Dead at First Sight

105 Friday 12 October

Tooth, fingers closed around the handgrip of his gun, was scarcely able to believe what he was seeing. He was watching a scene from a horror movie playing in front of his eyes in slow motion.

The Kia pulling out into the busy road, then stopping dead. His doing, he realized.

An instant later, the Kia being T-boned, just behind the passenger compartment, the van sending it spinning around and into the oncoming traffic, where it was hit again by a Mini. The Kia rolled onto its roof and then, somehow, righted itself, landing on its wheels, stationary, in the middle of the road.

All the traffic, in both directions, halted.

People were jumping out of their vehicles and running towards the scene. The driver of the Mini, a woman, wasn’t moving.

Tooth maintained his grip on his gun. Watching through the windscreen of his van.

He saw, to his dismay, the tall black guy, looking dazed, climb out of the car.

Copeland stared around, lost, like an astronaut who’d landed on the wrong planet.

Tooth rapidly considered his options. Rush to the gathering crowd, half of whom were filming the scene on their phones, and in the chaos put two quick shots into Copeland and sprint away before anyone figured what was happening?

Then he heard a siren. Louder.

Saw blue lights in the distance approaching along the seafront, from the west.

He cursed, put the safety catch back on and pocketed the gun, watching the unfolding scene. Maybe they’d take Copeland to hospital. He knew that place, knew it extremely well. He’d have no problem hitting Copeland there.

His head swam again, another bout of nausea engulfing him. He needed to be in hospital himself, he knew. One for tropical diseases. He needed urgently to see a specialist in venomous bites again, like the one in Munich, to get all this crap happening inside him sorted out. He’d find one in Ecuador, for sure.

Then he stiffened as he watched a new development. Something was up.

He tried to focus.