'Does that make you feel good, hitting me?'
'You are just a fucking slapper.'
They reached a T-junction and turned right by a modern housing development, the trees still saplings.
'And you're just a bully, Vic. You're a sadist, you know that? Does that make you feel good? Is that how you really get your rocks off, tormenting someone like Michael?'
'And you get your rocks off by screwing him and knowing that one day you are really going to screw him?' He turned to glare at her, then pulled out onto the main road. It happened so fast, all she saw was what felt, for an instant, like a sudden change in the light. There was a tremendous bang; she felt a fierce jerk; her ears went numb; and the interior of the car filled with what looked like feathers, and reeked of cordite. At the same time the horn began to blare.
'Oh shit, oh shit, shit, shit!' Vic hammered on the steering wheel with his fists; the driver's air bag hanging like a spent condom from the wheel boss, and another air bag limp beside his head. 'Are you all right?' he asked Ashley.
She nodded, staring at the bonnet of the car, which was raised jaggedly up in front of her, the Mercedes star that had been on the end now invisible. There was another car, white, stopped at a crazy angle in the middle of the road a few yards away.
Vic tried to open his door, and seemed to be having difficulty. Then he threw his weight against it and, with a scream from the hinges, it opened.
Ashley's door opened without a problem. She undipped her belt and stepped out shakily, then pinched her nose and blew hard to clear her ears. She could see a bewildered-looking grey-haired woman behind the wheel of the other car, a Saab, with much of its nose crumpled.
Vic inspected the damage to the Mercedes. The offside front wheel was crushed and buckled and pushed right into the engine compartment. There was no chance of the car being driveable.
'You stupid fucking bitch!' Vic yelled, above the blare of the Mercedes horn, at the Saab.
Ashley could see another car coming up the road, and a van coming from the opposite direction. And she could see a young man running towards them. 'Vic,' she shouted urgently, 'we need to do something, for Christ's sake!'
'Yeah, right, we need to do something. What do you fucking suggest?'
346
Back at the Incident Room, Nick Nicholl suddenly yelled at Grace. 'Roy! Line seven, pick it up, pick it up!'
Grace stabbed the button and lifted the receiver to his ear. 'Roy Grace,' he said. It was a Detective Sergeant from Brighton police station called Mark Tuckwell. 'Roy,' he said, 'the Mercedes you have an alert out on, blue saloon, Lima-Juliet-Zero-Four-Papa-X-RayIima?'
'Yes.'
'Its just been involved in a RTA in Newhaven. The occupants, one male, one female, have hijacked a vehicle.' Grace sat bolt upright, the phone clenched to his ear, adrenaline exploding.
'Have they taken hostages?'
'No.'
'Do we have descriptions of the two people?'
'Not great ones so far. Man stocky, Caucasian, cropped hair, mid forties; the woman has short dark hair, late twenties, early thirties.' Grabbing a pen, he asked, 'What are the details of the vehicle they've taken?'
'A Land Rover Freelander, Green, Whisky-Seven-Nine-Six-LimaDeltaYankee.' Scribbling this down, Grace asked, 'Any contact with this car so far?'
'Not yet.'
'Exactly how long ago was it taken?'
'Ten minutes.' Grace thought for a moment. Ten minutes. You could get a long damned way in ten minutes. He thanked the Detective Sergeant and told him he would call him back in a couple of minutes and to keep his line clear. Then Grace quickly briefed his team. Handing the vehicle details to Nick Nicholl he said, 'Nick, circulate the vehicle details to all the surrounding counties - Surrey, Kent, Hampshire - and also the Met. Now!' He thought for a moment. The roads to the east of Newhaven went to Eastbourne and Hastings. To the north were the fast roads to Gatwick Airport and to London. To the west was Brighton. Most likely, if they stayed with the Land Rover, they would head north. Turning to DS Moy he said, 'Bella, get the helicopter up. On the assumption they are heading away from the area, get it positioned to cover the roads ten to fifteen miles north of Newhaven.'
'Right.'
'When you've done that, get a watch put on all CCTV at the railway stations in the area, in case they try to ditch the vehicle and get a train.' He drank a swig of water. 'Emma-Jane, call the Road Policing Department and get some vehicles up on the A23 on look-out for this car immediately. When you've done that, alert the police at Newhaven Harbour and Gatwick and Shoreham Airports.' He ran through a mental checklist, stations, seaports, airports, roads. Often, he knew, when people hijacked cars they would only drive them a short distance, ditch them and take a different car.
'Glenn,' he said, 'get the whole surrounding area of Newhaven flooded - we want to make sure they haven't abandoned the car yet. Also get a couple of our patrol cars here on standby.' 'I'll do it now.' Grace rang through to the Ops Room and informed them he was taking command of the incident. The clerk there told him there was one update that had just come in. A car matching the description had sideswiped several cars at a traffic light as it had cut past them on the pavement to get over the Newhaven swing bridge seconds before it opened. This information was just two minutes old.
Vic Delaney stabbed the brake pedal hard as they came into a righthander on the winding country road that was much sharper than he had realized. The front wheels locked and for a sickening moment they carried straight on, towards a poplar tree, while he wrestled with the chunky steering wheel. Ashley screamed, 'Viiiic!' The car
