“Split up,” Bronson ordered, and ran across the road ahead of the police car, which was now only about fifty yards away. He ducked down a narrow alley between two of the industrial units, where the car couldn’t follow, and sprinted toward the opposite end.
Behind him, he heard a squeal of brakes as the police car slammed to a halt, then the sound of running feet and shouted commands to stop. He ignored them, concentrating on putting as much distance between himself and the pursuing officers as he could.
He took a quick glance behind him when he’d covered perhaps eighty yards, and then immediately stopped, because the alley was deserted. Obviously the two patrol officers had gone after Eaton, not him.
For a moment he just stood there, then turned round and ran back toward the road. He stopped at the end of the alley and looked out before he showed himself.
What he saw was unexpected.
Eaton was about seventy yards away from him, and over to his right, running back toward him, the two officers a few yards behind him, and apparently gaining on him. He must have doubled back, hoping to shake them off. And it clearly hadn’t worked.
It went against every fiber of Bronson’s being, but he knew what he had to do.
Eaton saw Bronson standing at the end of the alley, changed direction and ran past him down the narrow passageway. As he did so, Bronson shifted position, tucking himself out of sight, waiting for the first of the two patrol officers to follow.
The moment the man appeared, Bronson stepped forward, crouching slightly and bracing himself, his left arm bent at the elbow to act as a ram. The running policeman had no time to react or change direction. He simply ran straight into Bronson’s immovable figure, and more or less bounced off, tumbling backward, gasping for breath.
Almost immediately, the second officer rounded the corner, running hard. Bronson stepped aside, then kicked out with his right foot, catching the policeman’s left leg beside the knee. The man let out a howl of pain and crashed forward onto the ground.
Bronson didn’t hesitate. He knew both men would be on their feet again in a few seconds, and he couldn’t afford to be caught. So he turned tail and ran, ran as hard as he could, retracing his steps down the alley, Eaton about thirty yards in front of him.
At the end, both men slowed down and looked back.
The two police officers were more or less where Bronson had left them, but both were standing and one was clearly speaking into his radio, probably relaying a description of Bronson and Eaton and calling for reinforcements.
“Thanks for that,” Eaton said. “Now let’s get out of here.”
Seconds later, the two men jogged out of the far end of the alley and turned left, away from the construction yard, then slowed to a walk as they made their way down the street. They heard the sounds of a siren from the road they’d just left, but saw no sign of police officers or vehicles anywhere near them.
“There’s no linking road between these two streets,” Eaton pointed out. “The pigs’ll have to go all the way back to the main road to get down here.”
“With a bit of luck they won’t bother,” Bronson said.
“Did you hurt them?”
“Not really. One of them’ll have a sore knee for a few days, but the other was just winded.”
“Well, thanks again. That was a good job,” Eaton said, as they headed back to where they’d left the Transit van. “I think Mike’ll be happy to have you join us now. You might even get to meet Georg.”
“Georg?”
“All in good time,” Eaton replied with a grin, “but between you and me, he’s the one who gives Mike his orders. He’s the money man, if you like.”
Bronson filed away this piece of information: another new name and perhaps a glimpse of the hierarchy. He hoped he’d done enough to gain proper access to the group, so that he could identify the key players and then walk away, get back to doing something that didn’t leave quite such a sour taste in his mouth.
Back at the construction yard, once they’d caught their breath, the two-man crew of the patrol car conducted a rapid search of the premises and found nobody there, which was what they’d expected. When the alarm had been triggered, the principal key-holder had been alerted as well as the police, and only about fifteen minutes after the patrol car had skidded to a stop, a balding, middle-aged man arrived in a Jaguar saloon and introduced himself to the two officers as Jeremy Heaton.
He inspected the damage to the bulldozer and expressed his irritation-he knew it would be a long time before that vehicle would be back in working order-but he was happy that only one piece of equipment had been targeted.
“Thanks for getting here so quickly, lads,” Heaton said as he walked back to talk to the patrol car crew. “You probably scared the bastards away before they could do any real damage.”
“We saw two men here, but we couldn’t catch them,” one of the officers said, declining to explain what had actually happened. “That dozer’s a bit of a mess, though, isn’t it?”
“Yes, but it’s an old one, and it was coming up for a major service anyway, so it’s no great loss. The insurance company won’t be happy, but that’s their problem. I’ve already called one of my people to come out here and sort out that gate,” Heaton added. “Get the place secure again, until the next time some comedian decides to have a little fun in here.”
“Right, sir,” the second officer said. “If you’ve got everything in hand, we’ll be on our way.”
“Thanks again. Oh, we’ve got a new security system here. If it recorded anything useful I’ll leave a copy at the local nick.”
Heaton watched the car reverse out of the open gate and head off down the street. Then he walked across to the locked office at the back of the yard, feeling in his pocket for his keys.
The new security cameras had been installed only a few weeks earlier, and Heaton still wasn’t sure they were in the right places and were working properly. He decided he’d look at the tapes-sorry, the solid-state hard drives, as the installer had emphasized to him several times-on-site before he handed over the pictures, if the system had done its job and taken any, to the police.
The security company had fitted two cameras, both tucked neatly out of sight. One covered the main gates, the obvious place for any intruder to effect an entrance, and was linked to the alarm system, so it would have started recording the moment the gate swung open and broke the contact. The second camera provided a wide- area view of the yard, and would show exactly where any intruders went and what they did. It was, the security company had claimed, state-of-the-art equipment, and would provide the best possible chance of identifying and apprehending anyone who entered the premises illegally.
In his office, Jeremy Heaton sat down at his desk, switched on the LCD screen that hung on the wall opposite his chair and somewhat uncertainly negotiated his way through the various menus that controlled the security system. He finally found what he was looking for and settled back to watch the video sequences.
The pictures were incredibly clear, the faces of the two men in sharp focus. The system actually seemed to be working far better than Heaton had expected, even better than the installer had promised, in fact.
One of the menu options offered Heaton the ability to make copies of the video recordings. He clicked the appropriate key, then followed the on-screen instructions that told him where to insert a blank DVD disk. He’d deliver that to the local police station, as he’d said he would, not that it would help much. Heaton had no illusions about the likelihood of the two criminals being apprehended, unless they already had records and could be identified from the images.
Once the copying process had finished, he extracted the disk and slipped it into a case. Then he opened his drawer again, took out a second blank disk and inserted it in the machine. He’d make another copy, he decided, and this one he wouldn’t hand over to the police.
He had a much better idea what he could do with that recording.
10
