of East Lancashire, eventually merging into mid-Lancashire at Preston, then west as the train headed towards the coast.
Whilst the train was stationary in Preston, he had a few torrid moments when a couple of uniformed British Transport Policemen came into the carriage. They worked their way down the aisles, closely scrutinising’ passengers, in particular lone males.
He knew they were looking for him.
He kept his cool, eyed their approach with confidence and leaned forwards, almost with an intimate gesture to the old woman.
‘ So how’re you doing, Mum?’ he said. He stressed the last word loud enough for it to be picked up by the approaching cops.
‘ I’m very well, son,’ she responded brightly, glad of the opportunity to say something. ‘For my age, that is.’
She laughed. So did Trent.
‘ What did you think of my birthday present to you?’ he asked as the policemen came alongside. They ignored Trent and his mum. After all, they were seeking a single man, probably still in prison gear. Not someone travelling with his mum.
‘ Eh?’ said the lady.
‘ Nowt,’ he said. ‘Go back to sleep.’ He relaxed and allowed himself a smug smile as he closed his eyes and recalled the final moments of his escape.
He had forced the ambulance driver to take him towards the outskirts of the nearest town where he knew there was an out-of-town retail park. The ambulance was driven behind the retail park to an industrial estate, where they parked up in the back yard of a deserted warehouse.
At knifepoint, Trent forced the driver out, made him open the rear doors of the ambulance and stand there looking at two dead bodies, soaked in blood. The foot of the brain-skewered prison guard still twitched.
Trent made the ambulance driver undress and fold up his clothes in a neat pile. He took the man’s wallet which contained sixty pounds and a credit card. He shoved the knife underneath the man’s ear and made him divulge the PIN number for the card which Trent memorised.
Then it was time to dispose of him.
Both knew the moment had arrived.
‘ Look, pal, I won’t talk. I’ll stay here for as long as you say. Anything. Whatever you want. I don’t wanna die. I haven’t done anything wrong. I’ve got a wife and kids.’
Trent sneered at him. ‘I hate kids,’ he chided. ‘Do you fuck them?’
The man swallowed, shook his head.
‘ Get down on your knees.’
He descended slowly. He was on the same eye-line as his dead colleague in the ambulance, whose eyes stared sightless at him.
‘ Shall I take mercy on you?’
‘ Yes… please… Look, you can trust me…’
‘ Oh, fucking shut up whining,’ shouted Trent. He’d had enough of the man. He grabbed his hair and pulled his head back, exposing the neck. He sliced the knife across his throat, forcing the blade deep with a sawing action, severing the arteries.
The man gurgled, slumped onto the back step of the ambulance, clutching his neck, trying to stem the flow.
Six feet away, Trent watched him writhe and begin to bleed to death.
When the man no longer moved, Trent stepped over him and climbed into the back of the ambulance. He cleaned up the self-inflicted wounds on his arms with antiseptic wipes and dressed them with bandages. He undressed himself, towelled himself clean, and got into the ambulance driver’s gear which fitted him well — a green overall and trainers. Over the top of this he put an anorak from which he cut off the epaulettes. He threw his prison gear into the ambulance and then helped himself to the wallets belonging to the dead paramedic and prison guard. This added another forty-five pounds to his stash of cash, four credit cards and a driving licence.
He briefly considered setting fire to the ambulance, but realised all that would achieve would be to draw attention to the fact he would not be very far away. It was a good decision because the ambulance was not discovered until after midnight, giving Trent ample time to do what he had planned.
He strolled boldly towards the retail park, posing as an off-duty paramedic; he knew he would find an ASDA store open until ten. Before entering the store he went to a hole-in-the-wall cash machine on the outer wall where, using the ambulance-driver’s card, he withdrew the maximum allowed that day.
Three hundred pounds richer and armed with a nice, new, non-squeaky trolley, he went shopping.
In the ‘George’ clothing shop within the store he selected a couple of smart new outfits and two pairs of shoes, with underwear, socks and shirts to match. Next he bought a selection of tasty food and drink which could be consumed on the hoof and finally a few toiletries and a large holdall.
Feeling his luck was still in, he pinpointed the busiest check-out with the most harassed-looking till operator and joined — the queue. He presented the ambulance driver’s credit card and looked the young girl directly in the eye. There was no problem. Being under severe pressure, the girl swiped it through and couldn’t even be bothered to give a cursory glance at the signature on the receipt as opposed to the card. It was as well she didn’t. Trent’s was nowhere near that of the man he had murdered.
He sailed through on a high, bearing two hundred pounds’ worth of clothing. He went directly to the toilets and changed into a new outfit, washed, brushed his hair, cleaned his teeth, emerged a new man.
Clean. Unruffled.
Even with the time to buy a newspaper at the kiosk and linger over sausage and chips at the in-store cafe.
Twenty-five minutes later a taxi dropped him off at the railway station where he boarded the next train north.
And here he was, only minutes away from his home town, his old stomping ground, Blackpool. It had gone like a dream.
The old lady had nodded off.
Trent smiled indulgently at her. Bitch.
Next stop along the line was Poulton-le-Fylde, the last one before the end of the line at Blackpool.
Guessing, rightly, that there were likely to be cops waiting at the terminus, he decided not to push his luck too far. He looked slyly around the almost deserted railway carriage — no one was paying any attention to him — and dipped his hand into the old lady’s shopping bag, helping himself to her unguarded purse.
It went straight into his pocket.
He hit the platform running as the train pulled into Poulton-le-Fylde and trotted away, carried by his own momentum.
In a cubicle in the public toilets he examined with glee the contents of a well-stocked purse. Trent blessed the stupid old woman who probably did not have a bank account and kept all her savings underneath her bed. There was almost five hundred pounds stuffed into the purse, plus a large handful of loose change.
He transferred the money into his pockets and wedged the purse behind the toilet block.
A few minutes later he was settled in the snug of a nearby pub, a pint of bitter in one hand, a cumbersome- looking sandwich in the other. He estimated he probably had about half an hour before he needed to move on. When he did he would simply catch a cab into Blackpool, book into one of the thousands of guest-houses, and disappear amongst the great unwashed.
Home and dry.
A dithery Steve Kruger put the plastic cup to his lips and took a sip of the scalding-hot black coffee.
With Tapperman and Myrna, he was out in the sultry street, about a hundred yards away from the Armstrong brothers’ apartment building. The trio were leaning on a semi-permanent burger stall from which they’d bought their drinks.
Myrna looked very ill. Her normally lovely golden-brown skin had developed a tinge of grey and her eyes were tired and sunken.
