A bone in her left thigh was sticking raggedly out through the skin. Her left arm was twisted and looked to be badly broken. She wasn’t moving. Rik thought she was dead.
‘ Repeat your message, caller,’ he heard his radio say.
He looked at the Range Rover getting further and further away, then to Nina. He knew where his priorities lay.
The first police car to respond squealed around the corner of the nearest side road. Henry Christie was at the wheel.
Chapter Seven
Normally Henry was a poor listener where the personal radio was concerned. Most of the time he had it turned right down or off. Generally he used it solely for his own convenience, but that afternoon he was glad he’d just checked Rider’s car and the volume was up.
He and Seymour were probably less than two hundred metres away from the incident. They were on the scene within seconds.
Henry’s experienced eyes took it all in. The policewoman lying on the road. The shattered windscreen of the police car. The shocked, ashen face of Rik Dean, a bobby Henry would have been very happy to have on the department. The public beginning to gather and gawp.
He pulled up alongside. Rik ran to him.
‘ Down there, down there,’ he pointed wildly. ‘Green Range Rover. Two on board, white males. Shotgun. Shot her. Shot at me! Christ!’
‘ OK pal, you stay here and look after her. Assistance’ll be along in a few seconds,’ Henry told him.
He rammed the gear lever into first and put his foot hard down on the accelerator.
Henry’s CID Rover was not equipped with blue lights or sirens. Nor was it ‘souped-up’ as so many misinformed members of the public would like to believe of police cars. It was a bog-standard saloon with no extras, bought at a massive discount with another forty-nine of the same model, all in a puke-green colour which tended to sell poorly to private customers. Hence the discount. Although quite new in terms of date of manufacture, it had been mistreated, badly driven and sneered at over the last eighty thousand miles of its police service. A typical cop car, in fact.
Despite all that, the engine was still pretty live1y.
Henry had to rely on the rather pathetic-souding horn, flashing his headlights and massively exaggerated hand signals — some rude — to make progress down the Promenade. He drove dangerously, taking-risks which would make him sweat on reflection. In and out of the traffic. Fitting the car into gaps that, by rights, were not wide enough for a motorcyclist, but which miraculously opened up as he hit them. He prayed his luck would hold out.
Next to him, Seymour held loosely onto his seat belt, swaying and rocking with the momentum, coolly relaying their position to comms in a flat unemotional voice. He might as well have been sitting in a pram.
‘ Tell them to get the helicopter up,’ Henry said. He braked sharply, making the car stand on its nose, veered acutely to the left and narrowly missed an on-coming Bentley.
He shook his head at his driving skills. It was just like being on his mobile surveillance course again.
But there was nothing to say that the Range Rover was even on the coast road now. Could easily have turned off, doubled back, anything. Henry carried on. Wherever he went it was a gamble.
It was surprising how far a vehicle can travel in a short time.
Although Henry had been on the scene very quickly, he was probably about ninety seconds behind the Range Rover even then. By the time he’d spoken to Rik, he was probably about two minutes behind.
And, of course, the Range Rover wanted to get away.
The occupants weren’t going to dawdle along and take in the sights any more. They wanted freedom.
And though Henry was driving like a maniac down the Promenade towards St Annes, he was constantly having to brake, slow down, swerve. If the Range Rover was having just a fraction of an easier time of it, the distance between them would be constantly increasing.
The comms operator, having got the full story from Rik and other officers now at the scene of the shooting, circulated the registered number of the Range Rover to all patrols. Within a minute or so the whole of Lancashire Constabulary were on the lookout for it. She also confirmed that Oscar November 21 — the force helicopter — would be in the air within minutes.
Four minutes after leaving the scene, Henry was driving through St Annes, a less brash, slightly posh resort to the south of Blackpool.
If he’s anything like smart, Henry thought to himself, he’ll dump the Range Rover pretty fucking soon, if he hasn’t already done so. It was an observation voiced a moment later by Seymour. Great detectives think alike!
‘ He could be anywhere now,’ Henry said with frustration. He eased his foot off the gas. ‘Shall we continue to gamble?’
‘ I don’t think we have a choice, boss.’
Henry visualised the pathetic bloodied figure of the policewoman lying on the road and agreed. They had to give it a shot for her.
His right foot pressed down again. They sped out of St Annes, through the next town, Lytham, emerging onto theA584, heading towards Preston. His hopes of coming up behind the Range Rover diminished with each passing second. He decided to drive to where the A584 joined the A583, at Three Nooks Junction. If he’d had no luck by then, he’d call it a draw and drive back to Blackpool.
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.