he needed to do was to accelerate and he’d wipe her out. The idea flashed through his mind. But that would bring more complications than it would solve.
She turned at the sound of his engine and waved her arms even more frantically.
‘Help me! Please help me!’ she screamed, stepping into his path.
He had to brake sharply to avoid hitting her.
Then, as she peered through the windscreen, her eyes widened in terror.
It was his hood, he realized. He’d forgotten he still had it on.
She backed away almost in slow motion, then turned and ran, as fast as she could again, tripping, stumbling, screaming, her shoes falling off, first the left one, then the right one.
Suddenly a fire exit door to his right opened and a uniformed police officer came running out.
He floored the accelerator, screeching the van around and down the next ramp, then raced towards the twin exit barriers.
And suddenly realized he hadn’t paid his ticket.
There was no one in the booth, but in any case he didn’t have time. He kept on accelerating, bracing himself for the impact. But there was no impact. The barrier flew off as if it was made of cardboard and he sped on, up into the street, and kept going, dog-legging left, then right around the rear of the hotel, until he reached the traffic lights at the seafront.
Then he remembered his hood. Hastily he tugged it off and shoved it in his pocket. Someone behind him hooted angrily. The light had turned green.
‘OK, OK, OK!’
He accelerated and stalled the van. The vehicle behind hooted again.
‘Fuck you!’
He started the van, jerked forward, turned right and headed west along the seafront towards Hove. He was breathing in short, sharp gulps. Disaster. This was a disaster. Had to get away from here as quickly as he could. Had to get the van off the road.
The traffic lights ahead were turning red. The drizzle had transformed his windscreen to frosted glass. For an instant he debated whether to run the lights, but a long, articulated lorry had already started moving across. He halted, nervously pounding the steering wheel with the palms of his hand, then flicked on the wipers to clear the screen.
The lorry was taking forever to move across. It was towing a bloody trailer!
Out of the corner of his eye he saw something. Someone to his right was waving at him. He turned his head and his blood froze.
It was a police car.
He was boxed in. That damned lorry towing the trailer belonged to a circus or something and was moving at the speed of a snail. Another great big artic was right behind him.
Should he get out and run?
The officer in the passenger seat continued waving at him, and pointing, with a smile. The officer pointed at his own shoulder, then at him, then back at his own shoulder again.
He frowned. What the hell was his game?
Then he realized.
The officer was telling him to put on his seat belt!
He waved back and pulled it on quickly. Clunk-click.
The officer gave him a thumbs-up. He returned it. All smiles.
Finally, the lorry was gone and the lights turned green. He drove on steadily, keeping strictly to the limit, until, to his relief, the police car turned off into a side street. Then he upped his speed, as fast as he dared.
One mile to go. One mile and he would be safe.
But that bitch would not be.
83
Thursday 15 January
Glenn Branson’s driving had always reduced Roy Grace to a state of silent terror, but even more so since he had got his green pursuit ticket. He just hoped never to have the misfortune to be in a car when his colleague used it in earnest.
But this Thursday afternoon, as the Detective Sergeant bullied the unmarked silver Ford Focus through the Brighton rush-hour traffic, Grace was silent for a different reason. He was immersed in thought. He didn’t even react as he saw the old lady step out from behind the bus and hastily jump back as they drove past well over the speed limit.
‘It’s OK, old-timer, I saw her!’ Glenn said.
Grace did not reply. Norman Potting’s suspect had been released at midday, and now this afternoon, in exactly the place the profiler, Dr Julius Proudfoot, had predicted, an attempted attack had taken place.
Of course, it might not be connected to the Shoe Man, but from the limited amount he had heard so far, it had all the hallmarks. Just how good was it going to look if the man they had released was the man who had now done this?
Glenn switched on the blues and twos to help them through the snarled-up traffic at the roundabout in front of the Pier, reaching to the panel and altering the tones of the sirens every few seconds. Half the drivers in the city were either too dim-witted to be behind a steering wheel, or deaf, or blind – and some were all three, Grace thought. They passed the Old Ship Hotel, then staying on King’s Road, Glenn took the traffic island at the junction with West Street on the wrong side, swerving almost suicidally across the path of an oncoming lorry.
Probably not a good idea to be driven by someone whose marriage was on the rocks and didn’t think he had anything to live for any more, Grace thought suddenly. But fortunately they were approaching their destination. The odds on stepping out of the car intact, rather than being cut out of it by a fire engine rescue crew, were improving.
Moments later they turned up the road beside the Grand Hotel and stopped as they reached what looked like a full-scale siege. There were too many police cars and vans clustered around the entrance to the car park behind it to count, all with their blue-light spinners rotating.
Grace was out of the car almost before the wheels had stopped. A cluster of uniformed officers, some in high- visibility jackets and some in stab vests stood around, in front of a blue-and-white chequered crime scene tape, along with several onlookers.
The only person who seemed to be missing was reporter Kevin Spinella from the Argus.
One of the officers, the Duty Inspector, Roy Apps, was waiting for him.
‘Second floor, chief. I’ll take you up there.’
With Glenn Branson, on his phone, striding behind, they ducked under the tape and hurried into the car park. It smelt of engine oil and dry dust. Apps updated him as they walked.
‘We’re lucky,’ he said. ‘A particularly bright young PC, Alec Davies, who was in the car park’s CCTV room with the attendant, thought there might be more to this and got it all sealed off before we arrived.’
‘Have you found anything?’
‘Yes. Something that may be interesting. I’ll show you.’
‘What about the van?’
‘The CCTV room at Brighton nick picked it up travelling west along Kingsway towards Hove. The last sighting was of it turning right up Queen Victoria Avenue. We dispatched all available patrols and a Road Policing Unit car to try to intercept, but so far no contact.’
‘We have the index?’
‘Yes. It’s registered to a decorator who lives in Moulsecoomb.
I’ve got a unit watching his house. I’ve also got RPU cars covering all exits from the city in the direction he was travelling, and we’ve got Hotel 900 up.’
Hotel 900 was the police helicopter.
