Running Stupid: (Mystery Series) (7 page)

“Take him to the car,” the stern officer shouted. “I’ll radio in some help …
someone
needs to clean this place up.”

Matthew waited in the back of one of the police panda cars. His hands tight behind his back, his fingers searching down the back of the upholstery. Two police officers were near, one in the passenger seat, not speaking to Matthew but keeping a close eye on him; the other standing outside the vehicle, her hand resting against the roof.

“So …” Matthew turned to the silent cop in the front seat. “When are you going to let me go?”

The officer eyed him suspiciously before answering, “You will be checked into the station soon. Your solicitor can be present if you want–”

“No, I mean
seriously
, when are you going to let me go?”

The officer turned in his chair to face Jester. “I respect the law, Mr. Jester, and I love my job, but let me tell you one thing.” He leaned closer. “I
loved
Jennifer Wilkinson: she was a true star. I don’t like murderers and sick people like you. If I knew I could get away with it, I’d beat you until you were black and blue. I’d rip your life to shreds bit by bit, and you know what?”

Jester shook his head.

“I’d enjoy every minute of it.” The police officer turned back around in his chair. Jester looked at the back of his head in the ensuing silence.

“Not a fan then, I take it?” he muttered solemnly.

Moments later, they were on the road. The two female officers had stayed at the crime scene. During the wait, Matthew saw police vans and unmarked vehicles pull up at the house, all of them acquainting themselves with the officers on scene, two of whom were now driving him to the station.

They had ignored him at first and, besides a brief chatter about the weather, they still ignored him. Jester caught their gazes every now and then, hateful eyes beaming at him in the rear-view mirror.

They turned onto a long stretch of country road, dotted on either side with a line of trees and a lush, open meadow. As soon as the wheels of the vehicle drifted away from heavy traffic and touched the open road, the driver put his foot down.

Jester peered out of the side window as the car rocketed along the road. “Do you guys ever get speeding tickets?” he pondered loudly.

The policeman in the passenger side laughed. The driver – the one who had confronted Jester in his house – spoke: “What are you suggesting?”

“Nothing,” Matthew was quick to reply.

The car picked up speed and, after more silence – with only the sound from the police radio breaking it up – Jester pondered aloud again. “When you chase a runaway driver,” he began, “you’re doing about ninety … he’s doing the same.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?” the driver snapped.

“Well, he gets a speeding ticket, and the rest, but what about you? Why don’t you get a speeding ticket?”

“Because we were the ones chasing him. That’s our job, we uphold the law.”

“Exactly. That’s a funny thing, isn’t it?”

“What?” the driver was losing his patience.

“The law. Like you said, you were upholding the law, so it was okay for you to drive fast. But what if someone stole one of my cars and I hopped in the other car to chase him? You’d nick us both.”

“We’re the police, you’re not.”

“So you have the right to break the law?”

“We’re not breaking the law!”

“And what’s so bad about a speeding driver anyway? Fair enough, it’s reckless for someone to be racing along a dual-carriage way at one hundred miles an hour, but if you get three police cars to chase him, then surely you’re just adding to the carnage. Goes without saying, doesn’t it? One doing one hundred is hell, four doing one hundred is … well–”

The driver turned his head sharply. “Will you stop–” his words finished with a grunt of pain.

The car slammed into a thick tree trunk, propelling the driver backwards and then forwards; the side of his head slammed hard against the steering wheel, bounced, and then lolled over to the window. His distorted features bled uncontrollably. Blood trickled out from his nostrils, running a river down to his mouth where a broken tooth protruded through his upper lip.

The passenger suffered a different fate. On impact, he flew through the windscreen, spilling thousands of pieces of shrapnel as the entire sheet shattered. He made solid contact with the tree before bouncing back onto the bonnet where his body lay, mangled and lifeless.

Matthew remained in his seat. He didn’t normally wear seat belts, but the police officer had forced him into one. Glass shards had found their way onto his lap and blood covered his face and jacket. It was the driver’s blood, blood that still pumped through open wounds on his head, nose, and mouth.

Jester moved as quickly as he could. He managed to wrangle his way to the front seat, being careful not to touch the haemorrhaging police officer on his way. He crunched into the passenger seat, sitting on a thousand shards of glass. With great difficulty, he took the handcuff keys from the driver and dropped them into his back pocket.

He didn’t need to think about what to do. Everyone wanted him dead and the police wanted to lock him up. The situation he now found himself in wouldn’t help matters, and he wouldn’t be surprised if they blamed him for the death of the two officers like they had blamed him for Jennifer’s death.

He steadied himself in the seat and prepared for a world of pain that was about to come his way. Luckily for him, he had taken gymnastics at school. Unluckily for him, that was over a decade ago. He was sure he still had the flexibility needed, but wasn’t sure where it had been hiding all these years. He twisted his body and brought his arms underneath his legs. He tried to lift his legs and shift his body, but he couldn’t bring the handcuffs over his legs, and his first attempt caused his shoulder to twist awkwardly.

He paused for breath, tried to ignore the pain in his shoulder, and tried again. He put his arms at full stretch, feeling a strain in both of his shoulders as his muscles threatened to tear. He managed to slip his hands over his legs, bringing his handcuffed wrists out in front of him. He groaned in painful pleasure, and gave himself a nod of appreciation.

He looked to the side door – his escape route – but the door had been fixed shut, indented and wedged under the impact of the crash.

Grimacing, waiting for agony, he rammed his shoulder into the door, making sure to angle his aim to the front of the door. The impact slipped a disc and the white-hot pain it brought caused him to scream in agony. His face instantly brightened to a beetroot colour as blue stars flashed across his vision.

The door didn’t budge. His face was red, beads of sweat running down his forehead.

He rested, taking in large gulps of air. After he regained control of the burning pain, he fiddled with the handcuff key, taking several minutes to open the handcuffs with the very end of his forefinger and thumb. Free from his restraints, pain still spiking through his body, Jester looked to the driver’s side door. It was ajar. The crash had crushed the lock and crumpled the door. He could get out through that door, no mistake, but the mangled corpse next to it put him off.

With his face a picture of disgust, Jester shuffled onto the seat, leaned backwards slightly, and then kicked out like a ram. The soles of his feet crashed hard into the side door and it sprang open with a grateful groan.

Before leaving the scene and heading for the fields beyond, Jester contemplated using the dispatch radio to warn of the accident. He could make it away in time and he didn’t want to leave the officers to die, but he knew that there was little to no life left in either of the two men. He didn’t need to check their pulse or their breath to know that they had already passed on.

He gave them a sympathetic look and then turned and ran, heading for the fields and the cover of trees.

He stopped by the side of a lake and instantly slumped to his knees. He ripped off his jacket like a man possessed and lowered his face to the still blue water, staring at his own blood-covered reflection on the smooth silvery surface.

He grabbed handfuls of water and splashed the cold liquid onto his face, the blood that had poured from the police officer’s wounds colouring the water with a marbled-red. He used his jacket to wipe the excess water and blood from his face before discarding the jacket – tossing it to one side like an unwanted crisp packet.

“What a fucking day,” he mumbled, lazily slumping to the floor. He curled up, his head resting sideways on a bed of grass, his eyes looking at the world through a sideways perspective.

He was drawn, tired, out of breath and in pain. After winning one hundred million pounds, he’d managed to become the bane of the religious community, the murderer of one of the country’s best loved music stars. and now, after the arrest and car crash, he was a fugitive. Just when he was wishing his day couldn’t get any worse, Jester saw the ominous sight of a double barrel shotgun pointed straight at his head.

Matthew didn’t move. He wasn’t so sure he could, and he was certainly sure that he didn’t want to. Even the sight of a loaded shotgun didn’t wake his senses. Seeing his girlfriend slaughtered, being arrested, being in a car accident, and nearly dislocating his shoulder had taken the majority of the energy out of him. He didn’t care anymore. Nothing inside him stood to attention when he saw the twin-barrels; nothing jumped, his hairs didn’t stand on end, and his life didn’t flash before his eyes. He just stared.

“Hello. Down there,” the gun spoke. Judging by its accent, it was a posh gun.

Matthew Jester mumbled.

“Are you okay?”

“Possibly made from Rolls Royce parts,” Matthew mumbled.

“Excuse me?” the gun moved away and a man appeared. He held the weapon in his right hand, where it dangled near his leg. Jester studied his appearance briefly. He wore a red and black tweed shirt and worn jeans.

“Nothing,” Jester said, his words slow and leisurely. He pushed himself up from the ground.

“Are you okay?” the man asked.

Jester looked his way and sighed. He’d had a hard day, and now a lumberjack was impersonating Hugh Grant and pointing guns at him. “I’m fine,” he said with a soft laugh.

The man put his gun down and held out his hand. “Let’s get you up,” he said merrily.

Jester nodded and reached for the man’s hand, but as soon as pressure was applied, he recoiled in pain.

“What’s wrong?” the gunman wanted to know

“Dislocated my shoulder,” Jester said, contemplating and sighing. “I think.”

“That’s nasty.”

“No shit.”

“Well, we’ll have to get you up. We can’t have you sitting around here all day, can we?”

Matthew Jester looked up at the gunman. “Fair enough,” he agreed. He allowed the man to help him to his feet, something which required great effort for both of them.

“There you go,” the gunman said when Matthew was back on his feet. “My name is James,” he held out his hand, but quickly retracted it.

“Matthew,” Jester said, smiling.

“Okay, Matthew,” the gunman said in his cheery tone. “Let’s get you back to the house. My wife knows a thing or two about medicine, and I’m sure she can just
pop
that shoulder back in for you,” he said, stressing the word
pop
.

“Lovely,” Jester said unenthusiastically.

“We just live past this farm here,” the man explained.

They continued in silence for a while until Matthew spoke. “Why the hell did you point a gun at me?” he asked.

“Well, we get a lot of poachers around here. A lot of people come to cause trouble. A nice derelict place like this, I don’t need to explain. It brings in all sorts.”

“And you point guns at them?”

“Some of them. I wouldn’t shoot, though.”

“That’s reassuring.”

“I would never kill a man. Perhaps if I was fighting for my country, or my life,” James pondered, “or my family’s life, or in self-defence, of course,” he finished. Matthew opened his mouth to speak, but then James continued. “Or in defence of others,” he added.

“Okay,” Matthew said, raising his eyebrows. He looked across at James, who was smiling broadly. “Are you a farmer then?” he asked.

“Yes,” James said. “I inherited this land from my family. I inherited a lot more than this, too,” he said in a moment of contemplation. “But I was never one for the high life. A simple farmer’s life suits me just fine.”

“So you’re rich…and farming.”

“Exactly,” he said with a nod. “But life isn’t about money. There’s so much more.”

“Yeah, and it all costs money.”

James laughed boorishly. His laugh subsided into a thoughtful smile and he continued onwards, pondering.  Matthew Jester and his new found farming friend reached their destination five minutes later. The main building was a converted barn with Victorian décor. Five windows decorated the front of the hose – two down, three up – as well as a small attic window poking out from the roof. To the left of the house was a chicken pen, and several hens wandered around the perimeter, all nodding for food. To the right of the house – set further back – was a stable.