The helicopter tumbled over onto its side and did a complete flip, followed by another, tumbling towards the edge of the roof, reminding Grace of one of those cheap toys Brighton street vendors sold which were weighted and rolled over and over, propelled by their own momentum.
And suddenly there was a stench of aviation fuel in the air.
The stricken machine crashed into the lift housing for a second time, crabbed round, still under power, until the cockpit was hanging over the edge of the roof and the helicopter was prevented from going completely over only by its tail wedged against the base of the structure.
The engine stopped.
Grace scrambled to his feet and ran across.
The machine was see-sawing. Teetering on the brink. Luvic was unconscious, lying upside down on the glass bubble of the cockpit roof. Venner was struggling, upside down also, suspended by his harness. At any moment the helicopter was going to fall.
‘Help me!’ the pigtailed man implored, thrusting a hand out of the open, swinging door. ‘Please, for God’s sake, help me, man!’
Grace, who was not good with heights, knelt, staring at the car park a long way below, the wind threatening to blow him over the edge. He grabbed the man’s wrist, which was greasy and thick as a ham.
The helicopter lurched. The stink of fuel was horrendous. Grace felt something bite into his hand. It was the man’s wristwatch. He gripped the pudgy flesh just above it and met the man’s tiny, terrified eyes, staring into his own. Imploring him.
‘Help me! Get me out!’ His medallion was hanging above his head.
The helicopter lurched again. Grace was pulled forward. Another few inches and he would fall over the edge. He realized what the man had to do. ‘Your seat belt! Undo your seat harness!’
The man was beyond thinking in his panic. ‘HELP ME!’ he screeched.
‘UNDO YOUR FUCKING HARNESS!’ Grace screamed back.
There was a grinding sound. The helicopter lurched further. It was going. Only seconds left, Grace reckoned. ‘UNDO YOUR BELT – YOUR HARNESS!’
Suddenly he felt his arm almost wrenched out of its socket. Grace clung on for dear life. But it was no good. Still he clung. Clung.
Clung.
Saw those tiny, desperate eyes once more.
Then Nick Nicholl was beside him, reaching down into the helicopter. Grace heard a faint click. Then, as if in a dream, the helicopter was dropping upside down, away from him. Like a huge toy. Until it hit the ground, straddling the roofs of a black Mercedes and a small white Fiat. Almost instantaneously there was a huge ball of flame.
And the wriggling, petrified, dead weight of Venner was suspended below him, over the drop, supported by nothing except the grip he and Nicholl each had on a wrist, the metal strap of Venner’s watch cutting painfully into his hand.
Venner produced a long, gurgling whimper. The heat was burning Grace’s face. Venner was slipping. He had to hold on to him. He wanted this creep to live; death was too damned good for him. Somehow, he did not know from where, he found some strength; Nicholl seemed to find it too, at the same time. And the next moment, like a huge, blubbery fish, the fat pigtailed man was hauled to safety, up over the edge of the roof.
Venner lay on his back, yabbering in terror; there was a dark stain around his crotch where he had pissed himself. Moments later, with no time to spare, Grace roughly rolled him over onto his front, grabbed his hands and cuffed him. There was a vile stench; the creep had crapped himself as well, but Grace barely noticed; he was on autopilot now.
Yelling at Nicholl to get the man out of the building, Grace ran back to the fire exit, hurtled down the flights of steps and into the basement. Norman Potting, accompanied now by two uniformed constables, was kneeling beside Glenn Branson, who seemed semi-conscious.
‘This whole fucking place is going up! Let’s get him out!’ Grace yelled.
He shoved his arms under his friend’s shoulders, with a constable supporting his midriff and Potting and the other constable each taking a leg. They carried him up the stairs, then burst through a fire exit door into the car park, into a searing blast of heat from the blazing cars and the helicopter, the stench of burning paint and rubber, and a cacophony of sirens.
They carried Branson away as far as they could from the heat, until Grace saw an ambulance racing towards them.
They stopped. He looked down at Branson, bringing his face close to his mate’s. ‘How are you doing?’
‘Remember John Wayne, when he got shot in that movie-’ Branson said, his voice wheezy.
‘Did he live?’ Grace interrupted him.
‘Yeah, he lived.’
‘That how you feel?’
‘Yeah.’
Grace kissed him on the forehead. He couldn’t help it; he loved this man.
Then, standing back as the paramedics took over, he felt something cutting into his hand. He looked down and saw a blue-faced Breitling watch on a broken metal bracelet. It was covered in blood. His own blood.
It was the watch, he realized, which had been on the pigtailed man’s wrist. How the hell did he -?
And he thought back to a couple of hours earlier today, to the phone call he had had from the clairvoyant Harry Frame.
I’m getting a watch.
A watch? Like a wristwatch?
Exactly! A wristwatch! There is something very significant. A wristwatch will lead you to something very satisfying to do with a case you are working on. This case, I think.
Can you elaborate?
No, I… No, that’s all. As I said, I don’t know if it means anything.
Any particular make?
No. Expensive, I think.
Sucking at his hand to staunch the bleeding, he turned to Nick Nicholl, who was closing a police car door on Venner. ‘Do you know anything about wristwatches?’
His colleague was white, shaking. In a bad way. Seriously in shock. ‘Not a lot. Why?’
Grace held up the watch he was holding. ‘What about this?’
Norman Potting piped up, ‘That’s a Breitling.’
‘What do you know about them?’
‘Only that I could never afford one. They’re expensive.’
A constable came running towards them, looking petrified. ‘Please move away. We’re worried the whole building might go up – it’s full of chemicals.’
Suddenly seized with panic, Grace said, ‘Christ, where the hell are Mr and Mrs Bryce?’
‘It’s all right, sir,’ the constable said. ‘They’re in ambulances, on their way to hospital.’
‘Good man.’
87
Five minutes later, just as the first fire engine pulled up outside, the warehouse exploded. The blast blew out windows from buildings up to a quarter of a mile away. It was over two days before it was cool enough for the forensic investigators to enter and begin their grim task.
Three sets of human remains were eventually found. One would be identified in a few weeks’ time by his brother, still under police guard in hospital, from the partially melted gold medallion found around his neck. The second, just a human skull, would be identified from dental records as being Janie Stretton. The third would also be identified from dental records as being Andy Gidney.
The intense heat had made it impossible to determine, from what little remained of his bones, Gidney’s precise cause of death. And no one was able to offer any explanation of what he had been doing on the premises.
In a couple of months, Detective Sergeant Jon Rye of the High Tech Crime Unit would provide a report for the Coroner’s Court. And, for lack of evidence, the Coroner would have no option but to return an open verdict. More succinct but less informative than a shipping forecast.
It was half past four when Roy Grace finally left the blaze, which was a long way yet from being under control. He drove straight to the Royal Sussex County Hospital and went to find Glenn Branson in the emergency ward.