“Yeah, squatters. People who move into a house with no legal right to be there.” She lifted the address from Reyna’s phone and jotted it down on a piece of paper. “Thank you, Reyna. You’ve done the right thing. Your brother won’t thank you straight away, but when we sort everything out, he will, I’m sure.”
“He’d better. I don’t want him to hate me.”
“He won’t.” Hayes passed the phone back across the table, as Miller entered with three mugs of steaming hot tea. She showed her partner the address and smiled.
30
Vanu Parekh turned off his laptop, folded it up, and shoved it in his rucksack. His team had all left the workshop for the day, having pulled an all-nighter the previous night. Because they had a demonstration on the horizon, a real-time demo, he and his team had to make sure it ran smoothly. Everything was at stake: his reputation, and the company’s. If the demonstration failed, all was for nothing.
Since their successful fifteenth test, every further stress test had succeeded. He was as certain about its readiness as he could be. Vanu strolled over to the blue Fiesta and stroked the paintwork, admiring her, loving how to the outside world she looked like an ordinary car. But on the inside, she was extraordinary, a game changer no less. And Fisher Valves were set to become the Game Master.
Shaking himself out of his daydream, Vanu answered the call, taking his mobile out of his pocket. His wife knew he was on his way home, so why call him now? Since he’d increased his hours getting closer to completing the project, they fought, a lot. About every little detail of their lives. Their poor kids had to put up with so much.
Once the demonstration succeeded, and when everyone knew what his team had created, he would step back and give his wife the attention she deserved. He’d told her this on so many occasions, he couldn’t tell her again. “I’m on my way back now.” It came out irritable, which he had not intended. “I’ll see you in forty minutes or so.”
Didn’t she realise the longer she kept him on the phone, the longer it would take him to get home? Sometimes he forgot how intelligent she was. His wife was a GP. Annoyed with her, he hung up and pocketed his phone.
Taking one last look at the Fiesta, he smiled, turned off all the lights in the workshop and left via the front door, remembering to activate the alarm. Satisfied that he’d left everything secure, he walked up to his own BMW, unlocked it and slumped in his seat.
Before he left, Vanu peeked through the closed blinds in Richard’s office, only to find the van still sat there. When he reached the end of the courtyard outside the workshop, instead of turning right and heading for the van, he turned left, away from it.
With the radio playing “We Will Rock You” by Queen, he drove around Croydon Valley Trade Park, expecting a relatively fast journey at half eight in the evening. There shouldn’t be much traffic on the road. He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel.
He checked in the rear-view mirror, and there it was: the white transit van. “Oh wait! No! Don’t do this to me, please. Come on! Why now?” He had not been physically followed by the transit van before.
He had to be sure. At the first left available, he slowed and turned, followed closely by the van. There were two guys in the cab he could see clearly in the mirror. The driver was taller and slimmer, and wore a kind of smile. “This is how you want to play it, huh?” Vanu stepped on the accelerator.
Out of the trade park and onto a main road, he ramped up the speed, which the van matched. Every time he slowed, they slowed. Even when they could have overtaken on the outer lane, they didn’t, choosing to remain behind him. Vanu was under no illusion: these guys were following.
With sweat trickling down his temples, he decided to get off the A road and travel a more scenic route home. The transit driver was trying to put the wind up him, and it was working.
When he went off the A road, the transit went left at the same time, following him onto the one-lane country road. Vanu had to shake them somehow. But how? How could he lose his BMW? It wasn’t dark yet.
The road he chose was quiet. He hadn’t seen another car in at least two miles. Behind him, the transit van accelerated and pulled up alongside him.
The passenger leered down at him.
Looking up, Vanu saw the passenger wind down his window.
Vanu gasped, holding his breath, when the passenger pointed a pistol at him. It had a long snout, which he realised, at the first muzzle flash, was a silencer.
There was no loud bang, merely a pop.
At first, he couldn’t see. The driver’s side window splintered, then shattered over his lap. Vanu had no time to think about it; he had to get away from the van, quick, before the passenger fired a second time.
Looking up at the passenger, who smiled and withdrew his gun, Vanu breathed a small sigh of relief, until the van drew closer. “No! Please!”
The BMW put up as much of a fight as it could against the heavier transit van. Vanu felt the tyres going. He didn’t want to drive into the woods on his left, but the van had the power.
Trees kept whizzing past at sixty miles an hour. If he didn’t slow down, his Beamer would hit one of them.
He jammed on the brakes, but the van nudged him to the left a bit more.
Vanu screamed, a tree on the outer edges of the woods speeding towards him.
He held on to the steering wheel until he knew it was too late, at which point he covered his face with his arms, bracing for impact.
His airbag failed
