No Smoke Without Fire (A DCI Warren Jones Novel - Book 2) (52 page)

Warren had once asked Susan if she knew why deer and other animals chose to stand in the middle of the road and simply stare at an oncoming car, rather than get out of the way. She’d put it to her students as an informal homework. The most convincing answer came from Francis in year seven who said it was because cars don’t have visible limbs and the deer’s brain is programmed to recognise typical predator shapes. Its hard-wired instincts simply haven’t evolved to deal with two glowing lights heading towards it. Let alone two glowing lights flanking blue flashing lights emitting a piercing, whooping noise.

This nugget of knowledge was absolutely no use to the two men as the deer loomed nearer. The creature wasn’t the biggest deer Tony Sutton had seen, but he knew that it was more than big enough to write off their car if they hit it. If its huge head and antlers penetrated the windscreen it could very well decapitate them both.

In desperation he yanked the wheel to the right; it spun easily through his hands, confirming that the car had lost its traction on the icy road. He felt the drumming beat of the car’s anti-lock braking system rapidly disengaging then re-engaging as it fought to re-establish grip on the road.

The car slid sideways, beginning a slow pirouette. Warren’s last thought before impact was of Susan, waiting patiently at home as she kept his birthday meal warm.

Chapter 69

“DCI Jones, come in, please. DI Sutton, what is your status?”

Gary Hastings fought down an increasing feeling of panic. The radio hissed. The last sound the team had heard was a violent series of curses, followed by a loud sliding noise then a deafening bang, before the radio went silent.

He turned to Karen Hardwick. “Get an ambulance to their last-known position.”

Suddenly the static was interrupted by Warren’s voice, shaky but calm. “We’re OK. Repeat, we’re OK. We’re in a ditch, no injuries.”

The whole team let out a breath of relief.

Gary turned to Karen. “Keep the ambulance en route anyway — we don’t know what state Jemima Duer is in. But tell them to hold back until they get the go-ahead — we don’t want them wandering into a live fire zone.” He cursed himself for not having thought to order medical back-up before.

The deer had made its mind up at the last moment, leaping over a low hedge into the field beyond. The Audi had continued to spin, ending up on the wrong side of the road, sliding backwards. With a deafening crunch, it came to rest against a large tree. For a few seconds, the silence had been overwhelming as the engine stalled and the powerful jolt knocked the car’s electrics offline, silencing the sirens and killing the radio.

“Sorry, guv,” muttered Sutton, still dazed with shock.

Warren shook his head. “We’re still in one piece, Tony. Are you fit to drive still?”

“Yeah, but I don’t know if we’re getting out of this ditch any time soon.”

“See if you can get the engine back on and the power back,” ordered Warren as he toggled the radio’s on-off switch. It took three attempts to restart the engine, by which time the lights were back on and the radio was working.

Most of the warning lights on the dashboard remained off, so Sutton slipped the car into first gear and gently pressed the accelerator. Mud sprayed off the back wheels as the stranded car struggled to find grip in the muddy ditch.

Shifting the car into reverse, he depressed the accelerator again, before shifting back into first. The change in the car’s position was enough for the front wheels to find purchase on the icy tarmac and with a loud sliding noise the car hauled itself back onto the road, the smell of burnt rubber permeating the car. The road was narrow and it took more than a three-point turn for Sutton to manoeuvre the car in the correct direction.

The radio burst into life again. “The van has stopped. Repeat, the van has stopped. About a quarter of a mile from the turn-off, in an open clearing. Cambridgeshire ARU report that they are still ten to twelve minutes out, with Essex about five minutes behind.”

Warren looked at Tony; Jemima Duer’s life was now measured in bare minutes. No words were necessary. Moving quickly, but cautiously, the Audi headed off again. Leaning over, Warren switched off the lights and sirens.

* * *

Jemima Duer, Jem to her friends, felt nauseous. The lurching of the vehicle as it bounced along what she guessed was a dirt track mingled with the sickly sweet smell of the rag around her throat.

Her last memory was of a blurred figure approaching her out of the shadows as she waited on the darkened corner for her lift home. She was busy updating her Facebook status on her phone and barely glanced up until she felt the strong arms wrap around her, smelt the solvent-soaked rag and the world around her faded away.

The front of her face still felt numb, but she could taste blood in her mouth. Running her tongue around her gums, she could feel the fragments of at least one broken tooth. Her brain was still fuzzy, but adrenaline was doing a good job of clearing the clouds that seemed to envelop her mind.

The van gave an even bigger jolt and she felt herself lifted bodily off the metal floor before crashing back down again. Her head thumped against the wheel arch. Was this why the rag was no longer tied to her face?

Moving her arms, she was amazed to find them unbound. Without pausing to question why her attacker hadn’t taken the trouble to bind her more securely, she yanked the stinking cloth off her neck and tried to kneel. Another bounce from the van sent her sprawling on her back again. Taking deep cleansing breaths of the cold, fresh air, she felt her head clearing more, the sickness in her stomach slowly abating.

The van lurched to a halt, the rear briefly lit red by spillage from the brake lights. Cold fear clutched at her insides. She frantically looked around the back of the van for a weapon, something to defend herself with against the madman who had snatched her. Like everybody else in Middlesbury, she’d read the newspapers and followed the news bulletins and was under no illusions what was going to happen to her.

A big black kit bag lay beside her. Ripping the zip open, she rummaged inside. Packages of what appeared to be rubber gloves and a role of tape were of no use to her, but at the bottom of the bag she suddenly felt something long, and cold and metal. What was it? A tyre iron? Some sort of wrench? Pulling it out, she couldn’t believe her luck. She wasn’t a particularly religious woman, but if this wasn’t a sign from God, she didn’t know what was.

Turning to face the van’s rear doors, she aimed the shotgun at what she guessed was head height, placed her fingers over the triggers and waited for the monster to come and get her.

* * *

Michael Stockley clambered out of the van, breathing the cold night air deeply. The snow was coming down heavily now and he was confident that in a few hours his tyre tracks would be completely obliterated. The ground was so frozen, he might not even need to pay the disabled kid to clean the van more thoroughly.

His heart pounded with excitement and he felt his engorged penis throb; the two Viagra he’d taken an hour before had kept him hard throughout the drive. Crunching through the snow, he yanked the rear doors open.

His step back was instinctive as he raised his arm and closed his eyes in a futile defence against the shotgun blast. There was a quiet click and a squeal of frustration. Stupid bitch hadn’t disengaged the safety, he realised as he stepped forward, grabbing the shotgun’s barrel, cold even through his gloves. The girl had fight, he’d give her that, he thought as he tried to yank the gun from her. She held on tight as they wrestled for control. The chloroform mask must have come off in the back of the van. He’d have to take that into account next time, maybe tape it on or perhaps tie her hands, although he prided himself in being able to subdue his victims and get them into the back of the van in less than a minute.

He was starting to win, his superior strength and the fact that he was standing giving him the advantage. Suddenly, as if realising she was about to lose, his victim snapped her right foot out. The impact against his swollen penis was excruciating and he felt all of the wind driven out of him. Ironically it was the sudden application of all of his body weight as he staggered backwards that finally allowed him to rip the shotgun from Jemima’s grasp.

With no other options, she jumped off the tailgate and ran past the groaning monster. She had no plan, she just headed for the treeline, hoping to lose herself in the woods. Her back tingled as she imagined him bringing the shotgun to bear, slipping off the safety catch — why hadn’t she thought to do that? she berated herself – and blasting a hole in her.

She’d taken barely a half-dozen paces before she stumbled, catching her foot on a root, hidden from view by the snow. She crashed to her knees. Scrambling back to her feet, she staggered another two paces, but it was too late. She felt a rush of wind beside her head then an explosion of light, followed by darkness.

* * *

Stockley stared down at the young woman, breathing heavily. A thin trickle of blood on her left temple, black in the dim moonlight reflecting off the snow, marked where he’d hit her with the solid wooden stock of the shotgun. She was out for the count, but he wasn’t going to take any more chances. Reaching down, he hoisted her over his shoulder and carried her back to the van in a fireman’s lift. She was light, barely seven stone, he estimated. Nothing for a man who’d spent the early part of his working career hauling sacks of letters and parcels around the Royal Mail depot and more recently heaving bales of hay with his father on their farm.

Laying her insensate body on the tailgate of the van, he picked up the chloroform-soaked rag. The solvent was highly volatile, evaporating rapidly, and he decided to play safe, taking the glass jam jar of chloroform out of the kit bag and resoaking the rag, before retying the sodden cloth around her face.

Suddenly the area was bathed in dazzling bright lights. Cursing, he dropped the jar, spilling its contents down the front of his jacket.

“Police! Step away from the van,” came a loud voice, the command repeated by a second voice. Squinting, he could just make out the shadows of two figures, stepping out of the car. Shading his eyes from the glare, he ignored the instruction, reaching into the back of the van, where he’d leant the shotgun.

* * *

Turning onto the dirt track, Sutton had doused the headlights.

“Approaching the clearing,” Warren had whispered into the radio, before muting it. The thickening snow muffled the sound of the car’s tyres and deadened the quiet thrum of its engine. As they eased towards the clearing, the sparse moonlight reflected off the snow, dimly illuminating the area. Up ahead, the glow of headlights marked their target. As they entered the clearing the two men could make out the form of a man bent over the tailgate doing something to what appeared to be another body. The red glow from the van’s tail lights illuminated the shadowy forms, hopefully destroying his night vision.

“Ready?” breathed Warren softly.

“Ready,” replied Sutton, flicking on the Audi’s powerful main beams and hitting the flashing blue lights.

It had the desired effect, the startled form jumping in surprise.

“Police! Step away from the van,” roared Warren, his command repeated by Sutton, as the two officers leapt from the car.

Warren had taken two paces before he realised what the man was doing.

“Gun,” he shouted, throwing himself backwards.

To his right, Tony Sutton did the same, ducking behind the car’s open door.

A deafening boom shattered the night and glass rained down on Sutton’s head.

“I’m OK,” he shouted over the ringing in his ears.

Warren risked a peek through the side window of the door he was sheltering behind, hoping that the glare of the lights would render him invisible. Stockley was dressed in black from head to foot and was pacing towards the car. His stride was confident. He knew that neither officer was armed. If they had been, they’d have shouted, ‘Armed police’. He had the gun; he had the advantage.

“Give it up, Stockley. It’s over,” shouted Warren. In the light he had seen the outline of the gun. It was a shotgun of sorts, presumably the one that Stockley had once upon a time owned a licence for. He tried to remember what the licence had said. A double-barrelled shotgun, he recalled. Warren thought back to his firearms training years before. British police officers were not routinely armed — mainly because British criminals weren’t routinely armed — and so the course had been very theoretical, a basic crash course in different types of guns and what to expect. They hadn’t even fired one. From what he could remember, a double-barrelled shotgun had two cartridges, fired one at a time. To reload you had to break open the breech and insert two new cartridges. Stockley had fired one. To take out both officers, he would need to either reload so that he had two full barrels, or he would have to fire one cartridge, then reload.

“Don’t be silly, Michael. You know you’ll be in a world of shit if you shoot a police officer,” Sutton called in desperation.

“Oh, yeah, what are you going to do? Lock me up for longer? Stick me in a cell with no TV?” His voice was slightly slurred, but he was clearly rational.

The fact was, they had nothing to bargain with. Stockley had killed four young women, possibly a fifth and probably his own father. He was probably looking at a whole-life tariff. Even if his defence team convinced the judge that he was not guilty by reason of insanity, he would probably die in Broadmoor, locked away in the secure hospital for society’s protection. Killing two police officers wouldn’t add anything meaningful to that sentence and might just give him a chance to escape.

He didn’t seem to be making any move to reload yet as he walked towards the car, angling towards the passenger side, clearly aiming to take out Warren first. Hidden behind the door, his mind racing, Warren frantically tried to think of a way out of the deadly situation.

* * *

Stockley walked towards the car, his finger tight on the trigger. He’d never shot at a human-sized target before, but he imagined it was probably easier than hitting a rabbit. He stumbled slightly. The chloroform soaking his jacket was making him feel a little light-headed. Nevertheless he was fully aware of his surroundings and was confident that he’d make it.