She said, “In First. We let First Class off before the rest. He’s already gone, I think.-Hey? Did that big black man get off already?” she asked a colleague.
“He’ll be heading for immigration,” said Tozer.
As Breen started to run back towards the main building he heard the sergeant saying, “E-Z-E-oh, bugger it. Black bloke,” into his walkie-talkie. He looked over his shoulder and saw Tozer running behind him.
They ran back up the stairs they’d descended only a few minutes earlier and were suddenly in amongst the throng of passengers arriving at the airport from around the world. Tozer barged ahead. “This way,” she shouted. “Passports.”
They ran fast now, following the line of passengers. “Police!” shouted Tozer. “Make way.”
Breen dashed after Tozer, who seemed to know her way around airports, following the signs for Passports. Ahead, a long queue of people craned their necks towards a row of desks. Breen pulled out his warrant card, ready to flash it.
“Excuse me,” he said, moving through the crowd.
A large woman in a white hat said, “Wait your turn like anyone else.”
“Sorry, ma’am. Police.”
“That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t wait your turn.”
Breen apologized again and firmly pushed past her.
“Absolute cheek.”
Breen spotted him. Dressed in a gray business suit, Ezeoke stood in front of one of the desks, holding out his passport, smiling to the young man sitting behind it.
Breen pushed on through the crowd of waiting people.
“Oi, who you shoving?” someone shouted.
In that moment Ezeoke looked up to see what the fuss was about and spotted Breen. The big man’s first expression was puzzlement, as if he was trying to remember where he knew him from. His second was a frown, as if he were processing the new information. He turned back to the young man at the desk who was holding out his passport, smiled back at him, took the passport and set off briskly.
“Police,” called Breen loudly, holding up his warrant card.
People looked round.
“Let us through.”
Reluctantly people pushed their bags aside as Breen and Tozer barged through.
The man on the immigration desk looked startled as they held up their cards. “Can you get them to close the customs doors?” Tozer shouted.
Breen didn’t understand airports. He wasn’t sure what she was asking. The young man on the immigration desk looked equally confused. “I could ask.”
She pushed past an Indian man and his family and ran into the clear space behind, Breen following.
Looking down the corridor lined with gaudy photographs of Buckingham Palace and the Changing of the Guard, Breen could see no sign of Ezeoke. They both started to run again in the direction they had seen him disappear into-following signs that read Baggage Reclaim.
They were in a corridor that somehow seemed to be suspended above the tarmac. Windows to the left-hand side looked out over runways and planes, where passengers streamed downstairs into waiting buses.
They rounded a corner and before he knew what was happening, Breen went flying into a mop bucket that a cleaner had left by the side of the wall, falling awkwardly. He came down on his bad side. Pain exploded through his shoulder.
He looked up. The cleaner was standing there, mop in hand, an angry look on his face.
Tozer had stopped, looking back at him, then down the corridor where they had been heading before he fell. “Go on,” Breen shouted. “Catch him.”
Tozer hesitated, then something caught her eye out of the window. “Bloody hell. How did he get there?”
Breen struggled to his feet, shoulder throbbing.
She was gazing out of the window at the airport outside. He looked too. There, running steadily across the tarmac between the planes, Samuel Ezeoke, briefcase still in hand, weaving his dogged way between the queues of waiting passengers. They watched him pass a Lockheed Constellation that was taxiing slowly onto the runway. For a while he disappeared behind a BP petrol tanker, then appeared again, still running into the far distance.
They sat in the small office that served as the police’s Airport HQ while the inspector talked on the phone.
“If they’d been here on time, as agreed, we would have been at the gate to apprehend the gentleman,” he was saying.
“You had his name and the flight he was on,” snapped Tozer.
The inspector looked at the woman police constable disapprovingly.
On the wall above a set of filing cabinets was a framed picture of the Leeds United squad from last year’s season. It was signed by a few of them. Breen recognized Norman Hunter, Jack Charlton and Don Revie’s signatures; he couldn’t make out the rest.
“You don’t get many coons running around London Airport runways,” the inspector was saying. “Even you should spot him easy.”
He put the phone down, shook his head. “We have work enough to do without having to run around looking for someone you chased out onto the runway. For God’s sake.”
“If they’d been there on time we wouldn’t have been chasing him,” muttered Tozer. “It was him. It proves it. He ran. And we lost him.”
The inspector caught Breen looking at the poster. “You a United fan?”
Breen shook his head. His father had always been Manchester United. He rubbed his shoulder. It ached.
“Nor me, really. I’m Crystal Palace, but I got them when they came through from an away match in Amsterdam. Not bad, eh? I got Sonny and Cher the other day. Lovely couple.”
“He could be dangerous. It’s possible he’s killed a woman.”
“We’re professionals here.”
“Right,” said Tozer.
“Can we help look for him?” said Breen.
“You two stay put. We had to stop all flights from Terminal 1 because he got away. Do you have any idea how much money that costs? We’re here to ensure the smooth running of the airport, not to turn it into a circus. You two stay right here. We’ll get him. You’ll see.”
He pointed to a map of the three terminals. “This is the future of transport, right here. And it’s just beginning. Air travel is within the reach of ordinary men and women. Spain. Greece. Soon they’ll have passenger planes that can travel faster than the speed of sound. Getting to New York will be like getting on a bus to Reading.”
The phone rang. “That’ll probably be him caught now, you’ll see.” The inspector picked up the phone and said, “Yes?”
Tozer said to Breen as the inspector answered the phone, “I hate Leeds United. What’s your team?”
“I don’t really have a team.”
“I can’t say I’m surprised.”
“Thanks.”
“Christ almighty,” said the inspector. “Oh, good God. Christ al-bloody-mighty.” Tozer and Breen stopped their conversation. “What with? Oh God. Did you get an ambulance? I see. I’ll be right there.”
Thirty
The policeman lay in a wide culvert by the side of the road, legs sprawled upwards, head down in the ditch. A swallow tattoo showed on the exposed flesh of his arm. Drizzle covered the serge of his uniform in a light sheen. It looked like there had been a struggle, but not a very long one. There was a large dark stain on his tunic where the knife had punctured his heart.
A couple of other officers stood in the misty light, looking down at their fallen colleague. One eye gazed skywards, the other was covered by his helmet, knocked askew.
Nearby a blackbird flew down into the culvert and pecked among the weeds.
“It was his birthday yesterday,” said one of the coppers.
“That’s right.”
The inspector looked furiously at Breen. “He was a good man.”
His voice was drowned by the roar of an airliner passing what felt like only a few feet above their heads. Breen turned in time to see the wheels bouncing down onto the tarmac beyond them, sending up a blurt of black smoke. The runway shimmered with the heat haze of the plane’s jet engines’ deafening reverse thrust. He watched the plane sway and shudder as it slowed.