Running Stupid: (Mystery Series) (15 page)

Dean slowly nodded. “You’re in for a world of pain, little man,” he said.

The fat man was metres behind Matthew. He didn’t know Matthew had stopped and he was heading for the main room with no intention of slowing down. The constant throbbing inside Dean’s head and the loss of his left ear cancelled out any noise. He struggled even to hear Matthew.

“You ever been fucked by a fat man?” Matthew said with a smile.

“What–” Deans words were hastily cut short.

Matthew Jester dropped flat to the floor in a push-up position, his legs elevated slightly. The bounding block of lard and his unstoppable momentum collided with Matthew’s feet. Instantly he lost his balance, dropping the torch but holding onto the knife.

He flew forward, arms outstretched, catapulting through the air. He hit Dean hard. The scolded man was knocked off his feet and thrown with the fat man on top of him. They hit the ground with a thud and a sickening moan, and then slid backwards on the slick floor, their movement stopping when they collided with the wall.

Jester calmly rose to his feet, brushed himself down and walked up to the pair who were still wrapped around each other. Dean was struggling underneath the weight of the fat man but he couldn’t move the colossal mound of fat. The knife poked out from his chubby neck, just above his chest. He had lost control of it in the air and the collision had forced it deep into his neck. He had died almost instantaneously. Blood gushed out from the wound and covered Dean, who wriggled about in extreme disgust and discomfort, shouting abuse at Matthew as he did so.

Jester sighed at the dead fat man. He wanted to defend himself but murder wasn’t in his plans. He knelt down and looked Dean in the eye. “Tell Barry he failed, and if he wants me he’s going to have to try a lot harder.”

Jester climbed out of the window and embraced the fresh air. The warm morning had given way to a dull rainy day. Splash marks marked the concrete like polka dots. He was cautious with his steps as he made his way around to the front of the building. There was no one around the back or the side of the building and to Matthew’s relief there was no one around the front either.

He quickened his pace and entered the car park. The Jeep – much to his surprise – was still in its space. He quickly ran his eyes over the vehicle. The windows were all intact, the locks on the doors hadn’t been touched and no one had touched the wheels. It was only after he climbed inside and shut the door, when he saw the other vehicle in the car park.

He paused, the key in his hand hovering over the ignition, his eyes staring out of the passenger window at the car. It was a white transit van and it had seen better days, probably a decade of them. Dents, bumps and scrapes covered the van which was coated in thick black dust, the white bodywork almost hidden behind the screen of dirt. Kids had written on the van, using their fingertips to brush the dirt away and create words; swear words, names, doodles, and on the back, in thick letters were the words: “
Also available in white
.”

Jester frowned. The van wasn’t there when he entered the warehouse. He hoped it belonged to the fireball and the marshmallow man – lying injured and dead – but something inside him suggested there were more than two thugs at play. Barry was a foul-mouthed drunken idiot, there was no doubt about that, but when it came to money, he was a genius. He was a man of the world. Whatever anyone wanted he could get. He always had a friend of a friend of a friend who owed him a favour or two. He was weak in stature and mind, but he knew how to manipulate people into helping him and Matthew was sure he would have enlisted plenty of help and called in plenty of favours.

Thanks to the ransom put forward by the newspaper and their benefactor, Jester had a ten million pound sticker on his head and ten million people trying to shoot it off.

He forced the image of the van to the back of his mind, started the Jeep and reversed out of the car park. He turned the car around and then paused. In his rear-view mirror, Big Baz and two men – unknown to Matthew – appeared from around the side of the warehouse. They had been searching the nearby woodlands and stopped when they heard the Jeep engine burst into life.

“Shit,” Matthew hissed.

After an initial moment of confusion and erratic commanding, the three men made their way to the van. Jester slammed his foot down on the pedal and with a whiff of smoke and an awkward squeak, the Jeep rocketed away. Barry and his thugs jumped into the transit van to give chase.

***

Jester yanked the wheel of the Jeep hard, nearly ripping the steering column off. The car turned sharply, nearly tipping – with two wheels leaving the ground – before finding the ground with a thump and a test of the suspension.

He’d inadvertently made a turn onto a country road, but he didn’t care. He wanted to take every corner that the road offered. If he did, Big Baz would have a hard time tracking him. He had the jump on them, he had the advantage, but until the turn onto the country road, everything had been one away. They would know which way he was going.

He continued to erratically turn the corners nevertheless. He wanted to maintain optimum speed, his foot not touching the brake, but merely easing off the accelerator. The road he was on stretched for miles. Matthew knew this from experience. It was sided by hedges, trees and woodland.

He flicked his eyes from the steering wheel to his rear-view. The van wasn’t in sight. He moved his eyes back to the road, and then lost control of the vehicle. The steering wheel slipped out of his grasp and the car spun sideways, skidding along horizontally, two wheels elevated again. It came to a halt with a thud, the elevated side of the car crashed down and rattled the suspension; the passenger side clattered into a cluster of small trees, breaking two.

Jester reached for the steering wheel again. His hands were shaking violently, so much so that he struggled to restart the engine. When it finally purred into action, he accelerated away again. He moved his attention back to the rear-view and nearly lost control of the steering wheel again as the fearful sight of a dusty van appeared in the distance like a speck on the mirror.

He kicked his foot down on the accelerator, watching at the speedometer climb. “Fuck…fuck …fuck,” he muttered quickly, his heart hitting his chest like a bullet in a tumble dryer. His eyes continued to flick from the rear-view mirror to the road, to his speedometer and then back again.

He urged the Jeep along with all his might but the van was gaining on him. “Move!” he screamed at the car, sluggish in its attempt to reach top speed after the crash.

He settled slightly when the Jeep finally found its pace again. The van was still visible in the distance, but he had a clear advantage over it. In a few miles the road would fork and he could be on the motorway in less than thirty minutes. If the van kept up with him – passing through the twisting turns, over the chipped tarmac – it would soon lose sight of him. In an all-out battle for pace, the Jeep would win hands down.

Jester looked at the rear-view mirror again and gulped. He looked back to the speedometer, back to the road and then said a small prayer. He just needed to make it to the fork in the road.

The speed gauge trickled past fifty. Matthew eased his foot on the accelerator and manoeuvred the Jeep around another corner. The world turned grey, the car now entering a stretch of road flanked by low hanging trees. He came to a sharp corner and stamped down on the brake for the first time. The speed gauge continued to rise. He hit the brake again, forcing his foot to the floor. His high speed continued.

He pressed the brake over and over again and then the realisation dawned on him. Big Baz hadn’t been so careless after all. He’d sliced the brake cable.

Jester took his foot off the accelerator and slowly the gauge nudged down; forty-five, forty, thirty-five. He dragged the vehicle around the sharp bend and, with his speed still dropping, he shot a nervous glance towards the rear-view mirror. The van was gaining on him, its speed constant, its cornering almost professional. The driver clearly knew the road well.

“Shit,” Matthew hissed, stamping back down on the accelerator. He pressed down on the brakes again, a hopeless gesture. The brake pedal was slack, and the Jeep wasn’t stopping anytime soon.

As the car touched fifty miles an hour, Matthew tried to turn another sharp corner, unwilling to drop his speed. He lost control of the vehicle, felt it kick out underneath him. The wheels spun and spat smoke as the Jeep drifted hard, sliding across to the other side of the road. Jester struggled to gain control but the steering wheel spun madly in his grasp.

The car dipped down an embankment and stalled. The engine fell silent. The wheels continued to move. Two of them tearing up chunks of mud, the other two spinning in mid-air.

Jester had shut his eyes during the ordeal. He opened them and cursed immediately. He popped open his seatbelt and instantly collapsed sideways, his body pushed up against the driver’s window.

He groaned heavy and looked up to see that the passenger door, which had popped open on impact, was swinging slowly back and forth. Grabbing hold of the gear-stick to gain leverage, Jester pulled himself from the side of the car and crawled onto the passenger side. He reached out and grabbed the swinging door before using it to scramble out of the car.

Outside of the car he took a step without thinking, an air step. He fell clumsily to the ground, hit the dried mud with a thud and then continued to roll. When he finally stopped he found himself deep in the wooded area, the car now a distant sight – lodged near the road at the top of the hill.

He picked himself up, brushed his clothes, ridding them of the mud flakes, sawdust and grit, swore at himself several times and then returned to the ground when the sound of the van’s engine alerted him. It had finally caught up with him.

Jester watched as they all rushed out of the van. Barry first, closely followed by his thugs. They concentrated on the toppled car. Barry barked a few heated orders and they split up. Jester kept all of them in his vision. They were edging their way down the ditch, two at one side of the car, the third at the other side.

Jester turned and quickly scanned the landscape ahead. The wooded area stretched as far as his eyes could see. He could run, but if he moved he’d be heard. He remained where he was, scared to even crouch down in case his movement alerted them.

Barry stood back as the other two men inspected the vehicle closely, before one of them pulled back and shouted, “He’s not here.” They all paused for a moment to contemplate and then, simultaneously, Barry and his thugs turned towards the forest.

Jester swallowed hard. “Shit,” he hissed. He took one last look at the thugs, their eyes fixed on the trees, trying to spot movement, and Jester turned and ran.

Within seconds the hunting threesome had spotted the movement in the greenery and the sounds of feet on hard mud and broken twigs. They all shouted something, half commanding, half out of realisation; three words, three voices, none of them coherent. Then they sprung, rushing into the woods, their eyes on a ten million pound prize.

“If you stop running, we won’t kill you!” Barry’s voice filtered through the forest, into Jester’s pounding ears. “Give yourself up, Jez!” he shouted again.

Jester ignored the words. His eyes were firmly set ahead. Every now and then he looked back, and when he did he felt the metaphorical whip. The two thugs were gaining on him. They were fitter, stronger and had fresher legs. Every backwards glance sent a jolt of fear and a buzz of adrenaline through Jester’s body.

“Stop fucking running!” Barry’s voice grew more distant with each leap Matthew took. Barry was running as fast as he could, eager for his prize, but he was a long way behind Jester and the two thugs.

Jester twisted and turned through the forest, constantly changing direction, hoping to lose sight of the predators. His ankles, still in pain – congealed blood dotted around them – flicked the tops of small branches and bushes. He grimaced and groaned, but pushed on.

His legs eventually gave up on him. He was running on spent fumes, surviving on what little adrenaline was left, and his jellied legs could take no more. His foot clipped the top of a pile of broken branches, the tip of his shoe striking a protruding branch. His momentum carried through the air, before sending him crashing down to the ground. He grunted in pain and quickly pushed himself back to his feet, before setting off to run again.

One of the thugs dived through the air and tackled Jester to the ground. They both crashed into the mud. Matthew moaned, the weight of the man pushing him into the ground was too much for his agonised shoulder to bear. In a matter of seconds, before Jester was allowed the opportunity to squirm, the second thug pounced. He jumped forward, skidded on his knees and threw himself over Matthew Jester.

Barry Brown, affectionately known as Big Baz, reached the fallen Jester moments later. Matthew, struggling underneath the weight of two people – both bigger than him – peeked through a gap in the blackness, between the first man’s leg and the second man’s shoulder. “It’s about time you showed up,” he said, his voice muffled.

One of the men delivered a shift knee to Matthew’s groin. Jester spat out a venomous moan and squirmed.

Barry, huffing and panting, his hands on his knees, looked Matthew in the eye. “You should have stopped running when I told you too,” he said breathlessly.