Vince May - Presumed Dead

‘Resting at an hotel in Chamonix,’ Hubbard replied. ‘She’s coming back tomorrow to swear out an official complaint against you.’

‘And I suppose you’ve come to arrest me,’ Ross said submissively.

‘I’m afraid so,’ Hubbard said, ‘you can make the usual telephone call when we get to the Yard.’

‘Do you mind if I just pop down to the kitchen and let my housekeeper know I won’t be in for dinner?’ Ross asked pleasantly.

‘Quickly then,’ Hubbard replied. ‘Sergeant Butcher will go with you.’

Ross led the way out of the study, along a corridor towards the back of the house, then down a steep flight of stairs. At the bottom, he paused outside the kitchen door, and as Butcher came up close behind him, he drove his elbow viscously backwards into the sergeant’s solar plexus, lifting him clean off his feet. As Butcher staggered and fell against the stairs, Ross dashed across the empty kitchen and out through the back door.

Upstairs, Hubbard had been wandering around the study, admiring the paintings and furniture when he heard a shout from the back of the house. Quickly, he ran to the rear window and looked out, just in time to see Ross run through the back gate, followed by Butcher who was staggering and holding his stomach.

As he threw the rear door of the study open and ran down the outside steps, he heard an engine roar and a squeal of tires from the mews. Within seconds, he reached Butcher, who was leaning, badly winded, against the rear gatepost. ‘Red E-Type,’ Butcher gasped, ‘AVF 299.’

Hubbard whipped his notebook out and made a note of the number, then helped Butcher back into the yard and sat him on a garden bench, pushing his head down between his knees. ‘Are you all right?’ he asked.

‘Bastard elbowed me right in the guts then legged it,’ Butcher panted. ‘I’ll be okay in a minute.’

‘You stay here, Hubbard said, setting off for the car, ‘I’m going to call this in.’

By the time Hubbard had radioed the description of the E-Type with a request to have it stopped, Butcher had recovered and was back at the car. ‘Where do you reckon he’ll go?’ he asked.

‘If I were him, I’d be trying to get to my plane so that I could get out of the country,’ Hubbard replied. ‘Come on, let’s head down that way just in case. I’d better drive.’

Gratefully, Butcher climbed into the passenger seat while Hubbard slipped the car into gear and headed south.

Ross was reasonably certain that he’d managed to pull out of the mews before Butcher had got to the gate. He was now driving carefully within the speed limit towards Battersea Bridge, confident in the knowledge that the police didn’t have a clue of the type of car he was in. The idea that had sprung into his mind earlier when he’d heard Alice was still alive was simple. He was going to kill her. He’d lost everything, wasted years living with her, only to be cheated out of her money in the end… and it was all her fault.

He knew the game was up and that whatever happened, he was going to be in prison for a very long time, so he’d decided, quite calmly and rationally, that he was going to get hold of her, wring her neck with his bare hands, then kill himself.

If he could get down to the farm without being stopped, the rest would be easy. He knew there was a little private airstrip just outside Chamonix near the river where the owner kept a single engine Jodel. The gravel runway was much too short for the Golden Eagle, but he was sure he could drop it in there, even if it meant overrunning into the bushes at the end of the strip. He wouldn’t be needing it ever again anyway, so it didn’t really matter. The more he thought about it, the more he liked it.

The vision of her cornered in her hotel room, begging for mercy excited and aroused him. Maybe if I could find a cane, he thought, I could beat her, make her scream, make her bleed. That would be even better. He had to keep wiping the sweat from his palms onto his trouser legs as he drove on southwards, licking his lips with delicious anticipation.

The bright red E-Type was spotted by a patrol car in Purley, heading out of London on the Brighton Road towards the M23. When the call came reporting its position, Hubbard and Butcher were just half a mile behind in the high-powered, unmarked, Peugeot 406. ‘Looks like you were right,’ Hubbard said, with a sigh of relief, ‘he is heading for his farm.’

The patrol car had been going in the opposite direction, and by the time it had managed to turn around, Hubbard and Butcher were already ahead of it. ‘Call the other car off,’ Hubbard said as he spotted it coming up behind them with it’s lights and sirens going, ‘We can handle it from here. I want to make this arrest personally.’

Butcher made the call to control while Hubbard flipped the blue lights on, driving as fast as he dared along the busy, two-way road. As soon as they joined the M23 he took the Peugeot up to over a hundred in the outside lane. It was only a minute or so before Butcher shouted with satisfaction, ‘There he is, we’ve got him!’

The red E-Type was travelling in the middle lane at exactly seventy, apparently oblivious to every other car on the road, as Hubbard dropped in behind it. ‘Let’s pull him over,’ he said, hitting the switch that activated the car’s two-tone siren.

As soon as the siren started they saw Ross visibly jump and his head bob around as he scanned his mirrors. Then he dropped a gear, floored the accelerator, and with a puff of smoke from the exhaust the Jaguar took off like a scalded cat. ‘He’s making a run for it!’ Hubbard shouted as he shifted down and set off in pursuit. But the V6 in the Peugeot was no match for the V12 in the Jaguar. The police car ran out of steam as they touched a hundred and forty with the E-Type still accelerating away.

‘We’re never going to catch him in this thing,’ Hubbard spat as they sped along the M23 with the red car disappearing into the distance. ‘Better call for assistance from the local ASU and get them to follow from the air. Get the local boys at Lewes over to the farm as well. They can nab him when he arrives there.’

The huge engine in the Jaguar purred like a kitten as the speedometer nudged a hundred and sixty. Ross smiled with satisfaction as he watched the blue flashing light behind him fade into the distance. Within five minutes he’d covered the twelve miles to the beginning of the A23, then another seven minutes found him at the roundabout just north of Brighton where he slowed right down to normal speed and headed east on the A27. He was now only five miles from home and hadn’t seen hide nor hair of the police since leaving them standing near Gatwick.

All the way down the motorway his mind had been working flat out just driving the car at high speed and watching his mirrors, but now that he’d slowed, he had time to think. They gave up too easily, he thought, obviously didn’t want to risk an accident by trying a high-speed chase or a roadblock. That means they must have radioed ahead to have men waiting at the farm. They’re bound to have worked out that’s where I’m heading. Then, as he approached the turning for the village, he had a new idea.

Within a few minutes of losing sight of the Jaguar, there was a running commentary coming in from the Sussex Air Support Unit helicopter as it followed Ross at high speed down the A23, barely able to keep pace itself. Hubbard had kept up the pursuit, and by the time Ross was approaching the village turn off, they were just five minutes behind him.

Speaking on the radio directly to the helicopter, Butcher asked, ‘Echo Xray, can you confirm that the units are in position at the farm?’

‘That’s affirmative,’ the police observer replied, ‘one car at the entrance, two more blocking the lane just outside. Once he’s through the village, he’s got nowhere to go.’