One Dead Witness (30 page)

‘
Now then,’ Danny said into Benstead’s grubby ear. ‘Let’s see
what all this was about.’ She patted him down, went through his
pockets. She pulled out the roll of banknotes and handed it to
Henry. Conservative estimate, two grand. Then she found the
bag.

Benstead moaned.

She stood up and peered into it. Her mouth popped open when
she carefully withdrew the driving licence and read the name on it.
She held it so Henry could see.

He raised his eyebrows and said, ‘Oh.’ To Benstead he said,
‘Mate - you are under arrest.’

Any further conversation was halted when an urgent message
came over the PR in Henry’s pocket.

‘
All patrols, all patrols, make to the vicinity of Talbot
Square, Royal Bank of Scotland ... believed escaped prisoner Louis
Vernon Trent has just attempted to use the cash machine there. I
repeat. . .’

Henry and Danny looked at each other, then down at their
prisoner. Henry made the decision.

‘
You go. I’ll stay and sort out Bollock Brain here.’

Even before he had finished speaking, Danny was out of the
door.

Henry turned to Fat Tommy. ‘How about a double
whisky?’

The account belonging to the dead ambulanceman was still
operating, but because Trent had withdrawn the maximum allowed for
the day he was unable to steal any more money from it. He took the
opportunity to confirm the present balance - £700. A nice, tidy sum
of money which he hoped would be in his hands after
midnight.

At the end of the transaction, the machine slid the card back
out and Trent reclaimed it.

Feeling pretty buoyant, he strolled to the top of Clifton
Street where it joined Abingdon Street. To his right, on Church
Street, was the entrance to the Winter Gardens complex. A long
queue of people were lined up patiently at the box office, buying
tickets for that night’s performance by a well-known TV comedian.
He was doing a six-week stint of ‘saucy’ material and
songs.

Trent had a sudden fancy to see him. He turned towards the
Winter Gardens at the moment the scanner in his pocket picked up
the police radio transmission and passed it to the
earpiece.

Trent cursed his own foolishness and greed. He should have
known the cops would have alerted the bank, who would reverse the
process when the account got touched. The fact the account was
still open should have been a warning beacon to him.

For a few vital moments he was rooted to the spot, unable to
make a decision, even though he knew if he remained there he would
very quickly end up in a police cell.

He took a chance, pivoted on his heels and headed quickly down
Clifton Street towards the Promenade. Once on the sea-front he
reckoned he could easily mingle and disappear, maybe into one of
the big stores.

Danny spun out the back door of the pub, ran down onto Market
Street where she intended to cut across to Clifton Street which was
probably less than 100 yards away.

She zigzagged through crowds of people, thankful she had
chosen to wear flat-soled shoes that morning. Part of her mind was
still annoyed by Benstead who had caused her to spill her drink all
over her fairly new suit, one she quite liked and thought she
looked pretty good in. The second outfit in the space of a few days
ruined. They would cost a fortune to replace.

As she ran she pulled her PR out and turned the volume up
high.

Other patrols were responding to the call, all descending on
Clifton Street - until Henry Christie’s impatient voice cut across
them all with an instruction for the Comms operator: ‘Get a grip on
these deployments, will you? Don’t let everyone race to the scene,
otherwise we might miss him. Set up some checkpoints a little
distance away. Get the Comms Sergeant to get it
organised.’

The voice of the Comms Sergeant replied, slightly chastened,
‘Will do, sir.’

Everybody seemed intent on holding Danny up. She had to dance
around four kids, who, hands held, were skipping down the street;
she skidded dangerously to avoid a woman laden down with a huge
load of shopping who appeared from nowhere in her path; and
physically rammed a huge, beer-bellied, T-shirted, drunken
individual with a Scottish accent who did his level best to catch
her.

Without checking for traffic she legged it across Corporation
Street and into Clifton Street. She relayed her position to Comms
and learned that she was the first officer on the street. Then she
juddered to a stop and surveyed the area, fully aware that more
often than not, by the time police receive such calls, ten minutes
or more could have elapsed. Trent could easily be a quarter of a
mile away now, making Henry’s instructions to Comms a matter of
common sense.

Her chest rose and fell, her nostrils dilated, as she panted
heavily. She wiped the back of her sticky hand across her forehead,
drawing several wide-eyed looks from passers-by. She looked like a
scarecrow again.

A tingle of apprehension went down her spine as a sixth sense
of perception clicked in.

She knew Trent was nearby. Somewhere close by.
Hiding.

Trent slammed himself flat against the side of a parked Ford
Transit van when he saw Danny appear at the bottom of the street.
He recognised her instantly as a member of that bastard conspiracy
of individuals who had sent him to prison.

He shuffled along the side of the van until he was in a
position to peep around the back of it. From there he could see
Danny across the street, speaking into her PR. Trent could hear
every word she spoke through his earpiece.

A surge of uncontrollable loathing, almost like a demon in his
soul, coursed through his veins at the sight of the smug, arrogant
bitch who had played such a pivotal role in consigning him to the
torture of the last nine years. Danny Fucking Furness.

His lips drew back into a snarl.

At exactly the same moment these feelings surged through him,
he saw a visible change in Danny’s body language. She stood
upright, stopped talking into the radio, cocked her head to one
side. Suddenly she was ultra-alert, almost as if she knew where he
was hiding. Yet he was certain she had not seen him.

Trent froze.
Godamnit, she fucking
knows I’m here.

Her face turned towards him. Trent pinned himself against the
van, desperation rising. His earpiece told him two foot-patrol
officers and two double-manned police cars were only literally
seconds away. One of the cars was an armed response
vehicle.

He would be trapped if he didn’t move now.

The shop he found himself looking at was an estate
agent’s.

Her senses alive, fear making every nerve-ending electric,
Danny started to walk towards the Transit van parked across the
street. She held her PR as if it was a hammer.

He was there. She knew it.

Suddenly he appeared, turned his face fleetingly towards her,
and ran into the estate agency.

‘
He’s gone into Lordson’s,’ Danny yelled into her PR. ‘In
through the front door of Lordson’s.’

A middle-aged man and his wife browsed in the agency. Two
female assistants typed away at their desks behind the
counter.

No one even looked at Trent when he came through the door -
until he drew the knife from his sleeve and slashed it across the
man’s neck as he ran past.

It was a lucky, but well-aimed stroke, slicing the carotid
artery. Trent did not wait to see the effect, but leapt over the
counter, plunged his knife into the shoulder of one of the women,
withdrew it and made for the door at the rear of the
shop.

He had torn through the shop in a matter of seconds with the
effect of an out-of-control death-star. Behind him he had left a
trail of bloody chaos, people screaming, confusion, injury,
everyone wondering what the hell had hit them and what they had
done to deserve this.

The Staff Only door was flimsy. He crashed through it to find
himself in a small kitchen. Beyond was the back door of the
premises; he headed straight for it.

Danny ran into the shop seconds behind him. She stopped and
took everything in.

The man who had been slashed in the throat had collapsed to
the floor, dragging some display boards down with him. He gagged
and coughed blood in a fine spray, losing his false teeth as well.
His fingers clutched the big vein in his neck which pumped blood.
It was like trying to plug a damaged hosepipe on full flow. His
wife stood next to him, helpless. Her hands covered her mouth
whilst she screamed hysterically.

The woman who had been stabbed in the shoulder screamed in
tremendous agony coupled with terror as she watched the
fast-spreading stain around her shoulder.

The other employee sat transfixed by the horror. Her fingers
hovered above her keyboard, eyes wide, staring with disbelief, her
whole frame immobile as a perfect still-life. She had been frozen
into a statue by the flash of violence which had streaked by
her.

‘
Get an ambulance to Lordson’s,’ Danny said into her PR. ‘Two
people down, injured, one very serious. Knife injuries. . .’ She
did not stay to tend the wounded, but vaulted over the counter in
Trent’s tracks.

By this time he was out of the back door, hurtling down the
service alley which ran behind the shops.

Danny skidded out after him, losing her balance momentarily.
‘Down Cheapside, heading towards Corporation Street,’ she relayed
over the PR. ‘Armed with a knife, prepared to use it. Be
careful.’

Trent stopped abruptly some twenty yards ahead of
her.

Danny stopped too, puzzled, cautious.

Then she saw the reason why. A uniformed PC was walking up
towards Trent, side-handled baton drawn.

A wave of euphoria hit Danny.

They had caught the bastard.

Trent crouched, left arm extended, hand palm outwards. His
right arm was also extended but this hand held the knife in
readiness to strike.

It was a slim knife, Danny saw. Blood dripped from
it.

There was blood on his hand and partway up his
sleeve.

He slashed the air menacingly, the message clear.

Danny and the PC circled him cautiously, just beyond reach of
an attack thrust. The PC slapped the extended portion of his baton
provocatively into the palm of his left hand. The officer’s message
was pretty clear too: ‘You are going to get the full force of this
right across your head.’

‘
Come on, Louis, put the knife down,’ Danny said reasonably.
‘This place will be crawling with cops in a matter of seconds. You
don’t have a cat in hell’s chance, so just put the knife down. No
one else needs to get hurt.’

Trent watched them both suspiciously. His gaze flickered from
one to the other, his eyes afire.

The sense of Danny’s words seemed to permeate through to him.
He stood upright, let his arms fall to his side. A submissive,
resigned expression crossed his face and he nodded. His shoulders
drooped, he exhaled a long deep sigh. Beaten.

Danny knew better than to trust Trent ... but the PC did not.
She was about to tell Trent to drop the knife, kick it away, assume
the position, and all that crap, when without warning the PC
stepped confidently into the danger zone. His eagerness blocked all
common sense. This was going to be one hell of an
arrest.

Before Danny could yell out a warning, he was too close to
Trent for her to do anything.

The escaped prisoner blurred into life, as fast and as deadly
as a bolt of forked lightning.

The knife shot up.

Danny, standing side-on, saw the point of the blade touch the
PC’s blue shirt, then disappear up to the hilt behind the officer’s
ribs and into his heart. Trent rammed it home, stepped in close to
his victim, grabbed the officer’s shoulder with his free hand and
pulled him even further forwards onto the knife-blade. He screwed
and twisted the knife all the way, doing maximum damage. At the
same time he turned and laughed at the horror-stricken Danny,
throwing his head back like a maniac. He gave the knife one more
massive - flamboyant - jerk before withdrawing it like a
magician.

He stepped to one side, pulled the PC round and pushed him
towards Danny.

She could not begin to describe the look on the young
officer’s face. Pain? Shock? Disbelief? Whatever, it was a face she
would remember for the rest of her life.

The PC staggered towards her, walking with the
misco-ordination of an infant learning to toddle. He stared down at
his shirt and the very fast-spreading stain. Danny opened her arms
to catch him.

He stumbled, dropped his baton which clattered uselessly on
the ground and went heavily onto one knee. He placed the palms of
both hands over his heart, lifted his face pleadingly to Danny. He
looked like he was proposing to her.