Dead Man’s Footsteps

119

Air shot out of Ricky’s mouth. His eyes bulged in pain and shock as he doubled up. Then Abby slapped him across the face with so much force he fell over sideways. She launched another kick at his groin, but he grabbed her foot and twisted it sharply, agonizingly, bringing her crashing on to the wet grass.

‘You fucking-’

Then he stopped as he heard the roar of an engine.

They both heard it.

In semi-disbelief, Ricky stared at the ice-cream van bumping up the track towards them. And a short distance behind it, six police officers in stab vests raced towards them from around the side of the hotel building.

Ricky scrambled to his feet. ‘You bitch! We made a deal!’ he screeched.

‘Like the one you made with Dave?’ she screamed back.

Clutching the stamps, he stumbled towards the Honda. Abby ran as fast as she could, ignoring the pain in her foot, towards the copse. Behind her she heard the roar of an engine. She glanced over her shoulder. It was the ice-cream van and she could see two men in it now. Then ahead, through the trunks and branches and leaves, she could see parts of a white van.

Blinded by pain and fury, Ricky threw himself into the Honda, jammed it in gear and took the handbrake off even before he had closed the door. Teach that fucking bitch a lesson.

He accelerated hard, picking up speed, steering straight at the copse. He didn’t care if he went over the edge, too, at this moment. Just so long as the bitch’s mother went. Just so long as Abby spent the rest of her fucking life regretting this.

Then a blur of colour flashed in front of him.

Ricky stamped on the brakes, locking the wheels, cursing. He jerked the steering wheel sharply to the right, desperately trying to avoid the ice-cream vehicle, which had pulled up broadside across the copse, blocking his chance of ramming the van inside. The Honda slewed round in a wide arc, its tail striking the rear bumper of the ice-cream van, tearing it off.

Then to his shock he saw two small cars that he’d also assumed belonged to staff at the hotel racing across the grass towards him, blue lights strobing behind their windscreens and radiator grilles, sirens wailing.

He floored the accelerator again, disoriented for a moment, turning, turning. One of them pulled across his path. He swerved around the back of it, dropped down a steep embankment, lurched through a ditch and up the far side, on to the firm tarmac of the road.

Then, to his dismay, he saw he saw blue lights racing down towards him from the right.

‘Fuck. Shit. Fuck. Shit.’

Totally gripped with panic, he swung the wheel left and tramped the accelerator.

The only door on the old rusty van which was not obstructed by branches and shrubbery was the driver’s side. Abby pulled it open anxiously, carefully, heeding the warning about how close the van was to the edge.

Her nose wrinkling at the rank smell inside of faeces and tobacco and unwashed people, she called out, ‘Mum? Mum?’

There was no answer. With a stab of panic, she put her foot on the step and hauled herself up on to the front seat. For a terrible moment, staring into the gloomy rear, she thought her mother was not there. All she could see was some electrical equipment, bedding and a spare wheel. It felt as cold as a fridge. The van rocked in the wind and there was a drumming resonance inside.

Then, over it, she heard a faint, timid, ‘Abby? Is that you?’

They were, without doubt, the sweetest words she had ever heard in her life. ‘Mum!’ she cried out. ‘Where are you?’

There was a faint, ‘Here.’ Her mother sounded surprised, as if to say, Where else should I be?

Then Abby craned her neck over the rear of the seat and saw her mother, rolled up in the carpet, just her head poking out, lying on the floor right behind her.

She climbed over, the van resonating as her feet struck the bare metal floor, knelt and kissed her mother’s moist cheek.

‘Are you OK? Are you OK, Mum? I’ve got your medication. I’m going to get you to hospital.’

She felt her mother’s forehead. It was hot and clammy.

‘You’re safe now. He’s gone. You’re OK. There are police all around. I’ll get you to hospital.’

Her mother whispered, ‘I think your father was here a minute ago. He just went out.’

Abby realized she was delirious. Fever or the lack of medication or both. And she smiled through her tears.

‘I love you so much, Mum,’ she said. ‘So much.’

‘I’m OK,’ her mother said. ‘I’m as snug as a bug in a rug.’

Cassian Pewe lowered his phone for a moment and turned to Grace. ‘Target Two is in Target One’s car, alone. Coming back this way. Intercept if we can, safely, but there’s back-up arriving behind us.’

Grace started the engine. Both men had their seat belts unfastened, which was common practice on surveillance to enable them to get out of the car quickly if need be. Having heard the report of what had been happening, now Grace thought they should put them on. But just as he reached for his, Pewe said, ‘I see him.’

Grace could now see the black Honda too, a quarter of a mile away, driving fast down the twisting hill. He could hear the tyres squealing.

‘We have Target Two in sight,’ Pewe radioed.

The Silver commander said, ‘The priority is everyone’s safety. If you need to, Roy, you may have to use your vehicle in the operation.’

To Pewe’s consternation, Grace suddenly swung the Alfa sideways, blocking both lanes of the narrow road. And he was on the side facing the oncoming black off-roader, he realized. The side that would take the impact if the car didn’t stop.

Ricky clenched the wheel tight, tyres screeching again around a long, downhill left-hander bend, with nowhere to go on either side if he did come off, just steep banking. Then he lurched into a righthander.

As he came out of it he saw a maroon Alfa Romeo sideways across the road in front of him. A blond-haired man was staring bug-eyed at him out of the window.

He stamped on the brakes, bringing the car slewing to a halt only yards from the door, and slammed the car into reverse. As he did so, he heard the wail of sirens. In the distance he could see two police Range Rovers, lights blazing, racing down a hill.

He made a three-point turn and accelerated hard, back the way he had come. In his rear-view mirror, he saw the Alfa Romeo take off after him, with the two Range Rovers closing behind it. But he was more interested in what was in front of him. Or more specifically, what was in front of the copse. Because even if the ice-cream van was still in front of it, a sharp nudge from the side would do it.

Then he would take the abandoned coach road – now just a grassed-over cart track through fields, but still a public byway – which he had found and checked out. He was certain the police would not have thought about that.

He would be all right. The bitch should never, ever have messed with him.

Roy Grace quickly caught up with the lumbering Honda, then sat yards from its tail. Pewe radioed that they were approaching the Beachy Head Hotel.

Suddenly, the Honda veered sharply right, off the road and up on to the grassland that separated the road from the cliff edge. Grace did the same, wincing as his beloved Alfa’s suspension bottomed out. He heard and felt the grinding scrape of the exhaust striking the ground and something falling off, but he was so focused on the Honda he barely registered it.

A whole cluster of vehicles and people were ahead of them now. He saw a British Telecom truck blocking the road, with a swarm of police officers near it. Two motorcycles. Pewe turned up the volume on the radio.

A voice said, ‘Target Two may be coming back for the van. It’s in the copse behind the ice-cream vehicle. Cut him off. Target One is in the van with her mother.’

Pewe pointed through the windscreen. ‘Roy, it’s there. That’s where he’s heading.’

Grace could see the large, oval-shaped copse, with the brightly coloured ice-cream van parked a short distance in front of it.

Target Two was accelerating.

Grace dropped down a gear and flattened the accelerator. The Alfa shot forward, the suspension bottoming again in a dip, throwing both unrestrained men up, banging their heads on the roof.

‘Sorry,’ Grace said grimly, drawing level with the Honda.

On his outside now, barely inches from his door, was a flimsy-looking railing at the cliff edge. He caught a fleeting glimpse of Target Two, a heavily bearded man in a baseball cap. To his right, the railing ended suddenly, leaving shrubbery marking a completely unguarded drop now.

Grace ploughed through undergrowth, grimly hoping the shrubbery wasn’t concealing an indent in the cliff they would suddenly plunge down.

He eased off the accelerator, driving level, trying to get the nose of his car just a couple of feet in front, to force the Honda further away from the edge. The copse and the ice-cream van were looming up rapidly.

As if anticipating his thoughts, Target Two swung the Honda’s steering wheel to the right, banging hard into the passenger side of the Alfa. Pewe let out a shriek and the Alfa lurched perilously close to the edge.

The copse was coming even closer.

The Honda nudged them again. The heavier of the two cars, its nose well in front, it pushed them further over. They bounced crazily on some stones and uneven ground. Then it nudged them again, even closer to the edge.

‘Roy!’ Pewe squealed, holding on to his unfastened seat belt and sounding petrified.

They were boxed in. Grace floored the accelerator and the Alfa shot forward. The copse was now no more than two hundred yards away. He cut in front of the Honda sharply, and then, with the intention of hiding the fact that he was braking, he yanked the handbrake full on instead of pressing the brake pedal.

The effect was instant and dramatic, and not what he had expected. The tail of the Alfa broke away and the car started to slide sideways. Almost instantly, the Honda slammed into the rear wing, sending the Alfa barrel-rolling, side over side.

The force of the impact sent the Honda veering to the left, out of control, ploughing into the rear of the ice-cream van.

Grace felt himself hurtling, weightlessly, through the air. Air that was a cacophony of booming, echoing metallic noises.

He landed with a thump that winded him, jarring every bone in his body, and with a force that rolled him over several times, helplessly, as if he had been ejected from some freakish funfair ride. Then, finally, he came to a halt face down in wet grass, with his mouth jammed into mud.

For an instant he was not sure if he was alive or dead. His ears popped. There was a brief moment of silence. The wind howled. Then he heard a terrible scream, but he had no idea where it came from.

He scrambled to his feet and immediately fell over again. It was as if someone had picked up the entire headland and tilted it sideways. He stood up again, swaying giddily, surveying the scene. The bonnet of the Honda, which was lurched over at a strange angle, was embedded in the destroyed rear end of the ice-cream van. The driver of the Honda appeared to be in a daze, pushing at his door, while two police officers in stab vests were pulling on it. Smoke was coming out of the underside of the van. Several more police officers were running towards it.

Then he heard the scream again.

Where the hell was his car?

And he was suddenly filled with a terrible, sickening dread.

No! Oh, Jesus, no!

He heard the scream again.

Then again.

Coming from below the cliff-top.

He staggered to the edge, then took a sharp step back. All his life he had suffered from vertigo and the sheer drop to the sea below was more than he could look at.

‘Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeelp!’

He dropped on to all fours and began to crawl, aware of pains all over his body. He ignored them and made it to the edge, where he found himself looking down into the underside of his car, which was tangled up in several small trees, nose into the cliff, its tail out, balanced like a diving board. Two wheels were still spinning.

The first part of this drop was a short, steeply wooded slope. It ended in a grassy lip, about twenty feet below, and then dropped sheer for several hundred feet, down on to rocks and water. It freaked Grace out and he pulled back to where he felt safer. Then heard the scream again.

‘Help me! Oh, God, help me! Please help me!’

It was Cassian Pewe, he realized. But he couldn’t see the man.

Fighting back his fear, he crawled to the edge again, looked down and shouted, ‘Cassian? Where are you?’

‘Oh, help me. Please help me. Roy, please help me.’

Grace shot a desperate glance over his shoulder. But everyone behind him seemed occupied with the van and the Honda, which looked like it was going to go up in flames.

He peered down again.

‘I’m going! Oh, for God’s sake, I’m going.’

The sheer terror in the man’s voice jolted him into action. Taking a deep breath, he leaned down, gripped a branch and tested it, hoping to hell it would hold. Then he swung himself over the edge. Immediately his leather shoes slid down the wet grass and his arm, holding on to the branch, jerked painfully in its socket. And he realized in that instant that the only thing stopping him from sliding all the way down the sharp slope to the lip, then straight over into oblivion, was this one branch he was holding with his right hand.

It was starting to come loose now. He could feel it pulling free.

He was truly terrified.

‘Please help me! I’m going!’ Pewe screamed again.

Panicking himself, Roy quickly found another branch, then, clinging on to it while the wind blasted at him, as if it was trying to prise him off the cliff, he dropped further.

Don’t look down, he thought to himself.

He kicked his toe into the side of the hill and got a small, slippery purchase. Then he found another branch. He was level with the grimy, partly buckled chassis of his car now. The wheels had stopped spinning and the car was rocking like a see-saw.

‘Cassian, where the hell are you?’ he shouted, trying not to look down below the car.

The wind instantly ripped his words away.

Pewe’s voice was muffled with terror. ‘Underneath. I can see you. Please hurry!’

Suddenly, to Roy’s shock, the branch he was holding on to gave way. For one terrible moment he thought he was going to tumble backwards. Frantically he lunged out for another branch and grabbed it, but it snapped. He was falling, sliding down past the car. Sliding towards the grassy lip and the sheer drop. He grabbed another branch, which was covered in sharp leaves that slid through the palm of his hand, burning it, but it was young, springy and tough. It held, almost jerking his arm off. Then he found another one with his left hand and clung to it for dear life. To his relief, it was sturdier.

He heard Pewe screaming again.

Saw a massive shadow above him. It was his car. Perched twenty feet above him, like a platform. Rocking precariously. And Pewe was suspended upside down from the passenger door, his feet entangled in the webbing of his seat belt, which was all that prevented him from falling.

Grace glanced down and immediately wished he hadn’t. He was right on the edge of the sheer drop. He stared for an instant at the water pounding the rocks. Felt the deadweight pull of gravity on his arms and the savage, relentless wind tearing at him. One slip. Just one slip.

Panting, terrified, he started to kick out a toehold with his right foot. The branch in his right hand suddenly moved a fraction. He kicked harder at the wet, chalky soil and after some moments he had made a space big enough to jam his foot in and take his weight.

Pewe screamed again.

He would try to help him in a moment. But first he had to try to save his own life. He wasn’t going to be of any help to either of them dead.

‘Royyyyyyyyyyyyyy!’

He kicked with his left foot, digging that in too. After a short while, with both feet planted, he felt a little better, though not exactly secure.

‘I’m falling. Royyyyyyyy! Oh, God, get me out of here. Please don’t let me fall. Don’t let me die.’

Roy craned his neck up, taking his time on every movement, until he could see Pewe’s face about ten feet above him.

‘Keep calm!’ he called out. ‘Try not to move.’

He heard a loud crack as a branch gave way. His eyes shot up and he saw the car lurch. It dropped several inches, swaying even more precariously now. Shit. The whole fucking thing was going to crash down on top of him.

Gingerly, inch by careful inch, he pulled his radio out, terrified of dropping it, and called for assistance. He was given reassurance that it was already on its way, that a rescue helicopter was being crewed up.

Jesus. That will take an age.

‘Please don’t let me die!’ Pewe sobbed.

He looked up again, carefully studying the webbing as best he could. It appeared well tangled around his colleague’s feet. The wind held the buckled passenger door open. Then he looked at the way the car was rocking. It was too much. The branches were straining, cracking, breaking. It was a terrible sound. How much longer would they hold? When they gave, the car would toboggan on its roof down the slope, which was as steep as a ski-jump ramp, and straight over the sheer drop.

Pewe was making it worse by bending his body every few moments, trying to reach upwards, but he had no chance.

‘Cassian, stop wriggling,’ he yelled, his voice nearly hoarse. ‘Try to keep still. I need help to lift you. I daren’t do it myself. I don’t want to risk dislodging the car.’

‘Please don’t let me die, Roy!’ Pewe cried, squirming like a hooked fish.

Another fierce gust blew. Grace clung to the branches, his jacket filling with wind, pulling like a sail, making it even harder for him. For several moments, until the gust eased, he didn’t dare move a muscle.

‘You won’t let me die, will you, Roy?’ Pewe pleaded.

‘You know what, Cassian?’ Grace shouted back. ‘I’m actually more concerned about my bloody car.’