Will Adams - Newton’s Fire

Using parked cars for cover, he made his way along the pavement. Still no sign of danger. Footsteps approached, grew close. A young man lost his footing on the kerb and stuttered into an impromptu dance, laughing drunkenly at himself. Luke waited until he was almost level with the BMW then pressed the remote lock on Pelham’s key-fob. It beeped loudly and its corner lights flashed orange. Almost instantly, the doors of a dark SUV down the street flew open. Three men jumped out and ran towards the hapless drunk. Luke turned and crouched his way back to Rachel, but a cry went up before he reached her. They’d been spotted.

Rachel had a few yards’ head start. She turned left into darkness and he caught up with her. They reached a cul-de-sac. Automated intruder lights switched on as they passed, giving them away. Now the men were maybe fifty yards behind and closing fast. Two houses in relative darkness were separated by a narrow passage. Luke grabbed Rachel’s hand and pulled her down it. The alley was overgrown with nettles, creepers and ivy. Luke put an arm up to cover his face as he bulled his way along, then his foot went straight through the rusted iron of an old dustbin lid, making a noise like a firecracker. They emerged into a small back garden, climbed a fence into a neighbouring property, then another. It was dark as sin back here, but they could hear the chase getting closer and closer. Luke pulled Rachel to the ground beside him just as two grunting shadows vaulted over the fence behind, crossed the lawn and then vanished. They gave it a few more moments then went to the rear of the garden. A wooden gate opened out onto a dark footpath that led to a lamplit street. They ducked their heads as they hurried away, ears pricked, pulses pumping hard. But they reached the end of the street without alarm.

A signpost pointed towards the train station. Luke looked at Rachel; she nodded. But there seemed to be police cars everywhere, driving at a dawdle to scan for couples to stop and question. They kept to back streets and finally made it. The station was closed for the night, its main entrance shuttered.

‘I’ll check for the first train,’ Luke whispered. He was almost across the road when a side door opened and a policeman came out, carrying two mugs, concentrating hard on not spilling them. He walked over to a silver SUV, climbed inside. Luke swore softly, turned and retreated. ‘Let’s try the coach station.’

Rachel shook her head. ‘They’ll be there too.’

‘A minicab?’

‘They’ll have thought of that.’ A touch of desperation in her voice.

‘Then what ?’

‘Let’s call Pelham’s sister. At least that way we know we’ll have someone fighting for us.’

Luke nodded. They couldn’t risk the bank of phones by the station, but they found another one nearby. Luke still had some credit on his phonecard. He rang the number Pelham had given him. A woman answered, groggy with sleep. ‘Who the hell is this?’ she groaned. ‘Don’t you know what damned time it is? If you’ve woken the kids-’

‘I’m really sorry. My name’s Luke Hayward. I’m a friend of Pelham’s.’

‘He’s not here,’ she said, as though struggling to believe she’d been woken up for this. ‘He doesn’t even live here.’

‘I’m not trying to find him,’ Luke told her. ‘I’m calling on his behalf. He’s been arrested.’

‘He’s been what ?’ Suddenly sharpness in her voice. Alertness. As if she’d sat up in bed. ‘Who are you? Where are you?’

‘In Oxford,’ said Luke. He began explaining what had happened but hadn’t got very far when Rachel grabbed his arm, pointed to a police car had just turned into their street and was now accelerating towards them. He dropped the phone and ran. They fled down a footpath and sprinted through a park until they couldn’t run any more, just stood there in the shadows of a copse, heaving for breath.

‘They’re monitoring the payphones,’ wailed Rachel. ‘They’re monitoring the fucking payphones. Who are these people?’

She sounded close to the edge. He put his arms around her, gave her a hug. ‘We don’t know that they’re monitoring the phones,’ he told her. ‘It might have been a coincidence. And, anyway, we’re still free, and now we’ve got Pelham’s sister on our side. And he wasn’t kidding: she sounded fierce.’

Rachel nodded. ‘What do we do? They’re everywhere.’

‘I took the coach from here once,’ said Luke. ‘We stopped at least three times on our way out of town to pick up more passengers. They can’t watch everything, so maybe they won’t be watching those other stops. Let’s find one and check it out.’

‘You remember where they were?’ asked Rachel.

‘Pretty much. And they have to be on the way to the motorway, right?’

‘Okay,’ said Rachel. ‘Let’s try it.’

Walters briefly joined the chase of Luke and the girl, but Kieran and Pete were quicker and fitter than he was, and someone needed to stay behind in case they looped around and came back for the BMW. He went over to it. Luke had unlocked it to lure them from their hiding places, but had he locked it again? He tried the driver door. It was open. He knelt on the driver’s seat and had a rummage front and back, but found nothing of interest except for some chocolate bars in the glove compartment. He ate one while he popped the bonnet and disabled the starter motor. They wouldn’t be going anywhere in it now.

He checked his mobile for a signal as he returned to the SUV. Maybe Kieran and Pete would bring Luke and the girl back here themselves. More likely they’d pin them down somewhere and call in, so that he could go and collect them without their being seen. The last thing they needed right now, was the police putting them together with Luke and Rachel, for that would make disappearing them far harder. And Walters needed them to disappear. He liked his life. He had money, women and respect. No way was he going to let those two screw it up for him.

He’d been waiting the best part of half an hour when Kieran and Pete finally appeared out of the darkness. They were alone. ‘What the hell?’ he said, getting out. ‘Where are they?’

‘They got away.’

‘For fuck’s sake!’

‘They’re better at this than they’ve any right to be,’ said Kieran ruefully. ‘That trick with unlocking the car …’

‘And I’m supposed to tell Croke that, am I? That they’re better at this than we are? Screw that.’

‘Then what do we do?’

Walters climbed back inside the SUV. ‘We keep this fiasco to ourselves,’ he said. ‘Then we find the bastards and finish this.’

Making their way across Oxford frayed the nerves of both Luke and Rachel. There were police cars everywhere, and even unmarked cars held menace, particularly the SUVs. The back streets were no soft option, either, because taking them made it so hard to keep their bearings. But finally they made it to a coach stop. They watched for a few minutes but could see no sign of it being monitored, so they went to check the timetable. The first coach of the day was leaving for London in half an hour. At last something seemed to be going their way.

The coach stop itself was too exposed for comfort, so they waited in an alley across the road. Rachel shivered. The night had grown cool, but Luke sensed there was more to it than that. He wanted to comfort her, but feared that a hug would be taken amiss, so he touched her arm instead. ‘Are you okay?’ he asked.

‘I’m fine,’ she assured him. ‘It’s just that I realized something. The police have been looking for couples, right?’

‘Yes. Why?’

‘So what if they’ve asked the coach drivers to report any couples they pick up?’