Need You Dead

107 Saturday 30 April

Roy Grace had returned to his office and, patched into Ops-1 on his radio, was following the pursuit. Ray Packham, at the spare desk in front of him, was going through the contents from Lorna Belling’s laptop.

Grace had spoken to both the duty Gold and Silver Commanders about the POLACC — police accident — with the possibility of a case of potential murder committed by a member of his team, and he had also alerted Professional Standards.

Batchelor’s Ford Mondeo had been put on the ANPR hot list, and police vehicles heading towards the area to attempt to contain and stop the car had been ordered to minimalize their use of blue lights and sirens, where safe, in order to avoid alerting him.

‘Some very angry emails to Lorna Belling from Seymour Darling, Roy,’ Packham said, suddenly.

‘Yes?’

‘Get this one, from Darling: Oh right, Mrs Belling. If you call screwing someone behind your husband’s back “honest”, then I’m a banana. SD.’

Grace smiled distantly, his focus entirely on his thoughts about Batchelor. He was distracted by a voice on the Ops-1 patch. ‘Charlie Romeo Zero Five. We have visual on subject vehicle entering the Shoreham flyover roundabout. Off at three. Now heading towards Shoreham.’

Then he heard Sherwood direct local division cars down to the coast road.

A male voice, presumably in the pursuit car, was calling out the speed. ‘Seven-zero in three-zero limit. Eight-zero in three-zero limit.’

Grace knew that stretch of road well. It was two-lane, residential, cars parked on both sides, only just room for two vehicles to pass each other in opposite directions. A 30 mph limit, and Batchelor was hurtling down it at eighty.

The officer’s voice suddenly shouted out, ‘Jesus, near miss, he’s driving like a lunatic, he’s passed an oncoming vehicle on the wrong side, driving along the pavement!’

‘Charlie Romeo Zero Five,’ Ops-1 said. ‘It’s too dangerous. Discontinue the pursuit. Maintain your course, but discontinue the pursuit.’

‘Yes, yes. We have pulled over and switched off our lights.’

‘Ops-1,’ Grace said, ‘is the helicopter available?’

‘I’ve already checked, Roy, it’s attending a serious injury RTC in Kent at the moment. Won’t be available for an hour, on their best estimate.’

‘What about the drone?’

Brighton Police used a drone to supplement their network of CCTV cameras around the city.

‘I’ve just alerted the duty Gold Commander and requested it. But we have CAA flight restriction issues — it can only overfly the coastline, not the city itself.’

‘Can you get it directed towards Shoreham?’

‘Yes, it’s being dispatched now.’

‘Bloody hell!’ Packham exclaimed.

‘What, Ray?’

‘He’s making a pretty explicit threat to her in this one.’

Then Kim Sherwood spoke again. ‘Subject vehicle has just pinged an ANPR camera on Albion Street, heading east.’

Into Brighton, Grace thought.

‘I have another divisional car that’s sighted him. He’s gone the wrong side of an island and run a red light.’

Just what was going on with Batchelor, Grace wondered? This was so utterly out of character — complete madness — if indeed it was him driving, and they still did not have confirmation of that. It was still possible someone had stolen the car, or kidnapped the DI. He just could not believe this was Batchelor. No way. This was not the gentle giant, Guy Batchelor, that he knew.

And it sounded like it was going to end badly.

He stood up, pulled on his jacket and grabbed his car keys. ‘Ops-1, I’m on my way into Brighton, will keep my radio live.’

‘He’s now passing Hove Lagoon, travelling on the wrong side of the Kingsway dual carriageway. Two oncoming vehicles have been forced off the road and crashed.’

Shit.

Leaving Packham in mid-sentence trying to tell him something, Grace raced out of his office.