If I Should Die (Joseph Stark) (39 page)

As the first applicant ever to escape TQ he was credited with demonstrating ‘unique resolve’, but told that escaping while too ill to evade recapture demonstrated ‘flawed strategy’. He was invited to think better next time. So much for the grey man. Stark still felt mildly embarrassed about the whole thing.

The phone rang again.

‘Fran!’ Groombridge’s voice, urgent now.

‘Yes, Guv.’

‘Where are you?’

‘A2 passing Gravesend.’

‘Turn around. Head for Folkestone. We just got a call saying the silver Golf is booked on Eurotunnel, midday train. Reservation was made by one Nicola Michaels. DVLA confirmed the Golf is registered to that name and the address is an empty flat, not one of Dawson’s. You’re closest now. Local uniform have been told to wait for you unless Nikki tries to take an earlier train. The super won’t look kindly on us if she’s handed back by French Customs.’

‘And the Mondeo? Dawson?’

‘The car’s here. Dawson’s not. SOCO are on their way. I’ll have to wait around. Get Nikki Cockcroft for me. And be careful, she’s a spiteful little cow.’

‘Don’t worry, Guv. I’ll send in Stark to charm her, then cuff her while she’s busy chewing his head off.’ She gunned the accelerator.

Fifty minutes later they cornered into the terminal service road and flashed their warrant cards at the gate. A uniform constable met them in the staff-only area. ‘The Golf arrived ten minutes ago. Woman driver.’

‘She’s early?’ Fran clicked her tongue in irritation. No time to set up or direct her car quietly aside.

‘Sergeant Riley is waiting upstairs. I’ll show you the way.’ They followed him up to the police suite, cluttered with monitors that looked like they’d been there since the 1994 opening. A window looked into the central atrium of the terminal, a square, two-storey concourse with a coffee booth, seating in the centre and the typical shops dotted around the outside. The atrium roof was a tensile fabric tent, the going thing in the early nineties;
nouveau
modernism reasserting itself over post-modernist usurpers. Sadly the edifice was dogged by the usual civic underfunding and showed its age. The louvred glass ventilation windows beneath the roof were dirty, their cheap actuators black with grease. The painted walls looked cheap, the sloping, flush, inward-looking first-floor windows made an effort to be modern but were obviously hard to clean. Even the concourse floor showed signs of indifferent repair. On a sunny day like today the sunlight diffused evenly through the roof, reflecting off the white walls and bathing the concourse in an overgenerous, even glare. The one-way mirrored glass of the police-suite window looking in was an adhesive film rather than a factory-applied aluminium coating, an afterthought, now blistering and peeling at the edges. Stark stared through it despondently, embarrassed by the parsimony, the state disease of post-war, post-imperial Britain. He was knackered and there were no spare chairs in the cramped suite.

Sergeant Riley introduced himself. ‘She’s at the coffee booth.’ He pointed to one screen. The image was several generations short of high definition, but there, sitting among those topping up on hot drinks and pastries, was a girl, short to average height, boyishly skinny,
shiny branded tracksuit and baseball cap. Nikki sipped her coffee with her head down and kept checking the phone in her hand.

‘She’s gone blonde.’ Stark pointed at the ponytail.

‘She’ll be the belle of the jail,’ muttered Fran, with a dark smile. ‘How long till her train’s called?’

‘Forty-five minutes.’

‘Okay. Safer if we take her in the car away from the crowd.’

Riley nodded. ‘I’ve got Passport Control standing by to pull her car over on the pretext of a spot check.’

A few minutes later Nikki stood and walked into the toilets.

‘Odd,’ said Riley. ‘She went on the way in.’

‘I guess the heartless little cow is prone to nerves after all.’ Fran scoffed. ‘The Ladies Room has never been a sadder misnomer.’

Nikki emerged, towing a small black, wheeled suitcase, and turned towards the exit. Every officer in the suite sat up.

‘Are we looking at some kind of drop?’ frowned Riley. ‘I thought this was a fugitive case.’

‘It is,’ said Fran, equally puzzled. ‘Can you wind this back?’

‘There!’ Riley pointed at a woman, emerging backwards from the toilets. His officer paused the image. She was pulling a large wheeled suitcase. One of those solid ones with the hard shell, but cheap, unbranded.

Fran frowned. ‘What?’

‘People don’t wheel in cumbersome luggage. They leave it in the car. Why is this woman trailing around a sodding great case? Rewind a bit more … There, play.’

Coming in from the car park the woman approached the coffee booth without looking at Nikki, glanced at the refreshments without buying, then walked back past them on her way to the toilets. Nikki got up and followed her in. The woman re-emerged and went straight back outside. Nikki came out with the smaller case.

Another camera showed the woman lifting the large case into a BMW, getting in and driving off to join the queue for France. Riley was shaking his head. ‘Little woman throws a big case into the boot one-handed … Rewind it to where she gets out, Thompson.’

The constable complied. The woman parked, got out and lifted the big case out of the boot.

‘Two hands, much heavier,’ nodded Fran. She turned to stare at the real-time image of Nikki crossing the car park. ‘So what’s in that case?’ she mused aloud. ‘Get Passport Control to pull her over.’

Riley radioed the instruction.

‘Where’s she going?’ asked Stark. On screen Nikki had turned right out of the exit and was heading out of the car park.

‘The Golf’s in the coach park,’ explained one constable, operating the CCTV.

The car park swept in a quadrant around one corner of the terminal and gave way to an equally large area crammed with coaches, motor-homes, towed caravans, dozens of cars and hundreds of people milling around and making use of the grassed area and children’s playground beyond. ‘Where?’ asked Stark.

‘I haven’t got a camera on it. It’s back there between those gold double-deckers.’ They watched Nikki disappear where the constable was pointing.

Several minutes passed.

‘I don’t like this,’ announced Fran, picking up a pair of radios. ‘Let’s go round there and get eyes on her.’

They hurried outside to the car and drove back round to the public side. Riley and the constable who’d greeted them came too.

The Golf hadn’t moved. It had tinted rear windows and from where they’d parked the police couldn’t see in, but the officers in the police suite assured them Nikki had not emerged or gone elsewhere.

Minutes ticked by. ‘Something’s wrong,’ said Stark.

‘I thought soldiers were taught to be patient,’ sighed Fran.

‘They’re also taught to be wary.’

‘She’s getting out,’ announced Riley.

But it was the passenger door opening, and Nikki wasn’t getting out. Stark stared at the big-framed figure in jeans, navy-blue hoodie with the hood up over a grey baseball cap, and cursed his stupidity. He’d noted the same figure on the CCTV several times. ‘He was shadowing her in the terminal. I should’ve realized. It’s Dawson.’

As he said it, the figure glanced around and they saw his face. It
was
Dawson, minus the goatee. ‘How did he get here?’ asked Fran.

‘Could easily have been in the back seats when the Golf arrived,’
suggested Riley. ‘The automated check-in booth camera wouldn’t have seen him.’

Dawson opened the boot of the Golf and lifted out the small black suitcase Nikki had been pulling and walked away. Suddenly he froze. A blue Volvo had cruised into the space in front of him and two men in their late thirties got out, wearing dark suits.

‘Yours?’ said Riley.

‘No,’ said Fran. ‘If those arseholes at National Crime have decided …’ The two men walked past Dawson, chatting idly.

‘I thought he was going to bolt,’ said the constable, leaning forward between Fran and Stark for a better look.

Dawson wheeled the case to join a group of people milling around a huge coach with Belgian livery. ‘What’s he doing?’ asked Riley.

‘Switching,’ said Stark, with sudden certainty. ‘Something’s wrong.’

Fran was nodding. ‘Let’s take him. If he gets on that coach this could get ugly.’

In that moment Dawson looked their way. The constable’s uniform must’ve drawn his attention straight to Stark and Fran. Dawson’s eyes went wide with shock. Looking around desperately, he shoved a young couple out of the way and set off across the coach park with the suitcase snaking behind him.

‘Shit!’ hissed Fran, kicking open her door. ‘Get Nikki!’ she barked at Stark and set off with Riley and the constable at a surprising turn of speed.

Hurrying between the coaches, Stark approached the rear of the Golf. He could see Nikki’s white cap in the wing-mirror. Adrenalin coursed through him. He should have been looking forward to this – Nikki had tried to cheat justice, cheat him as she had cheated Pinky and the others of a life without fear, as she had cheated Alfred Ladd of his remaining years, his remaining dignity, as she had cheated Stacey Appleton of her young life – but creeping up the side of the car, he couldn’t shake the feeling that something was badly wrong.

He felt for a pulse but knew it was too late.

Nikki stank of booze. There was a bottle of vodka open in her lap, a clear plastic bag of pills too, with more on the floor. The air reeked
of cannabis, but something else, something Stark recognized from the pipes of Afghan villagers and Afghan National Army soldiers, but there was no pipe or joint in sight. Then he saw the phone in Nikki’s hand. The screen was still awake – a sent text.
Goodbye Mum I’m sorry.

Dawson.

Slamming the door, he set off after the others as fast as he could, hobbling, almost hopping, on his good leg, using the cane for balance rather than support. ‘Nikki’s dead,’ he shouted, into the radio. ‘Get some uniforms out here to the car.’

In the distance Stark saw the eager young constable cut around some cars in front of Dawson but the big man simply dipped his shoulder and slammed through, like a battering ram.

Looking around wildly, Dawson jumped in front of a blue Toyota, forcing it to stop. Then he yanked open the door and dragged the driver out on to the tarmac, the poor man’s wife screaming as she climbed out of the other side. Riley caught up and, unlike his constable, had thought to flick out his ASP baton – twenty-six inches of telescopic steel. Mistake, thought Stark. Given Dawson’s size and profession, CS spray would’ve been a safer bet.

Sure enough, Dawson dealt with the baton the old-fashioned way, soaking up the blow with his fleshy upper arm, accepting the pain for the gain. He was inside the weapon’s reach now and made Riley pay, smashing him aside like a bull tossing a toreador. Fran was too late to stop herself and arrived just as Dawson hoisted up the suitcase and used it to smash her aside. Stark was relieved to see the big man didn’t stop to do more damage, but instead heaved the heavy-looking case into the Toyota.

The constable was curled up in pain, clutching his elbow, fallen badly, broken something perhaps. Riley was struggling to his knees, Fran was still down and Dawson was cramming himself into the car. He planned to ram his way out of the complex and make a break for it. Stark would be damned if he’d let that happen. Riley could help the others. Stark went straight to the far side of the Toyota where he held his cane in both hands, pressed the small indentation under the tiger handle and twisted. There was a quiet
snick
, and he slid out the blade from the shaft. Stiletto thin, double-edged, eight inches of needle-sharp steel. Too short for a true sword-cane – the tiger handle made
you hold it more like a pistol anyway – this was a stabbing, slashing, close-quarters weapon. The Duke’s valet must’ve told Pierson about it but she’d judiciously failed to pass on the information, given the timing. Stark had discovered it weeks later. He thrust the blade into the front tyre and withdrew it, hobbled back and did the same to the rear. As a getaway vehicle it was finished. Dawson felt the car dropping on one side and stared out at Stark in furious disbelief.

Don’t get out, thought Stark. Dawson was a big man, well over six feet, a little fat over a lot of muscle but fast for his size. He knew his way around a brawl. He’d taken on Riley and his ASP without a second’s hesitation. The only advantage a smaller man could have was better training and more speed. Or a concealed knife, the use of which would certainly cost him his career. Stark kept the blade out of sight and slid it away with another precise
snick
. Without it he would fancy his chances on a good day but, as he was, Dawson would make mincemeat of him. He looked very angry indeed.

Don’t get out!

Poor impulse control, Stark had been taught, was manifest to a greater or lesser degree in the majority of convicted criminals – that imbalance between subconscious voices and failure to give due consideration to potential negative implications of your deeds, to yourself or others. Of course, Stark had exhibited similar failure in the past. Dawson threw the door open but Stark had already backed out of its arc.

The big man began to climb out, dragging the case with him. He did it all wrong, left himself wide open. When you’re kicking in a door you use your boot, not a shoulder. It focuses the impact with less chance of injury and less chance of following through off balance. The same thing if someone’s behind the door, or climbing out of a car. Time it right and the window smashes over the head, the leg is trapped, perhaps broken, the arm jarred backwards, wrist possibly broken. Stark couldn’t kick the door but he was willing to risk his shoulder.

Instead he backed away. There were cameras. Pre-emptive violence was a soldier’s luxury. He immediately regretted his restraint as Dawson’s hand reached inside his zipped hoodie.
Don’t be a gun!

Dawson withdrew his fist. In it he held a blackjack, a modern-day
club. Not a gun but still a formidable weapon, easily lethal. Illegal too, but less so than gun or knife: an ideal concealed weapon for a doorman. A foot long, probably a plumber’s pipe-bending spring originally, grip and lanyard at one end, lead ball at the other, all bound tight in black leather.

The lead ball was oval. If Stark had needed any more confirmation, this was it, but he did not. The moment he’d read Nikki’s text message, the enormity of their mistake had struck him: Pinky had seen Nikki and Kyle look down on Stacey Appleton’s corpse, but Dawson had been there too, lurking in the shadows. Whoever had hit Stacey with her phone, it was Dawson who’d stove in her skull from behind – with that brutal little club – Dawson who’d tipped the poor girl screaming to her death, Dawson who’d texted the fake suicide note. Stacey had snitched to the police, or was in danger of doing so, and Dawson needed the Ferrier and its Rats silent. That was why he’d helped Nikki look for Pinky: fear that she’d seen him too.

And now Dawson was coming for Stark. It was too late to attack and there was no avoiding the superior force. That left tactical retreat and misdirection. It was time to shift the engagement sideways.

Should’ve barged the door, thought Stark, gesturing behind his back to Riley and backing away further. Dawson followed, raising the blackjack with a snarl.