like a skittle. Yet again he heard the sickening crunch, yet again he saw the blood diffusing like wine through the snow.
The man swung at Harlan. Automatically, he jerked his arms up to block the punch. The man swung again. Harlan swayed out of his reach. “Motherfucker!” roared the man, throwing a flurry of punches, all of which either deflected off Harlan’s arms or missed their target. The man backed away, breathing heavily, a new wariness in his eyes.
Again, they faced each other silently for a moment. Then the man pulled out a key and unlocked the car. “Stop. I can’t let you leave,” said Harlan, but he made no attempt to prevent the man from ducking into the car. It wasn’t until the engine revved into life that he darted forward and tried to yank open the driver’s side door. He was dragged along, stumbled to his knees, and as the car turned sharply, narrowly avoided getting pulled under its wheels.
As the car accelerated onto the road, Harlan sprinted to his own car. He slammed it into gear and pushed his foot down hard. He’d been trained in pursuit driving, and he knew the area well, so he was confident the VW wouldn’t get away from him. Accelerating smoothly through the gears, he quickly caught up with it. Its driver put on a sudden burst of speed at a junction, narrowly avoiding clipping another car. Harlan was forced to briefly mount the pavement in order to swerve around the same car. Zigzagging through traffic, careening wildly around bends, they roared through the streets at blurring speeds. Horns blared, tyres squealed, and brakes screeched, as the VW’s driver attempted to shake off his pursuer by going the wrong way around a busy roundabout. There was the sound of grinding metal as Harlan’s car scraped along the side of an oncoming bus. For an instant, he thought he was boxed in, then the traffic parted like the Red Sea, and he was charging after the VW again. Its driver was going like a mad thing, overtaking and undertaking, cutting across streams of traffic, forcing Harlan to take crazy risks just to keep him in view. This is going to end badly, thought Harlan, and a second later it did. The silver VW took a corner too fast, skidded out of control, hit a curb and flipped. Once, twice, three times it rolled across a grass verge, tearing up huge chunks of turf, before coming to rest on its roof against a wall.
Harlan sprang out of his car and ran to the VW. He tried to open the driver’s side door, but it was wedged shut by the car’s buckled roof. He kicked in the window, already shattered by the impact. Ducking down, he saw the man lying in an unconscious heap, his face crushed and bloody. Scattered all around him were clothes, which seemed to have come from a holdall that’d burst open during the crash. Harlan felt for a pulse, and to his relief, found one, although it was weak and thready. The man groaned as Harlan hooked his hands under his armpits, and gently as possible, pulled him from the wreckage. His breath gurgled and grated as if something was broken inside his chest. Blood welled from a deep gash on the palm of one of his hands. Harlan took off his jacket and covered him with it, before ducking back into the overturned car to grab an item of clothing to staunch the bleeding. It was then that he saw the gun. It was an Olympic. 380 BBM revolver — a starter pistol favoured by criminals because it could easily be purchased and just as easily be converted to fire live ammo. Careful not to touch the gun with his hands, he wrapped it in a t-shirt and pocketed it. Then he tore another t-shirt in two and bandaged the man’s hand as best he could with the strips. The man’s eyes flickered open, showing white for a second before the pupils rolled down. He tried to sit up.
“Lie still,” said Harlan, holding him down.
“I can’t breathe.” The man’s voice came in a strangled gasp.
“Where is he?”
“I need an ambulance.”
“I’ll call one as soon as you tell me where Ethan Reed is.”
“How would I know that?” The man groaned. Spittle muddied with blood dribbled from the edges of his mouth.
“Listen to me, you’ve probably got serious internal injuries. You might not have long left to live. This could be your last chance to make amends, to save your soul. So why don’t you tell me where Ethan Reed is?”
“Oh God,” whimpered the man. “Oh God. I didn’t want to hurt anybody…I didn’t…I…” His voice faded out and his eyes rolled again.
“Stay with me,” urged Harlan, but he couldn’t keep the man from slipping back into unconsciousness. He checked through the man’s pockets and found a wallet. Inside it there was some loose change, a baggie containing a small amount of white powder, and six credit cards, each with a different name. In the distance, he heard the wail of approaching sirens.
Chapter 6
Harlan examined his arms. Bruises were already beginning to flower where the punches had landed. He folded his hands — which were trembling from the fading rush of adrenaline — together on the table in front of him. He looked at the uniform standing by the door of the interview room. “Don’t suppose you could get me a coffee and some painkillers?”
The uniform nodded and turned to leave. A short while later, Jim entered the room and put a polystyrene cup and a couple of tablets on the table. “How you doing?” he asked.
In answer, Harlan held up his shaky hands. “What about our man?”
“Still unconscious.”
“Will he live?”
“The doctors aren’t saying.”
“Who is he?”
“We don’t know. We’re running his prints.”
Harlan took out the gun. “I found this in his car.”
Jim looked at it with distaste. “Seems like every scumbag out there is carrying one of those pieces of crap these days. You’re lucky you didn’t get a bullet through your damn fool-”
Before Jim could finish, Garrett stormed into the room, and planting his hands on the table, said to Harlan, “Just what the fuck did you think you were doing? You put innocent peoples’ lives at risk out there tonight. Detective Monahan told you to stay put and do nothing.”
“I’m not a cop anymore, and I don’t take orders from anybody.”
“That’s right, Miller, you’re not a cop.” There was a tone of stung pride in Garrett’s voice. It was deeply embarrassing to him that one man, regardless of who that man might be, had succeeded where several hundred officers and detectives under his command had failed. Moreover, it was a blow to his career — it was no secret that he was an ambitious man with an eye on the Chief Constable’s office. “You’re an ex-con who’s failed to show for a meeting with his case officer. That’s a serious parole violation. I could have you put back inside.”
“So do it.”
The two men stared at each other, neither flinching. Garrett shook his head. “No. As much as it pains me to admit it, our main suspect would still be on the streets but for you. That’s why I’ve spoken to your case officer, explained that there were extenuating circumstances for your failure to show.”
“Do you expect me to say thanks?”
“No. I expect you to go home and get on with your life. I don’t want to hear your name in connection with this case again. If I do, I won’t hesitate to have you thrown back in prison. Do I make myself clear?”
What fucking life? Harlan felt like saying, but he said, “Perfectly.”
“Good.” Garrett straightened, casting Jim a stern glance as he turned to leave the room. “As soon as you’re finished here, DI Monahan, I want to speak to you in my office.”
“Yes, sir.”
Garret paused by the door and looked at Harlan. “To think that you were once one of our most promising young DIs, looking at you now it, well, it just makes me very sad.”
Despite himself, Harlan blinked from Garrett’s gaze. A familiar surge of self-loathing burned through him as he caught sight of his ragged reflection in the room’s one-way observation window. There was nothing left of that young DI to see. There was only a pitiable broken creature, with the desperate, bloodshot eyes of an animal in pain rather than a human being. He fought a sudden wild urge to snatch up the pistol and put a bullet in his reflection.
