The Psychopath: A Maitland Noir Thriller #1, page 23
“Because he could have gone either way and anywhere from there. So many turnings.” Rick tries to keep the mounting panic out of his voice. “He’s not going to go the obvious way, is he?”
He bangs the steering wheel with his fist in frustration.
He slows the car. Brings it to a halt.
Looks back towards the way he has come.
“What are you stopping for? Rick! Don’t stop . . . just keep driving, go and find him.” She rubs furiously at the windows, trying to see out more clearly.
He revs the engine.
Begins to turn the car around.
Then stops, thinking.
“Nat, think for a minute . . . work it out; what would you do?”
“I’d be driving at ninety miles an hour looking for Orrey. Why don’t you? For fuck’s sake, Rick, this might be our only chance.” She punches him on the arm.
“No, Nat, stop, listen.”
She punches him again. “Drive, Rick, for fuck’s sake, drive.” He grabs her hands, pushing his face close to hers.
“Listen,” he snaps, “listen to me. I’ve worked it out. I know what he’s going to do. If we wait here, we’ll catch him. Trust me, Nat, I’ve worked it all through.”
She sits back, wrestling her hands free and turning away from him. She leans her head against the passenger window. “You idiot, Rick, you fucking idiot.”
“Nat, listen. Orrey will try to head out of town down the high street. It’s by far the quickest way from the cottage. But they will still have roadblocks up. That’s what they said.”
Nat turns back to look at him.
“He’ll be forced to come this way, towards the lanes. Eventually, anyway. There are too many lanes to block off. And so . . .” She nods, suddenly realising what he’s saying.
“And so . . .” she repeats, “ . . . if we sit here and wait, I’ll either get a phone call on my mobile any minute to say he’s been arrested at one of the roadblocks or, once he’s driven himself round and round in circles, he’ll come back down here and try to make his way out down the lanes.” The young man nods.
He begins to drive.
Reverses the car onto the side of the road, so it will not be seen.
They wait.
67
5.37pm, SUNDAY 1 NOVEMBER
William looks back at me with a serious expression on his face. I lean forward to kiss him again but he pulls further away, and starts struggling. He can sense, I think, that the coppers are upon us.
I sit up sharply.
Nobody there. My overactive imagination, hearing footsteps where there aren’t any; the mind plays tricks when it’s under pressure. God knows, but you should know that by now, shouldn’t you?
I slide across, pulling William back onto the passenger seat.
I look over towards where the policewoman lies, surrounded by people. The police car is there, two coppers out by the small crowd. I see the coppers bending over. Is she dead? I can’t tell. I think so. She has to be, given the force of the car hitting her.
I glance around, as I reach to start the car up again.
I cannot stay here a moment longer. It can only be a matter of time before the coppers start looking for this car. If the policewoman is alive, the coppers will lean forward and she will sit up as best she can and whisper urgently to them, “Renault Megane, blue, registration . . .’
All they have to do is look across.
And see it here, a blue Renault Megane . . .
With me sitting and watching, just asking to be caught.
I turn on the lights, start to drive, everything nice and normal, just as it should be. William sits in the passenger seat next to me. I turn and say, “Sing?”, nodding and smiling. He looks back at me but does not respond. I answer for him. Daddy – he now thinks of me as Daddy, you know – just needs to drive out of town and then we’ll have a sing-song. William watches me as I look back – a final check – towards the crowd.
In the distance, I hear what sounds like an ambulance, coming in from out of town. Would they call an ambulance for someone who’s dead? If she’s alive, I need to be quick, have to get out of here before the ambulance arrives and the coppers turn towards it. Maybe, just maybe, they will notice this car almost right in front of them. Even if they don’t, every fucking copper for miles around will soon know what I’m driving and they’ll all be watching for me.
I tug at the handbrake.
Off we go slowly.
Into the night.
I drive steadily, just like it’s any other car journey. Beyond the houses that peter out as the road turns eventually into an untreated track, wide enough for one car, tight for two, with the beach to the left and the harbour, speckled with lights, a way ahead. There are turnings, some lanes, a few dirt tracks, I think, to the right.
I need to make the correct choice, picking a bigger lane that will lead out and join up with other lanes into a bigger road and on, eventually, to the A12 and away. It’s quiet here, as the street lights fade, with just a few cars and boats parked up higgledy-piggledy by the beach. I slow further, looking for the turning to my right.
Nothing yet. I nudge the car on, telling William to think of some songs he’d like us to sing.
“In a minute,” I then hush, “Daddy’s looking for a turning.” He repeats the word. “Turr’ing,” it sounds like. “Road,” I say. “We are looking for a road . . . a road to take us to Disneyland.” “Dis’land?” he replies slowly.
“Yes, we have to drive down this road and get a coach and then a boat and we will, if we’re very good and very, very lucky, get to meet Micky and Donald and . . . the dog (or whatever the fuck it’s called). Are you going to be good, William?” I turn and look solemnly at him.
He looks back. No triumphant hands in the air this time. He knows he has to be on his best behaviour and that’s what we need if we are going to get away.
“William has to be good. A good boy for his daddy. Can you do that for me, William, be a good little boy?”
He looks away, out of the window, as if something has caught his eye.
I turn, just in time to see a car’s lights turn on, and watch in my rear-view mirror as the car rolls forward and onto the track behind me. I accelerate smoothly. It seems to do the same, sitting close to my tail. So close its lights almost disappear out of view.
Coincidence? Just a regular guy, a fisherman going down to the harbour? Or a plain-clothes CID copper in a car, covering this end of town? I slow my car, watching all the time in my rear-view mirror. The car does exactly the same.
“Be a good boy now, William, just sit nicely for Daddy.” My heart is in my mouth. What do I do if it’s a copper? Drive on to the harbour? What then? A boat? Can I get that far ahead? Even if I could, how would I even start a boat – I’ve no fucking idea.
I check the mirror again; the car is close behind and all I can see are its lights bouncing up and down on the uneven track as it keeps pace with me. I can’t tell who’s in it or how many there are. One? Two? I have a chance if it’s one and I can get him alone before the other cars follow him down here.
Should I stop, pull over, get out of the car, ready to take him on?
Or keep going to the harbour and confront him there?
Whatever happens, I have to do it with no one about, that’s for sure.
Suddenly I see, some way ahead, close to the harbour, the lights of another car being switched on. The car swings out, one hundred yards or so away. It’s coming towards me. The track now seems so narrow and I don’t know if there is enough room for us to pass without one or other pulling over to the side. Is that the plan, though? To force me off? Do I now have a copper behind and a copper racing towards me?
We’ll know in a minute or so; I have no choice but to keep going.
The car behind stays close – too close for my liking if I have to brake suddenly.
The car ahead is still coming at me and one of us needs to give way, I think. I’m sure it’s too tight for us to both pass by at the same time.
Is that how coppers work? One in front, the other behind? The one in front forcing me off the road, the coppers in the car behind racing to drag me out? Would they dare do that, though, risk injuring or even killing an innocent little boy in a head-on collision.
I don’t think so.
But I’m not one hundred per cent sure.
What the hell do I do?
Thank God, the turning I want is just ahead of me. I think I can get there, before the car in front of me does.
If I accelerate now.
Hard and fast.
I press my foot down.
68
5.40pm, SUNDAY 1 NOVEMBER
“Rick-k-k,” screams Nat, “too close!”
Rick eases his foot fractionally off the accelerator.
“I have to ram him. Off the road. Do your belt u . . .”
They both see – at the same instant – the car on the far side coming towards them.
“Will,” she shouts, “you’ll kill him.”
He hesitates.
Then eases back.
He sees the car in front swing at speed, almost swerving off the road, into the lane to the right.
The car on the far side is now almost upon them.
It swerves towards the lane to avoid them.
“Brake Rick, brake,” she cries, drawing in her breath.
Too late.
The cars collide.
A long silence.
The driver’s door is wrenched open.
“You stupid . . .”
Rick, dazed, struggles up, reaching for his seat belt, and unhooking it.
“I’m sorry, so sorry . . . He’s got our son, Will. He was getting away.”
“What the hell were you thinking, driving so fast, have you seen what you’ve done to my new . . .”
Ricks gets out the car, pushing by the man, moving around the other car, skewed and blocking the lane, the front crushed in, lights broken.
“He’s getting away, I have to stop him. He has our son. You have to move it.”
The other driver, younger and more physical, glares at him in anger. Bemused. Not understanding.
Rick turns back, glancing at his wife.
“Nat, Christ, Nat . . .”
She lays with her head against the dashboard. Blood is trickling down her forehead. She is unconscious.
“Please,” he says to the angry man. “You have a phone? Please call the ambulance. I have to . . .”
Rick turns and moves away on foot.
He is hoping somehow that the car he was chasing, which had swung and swerved at speed into the lane, might have lost control and crashed just a little way away.
That Orrey may be stunned and dazed.
The little boy unharmed somehow.
Rick will reunite with William and return to Nat waking up in their car.
A family again.
69
5.42pm, SUNDAY 1 NOVEMBER
It’s dark.
In the lane.
I accelerate away.
Looking back, I see the two cars, the one behind me and the one ahead, have crashed into each other at the entrance to the turning. I see what looks like a man – hard to tell from the distance – running down the lane. As if he might catch me. I watch as he slows, stops and raises his hands towards me.
Dear God.
It’s Veitch, I swear it is.
How can that be?
I drive on, as fast as possible. The lane, unlit, twists to the left and then to the right before resuming its long, straight path.
I cannot see the cars any more. I assume Veitch will be running back, getting the other car to reverse, allowing him to drive into the lane, to chase me down.
How could this happen?
Why is he here?
How could he know?
I accelerate up to thirty miles per hour, as fast as I dare. There are hedgerows to either side, high, far too high for me to see the fields beyond. If anyone or anything comes out of a side gate, they’ve no chance. I daren’t slow down, though, not now. Veitch will never give up, I know that.
I look back, expecting, at any moment, the lights of the car behind me to come bobbing and weaving into my rear-view mirror. And when I do? The track is straight and far too narrow for him to overtake. I will accelerate, that’s all. Faster and faster. On and on.
Until I outpace him and break free or he catches up and it’s all over. One way or the other, he will never take me. I swear that to you, on my little boy’s life.
Any second now, I will see the lights of the car. I’m waiting.
He’s coming at any moment. I am not even breathing.
Nothing yet. But by God, it’s any second.
On I go. The track runs into and through scrubland to either side, then dips down and back up into woodland. Should I pull over, hide the car in the trees, snatching William up and making a run for it? How far would I get? I’d only have a minute or two’s head start and could never outrun Veitch, not with William in my arms.
Is he behind me? I can’t tell, not with the trees in the way.
Is that a beam of light from a car, shining between the trees? A trick of the light? My car headlights reflecting off some long-abandoned, broken-down wreck in the woods?
I have to keep going, just keep on.
The lane opens up into a wider road, enough for two cars to go side by side, and I can see ahead for a short stretch. I jiggle the rear-view mirror, lining it up with the spread of trees I’ve just driven through. I’m waiting for the tell-tale pinpricks of light that reveal the car closing in on us, signalling that we’re coming to the end of it all.
Nothing, no car in sight.
I keep watch, shushing William to soothe him, adjusting the mirror as the lane eases first to the left and then to the right.
Still nothing there.
Should have been by now.
Where is he?
And then I get to a crossroads. Perfect, just fucking perfect. I can turn left, right or go straight on. I’ve lost my sense of direction, not sure which way to go. Straight on is too obvious. Right might double-back. I go left, into a long sweeping arc of a lane.
I dim the lights.
Keep going.
A two-to-one chance of getting away; and better, with every minute that passes.
One minute.
Two minutes.
Three, four and eventually five.
I’m breathing again; it’s as if I have held my breath since that turning. I’m sweating too, can feel it in the small of my back. I hadn’t realised how hard I had been gripping the steering wheel, a real white-knuckle ride.
I sink back into my seat, breathing a sigh of relief. I feel my confidence surging. Fact is, we’re going to do this, we are going to get away. No ifs or buts or maybes about it any more. We’ve got out of that shithole of a town and are now putting miles and miles between us as the minutes pass and nobody and nothing is on our tail.
Done and dusted?
Not quite – but we’re going to go free.
I can tell you that with cast-iron certainty.
70
5.58pm, SUNDAY 1 NOVEMBER
“Go?” asks the old man, his voice shaking with anger. “I don’t believe this. How can we just go? Now, of all times? They’ve only just taken that poor police girl away.”
“We always planned to leave this afternoon – and we are leaving much later than we planned.” The old woman stands at the foot of the stairs, looking into the living room where the old man sits, breathing heavily. “I’m going to pack. Start tidying up.”
He struggles to his feet, exhausted suddenly by all that’s happened. “How can you possibly leave with all of this going on? William goodness knows where. Richard and Natalie chasing him. We can’t just go . . . go? Anything could happen.”
“That’s as maybe,” she shouts back down the stairs, “but it won’t happen here. Everyone has now gone . . . the police. Ambulance. We’re left on our own. The police will attend to matters.”
She moves out of earshot but he can hear her above, walking about, pulling clothes out of drawers and cupboards, packing them into suitcases.
He sits back down, cursing under his breath. “We can’t just go,” he says loudly, shouting back. “Richard and Natalie will come here if they cannot find him. They will want to tell the police where they looked. They’ll expect us to . . .”
He stops talking, looking about the room at all the things he needs to pick up and tidy away if they are going. He swears, suddenly sick of it all, of everything, as he gets to his feet, moving to the kitchen to get carrier bags to collect the bits and pieces and to throw away the rubbish.
She comes back down the stairs as he starts to stuff leftover food and old newspapers into a carrier bag. He looks at her and she stares back, waiting for him to glance away as he always does.
He doesn’t this time.
“I’ve had enough,” he says flatly.
“I’ve had enough of it.” He repeats himself, almost absent-mindedly.
“It’s over.”
She ignores him and carries on talking.
“You’ll need to go upstairs and get the suitcases for me. They’re too heavy to carry down, with my wrists. You do that while I tidy up properly here.”
She passes him a pile of board games. “Take these up as you go.”
He stops, thinking for a minute before speaking as calmly as he can. “We cannot possibly leave while Richard and Natalie have gone. Anything could have happened. We have to sit here and wait. They might need us . . . to help.”
She places a half-empty cup of tea on top of the board games.
“Tip this down the sink and wash it up,” she says.
“And put the boy’s bicycle outside the back door, save us tripping over it every two minutes.”
“We cannot go now just so we can get home at a decent time. It is not fair on Richard or Natalie. And think about the kiddie, little William, about what might possibly be happening to him.”
“And this filthy thing,” she adds, pointing to the axe by the fire. That needs to go back into the shed.”
He looks at the axe.
