Falling More Slowly

Chapter Thirteen

Charlene Kernley hated this bit. She didn’t like walking home in the dark and she hated walking right by the river but it was such a shortcut. At first she used to take the bus but the return ticket had gone up so much she would have to work forty minutes each day — she had worked it out on a calculator — just to pay the fare, so now she walked and this shortcut made it just about bearable.

There were the lights around the swing bridge but the further she walked the darker it got. The council should really put some lamps here. She never used it in winter, far too dark before and after work, she always went the long way round. But at this time of the year there was still some light left in the sky and it was only in the middle between the bridges that it got really scary. She shouldn’t walk home alone, there were so many places where someone could lie in wait and jump out at you. She knew in theory that things like that happened but they didn’t happen all that often, surely, and never to anyone she knew.

At intervals Charlene checked over her shoulder to see if anyone was there. If she saw someone she would run. Not that she could run very far, not with her asthma, but there were cars driving up there, she would make it that far.

There was no one. No one but her. No one else was stupid enough to use this shortcut, she thought icily.

Charlene could feel herself go wheezy — hell, she could hear herself go wheezy, it was so quiet on this stretch. She stopped, got out her inhaler, always in her left jacket pocket, shook it and took a deep suck into her lungs. That was better. Her biggest fear was that one day it would simply stop working. One day she would use her puffer and nothing would happen. She was only seventeen now, could you really live all your life relying on your inhaler being there when you felt that someone had stolen all the oxygen from the air? But then you never knew, they might find a cure for asthma though she wasn’t sure they were actually looking for one.

As she set off again, aiming for the weak puddle of light that a sodium lamp from the bridge threw on to the path, a shiny object near the edge of it drew her eye. It gave her something else to aim for, would take her mind off things for the next few yards. Probably broken glass, there seemed to be a lot of it lying about, mostly beer bottles. But this was no beer bottle, the thing looked square. As she got closer she thought she knew what it was and quickened her step, despite still feeling a little wheezy. No longer checking behind her now.

It was a mobile phone. Not the latest model but not a crap one either. Black and silver and so heavy in the hand. Not a scratch on it, it looked polished in the gloom. Charlene didn’t own a mobile, simply couldn’t afford it at the moment. Every kid in the street had a mobile, the parents probably picked up the bill. Even though she was working five days at the canteen she couldn’t afford it. She wondered whether this one worked, it would be just her luck to find a broken one. Where did you switch this on? This button at the top, she supposed.

The tongue of magnesium-powered flame that shot straight into her mouth seemed to consume all the oxygen in the world. She had swallowed live coals and now her head was on fire. While the melting plastic of the phone’s casing fused with the burning flesh of her hand she staggered back, trying to escape from the blinding swirls of coloured pain in front of her eyes. With her airways soldered shut with fear, panic and fire she whirled around, unseeing, hoping to extinguish the fire in her face and hand. She didn’t realize that she was already falling, pitching sideways into the oily water with a silent scream. The other reason she hated walking by the river: she had never learned to swim. The ice-cold grip of the black water mixed with the fire in her mouth, indistinguishable. Charlene kicked her legs and thrashed her arms, straining towards what she thought was the surface, what she hoped was up, but it was dark now, cold and black. The pain in her chest was raging, it became huge, it became unbearable, her heart punched like a fist into her throat. Nowhere was up, it was all down, it was all black. Charlene stopped struggling and the pain popped like a child’s balloon.

‘Mum being in and out of hospital all the time is how I learnt to cook. No, it’s a lie, my dad trying to cook for us, that’s what did it. He was awful. In the kitchen, I mean. Can you cook?’

‘Don’t know, never tried it.’ His stomach rumbled but McLusky didn’t mind waiting. He lit another cigarette and poured more wine. What for him made this unexpected domesticity quite acceptable was that the cook was messy and dressed in nothing but a T-shirt.

At first Rebecca had just been there, then been there again, then been there still. Soon a portfolio, a messy bundle of drawings and a toolbox had appeared, along with a holdall full of clothes. On cue the fridge-freezer was delivered. The empty fridge had given rise to shopping. This in turn had spawned cooking.

‘Seriously?’

‘I’ve been known to boil potatoes and shove lamb chops under the grill.’

‘That’s cooking. One step up from heating up ready-meals, anyway.’

The sound of his airwave springing to life next door made McLusky even hungrier. He groaned theatrically.

Rebecca turned round to face him. Blood red sauce spattered from the spoon she held aloft on to the floor. ‘What?’

‘Work.’

‘Tell them you’re a hundred miles away, visiting sick relatives. That’s what I always do.’

‘Ah, that doesn’t work any more. Airwave radio has GPS. They know exactly where I am.’

‘Then don’t answer it.’

‘There’s always that, I suppose.’

He answered it, scribbled down the unfamiliar street references and promised he was on his way.

‘But what about your supper?’

The sentence had a painful familiarity about it, despite coming from the lips of a half-naked girl he barely knew. Her voice still had the fresh tone of surprise, regret and genuine commiseration it would soon lose. Given time the tone of that same sentence would change first to resignation, then resentment and accusation.

‘Leave me some.’ He stooped to kiss her goodbye. ‘What is it, anyway?’

‘Not telling you now.’ She kissed him, wrapping arms and one leg around him, a hero’s goodbye. ‘Is it at least something important?’

‘It is to someone.’ He took a deep breath, his nostrils filling with the fragrance of her hair, the aroma of her food. He pulled away with twin regrets.

A short necklace of arc lights had already been strung along the riverside. He abandoned his car at the end of a line of police vehicles on the road and stood next to a muddy bicycle by some railings near a large landlocked ship’s anchor. This stretch of water was called the Cumberland Basin, he had learned over the radio, and somewhere close by was something called the Floating Harbour. Here a paved path ran along the basin between the bridges. Now it was busy with officers and crime scene technicians but before their arrival it had to have been deserted at this time of the day and year. Another blank patch on McLusky’s mind-map of the city had been filled in. But ultimately it made no difference where this was. Death loved dark water but had never been choosy. If what had occurred down there turned out to be murder then this dismal stretch of water would forever appear as a stain on the emotional map he carried to navigate the city by. When the stains on the map began to run into each other then it might be time to move on. Or take early retirement.

Flashing his ID to the constable standing guard at the anchor was unnecessary: the PC recognized him from the Easter egg bomb as a sarcastic CID bastard. When he saw McLusky bend over the edge to get a look at a frogman in the water he fervently wished someone would nudge him in.

Most of the activity was concentrated in an area where the body had been pulled from the river. The pathologist was there already, kneeling white-suited by a rectangle of tarpaulin on which rested the body of a woman. It was fully clothed, which was always good news.

McLusky suited up; it gave him time to remember the pathologist’s name before approaching him. ‘Evening, Dr Coulthard.’

‘Inspector …’

The pathologist concentrated his examination on the face and neck of the victim. Here scorch marks were the prominent feature, clearly discernible even under the covering of oily slime. The victim’s right hand was encased in a clear evidence bag, secured at the wrist with a soft tie.

‘Any clues as to the cause of death yet?’

‘Mm? Not really, but my guess is that she drowned.’

‘Then what’s with her face, are those burn marks around her mouth?’

‘They appear to be.’

‘Did that happen before death?’

‘Rest assured, I think we’ll find it did.’

‘Thank the gods for that. I can deal with strange but I hate weird.’ So far McLusky saw no reason why he shouldn’t hand this over to someone else. He was, after all, supposed to concentrate on finding the bomber. Drowned girls didn’t fit the remit. ‘Still, very strange, how do you burn yourself on an empty path next to the water? It wasn’t one of those fire-spitting accidents?’ It was not unheard of that unwise street performers who spat and swallowed fire reached for the petrol when paraffin was unobtainable. The results were invariably disastrous, occasionally fatal.

Coulthard straightened up, shaking his head slowly. ‘No, nothing like that.’

‘So, what, a freak accident?’

‘Almost right, inspector. My guess is accident arranged by a freak.’

McLusky’s mood took a nosedive. He pointed to the victim’s wrapped hand. ‘She picked something up?’

‘Yes. It looks to me like the melted remnants of a mobile phone, fused into her charred skin. The phone must have contained some kind of accelerant, possibly similar to the one used in the powder compact. Once it went off she couldn’t have dropped it if she’d tried. The thing must have burnt instantly with such a fierce heat that it stuck to her hand. My guess is she tried to douse the pain, fell in and drowned. This is definitely another one of yours. Sorry. I could see you were hoping otherwise.’

McLusky straightened up and looked about. ‘What a shit place to die too. I wonder where she found the thing.’ Would the bomber leave it here, where few people came? Why not? But more than likely she had picked up the phone, if that’s what it turned out to be, somewhere else. And they might never know. Unless.

A preliminary search of the area was already under way, the fingertip search would have to wait until daylight. Austin appeared by his side. ‘We got a tentative ID, she was carrying a library card. No photo ID though. Charlene Kernley. We came up with an address near Ashton Gate. I think she was taking a shortcut.’

‘Walking alone after dark … Not that it would have made any difference. How old do we think she was?’

‘No more than sixteen, seventeen.’

‘Who found her?’

Austin pointed to a man in his early thirties, sitting morosely with his back to a bollard under the watchful eye of Constable Pym. ‘This character over there. He flagged down a Traffic unit that happened to be passing. I don’t think he’s happy about having to hang around, though.’

‘Well, that’s just tough. Let’s have a quick chat with him.’

Even when he stood in front of him the man didn’t get up until he addressed him. ‘Do you think we could have a word? I’m Detective Inspector McLusky. And you are?’

‘Reed.’

‘You found the body.’

‘Yes.’

‘Where exactly was the body when you first saw it?’

‘Just there, where they pulled her out. She was sort of floating, face down. Just by the edge.’

‘Did you pull her out?’

‘No, didn’t touch her, I know not to touch dead bodies. I went and found a police car and stopped them. They pulled her out.’

‘Good thinking.’ McLusky turned around, contemplated the group of crime scene technicians near the water’s edge for a few seconds, then turned to Reed again. The man’s boots were muddy, and his hands were a little grimy. His fingernails were positively black. ‘What’s your first name, Mr Reed?’

‘It’s Chris, Christopher. I gave all my details to that policewoman …’ His gaze moved about, trying to spot the officer who had taken his details.

‘Never mind. And what do you do, Chris? You don’t mind if I call you Chris?’

‘Ehm, no, I’m a student.’

‘At the uni? What are you studying?’

‘What’s that got to do with it? I didn’t have anything to do with the girl dying, I just found her. I was just passing. Why are you asking me questions? Is that what you get for helping the police, endless questions?’

This kind of reaction always rang little alarm bells with McLusky. ‘Bear with us, Chris, we’ll have you on your way in no time. So, what were you doing down here?’

Reed shrugged. ‘Just passing, riding my bike.’

‘Right. Is that your bike back there? By the railings?’ It was difficult to make out from here. ‘Do you have lights on your bike?’

‘There’s a dead girl and you ask me about the lights on my bike?’ He made a silent appeal to Austin but got nothing in return but a lizard stare. ‘Okay, no, I don’t have lights, are you going to arrest me for that?’

‘And where were you going?’

‘Home.’

‘Which is?’

‘In Cotham.’

‘And you were coming from where?’

‘Nowhere. Just riding my bike.’

McLusky shot Austin a questioning look. Austin’s eyebrows rose and he took over. ‘Just for fun?’

‘Yes. That’s allowed, isn’t it?’

‘Sure. Only Cotham is quite a ways from here … Chris. And your bike, if I remember rightly, is just an old boneshaker with no gears. It’s pretty dark down here too with no lights and there’s broken glass about.’

McLusky took up the baton again. ‘Okay, Chris, let’s try again. What were you doing here?’

‘Nothing illegal, I’ve done nothing wrong.’

‘I would like to believe that, really I would. What did you say you were studying?’

‘Political science.’

‘Not horticulture then.’

‘What?’

‘Your hands, your fingernails, you look like you’ve been gardening or something. You said you didn’t go near the body, how did your hands get that dirty?’

‘I … the chain came off my bike. Now look …’

The body had been pulled out at a spot more or less equidistant from the two bridges, where it would be darkest. ‘So how did you spot the body in the water if you were cycling and had no lights?’

‘I was pushing it at the time. As you said, there’s lots of glass around here.’

‘Okay, you were pushing your bike along this dismal bit of path in the dark for no reason whatsoever, on the wrong side of town, near a row of houses, several of which have recently been burgled.’ He had invented the burglaries but it seemed to pay dividends, Reed became visibly scared.

‘Burglary? What else are you going to accuse me of? First that I have something to do with the dead girl, then burglary. You’re completely mad.’

Behind Reed an elderly man at the cordon started heckling the police and technicians, his hard-edged face a mask of anger in the ghoulish light. ‘I could have told you that would happen. It was only a matter of time. Decent street lighting and constables on the beat is what we need. You lot only turn up when it’s all too late. You’re useless.’

A PC ambled over to have a soothing word with him. McLusky opted for a change of venue. ‘Do you have anything on you that you shouldn’t?’

Reed shook his head. ‘No.’

‘Sure? Okay. Show me your bike.’

Reed didn’t budge. ‘It’s just back there.’

‘Come on then, let’s have a quick look at it.’

‘It’s just an ordinary bicycle.’ Despite his resistance he became the reluctant filling in a CID sandwich as Austin led the way, McLusky following close behind.

‘You see, it’s just an old bike.’ Somehow Reed stood back from it, as if trying to dissociate himself from it.

‘It’s a wreck. Can you open the panniers for us, please.’

Reed’s hands fumbled with the fastener of the first pannier. He opened it and stood back.

‘Fruit. That’s a lot of fruit, Chris. And in bad condition, most of it.’ He picked up an orange, flicking a thumbnail over its mildewed rind.

‘Yeah, I forgot it was in there actually. I got it cheap from the market. I’ll probably need to chuck that away now.’

‘Okay. What’s in the other one, more fruit?’

‘The other one?’

‘Yes. The other one.’

Reed opened it with an impatient flick. Snugly fitted inside was a plastic container brimful with dark, oily mud. The hooked handle of a ladle was just visible.

McLusky impatiently wriggled his fingers. ‘The leaflets, hand them over.’

Reed shoved a hand deep into his jacket and produced a wad of his home-made pamphlets. DISABLE A CAR TODAY … McLusky handed them on to the PC. ‘Here, get Fruit ’n’ Mud and his bicycle down the station for a chat. If he gives you any grief at all, caution him. We want to chat some more and when we’re finished I know a few people from Traffic who are keen to have a word.’

Sorbie shifted on his bar stool, checked the time on his mobile and swore silently. He was on his fourth mug of stewed tea at the clapboard cafe that served the lock-up owners, delivery drivers and the workers from the nearby trading estate. From where he was sitting he had a good view of Mitchell’s lock-up, just two doors up. Entrance to the warehouses was on alternate sides to give more forecourt space, which meant that old cars, broken-down vans, stacks of wooden pallets and nests of bins proliferated on both sides.

There was no guarantee that Mitchell would turn up before the tea and sausage rolls Sorbie kept ordering at intervals gave him the heartburn from hell but it would be worth it. A bit of banter, some sleight of hand — he’d always been good at that, card tricks, shoplifting as a school kid — and soon Mr Mitchell’s emporium would lie wide open to explore. After that a bit of luck and good timing was what was needed. Quite a bit of luck, come to think of it. And here was the bastard at last, getting out of an unfashionable old Jaguar. And he was by himself which was perfect. Sorbie moved fast; he had to time this just right. His bike was parked close to the huge double doors, giving him the excuse to walk over. As far as he knew Mitchell had never set eyes on him yet it was important he would not recognize him later, so Sorbie put his helmet on and pretended to fumble with his straps just as Mitchell snapped open the enormous brass padlock that secured the doors.

Heavy in Sorbie’s jacket pocket weighed another padlock of identical make, already flipped open. ‘S’cuse me, mate. I was wonderin’ …’

Mitchell turned around suspiciously. ‘What?’

‘I was wonderin’ … me and a couple of mates was thinking of maybe renting one of these lock-ups for using as a workshop. For fixing up bikes for the bike club.’

‘And?’ Mitchell turned his back on him and opened the door just wide enough to let himself in.

‘I was wonderin’ how big they was and how much the council charged and that.’

Mitchell flicked a wall switch and high up in the ceiling two banks of neon lights blinked on. By the time he turned round to face Sorbie again the padlocks had changed places.

‘Mind if I have a quick shufti?’

‘Sorry, can’t allow you in there, security, see? But, I mean, you can get an idea of the size from here. And what you pay depends entirely on what state the place is in, whether it has leccy and water and all that. All right? Ask the council.’ Mitchell was closing the door on him.

Sorbie turned away, nodding, as though totally satisfied. ‘Yeah, cheers, mate.’ He started his bike and rode off straight away, without looking back. At the next junction he turned off, parked the bike next to a waiting Renault and got into the car on the passenger side.

DI Fairfield started the engine. ‘Okay?’

‘Piece of piss, guv. I still think you should let me go in instead.’

‘We’ve already had this talk, twice, DI Sorbie. I’ll not discuss it again. You’ve done your bit and I’m grateful, now shove off, you’re off duty. If it goes tits up then at least it’ll be my tits. Hand over the lock.’

Sorbie dropped the weighty padlock into her outstretched palm and got out, closing the door with disapproving but not insubordinate force. Fairfield waited until he had ridden off then drove fast in the opposite direction to the warehouses, turned into the potholed customer car park of the Railway Tavern and parked in a spot from where it was just possible, albeit at an extreme angle, to observe the doors of Mitchell’s lock-up. They’d been very lucky, the timing couldn’t have been better. It was cashing-up time now at the cafe. Through her lightweight binoculars she observed the girls as they took in the menu boards and closed the shutters of the squat wooden hut. At all times she kept the doors of the lock-up in view. She didn’t expect to see anything surprising. When they had first targeted Mitchell they had watched ad nauseam as nothing much happened. No one except the owner was ever seen visiting and the eventual search of the lock-up had produced nothing but more or less legitimate junk. A search of Mitchell’s garden flat had equally drawn a blank. Yet she remained convinced that Mitchell was behind the scooter muggings. Not that there wasn’t enough other street crime to keep them going, but the persistence of this gang and the arrogance of the man she suspected to run it rankled. She knew she was damaging her career in pursuit of a small-time criminal but she didn’t care. Other officers had a more sanguine attitude to criminals who got away. They consoled themselves with the thought that you could never catch them all and that if you couldn’t get them for a particular offence you were bound to get them for another one later. It was an attitude she found hard to cultivate. For her, letting a criminal carry on meant she was failing to protect the victims of his crimes. This, too, was probably not a practical stance. She knew that some of her colleagues loathed the victims of crime almost as much as those perpetrating it. It was true some people seemed to invite crime.

The only thing she felt slightly guilty about was leaving Sorbie under the impression that she had thought up the padlock trick herself when in reality she’d remembered it from a crime story she had read years ago.

It wasn’t long until Mitchell emerged, carrying a box. Through her binoculars she could make out the picture of a DVD player on its side. Transferring the box to his left hip he hefted the heavy door shut with his shoulder, then hooked the padlock in place and snapped it shut one-handed. A conscientious tug to test it had fastened, then he walked left out of sight to where she knew his car stood. Moments later the Jaguar passed her field of vision going west in the direction of Mitchell’s home.

Once she was sure the cafe staff had all gone Fairfield didn’t waste any time. She had come prepared with gloves, pencil torch and a small digital camera that had excellent night vision. As she started across the car park, eyes fixed on the lock-up on the other side of the road, four young men heading towards the pub in high spirits called out to her. ‘You’re going the wrong way, sweetheart, the pub’s over there.’

‘Yeah, come and join us, come for a drink.’

Fairfield gave them a non-committal smile. And just in case they took further interest she kept walking until the pub was out of sight, allowing time for the lads to disappear inside, then walked back, crossed the road and sauntered up to the lock-up, making it look as though she belonged. The cold brass lock released after one turn of the key.

‘Open sesame.’

A huge, sprawling hive. A big, convoluted, up-and-down-switchback town full of noise, full of life, full of everything a man could want. Here were all the pubs and clubs, all the theatres and museums, restaurants and takeaways you could stomach. Its streets made you feel that anything might happen, to someone, somewhere, for some reason. He loved this city. He’d grown up here, knew every corner and alley as well as his adversaries did. Sometimes he knew them better, since he had made it his business to better them. He owned this place in a way an incomer like McLusky would never do, however long he hung about. Which is why he, Sorbie, would make a fist of it. An angry fist but one that served well. Career mattered, clear-up rates mattered, yet just fighting the war also mattered to him. They could never win the war, not even a police state could win this war, but you had to keep winning battles, at least some of them, keep putting the fear into them, or the streets would become unmanageable. Once that happened, ghettos and no-go areas would follow, parts of the city abandoned, handed over to the dregs of society to be administered by the criminally insane. It could happen. But it must not happen. Not here.

Which is why Sorbie was riding noughts and crosses around the areas not covered by CCTV in his spare time, listening to Control on his radio, waiting for business.

While waiting he worried about Kat. He should be there covering her back, but she had told him in such vehement terms to keep away that he had obeyed orders, reluctantly and under protest. By the same token he had kept his own crusade secret, knowing that she would disapprove, even disallow it. Now both of them were engaged in irregular warfare, by themselves, without back-up, each putting their own career in jeopardy. It didn’t make sense.

But how else …? He would never have got permission to go after the Mobile Muggers on a private bike, not without lengthy special training and as part of a wider operation. Not that he imagined himself to be as competent as a trained police rider, yet his confidence was growing. He’d ridden the bike every day for a week now and it all came back to him. Though this was only the second time he had seriously looked for business in the hours he knew the muggers operated in.

Sorbie completed another sweep that had taken him all the way from St Anne’s to Ashton Court. He was on his way back towards the centre, bemoaning the waste of petrol under his breath, when his radio spewed out the message he’d been waiting for.

The muggers had struck in an alley near a fish and chip shop, then ridden off on two scooters heading in his general direction. The victim had been badly beaten. An ambulance was on the way, a car was being routed to the area. Only the helicopter was not available again and without it they had little chance of picking them up.

Keeping his freelance status intact by leaving the radio unanswered Sorbie sped towards the area, riding just close enough to the speed limit not to attract too much attention. The last thing he needed was to get stopped by Traffic Division. If his mental calculations were right and luck was with him he might just run into them somewhere around Ashton Gate. He could already see from the absence of floodlights at the stadium that the area would be quiet apart from the main thoroughfares.

The raw noise of the engine gave him confidence. No scooter however fancy would be able to outrun him on this bike. From what he had seen of the scooter riders and their pathetic style they had never taken a bike test. Sooner or later one of them would crash and, if not, they should certainly be encouraged to.

Where the hell were they? Drab streets stretched in all directions. He hesitated at an ill-lit junction. Across the road from the midst of a rubbish landslide piled against the blind wall of a house a smouldering sofa sent up dismal smoke signals. A fine rain had begun to drift on the breeze and would soon extinguish it.

The radio under his jacket burbled. A Traffic unit had sighted them, not far from his own position. He turned right, hassling the bike towards the river. Soon he heard the disappointed voice of the pursuing officer on the airwave. ‘We’ve lost them now. Suspects drove between a couple of bollards down a footpath. We won’t catch them now on our own. Usual story. Do you want us to continue?’

‘Negative, Delta One, can you attend a disturbance in Stackpool Road instead …?’

Sorbie approved. They’d be less than useless and might get in his way. Better for the scooter guys to think they had shaken off any pursuit. Footpaths, alleys and cycle paths were a safe bet for them as long as there wasn’t a helicopter up. Even then they could split up, doubling their chances. The fact that they hadn’t been picked up so far showed that someone had given it some thought.

Tonight, without a helicopter, it would take busloads of officers to flush them out. Or one detective sergeant with a second-hand bike and a tankful of luck. Several intuitive corners and fast squirts of the throttle later, Sorbie’s luck appeared to hold.

Perhaps they didn’t know the area as well as they thought they did because there, a few hundred yards in front of him on the main road, ran two dark scooters side by side. ‘Past your bedtime, boys.’ He opened the throttle wide to catch them up.

He had underestimated the noise his engine would throw along the quiet evening streets. The already alert pillions both turned suspiciously and soon the scooters sped off around the next corner. Twenty seconds later he was there, in time to see them leave the road, cross the pavement and disappear across the grass behind a graffiti-covered sub-station. He gave chase. The grass was slippery and Sorbie was no off-road expert but the trail bike behaved impeccably and had the advantage over scooters made for city streets. Here was no man’s land, the dispiriting non-space between the tangles of uncrossable streets into which pedestrians had been forced. Nobody in their right mind walked here at night. Several streetlamps stood lightless, victims of a spate of air rifle shootings. Sorbie’s single headlight illuminated the litter-strewn paths and verges and allowed him to dodge the abandoned shopping trolleys and sagging cardboard boxes that had found their way here.

There was now no sign of them. He stopped, turned off the engine and lights. For a moment all he heard was distant street noise. The helmet didn’t help. A flicker of light and the sudden echoing amplification of a scooter engine’s whine from below and to the left. Of course, the underpass. Sorbie restarted the engine and rode fast along the snaking, dipping path, avoiding drifts of broken glass and sodden, slippery takeaway cartons.

Before the entrance of the tunnel he braked hard. Its square mouth gaped darkly. Around it huge spray-paint tags like heathen warnings, red, blue, black. Sorbie directed the headlight into the opening and flicked to full beam. The uneven concrete floor was puddled and strewn with litter, the grey tiled walls glistened with damp and the spray of mud. Halfway along the tunnel’s length sat a nest of sagging bin-liners spilling rubbish, beyond it lay the frame of a child’s bicycle.

Sorbie suddenly felt cold. Shouldn’t be going in there without back-up, not even on a bike. It’s what he would be telling any constable. But they had come through here and were getting away. Inhaling deeply Sorbie thought he could smell the sweet rotting fumes escaping from the rubbish bags. He shrugged off a shiver: what the hell. As he twisted the throttle the bike leapt forward eagerly. Just a few seconds and he’d be through it. Eyes fixed on the exit. The cavernous space boomed to the sound of his engine, amplifying it. Halfway through now. A headlight appeared just beyond the exit and halted. Black scooter, black-clad rider and pillion. He checked his mirror knowing what he would see: another headlight in the darkness behind. He braked too suddenly, the back wheel stepped out, but he caught it and came to a skewed halt in the centre of the tunnel.

Behind him the other scooter crept nearer. Gunning engines echoed as they sized each other up. Now much depended on how tooled up they were. There was no point in waiting until they both managed to get close to him. He had to joust with the one facing him. Sorbie moved the handlebars to direct his headlight and to line up the bike. The scooter’s lights were on full beam, making it hard for him to see. Engine fumes fogged the beams of light.

Then it began. Both scooters started their race towards him but he concentrated on the one ahead. The pillion was swinging something, a stick, no, too straight, a length of piping. ‘Ah, fuck. Fun and games.’ Sorbie closed his visor and revved up his engine. ‘Let’s do it then, you wankers.’

With the door pulled shut behind her the darkness was complete. While most of the lock-ups had a narrow slit of window on the wall opposite their entrance, usually covered with galvanized wire on the inside, not even a glimmer of the streetlight reached inside this place. Fairfield turned on her pen light. Its beam was woefully inadequate in this darkness. A big darkness. It was too feeble to reach the end of the lock-up but she knew that the window had been painted blind and partially blocked. There was a light switch on the wall yet she preferred to rely on the torch. One chink of light escaping outside might be enough to advertise her presence.

She knew she didn’t have much time. One or two of the lock-ups were in use at night. Someone might pass and notice the absence of the padlock on the hasp outside and decide to investigate. Or worse, call the police. As she let the beam of her torch travel over the high double row of shelving that ran along the centre of the cavern some of her determination evaporated. The place hadn’t changed much since the official search; if anything it was piled even higher with junk. A lot of this stuff had to have fallen off the back of various lorries but Mitchell’s paperwork had been quite convincing. And of course according to him whatever he couldn’t account for came from car boot sales.

Yet that was over sixty muggings and countless burglaries ago. Mitchell had had plenty of time to get careless and the bastard had complacency written all over him. She remembered it well. Fairfield opened a box at random. It contained a lava lamp with a Continental two-pin plug. The next was tightly packed with vinyl records, Abide With Me — Fifty Favourite Hymns, Christmas with Des O’Connor … The next box contained a jumble of cables and several clock radios. This could go on all night. There was no system here, it would take Mitchell hours to find a specific item unless he had a photographic memory. Most of it was junk too, he’d never afford the flat in Clifton and a Jaguar, however naff, on selling old tea kettles.

A rustling sound near her feet made her flash her light that way. A cockroach scuttled under the shelf. She moved on, glad she was wearing trainers. Towards the end of the space against the right-hand wall stood a large metal locker with double doors. She turned the black iron door knob and pulled. It opened quietly on well-oiled hinges yet the two shelves inside displayed nothing but oily rags, a few computer magazines and a chain of outdoor Christmas lights. A sudden eddy of cold air around her calves made her shiver and she closed the door.

Against the damp back wall stood a warped table supporting a grimy electric kettle, plastic bottles of water, a carton of tea bags and a tower of polystyrene cups. The plastic bin next to it was heaped high with used tea bags and cups. Fairfield examined a pint of semi-skimmed for freshness. It was well within its use-by date. A lot of tea was being drunk in these less than salubrious surroundings, half a stone’s throw from the cafe. It didn’t constitute a punishable crime but seemed a strange economy measure. Unless a lot of tea was being drunk outside cafe opening hours.

Fairfield prodded a few more boxes in the centre aisle. Strictly speaking it was she who was committing a crime here. This is where her stupid obsession with one unimportant lowlife had got her: standing in a mouldering lock-up with nothing but cockroaches for company. It was time to get out of here. It was definitely time to get a life. Perhaps she would go and take those lads up on their offer and have a quick drink in the pub. Or have a lot of quick drinks in the pub and leave the car. And should anyone ask, she could be an aromatherapist or a postie or something else people didn’t have issues with.

The sound of the neighbouring lock-up being opened up seemed unnaturally loud. Time to go. Fortunately, because the entrances alternated end to end, the neighbour would be unaware of the missing padlock on Ady Mitchell’s door.

Despite the thick walls Fairfield felt compelled to tiptoe along the shelves. Yet she was wholly unprepared for the sudden movement right by her side when the entire locker she had examined earlier swung inwards with a metallic groan. Light from the lock-up next door flooded in. Fairfield dropped on to the dusty cement and lay still. No wonder they’d never found anything in here. The two lock-ups connected.

Fairfield lay on the floor listening to the footsteps moving to the end of the lock-up. Water was being poured and the kettle began to hum. So far Mitchell had not turned on the strip lights, making do with what illumination fell through the hole in the wall from the lock-up next door. The increasing noise of the kettle gave Fairfield the confidence to retreat backwards, in a crouch, to the furthest aisle where it was practically dark. Reminding herself that she was on the right side of the law made no difference: she knew that if she was discovered it would jeopardize any chances of convicting Mitchell and put the brakes on her career forever. But she had to get a better view. Slowly she advanced up the aisle until she found herself opposite the open metal locker on the other side. Through a chink between boxes she could just make out a van parked in the lock-up next door. A greengrocer’s van. So that’s how it was done, it had to be. The scooters were launched from the van and, after the muggings, disappeared into the back of it. Greengrocer’s van … you wouldn’t even register it if what you were looking for was a couple of scooters.

Fairfield moved back to the darkest corner while Mitchell’s distorted shadow jumped jerkily across the back wall as he made his tea. Mitchell’s mobile chimed. ‘Yeah, what the fuck happened to you, where were you? I waited for you … Oh, for fuck’s sake. On a motorbike? What did you have to mess with him for? I can’t believe I’m hearing this. Stay where you are and I’ll pick you up. What a complete fucking mess.’ A change of tone suggested the phone call had been terminated and Mitchell was on the move and talking to himself now. ‘Fucking morons. Brainless stupid thugs. Psycho fucking junkies. You just can’t get the fucking staff.’

A scrape followed by a metallic groan and clang left Fairfield in darkness once more, yet breathing more easily. Almost immediately the van’s engine started next door. As soon as she was sure Mitchell had driven off she switched on her pen light and let herself out at the front. The original padlock clicked into place. She gave it a quick wipe, snapped off her gloves and walked towards the Railway Tavern. Even as she dialled the CID room’s number she was beginning to feel as though she had unexpectedly recovered from a long illness. There seemed to be more oxygen in the air, too. ‘Dearlove, just the man I was looking for. DI Fairfield. Listen, Deedee — yes, I know it’s the end of your shift but speed is of the essence here. Listen, I had an anonymous tip-off about the Mobile Muggers …’ She rattled off a list of what she wanted, from the officers required to form a welcome committee at the warehouses to an arrest warrant for Ady Mitchell. Then she tried DS Sorbie’s mobile and got a service message — his number was unavailable.

There was not much time for strategy. Sorbie’s bike leapt forwards, the front wheel briefly lifting as the acceleration pushed it towards his adversaries with a satisfying growl. The higher the speed the more stable the machine. He raced up through the gears. The overloaded scooter screamed towards him on the clear strip of concrete in the centre of the tunnel, the pillion brandishing a piece of lead piping in his right hand like a mace. Nothing in his left though, he was holding on with that. As the gap rapidly closed between the two machines each occupied the left margin of the centre as though traffic rules still mattered. ‘Tales of the unexpected, morons!’ At the last possible moment Sorbie cut across the oncoming scooter’s path, causing the rider to swerve to his right. His pillion swivelled to get a right-handed swing at him on the wrong side. It was enough. The scooter bounced into a pile of rubbish at 30 mph, spat off its passengers and crumpled as it slid along the wall.

For a few breathless seconds Sorbie’s own bike snaked and bucked in the rubbish until the wheels regained the tarmac of the path at the exit of the underpass where he braked hard. His hot breath had steamed up the visor. He flipped it up and looked back into the dusk of the tunnel. The other scooter rider was performing a wobbly turn, abandoning his crashed team mates. ‘No honour among thieves.’ His own turn was hardly less ragged but once back on tarmac there would be no contest. He’d kick the bastards off their scooter and run over their sorry arses if they still had a mind to get up afterwards. He stopped beside the crashed riders, noting with satisfaction that both of them remained on the ground. It looked like broken ankles to him. For a moment he hesitated. He had two in the bag, not a bad night’s work. But his adrenalin demanded the chase go on. These two wouldn’t scoot much for a while anyway. He left them lying in a cloud of his exhaust.

By now there was no sign of the other scooter. Back in the sodium light of the road he stopped again, visualizing the streets, putting himself in the other rider’s shoes. He rode off, sprinted along for a bit, then circled a roundabout, still thinking. He’d only get one shot at it … Then he knew: they’d be running north on Clanage Road then sneak back on the cycle path along the river. It was what he would do. He opened the throttle and dialled through the gears in pursuit. Traffic was light. Easily overtaking several cars he quickly reached the access point for the cycle path, a narrow stone bridge across the railway cutting.

Like magic their solitary rear light came into view after only a few moments on the cycle path. ‘Shouldn’t have stopped to chat, boys.’ They were running fast from the sound of the pursuing bike. Despite his efforts he lost direct sight of his quarry several times, such was the speed at which the fleeing rider negotiated the turns of the narrow path. Surely the guy had to crash out any second now even without his help? Should he let him go, return to the crashed riders and make sure of those two? He slowed down. Call an ambulance? They might need one. At least he hoped they needed one.

What was he thinking? They could use a bloody mobile and call their own. He speeded up again. Here the cycle path skirted the river which was at high tide and swollen from weeks of relentless rain. There was no exit until the harbour basin, they didn’t stand a chance, he would soon catch up, just had to concentrate now. Vegetation to the right, the river close to the left, Sorbie knew at these speeds there was little margin for error. He put a spurt on, getting flayed by the vegetation crowding the path. He nearly had them now, bouncing along at panic speeds. Sorbie opened the throttle further. Each time the fleeing rider looked over his shoulder to measure the ever-closing distance to his pursuer the scooter weaved dangerously on the narrow path. Nearby streetlights now illuminated parts of it and the dark, muddy waters of the turgid river. He closed the gap. Twenty … ten … five yards, this was it, he had them now. Sorbie got ready, his foot itching to deliver the kick that would destabilize the scooter. The pillion turned round, his face invisible behind the visor, but his panic obvious as he slapped the rider’s shoulder. The rider looked back and in doing so swerved right. Trying to straighten up he overcompensated and ran out of road. As the scooter carried rider and pillion over the water’s edge at over 40 mph each assumed a separate trajectory. The scooter buried itself in the black waters with a crash and hiss, followed by the rider’s somersault. The pillion hit the surface in a helpless tangle.

Sorbie braked hard then looked back. In the gloom he could see very little on the water. He turned and directed his beam at the crash site. The scooter had disappeared. One helmeted shape frantically splashed and thrashed about, shouting something. Sorbie turned off his engine but kept the lights on.

‘I can’t swim! Help! I can’t … fucking … swim!’

There was no sign of the second mugger. The helmet dipped under water, arms thrashed, a wordless scream. Even a proficient swimmer might have trouble swimming after a crash, clothes and boots heavy with water and wearing a helmet, probably injured. The figure bobbed up again, coughing, screeching. ‘Help me!’

Still no sign of the other one. And all that was holding this one up was probably the expanded foam in his helmet. Sorbie swung the handlebar to direct the light here and there but nothing was visible on the surface apart from bits of plastic debris from the scooter and the thrashing figure of the drowning man. He had sounded like a teenager. Now he was just gurgling and retching. Sorbie looked about him. Just when you needed some rubbish to throw in the water for the bastard to hold on to there was none around. He took off his helmet. ‘Ah shit.’ The black, oily water didn’t look inviting. ‘Tell me it’s nice and warm in there, you bastard.’ Quickly he shrugged off his jacket and grappled with the zips of his boots. He dropped them disconsolately just as the mugger’s helmet disappeared under the surface. ‘Oh shit. I can’t believe I’m doing this. I can’t believe I’m fucking doing this.’ DS Sorbie jumped feet first towards the empty spot where the man had slid under.