Dillon made his way back to the cutter and knocked on the wheelhouse door loud enough to rattle the glass. “Police. Can you open up.” He gave it a few seconds, but when there was no sign of movement inside, he knocked even louder. “Open the door. This is the police and I need to speak to you.”
His mobile rang. It was Steve Bull. “Boss, the dog unit has arrived. Where do you want the handler to deploy his land shark?”
“Send him over to me,” Dillon said. “I’m by a boat called The Golden Sunrise. Can’t miss it, it’s a fifty foot cutter.”
◆◆◆
Inside The Golden Sunrise, Winston had hurriedly dressed in his still wet clothes and then concealed himself in one of the double berths that came off the wheelhouse. He lay with his back pressed against the hull, hardly daring to breathe in case he gave his location away.
His insides twisted with hatred. Dillon had been a constant thorn in his side since they’d first crossed paths last year, and he was determined to take care of him once and for all before making a run for it.
The carving knife’s plastic handle felt very comforting in his hand, and he had no doubt that it would feel equally good to ram twelve inches of cold hard steel into the interfering detective’s gut.
Sliding across the bed until he reached the end, he crawled across the wheelhouse floor and took up a position behind the door. Heart beating like crazy, he gently undid the lock.
Come on, pig, come in and let me skewer you.
Nothing happened.
Winston visualised sticking the knife in Dillon’s stomach and twisting it backwards and forwards as he stared into the pig’s dying eyes. “Come on, come on…” he hissed. “Open the fucking door and let me kill you.”
Still nothing.
Growing impatient, Winston reached out and gently twisted the door handle, cringing as the mechanism clicked. Nervously licking his lips, he pulled it inward, allowing the door to open an inch. Surely, the dumb pig would see this and get curious?
◆◆◆
Dillon had remained on the cutter’s deck because, despite being more exposed to the elements up there, its elevated position gave him a slightly better view of the search now being carried out along the quay than he’d get from the jetty.
To their credit, the local officers were systematically working their way along the moorings from the start of the quay towards his current location, while other officers had been given fixed points at strategic locations to ensure that all the possible exit routes were covered.
As he awaited the dog handler’s arrival, he casually glanced back at the cutter’s door, wondering if he should try and wake up the occupants one last time.
He almost didn’t notice that anything had changed at first, and when he did, he wondered if his eyes were playing tricks on him.
“What the…?” Dillon shone the torch onto the door, confirming that it was definitely ajar. His face morphed into a mask of suspicion. It had definitely been locked before. He knew that for sure because he had tried the handle several times, pulling it so hard that it had almost snapped off. Something was wrong here; how could it have possibly sprung open on its own?
“Hello,” Dillon called out, walking cautiously towards the door. “Is anyone inside?”
As before, there was no response.
He pushed it open and shone his torch inside, but the beam was so weak by now that it barely illuminated the companionway steps that led down into the saloon. Almost immediately, the light flickered and then went out.
“Great,” he said, violently shaking the torch. When that didn’t work, he tried slapping it but it was obviously dead. He shoved the torch into his coat pocket, wishing that he’d had the foresight to put new batteries in before leaving the office.
Dillon cautiously poked his head into the blackness within. “HELLO. IT’S THE POLICE,” he bellowed. He was about to step inside and feel for a light switch when a shapeless form detached itself from the blackness around it. Ragged breathing accompanied the movement, and Dillon had been doing the job long enough to recognise the sound of a desperate man preparing to make a dash for it when he heard it. Feeling the hairs on the nape of his neck stand up, he retreated into the centre of the deck, running his eyes over it for something that could be used as a makeshift weapon.
“It’s over, Winston, so you might as well come out,” he yelled, knowing he was wasting his breath but feeling compelled to at least try and reason with the man. He wished the dog handler would hurry up; in his experience, even psychotics like Winston tended to think twice about having a go when a salivating German Shepherd was snapping at them.
“Don’t be a mug,” Dillon told him. “It won’t end well for you if you kick-off, so why don’t you just do the sensible thing for once and come quietly?”
As the first bitingly cold drops of rain started to fall, blown inland from the English Channel, Dillon raised his eyes to the heavens. At that precise moment, a huge figure exploded out of the wheelhouse door in a feral howl of rage and charged at Dillon, its right hand held above its head.
Dillon’s eyes widened as he caught sight of the fearsome blade protruding from the gangster’s hand, and he instinctively took a hurried step backwards to put some distance between them.
There was no time for conscious thought, only instinctive reaction as Dillon somehow managed to duck under the incoming blow and swivel out of harm’s way.
Winston’s forward momentum carried him straight past the detective, who shoved him hard in the back, propelling him into the ship’s wheel at the bow of the boat.
Snagging his arm on one of the protruding spokes, Winston screamed in anger as
