Not Dead Enough (56 page)

‘Are you OK?’ he gasped.

She nodded, looking in total shock.

There was a bang above them. Oblivious to his pain, Grace ran on up and saw the roof terrace door swinging back against the wall. Then he limped out on to the wooden decking of the terrace. And just caught a flash of olive green disappearing, in the failing light, down the fire escape at the far end.

Breaking into a run, he dodged around the kettle barbecue, the tables and chairs and plants, and hurtled down the steep metal steps. Jecks was already halfway across the courtyard, heading to the gate.

It banged shut in Grace’s face as he reached it. He hit the red release button, oblivious to everything else, jerked the heavy gate open, not waiting for the two constables behind him to catch up, and stumbled, breathlessly, out into the street. Jecks was a good hundred yards ahead, sprinting and hobbling at the same time down past a row of closed antiques shops and a pub with jazz music blaring and drinkers outside, crowding the pavement and part of the road.

Grace ran after him, determined to get this fucker. Utterly, utterly determined, everything else in the whole world blocked out of his mind.

Jecks turned left along York Place. The bastard was fast. Christ, he was fast. Grace was sprinting flat out, his chest on fire, his lungs feeling like they were being crushed between rocks. He wasn’t gaining on the man but at least he was keeping pace. He passed St Peter’s Church on his right. A Chinese takeaway, followed by endless shops on his left, everything except the fast-food places closed, just window display lights on. Buses, vans, cars, taxis passed by. He dodged around a gaggle of youths, all the time his eyes locked on to that olive-green suit that was increasingly blending into the closing darkness as York Place became the London Road.

Jecks reached the Preston Circus junction. He had a red traffic light against him and a line of cars crossing in front of him. But he sprinted straight through and on up the London Road. Grace had to stop for a moment, as a lorry thundered past, followed by an interminable line of traffic. Come on, come on, come on! He glanced over his shoulder and saw the two constables some way behind. Then, recklessly, almost blinded by the stinging perspiration in his eyes, he raced across the road in front of the flashing headlights and angry blaring horn of a bus.

He was fit from his regular running, but he didn’t know how much longer he could go on.

Jecks, now about two hundred yards in front of him, slowed, turned his head, saw Grace and picked up speed again.

Where the hell was he going?

There was a park on the right side of the road now. On his left were houses that had been converted into offices, and blocks of flats. The irony did not escape him that he was at this moment running past the Brighton & Hove City Council Directorate of Children, Families and Schools, where he had been earlier today.

You have to start tiring soon, Jecks. You are not getting away. You don’t hurt my darling Cleo and get away.

Jecks ran on, past a garage, over another junction, past another parade of shops.

Then, finally, Grace heard the thrashing wail of a siren coming up behind him. About sodding time, he thought. Moments later a patrol car slowed alongside him, the passenger window going down, and he heard a burst of static, followed by a controller’s voice coming from the radio inside.

Barely able to speak, Grace gasped to the young constable, ‘In front of me. That guy in the green suit. Do a hard stop on him!’

The car roared off, blue light showering from its roof, and pulled into the kerb just past Jecks, the passenger door opening before it had come to a halt.

Jecks turned and bolted straight back towards Grace for a few yards, then darted right, towards Preston Park railway station.

Grace heard the sound of another siren approaching. More back-up. Good.

He followed Jecks doggedly up a steep hill lined on both sides with houses. Ahead was a high brick wall, with an access tunnel to the platforms and the street on the far side. Two taxis were parked up.

There was a pick-up area in front of the station, with a couple of taxis waiting, and an unmade-up residential road to the right, which ran along the side of the railway line for several hundred yards.

Jecks turned into it.

The first police car shot past Grace, following Jecks. Suddenly, the man doubled back on his tracks, then dashed into the tunnel and up the steps to the south-bound platform, barging past a young woman with a suitcase and a man in a business suit.

Grace followed, dodging through more passengers, then he saw Jecks running down the platform. The last door of the train was open, with the guard hanging out, signalling with his torch. It began to move.

Jecks leapt off the platform, disappearing from Grace’s view. Was he on the track?

Then as the guard slipped past him, the train accelerating, Grace saw its red tail light. And Jecks, clinging to a handrail on the rear of the last carriage, his feet perched precariously on a buffer.

Grace yelled at the guard, ‘Police, stop the train! You’ve got a man hanging on the back!’

For a moment the guard, a spindly young man in an ill-fitting uniform, just looked at him in astonishment as the train continued gathering speed.

‘Police! I’m a police officer! Stoppppp!’ he yelled again. The guard, now several yards ahead of him, was only just in earshot.

The guard ducked inside. Grace heard a shrill bell, then suddenly the train was slowing, the brakes screeching. There was a hiss of air pressure and it came to a jerky halt fifty yards beyond the end of the platform.

Grace ran down the slope and on to the track, keeping clear of the raised live conductor rail, stumbling through loose, weed-strewn ballast and over the sleepers.

The guard jumped down and ran back towards Grace, flashing his torch beam. ‘Where is he?’

Grace pointed. Jecks, looking fearfully down at the live rail below him, edged over to the right-hand buffer, then leapt, but not far enough, and his right foot brushed the top of the second conductor rail. There was blue flash, a crackle, a puff of smoke, and a scream from Jecks. He landed on the ballast in the centre of the north-bound track with a sharp crack, then fell over, his head striking the far rail with a dull thud, and lay still.

In the beam of the guard’s flashlight, Grace saw his left leg sticking out at an odd angle, and for a moment he thought the man was dead. There was an acrid, burning smell in the air.

‘Hey!’ the guard yelled in panic. ‘There’s a train coming! The nine fifty!’

Grace could hear the rails singing like the whine of a tuning fork.

‘It’s the fast one! Victoria! Express! Oh, Jesus!’ The guard was trembling so much he could barely keep the beam on Jecks, who was gripping the rail with his hands, trying to drag himself forward.

Grace put a foot over the conductor rail, on to the loose ballast beyond. He wanted this bastard alive.

Suddenly Jecks tried to get up, but he instantly fell forward with another howl of pain, blood trickling down his face.

‘No!’ the guard shouted at Grace. ‘You can’t cross – not there!’

Grace could hear the sound of the approaching train. Ignoring the guard, he swung his other leg over and stopped in the space between the two sets of tracks, looking left. At the lights of the express train that was tearing out of the darkness, straight at him. Seconds away.

There was a space on the other side before the next track. Enough room, he decided, making a snap decision and vaulting the second live rail. He grabbed the partially melted, heavy-soled shoe on the broken leg, which was the nearest part of Jecks to him, and pulled with all his strength. The lights bore down. He heard Jecks’s scream of agony above the train’s klaxon. He could feel the ground vibrating, the rails singing a deafening pitch now. The rush of wind. He pulled the man again, oblivious to the howl of pain, the shouting of the guard, the roar and blare of the train, and staggered back, hauling the deadweight over the far rail and on to the rough ground as hard and fast as he could.

Then, losing his footing, he fell sideways on to the track, his face inches from the rail. And heard a terrible human screech.

The train was thundering past, a vortex of air ripping at his clothes, his hair, the clang of the wheels deafening him.

A final whoosh of air. Then silence.

Something warm and sticky was spurting into his face.

119

The silence seemed to go on for an eternity. Grace, gulping down air, was momentarily dazzled by a flashlight beam. More warm, sticky fluid struck his face. The beam moved away from his eyes and now he could see what looked like a narrow, round length of grey hosepipe jetting red paint at him.

Then he realized it was not red paint. It was blood. And it wasn’t a pipe, it was Norman Jecks’s right arm. The man’s hand had been severed.

Grace scrambled on to his knees. Jecks was lying, shaking, moaning, in shock. He had to stop the bleeding, he knew, had to staunch it immediately or the man would bleed to death in minutes.

The guard was alongside him. ‘Jesus,’ he said. ‘Jesus. Oh, Jesus.’ Two police officers joined him.

‘Call an ambulance!’ Grace said. He saw faces pressed up against the windows of the stopped train. ‘Maybe see if anyone on the train is a doctor!’

The guard was staring down at Jecks, unable to take his eyes off him.

‘SOMEONE RADIO FOR AN AMBULANCE!’ Grace yelled at the police officers.

The guard ran off towards a phone on a signal post.

‘Already done,’ one of the constables said. ‘Are you all right, sir?’

Grace nodded, still breathing hard, concentrating on finding something for a tourniquet. ‘Make sure someone’s gone to help Cleo Morey, at Unit 5, Gardener’s Yard,’ he said. His hands went to his jacket, but then he realized it was on the floor somewhere in Cleo’s house. ‘Gimme your jacket!’ he yelled to the guard.

Too surprised to query him, the guard ran back over and let Grace pull the jacket from him, then ran off again. Grace stood up and, holding both sleeves, tore it apart. One sleeve he wound as tightly as he could around Jecks’s arm, a short distance above where it was severed. The other he balled and jammed against the end as a plug.

Then the guard ran back, panting. ‘I’ve asked them to switch off the power. It should only take a few seconds,’ he said.

Then suddenly the night erupted into a cacophony of wails. It sounded as if every emergency vehicle’s siren in the whole of the city of Brighton and Hove had been switched on together.

Five minutes later, Grace was travelling, at his absolute insistence, in the back of the ambulance with Jecks, determined to see the bastard securely into a hospital room, with no chance of escaping.

Not that there seemed much danger of that at this moment. Jecks was strapped down, cannulated and barely conscious. The paramedic, who was monitoring him carefully, told Grace that although the man had suffered heavy blood loss, his life was not in immediate danger. But the ambulance was travelling urgently fast, siren wailing, the ride rocky and uncomfortable. And Grace was not taking any chances: there was a police car escort in front and behind them.

Borrowing the paramedic’s mobile phone, Grace called both Cleo’s numbers but got no answer. Then the paramedic radioed for him, putting him on to the controller. An ambulance was on site at Gardener’s Yard, the woman told Grace. Two paramedics were attending superficial wounds to Cleo Morey, who was reluctant to go to hospital, wanting to remain at home.

Grace then got himself patched through to a patrol car that was also outside Cleo’s house and told the two constables to remain there until he returned, and also to get hold of a glazier to secure the window as quickly as possible.

By the time he had finished giving instructions, the ambulance was already turning sharply left, up the hill to the Accident and Emergency entrance to the hospital.

As Grace climbed out of the back, not taking his eye off Jecks for an instant, even though the man now seemed completely unconscious, a second police car wailed up behind them and stopped. A young constable climbed out, green-faced and looking very close to vomiting, and hurried over towards them, holding something inside a heavily bloodstained handkerchief. ‘Sir!’ he said to Grace.

‘What have you got?’

‘The man’s hand, sir. They may be able to sew it back on. But some of the fingers are missing. It must have gone under the wheels a couple of times. We couldn’t find the fingers.’

Grace had to struggle to restrain himself from telling him that by time he had finished with Norman Jecks, he probably wouldn’t have much use for it again. Instead, he said grimly, ‘Good thinking.’

It was shortly after midnight when Jecks came out of the operating theatre. The hospital had not been able to contact the one local orthopaedic surgeon who had had some success in reattaching severed limbs, and the general surgeon who was in the hospital, and had just finished patching up a motorcycle rider, decided the hand looked too badly damaged.

It was the hand with the hospital dressing on, Grace noticed, and requested it be kept in a refrigerator, to preserve it forensically if nothing else. Then he ensured that Jecks was in a private room, on the fourth floor, with a tiny window and no fire escape, and organized a rota of two police constables to guard him around the clock.

Finally, no longer exhausted but wide awake, wired, relieved and exhilarated, he drove back to Cleo’s house, his ankle hurting like hell every time he depressed the clutch. He was pleased to see the empty police car in the street outside and that the window had already been repaired. As he limped up to the front door, he heard the roar of a vacuum cleaner. Then he rang the bell.

Cleo answered. She had a sticking plaster on the side of her forehead and the surround of one eye was black and swollen. The two constables were sitting on a sofa, drinking coffee, and the Hoover lay on its side on the floor.

She gave him a wan smile, then looked shocked. ‘Roy, darling, you’re injured.’

He realized he was still covered in Jecks’s blood. ‘It’s OK – I’m not injured, I just need to get my clothes off.’