating.
Grace dropped down a gear and flattened the accelerator. The Alfa shot forward, the suspension bottoming again in a dip, throwing both unrestrained men up, banging their heads on the roof.
‘Sorry,’ Grace said grimly, drawing level with the Honda.
On his outside now, barely inches from his door, was a flimsy-looking railing at the cliff edge. He caught a fleeting glimpse of Target Two, a heavily bearded man in a baseball cap. To his right, the railing ended suddenly, leaving shrubbery marking a completely unguarded drop now.
Grace ploughed through undergrowth, grimly hoping the shrubbery wasn’t concealing an indent in the cliff they would suddenly plunge down.
He eased off the accelerator, driving level, trying to get the nose of his car just a couple of feet in front, to force the Honda further away from the edge. The copse and the ice-cream van were looming up rapidly.
As if anticipating his thoughts, Target Two swung the Honda’s steering wheel to the right, banging hard into the passenger side of the Alfa. Pewe let out a shriek and the Alfa lurched perilously close to the edge.
The copse was coming even closer.
The Honda nudged them again. The heavier of the two cars, its nose well in front, it pushed them further over. They bounced crazily on some stones and uneven ground. Then it nudged them again, even closer to the edge.
‘Roy!’ Pewe squealed, holding on to his unfastened seat belt and sounding petrified.
They were boxed in. Grace floored the accelerator and the Alfa shot forward. The copse was now no more than two hundred yards away. He cut in front of the Honda sharply, and then, with the intention of hiding the fact that he was braking, he yanked the handbrake full on instead of pressing the brake pedal.
The effect was instant and dramatic, and not what he had expected. The tail of the Alfa broke away and the car started to slide sideways. Almost instantly, the Honda slammed into the rear wing, sending the Alfa barrel-rolling, side over side.
The force of the impact sent the Honda veering to the left, out of control, ploughing into the rear of the ice-cream van.
Grace felt himself hurtling, weightlessly, through the air. Air that was a cacophony of booming, echoing metallic noises.
He landed with a thump that winded him, jarring every bone in his body, and with a force that rolled him over several times, helplessly, as if he had been ejected from some freakish funfair ride. Then, finally, he came to a halt face down in wet grass, with his mouth jammed into mud.