“Where is the van now?”
Keira looked up the road, and along came the van.
“It’s on the dual carriageway of the A40 heading down the hill towards the A412 and Denham. The M40 is not that far away.”
“How close are you?”
Keira watched as it drove past where she sat on the fence of a big field.
“A few cars back. There are definitely two people in it; a man and a woman. I think there might have been someone in the back. I didn’t get a good look.”
“We’ve got a helicopter on way. What vehicle are you in?”
Keira hesitated. What could she say?
She gave the Lambster’s car details, but pretended that they couldn’t remember the number.
“That’s fine. Keep the commentary going until we tell you that you can leave it.”
“Shit!” Keira said to herself. Taking a quick bound, she jumped ahead of the van and watched as it turned onto the M40, but instead of heading towards central London, it pulled over and let a man out of the back. Then it shot under the M40 and headed west, towards Oxford.
“Where the hell are you going now?” she asked.
“A man has just jumped out. He’s a scruffy little man with a backpack. He’s wearing grey trousers and a black anorak. He’s Asian or an Arab, I think. The backpack is blue. He’s walked under the motorway and is heading towards Uxbridge on foot.”
“Where’s the car going?”
“West along the M40 motorway.”
“Keep going.”
“It’s in the left lane, so it’s going to join the M25.”
Keira was about to jump when she heard the sound of a helicopter above her.
“It’s too far ahead,” she said, watching as the car indicated and joined the traffic onto the M25 heading south.
“We have it now, both on CCTV and the helicopter. Can you see the other man?”
She turned and saw the solitary figure walk past an Indian restaurant on the left hand side of the road towards Uxbridge.
“Yes, he’s still walking. I can follow on foot, if you like?”
“Good, we’ve got the van, so follow the man but don’t get too close. A car is heading from Uxbridge. What are you wearing, Keira?”
“Jeans and a tee shirt.
“Okay, just stay behind the man, don’t get too close.”
She was now walking, about a hundred and fifty yards behind the man. A silver police car with Metropolitan Police on the side came out from Uxbridge and drove past the man. It then did a U turn and pulled alongside her.
“Are you Keira Frost?” asked the female officer in the passenger seat.
“Yes.”
“Is that the man from the van?” she asked, pointing at the man a couple of hundred yards ahead of her.
“Yes.”
“Stay here, we’ll go and speak to him,” she said, and the police car started driving off.
The next few moments happened as if in slow motion for Keira. Relaxed and leaving it up to the police, she watched as the police car drove alongside the man and the roof lights came on.
Obviously the female officer must have said something to the man, for he stopped in his tracks.
As the officers prepared to exit their car, the man looked around, and Keira watched as he dropped the backpack, as his right hand started going towards his belt.
“He’s got a gun!” she said, aloud.
The female officer was now half out of the car, but was looking worried as the man was grasping at something at his belt. Her colleague was on the other side of the car, so had a look of impotent horror on his face as the girl must have shouted that he had a gun.
Keira never remembered jumping, but she must have. For the man was looking at the female officer as he drew something black from his pocket and started pointing it at the girl.
Keira hit him from the side, knocking him sprawling, and she just sat on him, so he could not reach the gun that now lay under the car.
The officer got out and was staring down at her with shock on her face.
“He had a gun,” Keira said, still sitting on the squirming man and pointing at the weapon that lay on the ground beneath the police car.
The woman gaped at her, glancing back to where they had left her. Her colleague was faster to react and came around and put the man in handcuffs; none to gently either.
“He had a gun, Sue!” he repeated, sounding slightly silly.
“How the hell did you do that?” the woman, Sue, asked, now that she had her powers of speech back.
“I started running just after you left me. There was something funny about him. I was right,” Keira said.
The male officer pointed to the backpack.
“Grab his pack and let’s see if anything else is in there,” he said.
“I wouldn’t. He could be the bomb maker, so he could have a detonator in there,” Keira said.
“She’s right, Cliff, don’t touch it,” Sue said, nodding in agreement, and got on the radio to call for a van and a firearms officer to deal with the gun.
Keira walked a little distance away and called Shannon.
“Where the fuck are you?” Shannon asked.
“They’ve just arrested a man from the van. He had a gun and tried to shoot the police. The helicopter is following the van onto the M25.”
“That doesn’t tell me where you are.”
“Oh, uh, Denham.”
“Shit. I’ll get the Lambster.”
Mrs Lambert was clued up enough to have returned to the college with her charges, and so was prepared to set off to claim her errant student. She called her on the mobile once Shannon had told her the number.
“I’ll be with you as soon as possible. Will they take you to the police station too?” she asked Keira.
“Probably; I sort of got involved when he produced a gun and tried to shoot the police.”
“Say as little as possible. If anyone asks, I was following the van with you, but you got out to follow the man on foot and I went after the car towards the M25, got that?”
“I had already planned that.”
“Good girl. I’ll bring Shannon, as I can’t trust her to be good when I’m gone.”
“Who was that?” the female officer asked.
“My teacher, the one in whose car I was. She’s coming back for me, but is stuck in traffic.”
“You can come to the station with us. Once the van gets here, they can take the prisoner while we wait for the ARV.”
“ARV?”
“Armed response vehicle. As there’s a firearm involved, we have to call one. They have to prove the weapon and make everything safe.”
“Oh. What about the pack?”
“They’ll check that too. Just how the hell did you cover that distance so quickly?” the girl asked again.
“I’m a fast runner.”
The girl shook her head, unable to discount her claim, as her focus had been on the man with the gun.
“You were bloody stupid, as he could have shot you.”
“Actually, he didn’t know I was there as he was going to shoot you, so I think I’d be a bit careful who I call stupid,” Keira said. Cliff, the male officer holding the prisoner, laughed.
“She’s got you there, Sue. Just thank the girl, as we owe her, big time.”
Keira smiled as if it was of no consequence.
The ARV arrived and two armed officers approached. One of them took the weapon, after photographing it where it lay first. He expertly unloaded it.
“It’s a nine millimetre, and its real,” he said, placing it in a special firearm evidence container.
They pointed out the backpack. The other officer gingerly opened it and then placed it gently on the ground, some way from the carriageway.
“Sod that, there’s stuff in there I’m not bloody touching. I’m calling the bomb squad.”
Another police car arrived, along with a van. The prisoner was placed in the van, where he was searched again before being driven away. A supervising officer came over and spoke to the first pair of officers. Keira watched as Sue kept pointing to her and where she had been when the officers first spoke to her. She smiled, as the distance she had covered was shortened by the officer to a distance her mind could accept.