Cut to Black

Prelude

TUESDAY, 18 MARCH 2OO3, 20.13

He slowed in the darkness, the breath rasping in his lungs, trying to think of a thousand reasons not to draw the obvious conclusion. The car looked like a Vauxhall, maybe a Cavalier. The two shapes bent to the driver's door had the edgy slightness of kids. And the music through the open car window, as if this were some movie, was perfect: gangster rap with a heavy bass line that pulsed away into the night, drowning the nearby murmur of the sea.

He finally came to a halt, annoyed at losing the rhythm of his nightly run, aware of the chill kiss of the wind as it cooled the sweat on his body. Seven hard miles had drained the strength in his legs but already little knots of adrenalin were swamping his exhaustion. After the endless months of paperwork of audit trails and expenditure profiles, of asset calculations and restraint preparations it had come to this: the sordid little drama played out across dozens of cities, hundreds of estates, thousands of similar patches of urban wasteland.

The Cavalier, he thought grimly, had replaced the ice cream van. Stop me and buy one. Same time tomorrow night. And the night after that.

And the night after that. Until your new friend in the beaten-up Vauxhall had you phoning him every four hours, pleading for your life.

He began to circle the car on the driver's blind side, still fifty metres out, moving slowly, balls of his feet, stepping lightly through the tangle of scrub and marram grass. In these situations, anyone with half a brain would be thinking risk assessment. How would he take the guy behind the wheel? How would he contain him afterwards? What were the dangers of the kids getting hurt? These were important questions.

He needed a plan, and a fallback, but there was something about this little tableau how blatant, how fucking insulting that had cut him loose. All of a sudden, he had the chance to make a difference. Not much of a difference but a difference nonetheless.

He was ahead of the car now, aware of the line of street lights half a mile away. Silhouetted against the orange glow, every move he made betrayed him. He began to backtrack, hunting for cover, meaning to close on the car from the passenger side, then he froze as the driver stirred the engine into life. The music, abruptly, had gone. In its place, the throaty bark of a dog and a yelp of laughter from one of the kids. The child was barely an adolescent. His voice had yet to break.

What kind of animal sold gear to thirteen-year-olds?

He began to run, suddenly oblivious of the need for cover. Anything to get between the Cavalier and the distant street lights, between the driver and the next sale. One of the kids had seen him, yelling a warning to his mate. Two shapes melted away into the darkness as the car began to move. Abreast of it now, he drove himself forward, legs pumping hard. He reached for the passenger door and wrenched it open.

There was someone else in the car, slumped back against the headrest, the seat half reclined. The thin figure jackknifed forwards. A hand lunged at him, a fist in his windpipe, a choking pain that blurred his vision. Abruptly he lost his footing, fell head first, felt cinders tearing at his face, heard a squeal of brakes and the dog again, barking fit to bust. The car was ahead of him, metres away, briefly motionless. The passenger door was still open. A face appeared, contorted by a grin. Then a voice, thick accent, Scouse.

"Run the fucker over."

The engine was revving. Then the brake lights dimmed and for the briefest moment, as he tried to will his body to move, he had a perfect view of the Cavalier reversing towards him and the zigzag pattern of the tyre tread, inches away. Moments later, a wheel crushed his ankle and he screamed as it happened again another wheel, his lower leg — and for a second or two he must have lost consciousness because the next thing was a moment of surreal terror as the blaze of the headlights and the roar of the engine bore down on him. This time, somehow, he was able to reach out, trying to fend it off, flailing at the oncoming monster with his bare hands, flesh against metal, then he was aware of his body arching backwards, a gesture of defeat, before the pain thickened and the darkness returned, unfathomable, beyond comprehension.