Dead To Me (17 page)

‘Beats Alton Towers, any day,’ Rachel said. Eyes locked on the rear lights of the taxi, red coals in the dark.

The car jolted over a manhole cover and they both jumped in their seats.

‘Christ! Slow down!’ Janet yelled. ‘Another right, Logan Street,’ she read the road name. ‘Where the hell’s he taking us?’

Rachel kept her foot down, thanking God it was night-time and there were few pedestrians about. They were approaching a small industrial estate. Half a dozen or so units, roller-shutter doors and corrugated roofs. And beyond them Rachel knew was a road that led to the motorway.

‘Slow down,’ Janet screamed. ‘Rachel, stop – let patrol take it.’

‘We can’t let him get to the slip road,’ she shouted above the howl of the engine. ‘Hold tight.’

‘You’ll fucking kill us!’

Rachel knew she could wring a bit more speed from the car and she was practically on his bumper. She kept the accelerator on the floor and roared closer. Gripping the wheel, she slung the car out and to the right to overtake, then nosed back in towards the cab. Almost level, she was dimly aware of Janet shouting next to her, ‘You’re too close, too close, stop!’ and voices coming over the radio. A final spurt, but then he slammed on his brakes and there was no chance to avoid him. A scream of metal and the impact shunting them back in their seats, activating the airbags and forcing the cab into the wall of one of the units. The cars travelled together for several metres. Rachel saw sparks flying as the metal of the taxi’s nearside scraped along the breeze blocks, then both cars ground to a halt. The cab parallel to the building, their car at an angle, its front end pressed against the offside rear door.

‘Fuck!’ said Janet, fighting from behind her airbag. ‘You bloody idiot! What the hell are you playing at!’

‘He’s off!’ Rachel yelled.

Kasim was out of the cab, and running. Rachel shoved her way past the airbag and hared after him.

He ran along the edge of the units. Triggering security lights. He was fast. But I’m faster, pal
. Rachel ran, hard, powerful strikes, arms pumping. Breathing heavily. Not for nothing had she been top of her intake with the bleep test. Running back and forth to beat the bleep, the intervals growing shorter each time. She was fast and she was strong. She made a point of visiting the gym at least twice a week. And she’d run a marathon last year. So some scumbag cabbie tosspot was not going to get away from her.

Arms going like pistons, her windpipe aching, sweat breaking out on her back and her chest, she increased her pace, the rain soaking her hair, her face, blinking continuously to clear her vision. Closer now.

Kasim dived into an opening between two of the buildings and Rachel followed, she could see his speed slowing, his legs letting him down. She made out chain-link ahead. He went left along the rear of the building, stumbling once, allowing her to narrow the gap between them. She didn’t yell, saved her breath. Her muscles were burning in her legs, clamouring for oxygen, her face on fire. Panting now, rapid and harsh.

Kasim veered left again, heading along the other side of the unit towards the central area where the cars were. Ahead, the flicker of blue lights, the wail of sirens. Patrols arriving. He’d be harder to corner there and she was so close. She willed herself on, her heart pounding in her chest, breath raw in her throat, lungs screaming, and as they rounded the corner into the open space, in view of her car and the cab, Rachel lunged. She caught his jacket, held on, he strained forward but she pulled on his shoulder, got purchase, then she was on him, knocking him over. Sat on his back, yanked his wrists behind him, fishing the cuffs from her pocket and snapping them on, gasping, ‘You are nicked.’

Janet was at her side, hands on hips, a peculiar look on her face. ‘You mad bitch!’ she spat the words. Her face was wide with anger, or maybe fear. She was pissed off, whichever. ‘You could have killed us both. You stupid cow.’

‘You’re all right, aren’t you?’ Rachel peered up at her. ‘Nothing broken.’

Janet shook her head in disgust, walked a few steps away, then swung back. ‘That was dangerous driving.’

‘Nobody died.’

‘Screw you. Next time I’ll take the bus,’ Janet said, still furious.

Rachel blew out, winded, got to her feet, dizzy now and her calf muscles cramping. ‘How’s the car?’ she said.

‘Buggered. They’ll want a proper look at everything.’ Janet gestured to the patrols. The collision would have to be investigated. The cars examined. They would both be breathalysed – standard practice in any collision involving an officer. Rachel was sure she’d be clear.

‘I know. Need my bag, though,’ Rachel said. ‘Watch him, will you.’

‘You really don’t give a shit, do you?’ Janet said. Rachel didn’t reply. ‘Where’d you learn to run like that, anyroad?’

Langley. Always running away from something, away from aggro, trouble, away from Dad, or running after Dom.

‘Lads,’ Janet called to the uniforms, told them to take Kasim to the station and get him settled.

Rachel got her bag and went to see what everyone was goggling at, all clustered round the front of the taxi. Torches out, Janet with them. Rachel was shivering, sweat chilling her skin, the rain finding its way down the back of her neck.

‘Look at this,’ someone said as Rachel reached them. They moved aside to allow her access to the driver’s door. A uniform trained his torch on the open glove compartment. Rachel saw the pile of baggies, each containing light brown powder. Street heroin. Brilliant! ‘A nice little earner,’ she said to Janet. ‘The dispatcher reckoned Lisa was a regular. Maybe it wasn’t just the lift home she wanted.’ She grinned.

Janet still had her sour face on. Christ! There was no pleasing some people.

22

JANET SET THE
alarm for half five. Ade groaning as it woke him too. The bedroom was cold, the heating didn’t come on for another hour. Once she was downstairs, she made porridge and a mug of tea. She wanted toast, but there were only a few slices of bread left. Barely enough for the girls’ sandwiches. In fact, if they wanted toast, too, Ade would have go out to the corner shop for another loaf. Janet didn’t want him accusing her of taking bread out of the mouths of their babes.

Still dark, and the rain of the night before had frozen leaving ice on her windscreen. Janet scraped it off, letting the car heater run to warm up the inside. In theory. Something dicky with the thermostat and never time to get it seen to, so it was like driving a fridge freezer to work. She drove slowly, wise to the patches of black ice on the road. Still smarting as she recalled Rachel’s antics behind the wheel and her cavalier attitude.

* * *

Although everyone was busy preparing for the raid, she managed to grab Gill’s attention for a few minutes, wanting her to do something about Rachel Bailey. ‘She didn’t need to act like bloody Jenson Button. I’d radioed control. There were half a dozen patrols could have done the job. I can’t do six weeks of this, Gill.’

‘Were you hurt?’

‘I was petrified, and she ignored me when I told her to slow down. I could have been hurt. It was a miracle I wasn’t. And you could have been visiting Ade with a death message.’

Gill raised an eyebrow. ‘Not the teeniest bit exciting?’

Janet gave her a baleful look. ‘Are you mad?’

Through the window Janet saw Rachel at her desk. Noticed her glance quickly away. Could she tell that Janet was still pissed off? You’d never have guessed Rachel had been up half the night in the aftermath of her
Top Gear
stunt. News of her escapade had spread through the nick like wildfire and her desk had been festooned with a large chequerboard flag and a mashed-up dinky model of a police car.

‘Very fitting,’ Gill had said when she spied it. ‘Down by lunchtime.’ She allowed the team their horseplay and practical jokes but expected the office to look like a place of work, to reflect their professionalism.

‘It’s pushed things forward,’ Gill told Janet, ‘the cabbie, the drugs.’

‘We’d have got there anyway, but Bailey had to be centre stage, acting like a one-man SWAT team. She’s doing my head in. You know what she said about the victim’s mother? “Should have been sterilized at birth”.’

‘We all have our opinions.’ Gill started moving towards the office door.

‘Yeah, but we don’t all say them out loud. Aren’t you the slightest bit bothered that she trashed the car?’

‘That is a black mark,’ Gill agreed, ‘but you know they palm us off with the old jalopies; it was never going to make it through the MOT.’

‘They probably won’t replace it,’ Janet said.

‘That’s for me to worry about.’

‘They’ll be giving us scooters next,’ Janet said.

‘I can just see it, Rachel on pillion.’

‘Funny.’

‘You OK?’ Andy said, meeting Janet in the corridor.

‘No, I’m not,’ she said. ‘I think she was wrong to drive like that with me in the car. If she’d been on her own …’

‘Her funeral,’ he said.

‘Exactly.’

He smiled and Janet smiled in return and felt that lurch again. ‘And I’d happily send flowers but—’ She shook her head.

‘Impetuous,’ he said of Rachel.

‘And then some: headstrong, tactless.’ Like Taisie, Janet thought. Though a wilder streak in Rachel, something dark there, something damaged even. No excuses, Janet told herself; she nearly killed me.

‘And Gill?’ Andy asked.

‘Pleased with the upshot, given I’ve no visible scars.’

‘But psychologically …’ He grinned, taking the piss.

‘Oh, already a lost cause,’ she joked.

‘Glad you’re OK, though.’

‘Me an’ all. See you down there.’ And she carried on to the stairs.

They’d got their body armour on, and personal safety equipment to hand. Rachel had picked up the keys to an old saloon before Janet could beat her to it. Janet hadn’t bothered with any chummy greetings, too fed up with Rachel’s blasé attitude and the fact that Gill hadn’t given Janet the backing she wanted, apparently still set on forcing them to work together.

‘How’s the whiplash?’ Rachel said.

Cheeky cow. ‘Keys,’ Janet held out her hand.

‘Why can’t I—’

‘You are kidding! I’d rather walk there on my knees than get in that thing with you at the wheel.’

‘I promise I’ll—’

‘Keys.’ She was adamant.

‘I’ve done the advanced driving course,’ Rachel said.

‘Bully for you. I’d never have guessed.’ Janet stuck her hand out again.

‘I get carsick in the passenger seat.’

‘Bring a sick bag.’

Rachel tutted and rolled her eyes skywards, then chucked the keys. Janet caught them.

They went into the property at seven.

Sean was in bed, looking dazed and disorientated, when Janet made the arrest. Shaking his head when she delivered the caution as though she’d got him all wrong. She told him they would be searching the premises too.

‘Stupid bitch,’ he muttered.

Janet had heard it all before, water off a duck’s back.

The other occupant, Benny, who slept in the smaller room, stood on the landing in some leopard-print boxers, scratching his belly, stupefied by proceedings.

The place was a tip. There was a sickly looking kitten in the living room, which had obviously not been house trained; everywhere reeked of cat shit. The sofa had been clawed to shreds. If Sean was dealing in stolen goods, he certainly wasn’t making any money to speak of.

Once Sean and his cousin had been driven to the station, and the kitten removed by the RSPCA, a CSI team began a search of the property. They were after the murder weapon, any bloodstained clothing or footwear and any property of Lisa’s.

It never rains but it pours, Gill thought. They’d be doing back-to-back interviews all day, as well as processing the new forensics from the Broughton house. The cells were busy, Kasim was down there talking to the duty solicitor, and Sean awaiting the arrival of his solicitor while cousin Benny was in the soft interview room.

Was Rachel a loose cannon? Maybe so, but when Gill had rung Sutton to sound him out, he reckoned Bailey had leadership potential and said he’d be sorry to lose her. Perhaps the driving display had been a way to try and prove herself. Showing off for Gill? Or maybe the kid just had a hunter’s instinct. Someone scarpers and you give chase; don’t stop till you’ve felt his collar.

That tenacity – brave or foolish – was an admirable quality, but Rachel needed to temper it with consideration for her fellow officers. Without the ability to communicate, to engender respect and loyalty, leadership was a closed door. Gone were the days when a tinpot dictator could ride roughshod over the views and feelings of those under his command. A leader now had to demonstrate they had people skills, bring out the best in their junior officers, identify and encourage the brightest, support those who struggled, helping them to build on their strengths. Which made her think of Kevin. Which sent her in search of sustenance, a mug of coffee and a Danish, before she met with her detectives.