Need You Dead

108 Saturday 30 April

He just wanted to get home. To explain to Lena. But that wasn’t an option, he knew. He had to hide, lie low, lie doggo. Let it all calm down.

Lights were coming at him. Headlights straight at him. Street lights above him. He heard a siren wailing.

This is not me.

This is not happening.

In a minute I will wake up. All will be fine. I’ll be in bed, at home.

My nice luxurious bed.

A glass of wine and a cigarette. We’ll be laughing.

Oh yes!

We’ll just be laughing.

Why did I ever get involved with Lorna in the first place? I was having a good life with Lena. Why? Why? Why?

He leaned forward and switched on the Mondeo’s blue lights and siren, wondering why he hadn’t thought to utilize them sooner.

He swerved past a taxi, then undertook a car in front of it. A speed camera flashed at him.

Great, send me a ticket, do. I’m on a shout!

His speedometer read 70.

He was passing the King Alfred. Memories — Vallance Mansions directly across the road, to his left, where this nightmare had begun.

Moments later Hove Lawns were on his right. The darkness of the English Channel beyond. Brighton. His city. The place he worked to keep safe. Now he was a fugitive. It was all a mistake.

They’ll realize.

Oh, you are so smart, Roy Grace. I thought you were my friend. You’ve got to understand we can all make a mistake. Any of our lives can turn on a sixpence. Or whatever the damned smallest coin is now.

Headlights in his mirror.

Red traffic lights ahead.

Suddenly the engine spluttered.

No, no, no!

It picked up. A car was crossing the road ahead of him. He swerved right, around the front of it, ignored its angry horn.

Then spluttered again.

Don’t do this. Not yet. Please, not yet. I need a plan.

Plan B. Plan C. Plan D.

Keep moving.

Plan E.

Find a hiding place.

Plan F.

His radio crackled. All the radio chatter had been white noise up until now, but suddenly he heard a familiar voice. Except he didn’t sound the warm, friendly way he usually did. He was all cold, formal. Like the stranger he really was, and always had been.

‘Guy? This is Roy. Are you OK?’

The engine picked up. The car spurted forward, then slowed again. Then spurted.

He looked at the fuel gauge.

Flashing blue lights. Two police officers at the roadside signalling him, frantically.

He felt a rumble beneath him as if he had gone over a cattle grid. Heard four explosions, like gun shots, and the car veered, crazily left, then right.

He gripped the wheel, kept the accelerator floored. The car was snaking along the road, bumping along, the back end trying to come round and overtake the front. He fought the wheel, spinning it right, left, right. There was a loud flapping, slapping noise.

Bastards.

He’d driven over a stinger. All four tyres gone. Now he was driving on the rims.

The engine spluttered again and then picked up once more. 50 mph. He hurtled over another red light. The Metropole Hotel was coming up on his left. Followed by The Grand.

To his right, the latest addition to the Brighton landscape. The i360. The 162-metre-high observation tower. The world’s tallest moving observation tower, or something like that. It had a huge glass doughnut-like thing, an observation room, that rose up towards the top. A lot of people hated it. He thought it was cool.

It looked really cool right now.

Jump off the top of it? That would teach Roy Grace a lesson about—

About something.

You have to realize, Roy, that people make mistakes. OK? Didn’t you ever make a mistake?

Traffic was backed up in front of him.

There was a street coming up, to the left, just past The Grand.

Shit. A police car was parked across the entrance.

His engine died.

He pressed the accelerator, several times.

The car was coasting. Bumping along on the rims.

Shit, shit, shit, shit.

He unclipped his belt, opened the door and rolled out onto the road — and hit the hard, wet surface with far more force than he had anticipated. He was flung over, rolling, rolling, rolling. Heard a massive bang. Then as he came to a halt and lay winded, he caught a glance of his Mondeo slewed at an angle, and another car, just ahead of it, almost sideways across the road, its rear end stoved in. The Mondeo’s blue lights were still flashing.

He hauled himself to his feet, and fell over, as if the gyroscope inside his body hadn’t stopped spinning yet. He got up again and staggered across the road, dodging a car then a bus, and reached the pavement on the promenade side. Saw the bright lights of Brighton’s Palace Pier over to his left. A cyclist clattered past, furiously ringing his bell. He turned and looked behind him. A police officer was sprinting towards him.

He turned right and ran.

Ran.

Seized with panic.

The tower of the i360 was right ahead of him. Rising to the heavens, disappearing into the mist. Ahead was a wall of glass with the BRITISH AIRWAYS i360 logo above it.

Two people, a young man and woman in British Airways uniforms, stood at the ticket gate. He ran between them, pushing them both out of the way, yelling, ‘Police!’

He found himself on smart decking. A few groups of people were standing around, under umbrellas. The massive tubular structure rose up in front of him. The huge, illuminated glass pod, like a spaceship, was slowly descending with its load of passengers.

He looked over his shoulder. A police officer was talking to the two uniformed BA staff at the gate.

A round glass fence ringed off the space where the doughnut was about to arrive. Suddenly, a door opened at the bottom of the tower and a workman in a yellow hard hat came out.

Batchelor vaulted the glass fence and fell with an agonizing, jarring thump on the ground fifteen feet below. His left leg hurt but he ignored it, ran stumbling past the workman, ignoring his shouts.

‘Police!’ he yelled back at the man, and ran in through the door.

It felt like he had entered a vertical tunnel.

There was a metal ladder directly in front of him, with cables clipped to the core of the tubular structure on either side. He began to climb up.

‘Oi!’ a voice shouted. ‘Oi! What do you think you’re doing?’

‘Police!’ he shouted back. ‘Police!’

He carried on climbing.

Climbing.

Looking down. Another man in a hard hat was at the bottom, looking up at him.

He climbed on. Shit. He was already starting to feel exhausted. Looked up, and the ladder continued, way up into the shadows and out of sight.

He climbed on, then finally came to a small gridded platform, with railings around it. He stepped onto it, leaned back against the railings, and gulped down hot, oily-smelling air.

What am I doing here?

He looked down again. It must be a good hundred feet. He could just step off the platform and fall. It was high enough.

Then he saw someone run in. A man with fair hair, in a dark suit, looking up at him.

Shit. Shit. Shit.

‘Guy! Guy! What the hell are you doing?’ Roy Grace called up at him.

The Detective Superintendent began to scale the ladder like a creature possessed.

Batchelor started climbing again.

‘Guy!’ Grace shouted. ‘Guy, stop! For Christ’s sake stop!