As soon as he was alone, Jack pulled out his phone and promptly swore. He had forgotten to switch it back on after coming out of The Bailey. How had he managed that, he wondered?
As soon as the phone powered up, he saw there were numerous missed calls, voicemails, and text messages, all from Tony Dillon.
“Shit,” he said, and immediately started dialling the big man’s number.
The call was answered after the first ring. “Where the bloody heck have you been?” Dillon snapped at him by way of greeting. There was an air of desperation in his voice, and Jack was immediately wracked with guilt.
“Sorry, Dill,” he said, sheepishly. “Been having a bit of a problem with my phone.” The problem being, he decided to omit, was that it hadn’t been turned on when it was meant to be.
The excuse didn’t wash. “Kelly been having the same problem, has she?” Dillon asked. His tone was acid.
Tyler felt himself blush. “Look, I’m really sorry mate,” he said, avoiding the question, “but I’m here now. Tell me what’s happened?”
Dillon gave him the main headlines, and then vented his frustration at how things had turned out. He clearly blamed himself for not being more insistent that an armed guard be put in place for the duration of Winston’s hospital incarceration.
“It’s not your fault,” Tyler said, angry that his friend felt responsible for something he had absolutely no control over.
The simple fact of the matter was that the drug squad skipper in charge of the production had carried out a thorough risk assessment in conjunction with the host borough. They had jointly concluded that Winston was only a medium risk and that, even though he had previously had access to guns, there was no current intelligence to suggest that he remained a firearms threat, or that his criminal associates had the means or the desire to facilitate a breakout. Dillon had made representations in the strongest possible terms that Winston ought to have armed officers guarding him for the duration of his hospital stay but, ultimately, he had no power to enforce his recommendations.
Dillon clearly didn’t share Jack’s view. “I’m not so sure that the dead officer, or the two beat cops who’ve been drugged, or the seriously injured pilot would agree with you,” he said. “Winston’s disappeared into thin air and, if the drug squad has any idea where he might be, they ain’t saying. One of the twats who turned up to collect Winston this afternoon had the temerity to tell me he that couldn’t share any information with us unless it’s cleared at a higher level. I nearly knocked him out when he said that.”
Despite the seriousness of the situation, Jack had to smile. He suspected the drug squad officer had been sent on his way with a flea in his ear. “Can’t you just ask your mate? What was his name, Frank Skinner?”
Dillon gave a derisive snort. “Turns out that Frankie boy isn’t quite the mate I thought he was. He’s the fucker who’s refusing to pool information.”
◆◆◆
When the marked police car swerved in front of him at the traffic lights, Errol’s heart nearly burst straight out of his chest.
He had been sitting there wracking his brains, trying to figure out a way to explain the mess he’d gotten himself into to Sonia, but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t see any way of avoiding her wrath. She was a feisty cow at the best of times. She would hit the roof when she found out what he’d done, and then she would probably hit him.
When the funny South Park song had started playing on the radio, he’d turned the volume to max and sung along heartily to take his mind off of his predicament for a couple of minutes. The blaring music, he now realised, must have blocked out the noise of their approaching sirens because he hadn’t heard them coming.
With the windows all steamed up by condensation, he hadn’t seen them either, not until it was too late.
In the back of his mind, there was a vague recollection that black Taxi cabs were meant to have an amazing turning circle, and he decided that there would never be a better time to put that to the test.
Without even checking his mirror, he grabbed the gear selector and rammed it up a notch, moving it from neutral into reverse, and then he gunned the accelerator for all he was worth. He could clearly hear police officer shouting at him as they spilled out of the car and ran towards him, although most of what they were saying was muffled by Mr Hanky singing The Christmas Poo song.
The cab jolted backwards, but only about an inch, and then it came to an abrupt halt. He tried revving the gas pedal but nothing happened.
“What the fuck…?” Looking back over his shoulder, he saw that some stupid ginger-haired woman had stopped so close that there couldn’t have been more than a fag paper’s worth of gap between their bumpers.
Fucking women drivers, he fumed. It was the sort of dumb thing that he was always telling Sonia off for doing; that woman of his just didn’t have any spatial awareness.
Ignoring the muffled shouts from outside, he dragged the selector down into drive and spun the steering wheel as far as it would go to the right. He was dimly aware of two coppers standing right outside his window, pointing at him, but the side windows were too heavily misted for him to take in any detail. The good thing about the fogging, he realised, was that it would prevent the pigs from getting a detailed look at his features.
As the cab lurched forward, it almost collided with the side of the big police car blocking its path. So much for the cab’s fabled turning circle. He considered ramming the car, but it was
