William Shaw - She's leaving home

“Say again.”

Again the interference obliterated the reply.

“Jesus.”

“Say again,” Breen repeated.

And then the voice cut through: “Romford Road.”

Breen studied the map. “There.” He pointed. The car had turned east.

“Shit,” said Carmichael, switching on the headlights and putting the car into gear.

He turned on the blue light and roared out of the side road, right in front of a milk float, which had to swing out of the way, a milk crate toppling off onto the tarmac. Carmichael blared his horn and spun away on down the road.

Water Lane was thankfully deserted. Carmichael turned off the police lights as they approached Romford Road. “Right,” shouted Breen.

Carmichael swung the car round a red traffic light and slowed down to a less conspicuous speed. “We’ve got to be behind them both now,” he said.

“What’s the latest from Delta Mike Three? Over.”

No answer; just the crackling of static.

“Bollocks,” said Carmichael. They tore through junctions and zebra crossings and past closed shops and pubs.

In the center of Ilford he stopped in the middle of a junction. “Where now?” The road divided. “Quick, Paddy.”

“Hold on.”

Breen peered at the map, his finger tracing the yellow lines. Where? He had to make a guess which route they would have taken. North or east?

“Right, then first left.”

“Got you.”

If they had come this far they would still be heading east, Breen was hoping. The A12 was beyond them, stretching out towards Essex and beyond. Postwar semis lined either side of the road ahead, each house like the last. London edging ever outwards.

“Bingo,” cried Carmichael, braking suddenly.

Ahead of them, stopped at a red light, was a police car. And about 150 yards beyond that a Daimler, moving away on the far side of the lights. They were following at a distance, letting it stay well ahead of them.

Carmichael pulled up alongside the police car, and Breen wound down his window. A pair of young uniformed men sat in the car, grinning broadly, thrilled by the chase. “Hey-ya,” the driver said, and waved.

“We’re pulling him over,” shouted Breen from the passenger seat.

“Now?”

“Yes.”

“Do we have to?” said the constable. “We’re having fun.”

“We’ll get in front.”

The moment the lights changed Carmichael shot up the road. They caught up with the Daimler easily; Briggs had had no idea he was being followed. Breen caught a quick glimpse of Briggs’s face as they passed, hands clutching the wheel, and then Carmichael had the siren on and the lights blazing, brakes on, forcing the car to a stop as the other policemen’s Austin boxed it in from behind.

Breen was out of the car, torch in hand. He shone the torch in Briggs’s eyes.

“Morning.”

Professor Briggs blinked into the light. “Oh,” he said. “It’s you.”

“You know where she is, don’t you? Your wife?”

They were stopped by a big roadside pub whose sign creaked in the wind. Briggs looked back at the steering wheel. “Sort of. I think.”

Carmichael called over from the driving seat of the police car, “Get in the back. We’ll take you there.”

Sitting in his Daimler, gloved hands on the wheel ahead of him, Briggs hesitated. “All this mess,” he said. “You don’t have to make it public, do you?”

Breen said, “Out of the car, please.”

“I don’t really care for myself,” said Briggs. “It’s just it would embarrass Mrs. Briggs if this got out. I’ll put in a word with your boss. I do have some influence, you know. I know the Commissioner very well.”

“Out,” shouted Breen.

It was a house by the sea in Suffolk. Their getaway place; the couple spent weekends there in the summer.

“Did she take Sam Ezeoke there?”

Briggs didn’t answer.

Later, in the dark of the A12, Carmichael driving down the empty road, headlights on full beam, he said, “We have a caretaker. I called her up after you’d left my house and asked her to look in on the place. She said, ‘Oh. I thought you were there. The light was on.’”

They traveled east into the darkness.

“Why here?” asked Breen.

“I don’t know. We have a boat. A twenty-six-foot Seamaster. Perhaps she wants to get him away in that.”

As they got closer to the coast, the mist hung in patches. Carmichael looked pale. He said little beyond swearing at a cattle truck that was blocking the road and asking Breen to light his cigarettes.

“What if they’ve taken the boat already?” said Breen.

“They haven’t. I asked the caretaker to check for me.”

“Can she handle the boat on her own?”

The professor laughed drily. “I’m the landlubber. The boat is her toy.”

They were doing around forty down a narrow, straight black road, short hedges on either side, when Carmichael braked suddenly, sending the professor hurtling off the backseat and into the space between the two front seats. “For God’s sake,” he shouted. “Be careful.”

Muddy water splashed up as Carmichael pulled the car into a lay-by.

“What’s wrong?” said Breen

Without answering, Carmichael kicked open the door and dashed out into the blackness.

“What the devil has got into him?” said Professor Briggs.

“I don’t know,” answered Breen, getting out to follow Carmichael. It was a dark, starless night and it took Breen a minute for his eyes to adjust. He leaned back inside the car and pulled the torch from the glove compartment.

Carmichael had clambered over a fence and disappeared into a newly planted field.

“John?” called Breen.

A faint groan returned from the black field.

“Are you all right?” asked Breen.

Another groan. Breen switched on his torch; dazzled by the light, John Carmichael was squatting on the brown earth, trousers about his ankles, the pale skin of his legs luminous in the bright beam.

“Switch it off!”

“What’s wrong?”

“Don’t laugh. I just shat my trousers,” said Carmichael.

“I’m not laughing, I promise.”

Carmichael groaned. “Go away,” he said.

The night was cold; wind came unhindered over the flat land. An owl screeched somewhere. Breen returned to the car.

“What’s wrong?” asked Professor Briggs.

“Detective Sergeant Carmichael is ill,” Breen said, rummaging again in the glove compartment. There was a pad of license-producer forms but the paper looked flimsy.

“What’s wrong with him?”

“Food poisoning, I think.”

“Oh for pity’s sake.”

Breen went round to the boot, opened it and shone the torch inside. A set of spanners lay wrapped in a copy of the Mirror . He took the newspaper and clambered over the fence with it. “Best I could find,” he said, offering it to Carmichael.

“Thanks.”

Breen and Professor Briggs waited in the car, heater on. The land around them was flat and empty. There were no lights on the horizon. No cars came past.

“I suppose I should call someone at the hospital and let them know I’m going to be late,” said Professor Briggs, pushing his hair back from his eyes. “What time should I tell them I’ll be in?”

“I haven’t the slightest idea.”

“That is not particularly helpful.”

Breen turned round and glared at the man in the backseat. “There would have been no need for any of this if you had told us where you thought your wife was in the first place.”

The professor turned his head away, as if looking at something of great interest beyond the blackness outside the car.

Breen got out of the car. “How are you doing?” he called.

“I feel like shit,” said Carmichael.