‘Bollocks!’ grumbled Newport. ‘Hold on.’
Slamming her foot to the floor, she pulled the same stunt, gunning the unit through the speeding traffic. Other vehicles skidded to a halt in the junction, the smell of torque and burning rubber blitzing the air.
York gripped tightly onto the hand bar above the door. Thudding back and forth in his seat, his hat tipped off into the foot well.
At the next junction the cab didn’t even slow for the lights, bolting across at devastating speed. Was the driver in league with the messenger or was he being coerced? York guessed the latter.
This time Newport wasn’t so lucky. She gunned it and pounded the pedal as a convoy of vehicles poured into the junction and blocked her exit. Bashing a heavy foot down on the brake pedal, the car fishtailed into the junction, the back end of the vehicle moving out until they were travelling sideways into a swarm of cars and vans at speed.
York screwed his eyes closed. Was this it? Was this how it all ended? Was the last thing he heard on planet earth going to be his partner's intense cursing?
Then came the impact, the screech of metal on metal. He clung to the handrail, squeezed his eyes tighter, tighter, until…
Calm. Utter calm. The only sounds to hear were the occasional car horn or angry driver. York dared open his eyes. Newport was still beside him. She was staring at him, wide-eyed. ‘Whoa!’ was all she said.
They’d collided with one car only; there was no pileup. He glanced shakily along Blackfriars, the Oxo tower looming dominantly in a trio of iconic letters. He reached for the radio.
Newport climbed from the car and jogged to the vehicle they’d hit.
‘This is York,’ he said, adrenaline buzzed. ‘We lost the suspect. Over.’
A crackle. ‘This is Eyes-in-the-Sky. We saw, Nick. You were lucky to escape a bad one there. Over.’
‘Do you still have eyes on the messenger? Over.’
‘Got some bad news for you. Another junction after he gave you the slip, the cab pulled into a rank. There are dozens of identical cabs parked in there, there was no way to lock down which one was carrying the suspect. Over.’
‘For fuck's sake!’ York tossed the radio aside, abandoned the car and sprinted in the taxi’s wake, Newport at his heel.
As they reached the entrance to the taxi rank, the second unmarked unit showed up, a couple of uniforms inside. ‘Stay here and block the entrance,’ York advised. ‘Don’t let any more cabs come in, and sure as hell don’t let any leave. Our man still might be here.’
Jogging into the bustle of the taxi hive, York and Newport spread out.
This was a nightmare. Without the messenger, the recipient was smoke.
Slamming his sixth cab door closed, York cursed under his breath.
‘Guv,’ called Newport from a handful of cabs away. ‘You’d better take a look at this.’
As he approached, he prepared for his partner to hammer home that final nail of failure, and she did so brutally. On the back seat of the cab was the envelope, torn open and left behind, bug and all.
9
The twilight sky had turned gun-metal grey and the clouds had begun weeping quietly. The evening remained warm though.
Back in the passenger seat of the unmarked unit, York scooped up his trilby and planted it back on his head. His mind was wandering. Newport had tried to talk to him a couple of times but he hadn’t responded. He had to work this out.
He had to think.
An innocent girl or a despicable man was going to suffer tonight because of their failings. Because of his failings. Was his solution to the puzzle even correct? The pursuit hadn’t gone well either, and that had been his doing. He glanced down at his palms expecting to find spilt blood staining his skin.
Newport said something else, but he didn't hear it. He was worried about her. She hadn't admitted anything was wrong but there was something. He just knew. Once she damn near broke a shoplifter’s collarbone when she was shopping for vegetables. There was an inquiry. Turned out she and her husband were on the breadline and their house had been repossessed. They’d been living out of relatives’ pads for months. She’d bottled it up until a fourteen year old kid lifting a Snickers bar took the brunt force. Now she was hurtling through cross-traffic at seventy miles per hour with a ride-along.
‘So you want to tell me what’s going on?’ he said finally, eyes trained on the dappled windscreen.
Newport smirked. ‘That’s a bad habit you have, you know that?’
York wiped the foggy windscreen with his sleeve.
‘Yes, I want to talk!’ she snapped. ‘I want to talk about why you keep turning up to work looking like shit. I want to talk about why you don’t communicate with me. I want to understand why this partnership feels like a one-man-band most of the time. I mean I’ve tried, Nick. I try to be a part of what goes on in your head, but you don’t let me in. You’re so closed down, it’s breaking me! Talk to me. Please. Let's get this thing sorted.’
Sitting askew, he peered out the passenger window. He couldn’t think of anything to say.
‘That’s what I thought,’ she uttered. ‘If you’re not going to talk to me, at least have the balls to tell me why, and put me out of my fairytale fucking misery.’
He turned to meet her gaze.
She looked away.
‘Have you ever felt like you have a demon inside you?’ he said softly. ‘Not some little imp lighting
