bawling, ‘Officer down! Officer down!’ into his radio.
Terry’s right hand could not stem the flow of blood from the wound. ‘Shite, shite, shite!’ he breathed on inspecting the damage. It looked a bloody, mangled mess.
‘ Terry, Terry,’ Henry said desperately, kneeling down next to him.
‘ I’m OK,’ he lied bravely, keeping his cool. ‘I’ve got another shoulder. I think I hit matey — you go and see, Henry. I’ll be fine.’
Henry nodded and drew his gun, twisting away from Terry. His heart beating fast, he crept towards the Cosworth, aware that at close quarters a shotgun was lethal every time; a revolver had to be lucky.
The driver’s door was still open. There was no sign, or sound, of Crane, making Henry think he was either dead or well wounded. Henry Christie believed himself to be a moderately brave person. He was no coward, nor was he particularly heroic, but as he approached the stolen car, the wisdom of choosing — nay, volunteering — to carry a firearm reared its ugly head again.
He decided to ease himself at a crouch down the passenger side of the car and come around the back end quickly and decisively, gun at the ready and in the right frame of mind to discharge it if necessary. It seemed like a long journey, bent double, moving inch by inch, holding a weapon suddenly weighing half a ton with slippery hands, sweat dribbling down his face and into every crack and orifice in his body. He took a deep breath, counted three, pivoted round into the weaver stance and shouted ‘Armed police!’ for some reason he would never be able to adequately explain. The words simply sputtered out on a surge of adrenaline.
There was no one there for them to have any effect on.
Crane had gone.
Had the man who had been arrested in the police car park with a mouthful of flesh missing from his thigh and a series of puncture marks in his right arm, been arrested two years earlier in 1984, he would probably have been flung into a cell and only been allowed to see a doctor when the custody staff decided he could, a lot depending on their mood.
The arrival of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act changed all that. So now, handcuffed securely to Rupert, the prisoner was put into the back of a police van and whisked immediately up to the Casualty Department at Blackburn Royal Infirmary as soon as he had been booked into the custody systems and searched. Custody Sergeants did not want injured people in their cells any more — at least not until a medical practitioner had stated they were fit to be detained.
Ten minutes after his arrest, the man who had blown up three police vehicles was face down in a treatment cubicle, with his jeans and underpants rolled down exposing a very nasty-looking gash on his right thigh. A nurse was dabbing it with antiseptic; the patient jerked each time the cotton wool ball touched the wound. Rupert Davison stood by and watched, feeling queasy. He was astonished to see what damage a dog could do.
A very frustrated Danny Furness, who had actually made the arrest, was pacing to and fro outside the cubicle. She was desperate for a cigarette. The dreaded smoking habit had come quite late into her life, but now she was a nicotine addict — who needed a fix. What was particularly frustrating her was that she wanted a chance to get into the ribs of this prisoner as soon as possible, before anyone else got the chance; ‘anyone’ in this case being the CID. She was aware that the two night-duty detectives were hovering like hungry vultures back at the station to deal with him when he arrived back. But she wanted him. It was her job. Hers and Rupert’s. And she was not going to let it slide through her fingers.
In her brain she was already making plans to out-fox the detectives. Which was where a nicotine stick would have come in useful. It would have helped her to think.
Another frustration was that — by law — she was not allowed to question the prisoner here at the hospital. Not officially, anyway. Pity really, she thought, hearing him squeal in agony behind the curtain. A few probing questions in his present state might get good results. On the other hand, courts took a dim view of torture and intimidation.
From where she was standing Danny had a clear view along the corridor to the ambulance bay outside; as she stood there, an ambulance came roaring up and screeched to a halt in the bay. Its rear doors were flung open and several Casualty staff nurses, porters and a doctor — raced out of the hospital, obviously pre-warned of the arrival. A body was stretchered out, accompanied by a uniformed police officer who, Danny observed, was openly armed.
What the hell’s all this? she thought, her attention suddenly riveted. She looked quickly down at her personal radio, checking it was still on and working — it was — and wondered if she had missed something. She was pretty sure she hadn’t.
The person on the stretcher was wheeled hastily past her, surrounded by medical staff, to the emergency treatment room.
With some shock, Danny saw it was a cop and that he looked very poorly. She did not recognise him, but she did know — by sight — the armed officer who was with him. He was called Henry Christie. Danny knew he presently worked on the Headquarters Support Unit and that he was a very highly thought-of cop who might just go far if he applied himself. She had never spoken to him, but they had occasionally caught each other’s eyes and she fancied him like mad even though she knew he was married. Having said that, Danny was going through a phase of fancying several men. At the moment she was having discreet liaisons with two — both detectives — both, coincidentally, on duty that night. Not an ideal situation, but one Danny was happy to deal with.
As Henry Christie pushed past her that night, their eyes did not connect. His worried face was completely focused on his partner on the stretcher. Danny glimpsed a good deal of blood soaking through the sheets and clothing around the man’s left shoulder and upper chest as he was wheeled past.
Danny watched as the stretcher disappeared into the ETR. She thought it was a really weird kind of a night.
Billy Crane stumbled and fell heavily. He picked himself up with some difficulty and rolled over a low garden wall where he laid himself out, making an attempt to control the shaking which raked his body. Dragging the Balaclava off his head, he threw it away.
The bullet fired by the cop had ripped into his neck muscle just above the collar bone and exited straight through, drilling a perfect hole. Crane knew it was a perfect hole because he had been able to insert his forefinger and push it out the other side.
Under normal circumstances this would not have been a life-threatening wound, but because of his predicament — on the run from the cops, having just peppered one of them with a shotgun — it could easily prove to be so. A lot of blood had been lost and he needed medical attention quickly. But medical attention meant cops.
Unless he got it on his own terms.
His breathing came in short jerks. A wave of nausea rippled over him and he gripped the shotgun tightly in front of him as he lay there behind the garden wall.
A car pulled up nearby. The engine kept running. A door opened, the sound of voices drifted across to Crane’s ears. Despite the burning surge of agony which came with movement, Crane raised himself high enough to see over the wall.
Not many yards away from him, a car was stationary. Someone — a man — was leaning in through the passenger window, talking to the driver. A young woman stood nearby on the pavement. Crane blinked and shook his head. A few seconds passed before he realised he was seeing someone paying off a taxi.
He forced himself up, staggered over the wall and lurched towards the rear door of the car which he wrenched open. He threw himself across the back seat, much to the surprise of the driver and the man who was paying him.
‘ Sorry pal,’ the Asian taxi driver said over his shoulder. ‘Got a fare already booked. I can fit you in in half an hour if you like. See ya mate, thanks.’ The last four words were directed at the man who had just paid and turned away to his girlfriend.
The taxi driver looked over his left shoulder.
What he saw would remain with him for the rest of his life.
A reincarnation of the devil, hunched up in the back seat. An indescribable, terrifying look across the countenance. Eyes sunken in their sockets, hair in disarray, blood gushing from the neck — and a shotgun aimed
